Feldon
NOTE: This is a commentary piece by Morgan Feldon and is not intended to reflect the opinion of anyone else. In recent years, it seems like there is a special day for just about everything. Grandparents Day, Office Assistant day, Take Your Ferret to Work Day (ok maybe I made that one up), you get the point. In that spirit, we’d like to declare September 15th as Justify Your Marketing Department Day. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet despite a decade of numerous debacles which we have...
If you were hoping for the already overdue Pre-orders and Pricing information for EQ2’s twelfth expansion, I’m afraid Marketing is going to drag this out yet another two weeks until October 1st. Here’s today’s Producer’s Letter with what Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has been allowed to tease us with. We’ll be back with commentary. Maybe. Hail Norrathians! Our next expansion release is right around the corner! Yes, you heard me right – expansion! The team has been churning away and when we looked at the amount of content we created, we decided to call our next release an expansion rather than a campaign...
EQ/EQ2 Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale tweeted late last night that we can expect a Producer’s Letter this morning at 10am PDT. Producer letters for #everquest and #eq2 coming tomorrow aboot (cdn) 10 am Pacific! — Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) September 15, 2015 We can’t say with any certainty what the letter will contain, but we are rather overdue for the announcement of EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion. Typically, these are announced in July or August at the annual SOE Live event which is of course on hiatus this year. And yes, this fall’s update is going to be an expansion as EQ2 Lead...
A handful of players have been reporting an intermittent glitch with the Phantom Seas signature quest line, specifically at the Allu’thua Abduction subquest. The quest reaches a point where hailing the needed NPC no longer updates the quest. We’re unsure of how many people have experienced this issue. We did not find a Bug Report for it on the DGC Issue Tracker website. EQ2 designer extraordinaire Kaitheel has responded to the thread a couple of times and reports that the code side are looking into where the quest might be going awry.
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Phantom Seas The Rare Drop Merchant for Altar of Malice can now be found in the Phantom Seas! Precipice of Power [Raid] The stone adds in the Brell Serilis encounter should no longer kill pets unless directly attacking them. ITEMS Sturdy armor molds will no longer refuse to grant the quest for players that did not have enough city faction. The passive effect for Finsher III now grants potency, instead of offensive only potency. Commentary A merchant selling rare heroic drops from the previous expansion’s dungeons has been a late-summer mainstay...
The time has come for EQ2 players on the US servers being consolidated to pick their new server names. An in-game poll is being conducted to let players make this important decision. Crushbone/Oasis/Butcherblock denizens can choose from: Maj’Dul Poet’s Palace Shimmering Citadel Cleft of Rujark Scornfeather’s Roost Everfrost/Guk/Unrest denizens didn’t get a single one-word choice (what about Bonemire?): Halls of Fate Vault of El’Arad Sanctum of the Scaleborn Tenebrous Tangle Palace of the Awakened Freeport/Permafrost/Nagafen denizens got the most kickass choices by far: Veeshan’s Peak Chardok Kor-Sha Skyfire Protector’s Realm NOTE: Presumably, each account gets one vote per server....
Why are we reporting on a login server outage yesterday afternoon that’s already been resolved? Because communication on the forums was especially good this time around and we report good news too. Don’t worry though, the comments will make up for it. EQ/EQ2 Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale and Community Manager Mepps (who normally tends the DCUO community) pitched in to keep players informed in a “Can’t Log in” forum thread, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. As a bonus, it was pointed out that the product specifications and marketing information for EverQuest II on the Steam Marketplace...
No notice of the downtime, but here’s today’s update notes: GENERAL Added guild leader voting commands for leaderless guilds: If you are a guild Officer, you may now use the command /initiate_guild_leader_vote to initiate the guild leader voting process if your guild does not currently have an active guild leader (no leader has not logged in within 60 days). Anytime during the voting process, if a leader logs in they can cancel the voting process using the command /cancel_guild_leader_vote. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION SilentCity: Delving Dead The door should once again allow entrance on non-TLE servers. Precipice of Power [Raid]...
