EQ2Talk Episode #63 — Candid Kander

 eq2talk, game update 66, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding, Tradeskill  Comments Off
Apr 292013
 

Wednesday’s sprawling two hour Critical Hit podcast with Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall is absolutely worth listening to, as Nathan goes into the best uses of design hours, what it takes to revamp zones such as Qeynos and Freeport, why the starting islands were removed, the importance of storytelling, and more.

But if you are a raider or otherwise into the mechanics and itemization of EQ2, and you listen to only one EQ2 podcast this month, it should be EQ2Talk Episode #63 with Kyle “Kander” Vallee. He goes into a lot of the thinking behind the upcoming update (and this fall’s expansion), has some refreshing vision towards the future of EQ2, itemization and content design, and is very candid about some of the missteps in Chains of Eternity as well as other past changes.

All comments below are paraphrased from Kander’s comments in the 1 hour 40 min podcast. Any errors in meaning are the fault of the editor.

Stat Consolidation

  • If there is one thing Kander could go back and change about EQ2, he would never have gone along with Stat Consolidation (where each class has just one primary stat and then Stamina for increasing health).  The different benefits you got from each stat were some of the “meat and bones” of EQ2 and chasing different stats and having to make choices on which gear you equip added a lot of depth. We had a lot more choice itemization-wise. For example, building up Intelligence to increase poison damage for scouts.
  • As far as Stat Consolidation, we’re actually planning to head back in that direction as far as the next expansion to provide more choices. Right now, itemization feels a little bit stale. Players should need to think about their gear.

More after the jump…

Itemization

  • One thing he wants to do is always provide Melee/Caster gear so that priests who want to be battlepriests and furies that want to wear mage gear can have options. It’s a big undertaking. At the high level of raiding, everyone is meleeing these days. Eventually we’d like to get where there are a lot of choices for different play styles.
  • He knows that itemization seems a little cookie-cutter at this point, but it is easy to balance. We have a lot of plans for itemization. We want to add a lot of cool stuff not just this year but next year. We have a lot of stuff we want to do next year. If we made all these colossal changes all at once and said “this is the way it is now”, it would be disruptive.

Quality of Life

  • EQ2 is going to be 10 years old and we have an incredible playerbase. We have some serious players out there who are very passionate about the game. We’re not out to make overwhelming changes. We’re on a quest to find Quality of Life stuff for our players to make things a little bit less tedious and a little bit less frustrating.
  • In February, Xelgad posted threads asking Classes for their feedback on changes they’d like to see.
  • Everyone wants to be the “Alpha” class, the best class.  This update is not about Balance but more about Quality of Life, taking out some of the Frustration of certain classes, and fixing abilities that aren’t really used. For example, why do certain rezzes require you to be just 1 meter away? We threw that into the “dumb” bucket and changed it. We looked at things that were frustrating that people have been asking for a very long time. We want to keep each class feeling unique and that they have their own flavor. We wish we could give a reason for every single change.
  • We have to look at the role that we’ve set for each class. If we get heavy-handed on our changes, then next year, raids will have just four classes.
  • This is EQ2. There are a lot of aspects of EQ2 that are the reason people play it. We’re not looking at dumbing down the game so we can get new players. Kander uses six hotbars. He’s very familiar with his combat art progression and setup and has a lot of pride in knowing how to play his class. He did admit we’re probably to the point where we shouldn’t be adding more buttons though. Instead of adding more buttons to people’s hotbars, we’ve gone down the road with Prestige abilities of replacing abilities with better ones.
  • Over this summer, as well as in the expansion, we’re taking some steps to take the overwhelming aspects out of the way. (Now before anyone freaks out!) We’re not going to change anything as far as if you are a min/maxer and you want to do everything yourself, but we have a plan to take out some of the tedium for people.

Wurmbone’s End x2

  • There was some miscommunication about this zone. It was never designed for group-style players. It was designed for raiders who have some raid gear. We hoped that some people would be able to do pickup groups. They’re real raid bosses, not group zone bosses.
  • Surprisingly, the normal mode version is very popular. Every day it’s in the top 10 zones being used. The challenge mode, not so much. There are some carrots in there that people are going after.
  • Expansions will always have lots of solo and group contents. We are moving towards progression zones that are more difficult in interim Game Updates. Siren’s Grotto raid is going to surprise some people on the difficulty.

Mercenaries & Advanced Solo

  • Advanced Solo will continue to be a gameplay choice, although it was a mistake to reward Raid gear in Chains of Eternity Advanced Solo zones. Things weren’t as Rare as they should have been. Advanced Solo should not have been the “new hot playstyle” that everyone needs to do instead of grouping.
  • Going forward, Advanced Solo, either with a merc or a second player, will be assigned its own gear just for that play style. The Chains of Eternity fabled from Advanced Solo (and CoE raid trash) will be made redundant in GU66.
  • The goal of Advanced Solo zones was that you could play with two players or with mercs. Mercs might be a little powerful but they don’t replace a player. Mercs were never intended to replace players.
  • Actually, Duo zones will have a part to play in something very special for Raiders in the expansion.

