Feldon
If you are a Player Studio creator for EverQuest II or have an interest in developing weapons, cloaks, or house items for EQ2, then you’ll be thrilled at the news that, next Tuesday, a free tool is being added to the EQ2 client to allow designers to get a better idea of how their creations will appear in-game. When 3D artists create these items in Blendr, Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Zbrush, etc. the resulting geometry looks very different to how it looks in-game. This is due to the lighting and shaders which are unique to EQ2. The new Player Studio...
General
From the EQ2 Forums: You won’t want to miss the EverQuest II 10th Anniversary Stream, this Friday, November 14, 2014, running from 2-3PM PST. You can watch us on www.twitch.tv/everquest2 Tune in to watch Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, and Ry “Roshen” Schueller as they show off the newest expansion Altar of Malice, and play the new Aerakyn race. The team will also be running a special 10th Anniversary in-game event on the Freeport server that you certainly wouldn’t want to miss! Do you like giveaways? We got them! During this one hour stream there will be goodies that...
The Aerakyn race will become available for purchase sometime tomorrow and through internal testing, the EQ2 team have discovered an issue affecting hair color and the “hidden personal torch” feature. While this issue might not bother most players, if you’re going to drop $20 or $42 on a race, you might be a little miffed if your character customizations don’t turn out quite as expected. From Afista on the EQ2 Forums: Greetings Everyone, We want to identify a problem that some players might encounter when customizing your new Aerakyns. The Aerakyn have a VERY broad color palette for hair...
At SOE Live this year, we found out that of all the internal test servers that the EQ2 team uses to build content, none of them behaves quite like the Live or production servers. EverQuest II’s 10th annivesary is being celebrated with the return of the Heroes’ Festival event and although we understand the event was extensively tested internally, things just did not work as planned when the event was pushed to the live servers. To force the event to run properly, members of the EQ2 team and Customer Service have been empowered to manually start up these events...
Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the release of EverQuest II. To celebrate this, the annual Heroes’ Festival returns with some new events, specifically five open raid encounters which anyone can participate in and earn credit (like a Public Quest, you do not need to be grouped or even the right level to get credit). UPDATE: The Heroes Festival did not appear on Test or Beta, and so players are reporting a number of issues, specifically that the camps have despawned and vendors are unavailable. UPDATE #2: According to a dev update, the mobs have been respawned, but there...
Yesterday, two Press sites posted their articles about the upcoming Aerakyn race. At 8:00pm, the official news dropped on the EQ2 Forums: Are you ready to start an adventure with a unique new player race? Get ready, because Aerakyns will soon be available for you to customize and start your journeys! Players will be able to purchase the new Aerakyn race from the EverQuest II Marketplace beginning November 11, 2014. Want to learn more about the Aerakyns? Well, we’ve got the information ready for you! The Aerakyns were once the unwilling soldiers of the great Prismatic Dragon, Kerafyrm. Now...
ZAM Managing Editor Cyliena recently interviewed EQ/EQ2 Creative Director Akil “Lyndro” Hooper and Holly “Windstalker” Longdale about the new Aerakyn race which will be available for purchase on November 11, 2014. She got the inside scoop and plenty of details about the new race and the different pricing tiers which will be available. As previously announced, the Aerakyn race will not be included in either the Standard or Collector’s Editions of the Altar of Malice expansions, but is instead being sold as a a standalone item. From the EQ2 ZAM article: Aerakyn will be available on the Marketplace [on November 11, 2014] through...
Tomorrow, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of EverQuest II, the 11-year Veteran Reward will become available to all EQ2 players who have been around since day one. Why 11 years? The first four expansions (Desert of Flames, Kingdom of Sky, Echoes of Faydwer, and Rise of Kunark) each granted 90 days of bonus time, so add it up, and you get 11-year Veteran Rewards for a 10 year old game! From Afista on the EQ2 Forums: It’s been ten years since some adventurers first came ashore on the Isle of Refuge. For some, there’s nothing more...
