From the EQ2 Forums:

Sleeper’s Tomb, Chapter 1 Begins!

Norrathian’s will find Jorlak, an aged Dracurion chronomage, outside of the Sleeper’s Tomb in Velious’ Eastern Wastes. He will launch a quest that gives adventurers access to world-changing events in Norrath’s history, including the rituals of the heralded warders who kept the great prismatic dragon, Kerafyrm, asleep for many ages.

Start Your Chains of Eternity Adventure!

Level 92 players should be on the lookout for a message from Erus Dal’viv, the Swordbearer. He has a mission for adventurers that will help the Duality’s research into the Age’s End Prophecy… a mission that could take an unexpected turn.

Thanks to Polish EQ2 player Kinya who has provided us with some screenshots of the visually stunning Sleeper’s Tomb group zone. The EQ2 Art Design team have really outdone themselves this time.

UPDATE: The Sleeper’s Tomb, which opens next Tuesday, offers two variations:

• Sleeper’s Tomb: The Awakening (group)
• Sleeper’s Tomb: A Temporal Leap (raid)

If I was a bit harsh in my “Let the Sleeper’s Tomb Testing Begin! Group & Raid Zone” article, it’s only because I believe content should be thoroughly tested before it is pushed to the Live servers. Players have memorized every pixel in Skyshrine and are thirsty for new enemies to “punch and take their stuff”, so it seems smart to get Sleeper’s Tomb so bug-free, balanced, and itemized smoothly that players feel the wait for new content was worth it.

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has posted a news update about when we can expect Sleeper’s Tomb, and the first wave of Contested Avatars.

Good day intrepid adventurers! Next Tuesday we are bringing you a big update that we lovingly call “Sleeper’s Tomb.” This is the first chapter of our expansion, Chains of Eternity, releasing in November. We have some additional content releasing with Sleeper’s Tomb that is definitely worth getting ready for! Check this out:

This month will see the introduction of the Sleeper’s Tomb group and x4 raid zones. So when can players test these zones? Oh, really any time.

Some astute players noticed late last week that the EQ2 Beta server was accessible from the Launchpad. We received confirmation last week that the Test Copy server was morphing into the Beta server. That’s great, but there was no clarification or announcement of whether anything was ready to be tested. Until today…

From Gninja:

Currently the beta server has the next update on it (Prelude). It has been getting some focused testing in preparation for going live. If you would like to check it out feel free to log in over there copy a character over and check it out. You can find the entrance in the Pit of Awakened in Eastern Wastes. As far as expansion content that content has not been added to the beta server as of yet.

From EverQuest2.com:

Death is rampant across Norrath. Citizens are suddenly falling dead as their spirits are torn from their bodies. No one on Norrath seems to understand why the souls are being pulled from the mortal plane, but all signs point to a massive disturbance within Ethernere, the realm of the dead. The heroes of the world must travel to Ethernere to find the cause of the unbalance in the Grey Wastes, and discover what has become of its caretaker – the mysterious being known as Drinal. If the heroes can return balance to Ethernere, the siphoning of souls may be halted. Should they fail, both the living and the dead will suffer a dismal fate.

Introducing EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity! This is the 9th expansion of the revolutionary EverQuest II franchise. This expansion contains must-have features such as level increases, prestige abilities and new game items only available with this expansion, such as adornments that become more powerful with your character. Also, explore new content in two spirit-realm versions of familiar lands, and experience adventure with new dungeons and quests. Put right the imbalance in the Ethernere!

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrath!

The time has come! We are very proud to announce our next expansion, EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity!

The team is hard at work developing our ninth – yes, our ninth – expansion and implementing the finer details, several of which I will go into here.  When the expansion launches, Norrathians will pass into Ethernere, the realm of the afterlife, where all spirits pass after death on their way to their final resting place.

Recently, something has gone horribly wrong in Ethernere and it is bleeding through in the mortal plane.  Over the summer months, evidence of ripples between the realms was in evidence as items with ethereal energy appeared upon the dead.  As the tears between the realms widen, it will be up to the heroes of Norrath to save the immortal and mortal realms from collapse!

