Months ago when the upcoming Server Consolidation was announced, we were given extensive documentation about how Guild Names would be preserved for the most active guilds. Then it was announced that a more traditional Server Merge process would be used instead. Now we’ve seen the result of this choice as countless active, large guilds from Butcherblock, Oasis, and Crushbone have forsaken their names for abandoned guilds inactive for up to half a decade. Players who have petitioned this issue have been informed that Customer Support cannot address this issue and instead players must raise the issue on the EQ2 Forums.

Everything else regarding the Server Merge has been visibly successful and we don’t want to forget that, but the guild name issue is quite distressing to players who are part of an active guild. Hopefully an amicable resolution can be found.

From the EQ2 Forums:

The server consolidation for the Guk, Unrest, and Everfrost servers merging into Halls of Fate will start at Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 7AM PDT* and this downtime will take 24 hours. These servers are scheduled to be unavailable until Thursday, October 29, 2015 at 7AM PDT.*

A couple of important notes for players:

• Players should pick up soulbound items BEFORE the merge. This will prevent losing ownership of placed items due to renaming.
• When the consolidation is complete on Thursday, players should delete their “logincache-us” or else LaunchPad character logins will fail.

Note that the Terrors of Thalumbra beta server will also be available to players during this downtime. To learn more about theTerrors of Thalumbra beta, see the link here.

We appreciate all of our players’ patience and support during server consolidations. If you haven’t been keeping up on server merges, you can find out more in our most recent FAQ here.

A couple important questions from players:

• What the hell is “Soulbound” is this World of Warcraft?
• 36 hours is insufficient notice to collect hundreds of NO TRADE items placed in other people’s houses and guild halls.

Time Zone Conversions

• PDT: Wed Oct 28 @ 7:00am — Thu Oct 29 @ 7:00am
• EDT: Wed Oct 28 @10:00am — Thu Oct 29 @ 10:00am
• BST: Wed Oct 28 @ 15:00 — Thu Oct 29 @ 15:00
• CEST: Wed Oct 28 @ 16:00 — Thu Oct 29 @ 16:00

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PDT | 10:00am~Noon EDT | 15:00~17:00 BST | 16:00~18:00 CET
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PDT | 12:00~1:00am EDT | 05:00~06:00 BST | 06:00~07:00 CET

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Maj’Dul: The “/guild rename NewGuildName” command will be available after the update to guilds that were renamed during the merge.

ITEMS

• [eq2u]Dark Fury Sword of Anuk[/eq2u] is now required level 57 to use.
• The [eq2u]Deific Underfoot Jewel[/eq2u] now correctly counts toward the Testament of the Titan item set.

QUESTS

• An Eye for Power – Frosthorn minotaurs have returned to the Jagged Plains in Everfrost, despite the Sundered Ground nearby.
• Setri Lur’eth now offers “A Dream, By Any Other Name” even if you completed it last year.

Servers are back up! Maj'Dulers will now get their origin server titles and guild renaming *should* ™ work. #EQ2

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) October 22, 2015

Uhm, so the Maj'Dul Butcherblock title is misspelled as "Bucherblock." It will be fixed in the next hotfix on Tuesday. #wespellzgewd #EQ2

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) October 22, 2015

Update as of 3:45pm PDT:

After 33 hours, and despite a false start mid-morning, the new Maj’Dul server is now up and running! Please read our FAQ below for answers to the most common questions you might have. This new server combines all the characters and guilds from Butcherblock, Crushbone, and Oasis. The EQ2 dev team have been logged into the new Maj’Dul server, monitoring the situation, and answering questions.

The Beta test for EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion Terrors of Thalumbra  is now OPEN! Click the following links to get what you need:

• Frequently Asked Questions about the Terrors of Thalumbra beta!

• Terrors of Thalumbra: Deity & Infusion Systems

• Terrors of Thalumbra Zone Preview: City of Maldura

• Terrors of Thalumbra Preview: Tradeskilling in Thalumbra

• Preview: Journey to Thalumbra

No update notes yet, but…

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

Special Note: Crushbone, Butcherblock, and Oasis servers will need additional donwtime as they merge into Maj’Dul. You can get more info on this here.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 3:00PM London Time on October 20, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour.

Update from Roshen:

This is running a bit long today, and we anticipate this downtime will take an additional 30 minutes.

We appreciate everyone’s patience, and their support.

From the EQ2 Forums:

How about some weekday DOUBLE EXPERIENCE for our All-Access members?

The double experience bonus for Adventure, Tradeskill and AA XP is active NOW and run until noon PDT on Friday, October 23, 2015!

