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Game Update Notes for January 31, 2012

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Jan 312012

Here are your Update Notes for January 31, 2012:

GENERAL

Fixed a bug where some characters wouldn’t show on character select.

ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION

Tower of Frozen Shadow (Raid)

Tserrina’s spell “Wing Buffet” should no longer cause priests to become knocked back.

Adds spawned from shadow doors should no longer spawn quite as quickly.

The number of adds that spawn from shadow doors has been slightly reduced.

Tower of Frozen Shadow: Umbral Halls

Demanti Sheda should no longer have issues resetting his encounter.

Demanti Sheda’s spell “Paralyzing Fear” should now stun instead of fearing and has been reduced in duration.

Elements of War [Challenge]

Terrinon Bloodclaw now has less strikethrough ability.

Tower of Tactics

Lady V’uul will no longer spawn archers once defeated.

Vallon’s Tower [Challenge]

Ambassador Grindstone’s Council Judgment proc now only lasts half as long and is no longer a curse.

During the Hand of Vallon/Golem fight the golems should no longer get out of color synch or double cast any spells.

During the final Vallon Zek fight – Fighters no longer destroy domes if they enter with the wrong color. Only non-fighters destroy domes in this way. You have more time to react before the domes spawn to get out of the way, and after the domes spawn to get in the proper color dome. Tactical Toll no longer snares players.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge]

Tyrax Terrolus will no longer curse the main tank with Tyrax’s Edict.

Kael Drakkel contested

Boss mobs will now cast curses less frequently.

Stonebrunt Highlands

Ghazi the Conqueror should no longer retreat from battle with mercenaries.

DUNGEON MAKER

All Dungeon Maker avatars should now be the same tier.

ITEMS

The elemental disc mounts from the 8th year veteran rewards should now be able to be used by 85th level tradeskillers.

Yellow adornments on the Ry’Gorr, Thurgadin, and Snowfang merchants should now offer options for beastlords.

Fertilizer treasure should once again be able to be sold on the broker.

The AOE radius on Tradeskill Apprentice priest 2hander procs has been reduced from 25m to 5m.

Added beastlord items to loot tables for [Echoes of War].

Increased crit chance on [Echoes of War] 2 handed weapons.

QUESTS

Beastlord Epic

There are no longer two axiom within the Great Divide that share the same name.

Merc Tweaks and Raid Double-Casting on Radar

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Jan 302012

We reported last week on the double-casting of AoEs by Destiny of Velious HM (hard mode) raid targets, making many fights either nearly impossible, or requiring exceptional luck.

According to Kander, this is now being looked at:

It is definitely a bug and we definitely intend to fix it. We have code looking at it right now.

Meanwhile, Gninja remains our point man on all things Mercenaries. At the prodding of players, he has nailed down some issues, first with Defiler mercs not taking advantage of wards:

Took a look at this. It seems they are still warding but they are giving heals nearly full priority. I will rebalance it a bit so they keep wards up as well.

and on the subject of mercs not being diligent about keeping pets or warders alive:

I will take a look and see if I can find the problem. Mercs “should” heal pets with single target heals. If they are not it is a bug and I will see if I can fix it.

Gninja is aware of, but unable to reproduce an apparent bug with mercs not being re-summonable once suspended not for 2 minutes, but 24 hours.

I have seen reports of this but we havent been able to reproduce it on our end. The only thing I can think of is that it is some sort of UI related issue.

He then asked for character name, server, and details to help diagnose the issue.

For those who continue to be concerned about mercenaries that “cower” when too many mobs are wailing on them (as unintentionally happens on the first named in Forgotten Pools), Gninja reminded us that even when playing the ‘cowering’ animation, mercs are still acting, but at a reduced potency:

If the cower visual aspect is causing confusion I can see about getting some better visual aspects added in instead of making them cower but the mechanic of them gaining a debuff when they get too much attention is not going to go away anytime soon. This does not mean that we might not release mercs later down the road with larger thresholds but for these base mercenaries the threshold will be staying as is for now.

