From Kaitheel on the EQ2 Forums:

Nights of the Dead 2011 has been activated on Test and Test Copy!

Nights of the Dead once again brings goblins and ghoulies out from the shadows. Those inclined to celebrate the holiday through crafting will find a new book of recipes full of new house items being sold by official event merchants. And those feeling more adventurous can trick-or-treat within Qeynos or Freeport or investigate the multiple haunted locations! But be wary as the mysterious Setri Lur’eth has been spotted at the beach in Nektulos Forest and the headless guardsman has been rumored to be wandering the paths of the forest, too!

In July, an Aether Flying Race was added to the Thundering Steppes on the Test server. Turns out, this was created specifically for the Community, Customer Service, and Guide teams as something they can turn on for specific events, weekends, etc. This unique Aether Race was activated today, September 10th, on all EQ2 servers. It will be activated next week on the EQ2X Freeport server.

Dellmon and Aliscious of EQ2Talk have been running the course like crazy trying to set an all-time track record. Although there is no unique title for completing the course within a specific time, there is a special flying appearance mount/ground mount for completing these.

UPDATE from Naylie (Community Relations Manager; Guide Liaison – Station Pass Games): The Community team Aether race track reward is a Gold C.R.A.S.H. Disk ( \aITEM 144820029 1111115652:[Gold C.R.A.S.H. Disk]\/a ). The Guide’s race track will reward a green pad and the Customer Service track offers the purple pad.

From the EQ2 Facebook page:

The Community Aether Races should now be up in game. You can find these in The Thundering Steppes. Isulith will be running them next Friday on the Freeport server.

EQ2 ZAM recorded a video preview of this track in July if you want to check it out. This event is being discussed on the EQ2 Forums.

From EverQuest2.com:

Come Back to EverQuest II Free For This Weekend!

This weekend, players who have quit the game between November 5, 2010 and August 2, 2011 can come back for free! It’s a great time to come back, too. It’s Bonus Experience Weekend and Back to School Bonanza for double Station Cash! If your friends haven’t heard about it yet, don’t forget to tell them! The free play time starts this evening and ends Monday evening. All players will need to do is patch their game client and log into the game!

As we reported last week, we’re coming up on a Double XP weekend. Now the official announcement from EverQuest2.com:

This coming weekend, from 12:01 AM PDT on Friday, September 2 and ending at 11:59 PM PDT on Sunday, September 5, EverQuest II will be running a Double XP promotion (+100% XP). Take advantage of these three days and watch those XP bars fill up!

The bonus applies to AA, tradeskill, and adventure experience gained this weekend. Our French, German, Japanese, Test, and EQ2 Extended servers will also be enjoying the increase in XP gain.

The localised times for this Double XP weekend are:

• PDT: September 2 12:01am ~ September 5 11:59pm
• EDT: September 2 3:01am ~ September 6 2:59am
• BST: September 2 8:01am ~ September 6 7:59am
• CET: September 2 9:01am ~ September 6 8:59am

Double XP Weekend

Although it wasn’t included in the announcement of the Back to School Bonanza Double StationCash e-mail blast, visitors to the SOE.com website discovered that in addition to Double StationCash, EQ2 players can expect Double XP through the duration of the event.

The EverQuest II Double XP weekend should last during these times:

• PDT: September 2 12:01am ~ September 5 11:59pm
• EDT: September 2 3:01am ~ September 6 2:59am
• BST: September 2 8:01am ~ September 6 7:59am
• CET: September 2 9:01am ~ September 6 8:59am

From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums:

We will be allowing these events to continue after GU61 goes live.

We had originally planned to take them down with GU61 but in order for some of the less populated servers to complete the event we have decided to keep the event running. The merchant will remain for all servers regardless of completion or not but the ground spawns will stop spawning once the event is completed on each server respectfully (After GU61) The ground spawns will remain for servers that have not completed the event until the event is completed.

Hot off the presses, er patcher, here are the Game Update 61: The War of Zek Update Notes from the Test Patcher. Game Update 61 is expected to reach the Live servers near the end of August.

