It turns out that those Database Upgrades announced for today for Butcherblock, Nagafen, and Lucan D’Lere were in fact complete replacements of the server hardware with 64-bit servers. This is very exciting news, as this has the potential to solve a lot of lag and performance problems. However all has not gone according to plan.

Rothgar posted yesterday:

All three (Butcherblock, Nagafen, Lucan D’Lere) are getting new hardware, latest DB version and upgrade from 32 to 64 bit.

Rothgar reported early today that Nagafen was back in operation:

The server is back up and you have new database hardware.  This should help a lot with database heavy tasks such as zoning, broker transactions, etc.

Keep in mind that all we upgraded at this time was the database.  This is a big improvement but its not going to be a fix across the board for all types of lag.  We’ll continue to look at other lag improvements for these issues though.

Gunthore, a player on Butcherblock, pointed out that Butcherblock server is still down.

The server (Butcherblock) did come up on schedule, but people were having problems logging into some characters, so they locked the server, but people were still able to play who were logged in. I logged out around 11 or so.

Rothgar is currently using this thread to provide updates on the situation:

We’re getting these reports from the other servers as well, so it looks like there is an issue with some characters.  We’re looking into it now to determine if it was a data-transfer problem or a code problem related to the new DB version.

As soon as we know more we’ll let you know the course of action.  Best case, we make some tweaks on our side and those characters will be accessible.  Worst case, we’ll have to take the servers down and re-copy data from the old database.

Continued:

We’re going to go ahead and lock all 3 servers, Nagafen, Butcherblock and Lucan D’lere until we have the issue resolved.  This is just a precautionary measure should we have to roll-back to the data from about an hour ago.  We don’t want you to lose more time.

I’ll keep this thread updated when I have more info.

Unfortunately, today’s attempt to upgrade Nagafen, Butcherblock, and Lucan D’Lere was unsuccessful and SoE are now in the process of getting us switched back to the old 32-bit hardware in use before the upgrade. Unfortunately, some folks were able to play on the upgraded servers for as much as 4 hours. Any progress/loot acquired during this time will be lost. Here’s Rothgar‘s announcement:

Hi everyone.  We’ve found the problem and have a plan of action in place.

What was the problem?

The process of copying the data from the old database to the new database had issues with specific characters.  Mainly these were older characters with large amounts of data associated with them. All of their data didn’t copy correctly which caused them to not be able to load.  The same behavior occured with other database record types, such as housing records, where their associated data was very large.  This caused some house zones to fail to load as well.  This is why some players received different error messages.  You might have been attempting to log in a character that was fine, but he was camped in a house with a problem.

What is the solution?

Our database engineers will need a little more time to find out why the migration process had issues with these specific records.  Once that issue is solved, we will perform another migration and test these characters specifically to ensure that problem is fixed.  We don’t have an ETA at the moment, but need to be prepared for this to take a couple of days.

What do we do in the meantime?

In order to get everyone back online again, we are going to revert back to using the old database which is still 100% intact.  The data in the old database was frozen at the time we went down for maintenance.  So this means anything you did early this morning will be rolled back.  We’re very sorry that this had to happen.  Unfortunately we can’t risk the time or data by copying backwards from the new server to the old server.

How do we keep this from happening in the future?

We are documenting our testing processes to be sure to include characters and houses that meet the critiera that caused this problem in the first place.  In the future we will have specific test cases that will keep this problem from occuring again.

How does this affect the Venekor -> Nagafen Merge?

If we can repair the migration process quickly, we hope to not impact that timeline.  However we must also plan for the possibility that the delayed database migration might cause us to delay the merge for a few days.  Hopefully it will not come to that.   We’re all very excited about getting you on the new hardware and completing the merge as soon as possible, so we are doing everything we can to make that happen.

So again, I apologize for the rollback and the downtime associated with this maintenance.  We’re starting the process of reactivating the old database servers and hope to have you back up in an hour or two.  As soon as we’ve got the issue with the migration process fixed we will post a revised timeline for the new maintenance.

Commentary

There have been some complaints that here are these great 64-bit servers in the pipeline, and that it would be rolled out very slowly. First server to be upgraded was Nagafen, then if it proved successful, Venekor would be merged into Nagafan and then we’d start to see this technology roll out to other servers, eventually reaching the server that most desparately needs this upgrade — Antonia Bayle.

So it’s very unfortunate that today’s attempt to get 3 servers rolled onto 64-bit was a bust. I remain patient and optimistic that in the next few days we’ll see a successful upgrade to 64-bit.

From EQ2 Forums:

Starting at 5am PDT, tomorrow Thursday October 15th, Nagafen, Butcherblock, and Lucan D’Lere will be brought offline for upgrades to the database.

We estimate the downtime to be about 5 hours and servers should come back online about 10am PDT.

Thank you for your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience.

If you have been following the increasingly train-wrecky Legends of Norrath Affects Gameplay topic on EQ2 Forums, you know that the Legends of Norrath card game is on the cusp of making powerful items available within the EverQuest 2 universe.

Already, by purchasing booster packs of cards (at $2.99/ea) and/or playing the LoN card game, one can acquire cloaks, mounts, appearance items, potions, and other items within the EQ2 world. So far these items have drawn the line at being comparable to dungeon/raid drops.

Many have argued that EQ2’s $15/month subscription + $50/year expansion cost should be more than adequate for Sony Online Entertainment to cover their costs. The latest subscriber estimate is 250,000 players. Considering 6 months a year and 25% expansion buyin, that’s $26 million revenue per year.

Yet increasingly, in-game items have been made available through StationCash (funded with a credit card, items have a fixed price) and Legends of Norrath (player must purchase an unknown number of card packs until they find the loot card they desire, trade with others, or buy such cards at an extreme markup on such sites as LoNLoot.com).

Today marks the launch of the 8th expansion: Legends of Norrath:Travelers. It was announced 2 weeks ago including this controversial passage:

Incredible loot cards, including exclusive new quests in EverQuest^® and EverQuest^® II that open all new chambers and rewards of loot and XP!

Starting today, players can acquire a Legends of Norrath loot card “Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key” ( \aITEM -691738313 583949373:Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key\/a )

• This key will unlock a unique level 80 combat instance for the holder and his/her group. One use only.

Examining the key offers the quest Repulsing Repuuli.

• After receiving a location of an up and coming threat to all of Norrath, you are sent to destroy Repuuli the Destroyer within the Moors of Ykesha.
• Find and enter the Destruction Chamber near the Obelisk of Ahkzul in the Moors of Ykesha.

EQ2Wire went on safari to The Moors of Ykesha to get the facts. Upon entering the portal (which is a short distance from the Obelisk entrance), the surroundings immediately seemed familiar.

Indeed, I was greeted with the sight of the last room of Obelisk of Ahkzul.

After defeating four roaming 80^^ void beasts, Repuuli the Destroyer (82^^^) became interested in my presence. Defeated as easily as Executor Vark in the Obelisk, it is then that the true nature of this Legends of Norrath tryst was revealed. Although housed in an unassuming Ornate chest, the rewards found within were anything but ordinary.

Inside the Ornate chest is an item container called A Void Cube. One player per zone visit gets to loot this container.

The recipient must then choose between 7 items. Make no mistake folks, these items are comparable to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:

• Portal Bracer of the Void Warrior ( \aITEM 1363089210 -1153524204:[Portal Bracer of the Void Warrior]\/a )
• Portal Clasp of the Void Invoker ( \aITEM -29585155 -1544401326:[Portal Clasp of the Void Invoker]\/a )
• Portal Wrap of the Void Assassin ( \aITEM -932311402 966076848:[Portal Wrap of the Void Assassin]\/a )

• Portal Bangle of the Void Knight( \aITEM -1348074215 2070418077:[Portal Bangle of the Void Knight]\/a )
• Portal Binding of the Voidcaller ( \aITEM 935669575 190604106:[Portal Binding of the Voidcaller]\/a )
• Portal Brace of the Void Warder ( \aITEM 552342734 -2044085964:[Portal Brace of the Void Warder]\/a )

• Portal Bracelet of the Void Priest ( \aITEM -1900203042 2008289082:[Portal Bracelet of the Void Priest]\/a )

How Does Legends of Norrath Affect Me?

Legends of Norrath is a game I was never interested in, that I’m forced periodically to wait for it to download updates. It has never appealed to me. So far I’ve been able to ignore it other than checking to see if I get any loot cards. I’ve gotten a few cloaks. I got the heal potion.

And I bought some StationCash when it was half price. I’d probably use it for appearance gear or name changes. Maybe even a vitality potion to level a 5th tradeskiller to 80.

So I’m not like “Mr Furious” about RMT/SC/LoN. But I know others are, so LoN affects my gameplay if others want to quit EQ2 because of LON getting further and further entrenched in the game.

How does one level from 1-80 in EQ2 these days?
How does one get geared up in EQ2 these days?