The Double XP bonuses will be available for All Access members on all traditional servers. While the bonus will not be available on Stormhold and Deathtoll, there are still exciting adventures awaiting All Access members on those special servers. Remember, you must be a member to access Time-Locked Expansion servers.

Not currently an All-Access member? Now’s the time to sign up!

UPDATE: This issue has now been resolved as per Windstalker:

We asked Unrest, Crushbone and Permafrost to behave and are watching them. #eq2

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) October 18, 2015

Original article after the jump…

MJ Guthrie over at Massively Overpowered turned in a great article last Thursday with a wide-angle perspective on everything leading up to EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion Terrors of Thalumbra, the prelude quests, and what people can expect.

From MassivelyOP:

Time’s a-wasting! With just a month left to get ready for those terrors that await down in the subterranean world of Thalumbra, EverQuest II fans are running out of time to prepare themselves for this upcoming 12th expansion. If you find yourself in that predicament, never fear — that’s why EverQuesting is here! I know what it is like to just be moseying along, distracted by the plethora of activities in EQII, and then suddenly realize that you are not at all ready forTerrors of Thalumbra.

Maybe you haven’t yet taken part in the prelude event. Maybe you aren’t quite of a level to enjoy the new content that will be coming. Or maybe you forgot to ask for the day off from work. I was just in that boat myself! The good news is that there is still time. I don’t want you to miss out on any of the hooplah, so I’ve assembled a list of to-dos to get you on the path to prepared.

Although the content in ToT is geared toward the level 100 adventurer or crafter, any level can participate in the activities leading up to the launch.

Continue reading MassivelyOP: EverQuesting — Preparing for EQII’s Terrors of Thalumbra Expansion

From the EQ2 Forums:

The server consolidation for the Crushbone, Butcherblock, and Oasis servers merging into Maj’Dul will start at Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 7AM PDT* and this downtime will take 24 hours. These servers will be unavailable until Wednesday, October 21, 2015 at 7AM PDT.*

Note that the Terrors of Thalumbra beta server will also be available to players starting on Tuesday. To learn more about the Terrors of Thalumbra beta, see the link here.

We appreciate all of our players’ patience and support during server consolidations. If you haven’t been keeping up on server merges, you can find out more in our most recent FAQ here.

From EQ2 Community Manager Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

Hey all,

We’re still working on getting everything ready for server consolidations, and we wanted to give everyone a quick update.

Our first merge will be Crushbone, Butcherblock, and Oasis into Maj’Dul. This won’t be ready for next week. The soonest this will be ready will be the week of October 19, and we’ll keep everyone updated as we know more.

We’re also working to time this with the launch of the Terrors of Thalumbra beta server. While we’re still working on optimizing the server consolidation process to minimize downtime, there will be extended downtimes for servers that are merging. Hopefully you’ll choose to spend some time exploring Thalumbra with other beta testers during this time.

This morning, the Desert of Flames expansion was expected to go live on the Time-Locked Expansion servers of Deathtoll (PvP) and Stormhold (PvE). However things did not go according to plan. Desert of Flames didn’t activate and some players cashed in Collections but did not receive any XP for doing so. Windstalker and the EQ2 team did provide frequent in-game updates to players on the TLE servers about what was going on, notifying them of a server bounce at 9:30am which resolved the issue. Roshen also provided this update about 90 minutes ago:

Stormhold and Deathtoll are coming back up now. If you lost a collection this morning, please /petition.

At about 11:30am, Login servers for all of Daybreak Games seemed to vanish but they have returned from their absence and are once again serving players. As for the Nights of the Dead, Crushbone players are reporting a bug with one of the NPCs.

After numerous signs that the anxiously awaited EQ2 US Server Mergers were imminent, including characters showing up on the Character Select screen as being on Maj’dul, Item Discoveries on EQ2U showing up from Maj’dul, and numerous players being unable to login due to “Too Many Characters” errors, it looks like those server mergers are being pushed back a little further.

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on Twitter:

For the merges in #eq2 we are working on optimizing to lessen downtime. No merges this week while we test. Will post more later on forums.

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) October 8, 2015

Emily “Domino” Taylor also tweeted yesterday that the EQ2 team will be moving to Daybreak Games’ new office building 11 miles away “within a week”, suggesting that the merges will all take place after the move…

Game teams now have our move dates for the new office building. SO EXCITE! Less than a week for EQ2! #HYPE

— Emily (Domino) (@pentapod) October 7, 2015

From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

Are you ready to explore the first expansion, Desert of Flames, on the Time-Locked Expansion Servers? Players on both servers have voted to unlock this expansion, and this content will unlock on Stormhold and Deathtoll on Thursday, October 8, 2015!

