Feldon
The Norrathian Spotlight is an opportunity for the EQ2 Community to recognize one player per month who contributes to the player community in some measurable way. The last official nomination was in January 2015 when I was featured. I’m overjoyed to announce that fellow EQ2 players take up the mantle of identifying one player per month and interviewing them about how they make Norrath just a little bit better for everyone else. From Suka on the EQ2 Forums: Hi everyone. Starting this month, we will try to spotlight one person a month who contributes to our experience in Norrath....
Player Studio
If you are a fan of watching videos/livecasts, or are a fan of or designer for Player Studio, then you won’t want to miss this week’s Inside the Player’s Studio as Rick “Storn” Reynolds interviews EQ2 Associate Art Director Dave “Covic” Brown about the Players Studio program. Rick and Dave go over recent submissions for EQ2 and critique and provide feedback on how to make the best possible items so that they are accepted! The big news this week is that the new Player Studio Viewer app which helps designers see how their items will look in the EQ2...
From the EQ2 Forums: The Player Studio program gives players a chance to create, submit, and sell items in the Marketplace. EverQuest 2 has some amazing player artists who have been taking requests and working hard to make these items available in game. Many items are submitted, but only the most outstanding ones make it into Norrath! Last month, these were the most popular EQ2 Player Studio items: 1. Freeblood’s Tomb by NS6 This tomb has been making an appearance in eerie lands across Norrath. What lies inside? Well, that’s up to you!
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...
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 EverQuest II twitter account: Three NEW countries added to #playerstudio tax registration testing! DK, NO & SE now join FR, DE, UK, CA & US! http://t.co/bwvlA3ffaQ — EverQuest II (@everquestii) June 10, 2014
From the EQ2 Forums: Attention Potential Player Studio Creators! Special testing help is needed from residents of Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Since a big part of Player Studio is earning royalties, and since you can’t make money without taxation, we built this system to help get folks set up with their tax paperwork. Tax registration is necessary before you can list items for sale and earn royalties. This feature costs SOE money each time someone uses it. SOE pays a partner to validate data as part of the feature. For this reason, the finished feature will...
From the EQ2 Forums: For the last several months we’ve been working hard to update the Player Studio program with a number of improvements that will simplify and expedite the overall registration process, and will allow international players from select regions and territories to participate. This work has progressed well, but it’s a complicated initiative and there are still a few outstanding components to finalize to ensure we get this 100% right. Initially, we hoped to expand Player Studio to Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom on or before May 1, but given the intricacy of the program and...
At long last, Player Studio is opening up to other countries! First mentioned in SOE President John Smedley‘s Ask Me Anything this January, SOE has now officially announced in a press release that EverQuest, EverQuest II, Planetside 2, and presumably EverQuest Next and just plain Landmark players in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom will soon be able to create and submit items and earn money back for their artistic contributions to these games!
On Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014 at 2:00 PM PDT, EQ2’s new community manager Margaret “Luperza” Krohn (aka PurrfectStorm), hosted the first EverQuest II Insider livecast on Twitch. This 1 hour broadcast included EQ brand manager Adam Key, Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Chris Garlick, Gary Daugherty, and Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall. Alas, a recording of the livecast was not preserved either by SOE or Twitch (due to a settings glitch), so this episode joins Doctor Who and other vital shows as missing presumed wiped. That said, a few resourceful players who watched the Livecast were good enough to take notes and so we can...
Aspiring graphic artists who happen to live outside the USA have been stymied by SOE’s regional restrictions on Player Studio. It’s our understanding that tax and accounting laws have so far kept the program from opening up to other countries. With Player Studio being a core part of the upcoming EQNext (sources pointing to a 2015 nod) and EQNext Landmark (going Alpha this month and in wide release sometime in April), it seems that a corner may have been turned and PlayerStudio availability in the EU may be on the horizon. As a happy side benefit, this will hopefully open...
Last Friday, SOE announced changes to their Subscription services, replacing the 500 SC/month allowance for having a Gold Subscription in any of SOE’s games with a monthly voucher to buy ONE item per game, up to 2,000SC, to exclude Player Studio, “bundles“, and an unknown array of other items, presumably “Services“, Experience items (280AA bauble), and expansion unlocks like Mercenaries. Players who buy a number of 100-200SC items would have lost out with the deal, as the voucher only applied to a single item with exclusions. And while it’s a small pool of players, Vanguard players on an All Access subscription...
After last week’s changes to Gold Subscriptions for EverQuest, EverQuest II, DCUO, PlanetSide 2, and All Access passes were announced, I was certain that regardless of how much player feedback came out against the changes, little would change. After 6 years, I guess I can still be surprised by Sony Online Entertainment. Just over 1 hour ago, SOE President John Smedley took to Reddit (once again bypassing the forums), to announce the restoration of the monthly 500SC stipend, AND some remarkable changes to All Access. This not only gives us back everything we asked for, but goes to the...
SOE President John Smedley has taken to his favorite “bypass the Marketing/PR Machine” venue Reddit and posted some personal thoughts on the Subscription changes recently announced for EverQuest, EverQuest II, Planetside 2, DCUO, and all of SOE’s games under the All Access umbrella. It’s written from a PlanetSide 2 angle, but it is applicable to EQ2 as well. From Reddit: Hello everyone, I hope you all had a Happy New Year! we’re here back working hard to make cool stuff. I wanted to give a little more insight into our thinking regarding the changes to the upcoming subscription plan....
