Feldon
Want to give the Game Update 64 Battlegrounds changes, including Level Agnostic Battlegrounds a test drive and give useful feedback to developers? From EQ2 Community Manager Duxella on the EQ2 Forums: Level Agnostic Battleground testing from 5-7 PST – bring a character below level 35 to the Level Agnostic buffer, set up your character and then get into a battleground! Buffers will be located on the docks in Kylong Plains, and at the Champion’s Respite zone-ins in Qeynos and Freeport. Level 92 testing from 7-8 PST – visit a level 92 PVP buffer, set up your character and then...
battlegrounds
Today’s July 27, 2011 update notes address issues with the Spires and Dragon Ring Events on those servers where the events are still running. This update does not yet include a fix for servers that have already completed the events and those affected players who were present but didn’t get credit due to crashes, not having the right quest, or their mob despawning.
From EverQuest2.com: The Children of War update brings changes to the Player versus Player gameplay style available on our PVP servers, a new battlegrounds lobby, as well as a new battleground scenario. Read more at EverQuest2.com.
From Olihin on the EQ2 Forums: Greetings, With GU60, a new battleground will be added that will allow for a 18 vs. 18 combat setting. We are currently working on possible additions to the achievements earned while in a battleground and we would like to hear some thoughts on what you may want to see. We will also evaluate the current achievements and look for ways to reward those that have earned or are in the process of earning them. We believe that someone that can help control all the towers while at the same time having the highest...
Here are some notes from Friday night’s live Webcast of Rich Waters, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson and Salim “Silius” talking about the upcoming Destiny of Velious expansion, including player-submitted questions. Getting into the mechanics and itemization changes, we get very close to a full transcription as there is a lot of detail and information here. We recommend listening to the webcast to get a complete picture of what was said. Some bullet points: The EQ2 team have the next year of Game Updates planned out with more group zones, raid zones, heritage quests, etc. The first Game Update will add...
Everfrost players have reported that they are not receiving Battlegrounds tokens for either winning or losing Battlegrounds events, and also not receiving any updates on Battlegrounds Daily Quests. Rothgar has been made aware of the issue and it’s being looked into. From the EQ2 Forums. From Rothgar: Ok, thank you for the info. It’s almost 11pm here tonight and there’s nothing we could do to fix it this late but I promise we will be on it first thing in the morning to determine the problem. Unfortunately its too early to tell if a fix will require a new...
Hiding in every Game Update, there are changes that go through that are either undocumented, or otherwise slip under the radar. Some of them appear as a single line item in the Update Notes, but have significant ramifications. Some don’t appear at all. Today, we shed some light on these changes.
Dethdlr
Amnerys has posted the complete Game Update Notes for Game Update 58: Arcanum Revealed on the EQ2 Forums. Here they are after the break:
Want some Battlegrounds items but can’t stand some of the zones? Having trouble getting into some of them as often as you’d like? If so, then changes may be coming your way soon that will solve those problems. It looks like soon you will be able to exchange your tokens for “Battleground Tokens” which can be used to purchase items instead of the three different types. Bunji wrote over on the EQ2Players forums: Test needs another update before the token exchange will be working correctly. This should be in the next Test update: You may now exchange your Gears,...
If you’re familiar with the Battlefield of Ganak, the Capture-the-Flag arena for PvP/Battlegrounds, you’ll know that players have demonstrated an uncanny ability to collect the opposing team’s flag and then hide somewhere that the other team cannot reach. Various tools have been used, from in-game tinkered spring shoes, to 3rd party jump/hack/positioning software. There was a thread soliciting feedback on how the EQ2 team could solve this problem. Already, there is a Truancy system in place, where if enough players vote that a player has gone AFK simply to collect Battlegrounds tokens. So how could this new problem of...
Remember when Player-vs-Player was the red-headed stepchild of EQ2? Remember when there wasn’t even a PvP developer, but instead those tasks were delegated to developers who already had a full workload? Fast forward to today and one of the areas of the game getting the most attention is the PvP side, including those issues that extend into Battlegrounds. So let’s go down the list of responses so far from PvP developer Olihin…
Today marks the introduction of Game Update 57 to the live servers. Key features of this update include: The EQ2 User Interface has received a facelift, with a new toolbar, a refresh of various windows, and a merged Character/Inventory/Profile window. The default theme is red, but easily switchable to blue by typing /loadui and choosing the Blue graphic set. More character classes are now neutral and may start in either good or evil cities. Spell animations and effects have been revamped. Intrazone travel now supports path linking. Travel within Kingdom of Sky has been improved. Erudin group instances (level...
Sometimes people don’t believe it, but I know for a fact that developers at Fan Faire really do listen, or at the very least take extensive notes which they reflect upon when getting home. Some changes are relatively easy and make a lot of sense when the context is explained interactively in a conversation with the developer. Of course big sweeping changes are unlikely while the developers are already in full press mode working on the next expansion, but it’s great when open discussion at Fan Faire can trigger a small but significant improvement. So enough of that… Olihin...