Bug of the Week

A bug we have personally seen regarding Beastlord Warder Specialization Points (aka Warder AAs). You can buy the end-line abilities (giving you a new 5th or 6th Primal) even if you don’t have the 3 points needed to buy them. The number of Available Warder Specialization Points will display as -2. However your Warder SP will reset every time you zone.

Server Downtime for Crushbone & Permafrost: Tuesday, January 31, 2012

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Jan 302012

From EverQuest2.com:

Crushbone and Permafrost will be undergoing maintenance beginning at 4:00 AM Pacific* on January 31, 2012. We expect this downtime to last for approximately 8 hours.Chat will also be down for the Freeport and Oasis servers during this time.

We apologize for this interruption and will bring the servers back online as soon as the maintenance is completed.

Time Zone Conversions

PST: 4:00am-noon
EST: 7:00am-3:00pm
GMT: 12:00-20:00
CET: 13:00-21:00

MMORPG Interviews Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson

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Jan 302012

Last week, MMORPG posted an interview with Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson.

The article is a bit light on revelations and threw a few softballs like “The Dungeon Maker is a brilliant addition to the game. Can we expect more functionality now that it seems like the community loves the feature so much?” , it could still be an interesting read, especially players looking for any scrap of information about the upcoming fourth game in the EverQuest franchise (you didn’t think we forgot about EQOA, did you?).

Great ideas only really shine if you’re first to market with them. So we’re giving ourselves lead time against our competitors by being as close-mouthed about the game as we can until we feel like we’ve got a bit of a lead for launch. And then we’ll talk about it. You can’t imagine how much we want to talk about it. We’re bursting.But for now, all I can say are the things I’ve said before: a) It’s a reimagining of the Norrathian universe of characters and places; b) It’s utilizing the same Forgelight MMO engine that “Planetside 2” is using (and that engine is looking incredible right now), and c) this is not the MMO you’re used to playing. We aim to make something extremely different this time around. High-fantasy? You betcha. Norrath? You bet, but expect some twists. Magic? Swords? Sorcery? Yup, yup, and yup. But beyond that…imagine all you want. Our aim is to make something cooler than what’s in your head.

Although EQNext is still pretty much top secret, Zoltaroth did post a picture of some members of the EQ2 and EQNext teams at a paintball range. Hey, we’ll take anything we can get including a pic of Rothgar’s armory.

European EQ2 Customers Waiting to Learn Their Fate

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Jan 302012

It is now two weeks since the announcement that ProSiebenSat, a TV and radio broadcast firm based in Germany, will become SOE’s ‘Exclusive Partner’ in Europe. ProSiebenSat’s gaming division, Alaplaya, is mostly known for poorly supported region-locked free-to-play browser games.

The announcement immediately raised fears which, to date, have received no official (or unofficial) response from SOE beyond two posts from SmokeJumper asking for more patience:

I can’t give you the official answer yet. I’ve been specifically asked to wait until the full FAQ and everything is created for this.

However, this should be really big for EQII in Europe. Partnering with Proseiben.1 gets us access to television ads in Europe, which means we should be able to greatly enlarge our European server populations with new players. That would just be astoundingly cool for everyone involved over there.

I need to wait to talk about other details until all the p’s and q’s are arranged. (When we partner with folks, the discussions always take longer because it’s not just us making the decisions, and this is a big arrangement with many details to hash out.)

I am sorry this is taking so long, but the answers are coming soon.

After the jump, we address some of the issues that players are uncertain about:

Region Locking

The largest concerns have been over Region Locking, or the restriction of gameplay on certain servers to certain geographical regions via IP address checking. The only consistent workaround is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Players in North America, some of whom work odd hours, as well as a number of US military on assignment in Europe have always had the freedom to play on traditionally European servers like Splitpaw, Valor, and Storms. Likewise players from Europe have had the option to play on American servers such as the popular Antonia Bayle.

Will players in Europe and the US be ‘region locked’ to only play on certain servers?
Will server transfers be possible between US servers and Splitpaw (the remaining UK server) after the contract goes through?
Will EU players be able to access Vanguard, a game with no current EU server?

Customer Service

When you reach the right person, SOE Customer Service has traditionally been very good to excellent.

