Dethdlr
It all started with a simple post: “If you’ve ever fancied yourself a writer for EQ2Wire, whether it’s just updates on the happenings around Norrath, including updates on Live Events, shoot us an e-mail thru Contact Us.” Since then, I’ve gone from e-mailing articles to Feldon to full Author, Contributor, and Editor at EQ2Wire. You may have noticed a few of my articles over the past few weeks. Some of you are probably wondering, who is this Dethdlr person? Allow me to introduce myself. I started playing EQ2 on May 15th, 2005 but it wasn’t until August of 2006...
Feldon
Leading up to the launch of Game Update 56, there will be a prelude quest “A Vision of Valor” with a storyline leading to the rediscovery of New Halas. When this quest goes live mid-May, before the launch of Game Update 56, you’ll be able to pick it up in one of the home cities. From Domino on the EQ2 Forums: You will find NPCs in North Qeynos (at the temple), West Freeport (near the inn), Neriak (by the entrance), Kelethin (near Bayden Cauldthorn), and Gorowyn (at the dock) have a prelude quest to offer. As this content is...
Game Update 56, or least major chunks of it have been pushed to the Test Server. Already, I and other players have noted that certain textures are missing (especially with Shaders 3.0 enabled), and all housing is currently unavailable (making it impossible to take a peek inside the 2, 4, and 6 bedroom New Halas housing. But what may be more interesting is not what files are missing, but what files are unexpected. Because the Live and Test Servers are just another development branch of EQ2, inevitably, some Expansion and future Game Update/Live Event files get tagged and download...
Lessing (known on EQ2Flames as mafoe) has taken screen snapshots of the FABLED loot offered by the new Vendor being added in Game Update 56. Here are links to these screen snapshots: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAenf-rcI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/2KuKWlshkgY/EQ2_000868.jpg http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAe1IsMHI/AAAAAAAAAKU/Ttdtjvu6500/EQ2_000869.jpg http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAfTEriRI/AAAAAAAAAKY/MaEJl-oV8RM/EQ2_000870.jpg http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAfsymb7I/AAAAAAAAAKc/HmsbcyoJvm0/EQ2_000871.jpg http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAgXpQbpI/AAAAAAAAAKg/0g0DOHH5GSk/EQ2_000872.jpg
Game Update 56 is looking to be a huge update, with many tweaks and adjustments throughout Norrath. In brief… a substantial Travel Revamp more quests in Stonebrunt Highlands to hopefully fill that level 87-90 solo questing gap a new Storyline feature a new Icy Keep x4 Raid Shaders 3.0 Graphical Revamp Research Assistants can help all your characters Blue PvP Adornments Yellow Adornments on T9 Mastercrafted gear Level 90 Character Traits PvP Warfields new Training Dummy options in your guild hall (solo, group, raid, and AE group) and of course New Halas Also of note, is that a vendor...
Domino has posted some background and lore regarding the new tradeskill society, the Ravens of the North, in New Halas. From the EQ2 Forums:
The focus this week has been on new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson, and EQ2 Server Performance, which has been a persistent black cloud over EQ2 for the last 2 months. Test Copy Test Copy is getting some major use as it is where PvP and Battlegrounds changes are tested. Gninja advised us: We will be working out a schedule as to when the test_copy server will be pvp vrs pve. We are working it out now and will get back to you guys shortly. Stuck at Character Select An issue with being stuck at Character Select on Thursday...
From Rothgar on the EQ2 forums: We’ve located the issue that was causing the slow performance last Tuesday. This problem had ZERO to do with battlegrounds but they were taken down as a precaution anyway. I know that battlegrounds tends to get the bad rap because it’s new, but they are not always the cause of problems. In fact, we’ve got the character loading issues under control now so that there are no performance spikes as a result of characters going to and from the BG world. We’ve been making some general performance improvements that will help lower the...
After the widespread outages of the EQ2 servers the night prior, a thread was created on the EQ2 Forums to solicit an explanation from the EQ2 Developers, and/or new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson, on the cause, and to seek reassurances that the issues are being identified and on track to be resolved. As they tend to do, the thread branched into speculation on the origins of Dave Georgeson’s forum handle — SmokeJumper. Skywarrior posted his theory: Hmmmm. Smokejumpers are extremely brave (or crazy) and well-trained individuals who jump out of airplanes in order to reach remote areas involved...
From EQ2Players: Greetings Norrathians! Sharpen your swords and repair that armor. There will be bonus AA, Tradeskill, adventure experience (XP) this weekend starting at 3:00pm PDT on Friday, April 23rd until 11:59pm PDT Sunday, April 25th (2:59am EDT). Happy adventuring!
From the EQ2 Forums: Greetings all. An update on Battlegrounds and server issues. Battlegrounds will be down until at least tomorrow. While the BGs are down, we’ll be collecting data on the current server issues as an aid to tracking down what is causing the the lag and slow zoning times. We’ll be tracking the data with the BGs both off and on. If they appear to significantly affect the issues we’re seeing on the live servers, we’ll have them off over the weekend. We’ll let you know any further information we can share when we have it. We...
With the powerful buffs and bonuses of our Mythical/Fabled Epic Weapons safely squirreled away to a separate permanent spell (thanks to the Epic Repercussions quest), we’ve been able to divert our attention towards finding other, better weapons. While the choices are not plentiful (even with their buffs stripped, our Mythical weapons still have some formidable stats), the Sentinel’s Fate expansion is nonetheless supposed to offer us a variety of replacements for our now Enervated Weapons. Thus far, there have been a scant few upgrade choices for healers. Fortunately Kander has responded to these concerns: There will be some new...