Massively‘s MJ Guthrie has checked in with her thoughts on SOE’s announced removal of 500 StationCash/month allowance for Gold subscribers to its games: While I had another, happier topic all ready to ring in the new year, SOE surprised us with a questionable decision this week that I felt necessitated an immediate response. So today we’ll focus on this hot topic instead: All change is not good. And SOE’s announced change in membership benefits for EverQuest II is really not good. Previously, with the removal of the remaining free-to-play restrictions, EQII subscribers saw their benefits whittle down to essentially a buff to mount speed...
From the EQ2 Forums: All gamers know it’s not a holiday until you see your favorite MMO decked out for the season! This year, Sony Online Entertainment invites you to get in the spirit by creating holiday-themed items for your favorite games. Since the unveiling of the Player Studio program, your fellow players have shown off their creativity and talent by creating in-game items for EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide 2, and Free Realms. In addition to epic bragging rights, creators get a split of the profits for sales of their item, which is pretty much the definition of “win/win.”...
From Ry “Roshen” Schueller on the EQ2 Forums: How will you celebrate the scariest time of year in Norrath? A variety of Player Studio artists came together to create some supernatural additions to the Marketplace for this spooky holiday. Organ of Enchanting Darkness by NEKO ZERO This ancient organ was once used to create haunting tunes during secret ceremonies. What music would you want to hear played on its keys? This impressive piece was the winner of the Player Studio Dawn of the Dark Elf competition!
From the EQ2 Forums: In this Marketplace update, we have a couple terrific new Nightborne weapons designed by Player Studio artist Albert Soto Jr. In addition to the new Player Studio items added to the Marketplace today, we are reintroducing the Equipment Unlocker Pack to the Marketplace for 150 Station Cash. Each Equipment Unlocker Pack can unlock five pieces of equipment that normally cannot be equipped due to account level restrictions. The goal of reintroducing this item to the Marketplace is to make things easier for our players that want to unlock specific pieces of equipment for their characters, or...
Join lead artists from Sony Online Entertainment including Tim “Haohmaru” Heydelaar (EQ2), David “Covic” Brown (EQ2), Kevin Lydy (EQ), and Tramell “T.Ray” Isaac (PS2) as they talk about the Player Studio program with Director of Artistic Development Joe “Rystall” Shoopack and Player Studio head Rick “Storn” Reynolds. They walk through the item submission and approval process, including iterations and common choke points as first drafts become fantastic items that are successful and profitable for players and SOE alike. NOTE: This video does not include the brief Powerpoint presentation shown at the beginning of the panel, which highlighted the winner...
From EverQuest2.com: This summer, SOE ran the first SOE Player Studio item creation contest called Dawn of the Dark Elf. All items had to be dark elf themed and for EverQuest or EverQuest II. Players had one month to prepare and submit their entries. There were no limits on the number of entries, and all regular Player Studio rules and guidelines were followed. We received 34 entries in 5 categories from 17 different artists, but there could be only one winner: Neko Zero, who created this Organ of Enchanting Darkness for EverQuest II! As described by Neko Zero, “this...
From the EQ2 Forums: If you’re a Player Studio artist (or know someone who is interested in becoming one!), this is a quick call to action for you. If you are creating Nights of the Dead/October-themed items, please get those items submitted by September 2, 2013. You’re welcome to submit earlier, of course, but that’s the cut-off for this year’s holiday. For more information about Player Studio, visit this section of the website. If you’re interested in taking part in the Player Studio discussion, make sure to visit the Player Studio forums. Thanks. Can’t wait to see what you come up with! (personally,...
From EverQuest2.com: Player Studio gives artists in the community a chance to leave a permanent mark on the worlds that they adventure in. In addition, when these items are sold in the Marketplace, SOE shares the profits from the sales of these items with the artist that submitted them. There are three new items available this week in the EverQuest II Marketplace from Player Studio artist CoffeeOutlaw. Not only has he submitted great designs for in-game items, he has created discussion threads on the Player Studio forums detailing the design development for these items so other artists can see these items change...
“Dawn of the Dark Elf” The First Player Studio Item Creation Competition From June 15 to July 15, 2013, Dark Elf-themed items submitted to Player Studio will be eligible to enter our first Player Studio art competition. For EverQuest II, categories could include cloaks, weapons, shields, furniture & house items, hair styles, and even headgear (submitted as hair.) Our Art Director judges will be looking for excellence of technical execution, artistic quality, adherence to the Dark Elf theme, and crowd-pleasing originality. There is no limit on number of entries. All entries must be received by 11:59pm PDT on Monday, July...
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on twitter: We have more work to do on Player Studio House sales, so it won’t be going live with the game update on 4/30. We’ll update soon though! #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) April 23, 2013
Player-created tubs and water closet items coming soon to EQ2 When the Player Studio forums launched, they were pretty quiet, with minimal developer interaction. Well, what a difference a few months take. Due to the incredible quality of items being submitted by players, and the need for more direct lines of communication between aspiring artists and the “official” game designers, we’ve seen the appointment of a full-time Player Studio artist liaison, and increased involvement of SOE staff. Further, when the Player Studio forums relaunch next month, we’ll see a totally revamped structure that fosters collaborative feedback between artists, as...