November 2008

A Harvesting We Go

stargrace November 19, 2008 2Comments

 When I first interviewed Sony Dev’s for Beckett MOG about TSO I specifically asked if there would be any incentives to get players out into the older zones. I always disliked how as soon as a new expansion was released, there was 0 reason to continue on through the old content. Their answer sort of confused me, and confused me even more when I actually took a look around TSO and the content offered. 

Quite a few of the dungeons are located in old world zones. This includes Lavastorm, and Everfrost as well as Commonlands. There’s also one huge quest line and while it’s not directly related to TSO it was implemented with GU50 on the same day. 

Of course I’m talking about the fabled cloak for harvesters. I’ve been working on this quest chain (I still don’t have TSO) off and on yesterday and today and I’m actually finding it quite challenging for a few reasons.

Number one, each tier the quest wants you to harvest more and more items and amounts of said items. You start off in T1 harvesting 5 of each item and work your way up stage by stage. I’m on T4 now (Zek and Enchanted lands) and it wants 15 of each item, in each zone. That’s a lot of harvests. 

One life saver while I have been doing this quest has been the gnomish divining rod. This is a tinker made item and it allows you to track nodes, as well as anything else that lays on the ground, shinies and book pages. If you leave the track window open (like regular track) and run around it will show the nodes in the order of proximity to you. So you can leave it up and run around and know if you are at least close to any of the nodes you need. I also used this item yesterday when I was hunting down my carpenter pages. Some liked to hide off to the side and it was getting a little frustrating. 

Aside from the sheer number of harvests you’re required to obtain there is the difficulty in the type of harvests. Don’t have your fishing up quite yet? Well you’ll want to because these quests all require amounts of harvested fish from specific zones. Remember all the times you complained about dens giving out too much meat and not enough pelts? Well now you’ll want those meats and NOT the pelts. Of course they’re no where to be seen. 

It’s nice to see a some what complicated crafter quest. Though I can see how low level adventurers may not be able to complete it since most harvesting areas are populated by aggressive mobs. That could add to the thrill though, having to dodge and duck away from the mean things trying to eat you. Me, I’m thankful that Silhouette is 80/80 already while I attempt this. 

The quest sends you into every tier, and pretty much every old world zone. Last tier I had to harvest from both Nektulos Forest and Thundering Stepps. It’s a lot of fun meandering your way through the forgotten zones and visiting things you haven’t seen in quite some time. Of course there’s still a lot more to go. This quest takes a lot of time and I’m looking forward to that, keeps me out of trouble while I wait for those polar bears to show up. 

The merchant bug from yesterday / this morning has been fixed (thankfully) so people shouldn’t be selling body drops for 3p a shot any more while being gouged on their repair bills. Apparently I was wrong. Checking the MoTD shows that the bug is still in place but is being worked on. I expect that the lag will still be there tonight when the servers fill up but that’s a population thing and I’m glad to see it. I wish there had of been a little more lowbie content to draw some new players into the game, but I can’t be picky. A few people that I know have returned for the expansion, here’s hoping they stick it out this time around.

TSO Launches – And So Do The Bugs

stargrace November 19, 2008 6Comments

If you read the official forums at all, you start to wonder whether anyone out there really enjoys the game they’re paying to play or if they just enjoy ranting in a public place. Wading through the forums does bring to the attention that although the servers were some what stable last night (as in, they didn’t completely crash despite the issues they had) for TSO’s launch, it’s not without it’s bugs. 

There’s one particularly large bug that in the past would have warranted the servers coming down. Such is not the case this time around which means more and more people are taking advantage of it. You may notice in game that merchants are buying your trash items off of you for a LOT less then they used to. On the flip side, some items that used to be worth 10g or so are now worth 3p depending on the merchant you use. Menders are charging anywhere from a few gold to repair your gear to upwards of 8p. 

Then of course there is the issues with lag, crashing, and instances being unavailable. There are all the characters who now live in “HOUSING UNKNOWN” when you’re trying to buy from them on the broker. 

There’s an uproar over how many void shards you need to get gear, and the grind associated with it, as well as the fact that this expansion SOE decided to not add the +90 days that every other expansion came with. Not a game breaking deal but it was something customers had grown accustomed to for the last four years and they’re a little bewildered at why it changed now. 

Channels are no better. People complaining about everything from why their dire bear looks like a warg with a different head, to out right demanding their money back and how as a two boxer they’ve been left in the cold since everything is too hard. 

Lets not forget that the character transfer service has been down for months now, and they’re transfering by hand one request at a time. The number of posts about this issue is astonishing, especially since people are still willing to pay $50 for a service that doesn’t work. 

