After allusions by EQ2 Senior Producer Holly “Windstalker” to a “very detailed list” of issues and bugs and indications that today’s March update would “answer several of the substantive questions“, EQ2 Community Manager Piestro has revealed EQ2’s March Update Plans which contain many things we’ve heard before, but one interesting surprise:

There are lots of activities and events to participate in this month! And while you?re busy playing, the Dev team is preparing for the Game Update 63: Skyshrine launch. We are already playtesting internally and excited about this release. As we write this, development is wrapping up and we’ll be going to Test server in mid-March, so come and check it out then.

From EQ2 Senior Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Hey Norrathians,

It’s been (too) many weeks since you last heard from me.  I have been watching the forums and been eager to post as these are very exciting times for us. And here I am. I’ve come up for air!

In the past month, I’ve been in the trenches with the team reviewing the state of the game and having loads of meetings about our plans as we move forward.  I’m fully absorbed in EQII-ness.

As you can imagine, the design and art teams continue to be hard at work developing the latest Game Update.  The content is really coming together and the art is also – as usual – amazing. The Velious story is being well-served and we’re jazzed. We’ll start giving more details in the coming days.

Steve Merghart, EQII Senior Character Artist and Chris Myers, EQII Senior Animator, show off Honvar, a dragon who will be appearing in the upcoming Game Update 63 this April. Honvar roamed the Western Wastes in the original EverQuest. Steve and Chris are hoping that someone will make a plushie or maybe show up in costume at Fan Faire as Honvar, or as he seems to have been known internally “Lumpy”.

GamesRadar Exclusive: Watch as EverQuest II’s upcoming dragon is brought to life

From Omougi on the EQ2 Forums:

As Olihin stated on the AoD launch webcast, I will be taking over the development of PVP in EQ2. Now that the dust of AoD’s launch has (mostly) settled, we can start working on what’s next for EQ2 PVP.

The ultimate goal here is to give all PVPers a sick update with GU63. I’ve read through most of your feedback on these forums (including this thread, all 25 pages of it ) and we plan to act on it. We’re in the plan iteration phase now, and I hope to start implimentation of the plan later this week or early next week.

So, what’s the plan? Details change, certain ideas may be altered, improved upon, or scrapped entirely. We’re not ready to discuss details just yet.

Changes and improvements are coming. Your feedback is appreciated, and your patience will be rewarded.

Traditionally, when an item has been placed in a Guild Hall, that item has been considered as “donated” by the person placing it. As there is no cash value to items acquired in-game, donation seems an appropriate paradigm.

However with the introduction of furniture and other placeable items to the StationCash Marketplace, you are entering the realm of items with cash value. The ability to place items purchased with StationCash in Guild Halls has been inconsistent at best, mostly because of the Customer Service implications of thousands of players asking for their StationCash money back (or items) if they are booted from a guild they just finished placing $30, $40, or more dollars worth of items into.

This issue has been endlessly discussed on the EQ2 forums, with players arguing both sides, either that all items placed in a Guild Hall should be considered forfeit, or that Marketplace items are special because of the inherent cash value, and some even advocating that ALL items placed in a Guild Hall should be re-claimable by the placer.

Personally, I am in the camp that when you start factoring real money into the game, then you have to be very careful about transfer of ownership, and I’m not sure that placing an item in a Guild Hall should automatically be considered transfer of ownership. This isn’t chump change either. Some of the furniture sets in the Marketplace costs in excess of $30.