Feldon
A bit of a bombshell for some of you. Bruce Ferguson has stepped down as Senior Producer of EQ2 (his announcement): Just like any evolving game, things change. Since release, we’ve had an ongoing and heavy interest in game balance. Much of the critical implementation work in the last several years for EverQuest II has been on the shoulders of Aeralik, but the discussion and decisions are shared across the entire team, as we review information that you provide us in various ways. Data comes from the many reports we run against our log files, from the posts you...
Posted by Kander: So there are two percentages that are set on master drops. There is the drop percentage, which means monster X has an X% chance to drop a master spell. Then there is the smartloot percentage, which means aside from the drop rate, if a master drops what percentage chance is it that someone will need it. So a boss mob that has a 10% chance to drop a master and it has 33% smartloot, means that when it drops, there is a 33% chance that its a spell someone in your group needs. If you think...
ITEMS Death Chimes will now work correctly. Ill Will now properly applies the heal to the owner of the item. PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE Pets should now be able to attack the Void Annihilator. QUESTS Boss mobs should now drop multiple keys for early progression in Veksar: The Invasion. Innate spells used by much of the population in Veksar: The Invasion can no longer be used towards other creatures within the zone. YKESHA’S INNER STRONGHOLD The Archmagus now banishes players less frequently than before. Field General Uktap’s Sappers now take longer to set explosive charges, and do not...
Calthine has posted some great survival tips for the coming Fan Faire convention. If you plan to make it, or just want a funny read: http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=18064
On May 14th, there was an EQ2 Dev Chat hosted by Zam. Bruce (Froech) – Producer Jennifer (Kirstie) – Mechanics Supervisor Ryan Favale (ImagoQuem) – Graphics Roger (patherpanchali) – Raid content Nick (GlipSOE) – Associate Producer Brett (timetravelling) – Associate Game Designer Greg (Rothgar) – Sr. Programmer Emily (Domino) – Tradeskills Chris (Aeralik) – Class Balance/Combat Jason (Fyreflyte) – Itemisation Nathan (Kaitheel) – Events and Quests Complete chat logs of that event can be found at EQ2.Zam.com, however some people might like to get the highlights that I think my readers might be most interested in… My question about...
Ok, actually it’s Game Update 52: Monument and Might. GAME FEATURES Player-written books Research Assistants Spell Naming Conventions — As spells upgrade through tiers rather than entirely new names, each subsequent spell will have a roman numeral increment afterwards. For instance Ice Comet and Ice Comet II. Rather than Apprentice I, II, IV, Adept I, Adept III, and Master I, Master II, spells will progress such as Apprentice, Journeyman, Adept, Master, Grandmaster, etc. The end result of this will be spell names such as Ice Comet II (Adept). Level 80 characters currently have their Combat XP converted into Achievement...
ITEMS The Bane Warding line can no longer be stacked by wearing three pieces of two different sets. All Bane Warding spells now deal less damage and cannot trigger more than once per second in PvP combat. The Combat Art damage displayed on the Assassin’s Thirst abilities now matches the bonuses they give. MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION Yzlak Encounter – The clone adds of player priests now have reduced health. Yzlak Encounter – The clones themselves will remain longer before becoming a Yzlak Presence. Yzlak Encounter – Yzlak Presence adds can now be affected by all classes, not just the...
This will be good news for those of you with large guild halls and want to use more of the available guild hall amenities, but not without losing your Hall Guards. In GU52, Hall Guards will no longer take up Amenity slots. Already, mailboxes do not take up amenity slots. Also, as some guilds have used these Hall Guards for other purposes than guarding (indeed they don’t actually have any function and will not ‘defend’ the hall if invaders come in, nor are they agroable), in GU52, they will lose the “Hall Guard” flag under their name. More Info
On May 6th, we were all reassured that the “AA problem” is a figment of our imaginations: In EQII, we allow you to gain achievement experience at a fast rate by questing, discovering new locations, killing named creatures and even by getting certain items without this impacting your adventure leveling. We feel that this ends up being a good overall compromise so players level up in both systems together pretty quickly. So you can imagine my surprise when Aeralik popped into one of dozens of threads discussing the AA Grind with this less than clear comment: Or maybe someone...
