From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue with Guild Halls.
• Fixed an issue causing the streaming client to use old assets.
• Fixed an issue which could cause the streaming client to crash on startup.
• Fixed a disconnect bug where some characters would get dropped to character select upon login.

Players will now be prompted for a one-time, free item unattuning:

• If you answer yes, all items will be immediately unattuned.  Any equipped items will be popped into overflow.
• If you answer no, items will not be unattuned and you will not be asked again.

Note that the trailer mentions the Dungeon Finder which is not currently available. When the Dungeon Finder goes live, it will be specific to each server/realm at first, and won’t be cross-server, which may take months/years to implement.

Game Update 61: “The War of Zek”
UPDATE NOTES

A GENERAL SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN GAME UPDATE 61:

• All dungeon and overland loot items have been re-itemized. What does this mean? It means loot everywhere should be legitimate for the level it drops for, no matter where you go now. Go explore some nooks and crannies you haven’t seen for a long time and get off the Golden Path! The loot’s good again.
• The Velious saga continues as you journey past the Citadel of Drunder to the Plane of War itself in a new dungeon and raid, and a continuation of the Signature quest line.
• New dynamically-scaling dungeons have been added. These scale to your group between levels 60-90 and are designed as new single group heroic content that’s more re-playable. We’ll be watching your reactions to these initial two dungeon experiments and improving on these in the future!
• The new House Rating System lets you publish your house so other players can rate it, as well as adding house leaderboards, easy access to housing, and more! (And we increased House Ownership limits to 20, instead of 10!)
• If you ever wanted to show EQII to your friends, it’s now very easy. Push a button, record, and post your footage to YouTube with our new Video Capture system.
• The Eastern Wastes area in Velious now has a lot more overland content added to it (the new quests start at the Ry’Gorr keep).
• A big revamp of the class AA tree so that it’s easier to select the AAs you want, and adding more utility to the AAs that were weak previously.
• Many stats have been un-capped so that they have meaning as your characters progress. This doesn’t result in massive power increases, but it does let all stats continue to have meaning as you earn new items and power. Additional mechanics changes were made to increase power for many classes. (See below for things like spell auto-attack, flurry improvements, etc.)
• Tradeskillers now have their own AA tree to chase!
• And yes, Fae and Arasai now have a level 85 quest that can unlock their ability to FLY!

After the jump, the full detailed Game Update 61 “War of Zek” Notes…

Summoners, Enchanters, and Shamans have been curious at exactly how Shared Pet Stats work. Fortunately some details have been provided by Maevianiu on the EQ2 Forums:

NOTE: Any buffs that affect a group/raid do not transfer from the owner to the pet (that would be doubling up) but single target ones that grant the stats below should go to both the owner and the pet when cast on the owner.

The following stats are copied from the owner to the pet:

Attributes, potency, ability mod, crit bonus (pvp and pve), crit chance, toughness, doublecast chance (pve and pvp), ability casting speed, Ability Recovery Speed, Ability Reuse Speed, Spell Reuse Speed.

After a growing silence about key parts of Game Update 61, specifically unexpected mechanics and itemization changes in high level gear, Salim “Silius” Grant, EQ2 Mechanics Lead, has stepped up and provided a detailed response to the issues as laid out so well by a determined player, Nevao in a thread entitled May we have a “State of the GU” post?

Responses from Silius are in red:

• Itemization Changes
  Tier 3 to T8 revamp? Last time I checked there were still reports of items with insanely out of whack stats given the tier (mid-tier items with 40+ weapon skills for example) and items that were previously open to multiple classes now restricted to just a few (either directly or through stats). Where are we on this and are the devs happy with where it’s going?

• Stat values are being tweaked and fixed when we find the bugs.
• The goal of reitemize was to make items relevent to our current mechanics. This means that items will become polarized to the more archetypical setup we use now.

For those of you who don’t have 77 minutes to listen to this week’s SOE Podcast, we’ve listened for you and provide details of the “War of Zek-cast”. First, a few bullet points…

• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is still expecting 2 entirely new content updates this year, in addition to a number of Bug Bash updates to fix long-standing bugs with the game.
• Tiffany “Amnerys” Spence, EQ2 Community Manager, is expecting twins and so will be taking some time off from managing the EQ2 forums. Others will step in to tackle this job.
• The Beastlords Prelude Event launches with Game Update 61 leading up to the expansion.
• Velious Dungeon Rare Encounters — All current Velious group dungeon zones now have a 25% chance to include an all new named encounter.

EQ2Wire Transcript

After the jump, we provide a loose transcript of Linda “Brasse” Carlson interviewing Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson (whom you all either love or loathe as the case may be) and Akil “Lyndro” Hooper (returning as EQ2 Lead Designer after an extended break).

Today’s update is all about taming the difficulty of Zek and other Velious group and raid zones (challenge and normal modes).