Right now, I think a lot of folks solo quest from 1-80, missing the entire content of this game. Then they transfer plat and HEIRLOOM gear from their main to twink out their alt. They might even run a few Mentored (grey) Shard Runs to gear up their alt.

Without having ever stepped in a 1-80 dungeon, people feel they need to gear up alts just to have a chance — just to get a group. Imagine if you are a level 80 character these days and go LFG (Looking for Group) and show up in mastercrafted/quest gear and adept 1 spells? You will be laughed out of the building (and dropped from the group). When I started playing EQ2, grouping from 1-70 was prevalent. I feel sorry for the players now who will never know this content.

I am lucky that I was level 80 when The Shadow Odyssey was released. I already had the best Kunark group gear available to me, and started the first night earning as many void shards as possible. It’s just expected now to get a group you have full T1, possibly T2 gear, fabled weapon, etc.

Hand Me Downs

It’s easy to earn plat in this game. So easy that the plat farmers aren’t doing as well as they used to. With a few hundred plat, you can gear up with some significant jewelry and even T4 bracer/boot pattern to a toon that’s never fought in a dungeon let alone a raid zone. If you are raiding 4 nights a week and getting all kinds of patterns that everyone already has, then your alts are going to be built to the hilt.

When my Dirge dings 80, he will have full Tier 2 Void Shard Armor, with Tier 3 (Ward of Elements) boots, and pretty substantial jewelry. Who knows, he might even have Tier 4 FABLED bracers by then.

If some idiot really wanted to pay a few hundred bucks to acquire a few thousand platinum pieces and spend it on T4 raid patterns (The T4 chestpieces go for 1200-2000p on BB right now), they could. They could even pay for group updates on their Fabled epic, and then pay more for VP updates for their Mythical. In short, with a few waves of the credit card, I can build a toon in full Tier 4 FABLED gear, jewelry, and Mythical having hardly ever DONE the content.

People gear up alts with plat (earned or bought) and shards (earned or greyed out). Enough people view this as shady that there is still some sense of dignity maintained. Some folks still take pride that they built their characters without the aid of a powerful main character supplying them shards, gear, and plat.

I am NOT advocating stopping loot rights. It’s just a somewhat dysfunctional reality that I too have benefited from (I got the Ethernauts Roundshield of Ranger Pwnage for 120p). I think grey shards screwed them up and should have been stopped it.

So I think by putting FABLED-like gear into Legends of Norrath, SoE are legitimizing this process. It is a signal to a lot of players that SoE does not care how you build your toon. In combination with all gear getting the HEIRLOOM tag, it sends a message that rules can be bent and/or broken. You can build up your toon however you want, either by playing the game or swiping your credit card.

So I stand on principle and say that I will not use my credit card to get Legendary or Fabled gear and build out my character. I will not buy Legends of Norrath cards to get access to some significant loot. Already, so many barriers have been broken down in how characters are geared up in such a short time, I wonder how it will affect the future of the game. I think it will inevitably kill it. The thrill of the chase, the actual PLAYING of the game is diminished. Why learn the encounters and play the game when you can just put in a few bucks and get to the same destination?

When Legends of Norrath was launched, several promises were made by John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. It seems the expression “Time changes everything” is never more true here.

How Good Is the Loot?

The following diagram compares the LoN rewards with equivalent or similar items elsewhere in Norrath. It is disturbing to me that some of the rewards are similar to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:

LoN Item Comparison

The truth, as they say,  is out there.

Most of my gametime these days is either raiding with my Ranger, or leveling my Dirge alt. I do live events (looking forward to Nights of the Dead), but otherwise, I’m fairly bored with the runaround quest lines. Groups in the 20’s-60’s are few and far between, but that is an issue for another blog post…

Our guild is currently running Ward of Elements (I have all but shoulders and the cloak from Aiden) and we do as much x4 raiding as we can with 2 1/2 groups. That’s the first 3 named of Tomb of the Mad Crusader (including Thet) and the twins in Palace of the Ancient One. We’re probably going to start doing Kurn’s X2 because we’re pretty much blocked from doing anything else by lack of players/needed classes.

This is a chronic problem on Butcherblock, and I think other servers. At last count there were over 15 semi-casual raid guilds each about 4-8 players away from having a full raid force. Nobody wants to merge or switch guilds. And there’s never been a successful Raid Alliance on Butcherblock.

---

I read the EQ2 forums every day looking for news and info for EQ2Wire readers. So today I found a couple of posts that really jive with how I’ve been feeling lately…

First up from Shianne <Tainted> @ Kithicor:

Dear SOE,

I have been a loyal subscriber since July of 2005.  I have been a co-leader of a raiding guild since Dec of 2006, and an officer prior to that.  In the time I have played I have seen many people come and go.  I have seen good expansions and bad.  I have seen nerfs and character balance issues; server mergers and many other developments and setbacks.

One thing I can say is that I have always enjoyed the game, no matter how badly my class was messed up or how many of my friends or guild mates left for greener pastures in other MMOs or guilds or just to experience the real world. However, my enjoyment is waning along with so many others.

My server, Kithicor, has suffered many guilds disbanding of late due to a lack of available players to fill out their rosters.  i have lost 8-9 people of my raid force myself.  The commen thread to all of the people leaving?  They are bored.  Most of them (including myself) have multiple characters that are level 80 and at 200 AA or close to.  They have no need of shard gear.  They have no need of instance loot.  They don’t want to level yet another character.  The only thing to log in for is raids and when you can’t get classes you need, those are getting old to since you can’t progress.

The release of GU53 did little to entice people to remain.  The Achivement System gives no tangible and USEFUL rewards.  Those that missed out on getting AA for various things aren’t likely to go get the achievements done as they will hold out till there is an AA cap increase.  So, there is still no reason to log in.  The Shard of Love offers nothing but fluff items and 1 time AA experience.  A fair amount of people will do it once, then never again.  Miragul’s Planar Shard – while it is nice to have another raid zone, many of us can’t clear what is already out there due to lack of population to flesh out our ranks.  Then, you add items into the heroic instances to make the raids easier, so in essence creating the necessity for many people to run zones for no other reason than to collect those items.  It is becoming a JOB and not fun.

If the achievement system had offered useful rewards, such as dual stat adornments, or the ability to add 2 points to an AA tree when completing an achievement, or rocking charm items, etc. This MIGHT have been a draw for those of us who want something to work towards that IMPROVES our characters.

If you had done server mergers, then at least the population wouldn’t be spread so thin.  I realize that server mergers would cut into the Cash Cow transfer potions that are available thru the Marketplace, but please, understand that the economy sucks at the moment.  For many people this is their entertainment.  This is their hobby.  This is their escape from reality.  Many people are struggling just to pay the subscription fees.  Throw us a bone and think about merging some servers so that we have a base of people to work with so perhaps we may find some enjoyment in the game again.

This latest expansion with its cure heavy scripting has burned out the healers.  I have been looking for ONE templar for going on 3 months. I have had 2 applicants in that time and neither were able to handle the whack-a-mole curing as well as keeping their reactives up. When you spend THREE months trying to find a single class and have no success, this tells you things are not well in the land of Norrath.

In the last three months, we have lost at least two major guilds to collapse.  Unfortunately, those people didn’t remain on the server.  Most went to other servers or quit entirely.  We have had one guild transfer here to “rule the school” and another leave to go to another server to do the same.  We have at least 2 other non-avatar raid guilds on the verge of collapse and at least 2-3 others with severe recruitment issues.  Much of this is being caused by people QUITTING EQ2.

Please SOE, I implore you to do something to breathe some life into the game before more people take of for Aion or other MMOs. Delaying the expansion is killing the game, fluffy GUs with no real substance aren’t keeping the interest of a vast amount of us,  continued nerfs and re-defining classes isn’t the best way to hold on to people.

I see hundred of posts from people on ways to improve the game, ways to work towards class balance, ways to deal with itemization, ways to implement avatars into instanced encounters, and a majestic array of other ideas, suggestions, wants, desires,etc.  People WANT to play EQ2, but they also want to know their voices are heard, that the devlopers realize the we, the players, have a borader understanding of the game than you may think.  We the players are a font of knowldge, we are talented and skilled and we know what gamers want, do you?

Pervis has a nice followup which makes some great points about Itemization:

There is nothing more disapointing in raiding when you spend weeks working on an encounter to finally get the kill, only to have the one item in the chest be totally worthless. What this game needs, and what one of my primary complaints has been with TSO (paired with Research Assistants, which only add to the issue) is the total lack of any raid-based quests.

The original game was great. As soon as your guild killed Darathar, you basically took a giant step forward. Every mage and healer in the guild got a huge upgrade, and scouts and tanks got an item that was invaluable on many encounters.

Desert of Flames had the same with killing the Godking, and getting the weapons from the peacock quest series.

Kingdom of Sky had similar with the Claymore, though once you had killed Taranax you had no progression left until Fallen Dynasty was added.