The adventures in this expansion will be great ones! The team is spending a lot of time ensuring that you experience the story, rather than merely read it, so I won’t give it all away in this letter.  As for features and details, we’ve got a lot to crow about.  We hope players enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed weaving it together.

Cross Over to More Content

In two re-imagined Ethernere overlands inspired by Feerrott and Loping Plains, players will find a region in chaos.  The natural ebb and flow of spirits passing through the Ethernere to each spirit’s final resting place is corrupted and on the edge of destruction, threatening every mortal’s life and afterlife.  Through the trials of nine new instanced dungeons, players will attempt to mend the end of all things.  Prelude content and dungeons give insights into the threat from the other side while telling all new stories – including advancing the story behind the Ages End Prophecy.  Players meet new creatures from the beyond and face a whole host of new challenges.

As was hinted last month, players will see new raid content in the month of September, specifically the Sleeper’s Tomb. It’s our understanding that the difficulty of this zone will stop short of the Plane of War. Meanwhile, there have been sightings of new ETHEREAL Charms over the long weekend. It’s unclear if the charms have replaced or simply augmented the ETHEREAL weapons which first appeared in August. Remember folks, Ethereal items have an equal chance of dropping from any enemy — they do not have a higher chance of dropping from named encounters.

From the EQ2 Forums:

It’s a start of a new month, and a lot is happening in our beloved Norrath. Here’s a peek at just a few of the new features and events that will be happening this September. More will be revealed in the coming weeks!

Ethereal Charms (NEW!)

The ethereal winds have shifted in Norrath. In the month of August, mysterious and powerful weapons were randomly appearing across the land. This month, new items with similar power are beginning to appear. What could their presence mean?

Sleeper’s Tomb

What rests within this tomb? Only the bravest of adventurers should dare to enter this new zone in mid-September for new group/raid content!

Continue Reading Norrathian News ~ September 2012

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The Auto attack Timing window can now be resized.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Withered Lands

• Talapatook’tei should no longer get in a state where he is completely damage immune if damaged too quickly.

ABILITIES

• The effectiveness of riposte damage now diminishes as it gets higher and is now a rating stat rather than a direct percent increase.

ITEMS

• Solidified Blood of Rallos Zek now grants 50 crit bonus instead of 100 Multi-attack.

• Focused Will of the Warlord now grants 50 crit bonus instead of 100 Multi-attack.

QUESTS

• The Crushbone Water should now have its empty water jug show up as a quest bauble in the tracker window.

• Counting Their Blessings will no longer show quest target icons on all mobs in zone.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• An Auto Attack timing window has been implemented into the default UI.  You can enable / disable this feature under User Interface – Game Windows – Show The Autoattack Timing Bar.

• Fixed an issue with the age slider for male / female humans.

• Fixed some customization issues with Darkelves.

• Fixed an issue with skirts on humans and elves.

From the EQ2 Forums:

DUNGEON MAKER

• Corrected an issue that caused some buff objects in Dungeon Maker to reduce NPCs hit points by too much.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Withered Lands

• Daerlina and Swampmaw will now return to battle more frequently after a defeat.

Plane of War x4 Raid

• Commander Goreslaughter and Corpsemaul – The diaku war riders will spawn near commander goreslaughter instead of on top of random players. Commander Corpsemaul no longer has Unbridled Fury of the Shadows. Mauler’s Affliction no longer interrupts casting.

QUESTS

• The quest “Etch the Stone” is now properly repeatable.

After the last two week blitz of news about Dungeon Maker, including the winners of the Poet’s Palace Dungeon Maker contest, the addition of more Dungeon Maker items, and this week’s “Play As Yourself” feature introduction, there were a couple of glitches affecting DM dungeons.

We’ve been remiss on reporting this but wanted to give credit to the designers who put a ton of time and effort (despite some bugs including proximity-activated text not working) into the new Poet’s Palace Dungeon Maker layout.

