Feldon
EQ2 Player TrulyVexed has been working on a fantastic EQ2 fansite with information for players of all skill levels wanting to succeed in the Altar of Malice expansion. The new EQ2Stuff.com site includes a variety of guides, from Altar of Malice Heroic Zone strategies, to Altar of Malice gear and adornment selections, to lists of which shinies drop in which AoM instances, to useful (but not required!) ACT triggers, there is a lot of valuable information all in this one website. TrulyVexed announced the site on the EQ2 Forums a few weeks ago and we’ve been meaning to feature the...
Members of the EverQuest II team took to Twitch today to reassure players about the direction and future of the game given last week’s stunning takeover and layoffs. While it was great to hear some of the team’s overall plans for the near future, it would have been great to start out with an acknowledgement of what happened, some high level broad strokes about how the team has pulled together to continue to give us content. I’d have also mentioned the expansion (Even if a date is unknown) as there is a doubt as to whether there will be...
EQ2 Senior Designer Kaitheel has posted the news that the popular Brewday Festival is now on Test and the developers are seeking testing and feedback: Brewday Festival is now active on Test! Make this Brewday Festival a memorable one! Follow the shouts of rowdy patrons located near every player city to the festival’s official brew house, The Bar of Brell. Once inside, grab a stein and celebrate Brewday with the holiday themed rewards, crafts, and adventures, both new and familiar. But don’t let the celebration stop there, the ale keeps flowing throughout the bars and drinking holes of Norrath...
From EQ2/EQ2 Community Manager Ry “Roshen” Schueller on the EQ2 Forums: Both the Everfrost and Butcherblock servers will be brought offline on Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 4:00AM Pacific* for server maintenance. This server is estimated to be unavailable for approximately four hours. Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.
From EQ/EQ2 Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter: @Cyliena @everquestii nope, next week. Rare bosses added to AoM. — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) February 18, 2015
A reminder that there’s a Twitch livestream today about EverQuest II’s future. From the EQ2 Forums: Hello all, The team will be hosting a Twitch stream on Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 3PM PST*. This stream will be hosted on www.twitch.tv/everquest2. As mentioned in Windstalker’s letter to the EQ2 community here, we’ll be using this stream as a time to talk directly with YOU the players. As we prepare for this stream, please feel free to share any questions and topics you’d like to hear discussed as replies to this thread. We’ll get to as many of these as possible during...
From EQ2/EQ2 Community Manager Ry “Roshen” Schueller on the EQ2 Forums: The Unrest server will be brought offline on Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 4:00AM Pacific* for server maintenance. This server is estimated to be unavailable for approximately four hours. Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.
Conjurors and Necromancers have yearned for a rewrite to their Pet AI for several years, and it looks like we’re about to get our wish. On Test, we’re now able to see what Xelgad had been working on with his complete rewrite of the Fighter, Scout, Mage, and Priest summoner pets. Once the changes have been thoroughly tested by players, they’ll be promoted to the live servers. From the EQ2 Test Notes: ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT Summoners Summoners can now right-click their pet and use the “Change Appearance” functionality. The summoner and their pet must be out of combat. The...
SOE is not the only company in the MMO ecosystem world that has undergone a radical transformation over the last two weeks. Massively, the AOL/Joystiq-owned news site that covered all manner of MMORPG news and commentary was unceremoniously shut down despite being highly profitable and having an enthusiastic audience. Through hard work, planning, and a lot of behind-the-scenes discussion, the Massively folks have performed a phoenix-like rebirth of the site on Kickstarter as newly independent Massively Overpowered. In just 48 hours, they met their $50,000 goal and that amount is still climbing. For independent, non-sponsored, well-written analysis of games...
A handful of bored teenagers decided their celebrity status on Twitter is more important than us being able to play on DBG servers or participate in the forums this morning. I guess the job title of selling car insurance was already filled, so these reptiles are just wasting everyone’s time instead. UPDATE — Noonish PST DBG servers, games, and forums seem to be accepting connections reliably again, so we’re going to mark this one resolved!
Jethal Silverwing of Kithicor.org has posted a new song based on Frozen’s “Let It Go” about the Daybreak Games Layoffs. I called it.. on Feb 11th.. the Gnoll Shit hit the Fan, and many.. MANY.. of our good friends got laid off. Our initial reaction was shock.. then the community took the next logical step to anger. One of the calm voices out there, among the mobs carrying pitchforks and torches.. was Linda “Brasse” Carlson. Now, former, director of global community relations.. and really, the face of SOE for the last 6 years. Perhaps her years dealing with the public...
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums: Hello, Norrathians! As you’ve likely heard by now, there’s been some changes around here in staff. I want to assure you though that this team is still in full-time dev and operation mode, and we continue to have awesome plans for EQ2. We’re shuffling a few things about, but our goals in delivering fun stuff won’t change. For example, in a couple of weeks we’ll be releasing rare bosses for the AoM dungeons and more. We’re tinkering a bit so I apologize for the silence and certainly any concerns or worry...
Oakmiser has shared his latest Norrathian Chronicles epidoe, this one a guide on the nerve-wracking but infinitely useful tradeskill ability of Experimenting. Check it out!
What started out as a thread by players wondering why an interesting feature (Map Fogging) had been removed got a clear explanation from Gninja and Caith as the team tries to solve the crashing issues certain players have been reporting. Gninja started with: This was actually a quick change and the reason it was done was because the amount of data that had to be stored on each character was contributing negatively to individual performance. Caith added: This change directly reduces character data that is sent to the client when zoning, by a significant amount in many cases. Character...
