Feldon
As posted by Praetorian, owner of the Raid strategy discussion site EQ-Raiders, on the EQ2 Forums: It is now official that EQ-Raiders will be hosting a brand new Raid Guild Progression website. This new website will have both manual kill submissions (For guilds that fall out of the realm of accurate auto-updaters) as well as automated kill verification updates through a unique RaidHub interface being created by Mecrab, the author of RaidHub. The website is being designed and coded by Mecrab and should be launching this weekend. RaidHub will not be required by any means but with the added...
EQ2 Data & EQ2U
As some of you have no doubt noticed, EQ2U has had some performance issues lately. Usually these outages have been short-lived but last night, EQ2 data updates stopped around 8:15pm last night and only sporadically worked today. According to a recent tweet from John Smedley, PlanetSide 2 will soon be launching its own twice-delayed API service which will enable player-driven PS2 sites just as the EQ2 Data Feeds have enabled EQ2U and other sites. Hopefully they’re just working out the kinks and things will work themselves out over the next few days. Just in the last hour we’ve seen...
I am thrilled to announce that EQ2U now supports Spirit Stones (green adornments) which were added with the Chains of Eternity expansion, and for which we recently received the necessary data. We hope you will find that the progression of stats on this new type of adornment is a lot easier to follow with our choice of presentation/layout. Spirit Stone shown on a character’s equipment with stats appropriate to the Spirit Level.
So while we’re crossing our fingers that EQ2U will get access to Loot Tables someday soon, I wanted to take our new Item Popups for a spin and put together a collaborative loot article. We’ll be covering loot from Advanced Solo, Group, and Raid Zones, and even Collections as I know there are some good reward items out there. What do I do? Please post item names below and who the item is from (as well as any adornments that are bundled with the item), which zone, and whether it was the EM or HM version. I’ll be reading...
I’m thrilled to announce that the last three weeks of Javascript hell endured by Dethdlr have paid off, as EQ2U is now running totally revamped display code for Item Popups (Tooltips if you prefer). While we were at it, we also took the opportunity to switch our Spells pages to internal popups. This applies both when viewing a Character, and when browsing Spells directly. [eq2u]Chains of the Baleful Soul[/eq2u] | [eq2u]Torrent of Pestilence[/eq2u] | [eq2u]Assassin’s Drape of War[/eq2u] Once I started testing out the new code, and I saw item popups snap into nice neat positions rather than going...
A lot of you out there (myself included) will be on the road in the coming days so I just wanted to wish folks in the U.S. a Happy Thanksgiving. Alas, my well-wishes are a month late for Canadians, and as for Europe, well, the best description I’ve heard is: Thursday: We eat turkey and innumerable harvest foods ’til we want to die Friday: We nearly kill each other while retail shopping for marked down electronics Saturday: We engage in awkward social activities with crazy Cousin Eddie and odd Aunt Edna Sunday: We bid fare-thee-well to in-laws who we...
EQ2Talk Episode #55 — Second Wind This weekend Dell and Ali talked to the producer of Everquest 2, Holly “Windstalker” Longdale. In this podcast, find out which way the wind is blowing, and learn about some of the things behind the making of Chains of Eternity, EQ2’s ninth expansion. Also, learn about what’s in store for Norrath in the coming months and the future. Rumor has it that one of the questions relates to Census, and Holly indicated that the team is fully committed supporting the service and my name was mentioned. 😉 Download EQ2Talk Episode #55
So Dethdlr and I had a heart-to-heart and we decided to take today off and sip mojitos. Just kidding. About taking the day off that is. Dethdlr spent all morning making sure that our backups of almost everyone’s Alternate Advancements worked and wouldn’t be overwritten by the new data. He then reloaded the data for 121 AA trees, 2,882 AA nodes, and 11,193 AA spells. Also, the spell data for all classes has been added for levels 93-95. I’m currently working on adding the Tradeskill Prestige AA tab. By the way, the in-game AA window has undergone some significant...