Will players in Europe be reliant upon Alaplaya staff for any technical or support problems with SOE games?

Accounts

A relevant passage from the announcement has this to say:

We are pleased to announce that the renowned developer and publisher Sony Online Entertainment and ProSiebenSat.1 Games agreed on a cooperation which means even more fun and diversity for the steadily growing portfolio of games which can be enjoyed with your alaplaya account.

also a post in German by a moderator was translated by an EQ2 player:

With regard to account questions etc. We are working with SOE on an FAQ. Everything will be easy and uncomplicated. Don’t Worry! More info soon. We will surely grow massively.

Will players login to EQ2 and other SOE games through the current Station system, or will they be transitioned to Alaplaya’s login and forum systems?
Will players keep their current StationCash balances, or will this get turned into a different currency?

Update Schedule

EQ2 servers geolocated in Europe (Amsterdam) are typically updated 14 hours after US servers. Will game patches take place on a different schedule or possibly be delayed?

Localisation

One of the problems with maintaining a text-heavy game like EverQuest II in the German and French markets is localisation. Some of the translations in EQ2 for certain items or quest text are legendarily bad. Could Alaplaya’s involvement lead to improved translations?

What do you think?

Is it time to worry yet?

SmokeJumper Twitter Teases Game Update 63

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Jan 272012

Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson has posted a bit of a Twitter followup after his rather abrupt pronouncement that we should only expect three Game Updates this year, with the next one not arriving until sometime in April:

Funny how when you come back from relaxing, you always run real hard to catch up. Does this make sense? Really? Humanz iz odd.

DoV, Book 2, Chapter 1! (GU 63) : Withered Lands and Skyshrine. A big new overland, group instances, a contested dungeon, raids, and more!

Sometimes things go right. And then because of that, they keep going right because that becomes normal. This is a good time for SOE.

SOE Forums Go For Security Theater

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Jan 272012

If you like posting on the EQ2 forums, you’ve probably been seeing a lot of the above screen.

Over 2 weeks ago, the SOE forums lost the ability to store login information using cookies. In other words, anyone who was not actively browsing an SOE forum or website was logged out after 15 minutes of activity. At the time, this was explained as a temporary glitch.

However last week, EQ2 Community Manager Amnerys (who returned to work at SOE in early January) had this unbelievable update on the issue:

The forum auto logout has been changed to 3-hours now. This should satisfy the security reasons for the change as well as allow a decent amount of time before needing to log back in.

EQ2Players is very much “coming soon.” I know you won’t believe it until you see it, but it truly shouldn’t be very long now. I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but others on my team have.

Amnerys posted elsewhere:

I believe there is now a 3-hour auto logout on our forums. So it’s not indefinite like it used to be, but not so short that you’re having to log in again every few minutes. Hopefully this timing will be better for users and still accomplish the security goals.

A player who contacted a different forum administrator received this cryptic info:

Unfortunately, due to security reasons we had to disable that feature and change the way everyone logs in to the forums. We have recently adjusted the forums so that it will now keep you logged in for up to three hours.

It hasn’t been made clear what security reasons there were for invalidating cookies after 3 hours. I posted an explanation for why requiring a login every 3 hours is just Security Theater:

I’ve been administrating forums for 12 years. This is the first forum I’ve used that has a standard policy of logging you out every 3 hours.

The industry standard is 14 days. That’s Google, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Every forum I’ve ever set up or dealt with (I participate in about a dozen) actually allows you to stay logged in 30-90 days on a cookie. To date I’ve never seen a security problem on a forum that resulted from the cookie’s duration being “too long”.

Requiring a login multiple times a day DECREASES security because if a malicious zero-day keylogger program slips past your Anti-spyware prevention on your PC, it’s far more likely to grab your SOE/Station password because of how frequently you are having to type it.

Obvious trolling about people having “no life” for spending X hours a day on the forums is irrelevant blather and is just a nonsense smokescreen coverup for the reality. Web security has never and will never require invalidating cookies after 180 minutes.

