UPDATED: JUNE 18th, 2011

If you miss the pre-Expansion Zone Previews, Interviews with Artists, Animators, and Developers, as well as the quarterly Question & Answer , Developer Chats, and ‘What Bugs You Most?‘, you’ve got company. We’re not sure that 20 minute Stickam videos fully replace all those forms of communication. That said…

There have already been several hotfixes tackling some of the bigger issues introduced by Game Update 60, but there are others which have yet to receive confirmation from developers. We delve into this category today. This is a mixture of bonafide bugs, and also outstanding issues which rise above simple griping into things that are causing significant gameplay problems.

Details after the jump…

Rothgar took a moment to respond to almost universal derision of the new Adornments display scheme introduced in Game Update 60:

Thanks for your feedback on the adornment changes.

However, from some of the feedback it certainly sounds like you’re not seeing everything based on an out-of-date UI. I do understand that some of you are using Default and still have issues with the changes, but before we can have a rational discussion about it, we need to make sure people are seeing the changes how they were intended and not looking at broken UI windows.

Not seeing the adornment name in the tooltip is a valid concern that we will talk about. The main reason for going to an icon-based system was to make the examine description more visual and to reduce the overall amount of space required for adornment information now that items can receive multiple adornments of the same slots. You’ll start to see items with more adornments, especially two-handers, and the examine description was getting awfully long. You’ll see we’ve done other things to try to reduce the compexity of the examine window like converting “+10 crushing, +10 piercing, +10 slashing” to just “+10 weapon skills”.

Lemilla of Permafrost have done some research to confirm what appears to be an undocumented nerf to Casting Speed which is resulting in significantly slower results. This is not the only thread on the EQ2 forums on the topic. One originally about Swashbucklers also investigated the Casting Speed issue.

From SOE’s Facebook page:

This Thursday at 4PM PDT the SOE webcast is going to host members of the EverQuest II development team as they talk about Game Update 60: The Children of War. Find out about the Crystal Cavern, Fortress of Drunder, PvP changes and more! Also, members of the EverQuest Team will be in attendance to talk about Hardcore Heritage and why you’ll want to revisit some of your favorite places!

From EverQuest2.com:

Available today, May 31, 2011, The Children of War is the 60th game update for EverQuest II. This update will automatically install the next time you run the Launcher before logging in. Several updates were made to the game; here’s a quick look at some of the highlights!

Game Update 60: The Children of War

The Crystal Caverns

The Fortress of Drunder

Read more at EverQuest2.com.

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 EverQuest2.com:

The Children of War continues the storyline introduced to players in the recently released EQII: Destiny of Velious expansion pack as part of the Age’s End Prophecy saga.

Destiny of Velious provides many options for solo and duo players wishing to gear up without stepping into a heroic dungeon.

• For starters, the Othmir and Snowfang quest lines reward gear that was unheard of except for raiders in Sentinel’s Fate.

• Public Quests offer sets of gear, weapons, and more, with or without joining a group or raid provided enough players are present and successful.

• A largely unknown solo/duo dungeon Crystalline Breaks provides additional gear up options.

• And finally today sees the introduction of a Velious Solo Shard Quest to fill out player options for gearing up without a full group.

Multi-attack Not Working on Offhand Weapons

In a two different forum threads, players reported that Offhand Weapons are not multiattacking unless their timing is staggered (use a combat art to interrupt one, or use weapons with two different delays). Zoltaroth‘s response:

We found what is causing this and are working on a fix. Most likely the fix will be in the next hotfix after tomorrows (ie: not tomorrow).

Battlegrounds Tokens for 2 Gold

For testing purposes, Battlegrounds Tokens were placed on the PvP Vendor for 2 gold a piece on Test Copy. Unfortunately, these cheap tokens made their way through to live and as a result, some players on Nagafen have stockpiled thousands of tokens. Some players have even transferred from other servers to Nagafen just to buy them. Olihin says this will be addressed:

This was not intended as stated and we are taking steps to resolve the issue. We appreciate the report and patience while this is resolved.

We thank those that had the restraint to NOT buy the tokens, since it was a bug that the token was there to begin with.

Battlegrounds Disabled, Characters Stuck in Lobby

From the in-game EQ2 MOTD:

The Battlegrounds are temporarily unavailable. Attempting to zone into the BG lobby will cause your character to become stuck. Please refrain from going to Champion’s Respite until the battlegrounds are available once again! If you are currently stuck, please petition a GM. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Battlegrounds Tokens 2g on PvP

Players are reporting a bug that made it to the PvP servers (Nagafen and Vox) from Test causing Battlegrounds tokens to cost just 2 gold pieces on PvP servers. Who knows how many players will transfer to Nagafen for the nearly-free gear.