Dethdlr and I were very fortunate to make it to SOE Live this year and further, to present a panel on EQ2U, including the new Achievements feature, and talk a bit about what went into creating this site, what we plan for the future, and how SOE is going to shortly be burying us in a lot more data. 😉 The panel starts with Clif Bate, Director of Commerce Services & Web Presence, and Morgan Bonar Lead Web Developer and Web Producer, PlanetSide 2, and then at the 20 minute mark, we get to the EQ2U bits.
Dethdlr
So last night, we announced that we had made a snapshot of the AAs for some 150,000 characters which people could view at Beetny.com. We were pretty proud of ourselves until someone asked if that included the Beastlord warder AAs. It didn’t. Beatny doesn’t cover Beastlord warders. So because we try harder, we’ve gone back and made an actual backup of every character’s AAs right here on EQ2U and will hang onto it until well after the expansion. That’s over 416,000 characters. When the expansion hits on November 13th, you now have two backups you can use. The original...
With the EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity expansion comes new Prestige abilities, and that means an AA reset. In years past, news of an AA reset has seen players scrambling to capture screenshots of their AA tabs or scribbling down notes about where you’ve spent points (and how many) on each tree. This year, we have a better suggestion: Sit back, relax, and let EQ2U do the work for you! On October 28-29th, Dethdlr wrote and ran a script to Backup the AAs of every followed character on EQ2U, plus every single level 90, 91, and 92 EQ2 character...
The Data Feeds (Census) panel is just starting in Las Vegas and Dethdlr and I will be presenting a talk about how EQ2U started and our plans for the future. The big news is, we are unveiling a feature we’ve been working on for some time — Achievements. I wanted to do this feature right, and further, I wanted it easier to read than both EQ2Players, and the in-game Achievements window. I hope you’ll agree that we’ve accomplished that! Go ahead and head over to EQ2U and check out the new Achieve tab on each character.
For months, the question in my mind has not been IF, but WHEN the SOE forums would need to be replaced. On September 18th, word broke on the Vanguard forums that SOE will finally be leaving their crufty homegrown forum solution behind in favor of new forum software. After the jump, we look at why new forum software is absolutely imperative, and just what will happen to the millions of existing forum posts amassed over the last 5 1/2 years.
In the most recent episode of EQ2Talk, Dellmon and Aliscious address SOE’s notion that “We’re players too”. From SOEmote to Dungeon Maker to loot distribution and balance, the podcast asks the question — Why are so many things missed, overlooked, or left behind? Also in the podcast, EQ2U gets its moment in the sun as Ali compares it to EQ2Players. I encourage listening to the whole podcast, but if you want to focus your attention on the bit about EQ2U, that’s from 41 minutes until 46 minutes with a brief followup from 52:30-53:30. From EQ2Talk.com: If the summer sun...
We receive word this evening that the Item Discovery data within the Data Feeds API has been refreshed, with those ill-gotten item discoveries through an exploit of Item Reforging have been removed from the data stream. Please let us know if you see any issues with item discovery data on EQ2U after this change.
A few hours ago, Amnerys was kind enough to shoot me an e-mail with much better screenshots of the EQ2Players Sneak Peak from Thursday night. As I was poking around, I had a moment of sheer curiosity and checked what I knew to be the URL for the new EQ2Players site. To my surprise, I discovered that the site was up and running! It’s February 16th, and EQ2Players is LIVE! An Unbiased Review? These days, I’m wearing at least two hats, one as the operator of an EverQuest 2 News & Commentary site (EQ2Wire), and as the designer of...
Today, EverQuest2.com has provided the necessary instructions to players so that they can Opt-in or Opt-out of EQ2Players data. And at the risk of Inception, EverQuest2.com also made a point of mentioning our new EQ2U site, our FAQ which talks about the Data Feeds and matters of privacy, and our Transcript of the EQ2Players Sneak Peek Webcast! With a few exceptions, the past few days have been a bit euphoric. Thanks all!
