Category: Gaming

HIGHLIGHTS

• A new epic quest line is available for every class of adventurer and crafter who has reached level 80.
• The Avatars of the Gods have returned with renewed strength and new members: The Tribunal, Karana and Bertoxxolous.
• New mannequins are available for displaying armor and weapons in your house. You can acquire them from some of your more dedicated and advanced crafting friends.
• Two new UI windows are available: Pet Options and Connection Status. Check out the User Interface section for details.
• PvP armor sets and PvP based writs are now available on the PvP servers.

GAMEPLAY

• Summoners are now granted an additional spell at level 2 so they can complete Arcane Storm properly.
• NPC’s in raid zones that you would normally see will no longer disappear when running on low graphics settings.
• The Clockwork Menace Factory will once again allow you to enter as long as one group member has the power cell key.
• AFK flags will no longer be removed when zoning.
• Racial innate abilities are now displayed in the achievement window along with the traits, traditions and trainings.
• Mount Merchant Laydin Haggus of Teren’s Grasp will now sell high level mounts to those allied with the forces of evil.

PvP RULESET

• At long last, PvP Armor Sets are now available! Seek out Lady Arlen Sunbeam and Sir Drofecid Tops in Kylong Plains for more information.
• Spread throughout the world, you can now find characters that give out pvp based writs. Tokens have been removed from player drops and are now obtained through the writ system.
• Shrink effects will no longer work on PvP servers
• Charmed mobs should not be as powerful as they once were
• Transcribers should no longer give out temporary spells from the Necromancer Siphoning of Souls line
• Coercers
  -Agonizing Silence line has had its stifle duration reduced

BROKER

• You can now search for items on the broker by effect name. For example, open the advanced search page and enter “Aura of Agility” in the item effect field to find all items with this effect.

ITEMS

• Frostfell themed food house items now remain edible all year round.
• The lust, devotion, passion and love candles can now have their hearts lit or extinguished.
• Rare leather pelts found in treasure chests should stack with harvested rare leather pelts from now on. They still may not stack with older pelts, however. (Local tradeskill society advisors suggest pack rats may therefore wish to use the older ones up first.)
• Clockwork Earring has been renamed to Clockwork Ring to reflect its equip slot
• Red-saddled Midnight Mistrunner Horse Whistle should now be usable by Good-aligned players.
• Heartfinder should no longer give error messages about lacking the required skill to use.
• Seared Bandolier and Buz’zard’s Shortbow should no longer move to your overflow after zoning.
• Most power healing procs will no longer break stealth.
• The proc on Bristlebane’s Cane of Trickery should now trigger correctly.

ZONES

• Gorowyn
  The elevator in Gorowyn will now stop in line with the platforms.
• Sinking Sands
  There should now be fewer unreachable mining nodes in the Sinking Sands. Should you encounter any after this update, please submit a /bug with the location.
• Kunzar Jungle
  Repeatable quests in Kunzar Jungle now give more faction.
• Charasis: the Maiden’s Chamber
  -Bilithu of the Old Ways:
  Summons of the Feaster is no longer affected by mana draining spells and abilities.
  Bilithu’s power pool has been reduced.-Drusella Sathir:
  Drusella’s Necromantic Aura now initially clears all hostile spells cast on her.
  While under the protection of her necromantic aura, Drusella will no longer auto attack.

• Isle of Mara
  Artisan quests on the Isle of Mara now grant tradeskill experience, instead of adventure experience.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Bruiser
  Enhance: Knockout line should properly update the damage now.

SPELLS

• Level 60 to 70 dumbfire pets should now scale properly with the caster before an upgraded spell is available.
• Berserker
  The adrenaline power drain will no longer be absorbed by wards.
• Brigand
  Amazing reflexes can no longer have its trigger percentage modified unless specified explicitly.
• Necromancer
  Siphoning of Souls should now return the appropriate level spell for Soothing Soul.
• Ranger
  Hook Arrow should no longer move stationary creatures and objects.
• Shaman
  An issue that might cause wards to have a long delay in their initial update after zoning has been fixed.
• Warlock
  Dark Broodlings should now cast at the level of the caster.