Selling Loot Rights

  • Kander is personally not a fan of Selling Loot Rights, as it diminishes the accomplishment of earning items, and the coolness factor. But it’s too late in the game to make a major change like that.
  • That said, there will be a new item in Game Update 66 that can be acquired by raiders that will be very difficult to get via Selling Loot Rights because of how it’s earned.

Open Betas

  • Skyshrine was very good for us (having an Open Beta). We got a lot of feedback and a lot of people playing. Kander thinks it was because we had new abilities and levels.
  • For Cobalt Scar, it wasn’t quite as good. We didn’t have as many people testing.
  • It’s part of our plans going forward for Testing to provide some rewards for it. For instance if you complete the expansion questlines, then you get some kind of awesome reward that you can /claim on your live server.
  • There are a lot of players that don’t want to Beta test. They want it to be brand new and exciting. Then we have players that want to know everything. And then we have players that are just amazing and want to test everything and that’s what they enjoy. We have to find a way to reward these players.
  • Keeping a list of who we reward is not really sensible, so we want to add a reward that people get for finishing questlines or doing all the heroic content on beta. It would unlock something on Live. The more people we get to play through content, the better.

Raid Testing

  • Right now, we’re invitation-only on raid testing for a few reasons.
  • We don’t have the ability to test raids at their top potential internally, especially challenge content. So we have to get raid guilds in there to test. But to let everyone access the raid zones, we can’t sit with every raid guild and watch them raid.
  • With our new(ish) Beta tool, we have the ability to tweak and change things on-the-fly during a raid (even during a pull, the mechanics of a fight can be changed in real time). It’s not like in the past with Kunark where if we found a bug, we’d have to stop the test and come back tomorrow.
  • It’s important to us to pick a raid guild that is capable and in the skill level that we’re shooting for to tune the content, bring them through a raid zone, and change things as we go.
  • One of the big problems that we’ve had is guilds that don’t want to give us their full effort. We want guilds that, if the find a bug to their advantage, they won’t keep it to themselves. We don’t want to get in the same rut with the same guilds either.
  • For Siren’s Grotto, we used six or seven guilds help test it. They were really positive and gave good feedback. Exactly what we were looking for.
  • We also want to keep things a surprise. We don’t want everything to be laid out before Beta is even over. So for Siren’s Grotto, no raid guilds did all of the content. Most guilds only got to test 2 mobs. No guild saw every boss. It’s hard to test without giving one guild out there a super advantage. We know that raiding is competitive. Guilds want to be recognized for being the best and that’s cool.

Age’s End

  • A lot of this update was planned like 3 years ago. We’re really happy to be moving on with Velious. Chains of Eternity was a cool break for us to do something totally out of the storyline of Velious. Kander would like to say that this is the final chapter, but there’s a little more. We’re coming close to the final chapter of Velious. You’re here to help the Combine Army drive the final stake into the Army of the Awakened.
  • There’s a lot of stuff that’s still Top Secret that he can’t give away.
  • Dell asked if we’re getting close to the end of the Age’s End Prophecy, to which Kander paused, let out a deep sigh, and said “Sure.”
  • The Age’s End Prophecy is complicated. Everyone involved, the Combine Army, Skyshrine, Kerafyrm’s Army, the Pantheon of Gods all have their own idea of what the prophecy entails. There are a lot of old school characters involved. When we do finally complete the Age’s End Prophecy, it may not be what everyone thinks.

Siren’s Grotto

  • 2 Advanced Solo zones, 2 Group zones, 1 Group Challenge zone, and one x4 raid with 9 or 10 bosses. For challenge raiders, there are 3 challenge fights. Some of the easier stuff is also challenging. There’s also one fight that’s just for those raiders.
  • In his opinion, it seems like the team have done a lot of Casual raid zones. We have a lot of casual raiders. But we’re going to get away from every guild can clear every zone. Some bosses, coming up, it just doesn’t make sense that a casual raid would be able to defeat. For all intents and purposes so that, if you are in a casual guild, you feel that you’ve completed the content, but there will be some optional content for diehard guilds.

Gear Upgrades

  • Some players like to replace their gear every update, while other players like to feel they’ve earned something and get to hang onto it.
  • Game Update 66 is not a full gear reset but instead just 7-8 slots are being itemized. Advanced Solo, Group, Raid, and Tradeskill will each have a few “best in slot” items, although if you solely do one of these gameplay styles, you’ll still find upgrades from what you’re using now. Yes, that means Tradeskills will produce some best-in-slot items.
  • We’re really trying to do some interesting things with itemization in the expansion. We did something really cool in Cobalt Scar which players will discover. There will be some end game items in the update that you might not replace for a very long time.
  • We’re also looking at not just replacing items but upgrading them. Like maybe you got your Mythical cloak and might be able to upgrade it. This is just an example.