AA XP Display Bug

Players are reporting receiving the message “You convert 1 experience into AA experience!” with their AA slider set to 100%. This would seem to be a display error as I personally tested killing a few mobs and received the normal amount of AA XP (about 1/3% for a group of 3 mobs in Velious).

New Adornments System

So far, the new Adornments display is receiving mixed reviews.

New Public Quest in Eastern Wastes Postponed

During Destiny of Velious beta, there was a third Public Quest in Eastern Wastes. As it did not appear today with Game Update 60, we must assume that it has been delayed further.

After the jump, your full Game Update 60 Notes for today, May 31st, 2011…

Today, arguably the largest Game Update we’ve seen in years hits the live servers. Game Update 60 adds 4 new dungeons, 4 new raid zones, more crafting, more quests from a solo shard quest to a Heritage Quest, major changes to PvP from gear to itemization to mechanics, not only a new Battlegrounds lobby, but a 4th Battleground 18 vs. 18.

We are still waiting for the full list of Game Update Notes, but in the meantime, here’s just a quick bullet point list of what we can expect:

New Level 90 Dungeons and Raid Zones

The Crystal Caverns will naturally be familiar to those who adventured through Velious in EQ1.

The Fortress of Drunder consists of 3 new group dungeons, 3 new x4 raid zones with both regular and challenge modes, a new x2 raid zone, as well as a crafting zone. Drunder zones are only accessible via flying mount.

• Drunder: Spire of Rage (group)
• Drunder: Strategist’s Stronghold (group)
• Drunder: Tower of Tactics (group)

• Drunder: Citadel of V’uul (x2 raid)
• Drunder: Sullon’s Spire (x4 raid)
• Drunder: Tallon’s Stronghold (x4 raid)

• Drunder: Vallon’s Tower (x4 raid)

From EverQuest2.com:

The Children of War, or Game Update 60, will go live on Tuesday, May 31, 2011. The US servers will be offline at the usual Tuesday update time of 7:00 am PDT and are expected to be back online around 10:00 am PDT.

The update notes will be available in the Update Notes forum, and a feedback thread will be unlocked once the update has been completed on the US servers.

We’ll post any downtime updates in the Official News and Announcements “Server Downtime for the Children of War” thread.

If you firmly believe that all races and classes should be playable in all cities, today we are one step closer. Starting with Game Update 60 on May 31st, Ratonga will be tolerated welcomed in Qeynos and Kelethin.

From EverQuest2.com:

Celebrate With the Ratonga: May 31 – June 6, 2011

Word is spreading fast among the citizens of Qeynos and its allies: ratonga have begun to openly enter the cities, and the guards are no longer turning them away at the gate. With Game Update 60: The Children of War, ratonga will now be considered a neutral race and may start life in any city of Norrath.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a week and a half since EverQuest II service was restored, and harder still that EQ2 was offline for 12 days, an exceptional operational gap for a game modeled on “sticky” customers who login daily to check in on and advance their characters.

During the downtime, EQ2Wire wanted to give the EQ2 team an opportunity to come out from behind the bushes and share a bit of what they’ve been working on and maybe break some of the tension. After all, the EQ2 team had only just taken the wraps off 3 months of hard work by unveiling Game Update 60 on the Test servers. The Shutdown arrested feedback just a scant 72 hours after testing had begun.

The Sony/SOE security breach precipitated a communications blackout that fell over the company like a cone of silence, almost completely cutting off SOE from its customers. We submitted some questions a few days after the outage and are now able to share the responses with you. Due to the timing (and lawyers), there will be few revelations, but it’s still worth a read.

Check out SmokeJumper‘s responses to our questions after the jump…

While SOE and by extension EQ2 were offline during the 12 day downtime, what were the devs doing? Scrapbooking? Needlepoint? Actually, they continued work on Game Update 60 (now slated for a May 31st debut according to SmokeJumper) as well as looking ahead to Game Update 61 and beyond.

While players were not able to test Game Update 60, the developers have continued to polish it up and add new things while the servers were down, as well as addressing the feedback from players during the short testing period.

We’ve been hearing about a new Adornments System in Game Update 60. System is perhaps too strong a word for what we’ve seen on Test. But the changes indeed help to visually distinguish adornments from other items which makes finding them in bags a lot easier.

Item Examine windows have seen a change, as adornment text has been replaced by subtle Adornment “badges” for each color the item supports. Adornments themselves have been given bold new icons which are unique, color-coded, and stand out from other items in both recipe books and inventory bags.

Your Feedback

Does this go far enough to make adornments easier to find and stand out among other items? Would you still like to see an Adornment Helper in-game that shows all the adornments and where they are available from?

