EQ2 servers will come down for a Hotfix on Thursday, March 11th, 2010. This hotfix takes place at 6am PST for U.S. servers and 5am GMT on March 12th for Runnyeye and Splitpaw.
After the Hotfix notes, you’ll find some good news about the Guard levels in Qeynos, Freeport, and Kelethin.
continue reading March 11 Hotfix Notes, Guard Level Adjustments…
If you’ve been thinking that the pieces of the Sentinel’s Fate itemization puzzle just have not fit well together, you are not alone.
While we have not spent a lot of time covering itemization in SF, it is because things have continued to be in such a state of flux during, and after the Beta.
The smooth progression of TSO gear was seemingly replaced by a scattershot approach, with some of the x2 raid items being the best in the game, the x4 Hard Mode gear being only 1-2% better than the x2 Easy Mode gear, and Battlegrounds gear the red herring, providing a confusing shortcut to skip instance gear altogether. In short, the “plan” has not been clear. Until now.
After the jump, check out what Frizznik has posted regarding the EQ2 Team’s itemization plans:
continue reading A Light at the End of the Itemization Tunnel?…
Posted by Kiara:
We’ll be having our usual Tuesday hotfix starting at 6am for the US servers and at 9pm (5am GMT Wednesday March 10) for Runnyeye and Splitpaw.The downtime will be the usual hour or so.
and your March 9 Hotfix Notes after the jump…
Tad Ehrlich is a lead artist on the EQ2 Development team. He was a major part of the creation of the zone art for the beautiful Vasty Deep zones. Some excerpts:
How did you get started in the industry?
I began in comic books and worked as a colorist for Wildstorm, Jim Lee’s comic book company. I was very fortunate to land in an industry that I was extremely passionate about and had amazing people to learn from. My experience there led to me starting as a texture artist at Midway. The rest is history!
What are some of the other areas you’ve done the art for in EQII?
The first instance I did was Nu’roga and then I did all the Guk instances for the last expansion.
Do you draw on elements from the other EverQuest games for EQII?
If the zone is based off a previous zone from Everquest 1 then I make sure to do some research. At the very least I’d like a player who comes in to the zone and has experience in the first Everquest to say “Hey!! I recognize that!!”
Check out the profile and interview with him at EQ2Players.
According to player reports, it seems an unintended consequence of today’s patch is that Marks of Manaar have disappeared from loot tables of enemies in various Sentinel’s Fate dungeons. We’ll update you as we know more.
UPDATE: It appears that all Quest Drops off of mobs may now be broken. More info as we have it.
So today marks the release of the Digital Download in North America and Canada. For those unfortunate souls who couldn’t get their hands on a retail copy, your expansion begins today.
Do you really miss anything by being a week late? Well, there are those server discoveries (which EQ2Players isn’t tracking properly). And there’s the chance of making a lot of plat being first to sell shinies, tradeskilled materials, rare items, etc.
We have received player reports but have not yet empirically confirmed ourselves that there may have been some monkeying around with how combat XP is converted to AA XP. This may be a bug, an oversight, or it may in fact be an intended change. But for now, if these player observations are true, then players joining the expansion today will not be following in their fellow player’s footsteps of briskly earning AAs and picking up levels 2 at a time. Here’s what we know…
continue reading Sentinel’s Fate Digital Download Arrives Fashionably Late…
You’ll remember that one of the biggest complaints about the Rise of Kunark expansion is that combat XP was so minimal that hours spent in a dungeon barely budged the adventure level meter. The only means to level was to Solo.
In an ironic twist, players are reporting that it is not possible to level from 80 to 90 entirely by soloing in Sentinel’s Fate.
At level 86 or 87 with mastercrafted or T1/T2 gear, the first wing of the Hole should be no problem for 2-3 casual players. And you’ll earn enough XP to reach 90 in just a few hours of play.
If you are a questaholic, then take a look at using a Chronomage to adjust your level to 70 and do the ~50 new quests in Tenebrous Tangle, Barren Sky, and Bonemire. That, plus some of the easier quests in The Hole (which should be soloable at level 88-89) should get you to 90. I do understand some folks play EQ2 entirely as a solo game (I personally feel there are much better solo games out there, but I digress).