Echoes of Faydwer was wasted, due to the Soulfire quest taking so long to implement. While it was great for lore reasons, it was horrible for content/mechanics reasons.

Rise of Kunark of course had epic [weapons], and as soon as you were able to kill Nexona and Druushk, you had an almost clear run to getting every mythical weapon. There is no need to even mention the difference between a raid with identicle equipment, but one with mythicals the other without.

The Shadow Odyssey has… umm… the earring from Munzok’s Material Bastion (MMB)?

There is no carrot dangling. When we kill a mob, we have no guarentee that the item it drops will be wanted. Why bother working on mobs in MMB if you know you are going to get a summoner-only item (we had the cloak and charm both drop 3 times in a row, prior to GU#53, we have no summoners).

While raiders are less interested in quests for the story aspect (in general, many raiders are as into the lore of this game as any non-raider), what they like is the guarantee that the time and effort they put in to killing encounters is going to be rewarded. Again until GU#53, I was looking at Ykesha thinking… why even bother? As a mage, he had no items that were worth me even looking at, and since he is not required for any quest update, I have no personal reason to care.

How is that good for the expansion’s end mob?

I have seen more raiders quit in TSO than any other time. Most of the players I know that have quit have done so for itemization reasons. While there are more item options and effect in game than ever before, it is how those effects have been distributed that has simply caused people to not want to bother. Its not enough to just create 100 items and throw them on loot tables at random, the placement of each item should have more attention paid to it than the creation of the item itself.

I have zero faith that the next expansion will be any better, simply because the same issues have been bought up with every previous expansion. Players have asked during beta to look over items to check for progression, and have either been not heard or ignored. Just look at how long it took to get items in to Miragul’s. If us players are being asked to test content out to make sure it is working as intended, and is set to the appropriate difficulty, we should also have someone asking us to test itemization progression.

Revisiting the same content over and over is just part of any MMO. Keeping players hooked as long as you can to keep subscription rates up is just part of the game business model. However the reliance on the Random Number Generator in gearing players up is really getting out of hand. Folks identify the best item for a slot (sometimes the best item in the game for a certain class and for a certain slot drops in an easy group zone, sometimes off the hardest raid mob in the game, it’s completely random) and then run that zone until they get the item. Then they never go back. Then there’s Healer Burnout, where healers are sticking around even though they currently hate some of the encounters just to not let their friends down.

This week’s hotfix will be hitting today, October 13th (not the date on the Update Notes announcement).

EMPEROR ATREBE’S LABORATORY

• The zone boss, Ka’El Ka’Vrish, should now reset properly in Kor’Sha.

ITEMS

• Fists of Judgment will no longer indicate that they have a duration.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• Tuskers will now stagger his memwipe effects.
• Enraged Haladan no longer gets an AE auto attack buff when he goes berserk, but will instead proc Haladan’s Fury (frontal only, slash damage AE spell).

PVP

• You may now speak to the Priest of Discord on all PVP servers.
• PVP weapons have been adjusted to bring them more in line with the intended damage for their tier.

USER INTERFACE

• There is a new option to always display the threat window. It can be found under User Interface -> Game Features -> Always show threat window.
• Fixed a bug where the threat window would flash or disappear when it shouldn’t.

We’re keeping our eyes out for any further LoN news, by the way.

Kiara and Amnerys from SOE’s Community Relations team will be hosting a rat race through Norrath! Just roll a level 1 Ratonga toon starting in Neriak and meet at Hate’s Envy. You’ll be given a list of items to gather along the way, and the fastest finishers will be rewarded. But if you don’t win, don’t fret! Everyone who attends will get a prize just for coming.

The dates and times by server can be found in the writeup at EQ2Players. The event happens on one server a day, running from October 13th through November 6th.

From EQ2Players:

The leaves are turning and the air has become crisp in the land of Norrath. Ghoulish activity has started to increase. It can mean only one thing; the return of the Nights of the Dead. Norrath’s annual Halloween celebration will be returning from 12:01am PDT on October 16th and will run through 11:59pm PST on November 9th.

New this year:

• New Haunted Hedgemaze in Nektulos Forest!
• New holiday collection.
• New Headless Horseman in Nektulos Forest.
• New rewards for some of the old Nights of the Dead Events!
• New illusions from the goblins.
• New costume illusions available from holiday merchants.
• New holiday recipe book.

Returning favorites:

• Trick-or-treating in Qeynos and Freeport.
• Haunted house in Qeynos and Freeport.
• Ponchy’s quest line in Antonica.
• Decorations in the cities.
• Goblins who cast costume illusions.
• Haunted Mansion in Loping Plains.
• Candy drops for tradeskilling.
• Holiday tradeskills are back.
• Purchaseable costume illusions.
• Neriak’s clandestine (and smashable) decorations!

Some Nights of the Dead Wallpapers

And that concludes the EQ2 ZAM Chat.

Guests were:

• Alan <Brenlo> – EQ2 Producer
• Brett <timetravelling> – Dungeons/Content
• Nathan <Kaitheel> – Live Events/Quests
• <Gninja> – Quests, Zone Design, Live Events
• Greg <Rothgar> – Lead Programmer
• Paul C. <Frizznik> – Mechanics
• Paul M. <Cronyn> – Lore, Content, Quests
• Emily <Domino> – Tradeskills

Rough Chat Logs of this event are now available at EQ2 ZAM.

Some of the topics that stuck out to me:

• Brenlo: At the moment we have no plans to (have) LON cards (drop from mobs). That is why we went to giving each active player 5 packs a month.  We like the current delivery method as it gives every player the cards regularly.
• In response to the idea of changing Adventure class (for example, a high level tradeskiller not satisfied with the adventure class they chose), Rothgar replied with: This is something we’ve talked about and understand that it would be a desired feature. However, we don’t have a timeframe on it and haven’t worked out the details.  We’ll have some more discussion on it and see if we can work it in soon ™.
• In response to a question about more PvP options on PVE servers and giving casual PvP battlegrounds, Brenlo replied with: I would look for a big announcement in the very near future.
• With regards to Shaders, Rothgar advised us: We are still working hard on the Shader 3.0 system.  This is a huge amount of work to convert all of our thousands of existing shaders into the new model.  We still have some challenges to overcome and we’re still tweaking performance.  We don’t have a date yet as to when we will push it to Test, but as soon as we feel comfortable with the final product, we will let you know.
• Winwin chimed in with this question which I’m sure many of you would like to know the answer: Do you guys have a tentative date for the race change service on station cash? The answer? Tentatively scheduled for October 20th.
• And for those of you who might have heard about the EverQuest II Complete Collection box coming out on the 19th, note that it does not have an in-game item. It is meant to get boxes on the retail shelf and attract more new players. New players would get 60 days of free gameplay.

Regarding Class Balance, Aeralik chimed in with these answers:

• Summoners will see some signifcant changes to reduce the number of pet lines.  Summoners will have one fighter pet line and one dps pet line in the summoner tree. The dps pet line will work on scout/mage pets. The int line will then transform into something like the summoner version of the rogue strength line.
• Rogues will see the wisdom line changed to be more inline with current itemization.
• The (priests) cure lines are all seeing a number of changes.  We are also looking at individual abilities make sure they are desirable.

and one of my questions:

• What role (if any) will Armor and Weaponsmiths have in the expansion? Mastercrafted items would have to be incredible to be desirable at their classic level of 82.  Will we see level 90 mastercrafted gear become important, as other games are doing?

got the reply from Domino:

• We’re not planning a *completely* different direction for mastercrafted gear at this point, however we’re definitely aware that it’s going to have to  be balanced assuming that many people will be wearing at least some shard gear.  It’s something I’ve been working with Fyreflyte to balance, and we’ll probably need to continue the balancing based on feedback during beta.
• Both armor and weapons will definitely be seeing a lot more nice blue stats, for one thing.  And I know I can count on you and others in here for honest and helpful feedback!

and in relation to Item Degradation:

• Fendy:  Can we have any more details on how item degradation is going to work?  When can we expect to hear more?
• Frizznik: We are looking at the system now. It is a work in progress so we can’t give exact details of what it is right now because we are still working them out.  We are trying really hard to make sure that you don’t lose overall power from one level to the next, and will want to get items that provide better power gains for you.  We will definitely be providing information in advance so will have notice of what it is. When we know, you will know.  🙂

Here’s another cool question that got answered only in #EQ2FFA:

• Artemiz: Should we expect more raid style scripted encounters in the heroic zones for Sentinels Fate like the ones in the Shard zones for TSO or something more casual players will find fun as well?
• timetravelling:  Yes and Yes? The scripted encounters have actually been quite popular. One of the big pieces of feedback we received though was the desire for more ‘casual’ content, and we’ve created quite a bit of that as well!

and about Antonia Bayle:

• Rothgar: As soon as we get the Venekor merge behind us we will be looking at upgrading the DB hardware for AB.

