New Halas Livin’

We are following New Halas (both the level 1-20 starting content, and as a new player city) on Test, and player comments about both the newbie experience, and how Halas works as a full-fledged city.

Living up to the  expectations and nostalgia of EQ1 veterans was an impossible task, but there has been a raft-load of comments on the EQ2 forums (and presumably through /feedback) and the art team is making some much-appreciated changes. First impressions of New Halas have regarded the buildings (inside and out) as some of the most impressive and realistic in the game, but the number and size of buildings both claustrophobic and sparse. Hopefully with the addition of more NPCs, adjustment of structures, and other accessories, the city can be given a more ‘lived in’ feel.

From Kaitheel on the EQ2 Forums:

The city of New Halas is under further construction and more NPCs are showing up. In the coming updates you will see more and more ambient life, as well as a few more merchants around the city. And with the addition of new buildings, some of the current city life will be moved around a bit.

Cronyn has jumped into the fray again with some further details about why the Isle of Refuge is being removed in GU56:

Heya folks.  I wanted to clear a couple of things up really fast, if I may.

As I said, we’re not abandoning Freeport and Qeynos themselves.  The existing content that is there will not be different with this change, and we are planning even more things for the cities going forward.  Players with citizenship currently in either city will retain it – we’re not removing housing, guild halls, the suburbs, or the quests that exist there.  They will continue to be hubs for live events, and we are still hoping to add even more reasons to have you visit the two major cities of our game.

For those who do not have citizenship in these cities, we’re making the path to changing citizenship much clearer.  If you want to change your citizenship from one of the starting cities to Freeport or Qeynos, you can speak with one of the <Change of Citizenship> NPC’s, who will offer information and get you started on your paperwork to switch over.  From there, you can use the new travel system to make your way to the city of your choice, then follow the steps to change your citizenship.  The newbie content within the cities themselves will remain, so you should still have access to that content, if you choose to use it.

Also, just to be clear, there is a lore reason for this as well.  The decision to turn off the islands is a functional one, to be sure, but it is also supported by storyline, which is something I am hoping to start giving out to you here soon.  There are NPC’s in place in both cities who should actually be handing out the first clues right now on Test, so if you’d like to start piecing together what is happening, you should be able to get started.

As far as removing content – yes, the Isle of Refuge are being disabled from character select.  However, we consistently add new content to the game, and will be continuing to do so – EverQuest 2 is a much larger game now than it has ever been, and we are looking forward to expanding and adding to the world even more.

Game Update 56 will be imbuing flying carpets, floating discs, and cloud mounts with the power to float. If you are thinking to yourself “Wait, didn’t they already do that?” read on…

Carpets, Clouds, and Discs have allowed players to peacefully float throughout Norrath, but only over flat, even, dry surfaces. As soon as the operator of these wondrous mounts attempted to traverse a vertical distance greater than 3 feet, they were suddenly rendered about as effective as concrete shoes. In short, carpets, clouds, and disc mounts have been a virtual death trap over mountainous terrain. I guess they just don’t make flying carpets the way they used to!

But wait… Kander has some news:

Carpets, Clouds and Discs having fay fall or glide should be in with 56.

The notes for upcoming Game Update 56 included this notation:

Many rare drops from the heroic Sentinel’s Fate Zones are now available by speaking to Kaliba Des’Sers in Moonfield Hamlet!

Once Game Update 56 was patched onto the Test Server, we were provided screen shots of some of this loot:

New Fabled Loot Vendor on Test

What’s on the Menu?

While a similar vendor was available during the Shadow Odyssey expansion, 150 void shards only gave you access to the most common Fabled drops from each zone (with the exception of the Mistmoore Battle Drums).

So this time around, the vendor is picking up all the current rare Fabled loot, but only because more powerful Fabled loot is being added to these zones at the same time. From Kander:

All of the current rare drops for the heroic zones have been added to a Manaar merchant for (Game Update) 56.

New rare drops have been also been added to all heroic bosses that will not be on the Manaar merchant. These new rare drops and the old rare drops are on separate tables, so you will have a chance at both.

You can see how a comprehensive Itemization article has been nearly impossible to write. We may resort to a Wiki or collaborative article on Itemization taking feedback from EQ2Wire readers.