Now that EQ2 has been resurrected, some players have had issues with the mandatory password resets. Others who have gotten into the game noticed issues with Research Assistants. Some EQ2X players at the Bronze and Silver levels feel there should be compensation. EQ2X players at Gold and Platinum already have a compensation package. Finally, players are curious about when Game Update 60 will hit, since we are just 3 days away from the original announced launch date, and there had only been a couple days of testing.

Details after the jump…

Game Update 60 has finally reached Test and there is a lot of content here, including 3 new heroic dungeons, 3 new x4 raid zones, and a new x2 raid zone, a new Battleground, as well as major changes to PvP. Also look out for several changes and tweaks to classes, as well as a hard-to-miss huge nerf to Dirges, with Chimes/Cacophony of Blades no longer interrupting.

“The Children of War”

The Fortress of Drunder has emptied of Rallos Zek and his armies as they pass into the Plane of War to prepare for their eventual march on the Western Wastes. The Demi-Gods, Tallon and Vallon Zek, are subjugated within its towers, ignorant of Rallos’ grand scheme. Only Sullon Zek, the Maiden of Rage, is aware of what is to transpire. Trapped within her own tower, she has taken great risks to seek out worthy and daring heroes and guide them into the walls of Drunder.

Now it is up to you to grapple the Minions of Zek and battle your way through events that will gain you amazing allies and set into motion a war that will end all wars!

After the jump the full Game Update 60 Notes as they appear on Test (subject to change between now and May 17th):

It is our understanding that Game Update 60 will be hitting Test and Test Copy today. Domino‘s post is not a confirmation, but taken with other posts, strongly suggests it:

Most likely early afternoon (PST) but times may vary depending on a variety of factors. There will be an in-game broadcast to warn you.

According to Frizznik on the EQ2 Forums (when answering a question about why certain tradeskill materials wouldn’t go into the Harvest Depot), indicated that GU60 is now locked and thus should be hitting Test soon. With a live date of May 17th, I wouldn’t want to take the odds on 3 raid zones, 3 dungeons, and all the other content of Game Update 60 being bug-free.

It looks like the classifications on the Rough Pearl and Rough Nacre should work for recipes that require those ingredients so I flagged those so they can go into the depot. May have to wait a while for it to hit live though since we already passed GU60 lock.

For me, since DoV came out, the “hot zone” hasn’t seemed to be very “hot”. I’ve said this in a few threads and have seen others chime in with different theories on why they seem that way.  There may be fixes to this coming our way in GU60.  Details after the break.

Continuing last week’s news that Harvesting is being changed to have a faster speed, Frizznik has posted a new thread with a summary of the changes coming to Harvesting Tools:

The other thread was getting long, so I wanted to create a new one so folks could easily find the changes to them, and to let you know some new developments.

Woodworker made tools are changing.  There are no longer seperate tools for each harvesting type.  There is now one tool at each tier that gives harvest time reduction and double harvest chance.

• 20: Ash Harvesting Kit: 2% Double Harvest, .1 second reduction in all harvesting times.
• 30: Briarwood Harvesting Kit: 4% Double Harvest, .2 second reduction in all harvesting times.
• 40: Teak Harvesting Kit: 6% Double Harvest, .3 second reduction in all harvesting times.
• 50: Sandalwood Harvesting Kit: 8% Double Harvest, .4 second reduction in all harvesting times.
• 70: Redwood Harvesting Kit: 10% Double Harvest, .5 second reduction in all harvesting times.
• 80: Compact Redwood Harvesting Kit: 13% Double Harvest, .5 second reduction in all harvesting times.

If you have any of these tools, when you log on after this goes live, those tools will auto convert into the new Harvesting Kit.  Woodworkers now only have one recipe to make the Kits rather than skill specific tools.  The only writ to make tools was in the 70-79 range and I changed it to only ask for Kits rather than single tools.

Frizznik is putting forth some changes to crafting in Game Update 60. Due to the loss of pristine bonuses when crafting new items that came with Velious, players have discovered a range of levels from 17-20 where there are no tradeskill quests to do, and XP has become a slow grind. So new tradeskill writs are being added from level 15-20 to resolve this issue.

Meanwhile, harvesting speed is getting a boost for low levels, with the base harvesting time dropping from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. If you’re concerned that harvesting will be too fast at high levels, have no fear. Deity buffs, racial traits, tinkered tools, and crafted tools are all being nerfed adjusted to make sure the maximum harvesting speed is still around 2 seconds.

According to Xelgad, we can look forward to some class improvements/tweaks with  Game Update 60. Here’s what we know so far:

Re: the Berserker class issues thread post Velious thread:

These changes should hit Test with GU60. There should be plenty of time to give feedback on them while they’re on the Test Servers.

Re: Persistent Buffs- Post-DoV Abilities thread:

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to push these changes through until GU60

Re: Manaburn / Lifeburn Immunities thread:

These have been removed for GU60.