For the last three years, Player Panels have added another perspective to the expected Developer-led panels at the annual Fan Faire SOE Live conventions. Last year, an EQ2 player named Katanallama presented a standing room only (including two EQ2 devs) panel which cracked the code of EQ2 Macros and Advanced Combat Tracker triggers. The concepts can go deep, but he presents it in a way that any EQ2 player can grasp. During the panel there was a ton of great information shared and useful questions asked and answered. This video has now been posted on Youtube. Katanallama also posted...
All day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday this Labor Day weekend, All Access customers will get to enjoy 100% Bonus XP on non-TLE servers. From the EQ2 Forums: This weekend is a great time to be an All Access member! Why? Because you’ll get DOUBLE XP (Adventure, Tradeskill, AA) all weekend long! The Double XP bonus will turn on at 12:01AM PDT on Saturday, September 5th and will last three full days. This means you have until 11:59PM PDT on Monday, September 7 to fill up those XP bars! The Double XP bonuses will be available for All Access members on all traditional servers. While...
From Kander on the EQ2 Forums: Altar of Malice Rare Drop Merchant! Coming soon! More info next week! Short and sweet. Not that Kander is short. Or sweet. Unless you mean the colloquialism “sweeeeeet”. He then added in another thread: Going to say it right now. It will not include the ethereal weapons. Those effects will be readily available in expansion 12 on a new item tier. More info super soon.
From the EQ2 Forums: Greetings, intrepid Norrathians! After our hotfix next Tuesday morning, Sept. 8, the servers being consolidated will find a poll delivered through in-game mail with the top 5 appropriate name suggestions for their new servers. The vote will last 1 week until we hotfix again the following Tuesday, Sept. 15. The servers being consolidated will get their own naming polls based on themes assigned to them. We had a lot of great name suggestions that will be revealed Tuesday with the poll! Butcherblock, Crushbone, and Oasis servers will get their own Desert of Flames-themed naming poll....
Cyliena
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL TLE Servers The ‘Restore Items’ tab on the character window is now available. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Altar of Malice [Raid] Tserrina should once again cast her Malicious Shadows and Malicious Strife spells. Ritual Keeper V’derin should more reliably cast his Rain of Malice ability. Precipice of Power [Raid] Once spawned, avatars should now respawn if they sense they have not been defeated and reset for any reason. Teleporters to avatar islands no longer deactivate when an avatar is engaged. ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT Summoner Flash Cast no longer references Empower Servant, as summoner...
If you only take away three pieces of information from today’s announcement spelling out the exact procedure and policies that will be followed in the forthcoming merger of ten EQ2 US servers into four, it’s these: The 2015 EQ2 server merger will follow rules regarding name reservation similar to those used in prior merges. You won’t have to “race” or fight other players to reserve character names. You won’t have to call in sick or take off a vacation day. In other words, cooler heads have prevailed! Every EQ2 character will be given a transfer token to move to another server...
It’s time to stock up on blue marble – the Neriak City Festival returns to Darklight Wood from September 1-7! Spend City Tokens on local specialties, generic festival goods, appearance clothing, or food & drink. Make sure all your characters have finished the Neriak Postage Collection, speak to Kella Swampfoot to assist with festival quests, and achieve 89 seconds or less in the local Aether Race to earn the Fearless Flyer title. Last month’s festival had new items, so check in with the merchants! WHEN: 12:01am PT on September 1st – 11:59pm PT on September 7th WHERE: Darklight Wood,...
Legends of Norrath hasn’t had a development team at SOE/DGC for a couple of years now, and the LoN forums were blown away by RadarX earlier this year without explanation, however the game continues to have diehard fans (including EQ2Talk’s Dellmon). This weekend, a Marketplace sale is being held for Legends of Norrrath booster packs and bundles as well as XP and Vitality potions for EQ2. One problem: Legends of Norrath players are running into an issue where they are blocked from redeeming more than a few Legends of Norrath card packs after having purchased them. UPDATE: Windstalker is now...
From the EQ2 Forums: Thanks to all on the TLE servers who participated! DEATHTOLL: Voted “NO” on the expansion. The 2/3rds requirement was not met by a long shot. STORMHOLD: Voted “NO” on the expansion. The 2/3rds requirement was not met by an even longer shot. We will re-run the Desert of Flames Expansion vote again on Sept. 20 – 27 for one week!
