Feldon
From Kiara: Hello all! We’re going to bring the servers down at the usual time (7am PDT) for a hotfix. We’ll post the notes tomorrow. Included will be a fix for the overly proccerific procs. The x4 raid zone, Munzok’s Material Bastion, was planned to be activated tomorrow, but we’re going to hold off until next week for a few more tweaks. We’ll have the servers back up and running as soon as possible. Thank you and happy gaming! From EQ2 Forums
As expected, the “Spell Naming Convention” thread is getting a lot of attention. Currently, Summoner (Conjuror / Necromancer) pets have distinctive names. I can see where folks are coming from when they say that having just one name for all of them would be a step backwards. Also, some of the spell names are pretty good through the tiers. If only the less imaginative spells were renamed that would make more sense. Finally, there have been folks suggesting either an Adjective system where all the spells have the same name, but a new adjective is added to the front...
I admit it. I can sometimes be pretty nostalgic. I grew up on Final Fantasy II for the SNES (which was actually Final Fantasy IV in Japan). I loved the game. The storyline, the gameplay. I was really excited when Final Fantasy III came out (actually Final Fantasy VI in Japan), and I made it about halfway through and then things came up in life. But I really enjoyed the Final Fantasy series. Years later, I bought a Playstation (the original) on the strength of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Final Fantasy VII. I didn’t get very far...
From Kiara: The fix for the Ward of Elements is planned to go in on Tuesday (4/7) along with Munzok’s Material Bastion (the x4 zone). People have to have finished Ward of Elements to get the level boosting item that will allow them to kill things in the x4 zone. No further info just yet on what will happen for people who have completed the x2 zone but had Najena being shy. When I know more about that, I’ll let you all know. Here you go.
The new x2 Ward of Elements zone is certainly creating a lot of discussion! Some say it’s too hard and requires full fabled/mythical. Some say it’s easy. Some say the 5 day lockout is too long, but I am with those who feel that if each named drops 2 patterns or 1 pattern and 1 exceptional fabled item, and the whole zone is on Smart Loot, then folks can get upgraded very quickly in this zone. So far I think it is a good zone to bridge the gap between grouping and raiding and helping to gear folks up...
Don’t like your character’s name, gender, or appearance? Change it! Coming to StationCash on April 7th… EQ2Players
Editor’s Note: This was later declared to NOT be an exploit and that no further action would be taken. In a shocking about-face, after 4 1/2 months of tolerance, EQ2 devs have reversed course and now consider mentored Void Shard runs to be an exploit and intend to patch the game so shards cannot be acquired in this manner. Presumably with the addition of daily solo shard quest, EQ2 devs now intend to close this loophole. From Kiara: This is an exploit and we are currently working on a fix for it. I’d suggest not doing it. Whilst you...
It seems it is my duty after each Live Update to report those bugs which managed to slip through. It’s not a job I enjoy, but someone’s gotta do it. Here’s what to watch for: Warden Mythical/Epic proc is feeding power to the target instead of the Warden. Hire an extra illy or switch weapons until the hotfix. Druid AA “Tortoise Shell” AoE blocker spell is now broken as of LU51. No word on a fix. [discussion] The x4 Raid zone (Munzok’s) did not go live. No word as to why, only to expect an explanation later. Possibly because...
GAME UPDATE 51 March / 31 / 2009 FEATURED Weapon Appearance Slots Players now have access to primary, secondary and ranged appearance slots. The wield style (one-handed, two-handed, shield) of the weapons must match the weapons that are currently equipped. Bristlebane’s Day (3/31/2009 – 4/8/2009) Jesters, thieves, bards and fans of mischief are invited to enjoy the festivities that surround Bristlebane’s Day! You never know what laughs and pranks are to be found, during this enjoyable time of year. Celebrators are present in every home city, and the oddest of objects have been spotted in Antonica, The Commonlands, Darklight...
Kiara chimed in this evening with this news: This is a head’s up to let you know that we’ll be bringing the servers down tomorrow morning to push Elements of Corruption (GU #51) live! Unless of course the “big one” hits and Southern California drops into the ocean… In that case, it might be delayed again… In addition to this, Vivox will be updating voice chat, so it will be unavailable across all games. The estimated time for the servers to come down is 7am PDT. If there are any changes to the plan, we’ll let you know.
While we do not have a date yet for GU51 (The Lavastorm Revamp, now minus the Fighter Revamp), we now know that it will be released sooner rather than later, with as many of the fixes, improvements, and content as possible, excluding the much maligned Fighter Revamp. Kiara posted: The Lavastorm changes ARE going to be pushed live. Right now they’re being separated from the fighter changes so that we can push them live (and a little extra polish is being thrown on as well). I don’t have an exact date yet for the Lavastorm changes going live, but...
After the deafening silence of the last 3 weeks with regards to the Fighter Revamp and the state of GU51 in general, we’ve got a response on March 17 from none other than Bruce Ferguson, Producer of EQ2. Read it Here. The changes made with the initial release of the fighter revamp (on the Test server) need to be removed. However, rather than just roll back your characters to when we first introduced the changes on Test back in January; we’re going to need to split out the consolidated spells, which will reset them to Adept 1. For our...
Looks like Game Update 51 — Elements of Corruption — including the Lavastorm revamp, new x2, x4 raid zones, T3 armor, and fighter revamp have been further delayed. From a March 9, 2009 post on EQ2Players: As many of you know, we’ve been working on Elements of Corruption (Game Update 51) for some time…there really is a lot of good stuff coming, including new zones, new raids, new quests, a revamp of Lavastorm, the list seems endless. However, we’re not quite ready to release it. I know many of you were expecting us to do so this week or next,...