Beastlord Gear

  • We went back and flagged some 40,000 items that should have been Beastlord-equippable. We also added Beastlord to swords and bows. They can now use pretty much every weapon type.

War Runes

  • So on Beta, a few of the War Runes were moved to a merchant and we tried removing all the class requirements from a number of them. The reason for this was not to put war runes on a vendor. There are several war runes which would simply be too powerful to allow on all classes like stoneskins on Fighters.
  • The reason we attempted this change was, if an item drops in a raid zone and it already has a Red Adornment on it that is limited to certain classes, then the item will show that it is only usable by those classes that the Adornment allows.
  • Terrogaunt on the Code side stepped in and has solved the problem. He added something where, if an item drops that is Priest and Mage, and it has an adornment on it that is Priest-only, then the item will say:
    • Classes:
      • All Priests
    • Some classes have been removed from this item due to augmentation:
      • All Mages

Protector’s Realm and Plat

  • It was really dumb that players had to go back to four year old content to get the Plat they need to play their game. There’s something wrong with having to go back and run old zones over and over to get the money you need.
  • Also, Kander has wanted to do individual Coinpurses for a very long time. It’s a road for the future so that we can give players more coin if the amount of coin is decided by the number of players.
  • We’ve boosted coin from Quests, Advanced Solo zones, Group zones. Raid zones give a lot of coin, probably more coin than Protector’s Realm or Shard of Hate ever did. Players should find that there’s more plat overall than before, especially in Chains of Eternity and Siren’s Grotto zones.
  • He knows that raiding is expensive, there are a lot of expendables. You can spend 20 plat just on potions and other items.
  • This had nothing to do with Selling Loot Rights or Krono. He was not trying to take Plat out of the game or rebalance or break the economy.

SOE Webcast Replay: Lore of Scars of the Awakened!

 News and Announcements  Comments Off
Apr 052013
 

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Did you miss our live broadcast as we discussed the lore leading up to EverQuest’s GU66: Scars of the Awakened? Get your first look at Cobalt Scar and Sirens Grotto as host Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson talks dragons, othmir, sirens, and the New Combine army with guests Kyle “Kander” Vallee (Lead Designer), Carlos “Gninja” Mora (Game Designer), and Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall (Assistant Lead Designer). Watch the video on Twitch TV or YouTube. (originally aired on 03/28/13)

Keep an eye on Facebook or on Twitch TV for future webcast announcements!

EQ2Wire Transcript: GU66 Scars of the Awakened Lore Webcast

 Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding, Tradeskill  Comments Off
Mar 312013
 

Not everyone has the time to watch a Twitch or Youtube video talking about upcoming Game Updates, Expansions, Features, etc. Some are not able to watch videos at work and would rather read a transcript. And there are a number of EQ2 players who are hearing impaired. So for you guys, I am happy to present another EQ2Wire exclusive Transcript of an SOE Webcast. This week’s session is about the upcoming Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened which lands on the Beta server next Tuesday and goes live April 30th.

Inside this transcript, you’ll find out…

  • The Othmir make their way to Cobalt Scar to see what’s left of their homeland.
  • New Tradeskill quest line.
  • New Tradeskill Apprentice recipes.
  • New overland zone with numerous quests at Advanced Solo difficulty.
  • New Heroic zones. New Advanced Solo zones. New raid zone with internal progression.
  • Itemization is an overlay for Chains of Eternity, not a gear reset.
  • Gear upgrades will be in 7-8 slots and there are clear upgrades for all gameplay levels including solo, group, and raid.

Welcome everybody this is Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson. I’m the director of development for the EverQuest franchise. With me are folks from the EverQuest 2 team including Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Carlos “Gninja” Mora, Senior Designer, and Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall, Senior Designer

We’re here to talk about the upcoming Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened. We wanted to talk a little bit about the story thus far, so everyone can get caught up and in that way the rest of the stuff we talk about will make more sense.

Kaitheel: For those of you who didn’t read the quest dialog, maybe this will come in handy. So we’re going back to Velious. That’s the point where you’ve come into this new continent and you’re starting to really find out that this thing called the Age’s End Prophecy which all surrounds the stone which is the Shissar calendar. Different people have found out about this Age’s End which is supposed to be coming about. So there’s Mayong Mistmoore, he did a lot of investigating. Maybe Nagafen knows a little about it. Nagafen seems to know a little about everything.