The winning entries:

SCARS OF LOVE
Created by Pixiewrath on Freeport (See the video trailer!)

THE LOVELY BONES
Designed by Severiss on Oasis

AREA 51
Constructed by Raferty on Unrest (See the video trailer!)

COLLECTION OF RECOLLECTIONS
Devised by Jamisia (and Luvil) on Butcherblock

Play As Your Own Character was released on live servers yesterday, allowing you to zone into Dungeon Maker dungeons with your own characters, rather than DM avatars, but somehow this feature didn’t make it to the Storms and Valor servers. According to Bunji this is now being remedied:

We’re looking into the issue where ‘play as yourself’ is not working on international servers.

and at 3pm:

International patchers are being updated (pushing out the missing file). I’ll reply when it’s done.

Yesterday’s Dungeon Maker News also included some new items that can be bought (or earned) and placed in DM dungeons to add a bit more interactivity. These are now going live as well:

Also, these two new DM items are now up on the Marketplace:

Dungeon maker – Builders – Story Objects – Popup Test (Yellow)

Dungeon maker – Builders – Storytelling – Make Actor

First mentioned by SmokeJumper shortly after the Age of Discovery expansion was released, SOE has now introduced the ability to Play as Yourself in player-made Dungeon Maker dungeons. The secret is an advanced auto-mentoring system which allows for Level Agnostic play. That functionality will also roll out this month with a revamp to Battlegrounds that brings players of different tiers together.

We have commented in the past on the extreme limitations of designing Dungeon Maker content, which rarely rises above placing enemies strategically and hoping for the best, but being able to play as your own character instead of driving avatars is a huge step in the right direction. Play as your Character also nicely dovetails into last week’s announcement of the winners of the Dungeon Maker contest.

From the EQ2 Forums:

DUNGEON MAKER

You can now play as your character in Dungeon Maker dungeons! Furthermore these dungeons are “Level Agnostic” meaning that anyone of any level can group together and do them together! While the dungeons will be a bit more difficult for a lower level character than a higher level character, they will still be able to play together.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Skyshrine: Betrayal in the Underdepths

In the challenge mode Dozekar fight the Magmatic Elemental and infernal assassin adds will not spawn as frequently as before.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Updated Awesomium browser files to fix some compatibility issues.

• Fixed potential crash on exit.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Plane of War x4 Raid

• Commander Goreslaughter and Corpsemaul ? The crystals of death and destruction now have unique appearances and spawn close to the commanders, in 2 sets of 2. There are only 3 diaku war riders per wave and they no longer knockback.

For those preferring a more descriptive rendition of just what we can expect in the upcoming Game Update 64 (previously presented as a bullet point list), Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has posted the July Update Plans for EQ2 which largely mirror what we know about GU64. From the EQ2 Forums:

Summer is finally here and the team is toiling away! We’ve got a few new faces added to the team and we’re going to introduce them with some awesome headshots.  On to what we’re working on…

QEYNOS RISES JULY 24

The new Qeynos is rife with intrigue and conflict as the city, Queen Antonia Bayle, and the Circle of Ten evolve and struggle to oversee the welfare of the goodly folk of Norrath. As is in most places in Norrath, power can tip the scales. The new racial quests, which are available at all levels, offer history and an introduction to your origins as well as a sense of your place within your race while experiencing the Qeynosian struggles. The new class and storyline quests, starting at level 20, drop you amidst the city’s strife with your brethren all the way to the high court.

Buried in the update notes for the forthcoming Game Update 64 (and reiterated in the GU64 Webcast) was an interesting detail:

• Elemental, Noxious, and Arcane Resists would be folded into player-selected Character Traits, but Physical Mitigation would not.

These days, most players select Physical Mitigation as a Character Trait choice rather than Resists. Physical Mitigation usually works out to be a better bang for your buck. Further, a number of players have already reached the hard limit on resists and so don’t benefit from it at all.

So the idea that players would login after Game Update 64 and lose 1,656 mitigation was not the most appealing prospect and spawned a discussion on the EQ2 Forums.