We feel that no one gameplay style should be the “only” way to level, so this is worthy of addressing. Hopefully it won’t take 2 years to fix.
With every expansion, a few of the guards in Qeynos and Freeport, especially the “stronghold” or most-defended area of each city, in this case North Qeynos and East Freeport, are dinged to a level that would make them perilous to invaders of the opposing alignment.
So imagine our surprise when we logged in after Game Update 55 (coinciding with Sentinel’s Fate) and found that every man, woman, and child guarding the cities of Qeynos and Freeport, in every area of the city, all magically dinged level 95. These guards are packing heat!
continue reading Freeport, Qeynos Guards Packing Heat — and to Speak as a Dragon…
It’s 4 hours since the launch of Sentinel’s Fate, and we are already hearing widespread reports of players who have reached level 85, 87, and even some level 90 characters. So there you have it, no longer is questing a required way to level.
Unfortunately I wonder how many players will completely skip the contested version of The Hole with as easy as it is to level. I really hoped we’d see a return to form of Kingdom of Sky with people leveling via a combination of dungeon crawls, heroic quests, etc. rather than just pressing the Easy button . I hope I’m wrong.
Bonus XP Weekend!
Kiara brings us news that this will be a Bonus XP Weekend!!
All forms of experience (Achievement, Adventure, and Tradeskill) will receive a 30% bonus from Friday Feb 12th @ 3pm PST (6pm EST) until Monday Feb 15th @ 11:59pm PST (Feb 16 @ 2:59am EST) when the servers will be brought down to patch the Sentinel’s Fate expansion as well as Game Update 55.
Retail Boxes
Some players have reported seeing Sentinel’s Fate regular and Collector’s Edition boxes in retail stores. We’re glad to see this as it will make it easier for some players to buy the game early if they are not able to get to a retail store on the 16thl. Frankly, the release date doesn’t really matter on an MMORPG. Until the servers themselves are patched, you cannot play the new content.
Kiara has encouraged players to NOT enter Sentinel’s Fate product keys into the system (Station.com) until February 16th. The system may get confused by a prematurely entered key. O.o
Once everyone logs back into EverQuest II with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate and Game Update 55, you will face many choices.
Do you reset your AAs and spend them differently to take advantage of the new endline abilities of my Class and Subclass Trees? We already know that your Kingdom of Sky Class page will be reset on your first login, because points are spent differently on it.
Do you start solo questing from level 80-90? Don’t forget to move your AA slider back from 100%! You cannot spend more than 200 AAs until you reach level 81.
Do you jump into a 2-4 person group in the contested The Hole?
Whether you have the Fabled or Mythical versions of your Epic Weapon, you’ll probably be itching to start working on the heroic quest to updated your Epic Weapon. Then you can start looking at the weapons Sentinel’s Fate has to offer.
If you don’t mind reading spoilers, Kain at EQ2 ZAM has reported in with the complete walkthrough on the two quests you can do to transform your Fabled or Mythical Epic Weapon to a spell, appearance weapon, and house item. It’s two quests:
I’m sure a lot of you are wondering. Where’s the good stuff?
Where’s the shard gear? Where’s the raid gear? Where’s the Battlegrounds gear? Where’s the detailed analysis of class changes, the new AAs, racial traits, etc.? The meat and potatoes of groupers and raiders that my readers have come to expect from EQ2Wire? Frankly, I’d like to know too. 
However even at this late date, all of these items are in such a state of flux on Beta, that it seems to document ANYTHING at this point would be foolhardy. Beta veterans assure me that there’s plenty of time left, but I admit this makes me nervous. Remember folks, raid gear didn’t even appear on Beta until 72 hours before TSO went live.
Two weeks ago I thought I’d be working my fingers to the nubs so I could present you with the coverage you’ve come to expect. Folks can go to EQTraders, EQ2 Zam, and other sites to get the grand tours of the overland and group zones, artwork, tradeskill info, etc. I know that’s where I look. 
I will be providing some documentation of the Red Adornments system very soon, but the raid gear, battlegrounds gear, and shard gear will have to wait until it’s finalized.
Mythicals present a significant challenge to EQ2 developers trying to create desirable weapons for players at level 90. Some of the Mythical effects are uniquely powerful and no player would even consider replacing them without getting the same effect with another weapon. For this reason, it was announced at Fan Faire that mythicals would become either an equippable charm, or a clickable item.