Kaitheel: So we get to other characters that start to have the players investigate this as well and they’re trying to stop it from occurring, because the Age’s End from their estimation is going to be the utter destruction of Norrath at the hands of Kerafyrm. (mic cut out) so (Kerafyrm) and his forces are the Awakened Legion. He has been struggling with gaining more power, other people have been trying to stop him along the way. You are learning more and more about what you might be able to do to stop him.  At one point he even gets the power from the two Swords of Destiny. The Swords of Destiny are Qeynos Claymore and Soulfire. These are very pivotal items that were Roehn Theer’s swords originally.

SmokeJumper: So Roehn Theer had the swords, then mortals had them for a long time. The power got drained away from them by Kerafyrm. Kerafyrm took the power so he can use the power to destroy the world. That’s what the prophecy says. We don’t know that for sure. Everyone’s pretty worried about it (Kaitheel: understandably!). What is everyone doing to stop prophecy?

Kaitheel: Furthering to understand the calendar because it has all kinds of symbols and keys within it that hopefully will either lead to it not happening or that are signs of when it will happen whereby they can cut it off.

SmokeJumper: So the calendar is giving us lots of clues?

Kaitheel: Yes.

SmokeJumper: There’s other stuff that’s happened too,say like when Velious started we went to Skyshrine, an abundance of pivotal political stuff started happening.

Kaitheel: The armies of Norrath of the player cities: New Halas, Neriak, Gorowyn, Qeynos, Freeport are all joining together as a New Combine force. This force is very tenuous. Cooperation between the cities is not the best. The citizens of Qeynos in particular question why it was that Freeport — Lucan — is now in cooperation with Antonia.

SmokeJumper: You see a lot of that subtext in the quests when you play Qeynos since the revamp. Are you seeing much of that in the Freeport context too or are they basically…

Kaitheel: No I think they’re pretty much we could take care of ourselves but we can also take advantage of this.

SmokeJumper: So it’s really only the good people that are upset that the evil people are involved. So now you have this Combine Army so everyone from Norrath are putting together an army and they’re to go take on Kerafyrm, is that the idea?

Kaitheel: Either they’ll take him on, or they’ll find ways find of defeating him but that’s their intent definitely to try to stop the Age’s End Prophecy from coming to pass.

SmokeJumper: So how are you, the players, involved with the Combine Army?

Kaitheel: So far you’ve been helping them as they’ve been finding either more of these monoliths of Theer which are pieces of the calendar, or you’ve been helping investigate different means of which you could possibly defeat him. And you’ve been going deeper and deeper into Velious. Hopefully they’ll actually come to a head meeting Kerafyrm.

(screenshots of Withered Lands)

SmokeJumper: This is when you started getting into the Skyshrine stuff. Now the Skyshrine stuff is interesting to me — dragons are cool right? You get into the whole Awakened army, the Awakened Legion.

Kander: Essentially Skyshrine has been invaded by the armies of the Awakened — Kerafyrm’s armies. You get to experience the whole betrayal and be savior of Skyshrine. The utter destruction, and you the heroes come in and get to save the day.

SmokeJumper: so Kerafyrm was eliminating opposition?

Kander: Basically he knew there were some key players in Skyshrine that he needed to remove from the pegboard to move along. He managed to convince a betrayer to lower the defenses of the great Dragon Citadel. They kinda turned it into a food processor.

Gjinja: That’s where players come in. It’s already happened and the Awakened have already shown up. They get to jump in and save the day.

Kaitheel: They literally come in right in the middle of the battle.

SmokeJumper: This is Kerafyrm’s first small defeat. He’s pushed out of Skyshrine.

Kaitheel: He did get pushed out but the cost to everyone else was so high that it didn’t really feel like much of a win.

SmokeJumper: So what’s the morale like in the Combine Army after the Skyshrine (audio cuts out) Do they realize how powerful the stuff is that they’re facing?

Kaitheel: I think they are now — they weren’t then. While we were in Skyshrine battling the Awakened Legion, the new Combine Forces, because they didn’t go in with you (to Skyshrine), they pushed further into Velious and have now entered Cobalt Scar. So they were totally sidestepping all of that, so now they’ve pressed further in to bring that fight to his doorstep.

SmokeJumper: So the Skyshrine stuff was kept a little bit kept away from all that. They’re still focused on marching towards the unknown.

Kander: Skyshrine was really the focus of (?) bringing in the heroes, the players, and letting them demonstrate their power. Both sides are seeing how powerful the heroes of Norrath are (our players) and what you’re up against. And knowing that that was just a small portion of Kerafyrm’s power.

Gninja: Also if the players hadn’t gone into Skyshrine, than the Combine Army would’ve been stopped right away because the Awakened could’ve come down and stopped their progression. (talking over each other) so the players played a pivotal role in keeping that away from the Combine so they could progress.

SmokeJumper: So then we had this major interlude where everybody started dying and we went to Ethernere. And that really didn’t have anything to do with the Age’s End Prophecy directly.

Kaitheel: Not directly but they did find a few more of those monoliths of Theer along the way.

