A selection of paintings from Notable Norrathians and the Heroes Festival.

A key addition to the City Festival were the Notable Norrathians player-submitted in-game paintings. If you have not yet looked at or bought any of these paintings, take your City Tokens to Darklight Wood (druid ring or run from Nektulos Forest). These paintings can be placed in your house or guild hall, and do not have the status cost and guild level requirements of the 5th anniversary Heroes Festival paintings.

Double XP weekend concludes at 10:00am PDT (1:00pm EDT, 19:00 GMT+1).

City Festival concludes on 2010.09.07 at Midnight PDT (2010.09.08 3:00am EDT, 2010.09.08 9:00 GMT+1).

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 out-of-reach flag holders be resolved? Many solutions were proposed. As of last week, we have our answer:

If a player holds the flag beyond a designated amount of time without entering melee combat, they will see a message flash in red characters at the top of their screen “Get into Combat or be Banished!!“.

If you’d like to read player feedback on this issue and solution, check out the thread on the EQ2 Forums.

From Rothgar on the EQ2X Forums:

Its not set in stone, but we are looking at selling all classes as individuals, not as packs. This means we might have to put a restriction on betrayal if you don’t own the other class. But this should be preferable to charging double the price and giving you an extra class that you may not want. Then you’d only have to buy the other class if you wanted to betray.

Also, I think you guys will be pleasently surprised by the pricing that we’re considering. Classes don’t have to be more than the cost of monthly subscription. As long as the gold plan still has value, selling classes individually will open them up to everyone, even those that would have not gone for the subscription. Mounts can have a higher price tag because they are more of a luxury item that you don’t need. The price of a class shouldn’t restrict people from trying several out, because after all, we want you to find your perfect class and stick with the game.

We’ve also had some interesting conversations about economy and broker access. We’re definitely looking at options. Something we definitely want to see is more of a player economy. The idea of a new “East Commonlands” cropping up would be really cool too. Would even be fun to see players taking out the portable crafting stations and making things for people on demand. We don’t want to eliminate the broker, but bringing the old-school player interaction back to the game would be really fun.

Update – This just in from Smokejumper:

If you are a Bronze or Silver member, there are two new features available to you!

Classes, a la Carte!

You can now purchase individual classes for 750 SC each. You can either purchase them in the marketplace or at the time of character creation. All classes outside of the original eight free ones are available for purchase.

(Gold and Platinum members, this doesn’t affect you since you have always had access to all the classes.)

Broker Credits!

If you wish to interact on the Broker system (either listing an item for sale or purchasing something for yourself), you can now do so. A pack of 10 Broker Credits is available for 150 SC. Each time you list an item or purchase something, you expend one credit.

(Again, Gold and Platinum members don’t need these since they have open access to the Broker at all times.)

• UI: The XP bar will now stay put between logins.
• UI: Designers of custom UIs can now set the XP bar to not “snap” to top/bottom.
• UI: The Character window has seen multiple improvements.
• UI: The Implied Target arrow now reflects the ‘con’ color of the enemy, and can have its opacity adjusted.
• Items: 2-handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased. Ranged weapons will also have a bit of a damage penalty in PvP to compensate.
• The Guardian class has had over 25 changes made.
• Resident’s of Omen’s Call (Fens of Nathsar) now have a World Travel Globe on their dock.
• Items: The Wicked Wand of Malice effect has been changed to on-equip.
• The Palace of Roehn-Theer zone-in bug has been fixed.

If you’re wondering about other announced changes which aren’t on Test yet, they will come later. For instance Ranged Flurry and Ranged AA Auto-Attack changes are still in the queue. Remember, Game Update 57b is still 4-7 weeks away.

If you haven’t tested out these changes yet on the Test server, check em out!

Complete update notes after the jump…

The complete Test Server Update Notes for August 25, 26, and 27th as posted by Bunji:

8/25 Notes:

USER INTERFACE
The XP bar will now stay put through relogging.

WELCOME WINDOW
The item of the week will display the item of the week description rather than a copy of the message of the day.

TRAVEL
The residents of Omen’s Call have added a travel globe to their dock.

QUESTS
Adventurers looking to worship Anashti Sul and on the quest “Gathering Feathers” should now be able to locate the necessary scroll within Gorowyn’s Grand Atheneum.

ITEMS
Troubadors who have completed the quest “An Ayonic Journey” can now read all of the pages within the book, “The Case of the Lost Lute.”
The wicked wand of malice has been altered. The effect attached to the wand is now an on equip effect. The 10% cast speed on hostile spells has been changed to a generic 10% cast speed mod attached to the item.

POPULATION
Stonebrunt Highlands: NPC Combatants found outside of Quel’ule should no longer fly up into the sky.

ASCENT OF THE AWAKENED
Drop rate of the “Ornate Winged Eye” has been increased and should now drop even if mobs are grey.

THE VIGILANT: INFILTRATION
There should now be a new respawn area in the beginning section once the first two groups of Zeklings have been defeated, thus keeping the circle of death from occurring.

