Feldon
Today’s update is all about taming the difficulty of Zek and other Velious group and raid zones (challenge and normal modes). From the EQ2 Patch Notes: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Sullon’s Spire, Tallon’s Stronghold, and Vallon’s Tower x4 raid zones (NOT challenge mode) Several of the encounters in the zone have been made less powerful so that the challenge from these zones is more in line with the rewards. In particular boss npcs will tend to melee attack for less damage, and many of their aoe spells will also do less damage, as well as be more mitigateable.
As we reach August’s midway point, we are potentially in the “home stretch” on Game Update 61. If internal schedules hold true, we could see the next update pushed to live servers in 2 weeks. This is usually the point where player anxiety levels are highest, as what’s on Test seems incomplete and not ready for prime time. Although it’s a well-worn cycle, the question is always “Will it be ready?” Will 2 weeks of dev crunch time result in a solid Game Update 61? Level 20-80 Reitemization We’d caught hints, but Fan Faire brought confirmation that level 20-80...
From the EQ2 Forums: The Butcherblock server will be offline on Tuesday, August 16, starting at 12:00 AM PDT for an estimated downtime of 24 hours. This maintenance is being completed for server hardware upgrades.
For those who were excited about the Felwithe Manor prestige house teased at Fan Faire, and perhaps have taken a tour on Test, it looks like there’s a wait ahead before they can be purchased. From Amnerys and confirmed by SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums: I’m pretty sure I heard that this will be available sometime within the month or so after GU61 goes live. So I’d say most likely by the end of September. Meanwhile a new style of house has already appeared on Test — a replica of the Court of Blades in the Maj’dul. A thread...
Have you participated in a Plane of War group or raid zone on Test? Care to share some comments/impressions about the zone for inclusion in a future EQ2Wire article? Send us an e-mail or in-game message on Butcherblock.Feldon.
Bunji posted this on August 11th at 5:54pm PDT on the EQ2 Forums: [Everyone having monk AAs] will be fixed tomorrow morning. We couldn’t get the fix in tonight for [because?] the next build includes the house rating system which requires us to update the server databases (needed more time to do the update than normal basically).
Massively’s Larry “Shaddoe” Everett is looking to trial some different MMOs and, perhaps, bring more attention to them. For the next six weeks he’ll be trying out MMOs based on a voting system. Included in his list are EverQuest II and another SOE property: FreeRealms. Choose My Adventure is a chance for Massively readers to guide one member of the writing staff on an adventure in a game of the readers’ choosing. For the next six weeks, I want you to choose my adventure for me. I have tried nearly every major title in the last decade, but I...
Now that some of the dust has settled from Sony Online Entertainment‘s reorganization this spring and with the Denver office (housing Legends of Norrath) consolidation with SOE’s San Diego HQ is complete, Mark Tuttle, Executive Producer for Legends of Norrath, has posted a Producer’s Letter touting the next expansion. We’ve been told to expect ‘smoking hot’ loot, especially if you like mounts and housing.
From August 12-18th, SOE is offering a modest 30% off all StationCash purchased in-game or at SOE.com. Note this DOES NOT APPLY to retail-purchased StationCash refill cards, SMS purchases, or 30 day game cards. Between Friday, August 12 and Thursday, August 18, 2011, get a 30% discount* on purchases of Station Cash! Plus, check participating games for Marketplace item specials throughout the week. Check back later in the week for more details on game-specific items! Please note that the 30% discount* is on purchases of Station Cash and does not impact the redemption of SC cards. * Offer not...
SOE Security Authenticators are now available from SOE.com for $9.95 including domestic shipping and handling. They may be used on one or more Station accounts. Pricing compares favorably to the WoW Battle.net security fobs which cost $6.50 plus shipping. Plus, you may use one SOE Authenticator on multiple Station accounts, a feature the Battle.net devices lack as of October 2010. Note: Only after entering your credit card information does international shipping or handling rates appear. We’ve seen several reports that international shipping is more expensive than the security fob itself. In the range of $10-13 US, 10 Euros, $13...
Peleş Castle, Sinaia courtesy Harvard.edu From Amnerys on the EQ2 Forums: Are you ready to show off your best house? When the house ratings system launches with Game Update 61, we’d like to have a few outstanding house examples ready to show off in the Hall of Fame, so we’re asking you for some suggestions!
image courtesy fangshendo.com Does your Bard bear a secret admiration for the martial arts? Does your barbarian Shadowknight aspire to move with the deftness of a butterfly? Maybe you’ve just been feeling a little punchy? Silliness aside, the latest patch to the Test servers seems to have had an unintended consequence: Every class has now inherited the Class and Subclass trees of a Monk. While this could normally be chalked up to “expect the unexpected on Test”, what makes it interesting is that everyone’s Class and Subclass tabs have been relabeled Animalist and Beastlord. This led to early morning...
EQ2Wire‘s Morgan “Feldon” was invited to sit down (virtually at least) with Dellmon and Aliscious for their 29th episode of the EQ2Talk podcast. It was a great pleasure to talk about the present and future of EQ2, Fan Faire, and what goes into running EQ2Wire. From EQ2Talk.com: In this episode, Dellmon and Aliscious are joined by Feldon of EQ2Wire! He talks about how Wire got started and what’s involved in keeping it going. He also gives us his take on some of the things going on in EQ2. And, because we have such an insightful guest, we have our...
