Scott "Gallenite" Hartsman discusses the new way of designing zones. He also talks about some of the zones we remember well, such as Lake of Ill Omen and Swamp of No Hope, but don't bee fooled Kunark was affected by the shattering. Click here to read the interview.
EQ and EQ2 are going to be having a Legends of Norrath promotion this weekend. Starting Friday, September 28 and ending Sunday, September 30, you can enjoy higher drop rates of cards and the opportunity to get two new cards, Hatred and Swtich. Here is an example of the two cards:
The account management system upgrade for today is complete. The EQII US and EU English Language servers are now up, and the French and German servers are in the queue. Thank you for your patience during this maintenance, should anything change we will message to you on as many different fronts as possible.
This is just a reminder that servers will be going down at 11:30 PST tonight, for the official announcement and news updates keep an eye on EQ2Vault and the Official Site for updates... Keep in mind after 11:30 PST the official boards will not be available until the maintenance is completed. We will try to keep you as up to date as possible here on the Vault.
SOE has released a message about the servers being brought down next week, the downtime will be longer than normal. Here is the message that was posted on the official forums:
All SOE games, websites, message boards, Knowledge Base, Station store, and other services will be unavailable for approximately 24 hours beginning on Tuesday, September 25th. All SOE services will be undergoing upgrades to the authentication system and as a result, all logins for SOE services will be unavailable. Technical and Account support will only be available by phone during this time. Please keep an eye on this website for more news and information about this maintenance as it becomes available. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this downtime.
(Intentionally no time specified yet, this is just an early warning)
The following changes were made to the test server:
Gameplay
* Like Estate of Unrest, but just don't have the time? Well now you can get both rest and Unrest, as the Estate of Unrest is now persistent!
* Upon reaching level 20, you'll be able to access new appearance item slots on the inventory window.
* Equipping items in the appearance slots will change the way you look without affecting your stats.
* Only items usable by your class, and heavier than your currently equipped armor can be worn.
* Some clothing items, such as city rewards will be wearable by everyone.
* Ranged weapons will no longer trigger procs on weapons equipped in the primary or secondary slot.
* +damage and +heal items have been changed. Instead of normalizing by casting time you will get the full benefit on non aoe spells if the casting time is greater than .5 seconds and the reuse time is greater than 2 seconds. AoE spells gain 1/3 of the amount per target as do triggered reactive spells. Lifetaps continue to function the same. Also, damage is applied up front based on the amount of damage/healing the spell will do over time. Combat art damage has also been added to the system and the Bruiser Brutality line will buff this raid wide.
* There is now a 2-second usage delay for using most widgets in the world (i.e. quest widgets). Using the widgets will also unhide you.
Items
When selling guild status items, guilds now only advance via sales of level-appropriate items. Members of higher level guilds can still sell lower level items for personal status gain.
There is now a text description at the bottom of status items that tell you what level guild will gain advancement from selling those items. Generally, items found in the nearest 10 level range will continue to advance your guild. (e.g. A level 50 guild will be able to gain advancement from level 51 items and higher, which drop from T6 creatures and above.)
If you go to an NPC who will buy your status item and your guild is too high level, you will see the status points in YELLOW instead of the normal teal. Those are the items that will only grant you personal status
Spells/Combat Arts
Completing the bloodlines quest which gives out the vampire bane spell will also grant vampires to the master strike.
Bruiser
* The Brutality Line now grants +combat art damage instead of dps.
Ranger
* The Miracle shot line now requires the ranger to acquire the target with line of sight. The actual shot does not require it though.
Test Only
Brawler
Reduced the damage of devastation fist against epics to be direct damage that scales with level.
As Legends of Norrath beta gets further underway we are seeing more and more getting their invites. But how?
Grimwell had this to say:
If you a player of either EverQuest, or EverQuest II and you would like to beta test Legends of Norrath, please send an email with the subject header "LON" to [email protected]. Please include your Station Account name (not the password) in the body of the email.
To read more about this go check out the post on the official forums!
In this edition you will find another set of posts worth a read, over at the official forums. Keywords for this collection of gameplay treasures are ...
* Commissioned Work for LORE items now checks the player who would receive the product rather than the crafter.
Quests
* Items that offer language quests also now update the language quest. There is no longer a separate update item by the same name.
Test Server
* To test out dual wield and other future changes, PvP Test is now a PvE server that anyone can copy too. Use /testcopy add to copy your character to the open test server. Copies occur nightly so once you execute the testcopy command expect to see your character there the following day.
Legends of Norrath Beta
* Legends of Norrath will now honor the following EQ2 keybindings: Screenshot & Game Menu Window.
* There is now a section for LoN issues in the /bug window.
Well, after the hours of downtime here are the updates notes for today:
Legends of Norrath Beta Test Begins
* Fan Faire attendees can access Legends of Norrath by clicking on the icon in the EQ2 menu, or via the /tcg command.
* If you are not in the Beta Test you will still be able to see and use these menu items; however you won't be able to connect to the Legends of Norrath game itself.
Gameplay
* The �Return of the Light� Heritage Quest is no longer gated for Exiles.
* Rare harvests are now a bit rarer than they have been since GU37 launched, although not as rare as before GU37.
Looting Changes:
* Attempting to loot a chest/corpse that gives you the �There are no items that you can loot� message will now destroy the chest/corpse as long as no one in your group can loot the item.
* When access restrictions wear off of a chest/corpse, all items that are picky about who can loot them will be removed. If this would leave the chest/corpse empty, it will be removed.
Achievements
* Conjurors may now properly use the Subclass Achievement Respec Card.
Tradeskills
* Recipes that involve crafting a LORE item will now work.
Are you going to be in Indianapolis later this week for Gen Con? SOE is! To celebrate some of the best days in gaming, we are throwing a party at Jillian's in Indianapolis on August 17th! Be sure to make plans to stop by and hang out with folks from SOE, as well as gamers from all over the place!More Details.
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