Druidess
Our own Druidess gives her perspective on the long-term effects of StationCash and what Free-to-Play means for the future of EverQuest II. Since SoE decided not to sugar coat the news on F2P, I figured I’d return the favor and save the sugar for cookies I plan on baking later.
Game Update 57 is now up on the Test and Test Copy Servers and we’ve got the Update Notes. We’ve already taken some new screen shots of the new default interface including the new pictorial tutorials for new players. User Interface – One of the touted features of Game Update 57 is the revamped User Interface. The Persona and Inventory windows have been merged into a Character window. The XP bar has become a sort of “dock” at the bottom of your screen. All buttons and window corners have been rounded off. And for the most part, everything that...
Despite some valiant attempts, players on UK servers are not yet able to jump into Battlegrounds against US players. Hopefully this will change next Tuesday. From Rothgar: We will try again with the next hotfix which is scheduled for Tuesday.
We’ve got a rollup post of news from the weekend on a few different topics. UK-US Battlegrounds might be finally getting the necessary kick in the butt to start working tomorrow. There might be a solution in the pipeline for players on distant servers unable to acquire Smuggler’s Den Tokens. Tinkerfest is coming to Test with new quests and rewards. And finally, a new Class Mechanics forum has mysteriously appeared on the EQ2 Forums.
EQ2 Servers will be coming down tomorrow morning at their usual time for the Tuesday hotfix. After the jump, check out the Hotfix notes for June 15, 2010:
Rothgar has posted on the EQ2 Forums: It looks like we’re going to have to bounce the US Battlegrounds world in order to get all of this [thje US-UK Battlegrounds bridging] working. and We are locking US Battlegrounds in order to bounce them in 30 minutes for a configuration change. Estimated downtime after the 30 minute lock is about 15 minutes.
At 11pm PDT on June 9th, 2010 (7am GMT on June 10th, 2010), several EQ2 servers were brought down for maintenance: Befallen, Permafrost, Crushbone, Mistmoore, Oasis, Runnyeye, Splitpaw, Innovation, Valor, Storms, Battlegrounds UK, Battlegrounds DE, and Battlegrounds FR The original announcement indicated that maintenance would take 7 hours. All servers were up after ~13 hours, with a total downtime of ~15 hours for Runnyeye, Innovation, and some of the Battlegrounds servers. So what was this maintenance all about? And did it include the US-UK Battlegrounds bridging we’ve been hearing about?
UK and US Battlegrounds Playing Nice Together (or not!) At the end of April, Rothgar posted news that a future update will allow players on UK servers (Splitpaw and Runnyeye) to join U.S.-based Battlegrounds (provided client-server versions are in sync). Here’s his post back then: I just wanted to let you guys know that we’ve been making some changes on the backend that will allow UK players from Runnyeye and Splitpaw to play on the same Battlegrounds servers as the North American servers. Since there is no language issue to overcome, this only leaves the problem of hotfixes and...
European EQ2 players wanting to experience Battlegrounds have had to deal with a series of compromises. Battlegrounds are divided not only by language (French, German, Russian) but region (UK vs. US). As a result, some servers have had such a small pool of players to choose from, that 24 x 24 Battlegrounds have been impossible, locking players out of acquiring some 40% of the gear and rewards available for Battlegrounds. Rothgar has given us the first bit of concrete good news about solutions to these issues: I just wanted to let you guys know that we’ve been making some...
The Promise of Battlegrounds The promise of Battlegrounds has been the opportunity to meet players from other servers and challenge them in meaningful PvP combat. It has been a great time-killer while attempting to form up groups. It has been a fun exercise for guilds from different servers wanting to face off in battle. And it has been an opportunity (perhaps too good of one) to gear up. However this promise has largely gone undelivered to the European community. Aside from localization issues (language, number and date formats), European servers almost always undergo software upgrades at a different time...
Game Update 56 is looking to be a huge update, with many tweaks and adjustments throughout Norrath. In brief… a substantial Travel Revamp more quests in Stonebrunt Highlands to hopefully fill that level 87-90 solo questing gap a new Storyline feature a new Icy Keep x4 Raid Shaders 3.0 Graphical Revamp Research Assistants can help all your characters Blue PvP Adornments Yellow Adornments on T9 Mastercrafted gear Level 90 Character Traits PvP Warfields new Training Dummy options in your guild hall (solo, group, raid, and AE group) and of course New Halas Also of note, is that a vendor...
The focus this week has been on new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson, and EQ2 Server Performance, which has been a persistent black cloud over EQ2 for the last 2 months. Test Copy Test Copy is getting some major use as it is where PvP and Battlegrounds changes are tested. Gninja advised us: We will be working out a schedule as to when the test_copy server will be pvp vrs pve. We are working it out now and will get back to you guys shortly. Stuck at Character Select An issue with being stuck at Character Select on Thursday...