Again, this is just questions I picked out that I thought would appeal to EQ2Wire readers. I will be doing a Survey soon to find out just who my audience is.

Where do the Questions Come From?

The questions asked in the EQ2 Dev Chats come from user submissions. Developers who participate in the chat see the COMPLETE LIST of UNFILTERED questions that ZAM submits. They see the best and the worst. The fluff and the hard, controversial questions. They go through and decide what questions they can answer. Generally these are not “When are you going to fix Brawlers?” or “When are raids not going to suck so much?” or questions that will get a “we are still looking into that”.

I know there were a lot of complaints in the #EQ2FFA (free for all) chatroom saying that controversial questions weren’t asked or answered.  They receive a ton of questions in advance, and they usually get through all of these, and then start trying to get through the questions asked during the chat. You have a much better chance of getting your question in if you submit it a few days in advance. They may also be able to get you a better answer. If you want your question to get asked, submit your question in advance. I do.

I do not work for EQ2 ZAM. I do not work for SoE either. It’s helpful to be independent sometimes. 🙂 I do hang out sometimes in ZAM’s EQ2 chat channel just to shoot the breeze. I do submit questions to Calthine as they come to my mind. I also try to think of questions that the developers can answer. ANYONE can submit questions to Calthine @ ZAM.

If folks think I’m getting favoritism or think that my questions have a better chance, then by all means post your question to me as a Comment, or send it to me using the new Contact Us form. I’ll save em up, clean them up so they might get answered, and submit them. If I already know the answer, I’ll send you a reply. 🙂

Calthine has posted on the EQ2 Forums that it’s time for us to start thinking of and suggesting questions for the next EQ2 ZAM Developer’s Chat today:

Y’all are cordially invited to the next exciting EQII ZAM Developers Chat!  Members of the EverQuest II Developer and Community Teams will be there, so bring your questions!  If you’d like to submit questions in advance, send e-mail to calthine (at) allakhazam.com (subject Dev Chat).

• Thursday, October 8, 3:00pm PDT <– NOTE this is one hour earlier than usual
• In the #EQ2 channel on ZAM IRC
• General chat during the actual event will be in #EQ2FFA

	For instructions on how to connect to the chat using mIRC, Trillian, or other chat client, check out the fantastic instructions at EQ2 ZAM.
	If you are not able to run chat software at work, or you just want to jump into the chat through your web browser, you can use our Java Chat connector.

Domino brings us some tradeskill news from Game Update 54, expected in November:

I wanted to take a minute to let you know that with the next game update (54) which we should see before Christmas, there will be an additional set of daily missions in each of the 3 Kunark factions that tradeskillers can assist (Bathezid’s Watch, Riliss, and Danak).

They aren’t anything fancy, they’re very similar to the daily missions in Grobb, Tupta, and Firmroot moot – same type of tasks, and about the same amount of time.  There are 4 per faction and they’ll rotate on a daily basis; you can therefore do 1 quest per faction per day if you wish (they do not detract from your standing with other factions, unlike Grobb/Tupta).  Like the existing writs, you won’t be able to exceed 30,000 faction by doing these, but as long as you’re below that faction, you’ll be able to do the new missions.

The exact amount of faction awarded may be tweaked once the quests are on Test server and I get feedback, but the current plan is likely to be between 1000-2000 per mission.  The existing quests for these factions will not change at all; when the update arrives on your server, you’ll just notice a new questgiver near the existing writgiver, who offers the new stuff (assuming you meet the prerequisites and don’t have too high a faction – just like the writs).

Hope that answers any questions, and I’m sure there will be more details available once the quests are available on Test server.  I don’t have a date for this, it will probably be a while still, but keep an eye on the Test Update forum for details!

Zehl Ice-Fire of Unrest logged in and noticed that those handy Frostfell Shopping Bags had swelled to 45 slots. Domino provided further news on the subject of bag space issues, specifically:

Rothgar & team have indeed worked their magic, and bigger strong boxes will now be possible with the coming expansion.

You may already be aware that both handcrafted and mastercrafted strongboxes at level 80 have a maximum 36 slots of storage. So perhaps we’ll see handcrafted and mastercrafted strong boxes have a size progression in the expansion. 🙂

The EQ2 development team is looking to repeat the successful Bug-squashing campaign of 2008. Rothgar has started a new thread to help get this project started. If there is a specific bug, interface inconsistency, or complaint you have about the game interface, please check out the new What Bugs You the Most? thread.

Note that the thread is not for complaints about zones, itemization, or class balance.

Here are your EQ2 Update Notes for October 7:

GENERAL

• Legends of Norrath (LoN) cards and booster packs that drop in game are once again tradeable.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• The Maj’Dul Monitor Achievement now accepts quests completed in the Courts.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• The dire and alpha snowbeasts associated with Enraged Haladan now have somewhat less health.
• Hard Mode: Brilliant Adepts have less health.  Boreas and Argos should no longer cast Trio of Teeth on players while they are leashed.  Curse of Confusion now lasts 18 seconds rather than 30 seconds.

PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE

• Anashti Sul will no longer reset her ring event (the Manta Ray) when raids wipe to her (after the ring event was completed).

Player vs Player

• Novice of Discord ward will no longer place you into combat when hit.
• You may now purchase the Crystal of Discord from the general merchant.

QUESTS

• Quests now sort properly by name.
• The section of the heritage quest for the dark mail gauntlets, Tie up Some Loose Ends, should now update properly upon entering Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible.

SPELLS

• Spell Trainers will now provide you with the latest information about spells.

SPIRES EVENT

• The Magic Mouth now can be placed in guild halls, as originally intended.
• Boss encounters will once again spawn for full groups in The Ethereal Rift.
• The quest “Connecting Threads” should now be a little less confusing.
• The Ethereal Rift would sometimes be empty if the player entering it was very lagged. This should no longer happen.

VEESHAN’S PEAK

• Magics in Veeshan’s Peak are no longer able to restrict players from entering certain wings of the stronghold!

Imago-Quem has posted more screen snapshots of Shaders 3.0, the graphical upgrade coming to EQ2 in Game Update 54. I believe these are all images of North Freeport.

“Day” Before | After	“Rainy” Before | After	“Night to Morning” Before | After
“Indoors” Before | After

Previous screenshots shown of Nektulos Forest:

“Nek Castle” Before | After	“Nmarr’s Ascent” Before | After	“Nek Forest 1” Before | After
“Nek Forest 2” Before | After	“Underwater” Before | After

Memory Issues

Despite the updated EQ2 Client, some players are still reporting issues with running out of memory in EQ2.

One workaround users are reporting, is to periodically minimize and then maximize the EQ2 application. This seems to reclaim some memory. The EQ2 dev team continue to search for the cause of these issues and intend to release another updated EQ2 client in the next few days.

Chronomage Missions

Thanks to Atan for testing out and reporting back on the Chronomage Missions. If you read EQ2Wire, you know that 3 new NPCs have been added in East Freeport (on the Inn patio) and Qeynos Harbor (across from the docks) to encourage playing level 15-70 content and provide additional rewards.

• The first of these Quellthulians NPC will mentor you down (without another player present) in 5 level increments from level 10 to 75 for a small fee (5 g and 100 status).
• A second NPC offers one of 37 Chronomage Mission quests to go back and explore a dungeon ranging from level 15 to 75.
• The third NPC offers Rewards including some appearance armor (requires 10,000 faction with the Quellthulians) but more importantly, a house item related to the aforementioned zone. There are presumably 37 different house items you can claim by completing these missions.

When Game Update 53 went live, once you completed one of these missions, you were locked out from picking up any others, no matter how many days you waited. Today’s Hotfix corrects this, and each quest is deleted at midnight, allowing you to do a new quest each day.

Just remember that now that the quests are being deleted each night, you should return to the Quellthulians immediately after completing each mission and pick up your decorative house item (if you want it), because it will not be available after the quest disappears from your quest journal.

Well, now we know the real reason that Avatar Loot was nerfed. It wasn’t because it was “overpowered” or because it would “break the next expansion”. It was so similar items could be put on the endboss of an instance.

As posted by Jasuo on the EQ2 Forums, two of the charms dropped by Miragul in Miragul’s Planar Shard (x4 raid zone) are very similar to Avatar Charms:

and yes, we will be back later today to talk about the new EQ2 zone which requires a LoN item to access.

Much has been made of the difficulty, and more importantly the limited desirability of the loot that drops in the new raid zone — Miragul’s Planar Shard — which arrived in Game Update 53. Players capable of killing these mobs already have access to far superior gear, and indeed some of these items were not as good as Ward of Elements or even group instance drops.

Significant changes are expected to both the difficulty of the zone and the quality of the loot in tomorrow’s Hotfix. Gninja advises us that further changes to the difficulty of the zone should be expected in the near future:

Just an update for you folks.