Here is the new Tier 3 Void Shard Armor. NEWLY REVISED FOR 3/4/09 — T3 Set Bonuses have been adjusted. Note: Just in case it’s not clear, I have Photoshopped out the Set Bonuses from all but 1 item in each screen shot. Every T3 Void Shard Armor set has set bonuses for having (2), (3), (5), and (7) pieces from the set. Bard, Enchanter, Predator Druid, Rogue, Cleric Summoner, Sorcerer, Shaman* * You know those whacky Shamans… always running around buck naked wearing just twigs and funny hats. 🙂 Actual screen shots BTW. Crusader, Brawler, Warrior [placeholder] Bard/Shaman,...
Ok, I hopped over to Test and got the scoop on how the T3 Void Shard Armor seems to work. There are two NPCs: Assilus Poisonbolt <Elemental Pattern Quartermaster> Borden Chargehammer <Elite Void Shard Armor Quartermaster> As you run the new x2 Raid Zone “The Ward of Elements”, one or more Molds will drop from raid bosses. To buy your T3 Void Shard Armor Pattern from Assilus, you must have the necessary Mold and the requisite number of Void Shards. Borden will take your Pattern and the requisite T2 Void Shard Armor piece and turn it into a T3...
Originally posted by Kirstie at EQ2 Forums: We have some exciting new features in the works for EQII! One of the first we’ll be talking about is Research Assistants. These hardworking researchers will help you acquire upgrades to your spells and combat arts while you’re off adventuring in the deepest darkest dungeon or asleep in your own warm cozy bed. Even though they’re hardworking, they’re not a speedy service and they are limited in how much they’ll help you. Because this kind of research is complicated, they’ll only be able to work on one spell or combat art for...
Recently players noticed that they were unable to start Commisioned crafting of void shard items if the crafter was in possession of the void shard. Emily “Domino” Taylor, EQII Tradeskill Developer, responded on the Official Forums: “The transfer of no-trade items (including void shards) via commission crafting was unintended. Going forward, you can expect that this kind of transfer will not be possible. A recipe that requires a no-trade item to make and produces a no-trade product, should require all of those no-trade components to be held by the person who is going to end up with the final...
I saw the most terrifying quote today from the mechanics developer of EQ2, Aeralik. this is the first part of trying to get people back into their core roles so to speak. Tanks take the brunt of it now but we realize other classes are doing high damage when they shouldn’t be while some others don’t have the utility to match their role. Some may even pick up new roles down the line. So while we are currently tweaking the fighters we do have things in mind for the others albeit probably not as dramatic as the fighters( at...
From EQ2Players. In Game Update 51 (scheduled for a mid-March arrival), Tradeskillers will get some love: A new Tradeskill Instance in the Void. This will be a bit different than the existing 3 group tradeskill instances which level 50-80 tradeskillers have been doing since TSO came out. Updated recipes for shields, orbs, and other secondary slot items. Guild Hall Trophies were mentioned at FanFaire ’08 and will make their appearance here. These trophies consist of 2 raid “bosses” from the original launch and 2 additional raid bosses from each subsequent expansion. Tradeskillers will make a “trophy mount” which, when...
There’s a great writeup at EQ2Players about the new level 45-55 solo content coming to Lavastorm and which is currently on the Test and Test Copy servers. Note that they are patching and fixing things all the time, so some of this content may not yet be doable. When I logged in, faction and rewards were not fully functional.
You’ve probably heard a lot about the tanking changes which were put on hiatus. The cancelled Game Update #51 – Lucan’s Art of War was split into a couple of hotfixes and the fighter revamp got put on hold. Currently, fighters hold agro through a combination of taunts, hate transfers from Assassins, Coercers, etc., and by putting out superior DPS. In the current situation Shadowknights are putting out more DPS in multi-target fights than some “DPS” classes. The intention of this well-intentioned fighter revamp is for fighters to be able to hold agro in a fight entirely by taunting...
BROKERS Players should no longer get an erroneous message about vendor slots being full when first opening the broker after a fresh login. ORCISH WASTES The Avatar of War will now cast Furious Axe of War at the start of each combat, rather than waiting. QUESTS / MISSIONS An issue that could prevent some players from getting daily missions if they had completed the previous mission has been fixed.
TerraNova has a posting from one of the researchers on this EQ2 data dump on record. From the report linked here, I find the relevant quotes: Players were sampled across the game’s servers by inviting all players to participate in a survey if they logged in during the study time window. After providing consent, players completed an online web-based survey that took about 25 minutes. Players…were promised a special in-game item as compensation. This item, the “Greatstaff of the Sun Serpent” was created by Sony for this unique use. According to the Sony team, the item was made to...
ArsTechnica.com is reporting that 60 Terabytes of Raw Server Logs from the EverQuest II universe captured over the last 4 years have been provided to a collaborative group of academic researchers — including psychologists to epidemiologists — at a number of institutions. Dmitri Williams introduced the project and described how researchers have been approaching various game developers over the years. He paraphrased the conversation with Sony as: “What do you collect?” “Well, everything—what do you want?” “Can we have it all?” “Sure.” The end result is a log that includes four years of data for over 400,000 players that...
Some odd bugs have been introduced into the TSO Mission system and the Broker system as well. The solution to the TSO Missions is to bring up your Completed Quests and click on any existing missions. They will vanish from the list. The solution to the broker slots refusing to sell items is to send a mail or click Take Coin.