On Tuesday, 27 April 2010, this tidbit made it into the update notes for test:

Mounts will now be temporarily suspended while in combat.

Basically, in outside zones, mounts would disapear as soon as you enter combat and re-appear a few seconds after combat ended.  This had a general negative response on the official EQ2 Forums and led to speculation on how this would effect buffs.  Gninja responded with some clarification on the matter:

You would not lose any stats or anything you would have normally had your character will just no longer be visually mounted during combat the buff remains. Think of it like when you enter water on a mount.

This led to a few pages of responses, mostly negative, about this change.  Many people were asking for a new /hidemount command. EQ2 Senior Producer  SmokeJumper decided to chime in with some additional info:

Well, I guess it’s time to stick my head in the dragon’s mouth. Here goes nuthin’.

It seems we’ll be parting with two islands by May’s end. And while we’ll still be able to catch  John Locke, Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, and Kate in syndication, the Qeynos and Freeport starting islands seem destined for a more permanent fate. We are providing continuing (hopefully not excessive) coverage of the impending removal of the EQ2 starting islands.

Links to Isle of Refuge

I have done some Internet Archive and Google searches to try to find Writeups and history of the original Isle of Refuge quests. Here’s what I found:

• LISTEN to the Isle of Refuge/Queen’s Colony/Outpost of the Overlord theme music
• Read an old EQ2 Zam writeup about Isle of Refuge (on the Boat)
• Read an old writeup about Crafting on the Isle of Refuge
• Read an old writeup about Garven Tralk and the Isle of Refuge (Fighters)
• Read an old writeup about Collection Quests on the Isle of Refuge
• Read an old writeup about Other Quests on the Isle of Refuge

There seems to be some confusion in the In Testing Feedback thread regarding the removal of Qeynos and Freeport as starting choices. I stand by the original article I posted, but some clarification is worth mentioning.

Qeynos and Freeport Going Away?

Qeynos and Freeport are not being removed as cities. Furthermore to my knowledge, none of the level 6-20 quests in these city zones and surrounding suburbs are going away. Although further testing on the Test Server will be needed to confirm this.

Players wishing to experience the Qeynos and Freeport level 6-20 content would need to create a character in Kelethin or Halas, Neriak or Gorowyn and arrange travel to Qeynos or Freeport to do those quest lines.

It is also worth pointing out that changing Citizenship between Qeynos, Kelethin, and New Halas, or between Freeport, Neriak, and Gorowyn, is approximately a 15-30 minute process. It’s a single quest or short series of quests. It is nothing like Betrayal. Nor is changing your Citizenship required to play this content.

EQ2Wire would prefer if the islands are not removed, but de-emphasized from the Character Creation screen, with more options added on the Departure Boat to port the player to level 6-20 content in all 6 starting cities.

We stand by our belief that removing content is not necessary to improve the experience for new players.

In February, former EQ2 Senior Producer Alan “Brenlo” Crosby created a thread “What is the Golden Path?” It included this provocative passage:

The golden path is the first step in a larger revamp of our new player experience.   We took a look at the starting areas, other than Qeynos and Freeport as we plan to move away from those, and reworked content so that it had a better flow.  We wanted the quests in Darklight, Timorous and Greater Fay, to give you a better progression path.

When asked in the EQ2 ZAM Dev Chat to clarify this position, Brenlo responded further:

We plan to only allow new characters to start in the newer player areas. Timorous, Greater Fay, Darklight and soon Halas. The new player experience in Qeynos and Freeport are just not up to snuff anymore and do not provide as solid an experience when you enter the game for the first time.

Any hopes that this change would be canceled with the introduction of new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, were dashed with his indication that he would “not be changing anything that was short-term” (short-term plans). So it seems this change was destined to go in one way or the other. Here are today’s Test Update notes which will not apply to Live Servers until Game Update 56 in mid- to late-May:

Test Update April / 27 / 2010
GENERAL

Qeynos and Freeport have been disabled as starting cities.

Leading up to the launch of Game Update 56, there will be a prelude quest “A Vision of Valor” with a storyline leading to the rediscovery of New Halas. When this quest goes live mid-May, before the launch of Game Update 56, you’ll be able to pick it up in one of the home cities.

