Feldon
Calthine of EQ2 ZAM is reporting that Battlegrounds are now on the Test Copy server. Here’s the Battlegrounds window: (flip through images) Note: There is currently an issue preventing people from being pulled into the Battlegrounds interface when clicking the “Queue” button. Devs are on the case.
Once everyone logs back into EverQuest II with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate and Game Update 55, you will face many choices. Do you reset your AAs and spend them differently to take advantage of the new endline abilities of my Class and Subclass Trees? We already know that your Kingdom of Sky Class page will be reset on your first login, because points are spent differently on it. Do you start solo questing from level 80-90? Don’t forget to move your AA slider back from 100%! You cannot spend more than 200 AAs until you reach level 81....
As mentioned in the Ustream event last night with Brenlo, and also in an earlier EQ2Wire post, the EQ2 Dev Team have been working hard to make sure there is a logical, smooth quest progression from level 1-90. 1-20 and 70-80 were already pretty trouble free. There have been some longstanding leveling gaps in the low 30’s, high 30’s, and the entire 50-68 range. Calthine has been documenting all the new quests as well as overarching Signature quest “The Legend of Roger Goldie” that runs from level 20 to 70. The Butcherblock dock area has gotten a bit of...
Don’t forget to join us for SOE’s first ever Ustream Beta Tour, on Friday, February 5, 2010, hosted by Alan “Brenlo” Crosby, Senior Producer of EverQuest II. Beginning at 4:00 p.m. PST, tune in to SOE’s Ustream channel to get an exclusive guided tour of EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate, through the eyes of the game’s producer. Chat with other viewers as the tour takes place, and get ramped up for the expansion release, on February, 16, 2010. We’ll see you there! Sony Online Entertainment @ USTREAM UPDATE: After 40 minutes, so far we have discovered that UStream + EQ2...
Since there seems to be some doubt… Kiara has reported in as of 11:30AM PDT. The NDA for Sentinel’s Fate is officially lifted! All of you, who have been (not so) patiently waiting can spill the beans! Those of you who didn’t wait and were breaking it all along… Coal in your stockings. This means ANY issues discussed in Beta, in the Beta forums, etc. can now be discussed.
I’m sure a lot of you are wondering. Where’s the good stuff? Where’s the shard gear? Where’s the raid gear? Where’s the Battlegrounds gear? Where’s the detailed analysis of class changes, the new AAs, racial traits, etc.? The meat and potatoes of groupers and raiders that my readers have come to expect from EQ2Wire? Frankly, I’d like to know too. 🙂 However even at this late date, all of these items are in such a state of flux on Beta, that it seems to document ANYTHING at this point would be foolhardy. Beta veterans assure me that there’s plenty...
EQ2Wire got an invitation to go on a tour of the Sentinel’s Fate Beta with the lovely Christine “Kiara” Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, last month and we’re now able to post some screens and details of that tour. We were able to check out the hub city of Paineel, the sprawling open dungeon the Hole, the Vasty Deep Conservatory, and the Erudin Library. I believe the most stunning aspect and lasting appeal of Sentinel’s Fate will be the artwork. The Shadow Odyssey artwork was not my favorite. I found the “void” look of purples, greys, and sharp edges just...
Kiara has posted the following on EQ2 Forums: International customers will be able to DD the expansion on Feb 16th and take advantage of the headstart offer. They will receive the DD version of the game and the things included in that package: These include: 500 Station Cash LoN Fall of Erudin scenario 30 days free play time for new accounts In-game armor piece – Guarding of the Learned The distributors have not yet been announced. We are still waiting on some final requirements to be met. As soon as we are permitted to do so, we will announce...
Mythicals present a significant challenge to EQ2 developers trying to create desirable weapons for players at level 90. Some of the Mythical effects are uniquely powerful and no player would even consider replacing them without getting the same effect with another weapon. For this reason, it was announced at Fan Faire that mythicals would become either an equippable charm, or a clickable item. Already, in Beta, players have discovered that, when equipped, Mythicals would not modify level 81-90 spells (eg. Chimes of Blades III, etc.). The Truth Comes Out Frizznik has posted in the Beta forums that owners of...
Sentinel’s Fate Group Dungeon & Raid Zone List by Difficulty Difficulty Rating Key Easy Easy to Moderate Moderate Moderate to Hard Hard The Hole contested (82-90) Sprawling dungeon with 3 wings of difficulty, most content tailored for 2-4 players. Old Paineel Dartain’s Fortress Tower of Serilis The Hole instances Demitrik’s Bastion (85+) The Outer Vault (88+) Spirit’s Resonance (88+) Vasty Deep The Conservatory (86-88) The Abandoned Labs (90) The Vestigal Cella (90) Erudin Erudin Library (87-89) Erudin Research Halls (90) Erudin Royal Palace (90) The Vigilant The Vigilant: Incursion! (90) The Vigilant: Infiltration! (90) The Vigilant: Rescue! (90) Sentinel’s...
From EQ2Players: Raiding is an important part of gameplay for many and is a part of every MMO. Roger “Patherpanchali” Uzun designs the raids for EQII and Brett “Timetravelling” Scheinert often works with him on these. Timetravelling was kind enough to sit down and give us an overview of the new raids coming with Sentinel’s Fate. We have three x4 raid instances launching with: Sentinel’s Fate: Lair of the Dragon Queen (x4) Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory (x4) The Palace of Roehn Theer (x4) For x4 content players will discover the Lair of the Dragon Queen first, then Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory,...