Today, players gain more control over their Privacy for EQ2, EQ2Players, and API-driven websites like EQ2U. Starting today, you can now Opt-in the discovery of your Alt characters when players lookup or search for your Characters on EQ2Players or EQ2U. If you DO NOT WANT players to be able to find/see your Alts, then do nothing. By default, the Link to Alt Characters setting is disabled for all characters. If you want players to be able to find some or all of your Alts, then enable the Link to Alt Characters setting on EACH character that you want to...
So if you caught last Thursday night’s EQ2Players Sneak Peak Webcast, you know that the new EQ2Players site is coming very soon. If you missed it, the video has appeared on Youtube and we have produced a transcript, almost verbatim during the Q&A. Just for you! Linda “Brasse” Carlson interviewed SOE’s Clif Bate (Director of Commerce Services & Web Presence) and Abby Watt (Associate Web Producer) about the upcoming EQ2Players site. The transcript after the jump…
Just 84 hours since EQ2U launched, we have some great news to report: We’ve reached 1,000 registrations! Here are some anonymized statistics about what’s happening at EQ2U: Registered Users: 1,000 Unique Items Looked Up: 39,170 Unique Characters Looked Up: 23,824 Unique Guilds Looked Up: 3,876 Characters Being Followed: 6,167 And no, we won’t be sharing any more specific data than that about our users. We’re not Facebook. 😉
From the EQ2 Forums: ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Vallon’s Tower [Challenge] Players should get the correct message when entering the blue shielded dome in the Vallon Zek fight. During the final Vallon Zek fight, only 2 Vallonite Aces will spawn per wave of adds. Fighters will no longer be hit with Tactical Dilema during the fight. DUNGEON MAKER Fixed an issue with vitality not applying correctly in dungeon maker instances. ITEMS Gnomish Anti-Camo Goggles can now be equipped by any class. LIVE EVENTS Erollisi Hearts a’Flutter: Antonica – The Essences of Erollisi should no longer spawn within unreachable tree...
Karen Bryan interviews us about EQ2U for Massively: This past week, we got a glimpse of the newly refurbished EQ2Players site, but what’s really exciting is that th EQ2 team has been working with fansites to provide the data feed and allow community figures to create their own resource sites. Morgan Feldon and Dethdlr, who do an amazing job with EQ2Wire, did just that, and on Friday, they officially launched EQ2U. It’s a thorough and regularly updated database of things ranging from character stats, gear, and AAs to spell lists and warder pets. What’s more, you can look up...
EQ2Wire is proud to introduce a new website built on the remarkable new EQ2 Data Feeds API. As a guest, you get all the functionality of the original EQ2Players site such as searching for Characters, Guilds, Items, and Spells in EverQuest II. But we see that as just the beginning. We strongly encourage EVERYONE to take just a few moments and read the Help & FAQs page as it contains answers to a lot of questions you may have about Privacy. Please remember that EQ2U is a Beta site and we have many more features in mind, as well...
Several months ago, Dethdlr and I were put in touch with SOE’s Platform and Game teams (including Dan Kinney and Nandor “Zoltaroth” Szots) about a new Data Feeds API that would allow websites to access the same kind of Character, Guild, and Item data which has traditionally been available on EQ2Players. We have been testing, giving feedback, and developing on this new API since the moment it was available. It’s been a long haul to say the least, but Dethdlr and I have been blown away by how receptive and motivated the folks at SOE have been towards allowing...
From the EQ2 Forums: The Beta version of the new and improved EQ2 Players site is nearly ready to launch! Join host Linda “Brasse” Carlson as she sits down with SOE’s Clif Bate (Director of Commerce Services & Web Presence) and Abby Watt (Associate Web Producer) to get a sneak peek at what we’ve been working on. Join us on Thursday, February 9, 2012, at 4:30 p.m. US Pacific Time* on Twitch TV! The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes. If you have questions you’d like to see answered, Brasse will be collecting them from this thread....