Feldon
From the EQ2 Forums: Important: Antonia Bayle and the US Battlegrounds will be offline for maintenance beginning at 4:00 AM Pacific* on March 22, 2012. In addition, Antonia Bayle, US Battlegrounds and Nagafen chat will be unavailable during this time. We expect this downtime to last for approximately 10 hours. We apologize for this interruption and will bring the servers back online as soon as the maintenance is completed. Time Zone Conversions PDT: March 22 @ 4:00am~2:00pm EDT: March 22 @ 7:00am~5:00pm GMT: March 22 @ 11:00~21:00 CET: March 22 @ 12:00~22:00
From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums: We understand that some creatures are still critically hitting. Seems we missed a file or two for the integration to live. We are working to get it resolved asap! We are indeed going to be emergency hotfixing this today. Shouldn’t be too long of a downtime. However we did find one small issue that we are working on fixing but is not as high of a priority we felt it should hold up the hotfix. Just as a heads up if you are in battle with an NPC and it puts of dot...
From the EQ2 Forums: From 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, March 20th, through 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, March 28th, log in to EQII and take part in a look back at Norrathian days of yore. The EQII Team has created this fun event as an homage to EverQuest in honor of the anniversary of the EverQuest franchise, and although the lore doesn’t exactly fit the current story of EQII, they decided to make it extra enjoyable for those who were around for the first iteration of Norrath. Adventurers who take part in this journey through time will find some silly nods to...
From the EQ2 Forums: CRITICAL MITIGATION REMOVAL Critical Mitigation (the stat) has been removed from the game. NPCs no longer use Critical Bonus to add to critical damage. Buffs and debuffs that had Critical Mitigation elements to them have had those elements replaced with other elements instead, so that those buffs/debuffs do not lose effectiveness. Critical Mitigation values on adornments have been replaced with maximum health bonuses. NOTE: This change has no effect on PvP game play. The “PvP Critical Mitigation” stat is still useful for game balance in PvP play and is not being changed.
From Holly “Windstalker“ on the EQ2 Forums: Hey folks, I noticed there had been questions on exactly when Critical Mitigation will be removed from PvE items and Crit Bonus removed from NPCs. We have decided to push the change live with the Hotfix tomorrow. If anything changes on this front, I’ll stop in, but tomorrow’s the day! P.S. PvP Crit Mitigation will still exist on items.
When we gained the ability to buy EQ2 subscriptions 1, 3, 6, or even 12 months in advance on the StationCash Marketplace, players rejoiced. With Double and Triple SC weekends, compounded with those handy Walmart bonus SC cards, players have been able to get EQ2 subscriptions for as little as $3.33 a month. However there was an eventual price to be paid for this price discount. EQ2 Subscribers who have paid in advance for their subs with StationCash have had trouble buying Character Transfer Tokens, and been unable to Gift StationCash. We’ve talked about this in the past, and...
UPDATE: We are getting reports that the Wal-Mart exclusive StationCash cards with a +500 bonus are no longer doubling or tripling that bonus. This problem has been corrected, and redeemed cards are being retroactively credited. In honor of EverQuest’s 13th Anniversary, from noon today until tomorrow is Double StationCash. You should confirm that the SC point value shown is correct before completing your transactions. From the original EverQuest forums: In celebration of EverQuest’s 13th anniversary and transition to Free to Play. Your. Way. We will be offering double Station Cash! Hurry, only valid March 16, 12pm PDT to March...
Game Update 63 “Skyshrine” rolls out to the live servers on April 17th, but parts of it are now available for testing on the Test and Test Copy servers. In addition to the new Velious zones and a level cap raise to level 92, some of the biggest news is the opening of a new “Prestige” AA tab. From Xelgad on the EQ2 Forums: Hey all, it’s time for some new character progression, and this time there’s no NDA! With that in mind, the majority of this stuff still needs tweaking, polishing and balancing before it’s ready for live...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL You will now be told to relinquish your player made dungeons before using the character transfer token. TRADESKILLS Several new sets of housing building blocks have been added to existing “carpenter essentials” recipe groups. The maximum scaling size of all building blocks has been increased.
We wish we could concretely confirm that this year’s Fan Faire will take place on October 18-21st. We wish we had twenty-seven 8×10 glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one as evidence. But we don’t. So this will be one of those preponderance of evidence cases. Last August we talked about the poll asking which three fall dates SOE should settle on for Fan Faire (since Bally’s had already been locked up tight for the usual suspects of July and August). Players overwhelmingly chose October 18-21, 2012. Then there was silence....
Due to EQ1’s transition to Free-to-Play, a scheduled Account Services downtime has been announced. It should not affect gameplay/logins for existing characters/accounts. UPDATE: The original announcement has been superseded with a new one including revised information indicating that game logins will be unavailable for the first six hours of the maintenance window. Maintenance Notice: Thursday, March 15, 2012 Important: In preparation for EverQuest’s transition to free-to-play, we will perform maintenance beginning at 12:01 AM Pacific* on March 15, 2012. This will impact the following services: Voice Chat will be unavailable for EverQuest II Players from 7:00 AM to approximately 9:00 AM...
From EQ2’s Twitterbookfacespace: We are currently investigating an issue affecting logins. Thank you for your patience and we hope to have the issue resolved as soon as possible. [RadarX] UPDATE: The issue was resolved approximately 2 hours after this post.