SmokeJumper: Which did what? What does that do for the story?

Kaitheel: It’ll help other people figure out what’s going on.

Gninja: More pieces of the puzzle

Kander: You’re essentially assembling the Armageddon clock.

Kaitheel: Good analogy.

Kander: You’re trying to find out what time it is on the Armageddon clock. You know that the Shissar calendar is pivotable(oops)  pivotal (looks at Kaitheel) and you know that there is a prophecy coming. They’re different parts of the story that have different ideas about what Age’s End is.

SmokeJumper: Right.

Gninja: But without all these pieces…

Kander: There are definitely different pieces. Part of the Ethernere was also helping reassemble what I call the Armageddon clock, trying to finish the Shissar calendar and really figure out what the prophecy is.

SmokeJumper: So then you come back and we’re starting to get to the current stuff. So you come back from Ethernere after having saved the world and you find the Combine Army where?

Kaitheel: They’ve pushed on into Cobalt Scar. You’ll be getting a mail that’s the call to arms: “Come to Cobalt Scar!” You’ll be able to enter and see what they found. What they’ve realized is that the Awakened Legion had used a section of Cobalt Scar as a staging ground for their attacks upon Skyshrine and, so now you’re going to help in that battle as well.

SmokeJumper: That’s cool. That’s really cool. Of course I know a bunch of the story that’s coming out.

Kaitheel: There is more to that, there’s all kinds of things in Cobalt Scar. One of the things that I think is really cool, that people will really enjoy, is more tugs at the heartstrings. The Othmir back in the Great Divide and in the Eastern wastes are quite the lovable characters and a very endearing storyline.

SmokeJumper: Nipik.

Kaitheel: Nipik. Exactly. At the news that some people had made their way to Cobalt Scar, the Othmir got really excited too because this is the land of their ancestors, this is where they have come from. Nipik had to convince a very few Othmir to go with him away from those lands when he foresaw that something horrible was going to happen — utter destruction. So he said “we have to leave” and many people said “we’re not going to”.

SmokeJumper: So now we’re going back is what you’re saying? Something horrible’s going to happen there (laughter)

Kaitheel: Now they’re on a pilgrimage to go see their ancestral land and hopefully reconnect with their kin. So then Osh goes along with them. Osh was the speaker for Lodizal. He was the grandson if I remember for Nipik. So he gets to have a little (home)coming of his own as well. At the same time you get to see and appreciate even more Nipik’s sacrifice.

SmokeJumper: and that’s all in Cobalt Scar.

Kaitheel: Yeah, it’s like one quarter of Cobalt Scar.

SmokeJumper: We’re not even talking about Siren’s Grotto yet. I know that Siren’s Grotto obviously comes after Cobalt Scar in the story so we can talk about it less cause otherwise your tipping off too much stuff. But is there anything you can talk about Siren’s Grotto right now?

Kaitheel: You should help those sirens those poor defenseless sirens. They really need your help.

SmokeJumper: Mmkay. All right so were going to meet the sirens. That’s one tipoff. Is there anything else that you can mention or should we just skate around that issue for right now?

Gninja: I think you should venture there for yourself and check it out, and help them out if you can. Like he said they really need your help.

SmokeJumper: To recap. We had all this stuff with the Age’s End Prophecy. We know where it’s basically going, or everybody believes that Kerafyrm’s going to destroy the world because he has the power of these swords.

Kander: We sort of know where it’s going. Everyone kind of has their own idea of what Age’s End is, what part the Swords of Destiny are playing in this whole thing, and there are a lot of players that haven’t been identified yet too. So, you know…

SmokeJumper: Is there argument about the end of Age’s End Prophecy? Are there other possibilities that have been talked about?

Kaitheel: I don’t think that have been talked about.

SmokeJumper: Okay but there are other possibilities that we might find out about them later?

Kaitheel: Yes.

SmokeJumper: Interesting.

Gninja: Well obviously what kerafyrm thinks of the Age’s End Prophecy is completely different from what the players think. He doesn’t want to destroy the world because that would destroy him to.

Kaitheel: That’s true. That’s a good point.

SmokeJumper: Okay so we’re at the point really where we can’t keep talking about the lore that we don’t want to reveal, so can you talk instead about why this update will be cool?

Kander: It’s a good-sized update. We have a whole overland zone with lots of quests. We’re doing something different with the overland zone. This is going to be a new thing we’re trying out but essentially it’s an advanced solo overland zone. It’s a little more difficult, it’s a little further up in the progression. You’re encouraged to bring your friends or your mercs to progress through that.

SmokeJumper: My merc is my friend. He likes me.

Kander: Well there you go. You’ve probably developed a really close relationship with him. (laughter) We have new heroic dungeons. We’ve got new advanced solo dungeons. We have a very good-sized new raid that I think people are really going to be excited about. We’re kind of picking up at the end of the progression so the raid’s kind of starting at the end of where normal mode raids ended. There’s going to be some progression and some difficulty.