Both Stormhold and Deathtoll will have a short downtime starting at 7AM PDT on Thursday, October 8. We anticipate that this downtime will be less than one hour.

Once this downtime is complete, the following will be available on these servers:

• Adventure, Crafting and Guild Levels will go to 60
• Ability mod will become available on items and buffs.
• Guild Banks will now be available.
• Macro Voice Over’s will now be available.

The Time-Locked Expansion (TLE) servers offer a unique EverQuest 2 experience different from our traditional servers. Are you unfamiliar with special servers like Stormhold and Deathtoll? You can get more information about what these servers are in the post here!

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PDT | 10:00am~Noon EDT | 15:00~17:00 BST | 16:00~18:00 CET

EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PDT | 12:00~1:00am EDT | 05:00~06:00 BST | 06:00~07:00 CET

From the EQ2 Forums:

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Guardian

• Corrected an issue that prevented Sentry Watch from triggering.

QUESTS

• Reel ‘Em In, Spinal Tap and Stegodon Savior will now reward the appropriate amount of extra Ferrin.

PLAYER HOUSING

• Estate of Unrest homes now allow mounts.

EverQuest II: Terrors of Thalumbra is being revealed today and there’s a Nights of the Dead contest happening at the same time! From Votigo.com:

We’re getting ready to launch the 12th expansion of EverQuest II, AND Nights of the Dead is just around the corner. In honor of these two big events, we’re giving away NotD-themed in-game items!

DATES & ELIGIBILITY

• Start :October 01, 2015 @ 10:00 am (US/Pacific)
• End :October 02, 2015 @ 12:00 pm (US/Pacific)
• Eligibility :18 years

PRIZES

• DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:
  • One (1) Bat Mask (Approximate Retail Value = US $4.00)

  DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:

  • One (1) Burbur Bundle (Approximate Retail Value = US $3.50)

  DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:

  • One (1) Bedeviled Amber Robe Set (Approximate Retail Value = US $14.00)

  DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:

  • One (1) Bedeviled Turquoise Vanguard Set (Approximate Retail Value = US $14.00)

  DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:

  • One (1) Bedeviled Round Shield (Approximate Retail Value = US $3.00)

  DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:

  • One (1) Bedeviled Mace (Approximate Retail Value = US $3.00)

  DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:

  • One (1) Bedeviled Sword (Approximate Retail Value = US $3.00)

  DGC will randomly select two (2) winners to receive:

  • One (1) Bedeviled 2-Handed Staff (Approximate Retail Value = US $4.50)

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PDT | 10:00am~Noon EDT | 15:00~17:00 BST | 16:00~18:00 CET

EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PDT | 12:00~1:00am EDT | 05:00~06:00 BST | 06:00~07:00 CET

So it used to require a subscription for Banned EQ2 players to keep playing on the EQ2 “prison server” of Drunder. Not after today. Alas, there’s no way to get a sense of how many players are on Drunder. Census currently hides this information. SOE’s policy used to be “no Naming and Shaming” but in the last year or so the PlanetSide 2 and H1Z1 teams have no problem drawing attention to banned players, even mentioning them BY NAME in-game using server announcements. The question is, would players banished to Drunder take this as another opportunity to seek attention?

It looks like we can expect two hours of downtime for US servers for today’s update, presumably some housekeeping to get ready for the Server Merge/Migration. Today’s downtime also coincides with a Daybreak-wide maintenance which will take two-to-four (or more) hours.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Precipice of Power [Raid]

• Daerial’s Underfoot Portal will now be passed on to a new player once the previous one is rendered inert instead of despawning.
• Cazic-Thule’s Touch of Fear spell has had its range lowered to his island only.

QUESTS

• An Eye for Power – Frosthorn minotaurs have returned to the Jagged Plains in Everfrost, despite the Sundered Ground nearby.

DRUNDER

• Server no longer requires a Membership.

From the EQ2 Forums:

Attention players: we will perform a general maintenance beginning at 6:00AM PDT* on Tuesday, September 29. The current estimated downtime for this maintenance is two to four hours, depending on the service.

This maintenance may impact the following Daybreak services across all games:

• Game logins for all Daybreak games
• Forum & Web logins for all Daybreak games
• Commerce and account management for all Daybreak games

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a game-specific maintenance. There will be no update or patch notes.

~The Team at Daybreak

Time Zone Conversions (assuming 4 hours maintenance):

• PDT: Sept 29 @ 6:00-10:00am
• EDT: Sept 29 @ 9:00am-1:00pm
• BST: Sept 29 @ 14:00-18:00
• CEST: Sept 29 @ 15:00-19:00

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PDT | 10:00~11:00am EDT | 15:00~16:00 BST | 16:00~17:00 CET
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PDT | 12:00~1:00am EDT | 05:00~06:00 BST | 06:00~07:00 CET

From the EQ2 Forums:

PvP
Fixed an issue where killing players on your recent kill list was not being processed correctly.