The Disney Norrath Vault is open and some 36 mounts which were previously only available from Legends of Norrath and other rare means are now available in the EQ2 Marketplace (most are also available on the Time-Locked Expansion servers) for just two weeks or until September 8th. From the EQ2 Forums: New Marketplace mounts are now available on all servers (INCLUDING the Time-Locked Expansion servers) for a limited time. Look for these under the “Limited-Time Mounts” tab in the Marketplace. These can be purchased for 2499 Daybreak cash. Don’t hesitate, because all of these mounts will be retired to...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL (Full Install only) For those having trouble validating an existing assetslib.vpl file on startup, you can now add ‘cl_force_paklib_create 1’ to your eq2.ini file to force re-creation of this file. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION PvP General Fixed a bug where some guards would get confused when pets start attacking Exiles. Precipice of Power [Raid] Heart Stutter should no longer hit players outside the raid engaged with Cazic-Thule. ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT Fixed a crash issue related to Charm abilities [on Deathtoll PvP TLE server] Focus Aim should no longer spam requires time locked server....
In 1998, John Smedley co-founded Verant Interactive with current Daybreak Games CEO Russell Shanks. Riding on the overwhelming success of EverQuest, the company was purchased by Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2000, which saw the company renamed to Sony Online Entertainment. Fast forward 15 years to February of this year: Sony Online Entertainment was sold to investment group Columbus Nova after a two month year search for a suitable buyer. In the American corporate world, it is standard practice that a CEO will typically remain with the company for a six month transition period after a buyout, upon which they depart with a healthy...
The announcement that EverQuest II will experiment with banishing players for cheating or other egregious bannable offenses to a “prison server” has been met with mixed reactions. Some have described the idea as bold and a potential money maker as well as providing a petri dish for game bugs and exploits to be discovered and fixed. Others have derided the plans as a waste of development resources. Some went so far as to describe it as the “dumbest idea ever”. UPDATE! CNN Money has now picked up the story. We’re up to 21 media sites covering this news: CNN...
From the EQ2 Forums (posted today at 12:30pm PDT): GENERAL Players may now claim [eq2u]a D’Morte insignia band[/eq2u] from the entrance to The D’Morte Burial Chambers if they do not currently possess one. Players may now claim [eq2u]a darkened azure shard[/eq2u] from a gnollish terraporter if they do not currently possess one. Stormhold Players may once again visit published houses from anywhere. ITEMS Darkruned Blood Iron armor now has both str andwis.
Yesterday, the EverQuest II launchpad was updated. This caused numerous issues but most were resolved and most players are now able to connect. If you’re still having issues, here are some further solutions: Q: You get a black screen when you open the Launchpad. Now what? A: From Caith on the EQ2 Forums: Open Start -> Settings -> Control Panel > Internet Options Click on the Advanced tab on the far right. Scroll down the Settings pane to Security. Enable the “Do not save encrypted pages to disk” setting. Make sure “Use TLS 1.0” is checked. Again you should only...
HMS Jersey Prison Ship circa 1782 From Windstalker on the EQ2 Forums: Good day Norrathians! We are very busy here on the EQII team and we have something coming up we wanted to make you aware of — a little experiment. Later this week we plan to release a server we are calling “Drunder,” which is a “prison server.” What does that mean, exactly? Ultimately, players who are caught breaking our rules and disrupting EQ2 live server gameplay will be flagged for this server, and no others — ever. Characters on these accounts will be copied to Drunder (the...
The monthly Moonlight Enchantments event begins tonight! The grottos open up on the 20th at 12:01am PT and close on the 21st at 11:59pm PT. The time applies directly with no conversion for all servers. Grotto Zone & Location Collection Quest(s) Brownie Darklight Wood /loc 14, -32, -238 Tree Bark Festive Flowers Strong Brew Root Beer Zygomyd Nektulos Forest /loc -363, 0.42, -682 Mushroom Spores Earthly Tasks Comforting Confections Naiad Enchanted Lands /loc -278, 5, 18 Naiad Scales Naiad Aid Dryad Antonica /loc -696, -4, 621 Dryad Leaves Pollution Problem Fay Greater Faydark /loc -132, -44, -771 Flower Petals...