Feldon
EQ2Wire would like to know, will you attend Fan Faire 2011? Do you have a question you’d like asked at Fan Faire by EQ2Wire? If so, post it in the Comments, or send us an e-mail!
If you are in the US and were planning to stock up on and redeem a bunch of StationCash cards this weekend, you might not be aware that the Wal-Mart exclusive StationCash cards, which reward not 1500SC but 2000SC for $15, have been confirmed to triple in value when redeemed during this weekend’s Triple StationCash event. Between 12:01 AM PDT May 27, 2011 and 11:59 PM PDT May 30, 2011, redeem any SOE Pre-Paid Game Card and get TRIPLE Station Cash for a limited time only! While any StationCash card can be redeemed for StationCash in EQ2, even cards...
If you watched yesterday afternoon’s SOE Fan Faire webcast, then you already know that Linda “Brasse” Carlson will be stepping up as this year’s official Host of Fan Faire. A Jace Hall-free weekend in Vegas is certainly something to celebrate with lots of Dwarvish Ale. 🙂 I’ve been wracking my brain on stuff that I can say that won’t get me fired! We’ll see how that turns out. I’ve already got approval from Legal on a couple of them. Now we just have to get approval from Community and Smed.
If you just can’t get enough of Thurgadin, City of the Coldain Dwarves in Velious, and wish you could take some of it home with you, take heart. The Thurgadin Grand Hall joins the Kromzek House as one of two new houses now on the Test and Test Copy servers. The voluminous Thurgadin Grand Hall will make you wish indoor flying were possible, as the new house contains both the Remembrance Park and an enlarged version of the Mercantile area of the city of Thurgadin.
A seventh Prestige Housing portal has appeared on Test and EQ2Wire went to check it out. The new Enchanted Kromzek manor joins the largest Prestige Houses including the sprawling Mistmoore Estate.
The EQ2 special in-game item for our Fan Faire attendees has just been announced on SOE’s Facebook page. “Prismatic Cloud” – This magical rainbowed mount is sure to carry you all the way!
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a week and a half since EverQuest II service was restored, and harder still that EQ2 was offline for 12 days, an exceptional operational gap for a game modeled on “sticky” customers who login daily to check in on and advance their characters. During the downtime, EQ2Wire wanted to give the EQ2 team an opportunity to come out from behind the bushes and share a bit of what they’ve been working on and maybe break some of the tension. After all, the EQ2 team had only just taken the wraps off 3...
We’re still 1 week away from Game Update 60 and Today’s update fixes a few outstanding bugs, specifically a Public Quest Participation loot bug, as well as handing out those five 7-day Research Potions to make up for the Research Assistants going on holiday while the servers were inaccessible. The full Update Notes after the jump…
From EverQuest2.com: We’re back up and Early Bird pricing has been extended until May 31st! We’ve been busy planning and have announced several updates to the schedule and will continue to do so over the coming weeks, so please continuously check back for details! Thank you again for your patience and we look forward to seeing you in July! All-Access Passes to the expanded SOE Fan Faire are now available for purchase at the early bird price of $119.00 USD which includes access to developer forums, panels and roundtables along with goody-bags and giveaways. Attendees who register after May...
Before it was so rudely interrupted by a few hackers you might have heard of, the StationCash “May Madness” deal had been announced and was slated to run from May 2nd–5th. Prior to Friday’s announcement, players noticed that May Madness was indeed in effect and we now know it will run until May 25th. Discounts cover a wide range of services including Character Slots, Guild Renames, Character Transfers, Character Name and Race Changes, as well as Vitality, Evac, and Tracking potions. Check out the EverQuest2.com article for the complete list of discounts. And starting on May 27th, SOE will...
As part of the Welcome Back program for the Legends of Norrath card game (available in EQ2 by typing /lon, or using the standalone LoN client), EQ and EQ2 players can claim a Choose Your Own Loot card which, when Redeemed within the Legends of Norrath window, offers a choice of some 16 in-game items from cloaks, to house items, to a rent-free New Halas house, to new serpent wraps for your character’s arms. Additional information about the Legends of Norrath Welcome Back program is available here. This story was first brought to our attention by Kaozz on her...
From EverQuest2.com: Hello, Norrathians! We’re incredibly glad to have our worlds back online again and we really appreciate you all being so patient with us while we strengthened the castle walls. It’s been quite odd working on the game without it running. We’re glad you’re back! So, you’re probably wondering, “What has your Dev Team been doing for the last couple of weeks?” Here’s a small list of things that happened during that time: Figured out the Fan Faire panel details. The “New Stuff” panel is going to be a heck of a show this year, I think. Continued...
Less than a week after restoring its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, Sony temporarily took down the password reset pages to fix a vulnerability that allowed hackers to change a user’s password if their birthdate and e-mail address were known. These data were among the pieces of information believed to have been obtained by the attack last month. There has been no known effect on Sony Online Entertainment and by extension EverQuest II, however this new problem has players nervous that Sony has not taken appropriate steps to lock down the most critical points of attack such as the...
From EverQuest2.com: Beginning at 7 AM PDT (15:00 BST, 16:00 CET) on Thursday May 19, 2011, the Login Server, SOE Account and Commerce flow and the Station Store will be unavailable due to maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 2 hours. This may also cause some forum accounts to temporarily lose permissions, due to the inability to verify account status while the maintenance is taking place. This is only temporary and normal permissions will return automatically once the maintenance is complete. We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.