Already, in Beta, players have discovered that, when equipped, Mythicals would not modify level 81-90 spells (eg. Chimes of Blades III, etc.).
The Truth Comes Out
Frizznik has posted in the Beta forums that owners of their Epic weapons will be able to do a challenging heroic quest called “Epic Repercussions” at level 90 to gain a Persistent Spell which gives them the effects of their Mythical weapon.
Mythical Conversion
Mythicals are a large part of character power, and we don’t want to remove that functionality at higher levels. We did however want to make weapon slot upgrades viable again. In the expansion, mythical weapons can be converted into a spell by doing a quest. The new spell will take the mythical’s proc and buff components and convert them into a “Until Cancelled” buff. Any subclass with an activatable effect will have that effect converted into a spell as well. You will also be able to retain the mythical appearance through an appearance only or house item.
Effect Changes
We needed to make a few changes to how some of the mythical effects worked. The modifications will also be applied to the effects on the existing mythical weapons.
• Mystic: The reuse time of the activatable portion is now 10 minutes rather than 5 minutes. We didn’t want to weaken the effect, but the duration and reuse made this effect too powerful so we increased the reuse time.
• Wardens: The triggered proc will now trigger off of any heal rather than only critical heals. The effect will only trigger once per cast rather than up to six times per cast for group heals. The power gain on group heals was greater than intended.
• Illusionists: The triggered power proc was reduced to one trigger rather than three. The power gain was too too high across the entire group.
• Rangers: The bonus based on proximity was removed and replaced with a bonus that is active all the time. The bonus is equal to the bonus you would have gotten at point blank range.
• Conjuror and Necromancer: The new spell effect will increase the damage of the pet’s spells and auto-attack damage directly, rather than summoning a new pet. The existing mythical will not been altered.Most of the mythicals are a direct conversion from the item to the spell. The spell version will modify level 80-90 spells.
The heroic quest to acquire the Mythical Spell effect will be available to players who own either the Fabled or Mythical versions of their Epic weapons.
The significance of these changes will be felt by Rangers (yay, I can stand anywhere I need to!). And Summoners starting out the expansion will be able to continue to use their special Mythical pet. My understanding is that the mythical pet’s maximum level is 83. Then, after completing the quest, they’ll be able to cast one of thier other pets and cast the Mythical Spell to buff that pet instead. The folks who will lose out the most are Illusionists who will see a huge loss in how much power they are able to regenerate.
Bracing for Betrayal
Kaitheel has advised us that the Mythical spell will be cancelled, and the Mythical spell removed from your knowledge book if you betray to another alignment. The last step (as well as previous steps) of “Epic Repercussions” requires you to have the fabled or mythical weapon in your inventory or bank to complete the quest. Completion of the quest removes the original weapon (from either inventory or bank).
Once you have completed the quest “Epic Repercussions”, if you betray your class, you will be able to speak with an NPC on the Nektulos Forest docks to trade in your useless spell gem for a new one of your new alignment. In other words, you no longer need to re-do your fabled/epic/mythical quest if you betray.
The Mythical Appearance
Gninja reports in on the topic of still having your mythical weapon appearance:
When you finish the quest you get the spells appropriate for your class, an appearance only weapon to use if you so choose, and a house item version of your weapon.
Our Stand
Considering mythicals are pretty much just knowing the right person or paying the right amount of plat to get into a raid, I have no issues with this change.
Sentinel’s Fate Group Dungeon & Raid Zone List by Difficulty
Difficulty Rating Key
Easy
Easy to Moderate
Moderate
Moderate to Hard
Hard
The Hole contested (82-90)
Sprawling dungeon with 3 wings of difficulty, most content tailored for 2-4 players.