Best bet? Avoid the forums until things calm down, and in my case, selective reading. Hopefully things get fixed. The game was pretty much unplayable for a large potion of my friends last night, and half of them decided to log early for the night and just wait the rush out. 

I have my fingers crossed that tonight is better then last night, going to be dragging Nostalgians into the craft instances (as long as the polar bears show up with my copy of TSO).

Edit: Forgot to add two more to the list. If you find you can not chat in game – right click your chat window, and set your window settings to frame: none. This will fix it. Also, if you find you’re unable to partake in your world wide class channels that is because they’ve renamed some channels and they are server only. You’ll have to check the forums and see if there’s been a new channel assigned. For example guk.coercer no longer works, it’s their server specific channel.

What do You Mean you don’t own TSO Yet?!

stargrace November 19, 2008 1Comment

The polar bears who were scheduled to bring me my copy of TSO were stuck in the freak snow storm we had here in Ottawa yesterday, and no retail outlets were selling TSO. In fact some didn’t even know what TSO was as they stood dumbfounded at the counter wondering if TSO was some makeshift phrase for WoTLK. 

Alas, I won’t be getting my copy of EQ2’s newest expansion until later today. This may be a secret blessing in disguise though as I listened to channels last night of everyone else having fun (or not so much fun) in the expansion. The server was heavily racked with lag. Instances were up and down, and it took pretty much everyone 10+ minutes to zone anywhere. Not to fear though! There was still lots I could do even without TSO. I figure starting the content a day or two late means an extra day of interest while everyone else burns themselves out. 

So what is there to do if you don’t own TSO?

Well, number one there are the new recipe books for carpenters in The Village of Shin. If you hang around the Nuwin house (I may have that name wrong) you’ll notice pages fluttering around. If you’re lucky everyone will be so caught up in the expansion and in the other pretties they won’t notice it, because let me tell you 10 crafters all hunting for 2 pages in a collection of 7 every 2-5 minutes can get quite crowded. 

It’s completely worth it though as it allows you to make some very nice new furniture with the village of shin theme to it. It’s also not apart of TSO, it’s part of GU50, so you don’t need the expansion for it. I also picked up a new harvester quest in The Village of shin that requires a lot (and I do mean a lot) of harvesting. Enough harvesting to keep anyone happy for hours on end. There is ONE down side to this quest!

EVERYONE and their dog is out there harvesting, making low level zones crowded. I took a peak into Oakmyst forest and people seemed to have suddenly forgotten that there are other zones that also supply these harvests. Try TD or Greater Faydark or Darklight Woods if your server has suddenly become populated with people who are harvesting. The zones are far larger and the nodes friendlier. They may even take you out for dinner first. 

If that’s not enough to keep you busy while you frantically wait for EBGames to call you about a preorder, then take a look at your character select screen. If it looks anything like mine it will say the following:

Your characters are receiving 30% adventure bonus for having 3 max level characters. Your characters are receiving 50% crafting bonus for having 5 max level characters. 

That’s right! Lets SPEED UP the process of leveling for those who have done it time and time again (so we get bored FASTER!). I had really hoped that new character slots would come along with this expansion, alas it appears that I’ll be keeping my second account open a little bit longer if I want to give in to those alt cravings. Because RoK quest grinding is a complete turn off to my play style, I took my 51 bruiser and my 73 defiler and headed off to Steamfont Mountains to mentor a 37 ranger (Shadowgeist doesn’t have his copy of TSO either, it was alt night needless to say). I also claimed my 5 year veteran reward. I never understood why 

We recieve so many experience boosting potions for having our accounts longer then anyone else. By the time five years rolls around you don’t need those things any more. My bank is absolutely filled with potions that I will never use. 

Oh, and if you happen to have gotten TSO last night (lucky) you will notice that this expansion does NOT add the free 90 days like every other expansion that has been released. This was addressed in the forums, so if you see other people also wondering where their free days are, they’ll have to keep playing. I’m not sure why they changed them this expansion, but there you have it. 

In the end, I still had a fun night playing. Ardwulf was on (also combating the long zone times) and Kasul was on after a larger download, so I didn’t have anyone in guild talking about how awesome TSO was. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to round up Tipa and Kasul and we can head to some crafting instances. I did manage to peek at the new merchants, and that Unicorn for 10 tokens is calling my name.

Gu50 Patch Notes

stargrace November 18, 2008 2Comments

The Shadow Odyssey November / 18 / 2008
The Shadow Odyssey is now live!

You can visit EQ2Players.com to read news and articles about the latest EverQuest II expansion or you can dive right into game and visit the new airship near the Sinking Sands docks to visit the newly discovered Moors of Ykesha.

An all new map system has been added for all players.