An issue brought to my attention by Cyliena of EQ2 ZAM and Tuatha of CheesePirate.com involves Player-written books which have lost their Edit rights since the Server Merges last December. This is not an issue that has gotten much attention, but after 6 months, maybe it’s time to shine a bit brighter spotlight. Because the books are no longer editable, it’s not only impossible to edit them, but copying them is difficult as the text cannot be selected — it must be retyped word-for-word. This problem is being discussed on a thread on the EQ2 Forums. From Cyliena: My...
In an interesting turn of events, Bronze and Silver players of EQ2X are being given 30 days of Gold access as part of SOE’s “Make Good” program. You’ll recall that Bronze is the free-to-play level of service, while Silver pay a one-time fee. Although players of both Bronze and Silver levels can and do buy various race and item unlocks, some have played EQ2 entirely for free. From SmokeJumper on the EQ2X forums: Hi, folks, We don’t want the Silver and Bronze members to feel like they’re being left out in the cold on this Make Good program that...
Adding to the Identity Theft Protection plan already announced for US customers, today, SOE has announced a similar program for EU customers. For customers based in the United States, we have made arrangements with Debix, Inc., one of the industry’s most reputable identity protection firms, to offer AllClear ID PLUS at no cost to Station Account holders for 12 months from the time an account holder registers for the program. To qualify, Station Account holders must enroll by June 28, 2011. US – based customers will receive an email in the next few days, confirming how to access their...
If you follow EQ2 devs on Twitter, this is likely old news to you, but Kyle “Kander” Kyle VallĂ©e has posed some questions: What #EQII zone would you love to see revamped into new heroic content ? Note, this would be an alternate version perhaps scaled up to level 90 as a “revisit” zone, just as Nek Castle can be revisited at level 50 and 70. These changes would not affect the original zones. Here are some of his responses: Estate of Unrest: “great the way it is” Obelisk of Lost Souls: “not a bad idea”. Rivervale: “does indeed...
While SOE and by extension EQ2 were offline during the 12 day downtime, what were the devs doing? Scrapbooking? Needlepoint? Actually, they continued work on Game Update 60 (now slated for a May 31st debut according to SmokeJumper) as well as looking ahead to Game Update 61 and beyond. While players were not able to test Game Update 60, the developers have continued to polish it up and add new things while the servers were down, as well as addressing the feedback from players during the short testing period.
We’ve been hearing about a new Adornments System in Game Update 60. System is perhaps too strong a word for what we’ve seen on Test. But the changes indeed help to visually distinguish adornments from other items which makes finding them in bags a lot easier. Item Examine windows have seen a change, as adornment text has been replaced by subtle Adornment “badges” for each color the item supports. Adornments themselves have been given bold new icons which are unique, color-coded, and stand out from other items in both recipe books and inventory bags. Your Feedback Does this go...
One of the side benefits of the Welcome Back program, which has seen all City Festivals (Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak, Kelethin, and Gorowyn) live simultaneously, is that we now have access to items on the merchants which weren’t going to make an appearance for several months. From Domino: The new stuff was originally intended to slowly be revealed over the next half year as the festivals cycled around … but with them all turned on at once you have a bit of a deluge of new goodies! Glad they are enjoyed anyway. There may be some new things coming in...
So it turns out that some Research Assistants took a little vacation while the servers were inaccessible and did not continue dutifully researching upgrades for all players. After thoroughly investigating the issue, SmokeJumper has posted the planned solution: Hi, folks, When we came back online, we intended that Research would have continued to tick along while the outage occurred, so that you all would come back with a fully researched spell. However, that didn’t happen. And there’s no real way to make it automatically happen. So…in next Tuesday’s hotfix (2011.05.24) we will grant you five (5) potions, each of...
If you’ve toured Destiny of Velious, you know of the unused Wizard Spire in the Eastern Wastes and abandoned Dragon Ring in the Great Divide. An upcoming live event, recently pushed to Test and Test Copy by Gninja, seeks to rebuild them. These events will be more like Public Quests than past events. Both events share one currency [tokens] and currency can be obtained in two ways. There are blue collectibles that spawn around the event area. The number of collectibles vary based on the progress of the event. The second way is by defending the respective areas from...
Dethdlr
Here are your update notes for May 9th (17th?), 2011: USER INTERFACE Fixed a bug with dragging currency to the currency list in the Character window. Fixed a bug with the Character window’s location not saving correctly between session. HOUSING Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause stubborn portals to come back after being picked up. Fixed a potential bug with buying a house in a zone that instances. House portals should no longer port you while they are being moved around. Fixed an issue with item placement in the Maj’dul Vacation Suite. QUESTS Hold of Rime: The Ascent...
After nearly 2 weeks off the air, EQ2 came back online today. Between the new Password requirements, and any underlying changes made in favor of security, it was not surprising that players have reported a variety of problems from Timeout errors, Patch failed messages, etc. SOE Customer Service has been answering phones all day today despite it being Sunday to help players get back into the game after the extended downtime. There will always be issues that can’t be resolved immediately, but today it seems to have been all-hands-on-deck to get things working again.