Feldon
This week’s Daybreak Games layoffs have begun with a shocker. Linda “Brasse” Carlson, long the public face of Sony Online Entertainment as its Global Community Relations lead, and emcee of the annual SOE Live convention for the last five years, she first caught the attention of SOE through her popular TheBrasse.com fansite for EQ2 and her work in the player community. She has also spoken at conventions on behalf of SOE and also moderated panels on the subject of Community Management such as the popular Game Developer’s Conference. With the friendships she’s built in the gaming community, we expect she’ll...
From the EQ2 Forums: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at approximately 4:00AM PST for an update. Estimated downtime is 1 hour. The Nagafen server will be undergoing additional maintenance during this time. Estimated downtime for Nagafen is 4 hours. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at approximately 9:00PM PST for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on February 11, 2015) Estimated downtime is 1 hour. Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 11.02.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa...
In response to questions about the future of EverQuest II, Afista posted this official response: Daybreak and Columbus Nova management teams are working together closely to evaluate the situation and will make adjustments if needed This post lends credence to the trickle of rumors I’ve been hearing.
I’m proud to announce that a fellow player who I have twice met at SOE Live and then had the fortune of spending New Year’s Eve with is embarking on a new adventure in broadcasting with his own EverQuest II-themed weekly show! Oakmiser‘s new channel, which he calls The Norrathian Chronicles, will see 5-15 minute videos covering news, live events, content updates, and tutorials for in-game topics that tend to trip players up. Oakmiser, who shares the home server of Butcherblock with me and Dethdlr, has been getting advise from myself and Chuina, creator and former co-host of the popular EQN/Landmark...
Over the last few months, Dethdlr and I have discovered a some surprisingly obvious bugs on EQ2U which we can only guess at least one player noticed, but then couldn’t find an easy way to contact us, so the bug remained unfixed. To address this, we’ve added a dedicated Contact Us form for registered users of EQ2U. With this new form, we are hoping to hear from anyone who just wants to give us feedback about the site, pose a suggestion, or of course let us know if they find any issues with the site! It is through player suggestions that features such...
From the EQ2 Forums: Are you still chasing a few Legends of Norrath loot cards that have evaded your grasp? Or are you missing cards to fill out your collection? Whatever your reasons, you’re in luck! Starting today and running until 11:59PM PST on Monday, February 9, 2015, take UP TO 66% OFF most Legends of Norrath items in the Marketplace! There are lots of in-game rewards available from Legends of Norrath Booster packs. Appearance items, potions, houses, and furniture are just some of the awesome things you can receive from opening up a card pack! For example, check out the...
So far, at least from the in-game comments I’ve seen, Altar of Malice has been well-received. Not everyone agrees about the difficulty of the heroic zones, but there’s a clear progression that players can strive towards. With any expansion, there will always be balance tweaks needed and a bug fix or two. We saw such a fix just last night with the missing textures in Zavith’loa zones turning parts of the zone black or white. This has been addressed with a client patch. Some other fixes and features coming up soon: Scout Poisons overwriting each other Weekly Heroic/Raid Gems...
The servers are back up following the hotfix. Another update from Holly “Windstalker” Longdale: Erm…the US hotfix happened earlier than planned (i.e. 3:30pm instead of 5pm). Servers should be back up very soon. #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) February 5, 2015 Update from Holly “Windstalker” Longdale: We’ll be doing a very quick update about 5pm PST to take care of an icky bug. Should be a short interruption. #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) February 5, 2015 After much patience, here’s the Update note: LEVEL AGNOSTIC DUNGEONS Agnostic Dungeons will no longer drop level 90-100 masters.
If you’ve checked your in-game mail in EQ2 lately, you’ve hopefully received the Prestige Home Poll for Winter 2015. Players have been asked for vote for which Prestige Home they’d like to see added to the Marketplace next. From the EQ2 Forums: Greetings Everyone, We’ve received a lot of requests from players to create prestige homes based upon some existing Norrathian zones. We’d love to create another prestige home, so we’ve implemented a Prestige Home Poll in-game so we can have your opinion on what style home you’d like to see added!
From the EQ2 Forums: Flowers are blooming and love is in the air once again. Erollisi Day might have originated with the Sentries of Erollisi, faithful devotees to The Goddess of Love, but it’s blossomed into a holiday that’s celebrated by Norrathians across the lands! Whether you are a hopeless romantic or a love cynic, this holiday has events you’re sure to enjoy. Take a look at all of the exciting events taking place this Erollisi Day!
My first in-game experience with an EQ2 Guide took place early in my playing career in Kelethin. A particularly threadbare patron was in need of crafted clothes, so I (and more than a few others players) sprang into action and crafted an appropriate garment. In return, I was given a robe with a unique pumpkin orange and black appearance which was only available through the quest. I wore it for quite a while, not as a fashion statement, but because I thought player-run events like this were cool and memorable. Remember too that this was back when there weren’t...
Amongst a few other fixes, today’s update largely focuses on Level Agnostic Dungeons. While at least one confused poster thought that LADs were supposed to present a “challenge” for a stacked group, in fact LADs are specifically designed to address the lack of grouping in low levels by allowing low and high level characters to group together on somewhat of an even playing field. Stats are brought up or down as needed so that a level 20 healer can keep a level 94 tank alive. As part of today’s update, Afista has posted a featured article on the subject:...
From the EQ2 Forums: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at approximately 7:00AM PST. Estimated downtime is 1 hour. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, February 3 , 2015 at approximately 9:00PM PST. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on February 4, 2015) Estimated downtime is 1 hour. Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 04.02.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen. Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 6:00 CET le 04-02-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps...