SmokeJumper: It sounds like people that like challenge should like this update.

Kander: Yes.

Gninja: Well there’s also a big chunk of crafting content.

SmokeJumper: What kind of crafting content?

Kander: We have a pretty good-sized crafting quest line series. I think it’s 20 or 30 quests. It’s going to give some new recipes and some new rewards.

Gninja: New trade skill apprentice items.

SmokeJumper: Oh excellent. Woo hoo. We get that 12 days or less. (laughter)

Gninja: Oh these are 45 days. Totally kidding! Totally kidding!

Kaitheel: I’m gonna hold you to that.

SmokeJumper: Is there anything else that you might want to mention.

Kander: Well we have a lot of the spell and feedback changes that are coming. There’s going to be some class balance. We have lots of new itemization. We didn’t itemize. It’s not going to be like Skyshrine where you went in and everything was new. We limited the amount of slots that you can find upgrades for.

Gninja: It’s not a complete gear reset.

Kander: Right you’re just going to be adding seven or eight slots. We don’t want to make the expansion obsolete. We want to keep the expansion important. We want to keep Skyshrine  important.

SmokeJumper: But you made the zones more challenging so that the gear gets you up a little bit.

Kander: The slots that you are rewarded are definitely upgrades to anything that you had previously. By tier. So if you’re a solo player you’ll absolutely get upgrades. If you’re a heroic player you will definitely receive upgrades. If you’re a raider… yeah. (chuckles around)

Kander: We’ve actually put in something specialr for the raiders. That’s all I’m saying.

SmokeJumper: Nice. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Kaitheel: (to Gninja) You brought up one thing about Siren’s Grotto that you thought would be important to mention right before we started filming this. (to audience) It’s not an underwater zone.

Gninja: Oh yes. I know everybody just wants to fight underwater but we decided to make… It looks like it’s been underwater and drained out. There’s still very much water elements to it but you won’t be fighting underwater.

Kaitheel: It’s still amazing to me how beautiful it is.

Kander: (undertone) I know you’re all really disappointed.

Kaitheel: Fighting underwater!

SmokeJumper: I know there’s one guy out there who’s going Hey! I wanted to fight underwater! (chuckles)

SmokeJumper: I think everyone’s looking forward to the next game update. GU66 is scheduled for April 30. Beta starts April 2. This next Tuesday is when Beta starts. Please help us out, go check it out. The more of you that give us feedback on that kind of thing, the better the release can be when we get to it. So thank you to anyone who wants to help, and for the rest of you I hope you’re looking forward to it. I think that this will be a really good one. Thanks.

Transcripts: What It Takes

It seems there are a number of you out there who appreciate these transcripts of SOE’s Webcast videos.  If you do, I’d certainly like to hear from you as it takes between 2-3 hours to fully transcribe each of these webcasts.  Even though the video is just 20-30 minutes, typing everything outt, including time to rewind and rewatch sections a few times to catch all the meaning of what’s being said really adds up. Also in a live webcast, it’s easy to get tongue-tied or start a thought and then double back and switch to a different idea. Sorting all that out into a readable narrative takes time.

So this week, I tried out Dragon Naturally Speaking to see if this would shorten the process. Once I went through the training session (DNS is tied to one speaker’s voice), and then taught it some vocabulary specific to Norrath, it was about 95% accurate.  I played the webcast on my headphones and then repeated my interpretation of the statements and let DNS type it out for me, going back and correcting things as I went. Next time, I’ll track how long it takes to produce a transcript using the voice recognition and report back how much time it saves.

EverQuest II: Scars of the Awakened Lore Webcast

 News and Announcements  Comments Off
Mar 292013
 

SOE Webcast: EverQuest II – Scars of the Awakened Lore

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The Saga of the Swords and the Age’s End Prophecy has captured EverQuest II fans for the last three years, and the Velious saga continues now with Game Update 66, Scars of the Awakened! Your host Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson (Director of Development for the EverQuest Franchise), with Kyle “Kander” Vallee (Lead Designer), Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall (Assistant Lead Designer), and Carlos “Gninja” Mora (Game Designer), will recap the story thus far and take a look at what’s to come as Norrathians march together under the banner of the New Combine army. What awaits adventurers in Cobalt Scar and beyond?

Join us on Thursday, March 28, 2013, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time* on Twitch TV! The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes.

Don’t miss this first preview of Scars of the Awakened!

See you on Twitch TV!

