Out with the Hole, In with the Velious

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

If you’ve been planning the mass extinction of Rays and Bulls in the Hole to grind out those 50 shiny new AAs, some ice water has just been thrown on that idea…

From Waters on the EQ2 Forums:

We’ve been watching where folks are playing and keeping an eye on how experience and alternate advancement gain is going since Velious launched. While we make every effort to balance the game during the beta testing period, we sometimes see new information on live servers, and need to make a change based on that info.

EverQuest Time Locked Progression Server Launched

Written by Kwill on . Posted in Uncategorized

Of interest to some players who may play both EQ1 and EQ2…

SOE has announced that a new time locked progression server for EverQuest 1, Fippy Darkpaw, is planned to go live on Tuesday at 10am PST. The server will use a normal player versus environment rule set. Players will take on challenges to unlock newer expansions, and when unlocked, will have the ability to vote using an in game poll for which expansion will be unlocked next.

Various armors and other items will be limited on the server if SOE has determined they would give an unfair advantage.

For more details on the progression server, please see the official announcement at EQPlayers from SOE.

Everseek’s 2010 Frostfell Decorating Contest

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

Everseek.com, the ultimate EQ2 House Item Reference Guide, will be hosting a Frostfell Decorating Contest this year. I’m thrilled to be one of the four judges of this contest. From EverSeek.com:

From Sunday, December 12, 2010 (12:01 a.m., US Pacific Time) through Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at (11:59 p.m., US Pacific Time), Everseek.com will be hosting a Frostfell decorating contest to celebrate the Frostfell holiday season. Submit your entry for a chance to win a cool item for your home! Depending on the number of entries, winners will be announced on or around January 17, 2011.

The judges for the contest are known in the EverQuest II Community as: Aslita (Decorator) Feldon (The EQ2 Wire) Jesdyr (Layout Editor Creator) and Serenitii (Everseek).

We look forward to your entries. 🙂

StationCash + Gifting = Platinum?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

With the ability to gift StationCash items restored to Norrath, players with thousands or even tens of thousands of platinum want to know: Am I going to get banned for trading Platinum in exchange for StationCash items?

An unexpected response from SmokeJumper after the jump…

Server Merge Update #3928

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

From Rothgar:

The merge process is still truckin’ along on schedule with no major issues.  I hope that we will be able to have the servers up earlier than planned but that will depend on whether or not we find any merge problems after all the data has been moved.

We’ll update you again in a few hours.

10:45am Status Update

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

Latest update on the Server Merge from Amnerys:

Good morning (or afternoon)! Hope everyone’s finding something to keep you busy during the downtime. 🙂 I also wanted to remind you that you can always log in to Test server if you start twitching too much.

If all goes according to plan, you probably won’t be hearing too much from us today, so don’t worry if you don’t see red names for a while. Back-end teams are hard at work on the merge, and the dev team is still doing all the pre-expansion launch stuff, so they have a full day’s work to keep them busy (or like Rothgar, they’re catching up on a few Z’s after staying up past 4am to oversee the start of the merge.)

As for me, it’s report day, and I’ve also got an article to pull together that I think everyone will be interested in reading. 🙂 Keep calm and carry on with the chat!

November 2, 2010 Hotfix Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

I hope you got a chance to test all those changes on the Test Server over the weekend, cause they went live today. Once we sorted through the formatting of said Update notes, we were able to determine that the changes cover a broad spectrum of gameplay elements, including solving crashes related to Voice Chat, Battlegrounds tweaks, etc. The most notable line item might be a fix to a potential exploit in Roehn Theer as we discussed over the weekend.

Your Update Notes for November 2, 2010 after the jump…

Feedback Sought on ‘Exile’ Status

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

EQ2 Lead Designer Rich Waters is seeking player feedback on why players stick with Exile despite the huge disadvantages. He posed the question:

Exiles were definitely a side-effect of the betrayal quest, and not an intentional feature. Some support was given to them in the past, but I wouldn’t plan on anything new.

Other than a wider deity choice, what motivates players to stay as exiles on the PVE servers?

EQ2X Breaking Station Access Accounts

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance, Uncategorized

There have been reports from several players that trying out EQ2X has wiped out all their entitlements on EQ2 Live with their Station Access account.  I have two Station Access accounts myself and have tried EQ2X on both of them.  One is fine, the other no longer has access to anything but the base game.  Zoltaroth wrote on the EQ2Live Forums:

We are looking into what is going on.  I am going to be in touch with the people who PMed me via PMs.

Until the account gets fixed, it’s as if you bought the base game at launch and never bought anything after that.  You can’t even get into the TSO zones because it doesn’t think you bought that expansion.

Hopefully this will be fixed soon.  Until then, if you have a Station Access account and want to try out EQ2X, be aware that you’re rolling the dice.  Everything may be fine but there is a chance that your live account will be locked out of everything once you’re done on the EQ2X server.

   

Dethdlr’s Dungeon: Unfortunate Coincidence with F2P Timing

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Commentary, Dethdlr's Dungeon, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Uncategorized

Dethdlr's Dungeon

E3 took place this year from June 15-17.  SmokeJumper was interviewed and said that the current subscription model would not change.  When asked after the announcement of EQ2 Extended about that interview, he had this to say:

Yes, at that time, we were discussing the concept. No, we were not ready to commit to it, nor did we have any details of what we might be doing.

On July 27th, EQ2 Extended was announced.  I counted up how many work days passed between the interview and the announcment.  Guess how many work days went by?

Direct2Drive Deal: Buy Sentinel’s Fate & Bonus Armor for $14.95

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

From EQ2Players:

Direct 2 Drive is offering a special deal on an EQII pack that will help new and returning players get into the game quickly.