Game Update 61: “The War of Zek”

PLANE OF WAR

The time is near for the great Fortress of Drunder to reveal its true purpose to all. The very bedrock of the Eastern Wastes shudders and rocks as a massive planar portal rips itself open within the fortress walls. The sounds of war echo through its halls as the God of War himself prepares his innumerable armies to march across the frozen face of Velious and seize control of the lands of Norrath for all eternity.

The Plane of War is a normal and challenge mode raid.

Elements of War is a normal and challenge mode heroic experience.

From EverQuest2.com:

This coming weekend, from 12:01 am PDT on Friday, July 29, until 11:59 pm PDT on Sunday, July 31, we will be running a true Double XP promotion (+100% XP). Take advantage of these three days and watch those XP bars fill up!

The bonus applies to AA, tradeskill and adventure experience gained this weekend. Our French, German, Japanese, Test and EQ2 Extended servers will also be enjoying the increase in XP gain.

Happy adventuring!

Double XP Weekend Dates and Times:

• Friday, July 29th 12:01am PDT ~ Sunday, July 31st 11:59pm PDT
• Friday, July 29th 3:01am EDT ~ Monday, August 1st 2:59am EDT
• Friday, July 29th 8:01am BST ~ Monday, August 1st 7:59am BST
• Friday, July 29th 9:01am CET ~ Monday, August 1st 8:59am CET

Today’s July 27, 2011 update notes address issues with the Spires and Dragon Ring Events on those servers where the events are still running. This update does not yet include a fix for servers that have already completed the events and those affected players who were present but didn’t get credit due to crashes, not having the right quest, or their mob despawning.

Niami Denmother has turned in another entertaining preview of this year’s Tinkerfest Event. More recipes, more quests, and more house items adorn this perennial favorite. Check out her writeup at EQ2Traders.

Tinkerfest 2011 runs July 29th through August 8th.

As borne out in several different threads on the EQ2 Forums, starting with the original Dragon Ring and Wizard Spire Event Feedback Testing thread created on May 15th, all has not gone smoothly during the Spires and Dragon Ring Events. These events are still running on most servers, although the lucrative Spires event has been completed on many. So what were the biggest problems? Let’s spell them out and address them one by one.

Dragon Ring: Hiding A Serious Raid Mob?

Once our server (Butcherblock) reached 99% Spires completion, we got a 10 minute warning that something big was coming. For us, this coincided with the regular hourly Spires event, so we got to fight the regular “x4” event, and then the final “super x4” a few minutes later. This new epic x4 boss Ulbrow, nicknamed the Unibrow, appears, along with all of the previous bosses of the x2 and x4 epic stages of the Spires, all at once. There wasn’t anything too tough about this event other than server lag, players crashing to desktop, and knockbacks. Ultimately, we killed the encounter without too much difficulty.

What took many people by surprise is the final stage of the Dragon Ring…

Here are your update notes for July 26, 2011 from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug that would cause /camp login to sometimes go to character select even if a character was given.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Sullon’s Spire and Tallon’s Stronghold x4 raid zones (NOT challenge mode)

• Several of the encounters in these zones have been made less powerful so that the challenge from these zones is more in line with the rewards.

QUESTS

Heritage

• It should no longer be possible to create a situation where the Head Usher in the Tower of Frozen Shadow cannot be spawned for the Skinning Knife subquest Unhappily Ever After.

The Fanged Sea

• The valkyrie event in The Fanged Sea can once again be completed.

LIVE EVENTS

Dragon Ring Rebuild Event

• Kreegar Krikneck should no longer require challenge mode debuffs to complete the encounter.
• Attacking NPCs should no longer despawn while in combat.

Wizard Spire Rebuild Event

• Attacking NPCs should no longer despawn while in combat.