PALACE OF ROEHN THEER
Zone-in should work correctly now.

8/26 Notes:

USER INTERFACE
The Character window has undergone a few changes:
The Auto-Inventory area has returned.
The stats dropdownbox has been replaced with buttons
The main tabs were moved back to the top of the window, sub-tabs were moved to the bottom.
Your character’s name was moved to the titlebar.

ITEMS
Roehn Theer: Godslayer Breastplate rewards have been made more in line with the challenge.
Fixed a rendering issue with Dendroxa the Envenomed.

8/27 Notes (should be on Test around 7-8pm tonight):

USER INTERFACE
[FAN FAIRE FEEDBACK]
The implied target arrow now displays the con color of the implied target.
You can now adjust the opacity of the implied target arrow independently from the main target arrow under Options -> User Interface -> Target Arrow

QUESTS
Feral Citizenry: Ghoulish Nerians should no longer remain in an “unattackable” state after being exposed to the Strobe of Innoruuk.

ITEMS
Stigmatic Frenzy now correctly triggers on the caster’s group.
Two handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased.
Master Yael’s weapons have had their damage ratings increased.

PVP ITEMS
Ranged Weapon auto-attack damage has been slightly reduced in PVP Combat.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Damage Reflection abilities can no longer do more than 300% of the max health of the caster before Crit Bonus and Potency.

Brawlers
Bob and Weave and Inner Calm now give a small amount of physical mitigation.

Guardian
“Got Your Back” is now raidwide and has a 50 meter radius.
“Cripple” is now a combat art that deals damage and reduces riposte damage of the target by 75%.
“Call of Shielding” now increases the maximum health of the raid as well as the defense skill.
“Guardian Sphere” now has a 0.5 second casting time. It lasts for 12-20 seconds (based on spell revision) and grants the guardian a 25% (at master) chance to absorb an attack (same as before) but no longer has max triggers of 6. The interpose effect has been changed to a stoneskin proc at 50% at master.
“Recapture” now reduces the hate position of the group members by 1 as well. The reuse is now 45 seconds.
“Iron Will” now reduces snare effects on the guardian as well as increases stamina. (36% at master at 90)
“Plant” now forces targets in Area of Effect to target the guardian and increases the guardian’s threat slightly. The duration has been slightly reduced.
“Enhance: Plant” now improves the duration by 0.4 seconds per point rather than 1.
“Double Attack” is now “Flurry” and grants 3% Flurry chance rather than 9% double attack.
“Bind Wound” now heals the warrior to full.
The “Crippling” line has been changed to the “Aggression” line:
“Enhance: Intercept” also reduces incoming damage to the target of Intercept.
“Enhance: Moderate” now increases the target’s crit bonus by 1% rather than reducing hate gain by 2%.
“Enhance: Rescue” has been moved to slot 4 in the new hate line (formally crippling.)
“Enhance: Reinforcement” has been moved to slot 5 in the new hate line.
“Enhance: Rescue” in the original slot has been replaced with “Enhance: Call to Arms” which increases the skill bonuses by 7% per rank.
“Enhance: Reinforcement” in the original slot has been replaced with “Enhance: Call of Shielding” which increases the spell by 5% per rank.
“Enhance: Ruin” is now “Enhance: Provoke” and increases the threat amount by 7% per point.
“Enhance: Concussion” is now “Enhance: Shout” and increases the potency and reduces the resist chance of Shout.
“Enhance: Sever” is now “Enhance: Hatred” and increases the guardian’s threat generation by 2% per rank.
“Cripple” is now “Shoulder the Burdon” and transfers 10% threat from the target group member to the guardian.
“Hold the Line” and “Aggressive Defense” now trigger threat 100% of the time on a successful block.
“Aggressive Nature” now increases the threat amounts on “Hold the Line” and “Aggressive Defense.”

Inquisitor
Chilling Invigoration is now correctly modified by the Inquisitor’s stances.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS
Mosaasus now has a smaller hitbox area.

PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY
Players now have more time to get to the platforms to prevent his adds from coming to life.

However this July, SOE became aware of a more insidious and direct attack upon the EQ2 playerbase. We’re talking about an Account Phishing Scam that encourages players to login to an official-looking website using their SOE Station credentials. Personal information including logins, passwords, e-mail addresses, account names, are logged and eventually used to strip characters and otherwise compromise accounts for plat and item distribution within the game.

In the Account Fraud panel at Fan Faire, as well as some discussions with SOE staff, we have determined some sobering data points.

• Many players create Station accounts for EQ2 using the exact same login/password they use for other games (including WoW), and sometimes even their primary e-mail account, and banking websites.

• Past phishing scams for WoW have netted account information for an alarming number of EQ2 players that used the same credentials.

• Some of these account scammers are incredibly organized, and have years of collected data. Some EQ2 accounts have been compromised with information from 4 years ago.

• Compromised accounts are used for a variety of tasks. We’ve all heard about characters being stripped naked in Qeynos Harbor. But your account is just as likely to be used to distribute platinum and other items from plat distributors to buyers.