Old Paineel
Dartain’s Fortress
Tower of Serilis
The Hole instances
Demitrik’s Bastion (85+)
The Outer Vault (88+)
Spirit’s Resonance (88+)
Vasty Deep
The Conservatory (86-88)
The Abandoned Labs (90)
The Vestigal Cella (90)
Erudin
Erudin Library (87-89)
Erudin Research Halls (90)
Erudin Royal Palace (90)
The Vigilant
The Vigilant: Incursion! (90)
The Vigilant: Infiltration! (90)
The Vigilant: Rescue! (90)
Sentinel’s Fate x2 Raids
The Vigilant: Final Destruction (x2)
Sentinel’s Fate x4 Raids
Sentinel’s Fate: Lair of the Dragon Queen (x4)
Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory (x4)
The Palace of Roehn Theer (x4)
While we don’t have all the details on what perks will be available to Guilds reaching the new level 90 cap, we know that Game Update #55 will add 2 new Guild Hall Amenities.
The first is pretty straightforward. It’s a Wizard Portal NPC with all the destinations available from the Ulteran Spires. It does not include the Kingdom of Sky zones of Tenebrous Tangle, Barren Sky, or Bonemire: Realm of Dawn. You’ll still need that amenity if your guildies are making regular use of these zones.
The second new Guild Hall Amenity is the Guild Standard Bearer. If you’ve ever been on a group or raid and just didn’t have the right setup. If only you had a little more oomph, more defensive stats, more DPS, etc. you could clear the zone and claim your reward.
The Guild Standard Bearer is a bit like a vending machine, selling (at a steep platinum cost) zonewide buffs to your allies within a group or raid instance. No doubt there will be more items added to this amenity over time.
Guild Standard (Click to Enlarge)
Updated Notes from Beta (added Friday, Feb 5th)
And just to bring out tour of the UI improvements in Game Update #55 full circle, the lowly Zone Timers (Lockouts) window has been the bane of many a raid leader, as they remind players over and over to reset their group/raid persistent zone timers.
While I didn’t see a /resetallzones command (there might be one, I’m just not aware of it), the new Filter function at the bottom of the Zone Timers window should help considerably at raid time.
We’re a bit late on this, but EQ2Players has the latest preview leading up to the Sentinel’s Fate expansion, this time covering the 3 parts of the airship Vigilant. All three of The Vigilant instances (the Incursion, the Infiltration, and the Rescue) are geared for adventurers level 90+. EQ2Players Preview of The Vigilant.
As we now know, EQ2 will be getting Battlegrounds in Game Update 55 in February to coincide with the release of the Sentinel’s Fate expansion.
If you are wanting a closer look at the Maps of the 3 Battlegrounds zones, look no further than this EQ2Players writeup.
Battlegrounds are NOT intended as “end-game” or high-level only content. Although at launch they will be limited to level 80-90, there will be continuing effort to make Battlegrounds available to lower levels, complete with unique armor awards for these level ranges. Kiara posted about it here.
Kander brings us news that Emperor’s Athenaeum and Kurn’s Tower: Breaching the Void have been added to the Hot Zone rotation. Post on EQ2 Forums.
EQ2Wire is back in town and brings you some Hotfix notes.
October 28 Hotfix
ACHIEVEMENTS
ITEMS
MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD
USER INTERFACE
November 3 Hotfix
ITEMS
Here are your Hotfix Notes for October 21, 2009:
GENERAL
- Nu’roga now has plunderable loot!
- Malicious Thoughts and Icicle Explosion now trigger on ranged and melee attacks.
- Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now correctly modify each other’s damage.
- Purifying Persistence should properly modify the caster’s heals rather than the targets.
LoN
- The Cloak of Crystal Shards, Assassin Master’s Cloak and Cloak of Runes returned from Collector Rattelis are now Heirloom.
ITEMS
- Icy Prison now has 3 shield effectiveness to match its deflection chance.
- Charm of Solusek Ro once again triggers multiple times on AE casts, however its effect is now limited to 5 targets.
Miragul’s: Crucible
- The Master’s spell reflect percentage has been greatly reduced.
Miragul’s Planar Shard
- In the final hard mode fight with Miragul, his Brilliant Adepts will no longer stun/mez players within a second of initially spawning, but will wait 3-6 secs after spawning to start casting.
- The Miragul encounter (Hard mode): Miragul will now cast Curse of Confusion on up to 2 players per cycle, rather than 3.
MISTMOORE’S INNER SANCTUM
- The Vampiric Protectors that spawn during the Mayong encounter will now respawn in the center of the room if they break, rather than rapidly spawning and despawning near the point where the encounter broke.
MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION
- Certain items that drop from Munzok have become slightly more powerful.
- Overlapping unstable void protrusions should provide protection from Munzok’s edict as expected, and no longer conflict with one another. Additionally void protrusion protection now more closely matches the sphere’s size.
- Munzok’s max health has been reduced.
NIGHTS OF THE DEAD
- Altius Volfban in the Hollow Hedge should be much easier for mage classes to handle.
- The Headless Horseman now spawns somewhere near his tree instead of just in the same spot every time. He also requires someone offer him the necklace instead of simply taking the necklace near him to activate. His respawn has also been lengthened slightly.
- The Nightmarish Ceremonial Armor has gotten a slight change to color.
- The Nightmarish Ceremonial armor should now all have an equal chance of dropping.
- Altius Volfban now has a chance to drop a piece of the Nightmarish armor when killed.
- The Blanket of Fog now comes with a remote so you can turn them on and off. In the off state it should be much easier to tell where they are!
USER INTERFACE
- The option to always show the threat window has been moved from Game Features to Options->User Interface->Game Windows.
Spoilers ahead…
Maze
If you have been struggling to complete the Nightmarish Hedge Maze as part of Nights of the Dead, especially as a mage or pet class, you may be interested in this thread on the EQ2 Forums. Of course if you’d rather be challenged to figure it out for yourself, then don’t.
Fog
Another item as part of Nights of the Dead you may not want to miss may make your head a little more Foggy than usual. Again, if you’d rather figure it out yourself, then don’t visit this forum thread on the EQ2 Forums.
Headless
If you are an aspiring raid of 12 players, or a heavily-armored confident group of 4-6 players wishing to tackle the contested Headless Horseman, there are two things to know:
Have fun out there! We may see some changes to the Headless Horseman on Monday.
Nights of the Dead is now live! The event runs through November 9th. The zones were not available first thing this morning, but this issue has been addressed.
If you have been following the increasingly train-wrecky Legends of Norrath Affects Gameplay topic on EQ2 Forums, you know that the Legends of Norrath card game is on the cusp of making powerful items available within the EverQuest 2 universe.
Already, by purchasing booster packs of cards (at $2.99/ea) and/or playing the LoN card game, one can acquire cloaks, mounts, appearance items, potions, and other items within the EQ2 world. So far these items have drawn the line at being comparable to dungeon/raid drops.
Many have argued that EQ2’s $15/month subscription + $50/year expansion cost should be more than adequate for Sony Online Entertainment to cover their costs. The latest subscriber estimate is 250,000 players. Considering 6 months a year and 25% expansion buyin, that’s $26 million revenue per year.
Yet increasingly, in-game items have been made available through StationCash (funded with a credit card, items have a fixed price) and Legends of Norrath (player must purchase an unknown number of card packs until they find the loot card they desire, trade with others, or buy such cards at an extreme markup on such sites as LoNLoot.com).
Today marks the launch of the 8th expansion: Legends of Norrath:Travelers. It was announced 2 weeks ago including this controversial passage:
Incredible loot cards, including exclusive new quests in EverQuest® and EverQuest® II that open all new chambers and rewards of loot and XP!
Starting today, players can acquire a Legends of Norrath loot card “Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key” ( \aITEM -691738313 583949373:Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key\/a )
Examining the key offers the quest Repulsing Repuuli.
EQ2Wire went on safari to The Moors of Ykesha to get the facts. Upon entering the portal (which is a short distance from the Obelisk entrance), the surroundings immediately seemed familiar.
Indeed, I was greeted with the sight of the last room of Obelisk of Ahkzul.
After defeating four roaming 80^^ void beasts, Repuuli the Destroyer (82^^^) became interested in my presence. Defeated as easily as Executor Vark in the Obelisk, it is then that the true nature of this Legends of Norrath tryst was revealed. Although housed in an unassuming Ornate chest, the rewards found within were anything but ordinary.
Inside the Ornate chest is an item container called A Void Cube. One player per zone visit gets to loot this container.
The recipient must then choose between 7 items. Make no mistake folks, these items are comparable to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:
How Does Legends of Norrath Affect Me?
Legends of Norrath is a game I was never interested in, that I’m forced periodically to wait for it to download updates. It has never appealed to me. So far I’ve been able to ignore it other than checking to see if I get any loot cards. I’ve gotten a few cloaks. I got the heal potion.
