The Storm Gorge Public Quests are currently denying eligible participants the ability to loot a chest, apparently as a result of the recent changes to weed out PQ slackers. Gninja has acknowledged today there is a problem:
We are aware of the problem and are working to fix it.
In the meantime, players are reporting lag and the possibility you will not get to loot a chest even if you are participating fully.
Today’s update includes tweaks across the board of grouping, raiding, and itemization.
Chronoportal vendors are back until April 10th. They have several paintings, furniture, and replicas of the enemies fought in the 12th anniversary EverQuest event.
After the jump, your Update Notes for April 5, 2011.
For those who didn’t get to spend all their Platinum Coins from the Chronoportals event at the vendor located in Antonica, the vendor will be returning on Tuesday and sticking around for 5 days. From Amnerys:
Got a note from the team that they will be bringing the merchants back after the next hotfix and they will be available until Sunday, 4/10.
Next hotfix should be on Tuesday!
SOE has sent out another mass email advertising Fortune League, their EQ2-themed Facebook game. I was curious enough to go look. They entice players to play by offering Alternate Advancement scrolls and other in-game goodies.
Sounds great to me, until you click on the “Play Now” button. Up pops a screen asking you to share with SOE and other players all your basic information on Facebook — friends, personal information, and all your contacts. Whoa, hold on a sec guys. I personally appreciate an MMO where all that stuff is revealed on a purely voluntary and individual basis, like, oh, the one you publish now, SOE. Why, exactly, do you want all my information? My life is nicely compartmentalized, thank you very much, and I don’t want to share all my friends, photos, and personal information with the entire EQ2 community. Not that anyone would particularly care, but it’s the principle of the thing. I am already on the grid enough, I don’t need to make my life any more transparent.
It’s a shame, because I might play Fortune League, but not until they change the requirements and quit fishing for details about my life. No amount of incentives can change my feelings about that!
My report on this EQ2 feature is, just: I never got past the login screen.
After today’s update, players have been checking out the re-structured Storm Gorge to see how the fights have changed, and how server lag has been reduced.
Players generally reported improvements in lag, and also shared their strategies on dealing with the changes in the fight, which in some cases make it more challenging and interesting.
Windslasher‘s response:
It’s great to hear that the latest lag fixes worked! With that game-breaking issue mostly solved, I can now turn more my attention to other important issues.
For example: Goredeth Maulhammer has always had the ability to heal himself while enraged. His fight is certainly not “impossible to win” but I’ll take a good hard look and see if it needs to be tweaked.
I’m also going to try and optimize performance on the Ring War a little more, and take care of some uncommon but serious glitches that many of you have reported. Thanks!
Today’s Update Notes for March 31, 2011 bring those Itemization changes we’ve been hearing about, a redesign of the Storm Gorge Public Quest, and the Aether Races flying event has now been folded into City Festivals, starting with Antonica. From SmokeJumper:
There will be a new track for each city until we start looping around again. Each city’s track will only be available during the City Festival and you can earn festival coins and titles when you race.
We might trot them all out at once at Tinkerfest or something, but they’ll usually be linked individually to the City Festivals now.
The full update notes after the jump…
SOE is looking for your feedback on two recent changes that went in on Tuesday. From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:
Today’s hotfix introduced a couple of fixes and I’d be interested to hear how it has affected you.
First, we’ve made some changes to improve the performance for public quests. We still expect them to contribute towards a higher level of lag than other types of content due to the sheer number of people that participate, and we are working to make them even better. However, you should hopefully notice an improvement after today’s hotfix.
If you have been remiss in venturing in the past in the EverQuest 12th anniversary Chronoportals event to get all the items your characters may need now and in the future, today is your last day!
If you haven’t checked these out and the loot available from them, check out the Portal Event Treasure thread (scroll down a bit for the list of loot). If you need help with the locations and strategies for these events, check out the Chronoportals Event Guide.
Also, there are several books, paintings, and of course house replicas of the nameds monsters from each Chronoportal instance. As they are replicas they cannot be resized or placed in a guild hall, but they will fit in any guild hall. They are also LORE NO-TRADE. Having dozens of giant Allizewsaurs rampaging around a guild hall would have been hilarious. 🙂 It is unclear if the Chronoportal merchant, currently located in Antonica, will be staying on after the event, so spend those tokens (I’ve still got dozens) now!
By the way, ttobey, who animated the Allizewsaur T-Rex model for EQ2, has posted a video showing its different animations and states.
Also, as Domino posted, if you looked at the paintings a few days ago and were puzzled that one of them showed a dwarf, that was actually an EQ2 launch painting that snuck through. It’s since been changed to match the actual artwork that was planned for this event.
The Chronoportals event ends at 10AM PDT, 1PM EDT, 18:00 GMT, 19:00 Central Europe time.
From EverQuest2.com:
Jesters, thieves, bards and fans of mischief are invited to enjoy the adventuring and new crafting festivities that surround Bristlebane Day! You never know what riddles, laughs and pranks are to be found during this enjoyable time of year.