We’ll be back tomorrow with a post-game analysis of the Spires and Dragon Ring live events which are now complete on many servers. But in the meantime, here’s a response from EQ2 Associate Producer Domino on the EQ2 Forums:

Hi folks

The first servers have completed both events, congratulations! And as you’re aware, there were a number of unintended issues that occurred. We’re sorry that this event didn’t run as smoothly as we would have liked, and apologize for your understandable frustration. We didn’t want to postpone this anticipated event any further, especially as we had already planned another bonus event for next weekend (more details to come next week), but this did mean we weren’t able to fix some bugs before they affected you.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we’re watching the events closely this weekend and will be meeting up on Monday to discuss the best way to address the issues that have come up. We won’t have full details to share until we’ve had that discussion; however, we are definitely aware that a number of people did not get to update some of the quests, and we want to reassure you that we’ll be doing everything we can to ensure that nobody who participated misses out on those updates.

Butcherblock x4 Spires Raid

Just over 17 hours after the Spires and Dragon Ring Rebuilding events were restarted on all servers, the Freeport (EQ2X) server has now completed their Wizard Spire rebuilding. These overachievers now turn their attention to rebuilding their Dragon Ring (already at 69% completion). Not that it’s a competition, but the presumed frontrunner Antonia Bayle server is currently at 97% completion on their Spires.

Domino was surprised at the pace of this Live Event:

Looks like the first servers are likely to finish the first rebuilding event today (my goodness, some of you are working hard!)

The Spires and Dragon Ring Rebuilding events have relaunched, albeit reluctantly on some servers. For servers that had already surpassed 50% progress when the event was taken offline last week (Antonia Bayle and Freeport had reached 99%), they were rolled back to 50% to give other players on the server a chance to complete it. But it looks like this week’s changes to the events may not have done enough. After 12 hours, Antonia Bayle has already reached 69% completion on Spires.

So what changes were made to these events while they were offline?

From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums:

The event will be turned back on Friday at 5pm PDT.

That’s 8pm EDT, 01:00 BST, 02:00 CET.

As previously stated, the events will be reset back to 50% complete per server if they’d reached that point. We’re hoping that the event will run for a few days at least so that players get a chance to participate. While the event is running, there are different quests and events to acquire tokens. Once the event concludes, I believe the only way to get tokens between then and Game Update 61 will be a handful of ground spawn harvests.

Those guilds which had participated in epic encounters near the end of this event but couldn’t complete it due to a bug in the encounter got this news from Gninja:

Unfortunately we won’t be able to give retroactive updates. Since the encounter never actually completed we can’t give credit for the kill. We did however roll back the progress on most servers to give ample time for players to take part in the event. The event will not go by as fast as it did before so players should get a chance to participate.

If you happen to not be able to, the event merchants will stick around until GU61 and they will have the teleportation bauble as well as the title on them as purchasable. The only thing you will miss out on is the extra tokens when you completed the last quest.

While we don’t have a definite date when the Dragon Ring and Wizard Spire Rebuilding events will be coming back, there have been a series of updates and questions about them which is worth consolidating into one place.

Due to the Spires event running every 30 minutes instead of the planned hourly interval, and some underestimation of players’ desire to participate, the event had been nearly completed on several servers less than 18 hours after it began. Perhaps the availability of Velium Shards on the vendor was a stimulating factor. Either way, the event was suspended and the devs put their heads together on the best way to bring the event back. Domino, new Associate Producer of EQ2, provided this update on Friday:

he current plan is that when the event is resumed, any servers below 50% progress when the event was suspended will resume progress where they left off. However, due to some of the issues that are being addressed currently, some servers had progressed further than intended in the time the event was active. Servers that had over 50% progress will be reset to 50%. This should extend the life of the event and allow more people to participate. This looks to be the following servers: Antonia Bayle, Butcherblock, Crushbone, Everfrost, Freeport, Guk, Permafrost, and Splitpaw.

As mentioned, the event will NOT reactivate this [July 16-17] weekend, so relax and enjoy your weekend doing other things. We’ll announce next week when it will be reactivated, and provide more details at that time. We will be sure to give at least a day’s notice in advance so you can plan appropriately.

Thanks for your patience, watch for more details next week, and we look forward to seeing you at the rebuilding sites!

Less than 18 hours after launching a new World Event to help Rebuild the Wizard Spires and Dragon Ring in Velious, the events have been suspended due to a series of issues including exceptionally fast completion rates. On Antonia Bayle, the event had already reached 99% when the event was shut down.