For a limited time, pick up EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate, along with three Flask of Adventuring bonus potions, the Vestiges of Glory Armor Pack, and a 30-day subscription for new accounts, all for just $14.95.

This offer expires July 26th, so don’t let it pass you (and your friends) by! Also available for purchase in Pounds (UK) and Euros (EU).

Another Round of Layoffs For SOE: 35 Positions Trimmed

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

UPDATE: We heard about layoffs today, but linked to (and quoted) the 2009 article. Here is the correct link and quote:

From IndustryGamers.com:

The developer behind DC Universe Online and The Agency, Sony Online Entertainment, has laid off 35 employees, or just over 4% of its full-time workforce, in an effort to “better align the company’s resources…as well as improve operational efficiency,” says SOE’s Scott Gulbransen, senior director of global PR & corporate communications.

The official statement: “In a move to better align the company’s resources against areas of growth that meet consumer demand in today’s online market as well as improve operational efficiency, Sony Online Entertainment has eliminated just over 4% of its full-time workforce, equaling 35 people. The changes will better position SOE to deliver against its emphasis on developing games for a wider, more diverse audience and remaining a worldwide leader in online gaming.”

These layoffs are almost exactly one year after the company announced layoffs of 41 employees on July 17, 2009.

Watch for Phishing Scams — Protect your Login/Password

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

From the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrathians!

We have been made aware of a potential threat to your account security, and ask you to read this, pass it on, link it and let others know.

There is a serious phishing scam being perpetrated right now. You may receive an email telling you that your password has been changed or asking you to log into the linked site for some reason.

Please double check the URL of the site that you are being asked to access. The legitimate SOE site will have this URL: http://auth.station.sony.com. Please do not enter your information on any other site, as it is not secure.

If you feel that your account may have been compromised, please contact CS immediately.

Contact CS:

1. Live Chat – http://www.station.com/kb (Chat Support tab). If you cannot find the answer through the knowledge base, click on the “Chat Support” tab to chat live with a Support Representative. Chat Support is open Monday to Friday, from 10:00am – 7:00pm PST.

2. Email Supporthttp://www.station.com/kb (Email Support tab).  If you cannot find the answer through the knowledge base, click on the “Email Support” tab to email a Support Representative.

3. Phone Support – Available Monday through Friday from 10:00am – 7:00pm PST, except holidays, at 1-858-537-0898.  If you have forgotten your password required to use our email or chat support, and cannot complete the “Forgotten your password” form, please feel free to contact us via our phone support, and we will assist you from there.

Calthine’s Fan Faire (Survival) Tips

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

Have you registered for Fan Faire yet?  It’s less than a month away and registration closes in two weeks. That means it’s time for Calthine’s annual Fan Faire Tips! If you are planning to attend Fan Faire, I recommend reading her survival guide. Between tracking down guildies, meeting new friends, and trying to catch all the panels and events that affect your game(s) of choice, the Fan Faire weekend becomes a blur. It’s helpful to be prepared.

SmokeJumper on Streamlining the New Player Experience

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

If you are wondering why there has been a whirlwind of changes and announcements about what new players experience from levels 1-20, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that DaveSmokeJumperGeorgeson, EQ2’s Senior Producer, has been spending a lot of time creating new characters in each of the starting cities to find the rough spots and smooth them out.

EQ2Forums Says Goodbye to the Server Forums

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Uncategorized

Over on the official EQ2 Forums, Kiara writes:

Greetings all!

I wanted to let you know that we’ll be making some changes to the forums this week.

We will be removing the server forums and replacing them with the following:

  • Guide Events
  • Player Events
  • Guild Recruitment
  • Roleplaying
  • Live Gamer

We will be leaving the server forums up for a little while to move some of the stickied threads that folks want to keep into the new forums.

The new forums will appear tomorrow.  If you see a thread in your server forum that you think really needs to be in one of the new forums, please report it and we’ll review it and see if it needs to be transfered or if it would just be better to start a new one.

PvP <-> PvE Character Transfers?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Uncategorized

The topic of PvP <-> PvE Character Transfers came up on Monday from a WoW player who has recently rejoined EQ2. The topic received an interesting response from EQ2 Senior Producer “SmokeJumper“:

We’re currently investigating a lot of issues to make things friendlier for you folks. This is a decent idea, but to be honest, I’d have to ask about the technical and game balance issues involved. However, I will do so. I’m curious also.

(by the way…”WoW does it” is not a valid reason for me. We aren’t WoW and don’t intend to be. But good ideas are good ideas. No need to shore them up with “WoW does it”.

Commentary

It is a perennial topic. Will EQ2 ever allow character transfers between PvP and PvE servers?

Player response has ranged amongst:

  • “Where can I sign up?”
  • “It will kill the game”
  • “It will empty the PvP servers”
  • “PvE characters who have never had to defend themselves against other players shouldn’t now be able to stroll onto a PvP server”
  • “There are unique PvP items which shouldn’t be allowed on PvE servers”
  • “There are unique PvE items which shouldn’t be allowed on PvP servers”

At one time, we were told flat out that the database wouldn’t support such transfers. But with the introduction of Battlegrounds, with players from PvP and PvE worls mixing it up together with a smattering of PvP and PvE equipment, it seems now the reasons not to allow such transfers are about game balance rather than technical in nature.

Tranfers Already Happening?

When Battlegrounds first came out, a variety of exploits were discovered. Most of them centered around platinum duplication and duplicating items via transmuting. But apparently some players have been able to transfer between PvP and PvE servers by visiting Battlegrounds and claiming a Character Transfer token.

We (as well as the developers) have been unable to confirm actual transfers, so at this point it remains an unsubstantiated rumor.

It seems likely that players who have successfully transferred are laying low to avoid their characters being rolled back or suspended.


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