GAMEPLAY

• You can now mitigate critical attacks done to you. Critical attacks work as before but the player can mitigate the amount done to them by having higher agility for melee classes or higher intelligence for priests and mages. In addition, you will now find certain creatures can critical against you. They will use their calculated damage times their critical multiplier to determine their damage. PvP based combat will now also follow this formula. Players against an npc will continue taking the higher of max damage plus one or damage times critical multiplier. There are also some items which now reduce the amount of critical damage you take while in combat.
• As a result of the critical mitigation addition, damage formulas have changed slightly. Damage is now calculated the following way:
  

  base damage calculation
  weapon attacks add in dps and weapon multipliers
  spell and weapon tier multipliers
  attribute modifiers
  base damage multipliers
  normalized damage ( +spell/ca/heal amounts )
  critical multiplier

• All of your characters will now receive a 10% experience bonus for each character at the maximum level. (Up to 50% max). You’ll also receive a tradeskill experience bonus for each character at the maximum tradeskill level. Your current experience bonus will be displayed on the character selection screen. This experience bonus can be disabled on a per-character basis by right-clicking on the experience bar.
• Shield Block chance is no longer an uncontested avoidance. It will now multiply your base chance to block with a shield rather than add.
• Pet buff icons will now tint when out of range. Examine data will now also list the range of the spell.
• Combat arts will now properly use the max damage + 1 as the minimum critical amount when attacking an npc. PvP combat arts will still use damage time the critical multiplier.
• Fish and water-only creatures should now stay underwater.
• Item purchases that require items other than gold in exchange now have a confirmation dialog.
• Characters will now continue to get Apprentice I versions of spells and combat arts placed in their spell book at appropriate levels above 50.
• /load_uisettings will no longer work while the crafting window is open.
• Glide/Slow fall can now be suspended by holding the jump key while falling.

SPELLS

Fighter

• The recast time on Rescue has been reduced.

Druid

• The Darklight Wood portal spell will no longer be removed while betraying.

Summoner

• Improved the hate amount of the pet’s defensive based stances.

Brawler

• Devastation Fist has changed slightly. It is now a high damage attack without a stifle penalty. Against higher end creatures it will be more potent.
• Brawler Defensive stances now grant additional agility and parry skill.
• The combination stances also grant additional parry skill.

Bruiser

• Brutality now improves the base damage of combat arts and increases the strength of the raid.
• Divide and Conquer now has a positional hate boost and is not interruptable. However, it now has a slightly longer reuse timer.

Berserker

• Screaming Rage line will now grant the raid additional dps instead of health regeneration.
• Reduced the casting time of area of effect abilities and increased their damage.
• Insolent Gibe will now inflict melee damage in addition to the taunt. This melee attack cannot be parried, riposted or dodged.
• The Rampage line will do slightly more damage.
• The Stifled Rage line will grant additional shield effectiveness.
• Blood Rage will give a small rush of adrenaline to the berserker now healing them for a small amount when hit.
• The penalties for Adrenaline have been reduced.

Coercer

• Possessed Essence should no longer be able to mesmerize targets.

Conjuror

• There are new appearances for the Inferno Golem pet. As a result the spell has been renamed to Fiery Magician.

Guardian

• Added agility and wisdom bonuses to the defensive stances. Also improved the Aggression bonus.
• Increased the hitpoints on the Battle Tactics Line.
• Increased the mitigation amount of the Rallying Cry line.

Monk

• The Wisdom of Zephyl line has had its casting speed bonus reduced slightly.

Paladin

• Castigate will now add in normalized spell damage effects.
• Vigor of Trust now improves the base healing of spells.
• Lay of hands has had its recast lowered but now consumes power.
• Lowered the casting time of heal spells slightly.
• Single target spells now cast at 0.5 seconds and their damage is increased slightly.
• Reduced the duration of the Incite line so the full taunt amount is gained faster and before the spell is reusable.
• Added intelligence to the defensive stance.
• Improved the spell Divine Favor so it scales more appropriately for level.

Shadowknight

• Contract from Below now improves the base damage of spells.
• Adjusted the damage and casting time on a number of spells. Many DoTs were also given more initial damage to go along with the pace of combat.
• Tainted Sacrament and its upgrades have changed to be an area of effect taunt and damage spell.
• The Harm Touch line is now a 5 minute recast.
• Mana Sieve now drains health and converts it to power.
• Draw Strength line now also reduces intelligence of the target and gives it to the shadowknight.
• The defensive stances now grant additional intelligence for the shadowknight.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Crusader

• Avenger’s Relentlessness now grants double attack.
• Improved the casting bonuses of Avenging Invigoration.
• Removed the mount restrictions from the Agility line.
• Aura of Leadership is now a small protective replenishing ward.
• Reduced the recast of Divine Aura to match similar skills of other classes.