From Xelgad on the EQ2 Forums: Prestige Points are basically Alternate Advancements that you earn automatically as you level. Details coming later this week. We’re hoping to have a lot of people on test over the next month, and I think our community team is even working on some rewards for players who are able to make it over there. To update your Test Client in Launchpad 4, click on the tools icon in your normal live launcher -> Select Game Version -> Public Test -> Apply. Looking forward to seeing what you guys think!
Dethdlr
SOE has laid their cards on the table for Game Update 63. First up, a level cap raise to level 92. No, that’s not a typo. As of April 17th, players will be able to gain 2 more levels, as well as a new form of player advancement called ‘prestige points’. GU63 brings the promised Destiny of Velious content of new group and raid instances, a variety of solo content includind a new overland zone and more! Also Age of Discovery owners will be able to tame new Beastlord warder types. Game Update 63 hits Test on Thursday, March...
Here are your update notes for Wednesday, 14 March 2012: QUESTS Players who have completed the quest “The Fallen Swords: All Roads Lead To…” should check their mailboxes for a letter from the Duality himself. Another chapter in the Age’s End saga is about to unfold, and he will be looking for help. Seek him out in Thurgadin once more. ITEMS Vampiric incisors are no longer labeled as junk as they are used for a mastery quest.
Linda “Brasse” Carlson led a panel on Community Management at Game Developers Conference 2012. Massively‘s Karen Bryan brings us the story: What do dwarves and Monty Python have in common? They both feature prominently in Linda “The Brasse” Carlson’s GDC 2012 talk about the front lines of the SOE community relations team. Given the recent roller coaster ride of the ProSiebenSat.1 deal and the turmoil on the forums that followed, I found it interesting to hear what it’s like to be a member of the community management folks as they try to handle being in the middle of it...
From Massively: Like it or not, free-to-play is rapidly coming to dominate every corner of the gaming industry. While that’s good on the surface, it also blurs the line between business and design, and it creates a lot of tension for both consumers and developers who are increasingly faced with the challenges inherent in separating monetary decisions from gameplay decisions. One of the more interesting GDC 2012 round-tables featured Sony Online Entertainment executive producer Dave Georgeson, NCSoft publishing director Steve Levy, Perfect World VP John Young, GamersFirst monetization director Joe Willmon, and Digi-Capital Limited managing director Tim Merel, all...
After the jump, some photos of the Lillipad Jungle Guild Hall, Tenebrous Tangle house, and the get-together in the Isle of Mara. GMs and Guides showed up to bring the Good Gear Man ice cream vendor, Vhalen’s musicians, and of course plenty of fireworks. At the time of this writing, the guild Lilipad Jungle has 358 members on 312 accounts. This guild was created 3 days ago and has already reached level 77 with people doing writs around the clock. The event was livestreamed on TwitchTV.
From EQ2 ZAM – EQII Players Rally around Terminal Child: On the official EverQuest II Forums a player posted a sad plea: My 6 yr old son has cancer and was recently given 6 – 12 weeks to live. He has a frog that he likes to run around Tenebrous Tangle Island on; however, it is sparse and he has requested to add trees, fences, stairs, animals and all kinds of other items to make his island fun and exciting. Are there any decorators out there that would be willing to assist in adding these items (and any others...
From Ashlanne on the EQ2 Forums: If you’re in the U.S. (except non-observing states/territories) don’t forget to “Spring Forward” this Sunday! Daylight Saving Time starts on Sunday, March 11th, 2012. Set your clock ahead one hour before you go to bed on Sunday [sic.] night. Or if you’re still awake (we know you, you crazy gamers!), the time change goes into effect at 2:00 a.m. NOTE: Tkia brought it to our attention that it’s preferable to adjust your clock either Saturday night or Sunday morning. If you wait to adjust your clocks until Sunday night, you’ll be an hour...
Here is your Update Note for Thursday, March 8, 2012: Public Quests Cloudy Velium Jewels should now be heirloom. Remember, you can get up to two Cloudy Velium Jewels per day, per Public Quest, per character. So 2 from Ring War, 2 from Storm Gorge (if you are a glutton for punishment) each day per character. Once you have 40,000 faction with Thurgadin or Ry’Gorr, you can buy an Heirloom faction token to give 50,000 faction to all your alts. There is no equivalent token for the Othmir, Snowfang, or Thurgadin Crafters.
From the EQ2 Forums: Forum Maintenance: Thursday, March 8, 2012 Important: We will perform maintenance on all SOE forums beginning at 7:00 AM Pacific* on March 8, 2012. All forums will be unavailable for 3 hours during this maintenance. We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed. Time Zone Conversions PST: March 8 @ 7:00-10:00am EST: March 8 @ 10:00am-1:00pm GMT: March 8 @ 15:00-18:00 CET: March 8 @ 16:00-19:00
From Zoltaroth on the EQ2 Forums: We got this [reproduced] again internally and are working on a fix. Just wanted to jump in here and let you guys know we didn’t forget about this issue.
Niami Denmother has turned pink at the prospect of the returning Brewday 2012 events. To find out what’s new with this year’s event, look no further than her Brewday 2012 Crafting/Housing Preview. In other news, Omougi, EQ2’s new Tradeskill Developer has announced that carpenters will be gaining access to eleven (11) sets of Building Blocks to be crafted with common materials.
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a bug where if an item icon was on top of a warder spell icon that right clicking the item would result in getting the warder flayout instead of the radial menu for the item. Fix for Mozilla in-game browser crash when Flash is installed for non IE browsers and a flash site is viewed. TRADESKILL APPRENTICES Decoration recipes now require Toxnettle Roots instead of Colossal Reactants.