Update as of 6:30pm PDT:

#EQ & #EQ2 players – you should be seeing your membership benefits and entitlements again. Let us know if issues persist. Thanks!

— Daybreak Games (@DaybreakGames) September 18, 2015

Previous Update:

We’re now 8 hours past the scheduled completion time for today’s maintenance and players are still reporting sporadic issues with having either no Loyalty Tokens or a fraction of what people used to have. Others are unable to login to all their characters as their accounts aren’t showing the full access and character slot count they are supposed to.

UPDATE: This maintenance completed after about 6 hours.

Update from Twitter:

Access/membership issues should be resolved for @LandmarkGame, @DCUO, and @planetside2. You may need to log in again.

— Daybreak Games (@DaybreakGames) September 17, 2015

Other games, including @everquestii, are still being worked on. Thanks for your patience.

— Daybreak Games (@DaybreakGames) September 17, 2015

Update from Twitter:

The teams are aware of issues with account status & membership. They are working on a fix, but we do not have an ETA at this time.

— Daybreak Games (@DaybreakGames) September 17, 2015

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PDT | 10:00~11:00am EDT | 15:00~16:00 BST | 16:00~17:00 CET
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PDT | 12:00~1:00am EDT | 05:00~06:00 BST | 06:00~07:00 CET

From the EQ2 Forums:

ITEMS

• Chest of Wondrous Booty will now display the correct items that it rewards.*

QUESTS

• Rum Cellar and Fabled Echoes of Faydwer missions have been added to the Mission Timer Window.

*Editor’s Note: This is the random chest which can be purchased from the Altar of Malice Rare Loot Merchant. Also, Kander indicated that several rare items missing from this merchant will be added with tomorrow’s update.

Yesterday, a merchant offering the rare heroic drops from Altar of Malice zones appeared on live servers. Players were quick to report how much was missing from this merchant and how high the prices were. It seems EQ2 Lead Designer Kander agrees, at least on the first part…

More rares coming. We missed an entire directory. Sorry all, we are really in full tilt for the expansion and things slipped by. More items soon.

and:

An update with lots more stuff, rare, bows, etc coming Thursday, September 17th.
Apologies everyone, we are marching forth with the expansion.

Last week, the EverQuest II team initiated in-game polls to ask players what their new servers should be called after the upcoming Server Consolidations Mergers. Players on affected servers were provided three choices, all based on various zone names from specific expansions. Not surprisingly, a solid majority of players chose the shortest names offered. One could speculate that, like passwords, people keep things short that they have to remember and use daily. An alternate hypothesis suggests that the idea of sending cross-server tells to characters on a server called Palace of the Awakened was giving players the shakes.

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrath!

The vote for the new server names is complete! Here’s how you voted…

·Butcherblock, Crushbone, and Oasis servers voted for: Maj’Dul

·Everfrost, Guk, and Unrest voted for: Halls of Fate

·Freeport, Nagafen, and Permafrost voted for: Skyfire

Another note on the server moves… We are going back to the “merge” methodology for this effort. Changing the entire way our data works for this process was very risky and we didn’t want to rush it and test it on your characters. That said, we didn’t want to wait on taking care of our server populations. The teams are reviewing all the areas we need to update the merge process. Still, all the questions and concerns we addressed in our FAQ are still in the plan. Also, after the U.S. merges, we will run a free one-week transfer period that will include free transfers for Antonia Bayle players to other U.S. servers.

More to come when we have it. We are looking at October, but before the expansion release.

If you were hoping for the already overdue Pre-orders and Pricing information for EQ2’s twelfth expansion, I’m afraid Marketing is going to drag this out yet another two weeks until October 1st. Here’s today’s Producer’s Letter with what Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has been allowed to tease us with. We’ll be back with commentary. Maybe.

Hail Norrathians!

Our next expansion release is right around the corner! Yes, you heard me right – expansion! The team has been churning away and when we looked at the amount of content we created, we decided to call our next release an expansion rather than a campaign or the much-loved term, “campansion.”

The 12th expansion for EverQuest II includes a sprawling overland and loads of content with quests, advanced solo and heroic dungeons, and a healthy number of raids including x2s and x4s. Not only that, but we’re doing level-agnostic versions of each of the new dungeons! We have a couple of new types of items to talk about as well as an updated Deity system to give you details on! Tradeskillers, we’ve got new quests and recipes for you as well!