On one hand, SOE is wasting no time rebranding themselves as Daybreak Games. They’ve already renamed a number of Twitter accounts and their general forums. On the other hand, the company does not yet have a new logo design, as otherwise I’d have shared it with you. That’s not stopping maintenance from taking down an SOE sign that I stood in front of just 6 months ago… SOE Daybreak Games president John Smedley took to twitter to provide some answers to the most common requests he’s been getting by e-mail: answering a few questions people have emailed me 1)...
Looks like we won’t be going to Las Vegas this summer, or if we do, it won’t be to cover EverQuest II. From Linda “Brasse” Carlson on Twitter: SOE Live will take a hiatus as we focus on our exciting transition and the future of Daybreak Game Company. — Brasse (@Brasse) February 2, 2015 and from Facebook: For those asking about SOE Live: we are taking a hiatus from our annual Live event to shift our focus to our exciting transition and the future of Daybreak Game Company. and the SOE Live forums which are now locked.
The announcement has been posted on all game forums including the EverQuest II forums and H1Z1’s Reddit: Dear Players, Partners and Friends, Today, we are pleased to announce that we have been acquired by Columbus Nova, an investment management firm well known for its success with its existing portfolio of technology, media and entertainment focused companies. This means that effective immediately SOE will operate as an independent game development studio where we will continue to focus on creating exceptional online games for players around the world, and now as a multi-platform gaming company. Yes, that means PlayStation and Xbox, mobile...
There’s a certain logic in most of the scout weapons coming from a land of Dinosaurs, Pterodactyls, and tar pits being clubs. However less-than-enthused players have been looking daggers at the EQ2 team and pointedly commenting about how there just aren’t enough piercing weapons to go around. Worse, the few piercing weapons available to scouts have stats like Ability Recovery Speed and Reuse Speed which scouts acquire in spades from other item slots. A quick look at Item Discoveries of scout-usable weapons on EQ2U bears out our concerns. Fortunately, the EQ2 team intend to deliver an update in February that should solve this...
SOE’s on-again-off-again with it’s international community seems to be on the skids again, at least as far as for EverQuest II customers. After 2012’s disastrous forced migration of its French, German, and other European customers to ProSiebenSat.1/Alaplaya, it was an open question how many players would come back. After two years of drama, SOE relented and brought its remaining European customers back into the fold. SOE resurrected EQ2 support forums in French, German, and Spanish and hired staff to maintain them. However it seems the damage had been done and the daily traffic was insufficient to continue translating notes...
Massively‘s Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce has posted an extremely candid response about the closure of Massively after 10 years in operation, and despite 40% growth in readership last year. The number of sites that critically review MMORPGs in an unbiased way could already be counted on one hand and now we’ve lost the biggest and the best. It’s the end of an institution as they say, and once again AOL, the company that shouldn’t even exist anymore, continues to be a cancer on the internet community, destroying everything in its path. I have sad news for the Massively staff and...
UPDATE as of 9:00am PST, SOE’s 1/2 hour 2 hour 3 hour unscheduled (or at least unannounced) company-wide maintenance is over: “@thegreatmutato: Today's SOE-wide maintenance is now FINISHED. Issues with logins & other general weirdness should be over.” What he said! — SOEHelp (@SOEHelp) January 29, 2015 Original article after the jump…
From the EQ2 Forums: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday January 29, 2015 at approximately 7:00AM PST. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, January 29, 2015 at approximately 9:00PM PST. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on January 30, 2015). Estimated downtime is 1 hour. and: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION General Shady Swashbuckler XVIII in Nektulos now offers “Anchor of Wanderer’s Dock” for those that have completed “Shattered Seas: Dark Threats on Dshinn.” Phantom Sea Adventurer’s who have earned Anchor of Wanderer’s Dock will now have access to a new bell located on...
If you’re at all into cosplay, or just a fan of the Aerakyn race, you’ll want to check out this video of @Strawburry17 slipping into the role of an Aerakyn. It’s a bit of a marketing piece, and we’re not quite sure why she titled the video “Dragon Elf”, but hey, how often do we get to see the EQ2 team on video? Watch as @Strawburry17 brings the Aerakyn to life in this amazing cosplay video! — EverQuest II (@everquestii) January 27, 2015
When you’ve got one Animator and one Character Artist for a game the size of EverQuest II, development time is ever-precious. Most of Tom and Chris’ efforts go towards the annual Expansion, plus the creation of a few StationCash mounts per year. It’s just the nature of the beast that their time for fun projects is limited. It doesn’t help that not everyone was a fan of the less serious, frivolous, or “silly” mounts which push the limits of a medieval setting. But the party might be over. After 43 pages of hilarity from Errrorr‘s “The Official Duck Mount Request thread“,...
Currently on Test is the popular Erollisi Day event, as well as an upgrade for the popular Level Agnostic Dungeons. First up, Erollisi Day returns with new 3 quests, a new recipe book, new items, and rewards. We understand that EQ2 ZAM and EQ2Traders are already working on updating their event guides. Further Reading: Testing Feedback about Erollisi Day 2015 As for Level Agnostic Dungeons, which have quickly become an enjoyable and rewarding way to gain levels between 20 and 89 in between solo questing sessions, we’ll see a number of fixes to particularly tricky zones and unbalanced situations, and an...
If you’ve grown tired of media conglomerates buying out smaller sites that cover the Products and News that you care about then shuttering them shortly thereafter, you may want to look away. The folks running MMO powerhouse Massively and its parent company Joystiq, found out today through sites like Re/Code and Kotaku that AOL plans to shutter their sites in the near future. Editor Alexander Sliwinski was put in the extraordinary position of posting a “no comment” in reaction to the news. To some, the most shocking news out of all this may be that AOL still exists, but for most of...