Completion rates have been a chronic problem with Live Events in EverQuest 2 in the past 2 years. The lengthy, story-rich prelude quest for The Shadow Odyssey was unavailable to most players due to the time it took to be unlocked. Many players had less than 48 hours to complete it on all of their characters.

Today at noon Pacific Daylight Time begins the Velious Spires and Dragon Ring Rebuilding Live Events. Your best place for info about this event is going to be the quest writeups at EQ2 ZAM.

Fan Faire Videos?

I’m getting used to Copenhagen time again, and am feverishly working on uploading those Fan Faire panel videos. We’re taking a little extra time to drop in the slides being show, so the videos are all-inclusive.

Starting the EverQuest II: Content and Zone Design panel…

Jonathan “Prathun“, Paul “Cronyn” Molina, Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall, Carlos “Gninja” Mora

Starting the EverQuest II: Freeport and Beyond panel…

Pre-panel Buzz: EQ2Players is being replaced with a new site. Sometime this year, it’s a priority, which it hasn’t been before.

Dave Georgeson starting the panel. There’s so much info, they’ll be giving that first and then Q&A at the end.

Update: This is a video of EverQuest II Panel #1 “Freeport and Beyond” added on July 14, 2011.

A glitch in the Aether Flying Races put a damper on the start of today’s Gorowyn City Festival.

From the earlier revelation that something was amiss, here’s Domino:

It does indeed appear that one of the aether race hoops has malfunctioned catastrophically over Gorowyn. The gnomish race organizers have been put to work on repairs; in the mean time the Gorowyn aether race will be postponed. We’ll keep you updated on the rescheduling.

The Gorowyn city festival remains in full swing however, and the fireworks festival and marketplace sale are expected to begin later today.

On Butcherblock, the Message of the Day (MOTD) meanwhile says this:

The Summer Fireworks Festival and the Massive Marketplace Sale have been temporarily postponed. Look for updates on their return on the /motd. Thank you for your patience!

While EverQuest Live enjoys a Double XP weekend, the details for this weekend’s EverQuest 2 event have now been announced at EverQuest2.com:

Celebrate the upcoming long weekend of July 1st to 4th with a massive Marketplace sale and in-game fireworks festival!

From July 1st through July 4th, visit the Marketplace in EQII and collect your FREE festive sparkler!  Then make your way to North Qeynos, West Freeport, Neriak, Kelethin, Gorowyn, or New Halas and talk to the festival fireworks coordinator to offer your assistance setting off the festive fireworks all over the city.  Earn a different fireworks launcher in each city, which you can use to decorate your home or guildhall!

While celebrating the festival, take advantage of the massive Marketplace sale (this weekend only) and pick up some fancy festival gear!  All cloaks will be on sale for up to 25% off the normal price, as well as some backpacks and a selection of ground mounts. Dress up in style and come join the celebration!

NOTE: When they say Massive Marketplace Sale, they mean the Number of items being discounted is massive. No one item is more than 25% off.

As more and more onerous “slacker detection code” has been added to Public Quests, healers have felt the burn, and repeatedly asked if they are being left behind due to a lack of DPS. Windslasher has always reassured us that healers get counted too. Well, there’s a bit more to it than that. Take a look at his advice and it may just improve your chances at getting better gear, if you can find someone in need of healing on a Public Quest that is.

Moonlight Enchantments is back, as it is every month on the 20th and 21st, but for June there are two interesting developments. First are 10 new items including house/guild placeable tiles which are rolling white, red, or blue clouds, a tile which looks exactly like a plowed garden, and tiles for fallen leaves and coolest of all, a tile of wooden shingles, perfect for those house breakouts when you want to make a clubhouse.

More importantly, there’s been a change to the Strong Brew Root Beer quest such that 1 character can repeat it indefinitely.

If you need 30-40 tiles, the idea of running multiple characters through each of the 5  Grottos throughout Norrath may be rather daunting. While each of the 5 grottos offer different types of quests and a variety of rewards, sometimes you just want to grind. Fortunately with the change to the Root Beer quest, if you want to just make barrels of root beer and get as many tokens as possible, now there is such an option!