Feldon
From EQ2 Zam: Astute fans of Sony Online Entertainment noticed Alan “Brenlo” Crosby changed his job status on Facebook this afternoon. His Recent Activity says “Alan removed his job as Senior Producer – EverQuest II at Sony.” A query to Christine “Kiara” Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, resulted in a polite “no comment.”We will report details as they become available. Wherever Alan is going, ZAM and the EQII Community wish him the best. He said this to Massively: Yeah after working together for 10 years, it was my time to move on. Was a great ride and I am going...
Dethdlr
Guild halls have an amenity available that allow a person to click on a chest and recieve a training dummy in their inventory. Right clicking and choosing “use” places the dummy in the guild hall as an attackable object. This is useful for trying out different casting orders, AA specs, gear, etc. to see what parses better. The problem is that the training dummies don’t have enough hit points. If the training dummy dies in 15 seconds, it doesn’t give you much time to determine anything. Some people have used the training wall in Kunzar Jungle instead since it has more...
When Sentinel’s Fate was released, it introduced a change in the way the /target_previous command functions. This change broke some cure macros. Lets take a cure macro that did this: /target_group_member 3 Cure spell /target_previous If you had group member 1 targeted and clicked the macro for group member 3, all would be fine. The macro would target group member 3, cast the cure, then go to the previous target which would be group member 1. All is well. If you had group member 3 targeted and clicked the macro for group member 3, problems occured. The macro would...
EQ2Players has a preview up about the housing in New Halas. Andres Rodriguez is the artist responsible for designing the new houses and he took the time to answer some questions and share some pictures. The houses will be available in two, four and six room layouts and there will also be access to T1 guildhalls. They will include some built in bookshelves and even a fireplace. And all the houses in New Halas will include windows with a view to the sea. New Halas Housing @ EQ2Players
Here are your hotfix notes for today, April 13th, including adjustments to group and raid zones, as well as spell resists in PvP combat. After the jump:
In a break from the stock answer that has been given in regard to server merges for the last few years, Rothgar says server merges are something they are considering a little down the road. The EQ2 world isn’t exactly in the best shape it’s ever been in at the moment with zoning issues, instance lag, contested named fight lag, and broker lag so the dev team has a few issues to take care of before they can move forward with this idea. But this tells us that the idea is at least back on the table. Rothgar writes:...
Since Sentinel’s Fate went live, many people have been reporting issues with Guild Events not showing properly. Some report guild levels not showing up in the guild log and AA points from 201+ not being announced and/or logged. Those days may be behind us. On 4/12/2010, Bunju from Quality Assurance posted on the EQ2 Forums: A fix for this issue went in with the last Hotfix. Are you all seeing the 80-90 ts/adv level and 200-250 AA event notifications now? Thanks. Hopefully this is now fixed.
We wrap up another week in Norrath with some posts from the EQ2 forums from developers and players alike which you may have missed. Also, although no date has yet been announced, work on Game Update 56 has likely reached a feverish pace and we’ll start hearing more about it soon. Waiting for Zone Info The EQ2 and SOE teams have been putting in long hours trying to resolve the database and server lag/performance issues since the expansion. Zoltaroth has weighed in with this update: We are also internally testing some additional updates that should furthur improve zoning (specifically...
EQ2Players checked in with Amanda McNair this week with another Artist Highlight. Amanda worked on the artwork for the Shard of Love and the Battlefield of Ganak, the capture the flag Battlefields zone. Here are some excerpts from the article: What do you draw from for inspiration for your art in EQII? I tend to draw my inspiration from everyday life and what is going on around me. When I visit museums, watch movies, or even flip through catalogues, I’m always checking out architectural elements and trying to decide how it was built, or taking pictures so I can...
We continue to follow progress on the Shaders 3.0 update. Imago-Quem (Ryan) has continued to work tirelessly on this project and we have an update of sorts. Originally intended as a graphical bump to improve the appearance of the game in existing and new zones, Shaders 3.0 was expanded and re-prioritized into a sweeping optimization of the EQ2 graphical pipeline engine first, and a graphical improvement second. Part of this process was Imago-Quem providing tools to the EQ2 zone and character art developers so that all new content they create for this and future expansions is fully compatible with...
Rothgar has been working closely with the Database folks trying to solve the Server Performance Issues, specifically Server-side Lag, and extremely long Zoning times which have become a major problem facing EQ2 since Game Update 55, the Sentinel’s Fate expansion, and the introduction of Battlegrounds. These Database and Server Lag issues have been so disruptive, that they have largely drowned out discussion on other issues facing EQ2. Fortunately, Rothgar brings us an update on the situation regarding some long-needed caching being added to how character data is transmitted and stored: Right now we are addressing the database-related issues and...
An unintended consequence of today’s Hotfix seems to be that certain players have been unable to equip their Mythical weapons. Players affected include those who have not progressed in the Epic Repercussions quest. Xelgad has posted this comment: We’re aware of the issue and looking into a fix. In the meantime, please use the /petition command to contact Customer Service if your weapon cannot be equipped. They’ll be able to fix your weapon for you. UPDATE: This issue is related to the Balanced Ayr Stone adornment which used to provide +3% Parry and was applicable to weapon slots. On...
Today’s Hotfix include some anticipated tweaks to Itemization and Battlegrounds, such as resists and fixes to adornments. It also includes a cutback in the amount of damage put out by the 3-headed dog in The Vigilant: Final Destruction x2 raid zone. Even during the Beta, this particular mob was completely out of progression for the difficulty of the zone, gear players are expected to have at this point in the expansion, and intended audience of the zone. The complete April 7, 2010 Patch Notes after the jump:
Registration has opened for the annual Fan Faire 2010 event hosted by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). Fan Faire is returning to Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel & Casino August 5th ~ 8th, 2010. Official schedule information for the event is not yet available, but we have been advised that, barring any unforeseen changes, the schedule will be similar to that of past years. I’ve written an outline of what to expect based on previous Fan Faire events. This may be helpful for choosing flights and accommodations. Fan Faire has added another Pricing tier. In addition to the Silver Pass ($89)...