Takeback: Only 3 Game Updates This Year, GU63 Slips to April

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Jan 252012

During Fan Faire 2011’s “Freeport and Beyond” panel led by EQ2 Exec Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, a slate of exciting plans was laid out.

The announcements outlined Game Update 61 (War of Zek), GU62 (Freeport Reborn), GU63 and GU64 which would each contain new Destiny of Velious content, and Game Update 65 slated for August 2012 which would bring about the revamp of the City of Qeynos.

Here’s a transcript of SmokeJumper’s Fan Faire 2011 presentation (watch video here) from 13:58 to 14:36:

What we’re concentrating on is making sure that we have not just new content to chew through really quick, although we’re constantly doing that, I think you guys all realize now that we’re on a quarterly basis for content.

We’re not selling areas, quests, and things like that in the expansion packs anymore. We’re giving that to you for the regular subscription price as you play the game. The GUs (Game Updates) will constantly be adding more stuff like that. We’re telling Velious saga stuff… After Velious, we had 60, 61, Freeport is 62, then it’s Velious again on 63 and 64, and then Qeynos next summer for [Game Update] 65.

So you can imagine our shock when reading SmokeJumper’s statement today in response to a thread asking Is there anyone making actual content for EQ2 anymore?

Lol. Sorry, folks. I went on a two-week vacation starting at the beginning of January. It’s nice to know I was missed.

GU 63 (the next installment of DoV) is in April, not February. You’ll start hearing about it soon. The Qeynos revamp (GU 64) is after that in mid-Summer.

With this revised schedule, the gap between Game Update 62 (Freeport Reborn) and Game Update 63 (more Velious) will be 4 months, the original Game Update 64 goes away, and the gap between our next GU and the Qeynos Reborn will again be 4 months, leaving November as the natural time for Game Update 65 and Expansion #9 (which Domino vaguely tweeted about a few months back). In other words, we will only see 3 major content pushes for 2012, with only 2 (possibly 1) of them dedicated to new Destiny of Velious content.

Here’s a visual aid:

	2012 Original Schedule	2012 Revised Schedule
December	Game Update 62 / Age of Discovery	Game Update 62 / Age of Discovery
January
February	Game Update 63 more Velious content
March
April		Game Update 63 more Velious content
May	Game Update 64 more Velious content
June
July
August	Game Update 65 Qeynos Reborn	Game Update 64 Qeynos Reborn
September
October	Fan Faire 2012	Fan Faire 2012
November	Game Update 66/ Expansion #9	Game Update 65/ Expansion #9
December

“Vendor Trash” Banished From Broker, Fertilizer Oops

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Jan 252012

Optimization of the Broker is something that’s been on EQ2 Lead Programmer Rothgar’s long term To Do list for quite a while. So it was a surprise when a change we first heard about in September 2011 partly arrived in yesterday’s Update Notes.

All of those ‘vendor trash’ items with a description like “You might be able to find a merchant who would give you a few coins for this item.” are now NO BROKER. This change should help clear tens of thousands of items off the broker whose sole purpose has been to provide some flavor to players rather than just giving them gold pieces from certain mobs.

Now, this change did not go without a hitch: All Fertilizer ended up getting flagged NO BROKER.

These items which have played triple duty as food for Burynai house pets, the Guild Hall amenity of similar function, and Plant Food for house plants also got flagged as NO BROKER. As these items (ie. a flask of distilled water, a bag of compost, a large decaying bone) have traditionally traded north of 25 gold a piece, this has led to a certain amount of consternation.

According to Gninja, a fix for this issue is coming soon:

Keep an eye on the patch notes, fertilizer loot will be once again be able to be sold on the broker. Sorry about that folks!

A few people doubted that there had even been cause or request for this feature, to which Rothgar replied:

Here’s a thread from late last year where people were complaining about all the “junk” items on the broker.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/…topic_id=504565

Here’s another thread where people were asking for a “sell all junk” type of feature to instantly sell everything in their bags that don’t have a purpose other than for coin.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/…46?

The point of this change is to keep things off the broker that have no usefulness in the game except to be converted to coin at a merchant. If any items were flagged as junk that have an actual use (like fertilizers) they should be fixed.