QUESTS

• Repeating the Sebilis quests “Swords To Be Swiped” and “Sathirian Hunting Party” will now reward more Synod Reet faction than previously.
• While on the quest, “In Honor and Service”, players that accidentally destroyed the orc expedition keys can now loot them again if they are on the stage requiring them to open the chests.
• The first stage of the quest “The Teachings of Yoru” now updates correctly on the number of wood pieces collected.
• The quest “An Ugly Bounty” has received a new reward, and players who have sold their previous rewards can return and purchase the new earring if they wish.
• The quest “Nothing on the Mind” in Jarsath Wastes no longer awards the same item as the quest “Deadly Waters!” For those that have already finished “Nothing on the Mind” Mirg Nel’Ron, The Sel’Nok Brigade Quartermaster, has a new item to sell you.

TRADESKILLS

• Grandmasters belonging to the tradeskill societies of the five starting cities now offer another quest for crafters level 30 and above who have completed their previous quest, Journeyman Service. Seek out Grandmaster Kawayzer (West Freeport), Grandmaster Kimbialis (Ironforge Exchange, off North Qeynos), Grandmaster Zyrythius (Neriak), Grandmaster Feldmanus (Kelethin), or Grandmaster Jayak (Gorowyn) to begin.
• Tradeskill societies in the five starting cities of Norrath now offer a new recipe book to those they regard warmly.
• Provisioners noticed they had two separate recipes for prickly pear muffins, and have reformulated the level 55 recipe to create prickly pear crumpets instead. Mmm, crumpets.
• The recipe for luscious cranberry pie with cream now requires 6 fuel, but the pie will last longer.
• “Hair of the Dog” is now a level 25 provisioner recipe, instead of level 35.
• Carpenters will find two new recipes, one in each of carpenter essentials volume 60 and 62, which should be pleasing for home decorators.
• The number of charges on the Gnomish Safety Recaller has been increased to 20.
• “Fizzlebottom’s Wondrous Hover-gasser” recipe book is now known as “Fizzlebottom’s Remarkable Rechargeration Recipes” and also contains a recharger recipe for the Gnomish Safety Recaller. It is still for sale in Steamfont Mountains at Gnomeland Security.
• The Gigglegibber’s Secret of Death now has only a 1 second casting time.
• Scintillating restorative stitching now has a minimum required level to use of 60, in line with other adornments of the same level.
• Condemning Smite Adept III now correctly returns 2 flickering dust as a byproduct.
• “Common Writing” and “Spectral Influx” sage reaction arts should now correctly prevent a failure when used to counter an event.

PETS

• Pets should now be able to keep up with their owners.
• Each pet will now keep his name when zoning instead of all using the current pet name.

USER INTERFACE

• There is a new command for un-equipping items in your appearance slots. /unequip_appearance <slot>
• Pet Options Window
  The pet options window allows you to set custom options for every pet you have.
  To open this window, right click on a pet and choose Pet Options or type /petoptions. Settings persist through recasting of your pet and include:
  Pet Name
  Pet Hide Status
  Controllable pet states:
  – Protect Me
  – Protect Self
  – Stay
  – Follow
  – Fight Melee
  – Fight Ranged

• Connection Stats Window

We’ve added a connection statistics window which will show your ping, bytes per second, frames per second and packet loss. The default key to toggle this window is F11.

 

Out of all the characters I’ve deleted over time, and yes I’ve deleted a few, I’ve managed to keep my very first EverQuestII character, which is the templar. She may have betrayed a few times, but I’ve still managed to keep her around. I found it amusing when I was cleaning out quests from her journal to spot the above quest still burried in there. A heritage quest I picked up in 2005. I have one other quest a few days older then that one, another heritage quest, lost legends. Just as an indication of how much I must have disliked those quests (and how rarely I ended up playing the templar in the end).