The difficulty of this zone is getting toned down slgihtly. More specifically the level of the mobs and the crit chance of the mobs as well as some small tweaks to the AE effects that some of the bosses cast to make it a bit less painful. As you guys noticed with some of the changes above the items were also closely looked at and adjusted to fit the intended difficulty of the zone and taking into consideration the quality of items from similar zone with same difficulty.

You should see these changes do live as soon as we can get them in.

EQ2Wire has logged into Test and done side-by-side comparisons of the loot as it exists on live and what we can expect in Thursday’s Hotfix:

Fighter/Scout
Offensive Instinct Earring \aITEM -388580771 -638695899:[Offensive Instinct Earring]\/a	Crystalline Blade of the Tracker \aITEM -316628234 -923770519:Crystalline Blade of the Tracker\/a	Drape of Ice Knives \aITEM -1560491499 1713236965:[Drape of Ice Knives]\/a
Temporal Bludgeon \aITEM 1014861936 -1849987806:Temporal Bludgeon\/a	Thought Frosted Rhombus \aITEM 1420730539 582560697:[Thought Frosted Rhombus]\/a	Swift Frostlink Boots \aITEM 948554117 804576793:[Swift Frostlink Boots]\/a
Swift Frostlink Coif \aITEM 1280635002 -2030227484:[Swift Frostlink Coif]\/a	Rohop, the Ice Cleaver \aITEM 643973595 1990042517:Rohop, the Icecleaver\/a	Band of Jagged Ice \aITEM 1605011023 1764687837:Band of Jagged Ice\/a

Crusader/Cleric
Superego Sabatons \aITEM 525125006 -1215697349:[Superego Sabatons]\/a	Ego-imbued Coif \aITEM 180032609 1595324054:[Ego-imbued Coif]\/a	Ego-imbued Treads \aITEM 1738261032 79569467:Ego-imbued Treads\/a
Id-infused Cap \aITEM 428078571 -1324929700:Id-infused Cap\/a	–	–

Mage
Sash of Creeping Cognition \aITEM -241257653 460997427:Sash of Creeping Cognition\/a	Dodecahedron of Mispronunciation \aITEM -1690781327 -1801892191:[Dodecahedron of Mispronunciation]\/a	Glaceus, the Ice Comet \aITEM 1124854224 -263555851:Glaceus, the Ice Comet\/a
Glacial Sleet Cherub’s Drape \aITEM -1950366370 -344374835:Glacial Sleet Cherub’s Drape\/a	Black Mindweave Hood \aITEM 1861451831 -1537581143:[Black Mindweave Hood]\/a	Black Mindweave Slippers \aITEM -1150004573 1682610743:[Black Mindweave Slippers]\/a
Mobius Band of the Mind \aITEM -1347628754 1584699148:[Mobius Band of the Mind]\/a	Dangle of Twisted Thoughts \aITEM -1308454009 1556516884:[Dangle of Twisted Thoughts]\/a	–

Priest
Nebulous Loop \aITEM 1222148207 2119916759:[Nebulous Loop]\/a	Hypothermia \aITEM 455426760 -1457104545 -1862364414:Hypothermia\/a	Octagonal Ice Sculpture \aITEM -2059655992 446295863:[Octagonal Ice Sculpture]\/a
Hoop of Hope \aITEM 273246243 890145727:Hoop of Hope\/a	Frozen Font of Life \aITEM 864297868 1608526987:Frozen Font of Life\/a	–

Windslasher, who headed up the Rebuilding the Spires event has shared their insight into why we did not see a “Grand Finale” to the Spires Event:

Congratulations on finishing the spire!

While it would have given me great pleasure to have an epic-x4 dragon with 20 million hitpoints spawn and attack you, that simply would not have fit the theme or lore of this event. The idea here was to let everyone on the server contribute in a 100% cooperative effort that permanently affects the game world. So the bosses that attack the spires during construction have a lore reason to exist, and were intended to be beatable by a small pick-up raid. The real reward for completing one of these spires is the permanent teleportation portal that opens up in the middle platform. It’s a reward for the entire server, that anyone can use.

Now, I absolutely love competitive raid gameplay, but I couldn’t justify setting up this event as a race to spawn the boss mob for server-unique rewards and eternal bragging rights. It just would not have made sense in this case.  I certainly want to make events like that in the future, but this one isn’t a copy of the old Kingdom of Sky prelude.

and in another thread:

I remember the Kingdom of Sky prelude event, and the intent behind this event was much different from the previous one. While there are some contested epic spawns, they don’t give rewards that are unavailable to other participants. Everything you can take away from this event is purchased from the Quellithulian merchant.

I personally feel that enough precautions were taken, that a contested mob at the end would not have left hurt feelings like the Kingdom of Sky event did. Otherwise there is no question a ton of work went into making this event work.

Resolving hopefully the last of the Game Update 53 issues, we’re expecting the next Hotfix on Thursday, October 1. Here are the Update Notes:

GENERAL

• The destroy confirmation is now more clear in confirming that you are actually destroying an item.
• The Guardian of Eternity has returned to Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep
• Research Assistants are a little more helpful when asked about their jobs.

ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENTS

Monk

• Enhance: Mend will once again work properly.

ITEMS

• Najena’s Ring of Readiness is no longer heirloom. Additionally, the Ring of Readiness effect will only function as long as the ring is worn.
• The Charm of Rallos Zek now has 2 additional melee crit bonus.
• The Charm of Anashti Sul now has 3 additional ranged doubleattack.
• Scourge Knight Spaulders have been restored to their previous salmon color.
• Chainlinks of Hatred now have ranged crit chance and bonus, as well as ranged skill.
• Barbute of Curling Horns off the Tangrin now has only 3 shield effectiveness.
• Rohop, the Icecleaver has been redesigned.
• Perfect Cube of Ice now has 2 deflection chance to match its shield effectiveness.
• The 5-piece Riftcloth bonus Empowered Minion V now works correctly.
• Armor pieces from Miragul’s Planar Shard now have the intended critical mitigation.
• The Loops of the Undying and Girdle of Ykesha’s Warlock have been slightly upgraded.
• The hate reduction modifier on armor will once again display properly.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• The chest for Glaciactus now spawns in the center of his room, in front of the throne.
• Some of the adds associated with Haladan Moonrunner, Kervis Pendlair and Qxectus Qxectus can now be stunned/mezzed.
• Haladan Moonrunner (non-enraged), Glaciactus and Kervis Pendlair have had their chance to critically hit players reduced.  The Tusker’s trumpet buff and berserkers fury buffs associated with the enraged Haladan encounter will no longer result in as massive a damage increase for the NPCs.
• Many NPCs in this zone have had their damage, health and levels reduced.  AOE spells should now be spaced more evenly in encounters.
• Certain bosses in Miragul’s Planar Shard now drop The Shadow Odyssey Armor Patterns.
• Certain items in Miragul’s Planar Shard have had their power increased.

QUESTS

• Back in Fashion should no longer be granted by Collector Rattelis.  The quest will be available when the cloaks are obtainable.

SPELLS

• Poolburn type effects like Manaburn or Anashti’s Presence of the Void will once again function properly.
• Combat arts which combine a melee attack and a DoT will no longer display really low values on the initial hit.
• Barroom Negotiation will once again work with Double Up.

Assassin

• Fatal Followup will increase values appropriately for AOE based attacks.

VEESHAN’S PEAK

• Nexona has had the DPS cap removed for the fight.

Folks have been reporting in with mechanics problems (some related to multipliers) in EQ2 after Game Update 53:

• Anashti Sul’s “Presence of the Void” is hitting twice as hard and causing twice the power drains.  [Link 1] [Link 2] [Link 3] This is not the only mob with mangled multipliers. Another example is Trakanon. [Link]
• Brigands cannot cast Double Up after casting Barroom Negotiation. [Link]
• Certain spells/CAs which have a Damage Over Time aspect to them such as the Monk CA “Rising Dragon” are randomly only doing 1 point of damage. [Link 1] [Link 2]
• Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep cannot be completed as the penultimate named (the Guardian where you have to read books) is on holiday. [Link]
• Also, all items with -Hate Gain lost that ability. [Link]

UPDATE: These issues are all addressed in the September 30th Hotfix.

It’s too bad EQ2 developers don’t really talk to the players about Live Events and instead make assumptions.

Over 2 years ago, the first Spires were being rebuilt. Tradeskillers did all the work, and then when the spire reached 100% completion, an Epic x4 dragon appeared, killing them all. Raid guilds swooped in and battled it out for the contested win. Some even swarmed the various zones by logging in dozens of alt characters to intentionally lag out other players to prevent them from successfully taking down the mob. In the end, the raid guilds got Titles and all the credit, and the tradeskillers, the ones who had done the work of building the Spires, got nothing but a bitter taste in their mouths.

This time around, I do believe the event developer wanted to make sure there was not a repeat of these hard feelings. Certainly, there were many precautions taken. First, participation in the Spire Rebuilding came in the form of solo quests, small group quests, harvesting, and tradeskilling. Second, there are a huge variety of awards available on the merchant, more than have ever been offered for a live event. Third, the quests varied depending on whether you were rebuilding a spire or attuning a spire.