A substantial (and undocumented) change which was made to all of the “key mobs” in TSO dungeons was clearly intended to prevent Monks, Bruisers, and Shadowknights from acquiring Void Shards (and Plat in some dungeons). But it now looks like this detrimental effect, called Mandate, may affect groups attempting to clear TSO dungeons. Here’s a thread discussing it. I’ve even got art… Thanks Merriestar: One can assume this is the first half of SoE closing the “Void Shard loopholes” first identified in TSO beta but which got no official attention until just a few weeks ago.
Posted by Kiara: GENERAL Overpaying shard chests in Guk Upper, Guk Lower, Guk Stronghold, Nu’Roga, Veksar and Korsha have had their platinum payouts decreased to be inline with the other zones. ATREBE’S LABORATORY Sannik the Unfinished in Atrebe’s Laboratory has had his damage significantly lowered. PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE Players in combat should now be able to harvest energized crystals within Anashti Sul’s room in Palace of the Ancient One. The Void Handlers associated with Pentaclypse and Ultaclypse in Palace of the Ancient One now do slightly less damage. YKESHA’S INNER STRONGHOLD The unstable minions that spawn in...
Lest ye think that the Ward of Elements zone is the only x2 raid zone we will be seeing for a while, Kander has given us an update. Timetraveling and I have no plans to make this zone any easier, we feel that the challenge vs reward is about right. If there is anything you feel that is a flat out bug and needs to be fixed, please feel free to PM either him or me and we’ll look into it ASAP. In other news, we have another x2 coming soon, that will be a tad more… challenging. The Ward of...
This is my 4th posting on Research Assistants. If you have not read all 64 pages of the marathon topic, you may have missed some info. SoE wants to add Research Assistants to EQ2. These will be NPCs which will take one of your existing spells and upgrade its tier after a specified amount of time. That time varies by the tier of the spell. If you have an Adept III version of a Tier 8 spell, then the Master version of that spell might take a month or more to research. What is known about these Research Assistants...
Bravo to those of you who have managed to keep up with the 39 page topic on Spell Naming. That’s almost as remarkable as those who have managed to read every single post in the 64 page Research Assistants thread! For the rest of you who just do not have that kind of time, I present some highlights, which offer some insight into just what direction the game is heading. In particular, Aeralik points out how there are some game mechanics which are complex or only really understood by folks who have an in-depth knowledge of how the game...
Some of you will be thrilled to know that FreeRealms is out of Beta and now LIVE. I have not kept up to date on FreeRealms since its splashy debut at FanFaire ’08, but it certainly showed a lot of promise in the initial demo and playthrough. There are a gazillion things you can do once you login. You can race cars, buy and care for a pet, go out adventuring, questing, and exploring, craft, play minigames (checkers, chess, cards, puzzle games, etc.) chat with friends, put on a concert, etc. It’s The Sims meets Guitar Hero meets Petz...
EQ2 has added some of the most attractive furniture yet for the game. I think many people have been hoping for a nice, “clean” set of wooden, upholstered chairs for years now and we finally got them. Not to mention an awesome looking hutch. Unfortunately these new house/guild items are being made available at an extra cost through the StationCash system. While I appreciate that carpenters and woodworkers have received many additional recipes in the last year (thanks Domino!), a nice set of all-purpose chairs, table, and hutch have remained elusive. Until now. I guess if you’ve gotta have...
On April 22nd, 2009, Allakhazam (now known simply as ZAM) relaunched their EQ2 Portal. First announced at Fan Faire in August ’08, the new website is the first (and possibly only?) fan site with live data feeds directly from EQ2. This means that EQ2 Zam has live Broker search which are on just a few minutes delay. Also, loot drops from the various dungeons now have actual percentage drop rates. As of April 28, EQ2 ZAM’s live data is only available for US servers. No word on when EU and other servers will be providing this data. I will...