And I bought some StationCash when it was half price. I’d probably use it for appearance gear or name changes. Maybe even a vitality potion to level a 5th tradeskiller to 80.
So I’m not like “Mr Furious” about RMT/SC/LoN. But I know others are, so LoN affects my gameplay if others want to quit EQ2 because of LON getting further and further entrenched in the game.
How does one level from 1-80 in EQ2 these days?
How does one get geared up in EQ2 these days?
Right now, I think a lot of folks solo quest from 1-80, missing the entire content of this game. Then they transfer plat and HEIRLOOM gear from their main to twink out their alt. They might even run a few Mentored (grey) Shard Runs to gear up their alt.
Without having ever stepped in a 1-80 dungeon, people feel they need to gear up alts just to have a chance — just to get a group. Imagine if you are a level 80 character these days and go LFG (Looking for Group) and show up in mastercrafted/quest gear and adept 1 spells? You will be laughed out of the building (and dropped from the group). When I started playing EQ2, grouping from 1-70 was prevalent. I feel sorry for the players now who will never know this content.
I am lucky that I was level 80 when The Shadow Odyssey was released. I already had the best Kunark group gear available to me, and started the first night earning as many void shards as possible. It’s just expected now to get a group you have full T1, possibly T2 gear, fabled weapon, etc.
Hand Me Downs
It’s easy to earn plat in this game. So easy that the plat farmers aren’t doing as well as they used to. With a few hundred plat, you can gear up with some significant jewelry and even T4 bracer/boot pattern to a toon that’s never fought in a dungeon let alone a raid zone. If you are raiding 4 nights a week and getting all kinds of patterns that everyone already has, then your alts are going to be built to the hilt.
When my Dirge dings 80, he will have full Tier 2 Void Shard Armor, with Tier 3 (Ward of Elements) boots, and pretty substantial jewelry. Who knows, he might even have Tier 4 FABLED bracers by then.
If some idiot really wanted to pay a few hundred bucks to acquire a few thousand platinum pieces and spend it on T4 raid patterns (The T4 chestpieces go for 1200-2000p on BB right now), they could. They could even pay for group updates on their Fabled epic, and then pay more for VP updates for their Mythical. In short, with a few waves of the credit card, I can build a toon in full Tier 4 FABLED gear, jewelry, and Mythical having hardly ever DONE the content.
People gear up alts with plat (earned or bought) and shards (earned or greyed out). Enough people view this as shady that there is still some sense of dignity maintained. Some folks still take pride that they built their characters without the aid of a powerful main character supplying them shards, gear, and plat.
I am NOT advocating stopping loot rights. It’s just a somewhat dysfunctional reality that I too have benefited from (I got the Ethernauts Roundshield of Ranger Pwnage for 120p). I think grey shards screwed them up and should have been stopped it.
So I think by putting FABLED-like gear into Legends of Norrath, SoE are legitimizing this process. It is a signal to a lot of players that SoE does not care how you build your toon. In combination with all gear getting the HEIRLOOM tag, it sends a message that rules can be bent and/or broken. You can build up your toon however you want, either by playing the game or swiping your credit card.
So I stand on principle and say that I will not use my credit card to get Legendary or Fabled gear and build out my character. I will not buy Legends of Norrath cards to get access to some significant loot. Already, so many barriers have been broken down in how characters are geared up in such a short time, I wonder how it will affect the future of the game. I think it will inevitably kill it. The thrill of the chase, the actual PLAYING of the game is diminished. Why learn the encounters and play the game when you can just put in a few bucks and get to the same destination?
When Legends of Norrath was launched, several promises were made by John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. It seems the expression “Time changes everything” is never more true here.
How Good Is the Loot?
The following diagram compares the LoN rewards with equivalent or similar items elsewhere in Norrath. It is disturbing to me that some of the rewards are similar to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:
The truth, as they say, is out there.
This week’s hotfix will be hitting today, October 13th (not the date on the Update Notes announcement).
EMPEROR ATREBE’S LABORATORY
ITEMS
MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD
PVP
USER INTERFACE
We’re keeping our eyes out for any further LoN news, by the way.