Berserker

• Altered Perseverance to give a heal when the berserker drops to low health.
• Gut Roar will now riposte the next melee attack.

Brawler

• The Strength line has undergone a number of changes and has had the weapon restrictions removed. It will also grant a bonus to improve deflection chance.

Guardian

• Improved the riposte damage reduction of Cripple.

Paladin

• Changed Prayer of Resuscitation to modify Lay on Hands and its upgrades.

Shadowknight

• The Siphon Hate ability has changed and now protects the shadowknight from a large hit and then increases hatred for the shadowknight on termination.
• Reaver now adds additional spell damage.

Warrior

• Changed Gladiator’s Revenge to do additional riposte damage.
• The stamina line no longer requires a buckler but since you are no longer penalized for a lesser shield the double attack values have been reduced.

PLAYER VS PLAYER

• The recent kill list has been increased to 20 players but anyone on it is still removed after 30 minutes.

ITEMS

• Ayonic Axe, Lamentation of the Intrepid, Marrow’s Song, and Incandescent Blade have all been changed to a 4.0 delay.
• Removing an item which grants additional effects to a spell will cause that spell to cancel. Certain cases where the player is disarmed in combat will not cause the spell to drop though.
• Overloaded Heal and Empowered Heal have had their effect radius reduced to 25m. Pond Wash and Mind Wash have had their radius increased to 25m.
• Lesser Overloaded Heal, Overloaded Heal, Empowered Heal, Holy Water Sprinkler, Pond Wash, and Mind Wash can now only trigger once from Area of Effect heals. The trigger chance on some of these effects has been increased to compensate.

HOUSING & GUILD HALLS

• Three new amenities added to guild halls! Achievement Counselor, Collection Binder, and the Mariner’s Bell: Island of Mara.
• The choice of where to go with the Druid Portal hireling has been moved to the portal itself, instead of a list of dialog choices. The created Guild Hall portal now functions like a mariner’s bell.
• The “collect an item” window used to retrieve items in a house will now display the owner’s name for NO-TRADE items that you cannot pickup.
• The guild hall supply depot now contains sortable columns for item name and level.
• No-Trade house items can now be returned to their owners via email by anyone with Trustee access or higher.
• The Guild Hall Faction Market Broker will now properly appear as a purchasable amenity in Tier 2 Qeynos PvP guild halls.
• The Slayer Poster amenity will no longer sit buried into the ground when first purchased.
• Training Dummy Supply Chest will now properly enforce Use Access.
• The hitpoints of the placed Training Dummy has been doubled.

CLIENT

• The “Flora Displacement” option has been optimized and does not reduce framerate so much.
• Lowered memory usage in large zones.

USER INTERFACE

• All windows with a Help button have had the help button’s position swapped with the settings button to reduce accidental opening of the browser.
• Charge counts and stack sizes on icons will no longer become misaligned after using the /loadui command.
• The stats section of the Persona window has been expanded to include more information.

CHAT CHANNELS

• Many of the alignment-based chat channels have been replaced with non-alignment versions on PvE servers.
• Good_Help / Evil_Help is now Help
• Good_Newbie / Evil_Newbie is now Newbie
• Good_Crafting / Evil_Crafting is now Crafting
• Good_Traders / Evil_Traders is now Traders
• All race and class channels have been merged into non-alignment based channels.
• If you have joined any of these channels, you’ll need to leave them and join the new channels as the old channel names will still remain valid as custom channels.

TRADESKILLS

• Two new tradeskill collection quests can be found for those who wish to seek them out.
• The deity historian in Butcherblock Mountains is now selling a book of “Decorative Deity Shrines” recipes, for those who wish to display their deity’s influence in homes and guildhalls.
• Fixed an issue where recipe tooltips would display an incorrect number of components when components were separated into multiple stacks.
• Outfitters are now able to produce vest versions of cloth armor in the level 10-19 range.
• Tailors now have recipes for crafted canvas, ruckas, and broadcloth vests.
• Sackcloth and tranquil sackcloth shoulder armor now have appearances. The tranquil threadbare shoulders remain without specific appearances.
• The tailored tranquil dragon’s breath armor set now has a slightly different appearance from the regular dragon’s breath armor set. All tailormade armor with a robe graphic is now called a robe, and all tailormade armor with a vest graphic is now called a vest.
• The tranquil sackcloth vest is now a slightly different shade from the “dashing tunic” acquired in Sebilis.

ZONES

Veeshan’s Peak

• Phara Dar will no longer critically attack when Khalan is dead.