Not surprisingly, it was brought up that long-standing issues with mechanics, zone bugs, and the half-finished itemization of Game Update 61 haven’t received so much as a peep, to which Rothgar replied:

I did this in my spare time last August because I felt strongly about improving the broker performance and adding a feature (sell all junk) that many players have requested and that I would like myself. It only took about 10 minutes of coding to give our design team the ability to flag items and keep them off the broker.

However, we were building an expansion at the same time and since this wasn’t a team initiative. I couldn’t rightfully expect the design team to start flagging items because of my own personal desire to see this get into the game. And with no clue as to when the items would be flagged, I didn’t spend the time doing the “Sell All Junk” feature because it was a little more time consuming.

With the expansion behind us now we are starting to knock out some other features and this was one of them they were able to get to. I don’t think it took them a lot of time to flag the items but unfortunately the fertilizer items were mistakenly flagged because they lumped in with a bunch of other items.

Now that we have the items flagged properly, we can finish the “Sell All Junk” feature and it’ll actually work. Even without Sell All, this change should start improving broker performance and accessibility right away, and that’s the biggest win.

Discuss this on the EQ2 Forums.

January 24, 2012 Update Notes

EverQuest II - News, The EQ2 Wire No Responses »

Jan 242012

Here are today’s update notes from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

Fixed a placement issue with certain moveable objects (for instance, the portals will now place properly during the Zynos fight in Anchor of Bazzul).

ACHIEVEMENTS

Characters who have completed “Your Eternal Reward” should now receive the “Agent of Freeport” achievement.

MERCENARIES

Shaman mercenaries should no longer continue to think they are in combat when it comes to casting wards on their group. They will still cast their out of combat preward spells.

ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION

Sundered Frontier

Fixed name on lingering slitherspines.

Tower of Tactics [Challenge]

Ambassador Grindstone will no longer reapply his Unbridled Fury of the Elements buff as soon as he has dispelled player debuffs, he waits a few seconds.

Ambassador Grindstone no longer casts Crystalline Torrent Spell.

Vallonite Sentinels no longer memwipe when they cast Sentinel’s Touch.

Vallonite Sentinels no longer taunt lock players during the fight.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge]

During the Tallon Zek fight Deathbringer’s Touch is now cureable as a curse.

Tallon Zek will warn players as he teleports and will not fire his arrow volley until 10 seconds after he changes his location.

Fighters will not take as harsh a punishment if they turn their back on Tallon Zek as he is firing arrows.

TRADESKILL APPRENTICE

Tradeskill Apprentice daily reward potions are now treasured and stack to 200.

The Potion of Hastened Learning will now give +25% experience gain.

ITEMS

The Dragonflame Scale Shield is now Beastlord usable.

Corpse items can no longer be added to the broker. [Ed: This means all 'vendor trash' items which include "You might be able to sell this to a merchant for a few coin." are now non-brokerable. Unfortunately, this included fertilizer items which will be fixed in a future update..]

QUESTS

The quests “A Rat’s a Rat’s a Rat,” “A Cleansing This Temple Needs…,” and “Entering the Veil” should again update properly.

The City of Freeport

The quest “Grobb, Not Forgotten” should now reward the proper reward. Players who have already completed the quest may seek out Viducius in East Freeport to pick up their reward.

Thurgadin

Frizella Emberblossom is now more willing to give the Thudomatonian Monotony quest if you forgot to pick it up before.

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EverQuest 2 Game Update Blog

Game Update 62: Age of Discovery

Game Update 61: The War of Zek

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Game Update Notes for January 31, 2012

Merc Tweaks and Raid Double-Casting on Radar

Server Downtime for Crushbone & Permafrost: Tuesday, January 31, 2012

MMORPG Interviews Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson

European EQ2 Customers Waiting to Learn Their Fate

SmokeJumper Twitter Teases Game Update 63

SOE Forums Go For Security Theater

Takeback: Only 3 Game Updates This Year, GU63 Slips to April

“Vendor Trash” Banished From Broker, Fertilizer Oops

January 24, 2012 Update Notes

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