We missed this EQ2Players post from Friday but considering the excitement leading up to New Halas, we thought we’d post it. Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall has posted some of the Lore about what we can expect from New Halas and the twists and turns of the storyline. Meanwhile, Stacey Norman, Zone Artist, posted about her experiences in designing the city of New Halas. New Halas Lore @ EQ2Players By the way, this EQ2Players writeup has a thumbnail image of some of the concept art for New Halas. We wrangled up a link to a large version of this image.
Over a year ago, the EQ2 Guild window gained a new column — Guild Points. This often misunderstood feature allows your guild leader and management to award points for anything they (or the guild) decides to track. Some guilds award players who earn a certain amount of status, help level the guild, assist other players, or any number of ‘gold star’ type measurements of players. Of course, some guilds don’t use Guild Points at all. DKP in-game or website? Raid Guilds have the unique challenge of divvying up the limited amount of Loot acquired each night to 24 (or...
Ah… I remember the days… When low-level Adept spells and Treasured gear could be had for a mere 4-5 gold from the nearest broker. Those were the Salad Days (mmmm…Grilled Chicken Caesar). Then the Transmuters came. Like the Others on the far side of the island, a new wave of Adorners and Transmuters, desparate for raw materials, have unwittingly jacked things up for the rest of us. When everyone can be an Adorner, and only Adorners can make the cool toys, the market has, not surprisingly, shifted. And inflation, it turns out, is not just for bicycle tires and...
Been saving up your T8 shards for armor? Soon you’ll need less than you do today. Frizznik writes on the EQ2 Forums: Tier 1 will cost the same amount of shards as it did before (38 shards crafter-made, 44 shards vendor-bought) Tier 2 will cost the same amount of shards as it did before (112 shards crafter-made, 126 shards vendor-bought). It will also cost around 5 platinum. It will no longer require the tier 1 armor piece. Tier 3 will cost the raid dropped mold, the same void shards it did before, and around 9 platinum. You will no...
Bristlebane Day (April 1st) always brings out festivities and a bit of zanyness to EQ2. In past years, we’ve seen /cutemode (also try /cutemode 3 ) and in EQ1, turning everyone into wireframes. But this year, Bristlebane Day has put practicality in the place of tomfoolery. Today, Bristlebane Day, a unique quest has appeared in the Enchanted Lands, offered by a Sphinx, which pays tribute to the father of Dungeons & Dragons — Gary Gygax. The folks at ZAM were first to note that 2 of the 3 riddles given were also found in a FreeRealms quest. Further exploration...
A Story of Dark and Light Perhaps some Bristlebane Gremlins got into the works because briefly this morning, the monthly City Festival rolled into both Qeynos AND Freeport. According to this report, a few quick-thinking (and possibly light fingered) individuals snapped up a few Freeport furniture items before they vanished. The polished white marble of the regal Qeynos decorations have been countered by Freeport accoutrements with a decidely black color scheme. Alas, this was a short-term glitch and only those who were quick on the trigger were able to buy these items before the event reset and Qeynos became...
While Norrathians will get to celebrate Bristlebane for an extended time (March 30 -> April 12th), there is a special quest only available on April 1st. Kiara’s Bristlebane Day Preview @ EQ2Players Bristlebane Coverage @ EQ2 ZAM Bristlebane Crafting & Event Guide @ EQTraders
During the Sentinel’s Fate beta, many of us were surprised at just how powerful the armor and jewelry available from participating in Battlegrounds were. Many of us warned SOE during beta that having Battlegrounds gear that’s better than TSO raid jewelry would make Battlegrounds an expected/required part of progression for guilds. Battlegrounds gear launched with a new stat — Toughness — which is a type of Critical Mitigation that only works in Battlegrounds. Later, the most powerful effects on Battlegrounds gear (i.e. +10% Base Damage) became PvP-only. With the March 30th Update, the Resists and Physical Mitigation on the...
The feature set for the Sentinel’s Fate expansion has always included a bullet point indicating that Sentinel’s Fate would contain “more new armor appearances than currently exist in the game“. Yet players have been surprised that a lot of the brand new armor, weapons, shields, etc. dropping in Sentinel’s Fate look exactly like existing items. Kander has shed some light on this issue: Yes, many of these items got missed on the appearance pass. I am unsure why or how. We will start changing them for newer appearances ASAP. Please PM me if you have any other specific instances...
Luminata contacted me, hoping I would draw some attention to EQ2Players and the fact it has not been updated since the launch of Sentinel’s Fate. There was plenty of activity and postings on the EQ2Players Discussion area from the SOE Platform team around the time of the site revamp, but this renewed communication has again faded since the expansion launched. No characters, guilds, rankings, or any other statistical data has been updated since February 16th. The EQ2Players site now seems to be at a standstill. EQ2 Forum Discussions: How long before SF updates start to appear on EQ2Players ?...
From ZAM: Astute ZAM user MarisolBluesurf spotted this spash screen in Free Realms, annoucing a double Station Cash weekend! The promotional period is April 2, 2010 (after 4pm Pacific Time) through April 4, 2010 (before 11pm Pacific Time). Only retail card redemptions will receive double Station Cash. It doesn’t matter when you purchased the retail cards, only that you redeem them during the promotional period. While this is a Free Realms promotion, anyone with a Station account can redeem retail cards for double Station Cash during the promotional period. Once successfully redeemed, the cardholder’s wallet balance will reflect the...