With all of these precautions, I thought for certain that we could now safely and fairly have this Grand Finale when each spire neared completion. What with the event now encompassing 9 spires instead of 3, I thought more guilds would have a chance to participate in the event. And every player who had the smallest part to play in the event still got something.

I’ve taken a small part in these events myself. Not only the repeatable quests, but  when the spire in Zek reached 30%, a cry of frustration rang out from other players who gave up and moved on to other spires. Four of us grouped up and defeated the 84^^^, allowing the Zek Spire Rebuild to continue. So I had been looking forward to dealing with the forthcoming x2 mob, and eventually (presumably) a x4 raid mob.

.
So I was disappointed to read this account from Hellswrath of the Alliance Guilds of Blackburrow and how their completion of the Everfrost Spire turned out:

First, I would like to say a big congratulations to everyone in the Blackburrow Guild Alliance for their hard work over two days in first building the Everfrost spire to 100%, and then starting all over and aligning it to 100% too!  An awesome job and a lot of hard work for two days straight!  Also, thank you to everyone else who helped on the spire, even for a little while!

Next, I’ll give a quick breakdown of the spire event to all those who are wondering what goodies these spires hold for those willing to put in the effort to complete them!

As most know, the spires in Zek, Everfrost, Lavastorm, and Loping Plains need to be built while the ones in CL, ANT, EL, Feerrott, Nek, and TS are already built and need to be aligned.

While being built, the spire in EF spawned a lvl 84 ^^^ heroic mob at 30%.  The mob killed all npcs and most low level alts doing the spire quests until he was taken down.  The reward for killing the spawned heroic was a small chest that gave 20 spire tokens to each group member.

The spire progressed as normal until it hit 90%, when it spawned a x2 epic.  It was a mob that looked very similar to the heroic, and gave 50 spire tokens to each raid member for killing him.

At 100%…….the spire reset back to 0%.  lol, yes, after all that work we needed to start all over again.  So we picked up again the next day and ground it out again.  While we expected another spawned mob or two, nothing happened by 70%, so we figured the next one would be a logical progression to an epic x4.  By the time we approached 100%, we had a full raid of people who had all been spending time building this spire.  The lowest contributor was a couple hours, the highest was somewhere well over 20 active hours.

It was the way it should be, with most of the people who had spent all their time to build the spire being the ones to get the epic pull and the credit.  Even the people from other guilds who came to look at getting in on the kill were gracious about being politely turned away.

We hit 100%, the spire completed, and . . . . . nothing happened.

Not a thing.  We stood around looking for a mob, checked track, checked the quest npcs and the spire itself to see if we were missing something.

Nope.  There was simply no point to completing this live event.  I must say that a full raid of great people (and many who were cheering on from the sidelines who had helped as well) went away feeling dispirited about the complete lack of reward for all this work.

That being said, thanks again to all those from Alpha Legion that entertained this crazy notion and stayed with us for a ridiculous amount of time to finish this event!  And a huge thanks to everyone who joined us from Casual Alliance, Wayward Waifs, Vainglory, Solace, and everyone else in the Blackburrow Alliance (and outside, too) who took their time to come hang out and grind out this spire to completion!  Awesome job!

I believe if, during Testing, or even the planning of the event, a dialogue had been opened with players asking what they felt was Good or Bad about the past Spires event and how these concerns could have been mitigated, watering this event down would not have been necessary.

It seems there is a dichotomy within the EQ2 team of what is easy, what is just plain tedious, and what is difficult, and decision after decision proves that these definitions are unclear. There is only one reliable way they’re going to find out how players feel about difficulty and fairness– ask the players. Yet this tool is ignored far too often.

Raid Packing List

Raid mobs have always had a variety of devastating poisons, noxious effects, arcane curses, stuns, stifles, and knockbacks at their disposal to make it a challenge (or darn near impossible) for the raid force to defeat them.

Discovering the strategies required to kill these raid targets is a key part of raiding. Raid mobs tend to have elaborate scripts, puzzles, or strategies required to defeat them. Solutions that work for one guild may not be appropriate for another due to the players and classes present in the raid. One raid force may have a lot of dirges and troubadours, another may have more enchanters (illusionists and coercers). Understanding each group member’s role and capabilities is the job of the raid force leader.

In a raid situation, it is very often that the healers (even if there are 6 or 7 of them) have their hands completely full keeping up the Main Tank and Main Assist (off-tank) or even a third tank alive, as well as keeping themselves up.

It is not uncommon for raid mobs to summon assistance in the form of friends who go after the most vulnerable raid members (mages/wizards) or the ones who can afford least to be “occupied” or stifled from casting (healers).

In short, you cannot count on the main tank and healers to keep all detrimental effects (poisons, arcane curses, etc.) off of you, nor can you depend upon them to deal with all “adds” or additional enemies which appear.

For certain fights, your raid leader will explain the strategies and what to expect.

Here’s the summary:

1. Food/Drink
2. Ammo
3. Cures
4. Status Items
5. Miracles/Blessings
6. Repair Kits/Mender Bots
7. Spare Equipment

Food/Drink
This may seem obvious, but inevitably a few folks show up to a raid with no food or drink. It is strongly advised that you bring the appropriate food/drink for your class. There are special infusions which are very high quality food/drink designed for raiding. Refer to your local Provisioner or the Broker.

Ammo
This one seems obvious, but every ranger at least once has showed up to a raid with few or no arrows and had to beg, borrow, or steal to get the needed ammo. Throwing stars, daggers, and axes go fast! Get a Quiver or Bandolier with at least 16 slots. It is not uncommon to go through over 1,000 items in a 4 hour raid.

Cures
It is expected that you bring these items unless you are capable of curing/healing all of these effects yourself:

• Freedom of Mind (can be mastercrafted or handcrafted)
• Dedicated Arcane Remedy
• Dedicated Noxious Remedy
• Dedicated Elemental Remedy
• Dedicated Trauma Remedy

Freedom of Mind can be crucial, as it allows you to shake off stun/stifle effects which prevent you from moving or casting. Unfortunately it can only be cast every 10 minutes, but it can mean the difference between life and death.

The other cures can be cast much more frequently.

Relics & Signets (purchased with Status)
Relics and Signets are items purchased with status from City Status Merchants in your home city (Qeynos Harbor for example) which give you a “Hail Mary” type of last ditch effect in battles. There are heals, mana boosts, and various cures, as well as large damage items for certan races. Unfortunately these items have long cast times, are LORE (so you can only carry one of each), and are rather expensive.

Miracles/Blessings
Consider those Status Items an alternative to the Miracles and Blessings offered by deities. If you are a worshipper of a deity that offers defensive or protective effects for you or your group, consider bringing them to the next raid. If you are a scout, then increased dps (or reduced hate) items are what is typically available, so investigate those.

Repair Kits/Tinkered Mender Bots
As a guild, when we start working our way into more challenging raid zones, it would be unrealistic to expect that we’ll tackle and defeat each zone and each boss without dying at least once. The first raid forces who tackled the toughest raid zones in Kunark died dozens of times a night until they learned the strategies and/or acquired the necessary gear to accomplish these goals.

Don’t get discouraged if your group or the raid force struggle with a certain boss or zone and die repeatedly. Something can be learned from each defeat, even if only this is discovering what detrimental effects are placed upon us by the enemy and trying different strategies to mitigate the worst of those effects.

The bread and butter of keeping your armor in working order during a raid has always been the Repair Kit. These are upgraded to 50% repair kits in Kunark. For ~20g these woodworker-made items will repair your armor from 0-40% back up to 50%.

If you are a gifted tinkerer (level 350 or higher), you probably already have a Mender Bot — known to gnomes everywhere as the Mechanized Platinum Repository of Reconstruction — in your inventory. This miraculous item costs roughly 10 plat for a tinkerer to make, but no additional cost to summon or use it. It can be called once per hour, once per zone (the owner can zone out and zone back in if the zone is persistent and nobody else has a bot available).

Using a mender bot is NOT CHEAP. Repair costs are typically twice the cost of mending in the guild hall or your home city. If it is important to your class that your armor be in tip-top shape before each battle, then you’ll want to bring extra money for mending. Otherwise, you may choose to get along with repair kits.

On a side note, certain raid mobs (and even some group mobs in The Shadow Odyssey) are capable of breaking your equipment independant of the number of times you may have died.

Spare Equipment
A more economical solution to the repair situation is to bring a second set of armor and weapons. Certain raid zones and/or certain raid mobs have special attacks which can be heat, cold, divine, arcane, or poison-based. It can be very helpful to bring spare equipment especially if it has high resists.