SOE’s annual Fan Faire event is moving to autumn next year, well into the school year for many parents and children, but otherwise staying put in Las Vegas and the now familiar Bally‘s hotel. The three dates on offer this time around are: September 13th – 16th, 2012 September 27th – 30th, 2012 October 18th – 21st, 2012 Voting for one of the above three dates for Fan Faire 2012 is only open until August 19, 2011. If you’re wondering why Fan Faire seems locked to Las Vegas and hasn’t traveled to the Midwest or East coasts in many...
From the EQ2 Forums: The Butcherblock server will be offline on Tuesday, August 16, starting at 12:00 AM PDT* for an estimated downtime of 24 hours. This maintenance is being completed for server hardware upgrades. Time Zone Report: PDT: August 16th 12:00AM-11:59PM EDT: August 16th 03:00AM-August 17th 02:59AM BST: August 16th 08:00AM-August 17th 07:59AM CET: August 16th 09:00AM-August 17th 08:59AM
From Xelgad in a thread about the lack of Troubador tweaks in Game Update 61: Between the massive item revamp, the addition of spell auto-attack as well as the over cap conversions and the AA revamp, we haven’t had much time for class tweaks this GU. I look forward to working on the Troubador class as soon as we get some time to spare, and hopefully we’ll be able to come up with something cooler than an overpowered mythical effect. Some pertinent observations on this from EQ2Flames: From Slippery: If you are a dirge and don’t think a change to the myth is coming...
From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums: We will be allowing these events to continue after GU61 goes live. We had originally planned to take them down with GU61 but in order for some of the less populated servers to complete the event we have decided to keep the event running. The merchant will remain for all servers regardless of completion or not but the ground spawns will stop spawning once the event is completed on each server respectfully (After GU61) The ground spawns will remain for servers that have not completed the event until the event is completed.
From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums: Hey guys, we understand that many of you feel strongly against this change. This is why we put things on test, right? We still have a couple of weeks before GU61 hits live. We’re busy finishing up GU61 and fixing bugs, so don’t expect daily responses from us on these issues, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t discussing them internally. UPDATE: We have added an additional quote from Rothgar.
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a crash that could occur when taking screenshots. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Vallon’s Tower Raid Zones All players may now enter the normal, non-challenge Vallon’s Tower x4 raid zone. Players can enter the challenge mode of Vallon’s Tower raid only after someone on the server has defeated Tallon Zek in Challenge mode. Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundation of Stone [Challenge Mode] The greater warboars that spawn during the statue fight now have less health. Their combat madness taunt spell no longer persists through death. Strategist’s Stronghold When Shini-Zon Livia summons the Winds of...
Here’s our final video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Content and Zone Design”. If you’d like to view the transcript from this panel, check out our EQ2 Panel #6 – Content and Zone Design writeup.
Server Upgrades must be getting sufficiently routine for the EQ2 and Network Operations teams such that posting a Status Report or two completely slipped their minds. Players, however, wanted to know: Was Unrest actually upgraded? According to Rothgar, it was: The upgrades were definitely made so you should be seeing improvements. SmokeJumper elaborated: Unrest is definitely upgraded already. All servers except for Butcherblock and Storms have been upgraded now. Butcherblock will be upgraded on the 16th of August. There isn’t an ETA for Storms yet. I’ll post one when we get the date nailed down. Rothgar had a comment...
After a firestorm of player comment, a line item change in the Test Update Notes indicates that Subclass AAs (Alternate Advancements) will be available to low level characters once more. From the EQ2 Test Update Notes: The Subclass Alternate Advancement Tree once again unlocks at level 10. Game Update 61 is expected to go live in the last week of August.
TenTonHammer Interviews Dave Georgeson TenTonHammer, like other Press sites covering SOE (EQ2Wire is a designated ‘Fan Site’ so airfare, hotel, etc. is up to us) made the trek to Fan Faire 2011 to cover EQ2 and other SOE games being showcased. Although TTH hasn’t featured EQ2 all that much in the past few years, they did score exclusive screenshots of Destiny of Velious plus a Dave Georgeson interview. The only other premier multi-MMO site still putting EverQuest II news on their front page these days seems to be Joystiq’s Massively. When TenTonHammer announced their EQ2 Leapers and Gliders Giveaway,...
If you read the above headline and immediately checked your bank statement, well, that’s probably not a bad habit to get into, but we weren’t actually talking about Account Security. In today’s article, we talk about how plat farmers have gotten more sophisticated and are picking SOE’s pocket via new (StationCash Gifting) and old tricks (Legends of Norrath packs). Fraud Happens Every online business has its share of Credit Card Fraud. However digital currencies like StationCash have been especially prone to this problem, due to the immediacy of the conversion from real dollars to virtual ones. Scammers can create...
There are still many unanswered questions about the AA revamp currently on Test, but Summoners, Druids, and Monks so far have gotten one response apiece about specific lines. Xelgad posted to “Focused Minion (and other summoner changes)” on the EQ2 Forums: We decided to scrap the pet Spell Multi-Attack (Doublecast) for several reasons. First, we wanted to move away from pet-specific AAs. As some of you know, scout pets did technically get some benefit from SDA because their attacks are classified as spells, but fighter pets did not really benefit at all. Additionally, in terms of AA versus AA...