From Domino on the EQ2 Forums:

You will find NPCs in North Qeynos (at the temple), West Freeport (near the inn), Neriak (by the entrance), Kelethin (near Bayden Cauldthorn), and Gorowyn (at the dock) have a prelude quest to offer.

As this content is currently on Test, if you are interested, you may test this content out, as well as New Halas, on the Test Server.

Lessing (known on EQ2Flames as mafoe) has taken screen snapshots of the FABLED loot offered by the new Vendor being added in Game Update 56.

Here are links to these screen snapshots:

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAenf-rcI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/2KuKWlshkgY/EQ2_000868.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAe1IsMHI/AAAAAAAAAKU/Ttdtjvu6500/EQ2_000869.jpg

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAfTEriRI/AAAAAAAAAKY/MaEJl-oV8RM/EQ2_000870.jpg

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAfsymb7I/AAAAAAAAAKc/HmsbcyoJvm0/EQ2_000871.jpg

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAgXpQbpI/AAAAAAAAAKg/0g0DOHH5GSk/EQ2_000872.jpg

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 has been added to Moonfield Hamlet selling some of the rare Heroic drops from Sentinel’s Fate zones. It will be interesting to see if this is like the vendor added late in the release of The Shadow Odyssey, where only the lesser Fabled items were available, and for a whopping 150 shards/marks each.

With the Test Server being updated nearly a month before we are estimating Game Update 56 will hit live servers, hopefully there will be plenty of time to test out all the changes.

Domino has posted some background and lore regarding the new tradeskill society, the Ravens of the North, in New Halas. From the EQ2 Forums:

With the powerful buffs and bonuses of our Mythical/Fabled Epic Weapons safely squirreled away to a separate permanent spell (thanks to the Epic Repercussions quest), we’ve been able to divert our attention towards finding other, better weapons.

While the choices are not plentiful (even with their buffs stripped, our Mythical weapons still have some formidable stats), the Sentinel’s Fate expansion is nonetheless supposed to offer us a variety of replacements for our now Enervated Weapons.

Thus far, there have been a scant few upgrade choices for healers. Fortunately Kander has responded to these concerns:

There will be some new 1 handed and 2 handed healer weapons with GU 56. In both heroic and epic content.

Battlegrounds For Levels 30-79

We’ve gotten some more details on the format that Battlegrounds from levels 30-79 will take from timetravelling:

After Game Update 56 the Battlegrounds tiers will be:

30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89, and 90

Players in each tier will be auto-mentored down to the lowest common level (30, 40, 50, etc.).

Players in each tier will also have armor sets and accessories available for purchase from the existing PvP Merchants in the major cities.

The BG ‘starter’ sets will be the already-existing Mastercrafted armor sets (from levels 30 -> 70). Each has had a small amount of toughness added to its existing stats.

In other words, if you don’t already have Mastercrafted armor from levels 30-79, and want to do Battlegrounds, it’s recommended that you commission or pick up a set.

The Warfields of Antonica and Commonlands

Meanwhile we have gotten some clarification from Olihin on Antonica and Commonlands becoming PvP zones on Open PvP servers (currently Nagafen).

Warfields are restricted to PvP servers.

The writs are being changed to 6 kills for 5 tokens across all levels. A single currency regardless of the level will be used.

The new coin will be the Discord Token and I have set up a merchant to exchange the tokens for you in increments of 5 or 100. I know some will be able to gear up more of their characters quickly, but that is the point. I want you to be able to play on your account at whatever level you want and either save or spend your token when you want.

and from timetravelling:

[Warfields] is a new event that will be on PvP servers only that will give players the opportunity to fight for control of Antonica or the Commonlands.

This is clearly an effort to try to move at least some of the PvP community away from the “Token Vending Machine” that is currently the Kunark quest hub of Teren’s Grasp. Most players bent on earning Tokens live there 24/7.

Gninja wanted to get the word out that the quest Tending to Toxxicology will be getting a revamp which will result in quest progress being reset by anyone still on the quest. If you are on this quest, get it completed before Game Update 56 hits (late May). Or you can just wait until the change when the quest requirements will be reset to resolve the bugs people have been facing in trying to complete it.