• Some players have had the same account compromised 3 times in the same week.

• The number of EQ2 accounts compromised has doubled every month for the last three months since this phishing scam began.

What is Customer Service doing?

Customer Service are currently investing 45 minutes to 1 hour for each compromised account to do more than simply “roll back” the account, but step through event logs and restore the character with all items lost, but without any quest progress lost.

If the same account is compromised again within a short time, then a straight “roll back” is performed.

What can players do?

• Use a different password for your banking information and e-mail accounts than you do for Forums and Gaming accounts.

• Install and maintain up-to-date Anti-Spyware and Antivirus software.

• Do not share accounts or account information with guildies, friends, family.

• If you must share account info (against terms and conditions, but this happens within guilds due to the need for raid looting, raid buffs, and character boxing,) then change the account password to something temporary for that situation, and then change it back on your next login to your account.

Keeping your account secure is your responsibility, and no doubt SOE are looking into the possibility of the type of security fobs used by other security-related sites including employers and, of course, a certain other 10 million subscriber game.

Other things we heard from Customer Service were a drive for GMs to spend more time on-server to interact with players while resolving issues. They realize the value of on-server GMs, even if those GMs are mostly busy handling support tickets.

*whistles innocently*

Check back Monday’ish.

With the “EQ2 Subscription Perks” announced by SmokeJumper for monthly, quarterly, and yearly subscriptions, designed to offset and contrast against the EQ2 Extended servers, Station Access players have been feeling left out.

In a thread entitled “Station Access Accounts – No Multi-Month, No Extras, No Nothing“, SmokeJumper has hinted at some possible changes going forward.

Actually, (and I can’t commit to things because this stuff is under the control of Marketing…not Dev), the changes I proposed were mostly to the multi-month memberships, not to the SA packages specifically.

If you’re signing up for SA because you like to play multiple games, then it’s already a fantastic deal. However, if you’re signing up for SA just because you like having more character slots, then its obvious why you’re bummed about not getting to take advantage of the multi-month memberships. So my proposal was intended as a solution for folks that aren’t using SA for multiple games, but are only using it for extra character slots.

That might make my proposal obvious, but I’ll wait and see if marketing runs with the idea before rolling it out any further here. No guarantees…just working it from my side also to see if I can help make changes.

After the jump, the latest update on this frustrating bug.

Players have made no secret of their frustration about this issue, and questioned the need for even adding this feature. Many players (including myself) sequester new spells and combat arts to their own hotbar until I can login one of my (nearly) max level Scholar tradeskillers to produce spell upgrades. An Apprentice spell is almost never an upgrade for an Expert or Master.

But the issue being corrected in the meantime is hotbar slots being replaced by *different* spells. SmokeJumper chimed in:

We haven’t updated (this thread) for a bit, so here’s a new response:

Basically, this bug is being a rat bastage. We *have* had devs dupe this issue, but we can’t seem to get it to dupe while we’re in the debug environment (even QA isn’t finding duplicatable steps), so we’re having to trace code logic and try to figure it out that way.

We’ll get it, but we don’t know what it is right now and it certainly isn’t happening to everyone…so it’s tricky.

I know this isn’t the answer you’d like to hear, but we’re actively pursuing this problem and won’t quit on it.

After a player suggestion to copy one of their characters who always see this issue, Gninja responded:

We have copied characters that had this happen and that didn’t recreate it. Very elusive issue :/

Hey, folks,

Just wanted to let you know that we recorded all the sessions at Fan Faire, transcribed all the questions, and the team leads have spent the last couple of days pouring over the lists and prioritizing them for action.

We’ll be spending several weeks making fixes and changes based on the feedback we got there and then update the game with those fixes in mid-October.

We’ll post the list of what’s changing much closer to when we launch so that we don’t accidentally overcommit, but we think you’ll be pleased with a lot of the fixes.

Thought you’d be interested to know this is happening. More later!

So players have asked for a way to customize or more easily distinguish the color and opacity of the Implied Target Arrow.

Rothgar’s comments after the jump…

Here’s what Rothgar had to say:

Right now the implied target arrow uses a different shader than your main target arrow. You might have noticed a slightly different texture and the implied arrow doesn’t tint with the con of the mob, it just stays white.

I could switch it to use the same shader as the main target arrow which would make it so I could vary the opacity, but it would also tint it with con color and look identical to the main target arrow. I wonder if this change would cause more confusion.

Our own Dethdlr responded with:

If you make it so the opacity can be independently set from the target arrow, it should be fine even if the tint matches the con of the mob. On even con mobs they match now anyway.

For those that want to adjust it, like me, we’ll be able to set the target arrow as fairly transparent, and set the implied target arrow as a big solid arrow that says “STAB HERE”.

As a scout, I only need to find the tank in between fights when things have calmed down on the screen. During the fight though, I need to find the mob so I know where to put the sword.

Thanks you so much for looking into this!

Rothgar followed up with:

This is something I want to put on Test for a little while before it goes to Live so players have a chance to voice their feedback. It’ll be in the Test update notes when it hits the server.