Feldon
This week, after seeing an alarming uptick in the amount of StationCash being sold in-game in exchange for Plat from shady inviduals, the Gifting of StationCash was disabled. SmokeJumper: Stopping the use of Gifting for piracy purposes was one of the reasons we shut it off. Piracy = bad. People using our game to launder stolen money = worse. So it’s shut down until we can fix it. We’ll get it back online soon. A few players have found the 130% runspeed of all mounts even the 1 silver 75 copper horse to be excessive and some players have...
General
This is EQ2Wire’s fourth year covering Fan Faire and we are getting a bit more organized about things this year! I will be covering the various events today, Friday, and Saturday, but specifically, there are at least four panels on Friday and Saturday both of interest to EQ2 players. At this point, I’m committing to the four panels from 2pm-6pm on Friday and Saturday. 8 hours of live coverage and we’ll be recording everything in High Definition video with clear audio. This is barring any surprise panels such as EQNext, or any last-minute changes. All times are Pacific Daylight...
The SOE Fan Faire Welcome Reception on Thursday July 7th @ 7PM PDT (10PM EDT, 04:00 CET) will be broadcast on GameBreaker.TV with a Pre-Show at 6PM and a Post-Show at 9PM. As past Welcome Receptions have rarely run over 1 hour, it will be interesting to see what’s planned for the 2 hour timeslot scheduled. Last year’s Welcome Reception almost didn’t happen due to cost-cutting measures, but was brought back by popular demand in an abridged version. A lengthy Welcome program would seem at odds with the recent sacking of the Agency team, upcoming decommissioning of Star Wars...
We haven’t done one of these articles in a while and with the lull before the storm, we thought we’d post about some new items. More and more, it is possible to create a house entirely from a blank slate. The choice of floor tiles, wall materials, items to make stairs, platforms, etc. it’s no wonder that more players are asking for empty lots. Next month’s Tinkerfest will add yet more deck plating options and ceiling fans. The upcoming Dragon Ring and Spires Rebuilding events will bring back the much-desired Housing Teleportation Pads as well as many familiar and...
. We’re less than one week away from Fan Faire and things are running a bit quiet. I’ve spared no expense to travel to Las Vegas from Europe to bring you breaking news and even get a few questions asked at this year’s event. With the loss of Star Wars Galaxies and The Agency, more pressure than ever rests upon the EverQuest franchise. Karen Bryan over at Massively posted a summary of some of the questions leading into Fan Faire about EQ2 as well as the shrouded-in-secrecy EQNext. We’ll have the news for you as it comes down the...
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...
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...
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.
Every year at Fan Faire, we get to watch EverQuest II Designers and Developers answer some really fantastic on-topic, valid questions from the Question & Answer panels. These questions help shape the future of the game and get problems addressed that the devs may not be entirely aware of. However, every year, we also see some of the strangest, uninformed, facepalming (is that a verb?) questions that completely puzzle us (and the developers). Hey, they paid their Fan Faire admission price too, right? Over the years, fastidious players have wised up and managed to intercept EQ2 devs in the...
Dethdlr
Class-specific red adornments have been added to the EQ2Wire Adornment Calculator by Dethdlr. That’s 221 adornments added to the existing 175 for a total of 396 T9 adornments. And I still haven’t added the ones that drop from the public quests. Choose your class in the class dropdown to have that class’ adornments added to the proper dropdowns. Rather than converting the class specific red adornments from their names to what they do, I’ve just included the names in the dropdowns. For one thing, this should help with those that don’t stack. For another, it means you don’t have...
While we’ve heard indirectly from Silius that work on existing items from level 20-80 was being done, SmokeJumper has an official quote for us: We have a full itemization plan in place now and we’ll be unveiling much of it at Fan Faire. I’ll tell you this much though. We’re going to itemize *all* of the level 20-80 items by GU 61. When asked if this includes raid Fabled items from levels 40-80: “All” includes Raid items. We’ve already been informed that crafted gear especially Mastercrafted gear from level 22-77 are being tweaked to have the right stats for...
From EverQuest2.com: This Thursday, June 23rd, at 4:00PM PDT, Linda “Brasse” Carlson and Tiffany “Amnerys” Spence host ZAM diva and all-around EverQuest II expert, Amy “Calthine” Lanam! We’ll be talking about Fan Faire, ZAM, and definitely a bit of EverQuest II, so be sure to stop by! Join us on Thursday, June 23, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time*, as we live stream this webcast on the SOE channel on Stickam! You can also tune in through the Stickam tab on our Facebook page. The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes.
I always intended to post an article about Fortune League. Yes, it’s only tangentially connected to EverQuest II. Yes it’s a Facebook game, a service I don’t use (I already tried its forebearer AOL in the 90’s). Yes it’s a StationCash money sink. But I also know quite a few people who really liked the idea of a Fantasy Football type game with some of the concepts of EQ2 as a background. Sure most people played Fortune League for the Alternate Advancement (AA) instant XP potions. But I thought it was popular enough to sustain. Apparently not. Aliscious of...
As we prepare for our busiest weekend of the year we’re keeping an eye out for any and all advice on how to survive another blistering Las Vegas trip, cover EQ2 (and we’re guessing EQNext), and not forgetting to occasionally eat and/or sleep. Calthine‘s annual Fan Faire Guide over at EQ2 ZAM is a favorite and includes helpful tips to save time and money. Karen Bryan has turned in her own Fan Faire Survival Guide over at Massively and it’s worth a read with advice on food, meeting guildies, and the value of planning ahead. You may want to...