We are aware of the issues with the quest in Sundered Frontier “Tending to Toxxicology” becoming gated if someone summons Sherra prior to someone else zoning in. And good news! We have a fix… Now the bad news… In order to fix this issue we are going to have to remove the stage of the quest that requires you to zone into Toxxulia’s Mound. When we do this it will reset everyone back to the first stage of this quest.

I just wanted to give you guys ample warning that this will go in with GU56 (Currently scheduled for late May) so if you have progressed the quest you might want to try to finish it before GU56 or lose your progress and possibly have to get the updates for the Wyrmlord and Wyvernlord again.

It turns out yesterday’s news on changes to the Training Dummies guild hall amenity was just the beginning.

Xelgad has updated us with news that one of the choices on the menu when summoning a Training Dummy (in addition to Solo, as well as Heroic and Epic which are new to GU56) will be an Encounter:

We’ve added a new set of dummies for GU56 that come as a linked encounter of a total of eight heroic training dummies. Enjoy!

This should provide many more options for players wanting to work on what order they cast spells and/or combat arts in for maximum DPS output.

In addition to the bigger content additions, Game Updates always include smaller, but no less desirable changes and tweaks.

Research Assistants Learn to Multitask

UPDATE: Oops! Despite appearing in the headline, this item somehow got left out!

UPDATE #2: This feature is in the April 20, 2010 Hotfix.

Bunji, member of the EQ2 QA Team, has posted this info on the EQ2 In Testing Feedback forums:

With the new Test server build, each character on an account can research a spell at the same time (this should not affect existing research).

Research times are also being tweaked (lowered).

Floating Disc Mounts

In response to a query about the floating disc mounts introduced in Sentinel’s Fate being slower, and with less stats than the Order of Rime mounts, Kander had this response:

I have upped the speed on several of the disc mounts, they now have a few stats as previous. Level 90 guild mounts are now 68%. Will be in with GU 56 or sooner.

As for the question of Appearance mounts, while we can’t expect them in GU56, Kander advised us to keep an eye out:

This is something we really want to do in the future, yes. It’s being discussed for future GU or exp07.

Kunark Blue Shinies Still Lore?

Echoes of Faydwer, the Rise of Kunark, and the Shadow Odyssey all added 20 or so collections. Each collection has historically had a rare item which could be used either to complete that collection, or to help complete separate collections. These are the Faydwer Expert Collection, Kunark Expert Collection, and Shadow Odyssey Expert Collection. The reward for completing each of these collections is a pair of goggles, or glasses, or a ring which then allows the wearer to see blue shinies (which spawn in specific locations, instead of at random) for the appropriate expansion.

The difficulty of collecting these blue shinies is that many of them have been flagged LORE, allowing only one to be picked up at a time, until it’s sold or traded.

In response to a complaint that Kunark shinies are still LORE, even in Sebilis, which at level 90 still has many green mobs, Kander had this news:

I will take a look at making these (Kunark Blues) no longer lore. I think that would be fine!

Training Dummies Go Epic

The Training Dummy Guild Hall Amenity has been very useful, however we’ve only been able to spawn a solo dummy, which has far too few hitpoints for more than 1 player to really test.

Rothgar has heard the call and will be adding Heroic and Epic versions of the Training Dummy:

I’ve already made a change to the dummy chest, it just hasn’t been released yet. You’ll get it with GU56.

You have the option to spawn a solo, heroic and epic dummy. Each will scale slightly larger in size and their hitpoints will be on par with mobs of that tier and level.

So now you can raid a training dummy if you like. These changes should be on the Test server if you want to check them out.

Training dummies don’t fight back, but they provide a useful punching bag for testing spell and combat art casting rotations. No word if we’ll be able to pick the level of the dummy. At level 80, you really want a level 87 dummy to test debuffs, etc. For now Rothgar is leaving them as they are:

The new dummies are exactly like the old ones, so they shouldn’t have any high resists or buff packages on them, just plain-ol-dummies.

EQ2Players has a new video showcasing Halas Reborn. Check it out below. And in case you missed it, here are Screenshots of Halas Reborn Housing.