Posted by Kiara: GENERAL The friends list on the welcome screen will now ignore offline friends if that option is enabled on the community window. ITEMS The 4-piece bonuses on the Paladin, Monk, Berserker, and Defiler Shadow Odyssey raid sets have been improved. The Lycanthrope Bracelet’s effects in PVP combat have been slightly lowered. QUESTS One of the lists of names for the Task “Hidden Agenda” could appear in an unreachable spot on a bookshelf. This has been fixed. WARD OF ELEMENTS Elemental bosses in Ward of Elements now drop non-stacking encrusted gems. The encrusted gems can be unpacked...
Aeralik has chimed in with the first hints of what we can expect in GU52: GU52 has a wide variety of things coming. From what I understand there will be an assortment of new quests and additional content which means additional ways to raise your aa points if you havent yet. You have to keep in mind dfferent people have different responsibilities. My job is to work on the class balance and combat systems which this falls under and like I said is the first part of a greater plan which we will talk about more in the future. ...
From EQ2 Forums: From 3:00 AM PDT until 6:00 AM PDT on Thursday, April 16, 2009, the EQII servers will be undergoing maintenance and will be unavailable. Also beginning at 3:00 AM PDT on Thursday, April 16, 2009, SOE Account and Commerce flow, Station Store and the Station Marketplace will be unavailable due to maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 5 hours. This might also cause some forum accounts to temporarily lose permissions, due to the inability to verify account status while the maintenance is taking place. This is only temporary and normal permissions will return automatically...
GENERAL Players will now see a new Welcome Screen upon login. The Welcome Screen can be disabled by adding cl_show_welcome_screen_on_startup 0 (that’s a zero) to your eq2.ini. You can now ctrl+left click the armor crates in the Station Marketplace window to see all of the armor pieces in the dressing room at once! MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION A mysterious and powerful void entity has made its presence known on Norrath. Although its motives aren’t clear, its powerful presence has sent shivers through even the most powerful denizens of the realm. This zone represents its stronghold and should prove a challenge...
There have been concerns about having spells with a roman numeral and then spell qualities within a tier having roman numbers (App I, App IV, Adept I, Adept III, Master I, and Master II) as far as difficulties with Broker searching or confusion among new players who have to deal with a spell named, for instance Shadow Leap II (Apprentice II). Careful reading of Aeralik’s posts had led many people to believe that this spell renaming was just the first step in a bigger process. Naysayers, looks like you just got served. 😉 We got our hint on what...
Thanks to Denyo who has posted this great screen snap and list of all the epic encounters in EQ2 which reward a trophy: EQ2: Darathar, Vox DoF: Djinn Master, Godking KoS: Lord Vyemm, Tarinax TFD: Chel’Drak EoF: Wuoshi, Mayong, Clockwork Menace RoK: Venril Sathir, Trakanon, Leviathan TSO: Gynok, Ykesha, Zarrakon, Aiden
One boulder won’t solve your Aiden problems anymore in the x2 raid zone… Posted by timetravelling: The adds were not intended to ALL be prevented by the boulders. Please try it again, and let me know if y’all have any issues. From Kiara: There will be a quick hotfix at the usual times (7am PDT for US servers and around 9pm PDT for EU servers) to fix the bug with Aiden in Ward of Elements.
GENERAL An issue that was causing UI icons or elements to look blurry and low-quality has been resolved. An issue that was causing low-quality textures on player characters after switching from third person to first person view has been resolved. EVERNIGHT ABBEY Marcus Thex should turn aggro now once all five clan leaders have been slain. ITEMS The Dancing Satyr has learned how to dance and is anxious to show off his new moves. Bite of the Wolf will now trigger properly and apply to the warden. Restitution Master 1 should no longer drop from spell tables. The Signet...