From the EQ2 Patch Notes:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Sullon’s Spire, Tallon’s Stronghold, and Vallon’s Tower x4 raid zones (NOT challenge mode)

• Several of the encounters in the zone have been made less powerful so that the challenge from these zones is more in line with the rewards.  In particular boss npcs will tend to melee attack for less damage, and many of their aoe spells will also do less damage, as well as be more mitigateable.

As we reach August’s midway point, we are potentially in the “home stretch” on Game Update 61. If internal schedules hold true, we could see the next update pushed to live servers in 2 weeks. This is usually the point where player anxiety levels are highest, as what’s on Test seems  incomplete and not ready for prime time. Although it’s a well-worn cycle, the question is always “Will it be ready?” Will 2 weeks of dev crunch time result in a solid Game Update 61?

Level 20-80 Reitemization

We’d caught hints, but Fan Faire brought confirmation that level 20-80 gear was being reitemized.

When I first heard this announcement, I hoped that this would be done with a light touch. Despite organic development over 6 years, through several different producers, the itemization in EverQuest II from level 1-80 has been one of its strengths. Only through several revamps has Mastercrafted armor managed to disturb this progression. A revamp of level 20-80 gear should provide an opportunity to the EQ2 team to put this right, all while re-aligning Mastercrafted armor where it belongs, behind Legendary and Fabled dungeon drops. With a few minor tweaks, mostly adding Agility to any item wearable by Scouts, Intelligence to Mage-equippable items, and so forth, itemization would, at least from level 1-80, work with the changed mechanics, without losing its uniqueness.

From Xelgad in a thread about the lack of Troubador tweaks in Game Update 61:

Between the massive item revamp, the addition of spell auto-attack as well as the over cap conversions and the AA revamp, we haven’t had much time for class tweaks this GU. I look forward to working on the Troubador class as soon as we get some time to spare, and hopefully we’ll be able to come up with something cooler than an overpowered mythical effect.

Some pertinent observations on this from EQ2Flames:

From Slippery:

If you are a dirge and don’t think a change to the myth is coming at some point you are pretty stupid.

From Banditman:

That should probably make some Dirges nervous in fact.

From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

Hey guys, we understand that many of you feel strongly against this change. This is why we put things on test, right? We still have a couple of weeks before GU61 hits live. We’re busy finishing up GU61 and fixing bugs, so don’t expect daily responses from us on these issues, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t discussing them internally.

UPDATE: We have added an additional quote from Rothgar.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a crash that could occur when taking screenshots.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Vallon’s Tower Raid Zones

• All players may now enter the normal, non-challenge Vallon’s Tower x4 raid zone.  Players can enter the challenge mode of Vallon’s Tower raid only after someone on the server has defeated Tallon Zek in Challenge mode.

Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundation of Stone [Challenge Mode]

• The greater warboars that spawn during the statue fight now have less health.  Their combat madness taunt spell no longer persists through death.

Strategist’s Stronghold

• When Shini-Zon Livia summons the Winds of Zek, you now have more time to move away from them. The damage of Winds of Zek has been reduced.

After a firestorm of player comment, a line item change in the Test Update Notes indicates that Subclass AAs (Alternate Advancements) will be available to low level characters once more. From the EQ2 Test Update Notes:

The Subclass Alternate Advancement Tree once again unlocks at level 10.

Game Update 61 is expected to go live in the last week of August.

There are still many unanswered questions about the AA revamp currently on Test, but Summoners, Druids, and Monks so far have gotten one response apiece about specific lines.

Xelgad posted to “Focused Minion (and other summoner changes)” on the EQ2 Forums:

We decided to scrap the pet Spell Multi-Attack (Doublecast) for several reasons. First, we wanted to move away from pet-specific AAs. As some of you know, scout pets did technically get some benefit from SDA because their attacks are classified as spells, but fighter pets did not really benefit at all. Additionally, in terms of AA versus AA balance (within the Summoner tree), Focused Minion was obviously much too powerful. At least to some degree, that was the result of the improvements to SDA in GU60.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundations of Stone [Challenge]

• Challenge Mode Statue of Rallos Zek no longer has a Knockback effect associated with his Titanic Swipe AOE.

Hot off the presses, er patcher, here are the Game Update 61: The War of Zek Update Notes from the Test Patcher. Game Update 61 is expected to reach the Live servers near the end of August.

Game Update 61: “The War of Zek”

PLANE OF WAR

The time is near for the great Fortress of Drunder to reveal its true purpose to all. The very bedrock of the Eastern Wastes shudders and rocks as a massive planar portal rips itself open within the fortress walls. The sounds of war echo through its halls as the God of War himself prepares his innumerable armies to march across the frozen face of Velious and seize control of the lands of Norrath for all eternity.

The Plane of War is a normal and challenge mode raid.

Elements of War is a normal and challenge mode heroic experience.

Bunji dropped the news that Game Update 61 is hitting Test today:

We plan to push the current GU61 content to Test tomorrow morning.

GU61 (or most of it) is scheduled to hit Test around 7-8am PST tomorrow morning, 7/28.

What’s in Game Update 61?