More than a few players have looked at my EQ2 character‘s vacant adornment slots with incredulity. Why have I been so slack on adorning? The answer has multiple parts: I never knew when I will replace a piece of gear and thus be out the cost of the adornments or worse unable to carry those adornments forward. War Runes have been by-and-large out of reach of my casual heroic gameplay style. The purple adornments I really want have been drops behind an unfavorable RNG. Green adornments for the most part have lacked significant growth, or just haven’t been worth...
Not surprisingly, my article “Daybreak Games: It Didn’t Have to Be This Way” received a lukewarm response from its subject, Daybreak President John Smedley. @EQ2Wire Feldon I'll make it simple – your article was so offbase I actually laughed. so much of it is just factually incorrect. — John Smedley (@j_smedley) February 12, 2015 After exchanging a few candid e-mails with him, I’m able to release this comment: We absolutely made sure that taking care of our employees was the highest priority and this deal was by far and away the one that took care of people the best....
Have you ever wondered just how many status points it takes to level a guild? Fortunately EQ2 player Xanadin has done the math and made a table of guild XP levels that has the necessary numbers. Here’s the direct link to the site and the link where it’s mentioned on the EQ2 Forums. We meant to post this before all the news broke yesterday.
Bumping this article up as we’ve learned of two three more layoffs — Xelgad, Jeffrey Bard, and Fyreflyte. From EQ and EQ2 Creative Director and awesome fire dancer Akil “Lyndro” Hooper‘s facebook (a public post): Sitting in a room, getting laid off with some of the brightest and most talented developers I’ve had the pleasure to work with. No idea what comes next, but if history holds true I’m sure that it will be fun. From @Douglastweets (Endymion) who worked on EQ2 as a programmer and added a ton of stuff including Gear Sets to EQ2, helping EQ2U and Dragon’s Armory...
UPDATE: SOE President John Smedley has responded to this post. The day has arrived that I’ve been dreading since I heard the first rumors. Layoffs have befallen Daybreak Games, affecting H1Z1, Planetside 2, EQNext/Landmark, EverQuest, and EverQuest II. The Community Relations team was one of the hardest hit, with Brasse, Amnerys, Ashlanne, Hats, and Afista all let go. We haven’t confirmed any other layoffs in any other department such as QA, CS, Platform, Web, etc. I have to hand it to the EQ2 team who has pulled together as a family over the last week in the face of...
From former Planetside 2 producer David Carey on Planetside 2’s Reddit: Hey guys, I came on to say goodbye to you guys (at least in my current role, prepare for lurking), but after scanning the front page I wanted to change the flavor of the post a bit. Columbus Nova deserves no hate in all this. They are more like white knights than negative forces here. SOE needed a shake up/new direction, and CN provided that. They have done nothing but been gracious in their new ownership, and they went out of their way to make sure that Devs and...
There is a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt swirling around Daybreak Games and EverQuest II in particular today, for obvious reasons. We’re working on a more detailed reaction to today’s news which will be posted tomorrow morning. However EQ2 senior animator Tom Tobey took a moment today to do what he does best (other than animations of course!) and injected some humor into the day with this tweet: Alright, let's make this happen! pic.twitter.com/1gfujcUpzZ — Tom Tobey (@giganticrobot) February 11, 2015 and by resurrecting Errrorr’s “Official Duck Mount Request Thread“: The Official Duck Mount Request thread. Why does...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Map Fog has been removed. ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT General Expert Spells of a higher tier will now do more damage than the same spell Master previous tier. For example: Level 91 Faith Strike (Expert) will now do more damage than level 81 Faith Strike (Master). ITEMS Bound transmutation stones purchased from the loyalty merchant may now be transmuted correctly. Corrected an issue where some pvp adornment added red gem armor lost its ability mod. QUESTS Altar of Malice and Tears of Veeshan Weekly Missions are now classified as Weekly Missions in the Quest...
From Kotaku: Daybreak, the game studio behind EverQuest and H1Z1, is laying off a number of staff including David Georgeson, the man who has served as the face of EverQuest for many years,Kotaku has learned. We don’t know just how many people Daybreak is letting go, as staff are being informed right now whether or not they will remain employed with the company. The newly-titled Daybreak, which was called Sony Online Entertainment for close to two decades, went independent and changed its name last week after Sony sold it to a New York-based management firm. Although the company was all smiles about the deal in public,...
Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, Director of Development / Franchise Director for Everquest, EverQuest II, and EverQuest Next / Landmark has been laid off by Daybreak Games. Georgeson took over as Producer of a then-troubled EverQuest II team and made strides to support the game both inside and outside SOE, add Free-to-Play support, etc. He then moved on to work on EverQuest Next/Landmark and has been focused on those games for the last year and a half. Georgeson updated his Twitter profile a few minutes ago with this message: Just this guy, y’know? San Diego, CA (for now) We now have...
From Dexella on the DBG Forums: Dear Players, Partners & Friends, Last week we announced that we were acquired and are now operating independently as Daybreak Game Company. To better position our newly independent studio for future growth opportunities and to deliver on our legacy of making top online games, we have had to make some tough choices including realignment of resources. Unfortunately, this realignment means adjusting staffing as well. We announced today that we will eliminate positions in our San Diego and Austin studios. We deeply value our employees and never take these decisions lightly so we’ve done...