*Convert to your local time
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Upcoming Webcast: EQ2 Scars of the Awakened Lore – Mar 28

 game update 66, Game Updates & Maintenance  Comments Off
Mar 272013
 

From the EQ2 Forums:

The Saga of the Swords and the Age’s End Prophecy has captured EverQuest II fans for the last three years, and the Velious saga continues now with Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened! Your host Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson (Director of Development for the EverQuest Franchise), with Kyle “Kander” Vallee (Lead Designer), Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall (Assistant Lead Designer), and Carlos “Gninja” Mora (Game Designer), will recap the story thus far and take a look at what’s to come as Norrathians march together under the banner of the New Combine army. What awaits adventurers in Cobalt Scar and beyond?

Join us on Thursday, March 28, 2013, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time on Twitch TV! The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes.

Don’t miss this first preview of Scars of the Awakened!

Time Zone Conversions

  • PDT: March 28 @ 4:00pm
  • EDT: March 28 @ 7:00pm
  • GMT: March 28 @ 23:00
  • CET: March 29 @ 0:00

New Raids & Guild Achievements Coming February 26!

 News and Announcements  Comments Off
Mar 062013
 

The update on February 26th was discussed in Podcast #143, as well as in articles about the PvP Updates and Bag Sorting Abilities. Now, it’s time to take a look at two more major features that round out the update: new raid content and guild achievements!

X2 and X4 Raids

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Three new raids are being launched on February 26! There are two X2 raids in Wurmbone and one X4 raid on Dreadcutter, the pirate ship. The two X2 raids in Wurmbone’s End are called “Nox Incessit,” which means “Night Comes.” The creatures in these zones are more active once night falls… There are two separate zones; one is easy and one is a challenge, but they are different, which means you could run both versions for different experiences. They each drop different loot from tiers respective to their difficulty level.

The raid on Dreadcutter is an X4 raid featuring 3 bosses. This is a hard mode raid – in fact, the final boss is designed to be the most difficult encounter in game!

For more on the raids, listen to Kyle “Kander” Vallee chat about it in Podcast #143!

Guild Achievements

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As announced on the forums by Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Guild Achievements are coming to EverQuest II! There are currently over 150 achievements that will be tracked, spanning all expansions of the game. Every guild will start with a clean slate, which means none of the achievements will be rewarded retroactively. The achievements will all be based on the same clock, and will be accurate to the second.

The current achievements are raid-based. For a guild to earn an achievement, 2/3 of the group present in the raid must belong to a single guild. Assuming you had six people in a group, that would mean at least four of the six must belong to a single guild in order to get the Guild Achievement. Individual achievements can still be earned in the content.

To track your achievements, there is a new tab in the guild window. The data will also be publicly available in the census, though a guild can choose to opt out from allowing others to see their achievements. This is done in the same window; there is a checkbox in the lower left-hand corner.
The first iteration of this program is Raid Achievements, but there are plans to add more categories in the future!

Want to leave your feedback on these and other features coming on February 26th? Send us a tweet, post it on our wall, or visit the forums!

Advanced Solo Loot Madness to End Soon

 Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization  Comments Off
Feb 272013
 

The Advanced Solo zones in Chains of Eternity drop some amazing loot, including a full set of jewelry upgrades as well as (somewhat controversially), the basic raid gear that drops in Chains of Eternity raid zones.

This has been nice for players who are either tackling them with a mercenary or a second player. However due to the way the loot in these Advanced Solo zones drop (in one or three mystery crates), most players end up with an item they cannot use. Worse, the items cannot be traded with group members. And more maddening still, the loot table includes the rather useless Dungeon Maker rewards such as [eq2u]Demonicus Steaks[/eq2u], temporary adornments, etc.

Fortunately, it looks like some changes are coming to how the loot will be granted from these zones. From Kander on the EQ2 Forums:

We are going to change the way advanced solo zones drop loot. Very soon.

Game Update 65.5: New Raids, Guild Achievements

 EQ2 Data & EQ2U, Game Updates & Maintenance, Raiding  Comments Off
Feb 252013
 

From the EQ2 Forums:

The update on February 26th was discussed in Podcast #143, as well as in articles about the PvP Updates and Bag Sorting Abilities. Now, it’s time to take a look at two more major features that round out the update: new raid content and guild achievements!

X2 and X4 Raids

[IMG]

Three new raids are being launched on February 26! There are two X2 raids in Wurmbone and one X4 raid on Dreadcutter, the pirate ship. The two X2 raids in Wurmbone’s End are called “Nox Incessit,” which means “Night Comes.” The creatures in these zones are more active once night falls… There are two separate zones; one is easy and one is a challenge, but they are different, which means you could run both versions for different experiences. They each drop different loot from tiers respective to their difficulty level.

The raid on Dreadcutter is an X4 raid featuring 3 bosses. This is a hard mode raid – in fact, the final boss is designed to be the most difficult encounter in game!

For more on the raids, listen to Kyle “Kander” Vallee chat about it inPodcast #143!