While we don’t have all the details on what perks will be available to Guilds reaching the new level 90 cap, we know that Game Update #55 will add 2 new Guild Hall Amenities. The first is pretty straightforward. It’s a Wizard Portal NPC with all the destinations available from the Ulteran Spires. It does not include the Kingdom of Sky zones of Tenebrous Tangle, Barren Sky, or Bonemire: Realm of Dawn. You’ll still need that amenity if your guildies are making regular use of these zones. The second new Guild Hall Amenity is the Guild Standard Bearer. If...
The Adornments system in EQ2 has always been pretty confusing. And so far, there just have not been a lot of options for certain classes in certain slots for adornments. Each of the 9 tradeskill classes and the 2 secondary tradeskill classes have each made a handful of adornments. necessitating adornment websites to keep it all straight. We are thrilled to see that the Kanga will be updating her fantastic EQ2 Adornments site for Game Update 55. With Game Update 55, adornments have been rebuilt from the ground up. In fact some prized adornments (Parry) can no longer be...
EQ2Wire is providing continuing coverage of Game Update #55 (now on Test) and the Sentinel’s Fate expansion. News is coming hot and fast now, so we’ve improved how news items are labeled and have added a News Ticker at the top of the site. Don’t forget the UStream Sentinel’s Fate Beta Tour which will be led by Alan “Brenlo” Crosby. This is tomorrow Friday at 4PM PDT. We are currently working on articles about the new Adornments, Guild Amenities, Leveling Tweaks, and a Zone List for the expansion.
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And just to bring out tour of the UI improvements in Game Update #55 full circle, the lowly Zone Timers (Lockouts) window has been the bane of many a raid leader, as they remind players over and over to reset their group/raid persistent zone timers. While I didn’t see a /resetallzones command (there might be one, I’m just not aware of it), the new Filter function at the bottom of the Zone Timers window should help considerably at raid time.
Many of us have been faced with the prospect of trying to find a spell or combat art out of our Knowledge book, only to be frustrated by a wall of all our spells from levels 1-80. This will only get more difficult when another tier of spells is added with the expansion. Fortunately, the Knowledge book has gotten a great new Filter feature that lets you choose to only show the highest level version of each spell you have. This doesn’t just mean all the spells from 71-80. Some classes have abilities which do not get updated beyond...
You’ve probably already seen screenshots of the Updated Quest Window. We saw it way back in November when Brenlo posted it as a twitter picture. It’s great to finally see it coming to the live game. If you’ve ever been frustrated with having to constantly open the Quest Journal and flip through your quests to see what steps you need on all the quests you are working on in a certain area, you will be relieved to see the multi-quest tracking feature of the new Journal. Now, you determine what quests appear in your Quest Helper floating window by...
Consolidating Stats Sentinel’s Fate consolidates many separate stats in an effort to simplify itemization. Developers have been hounded on the EQ2 forums for “ignoring” healers, hybrid classes which need both spell and melee abilities, etc. in designing gear. Stat Consolidation is a huge step in making a smaller set of gear usable by a larger player population. Here is the list of changes: Crit = Damage Spell Crit, Melee Crit, Range Crit, Heal Crit Crit Bonus = Spell Crit Bonus, Melee Crit Bonus, Range Crit Bonus Double Attack = Double Attack, Ranged Double Attack Potency = Base Spell Damage,...
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about what changes we’ll be seeing to Transmuting come February 16th. So I thought it was worth a rehash as Transmuting is changing quite a bit. The Way It Was Transmuting started out as a secondary tradeskill. It granted the ability to not only break down unwanted Treasured, Legendary, Mastercrafted, and Fabled gear, but also make certain adornments. But the drawbacks have been many. Transmuting could only be skilled up to 100 by breaking down items. Reaching 400 skill could only be achieved by crafting (at great expense) hundreds of worthless low level...
Everything you know about the main Character Stats is about to change. For the past 5 years, in addition to the primary stats that each class uses: Predators have focused on STR to do melee and ranged damage and INT to increase poison damage. Druids have focused on STR to do more melee damage. Crusaders have focused on INT for spell damage and WIS for healing. These are just the most obvious examples, but all 24 classes had some unique benefits from the different Stats. Starting with Sentinel’s Fate, each class now benefits significantly from just ONE statistic, even...
It looks like SOE have renewed their partnership with nVidia for the launch of EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate. When firing up the EQ2 Test, I was presented with the NVidia: The Way It’s Meant to be Played logo.
Erollisi Day festivities started at midnight, February 4th (after a brief hotfix) and will run until the expansion (February 16th). Erollisi Day is the celebration of the goddess of love and all things related to the emotion that sets hearts to galloping! With the return of Erollisi Day, many of your favourite activities from previous years’ celebrations are making comebacks with new rewards! Erollisi Day @ EQ2Players Erollisi Day 2010 Event @ EQ2 ZAM Erollisi Day Crafting @ EQTraders
From the EQ2 Forums: Crushbone, Befallen, and Permafrost will be brought down Friday morning for some upgrades to address the lag issues. The estimated downtime is four hours. We’ll be bringing down the servers at 6am PST and will update this thread with details as needed. Rothgar has been communicating what steps the server team have been taking with regards to this issue. You may be interested in some of those details he’s posted, after the jump.
The EQ2 Test Server has just been updated with most of Game Update 55. GU55 will be the free content available to all EQ2 players on February 16th, to coincide with the release of the expansion. The biggest part of GU55 (with the loss of New Halas, Shaders 3, and the TS Revamp) are Battlegrounds. Players are being asked to run dungeons, etc. to see what effect combat changes may have had. Rothgar @ EQ2 Forums