• Dynamic Dungeon: Silent City [60~90]
• Dynamic Dungeon: Djinn Master’s Prism [60~90]
• Plane of War: heroic dungeon (normal and challenge)
• Plane of War: x4 raid (normal and challenge)
• Reitemize Level 20-90 dropped, quested, and crafted Items
• Alternate Advancement (AA) Revamp, especially Subclass (Monk, Templar, Paladin, etc.) tree.
• Tradeskill AAs [25 pts]
• House Rating System
• Dungeon Finder — Dungeons of any level, same-server only
• Fae/Arasai Flying
• New content in Eastern Wastes
• Beastlord Prelude Event for Good or Evil (Exile may choose one)
• Velious Signature Quest continues

The disclaimer above makes it clear that not all of Game Update 61 will be on Test today, but we’re anxious nonetheless. Read more about Game Update 61 in the Fan Faire EQ2 Panel.

Note: The Freeport Revamp, Tradeskill Apprentices, Item Reforging, Mercenaries, Design Your Own Dungeon, Beastlord Class, etc. are all part of the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion to be released this November.

Despite their having hardly left the drawing board, players have drawn some conclusions about the upcoming Design Your Own Dungeon feature, based on how similar features have been implemented, and how they’ve fared–mostly unsuccessfully–in other games. Speculation, as they say, has been rampant.

However Rothgar isn’t willing to yield the “DYOD will be abandoned just like Arenas” ground just yet. From the EQ2 Forums:

The arena argument doesn’t work, sorry. You can also play arenas using your normal characters and people don’t do that anymore either. There are several other reasons why arena’s didn’t work, but that’s a discussion for another thread. If it were simply because of the avatar system, people would still be playing them with their own characters, but they aren’t.

Here’s our sixth video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Mechanics”.

If you’d like to view the transcript from this panel, check out our EQ2 Panel #5 – Mechanics writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.

Here are your update notes for July 26, 2011 from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug that would cause /camp login to sometimes go to character select even if a character was given.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Sullon’s Spire and Tallon’s Stronghold x4 raid zones (NOT challenge mode)

• Several of the encounters in these zones have been made less powerful so that the challenge from these zones is more in line with the rewards.

QUESTS

Heritage

• It should no longer be possible to create a situation where the Head Usher in the Tower of Frozen Shadow cannot be spawned for the Skinning Knife subquest Unhappily Ever After.

The Fanged Sea

• The valkyrie event in The Fanged Sea can once again be completed.

LIVE EVENTS

Dragon Ring Rebuild Event

• Kreegar Krikneck should no longer require challenge mode debuffs to complete the encounter.
• Attacking NPCs should no longer despawn while in combat.

Wizard Spire Rebuild Event

• Attacking NPCs should no longer despawn while in combat.

Today’s update changs the flag on the new Incandescent Swiftwing (Phoenix Gryphon) to HEIRLOOM, restores the ability to switch accounts without completely closing the EQ2 client (previously ProfitUI users had been using /camp) with a new command /camp login, as well as a couple of other fixes in Zek and Drunder.

From the EQ2 Update Notes:

GENERAL

You can now use “/camp login” to get back to the client login screen.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Temple of Rallos Zek [Challenge]

• The Idol of Rallos Zek’s falling debris should work normally now.

ITEMS

• The Heirloom tag has been removed from a few crafted Drunder weapons.

• The Incandescent Swiftwing is now flagged as heirloom.

QUESTS
Tower of Tactics

• The Art of War: It should no longer be possible for one of Vallon’s maps to spawn in a ledge in Lady V’uul’s room that is inaccessible.

Today’s Update includes numerous tweaks to the harder Velious dungeons, further reducing the difficulty of many zones, as well as the aforementioned reduction in the cost of Velium Shard armor (Ry’Gorr armor is now 25 shards per piece, 20 if crafted). A glitch with Leaper or Glider mounts and pets (especially Coercer pets) has also been resolved.

I’ve posted our first video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Freeport and Beyond” which is an overview of everything we can expect from the EQ2 team until November 2011.

If you’d like to view the Slides from this panel in higher quality, check out the updated EQ2 Panel #1 – Freeport and Beyond writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where you could relinquish your home and cause your guild hall to be relinquished too!

MOUNTS

• Gliding mounts will no longer port up into the air after using certain teleports.
• Players using leapers and gliders should appear to move smoother when viewed on other player’s clients.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

• The normal mode x4 raid zones (Temple, Throne, Kraytoc’s and Drunder zones) require less critical mitigation than before.  Players with less critical mitigation should have a better chance for survival.

Starting Saturday’s EverQuest II Q&A Panel…

Update: This is a video of EverQuest II Panel #7 “Q&A #2” added on July 24, 2011.

Starting the EverQuest II: Itemization, Class Balance, Mechanics panel…

Salim “Silius“, Carlos “Gninja” Mora, Greg “Rothgar” Spence, Paul “Frizznik” Carrico, Mike “Xelgad” Ganz