Guild Achievements

[IMG]

As announced on the forums by Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Guild Achievements are coming to EverQuest II! There are currently over 150achievements that will be tracked, spanning all expansions of the game. Every guild will start with a clean slate, which means none of the achievements will be rewarded retroactively. The achievements will all be based on the same clock, and will be accurate to the second.

The current achievements are raid-based. For a guild to earn an achievement, 2/3 of the group present in the raid must belong to a single guild. Assuming you had six people in a group, that would mean at least four of the six must belong to a single guild in order to get the Guild Achievement. Individual achievements can still be earned in the content.

To track your achievements, there is a new tab in the guild window. The data will also be publicly available in the census, though a guild can choose to opt out from allowing others to see their achievements. This is done in the same window; there is a checkbox in the lower left-hand corner.

The first iteration of this program is Raid Achievements, but there are plans to add more categories in the future!

Official SOE Podcast #143 is LIVE!

 News and Announcements  Comments Off
Feb 212013
 

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Official SOE Podcast #143 is LIVE

Join hosts Maggie “Luperza” Krohn, Colette “Dexella” Murphy, and Tony “RadarX” Jones as they chat about Valentine’s Day, Planetside 2, DCUO Fire and Ice, and more! Also listen in as Dexella chats with Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Brian “Omougi” Ferguson, and Kenneth “Terrogaunt” Roecks about the February 26th update coming to EverQuest II! They talk PvP, inventory, and new raid content! Let us know what you think at[email protected] or head over to the Station Forums to share your opinion with the community!

You can download the MP3 file directly, or subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the button below. We have both high- and low-bandwidth versions available. Or if you have iTunes installed, select iTunes Store, type SOE into the search box and click Subscribe!

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Update Notes: Thursday, January 17, 2013 — New Rare Heroic Loot, More Adornment Removers

 Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/Battlegrounds, Raiding  Comments Off
Jan 172013
 

Today’s update is all about Itemization, specifically Group and Raid zones in Chains of Eternity.

Heroic Itemization

Players have been clamoring for Chains of Eternity Heroic zones to drop items even as good as some of the powerful items found in Advanced Solo zones, and it looks like those sentiments have been heard. (Don’t worry Soloers, the solo zones still drop a ton of loot).

Sleeper’s Tomb (Contested) has had a bigger problem as players quickly abandoned it when they found that the loot was hardly better than that from the much easier instanced heroic zones.

Pre-Adorned Items

After 3 expansions with Yellow and Red Adornments being sold by vendors, Chains of Eternity tried something new with Pre-Adorned items. The most desirable adornments are now found in dungeons and raid zones already attached to items (often of a different class/spec to the adornment). While this is an intriguing concept, and it has the potential to extend gameplay, it has also led to player confusion and frustration.

But one slice of the EQ2 playerbase who have yet to see the silver lining in this concept of Pre-Adorned loot are Raid Leaders who have been given the unenviable task of deciding whether Pre-Adorned items will go to someone who needs the gear upgrade, or someone who needs the adornment.

While Kander isn’t yet ready to throw in the towel on pre-adorned loot by slapping all the adornments on a vendor, it seems he’s recognized the inherent difficulties and is now providing an alternative to dividing the child:

There will not be a merchant for CoE adornments. We are adding green adornment removers that will remove green adornments without destroying the item, they will be available for plat from a merchant. We are also adding adornment removers that will remove any one adornment without destroying the item. These will be very costly, plat wise from a merchant, but will be rare drops in all CoE heroic and raid zones.

After the jump, the full Update Notes, including the pricey new Adornment Dislodgers which don’t destroy the items…

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Chains of Eternity

  • Heroic zone bosses have been given new and improved rare dropped items. They will continue to drop everything that they previously dropped.
  • Heroic zone bosses now have a better chance to drop Ethereal items.
  • Heroic zone bosses and all raid bosses now have a chance to drop [eq2u]Superb Prismatic Adornment Dislodger[/eq2u]s. These will remove adornments without destroying the item they are attached to.

Obol Plains

  • [eq2u]Superb Green Adornment Dislodger[/eq2u] and Superb Prismatic Adornment Dislodger are now available for purchase from Mattrim Axios in the Cardin Ward.

Sleeper’s Tomb [Contested]

  • Sleeper’s Contested named now have new rare drop tables and also have a chance to drop Superb Prismatic Adornment Dislodger.

Wurmbone Crag [Advanced Solo]

  • Gaping Wounds no longer does fatal damage when it results in Bleeding Out when it goes uncured.

GUILD HALL AMENITIES
Guild Depots

  • The depot windows on the default UI can now be stretched and sized in game.

ITEMS

  • Beastlords can now use the [eq2u]Dragon Sinew Strung Bow[/eq2u].

BATTLEGROUNDS

  • The health bonus given to players level 90 to 94 in battlegrounds has been reduced.

NOTE: The EQ2U popups will work once a player has discovered each of the two adornment types.