Celebrators are present in every home city, and the oddest of objects have been spotted in Antonica, The Commonlands, Darklight Wood, Timorous Deep, Greater Faydark and Frostfang Sea! Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for special events, especially in Enchanted Lands, occurring only on the Highest of Silly Days, April 1st, 2011!
If you are a level 80+ Master Crafter who has completed the Tradeskill Epic, this post by Domino may interest you:
Epic crafters, you might want to visit the tradeskill society in your home town while Bristlebane Day is with us. The grand jester has been having some fun with red collectibles for the season…
Players immediately noticed that every red shiny was dropping just one item. It seems there’s something else you have to do to get the others.
All U.S. servers will come down for an update at 7am PDT on Tuesday, March 29, 2011. The expected downtime is one hour. The U.K. worlds will have their update at 5am London Time on Wednesday, March 30, 2011. Estimated downtime is 2 hours.
The full reformatted patch notes are available after the jump….
If $25 for a set of armor, furniture, or mount seemed to stretch your definition of microtransaction, you’re not alone. Many items in the EQ2 Marketplace have had their prices permanently lowered by an average of 35%. Additionally, a Marketplace Sale which shall run until April 4th has temporarily reduced some items by 65%.
SmokeJumper started a thread entitled Massive price cuts in the marketplace:
If you like the items in the marketplace, but never felt like they were in your price range, be sure to check it out now. We’ve been thinking a lot about the prices there and we came to the conclusion that many of the prices were just too high.
So now, most items are reduced by more than half what they used to be. EQ2X’ers should definitely check out the “Consumables” category, because those are the items that you get but aren’t available to the EQII Live folks. Stuff like Power and Heal potions, Self-Rez scrolls, Portable Globes, Unlockers, etc. have all had their prices slashed. You should find them a lot more affordable now.
Many of EverQuest 2’s most dedicated players owe their gameplay roots to the original EverQuest and still carry strong memories of the patience and community the original game required. Soloing was almost unheard of. Camping mobs for hours (or days), the difficulties and perils of travel, and contested spawns of much-needed named mobs were all experiences players would not soon forget. It sure was a different game before WoW forced all MMOs to become approachable and remove any aspect that might be considered as a “waste” of the player’s time.
When we heard about Chronoportals, a live event running on EQ2 servers that celebrates EverQuest’s 12 year anniversary by bringing players back to an earlier time to experience memorable encounters from before the Shattering, we hoped that the event might go that extra mile and include a real impression of how the world looked in EverQuest, and revisit some of the original zones.
Your updates notes for today, March 24, 2011, include several crash fixes, problems linking items in chat, Auction channel spam, and also some substantial nerfs to Critical Mitigation on Destiny of Velious gear.
As revealed last night, the 12th anniversary celebration of EverQuest brings an event to EverQuest II which allows players to step into the past and remember encounters from before the Shattering.
Q: What are Chronoportals?
A: They are instances ranging from level 20-90. Each one is a nostalgic area or enemy from EQ1. Some can be be done solo, others require a small group, and still others require a full 6 person group. You and your group will be automatically mentored down when zoning in.
Q: What are the rewards?
A: Outside of the Antonica portal is a vendor selling various books, house items, and replicas of the bosses of each instance for 1 Platinum Coin each. Inside of each zone, the bosses also drop rather exceptional items (for their level). Some of these items are similar in nature to Heritage Quest items.
Q: Where are these portals?
A: Cyliena over at EQ2 ZAM buckled down and has posted the information about the portals in Antonica, the Enchanted Lands, the Feerrott, Lavastorm, Guk (in the Moors of Ykesha), Sinking Sands, Steamfont, and Thundering Steppes, including hints on how to do them.
From EverQuest2.com:
From Wednesday, March 23rd @ 10:00am PDT [17:00 GMT] through Wednesday, March 30th @ 10:00am PDT [18:00 GMT]*, log in to EQII and take part in a week-long look back at Norrathian days of yore.
The EQII Team has created this fun event as an homage to EverQuest in honor of the momentous occasion, and although the lore doesn’t exactly fit the current story of EQII, they decided to make it extra enjoyable for those who were around for the first iteration of Norrath. Adventurers who take part in this journey through time will find some silly nods to EQ and moments of nostalgia as we reminisce about our heritage.
Today’s Update Notes for March 23, 2011, launch the Chronoportals event as well as tweaking how mounts with a number of charges work. I have corrected the notes to indicate 10 AM PDT and 17:00 GMT for US servers as the US is already on Daylight Savings but Europe is not (until Sunday the 27th of March).
LIVE EVENTS
- Chronoportals have opened in multiple locations across Norrath! They are said to lead to an ancient time. These phenomena are being researched by Chronomancers who will reward adventurers brave enough to venture inside.
- Event Start Times:
- US Servers: 10 AM PDT [17:00 GMT]
- International Servers: 9PM PDT [March 24 @ 05:00GMT]
- Known issues (to be fixed on 3/24):
- Allizewsaur does not have his sounds fully implemented.
- Quillmane has a stutter in its wings when it is descending.