After browsing through the active quests, I took a peek at when I completed my very first quests. It was surprising to see that it took me two days to get from level 1-7. I completed my first quest on the isle of refuge – 11/10/2004. Ah good times.

When I first picked up EQII I had no intentions of playing. I was happy in EQ1 doing whatever it was I was doing at the time. Mild raiding and playing with my best friend, who had a troll beastlord. I had a cleric, enchanter (oh how I miss the EQ1 enchanter) and a rogue (SoS was awesome). I haven’t actually checked in to EQ1 in quite some time, but I was thinking of re-installing the game. I haven’t played / bought the last few expansions and have no intentions of it, but it would be nice to see the old places agian.

One thing I really miss about EQ1 vs. EQ2 is the way in EQ2 you can “out grow” zones and areas. They turn grey, making them worthless to re-visit unless you’re an obsessive quester. I realize it was probably to help prevent farming – after all who wants level 80’s killing your level 20 mobs for the loot and gear, but I dislike the method of trivializing areas.

In EQ1 nothing turns grey, so even if you’re max level you can still farm items, names, and areas. You can go back and re-visit them time and time again. You could argue that it’s do-able with the mentor system here in EQ2, but not really to the same extent. I remember killing things in so many old world zones in EQ1 thanks to my bestlord friend, zones I’d have never visited or even known about without his help. I imagine that EQ2 is almost the same way. Most of my ‘new’ characters now start in Gorowyn and quickly level to 20. This means they out level the Commonlands, Antonia, portions of Stormhold, Wailing Caves, Oakmyst Forest, The Forest Ruins, Sunkin City, and various others before even exploring them what so ever. They trivialize. Unless I mentor, or spend time doing gray quests, there’s no reason at all for me to ever set foot in those areas. As more expansions are added and the world grows, it also shrinks.

Anyhow, it was an interesting walk down memory lane. What’s the oldest quest anyone else has in their journals? What was the date you completed your very first EQ2 quest? Feel free to share!

 

I love Stormhold. I think it’s one of those older zones that isn’t used for far too much any more. I remember when it used to be absolutely filled with people doing their dungeon crawls. It doesn’t seem quite so big any more, one or two groups is enough to feel crowded if they’re moving from named to named. There are still quite a few quests that use this zone, as well as a heroic one that rewards in a legendary bow. Remember when the scions used to be epic? Someone would spawn one by clicking the lion heads in the main entrance and BAM suddenly you’ve got an epic on your head chewing you apart. Those were good times. I remember almost at the very start of the game, when you used to be able to group with someone far higher level then you and have them ‘grey out’ zones. My friend managed to agro a scion and he dragged it through the zone on purpose, having it aoe on other travelers. They didn’t look too kindly on him (not that I can blame them) but it was still fun. I died from the aoe’s too, not that I minded, even if I did have to run back for my shard (ah, shards, good times).

Over time, pretty much any ‘difficult’ aspect of the game is toned down. That’s just one example, there are many. Crafting is another that’s been constantly tweaked and changed and adjusted over time to suit the wants of the players (some, players, not all). Speaking of which, Lader clued me in on this post, talking about new crafting cloaks, which yes, I did squeel about. They look like they have nice graphics. I’m all for nice graphics. The mannequins also seem pretty interesting, looking forward to getting a few of those in time. You’ll need 30,000 status with your crafting faction to purchase the recipe, and I know I’m a few away from that, but I’m sure Calreth won’t mind crafting me a few if I’m that impatient.

** Edit** There are crafting EPICS being put into game?! Now that I had no idea about. I knew about regular epic weapons, sure.. but tradeskill ones? Is that what those new cloaks are, epics? Woot!

In game I’ve been restless (again, big surprise I’m sure) and floundering about from character to character, not really sure which I’d rather play more. That was the purpose of closing one of my accounts, to be able to focus slightly. It’s not working.

In real life, we’re having a nice day full of ice and rain and wind. Be careful on the streets you people in Ottawa, it’s slippery.