Game Update 56 is coming soon to the Test and Test Copy servers, and in addition to the expected New Halas starting zone and city, which will have 2, 4, and 6 room housing as well as Tier 1 Guild Halls (unknown if it will be the same or different artwork), and in addition to a new raid zone, some substantial changes are happening to Battlegrounds and PvP combat in general. Battlegrounds in particular are being expanded from level 80-90 to level 30-90.

timetravelling gave this Battlegrounds preview:

• Brand new 1st Campaign armor sets and accessories
• Many of the accessories are based upon the currently BG-disabled RoK PvP accessories. Those adornments have had their effects adjusted and will be re-enabled for battlegrounds!
• Each armor piece will have a pvp-only Blue adornment slot!
• As such, we’ll all be introducing 20+ new Blue adornments!
• Battlegrounds at levels 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 are being activated!
• Battleground armor sets and accessories will be on sale at each of those tiers
• Brand new open-pvp server battles for control of Antonica and Commonlands!

• Additionally, we’ve internally removed the ~15% damage reduction applied to all spells in pvp combat. I’d like to once again ask for y’all to copy over to test-copy and give us feedback on the change.

Although the line item about battle for control of Antonica and Commonlands was posted in the Battlegrounds forum, it is believed that this is a PvP-server only feature.

Olihin followed up with this preview specific to the PvP (Nagafen) server:

• Level locking enabled starting at level 30.
• Removal of level restrictions for Alternate Advancement distribution.*
• 100% achievement bar settings prior to max level.
• Single Currency for Open PVP, the Discord Token.
• Warfields! Antonica and Commonlands…
• Much more!

When asked whether the change to Alternate Advancement level restrictions meant that PvP players could spend all 250 points at any level, Olihin responded with:

It’ll allow your AA expenditures on a PvP server to match those of a PvE server instead of the current restrictions.

PvP servers currently restrict the number of AA points which can be spent based on your level, beyond those restrictions of the PvE servers.

EQ2Players has a preview up about the housing in New Halas.   Andres Rodriguez is the artist responsible for designing the new houses and he took the time to answer some questions and share some pictures.  The houses will be available in two, four and six room layouts and there will also be access to T1 guildhalls.  They will include some built in bookshelves and even a fireplace.  And all the houses in New Halas will include windows with a view to the sea.

New Halas Housing @ EQ2Players

Last week, we reported our suspicions about New Halas being delayed, but we now have official confirmation. New Halas will be released as a free content update in Game Update 56. This would likely be in May based on the current GU release cycle. Here is Brenlo‘s official announcement:

Halas is indeed delayed until GU 56.  We (read I) were a bit ambitious in our grand plans for the year and despite my constant whipping, we could not squeeze in everything we had on the agenda.  Thus we are taking our time to get it right and get it out there in a truly awesome state.  Hopefully this will help tide some of you over.

Brenlo has posted a New Halas screen shot on Twitter, presumably of the housing we will see in New Halas:

While we’re speculating, Sigrdrifa has put together a writeup of what we know about New Halas so far. It’s a nice preview while we wait for more official news about this level 1-20 starting zone which we are now expecting in Game Update 56 along with Shaders 3.0. It should be an interesting May.

New Halas Demystification on EQ2Forums

We’re now less than 3 weeks from the release of Sentinel’s Fate. There has been no sign of Halas on Test. We’ve already been told that Halas is important to SOE, that they want it to be a starting zone to win new players. And I just don’t see them adding a starting zone with 20 levels of content with less than 2 weeks of testing. So at this point, EQ2Wire is now ready to call Halas for for Game Update 56 a few months after the Sentinel’s Fate expansion. This is purely speculation on our part until there’s an announcement, but we feel confident enough to post it.

I understand there are folks who are nostalgic for Halas after playing it in EQ1 and have really been looking forward to starting new characters there. I know I was looking forward to seeing what the Art department could turn out after seeing preliminary artwork at Fan Faire.

But Halas not being in-game for the expansion won’t ruin my life. Timorous Deep and Darklight Wood are still excellent options for leveling toons from 1-20. Really that level range is pretty saturated. The Golden Path we’ve been hearing about will be a polishing of existing zones (the changes to Sinking Sands were the first part of that) to make a smooth progression from 1-80.

More news on Battlegrounds and Sentinel’s Fate as we have it… This has been a busy news week and next week will probably be even busier!