From the EQ2 Forums: Receive $5 off when you purchase any of the SOE pre-paid game cards at GameStop*, valid October 13th – October 28th, 2014. *This promotion is valid at US GameStop locations only. UPDATE as of 11:00am PDT Today (October 15th) from Afista: Greetings everyone, We have received confirmation that the issue is now resolved and GameStop has made each of their locations aware of this discount. If you continue to experience troubles getting the discount, please let me know the store address so that we can further address the issue. Sorry again for the inconvenience!
Fr0m Afista on the EQ2 Forums: Greethings Norrathians! It’s October and that means it’s time to get ready for Nights of the Dead! Are you ready to decorate your house, pick out a celebration costume, or take on some ghoulish foes? Submit an image in this month’s EverQuest II Nights of the Dead Photo Contest that shows what you are doing to celebrate Norrath’s creepiest holiday! All entries must be submitted by 4:00 PM PDT on October 31, 2014 to the contest website. Ten winners will be randomly chosen to receive 1,000 SC. We can’t wait to see what you are...
From the EQ2 Forums: It’s the time of year when a chill sets in and darkness falls on the lands. Ghouls begin to emerge from the shadows and both tricks and treats are plentiful. Whether you enjoy crafting holiday items or are looking for a spooky adventure, there’s something for all Norrathians to celebrate as Nights of the Dead returns to Norrath! There are several new features for Nights of the Dead 2014, including a new Candy Crusher achievement! Adventurers can also seek out Setri Lur’eth in Nektulos Forest to take part in a new annual quest, “A Dream,...
Members of the EverQuest II Art team including EQ2 Art Director Tim “Hoahmaru” Heydelaar, Dave “Covic” Brown, Tom “Ttobey” Tobey, and Chris “Phatkins” Atkins talk about the upcoming Altar of Malice expansion, and give us a look behind-the-scenes with concept art, clips and stills. Recorded live on August 17 2014 at SOE Live. Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, Nevada. Video edited and produced by EQ2Wire.
Since September 24th, some 57 players of SOE games have contributed a whopping $3,920 for Extra Life. There’s still time to donate, and you can choose whose name you are donating for. From the SOE forums: On October 25th, Team SOE will join thousands of gamers to share the joy of gaming, be it online, board games, LARP-ing, or whatever. Together, we will raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network charity as part of Extra Life’s annual 24-hour gaming marathon. All proceeds donated will go to the local hospital of each team member! Why are we doing this? Our team is on a mission...
From Afista on the EQ2 Forums: Greetings Norrathians! Have you been eyeballing some of those awesome status items on the city merchants? Are you running low on status upkeep for guild halls and need to restock the escrow? Get ready to refill your status, because it’s time for a double status weekend! All-Access Members will earn double personal status beginning tomorrow, Friday, October 3rd at 12:00pm PDT. This double status will end Monday, October 6 at 11:59pm PDT, so make sure you take advantage of it before it’s too late! We want to know what you enjoy most in Norrath....
Wow has it been 3 weeks since SOE Live 2014? I’m hopelessly behind on getting all my post-con stuff done, but Dellmon and Osgz have saddled up and recorded another episode of the best (wait, isn’t it the only?) EQ2 podcast! From EQ2Talk: Episode #77 – What Happens in Vegas recorded on Aug 30 Dellmon and Osgz’s lives are finally returning to normal after SOE Live 2014. With Dell’s on the ground experiences and Oz’s perspectives via Twitch, there is much to discuss. From zombie prom to tournament play to Fippy and a schwag bag, your EQ2 Talk hosts...
Forgive us if we have whiplash, as for the third time this year, EverQuest II has been assigned a new community manager. From Maggie “Luperza” Krohn on the EQ2 Forums: Norrathians, We’ve had a short but sweet journey together. Although I’ve been a player in this community for a long time, it’s been wonderful being your Community Manager for the last few months. I am proud of the contributions we have made together in this community, and remain inspired by the passion you all bring to the game with your feedback. We created a new web show series, EverQuest II...