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...
We’re less than 3 weeks away from Fan Faire, and we have heard that there is some significant shuffling of the Fan Faire panel schedule still going on with some surprise panels planned. Although we expect the important panels to fall within the 9am-6pm time slots on Friday and Saturday, if you’ve been trying to nail down anything more specific, you may want to wait a bit. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a few EQNext panels shoved into the morning hours. We’ve been told to expect a full reveal of PlanetSide Next and a lot of EverQuest II...
From EverQuest2.com: If you’re looking for the inside scoop on SOE Fan Faire 2011, tune in on Thursday, June 16th, 2011, for an all access Fan Faire webcast. Find out what activities, panels, and goodies you’ll find at this year’s Fan Faire in Las Vegas! Join us on Thursday, June 16, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time*, as we live stream this webcast on the SOE channel on Stickam! You can also tune in through the Stickam tab on our Facebook page. The webcast is expected to last about 30 minutes.
If I had to sum up what effect the StationCash Marketplace has on EQ2, it feeds impatience. Vitality can be restored without waiting, Evac and Tracking potions can be found rather than grouping with individuals who have those abilities. XP potions make those little XP bars cruise along at a faster rate. Armor appearances normally available only via raiding can be acquired by anyone. Sure there are some truly unique items, like the Prestige Houses and Furniture which are some of the best in the game. But for the most part, SC is all about time = money. SmokeJumper...
An invitation is never required to find reason to complain about the occurrence of loot drops in EQ2, but Public Quests have earned a special place for frustration in this regard. Several players have multiple weapons or chestpieces which they cannot trade to alts, while others have never seen them. The math on how loot in a Public Quest is actually rather simple, but vexingly random. The best result you can get from a Public Quest by pure effort (excluding luck) is a Humming Cache. There is a 50% chance this will get bumped to an Exquisite Humming Cache....
Massively.com is in Los Angeles covering this year’s E3 and spoke to Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, Executive Producer of EQ1 and EQ2 about the future of EQ2. We have already heard some about the revamp of Freeport and Qeynos which will evolve these starting cities into full-fledged quest hubs that will drive character development from levels 1-90. The breaking news for today is that we can expect a 25th character class and the ability to group cross-server. So what’s next for the game? Georgeson laughed when we asked this and said, “We’re going to start relying a lot less on...
From Kaitheel on the EQ2 Forums: Tinkerfest has been activated on both Test and Test Copy. Like clockwork, Tinkerfest has returned! Take up your favorite wrench and celebrate all things gnomish, be they metal, combustive, mathematical, experimental, or a combination thereof! Adventures, rewards, buyables and crafted items await you, both new and familiar. You won’t want to miss all of the fun at Gnomeland Security, your headquarters for all things Tinkerfest, in Steamfont Mountains.
Today marks the introduction of Pegasus as the first premium flying mount available for purchase for StationCash. A bit of miscommunication led some to believe that purchasers of the mount would need to have completed the Gryphon Flying Mount 5-day quest in order to fly their Pegasus. We look no further than the press notice released by Amnerys, and confirmed by sources, clearly indicating that purchasers of the Pegasus and Dark Pegasus flying mounts can IMMEDIATELY fly with them provided they are level 85+, and do not need to do the Flying Mount quest timeline. Pegasus and Dark Pegasus...
The SOE Fan Faire schedule for the July 7-9th, 2011 event has been expanded to include game-specific information. We’ve cherry-picked the EQ2-specific stuff and put it here in one place: Thursday, July 7 8:00pm – Welcome Reception & Community Address Friday, July 8 10:30am – EverQuest® II Tournament 2:00-3:00pm – EverQuest II: Freeport and Beyond! 3:00-4:00pm – EverQuest II Art & Animation David Brown and Tom Tobey 4:00-5:00pm – EverQuest II Tradeskills & Housing Paul “Frizznik” Carrico, Emily “Domino” Taylor and Greg “Rothgar” Spence 5:00-6:00pm – EverQuest II General Q&A 8:00pm – late – 2nd Annual Bally’s Pool Party!!!...
Appearing today on the StationCash Marketplace, we now have our first Premium Flying Mount. It is a Pegasus with choice of light coloration with priest/mage stats, and dark coloration with fighter/scout stats. UPDATE: Both mounts have a +5 increase to skill stats used by priests, mages, fighters, and scouts. The price is 1950SC, which is $19.50 at normal SC rate or $6.50 if you got in on the recent Triple StationCash offer. The mounts require level 85 either tradeskill or adventure, but do not hinge upon completion of the 5-day flying mount questline. We expect more flying mounts in...
We’re now just 1 month away from SOE’s Fan Faire convention in Las Vegas and we have some news regarding those who intend to participate in the EQ2 tournament and/or costume contest. Unlike past EQ2 tournaments, this year’s will have little to do with actual EQ2 gameplay and instead be an Aether flying race, with players being selected for earning the fastest times. SOE Costume Contest The ever-popular SOE Fan Faire Costume Contest will be returning this year, and it’s going to be better than ever. We’ll be doing a few things differently this year. All contestants will need...