ITEMS
- Mount whistles with a limited number of charges will no longer remove the mount buff when the last charge is consumed.
Look for the enchanted mushroom rings tomorrow and Monday! Use these portals to be transported to five different enchanted grottos, where the inhabitants are ready to give you quests and reward you with house items, mounts, or illusions, and one purple shiny (that means it takes a while to complete the collections).
Find the Dryad Grotto in Archer’s Woods in Antonica, The Fay Grotto in The Nursery in Greater Faydark, the Brownie Grotto in Darklight Wood, the Enchanted Naiad Grotto near the spires in The Enchanted Lands, and the Zygomyd Grotto near the spires in Nektulos Forest.
Read more about the monthly event at EQ2 Zam.
But not for the actual people who live in Ireland, open to residents of the fifty US states only:
The Luck of the Irish is coming your way March 17 – March 20, 2011.
Beginning on Thursday, March 17th, and continuing through March 20th, every time you add station cash to your account or make a purchase through the in-game marketplace in participating games you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a Sony® Cyber-shot® Digital Camera, a Sony® Vaio® F Series Laptop, or a 55″ Sony® BRAVIA® NX810 Television with 3D Sync Transmitter and 4 pairs of 3D Active Glasses!
So go here to check out all the details or view the Official Rules! Enter as many times as you like, and don’t forget the bonus station cash when you redeem one of the new SOE Game Cards.
Zatozia has posted our update notes for Thursday, March 17, 2011. They include numerous tweaks and fixes to Velious instances and Public Quests.
Public Quests have been keeping Windslasher rather busy and he had posted some detailed answers about just how Public Quests difficulty are set. The Ring War seems fairly straightforward, but the Storm Gorge PQ (which will possibly see some changes in the next few days) has sufficient complexity to worth a more in-depth analysis.
From Windslasher on the EQ2 Forums:
Loot is not totally and completely random. It is only partially random. I posted a complete breakdown of the baseline loot at this link:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=30&topic_id=495127#5512456
Whether you get a humming, pulsating etc. cache is not random, but whether you get exquisite is. In addition, the fabled items have a fixed rare drop rate, but only for players who qualify to get a humming cache.
In response to players asking why Storm Gorge PQ lag fixes can’t be implemented ASAP, Windslasher had these responses on the EQ2 Forums:
There are multiple lag sources, some of which are obvious and unavoidable (Large numbers of players in combat at the same time = lag), some of which are interesting and somewhat fixable (30 players vs. 30 encounters is worse than 60 players vs. 1 encounter) and some which are too subtle & complicated to describe in one sentence without using jargon (There are scripts & abilities that load up the server at O(n^2)).
I’m going through all of these issues slowly & carefully so as not to break anything. The next hotfix will bring some improvements, and as I dig deeper there will be more.
As part of the twelve year anniversary events, join SOE President John Smedley and Brasse for a trip down memory lane. Brasse, some of you may remember, was a fixture in the fan community before joining the SOE team. Zatozia posts:
To celebrate EverQuest’s 12th Anniversary, John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, will join Brasse, Dwarven Overlord o’ Community, to take a look back at the history of EverQuest.
Join us on Wednesday, March 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 20 minutes.
See you on Stickam!
Are you a dedicated decorator that likes to play with house layouts? If so, check out Gracey’s course in EQ2 Layout Editor being held this Thursday, March 17, on the Test server:
This Week’s Topic: New to the layout editor? We can help!!
Time: THURSDAY @ 5pm PST, 8pm EST, (Friday @ 01:00 GMT)
Where: Test Copy server – Gracey’s 1 Room Gorowyn house
What to bring: yourself and maybe some paper and a pen for notes
What level do I need to be: You can make a level 1 char on Test Copy if you don’t already have a char copied over.
Chat: If you come to Gracey’s house or let us know in either Antonia_Bayle.Homeshow or Test.Test we will get you a guild invite and we are using Norrathian Decorator Academy guild for chatting. Sending a tell to me around class time will get you an invite into the guild as well.
Fun stuff to come: Tiling displays are set up in the guild hall to help you work through some of the most common problems – it’s in Halas if you would like to visit.
Reports on previous classes have been very positive. Beginners are welcome! For instructions on how to access the Test server, see page two of the original thread. For an introduction to the EQ2 Layout Editor, EQ2 Designers.com has a good tutorial.
From Piestro on the EverQuest Forums:
Almost 12 years ago the first truly 3d massively multiplayer online role playing game was awaiting its release to the public. To celebrate this momentous occasion, we here in EverQuest are celebrating and we want you to join us!
…
In Other Norraths
Grand events are afoot in EverQuest II starting later this month, where mysterious apparitions have been sighted! Portals through time have been appearing around Norrath, linking this age to an age before the Shattering. Journey through these portals to find the ancient heroes and villains of an age gone by. Reminisce about them. Then kill them and loot them for the really cool items they possess. There may be a connection between them; perhaps you should investigate them all.
…
So happy 12th EverQuest Anniversary, see you all at our Livecasts and in Norrath!