For instance if your normal gear has a very low divine resist of 1,000 (as the TSO Void Shard gear seems to) and we are going into a zone with a lot of divine-based damage, you may need to switch to equipment with high divine resists just to survive the battles. If you lack these items, Jewelers can make “resist” jewelry which is carried around specifically for these situations. In short, it doesn’t matter how much damage you can put out if you get whacked every time these effects trigger.

Offensive/DPS/Defensive Armor
Tanks in will typically bring 2-3 different sets of armor to a raid.

Offensive/DPS gear which puts out more damage at the expense of defense. The opposite sould be self explanatory. Tanks may be asked to switch out their gear and/or buffs to be in an offensive or defensive stance as needed during the fight.

Getting Mileage out of Macros

How do you create a Macro?

If you already have an ability on one of your hotbars and want to turn it into a macro, just right-click it and choose Create Macro….

If you want to create a macro from scratch, then press O, click the Macros tab, and find a blank space labeled and click it.

To add a command like a /group /raid or /tell, make sure Macro Step: is set to Command and click Add Step.

To add a combat art or spell or use a potion/scroll/item, then next to Macro Step: choose Spell/Ability from the menu and click Add Step. Now drag your CA/Spell/potion/scroll/item to the empty box on the left side.

When to Use Macros

There’s an interesting topic running at EQ2 Forums about the use of Macros in Group and Raid settings. The thread started out as a question of “What qualifies as excessive macro announcements?” and has turned out to be a quite useful discussion.

In a group or raid situation, it can be helpful when you cast a spell or buff that there is an announcement made to the target, group, or raid to let someone (or everyone) know that your spell has been cast. These announcements should be brief so that they can be quickly read. They should not be a distraction from the raid discussion.

If the target of your spells is important, you can slip %T into your announcement. For instance a tank might use:

^^^ Pulling a %T in 5 seconds. Look lively!! ^^^

Healers, Necros, and any other class that can rez people should be using:

/r Rezzing %T.

I don’t think we’ll ever get perfect agreement about what spells should or should not be announced in /tell, /group, and /raid, and the raid leaders may decide that certain ones are excessive, but right now I think we could use a few more.

CAUTION

When people discover macros, they tend to go crazy adding macros to everything. Then after a few game sessions, they realize that a lot of their macros are not really crucial to the group or raid. Just keep in mind that most of the buffs and debuffs you cast are probably not worthy of a macro.

Short term buffs that increase group dps or intelligence may seem like a good candidate for macros at first, but do they really change the behavior of your group? Will they cast different spells or change their clasting order in reaction to your buff? Usually they won’t, so a macro is not warranted.

Enchanters have mostly given up on “mezzing ” macros because folks would rather just nuke everything and not worry about mezzing and waking up mobs.

“I find that its classes that feel under appreciated that macro more and more.”

Macros have their place, but please Don’t Overdo It!!

Scouts

Brigand’s Dispatched debuff is essential to a raid force. No other class has such a powerful ability to breach the defenses of an enemy and allow the rest of the raid force’s spells and combat arts to “stick” and start doing damage. This will generally be used near the beginning of the battle.
/Raid Target has been dispatched.

Swashbucklers get a similar debuff called Swipe. This delays some enemy AoE attacks. As a result, it affects any ACT timers you may have running. It is helpful if this is announced in the raid.
/Raid Swipe

Dirges get a short term dps group buff called Chimes of Blades (abbreviated as CoB) which not only increases the attack speed and dps output of melee classes in his/her group, but also adds a chance that each attack will interrupt the casting of the target. This is helpful to prevent AoEs on certain raid mobs.
/Group CoB is up. 17 seconds

Jester’s Cap makes a lot of friends for the Troubador, as the recipient’s spells become reusable 40% faster. This single target spell can be macroed to notify the group member that their slow-to-recharge spells will refresh much sooner.
/Tell %T You have been capped for 30 seconds.

It is debatable whether Troubador’s Perfection of the Maestro deserves its own macro. It is an increase by nearly 100 points of intelligence on the group as well as a damage proc. The additional intelligence usually translates to a better chance that damage will not be resisted. Most folks learn quickly what “PotM” is if a macro is used to announce it.
Verdict? Probably doesnt need a macro.

Casters

Peace of Mind (PoM) is an Enchanter buff earned from the Shadows AA tree. Some folks like to know when it is up, as it is dealing additional damage on every single spell cast by group members. PoM is slated to have its damage amount nerfed in a future update.
Verdict? Probably doesnt need a macro.

Tanks

Most tanks have a death prevention spell such as Exploding Heart. If the tank doesn’t die, then the spell will not trigger, however if he/she does, they will be resurrected with full health and able to continue to fighting for a short time, before dying.
Verdict? Probably doesnt need a macro.

Shadowknight’s version of this is Bloodletter which actually drains the health of group members (through an involuntary simultaneous blood transfusion ) to resurrect the tank.

Shadowknights also get Death March, which has some useful effects, stun/stifle reduction, and generates a great deal of agro. It is generally macroed.
/Group Marching this one until it is dead. (thanks Boneskull)

Monks have the ability to Drag a mob, controlling the location of that mob for a short time. Afterwards, the monk generally has agro of that mob and will require healing post haste.
/Raid Drag incoming. Get ready for agro on Krackemup.

All tanks have one or more Rescue type positional or fixed amount taunt. Positional taunts boost the tank up the “hate list” by a certain number of players. Fixed amount taunts generate a specific amount of taunt which may or may not bring them to the top of the “hate list”. The slower reuse Rescue generally gets macroed in Group situations, not always in Raid situations as fighting for agro is such a common thing in raid situations that these rescues would fill up the raid chat window.
/Group Rescue is down for 10 minutes. Be careful!

Resurrecting

It is extremely helpful if all classes with the ability to resurrect, including Necromancers and of course the entire Priest archetype have announce in raid chat when they are resurrecting a person, group, or the whole raid.
/Raid Rezzing my Group in 5 seconds.
/Raid Rezzing %T.
/Raid Raidwide Rez incoming…

The point of announcing all these resurrections is that often more than one healer is trying to resurrect someone and wasting that time when they could be resurrecting someone else or healing others. If two people announce that they are resurrecting someone, then the 2nd person (or the healer if one person is a utility class) can divert their attention to other tasks.

It’s also important to note that not all resurrections are created equal. Some classes resurrect the person with very little health or power. Some can resurrect people with 40% health/40% power. Some can resurrect with no Resurrection Sickness. The responsibilities need to be divvied up and coordinated between healers as per raid leader suggestions.

Healers

The raid channel would quickly get clogged if all healing were announced, but large, slow-to-cast cast heals should be announced in group and/or the healparse channel. This way the other healers can focus on keeping tanks and dps up.
/Group Group Heal inc.
/tell bbbhps Big heal on %T inc.

Defilers and Templars get a Group Ward which takes a long time to cast. If groups are dying on initial AoEs, then this may be a valuable macro to have to notify the tank when pulling might be the safest.
/Group Group Ward 5 sec.

Originally posted by AScarlato:

“We were wiping quite often if both the MT Defiler and myself as MT Templar were casting our long group-ward or reactives at the same time. Making sure only one of us casted these at a time so that the other healer would use more versatile heals in the meantime was necessary for us to progress.”

It is debatable whether the Defiler’s canine companion is worthy of a macro. This will depend upon the group setup.

Templars should macro Sanctuary as this buff prevents the tank from being stunned/stifled on pull.
/Group Sanctuary is up.

Most healers have a “stun heal” where they are stunned, stifled, and unable to act and are doing nothing but healing. This is generally used when the healer is out of power or is out of other heal spells. This makes a useful /group announcement “Stun heal 30 sec.” This lets people know that they should not expect group heals/cures for a while.
/Group Stun Healing 30 sec.

Originally posted by Motzi:

“We did create a healer chat channel for our healers, so that they could announce to one another with things like repent, or soulward, and death saves are being used. This is data that other healers need to know, but the rest of the raid could care less about.”

Power

Summoners (Conjurors and Necromancers) can hand out power items (shards for conjy, hearts for necro) to group or raid members who are in close proximity to the summoner. The summoner chooses whether to cast the group or raid version of the spell. The raid version consumes nearly all of the caster’s power. /Group or /Raid 5 second warning for folks wanting these items to get close to the caster.
/Raid Casting Raidwide Hearts/Shards in 5 seconds. Gather round.

If you have run out of hearts or shards, you can send a tell to a summoner “shard please”. If they have one of these macros set up, then they’ll be able to autotarget you, give you a shard, and go back to the battle without having to try to find you among the crowd. /Tell

Conjuror:
/useabilityonreplytarget Scale of essence

Necromancer:
/useabilityonreplytarget Ruinous Heart

EMERGENCY!

Do you need to stop casting, like IMMEDIATELY?

You can add a macro to your hotbar with this command:
/cancel_spellcast

This will stop what you are doing immediately. You may want to add a macro to all your cure potions that starts with /cancel_spellcast and then does the cure, that way the cure will happen quickly.

Many more to come, and please don’t get carried away.