Battlegrounds For Levels 30-79 We’ve gotten some more details on the format that Battlegrounds from levels 30-79 will take from timetravelling: After Game Update 56 the Battlegrounds tiers will be: 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89, and 90 Players in each tier will be auto-mentored down to the lowest common level (30, 40, 50, etc.). Players in each tier will also have armor sets and accessories available for purchase from the existing PvP Merchants in the major cities. The BG ‘starter’ sets will be the already-existing Mastercrafted armor sets (from levels 30 -> 70). Each has had a small...
We’ve received word that brand spanking new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson also gave an interview to Massively. It’s an interesting contrast to the EQ2 ZAM interview and worth a read. It may turn out that the only EQ2 fan site that didn’t get an interview with Dave Georgeson is EQ2Wire… The Tattered Notebook: A moment with Dave Georgeson @ Massively The Return of SmokeJumper Dave Georgeson has already taken the time to post on the EQ2 Forums and respond to some player concerns. He’s brought back his nickname “SmokeJumper” from when he was a developer on Planetside. You...
It has been brought to our attention that the EQ2 Passport program contains verbiage which could be construed as condoning the exploit of Battlegrounds: Penny Pinching Multiboxers Running several subscriptions might be a bit expensive these days, but not with this program! Fire up your alt accounts for a weekend raid or even a Battlegrounds match all by yourself!
I’ve just received an unexpected e-mail from the EverQuest II team regarding a new program for players on the fence, considering returning to EQ2, wanting to participate in seasonal and special events, or wanting to spin up an inactive account to do some Multiboxing. If you’ve let your any of your EQ2 account expire, and don’t want to commit for the whole $15 to restore access, you can now play for up to 3 days access for $5 through the new EQ2 Passport program. Commentary While it might seem a nice gesture to offer players who are short on...
If you have been poking and prodding the EQ2 forums hoping for even a brief Producer’s Letter from Dave Georgeson, you’ll be surprised to read the in-depth exclusive interview at EQ2 ZAM with new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson who replaced Alan “Brenlo” Crosby last week. EQ2 ZAM Interviews Dave Georgeson
Gninja wanted to get the word out that the quest Tending to Toxxicology will be getting a revamp which will result in quest progress being reset by anyone still on the quest. If you are on this quest, get it completed before Game Update 56 hits (late May). Or you can just wait until the change when the quest requirements will be reset to resolve the bugs people have been facing in trying to complete it. We are aware of the issues with the quest in Sundered Frontier “Tending to Toxxicology” becoming gated if someone summons Sherra prior to...
Today’s Hotfix grants Research Assistants the ability to research for all of your characters at once, instead of just one per account. Also included are tweaks to the UsabilityOnPlayer macro command, some adjustments to the Labs SF raid zone, and a change to the Focus: Death March adornment so that its effects are different between PvP and PvE. We’ve been advised that some Database maintenance will be performed at the same time, so the Hotfix and associated downtime may exceed 1 hour.
It turns out yesterday’s news on changes to the Training Dummies guild hall amenity was just the beginning. Xelgad has updated us with news that one of the choices on the menu when summoning a Training Dummy (in addition to Solo, as well as Heroic and Epic which are new to GU56) will be an Encounter: We’ve added a new set of dummies for GU56 that come as a linked encounter of a total of eight heroic training dummies. Enjoy! This should provide many more options for players wanting to work on what order they cast spells and/or combat...
In addition to the bigger content additions, Game Updates always include smaller, but no less desirable changes and tweaks. Research Assistants Learn to Multitask UPDATE: Oops! Despite appearing in the headline, this item somehow got left out! UPDATE #2: This feature is in the April 20, 2010 Hotfix. Bunji, member of the EQ2 QA Team, has posted this info on the EQ2 In Testing Feedback forums: With the new Test server build, each character on an account can research a spell at the same time (this should not affect existing research). Research times are also being tweaked (lowered). Floating...
Did you start a guild years ago and and give it a silly name as a goof? Did the guild manage to survive and now has lots of members but still has a silly name? Ever wish you could change the name? Help is on the way! shotens recently posted a request on the EQ2 Forums: So what I ask is for the Dev team to put out a product that we can spend our hard earned money on that allows us to change a guild name. and got this startling response from Rothgar: It’s done and should be...
EQ2Players has a new video showcasing Halas Reborn. Check it out below. And in case you missed it, here are Screenshots of Halas Reborn Housing.
Game Update 56 is coming soon to the Test and Test Copy servers, and in addition to the expected New Halas starting zone and city, which will have 2, 4, and 6 room housing as well as Tier 1 Guild Halls (unknown if it will be the same or different artwork), and in addition to a new raid zone, some substantial changes are happening to Battlegrounds and PvP combat in general. Battlegrounds in particular are being expanded from level 80-90 to level 30-90. timetravelling gave this Battlegrounds preview: Brand new 1st Campaign armor sets and accessories Many of the...
Linda “Brasse” Carlson, Senior Community Manager for SOE has posted this update on the EQ2 Forums: After many years of service, Alan “Brenlo” Crosby has decided to leave SOE to pursue other opportunities. And while it is sad to see him leave, we wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors. At this time, we’d like to take a moment to introduce EverQuest II’s new producer, Dave Georgeson. Dave is excited to join the EQII Team and will be posting an introduction in the near future. According to EQ2 Zam, Dave’s resume includes SOE’s Planetside and Free...