There was a time when SOE kept this kind of information under their hats, but for the last six months, the Player Studio folks have been posting top 10 lists of the most popular items purchased in the EverQuest II Marketplace. What I like about Player Studio is, players get to design things and see them added to their favorite game, while other players get to give feedback to those players and ask for which items they want next! There’s a forum just for Player Studio designers to collaborate and help each other to solve problems and get items up...
From the EQ2 Forums: EVERYONE can enjoy double status this weekend from Friday, September 5th, 2014 at 12:00 PM Noon PDT, until Sunday, September 7th, 2014 at 11:59 PM PDT! Don’t forget to send us screenshots of your adventures on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus! *This event doubles the base status earned by defeating encounters, or rewarded from quests. Guild status is rewarded from that base amount, so yes it is in effect doubled.
Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has stepped up and taken a bullet for Finance with these posts on the EQ2 Forums: Just so there’s no confusion or suggestion there’s a bug, a few prices have changed on SC items. Very few. About 6 items. We felt that doing that at the same time as the sale might be helpful for members, at least, who choose to purchase those few items. This week prices that changed are on purchases that you can obtain or use in-game in other ways (like merc slots and revive). As a few people have pointed out, we...
UPDATE: EQ2 Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has addressed today’s price increases on six (out of over 2,700) Marketplace items here. Original op-ed follows: It is no secret that EverQuest II, EverQuest, DC Universe Online, and PlanetSide 2 are funding the freewheeling development costs of EverQuest Next and Landmark. Existing properties funding future development is standard procedure in the video game industry. It’s also no secret that the current incarnation of EverQuest Next is actually SOE’s fourth attempt to launch the product, with nearly 5 years of development effort being left by the wayside. What is a surprise is that,...
From the EQ2 Forums: This weekend, SOE will be officially wrapping up summer with some great savings for All Access members! All Access membership offers great value like in-game perks, a claimable monthly 500 SC reward, and 10% off in-game Marketplace items. But this weekend, we’re going to crank the Marketplace discount from 10% to 25% off! From Friday, August 29th at 10AM PDT to Tuesday, Sept. 2nd at 10AM PDT, members will get a 25% discount on in-game Marketplace purchases*! The discount is only available in Marketplaces for games currently part of the All Access program. Excludes Landmark...
Because sleep is overrated, EQ2 fan Afista spent the weekend meticulously transcribing the two EverQuest II Q&A panels and has posted them on EQ2 ZAM. Also don’t miss the notes from the all-important Mechanics panel posted by Cyliena as linked below. I got a kick out of hanging out with both of them at SOE Live and seeing what they’re doing for the EQ2 community. I’m starting to feel like a bit of a slacker now… 😉 At SOE Live 2014, the community had questions and the devs had answers! ZAM was there to keep track of what everyone wanted to know. Afista has written a...
In the EverQuest II: Systems panel, the EverQuest II team talks about the upcoming expansion, specifically class balance, mechanics, some new features, and takes player questions. On the panel: Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer, and Justin “Jamiss” Michael. We recorded this at SOE Live 2014 in Las Vegas and are happy to be able to share it. On YouTube:
While Double and Triple StationCash days may be a thing of the past, it looks like retailer promotions of StationCash cards will be continuing for the foreseeable future. As announced by SOE Director of eCommerce Mark Tuttle at SOE Live, we will soon see Landmark-themed StationCash cards at Walmart and GameStop, each with bonus items attached. Here are the details we’ve been able to glean: Walmart Landmark SC Card (link) 2,000 StationCash Immediate and permanent access to Landmark’s closed beta. One of five Landmark loot bundles: Earthbound Bonus Pack 3500 Dirt, 3500 Stone, 3500 Sand + 2 random Relics (from...
We recorded the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice keynote, which included about seven minutes of Q&A at the end. We also recorded the EverQuest II Q&A #1 panel and we’ve assembled it into a single video. NOTE: Audio quality improves at 8:45 as we started using an external mic at this point.