Dayakara — Fire Elemental

If you are familiar with the Tairiza fight, this will seem vaguely familiar.

Strategy

Off-tank will pull Dayakara to the alcove to the immediate left when entering the room so that Dayakara is facing away from the raid. High DPS scouts (as chosen by raid leader) will focus on Dayakara during the entire fight). Off-tank (OT) healers will focus on keeping OT alive and group cured.

Adds spawn every 14(?) seconds. MT will be picking up adds right in the center of the room. MT healers will focus on keeping MT alive and group cured.

1-2 Scouts will be chosen by the Raid Leader to focus on killing Dayakara the entire fight. At 30%, 1-2 more folks will be added to DPS on Dayakara. Everyone else should DPS through the Main Assist who will be switching between Adds and Dayakara at his/her discretion. MT can easily handle 3-4 adds and so MA will adjust accordingly.

At 30%, Dayakara increases the number of adds, so at 40%, MA will focus on clearing remaining Adds so there aren’t any up at 30%. Unlike the Tairiza fight, the MA will focus mostly on the Adds for the rest of the fight. Raid Leader will pick 1-3 more high DPS classes to focus on Dayakara for the last 30% down to 0%.

This is an endurance fight although sustained DPS is also very important. If more than 5 adds are up, then MT and MT healers will have difficulty keeping up.

Background

When you first enter the room with Dayakara, there are alcoves to the immediate left and right, a bridge directly in front, and then Dayakara is on the other side of the bridge. Due to line of sight issues, pulling Dayakara or her adds to the bridge or where she stands is problematic. We could not target the adds as they were in the lava or under the bridge.

When OT pulls Dayakara to the alcove, he/she needs to make sure he is not out of line-of-sight of healers and that Dayakara is not inside the wall.

MT should be cautious on AoE taunts so that MT does not taunt Dayakara off of the OT.

Digg – Corrupted Earth Elemental

Positioning/Pull

To start, everyone should be standing on the floating bridge close to Digg’s island. On pull, the Main Tank will rush Digg and then everyone runs past the tank to get behind Digg. Digg should be kept facing roughly the same direction as he was before he was engaged but perhaps pulled 1 or 2 steps forward.

The raid force must get right on Digg’s ass, extremely close to him. Do not stand a few feet back, or off to one side, as you will get hit by the 180 degree frontal AoE.

On pull, nobody should be doing any DPS except the Main Tank.

During the fight, have your Trauma cures ready as you can die incredibly fast from the Trauma that Digg repeatedly puts on the raid force.

Orange Dome

During the fight, Digg will cast a bright Orange dome spell. When it dispels, everyone outside of the dome will be knocked back and hit for damage. If you are outside the dome and are blown up onto solid ground, you will be killed.

Badger, Mushroom, Snake

Every 30-45 seconds, Digg will call out in Serillian (‘Language of the Dust’) for BADGER, MUSHROOM, or SNAKE. There are two designated Runners who will be picking up these Totems and dropping them at Digg’s feet.

• BADGER: STOP ALL DPS until you hear the Runner say ‘Badger Down’. Otherwise any damage you do will be reflected back onto you or the raid.
• MUSHROOM: Continue DPS and turn on Melee Autoattack (even mages and priests).
• SNAKE: Maximum DPS and keep Melee Autoattack on. To stop him from doing Massive Healing, everyone needs to be autoattacking here as every swing has a percent chance to stop the heal.

55% to 30%

At 55%, it will be called out to burn Miracles and Blessings and bring up raid DPS to the max to burn Digg down from 55% to 0% as fast as possible.

If you need to take a few steps back at this point to do Ranged DPS, go ahead, making sure you are completely behind Digg, and watch carefully for his orange dome and run inside so you don’t get killed.

30% to 0%

At 30%, he will start choosing random totems to call. So be ready to Stop DPS if he calls BADGER and resume DPS if you hear Badger DOWN.

Healers/Rezzers

If you need to Resurrect someone, please turn around so you are back-to-back with Digg. Otherwise, when you rez someone, they will be resurrected in FRONT of Digg and die instantly. If you are being rezzed, please be extremely careful that you do not run out in front of Digg.

Tank Positioning

The Main Tank will take two steps to the left or two steps to the right based on the totem being called to turn Digg away from the runners so they don’t get hit by the frontal AoE.

When BADGER is called, Main Tank takes two steps to the LEFT.
When SNAKE is called, Main Tank takes two steps to the RIGHT.

Runners

There will be 3 runners chosen for this fight. Primary, Secondary, and Backup. Backup steps up if either the Primary or Secondary fall down the pit and cannot be revived.

Runners need to click a small golden bar on the ground in front of the appropriate Bridge to call up that Bridge. Then they can run across and get the totem. DO NOT TOUCH THE “main” GROUND, stay on the bridge.

BADGER is East, MUSHROOM is North, SNAKE is West.

When Digg calls out in Serillian for BADGER, MUSHROOM, or SNAKE, the runner will go and get it. If you are holding BADGER totem, then you are immune to the orange AoE and knockback. If you are holding MUSHROOM or SNAKE totem, you must be inside the orange dome when the AoE goes off or you will get knocked back.

It should not be necessary to “jump” when traversing the bridges between Digg’s island and picking up the Totems. Stay in the center and don’t stop and you should not fall through the cracks. Use of various illusion forms or totems may be desirible for smaller avatars.

Runners should preferably have a Featherfall cloak so if they get knocked back/forward, they can float to a bridge. If a runner gets knocked onto the land surrounding Digg’s island, they will be instantly killed.

Runners can safely DPS during the fight.

If 2 different runners pick different bridges, then all other bridges will fall and totems despawn. Runners should watch the other runners to make sure they are not getting confused on which bridge to call up.

Runners at 60%

At 60%, get both runners ready run to the Snake every time they can get it. Do not wait for Snake to be called!! Drop as many snakes as you can, as each one has a Proc which prevents his healing. Runners must be very careful to time their runs to the snake in between the orange AoEs.

Background

• Badger – Stun/Stifle and damage shield reflected back onto the player (not the raid) if you DPS. Stop all DPS.
• Mushroom – incurable Noxious DoT.
• Snake – Incredibly fast self-heal of 40k hps.

Conclusion

Other than that, it’s just a matter of staying focused and folloing the MT’s lead whenever the MT needs to adjust position depending on which Idol Digg calls for.

Imperator Ignus – General at Arms

The Main Tank will rush in and spin him on the star you will see on the floor in the middle of the room, facing away from the main raid force.

The Main Assist will target each add and everyone helps the Main Assist kill the adds. Once they’re dead, the Main Assist targets Ignus and burns him down. Straight tank and spank, nothing special.

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Gelidus Ventus the Tempest

Positioning

When you enter Gelidus’s room you will notice very large fans that take up entire sections of walls, and then solid walls between those fans.

Raid Force will position on the left extreme of the first solid wall (between two fans) on the left. Main Tank will position on the right extreme of the first solid wall (between two fans) on the left. Raid Force will face Main Tank so their back is wedged in the corner.

During the Fight

It is important in this fight for everyone to stay in those positions. If you step out the corner, either towards the tank or out into the room, you will hit by Elemental ice from the fans, likely killing you and possibly hitting other members of the raid.

If necessary, Cure Elemental on yourself whenever possible.

As long as everyone stays in their positions on this fight it is an extremely easy fight to win. Just a tank and spank.

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Khost Alur – Corrupted Water Elemental

Positioning

Tower #1 is to the left when we enter the cave. Tower #2 and #3 are directly across the water on the other side of the named. Once all trash are cleared, raid force positions halfway between Tower #2 and Tower #3 at the far end of the room standing near the rock pile.

Main Tank pulls the mob and a designated person will call out whether Tower #2 or Tower #3 is illuminated the most. Main Tank will pull the mob to that pillar (with their back to a solid object so they do not get knocked back out of range of healers) and stay there until Khost is dead.

Strategy

Throughout the fight, everyone will be hit with an Arcane every 20 seconds or so. Every player should cure their own Arcane using potions. Do not depend on your group’s mages or healers. If 2 or 3 of these Arcane stack up on you, you will die.

Main tank group mages should be Curing Arcane on the Main Tank whenever possible to give the priests a break.

Background

This fight is a Critical Mitigation test. Main Tank should equip all Crit Mit gear and Predators (Assassin and Ranger) should be constantly debuffing the mob with Noxious Enfeeblement. Main Tank gets cursed periodically, but this can be mitigated by having Water Breathing.

There are three levels of brightnesses to the towers.
1) Bright: Khost does more damage, but takes more damage.
2) Dull: Khost does medium damage and takes medium damage.
3) None: Khost is stoneskinned.

The pairs of yellow trash mobs hit VERY hard. Pet pull down the tunnel out of the room and face away from raid force. The orange trash mobs are straight tank and spank.

NOTE: The water in the center of the room is electrified. it causes 2-3k damage every 3-4 seconds.