Game Update 64 “Qeynos Rises” has arrived on Test and Test Copy and the Notes for this update have been posted on the EQ2 forums. GU64 is expected to hang around on Test for about a month before going to the Live servers.

Among a number of other changes, GU64 sees Qeynos rebuilt as two zones. North and South Qeynos become the Capital District, Elddar Grove and Qeynos Harbor become the Provinces. Changes to Battlegrounds, PvP, and Fighters are all headlines, with the curious change that Plane of War has been opened to all.

Xelgad (by way of Ashlanne) has posted some additional information about the upcoming Fighter changes that come with Game Update 64. But first, Piestro has some comments about rushing to judgment:

Obviously this is a change that we knew people would be passionate about. Of course until people see the actual changes any evaluation of their impact is premature. The best way to move forward is to write down your concerns, and then formulate a test plan based on those concerns. That will give you the best possible start to actually testing the changes, and seeing what their actual impacts are.

And now that overview of the Fighter changes in GU63 from the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings everyone, Xelgad here! I’d like to explain some of the changes to our fighter archetype that you will be seeing on the Test Server soon.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The in-game browser files have been updated. If you experience any problems with the in-game browser, help UI, or customer service petition functions please post your details here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=519345

From the SOE Forums:

Changes are coming to PVP and fighters class for EverQuest II. Host Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson (Executive Director of Development) is going to discuss the upcoming changes with Akil “Lyndro” Hooper (Lead Designer), Mike “Xelgad” Ganz (Associate Game Designer), and Brian “Zuglash” Ferguson (Associate Game Designer).  They have lots of details to share about PVP, fighters and more.  EverQuest II fans do not want to miss this webcast.

Join us on Thursday, June 21, 2012, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time* on Twitch TV! The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes.

For PVP fans and fighters this is a must see webcast!

Time Zone Conversions

Le sigh… Like all SOE Webcasts, it’s 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern, midnight in Western Europe, and 1:00am in Copenhagen.

Dungeon Maker “Play as a Character” has arrived on Test for the second time, but with a totally new Level Agnostic mechanic that turns the concept of Mentoring on its ear, by interactively adjusting the damage and heals of grouped characters in real time. The claim is, that a level 30 and level 92 will be able to group together, heal, buff, and do DPS effectively. And careful reading of the June Update indicates that Battlegrounds will soon inherit the same Level Agnostic mechanic, so proper testing of this functionality on Test is a good idea.

From Maevianiu on the EQ2 Forums:

Hello!

We just added playing as your character in Dungeon Maker, but it is with a twist! Dungeon Maker dungeons are now “Level Agnostic” as in your level doesn’t matter much when in there. Players who are any level can group with players of any other level and fight side by side against the same monsters!

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Another month has zipped by already!

We wanted to wait until after E3 to share a few more details about what we’re up to and what’s coming up this month.

By now you may have heard about the SOE corporate initiative called SOEmote(tm) that will launch in EQII later this month. SOEmote uses a webcam and microphone to project your facial expressions, including talking and voice, onto your character in real time! It’s used in groups and also allows you to broadcast to your guild, almost like a webcast. We’re all excited to see this launch and how you use it. If you want to share your shananigans, the YouTube recording option is now in the EQII Share window.

In today’s update for June 13, 2012, EQ2 finally ditches its ancient Mozilla web browser in favor of the Awesomium browser, powered by Webkit (Safari/Chrome). EVE Online recently adopted this browser. This should resolve numerous problems with viewing complex websites in the in-game browser.

Armor distribution in Skyshrine zones have been rebalanced to match group/raid distribution. Some Skyshrine group mobs will start dropping Primal Velium Shards, while Skyshrine raid encounters will hand out Pure Primal Velium Shards. And finally, today marks the introduction of Quest Target Icons. If you enable this setting, you will be able to see an icon over any enemy which will update quests in your journal if killed.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The in-game browser files have been updated. This may cause the browser not to function with some custom UIs until they are updated.

• Note: Firewall software will need to allow the file awesomium_process.exe access to run for the browser to function properly.