Last year was truly a remarkable year for EQII. We work on expansions all the time, but last year it was the little and not so little things that went out before The Shadow Odyssey that have made a big difference in my game nights.

It was less than a year ago that we introduced voice chat into EQII. Before that, like many people, I would use a third party program in some groups and raids. Having that voice chat right in the game has simplified things so much it’s become second nature to hop in the channel instead of a hassle to set up.

There were two things that I take completely for granted now and had forgotten were only added in the past year until I looked them up. The first was the additions to the group loot: Round-robin and Need before Greed. The second was all those added bells, carpets and amenities to the docks and the cities. I used to have to run from Qeynos Harbor to North Qeynos every time! Or run all the way out to the middle of Darklight Woods if I wanted to find a carpet out of the Neriak area. There is some serious mileage savings now compared to back then.

The most exciting thing for me last year was, hands down, the addition of the guild halls. These were so long in the making with so much hard work from many people on the team and turned out so gorgeous in the end that I still get a smile every time I log into one. I’m also one of those people who goes around and tours other guild’s halls just to see how they decorated them. There are some seriously skilled decorators out there.

On the topic of decorating, something that made a big (or small) difference was the ability to scale items in your home and guild hall. Suddenly my barbarian could have chairs her size along with the tiny ones for my arasai. And mannequins for houses and guild halls, those were only released early in ’08 but already people have made some amazing shops, chess boards and other just totally off the wall creations with them.

On the more nitty gritty game mechanics side we had a big change in how players level in the game. Along with decreasing the leveling time between 20 and 70, we also added a bonus to all characters on an account if you had reached max level with a single character. But those level 80′s didn’t just get to sit around and help level up alts, they had new epic weapons to go after. Even the tradeskillers got some epic loving with their epic cloaks and earring.

The list of stuff we added last year was epic itself, but the last one that was on my star list was the change to harvesting items. Items that make you harvest faster/better now apply a buff, you used to have to equip each one before you’d harvest that type of node. This change cleared up some pretty convoluted macros I was always fiddling with.

There is a lot of stuff I know I’ve missed but it was a busy year and everyone has a few favorites. I know we have a lot of great stuff planned for ’09 and we’re aiming for getting better every year, but it’s going to be really hard to beat guild halls!

Jen “Kirstie” Gerull

Happy Valentine’s Day All!

Here we are, perched on the precipice of another big launch for our beloved game, EQII: Sentinel’s Fate.  Next week is a big week for us and for you, the players of this grand game.  You will finally be able to log into the new areas of Odus and explore, level and play in the new area that the team has spent nearly a year putting together.  Characters can now advance to level 90 as adventurers and tradeskillers.  More items, more spells, more AA’s and we hope lots more fun.

As many have noticed, Halas is not going out with the expansion. Many have asked why and the reasoning is twofold.  We have three pretty decent starting areas already.  Darklight, Greater Faydark and Timorous Deep.  We know they are not perfect and so the team has done considerable work in reworking those areas, streamlining the progress path to make for a better experience.  We believe that you will find the experience in those zones to be far better than it had been.  So, we went to work on higher level content for this launch, which we have with the expansion content and the new Battlegrounds. 

Additionally, we really want new Halas to be something special.  We want more time to polish the area and make sure the progression path is fun and smooth.  We also hope to get kilts in there.  Currently we are looking to have Halas out with the “Halas Reborn” update later in the year. 

With this release, we are proud to open up the Pre-Season of EQII Battlegrounds.  Three zones will be available, each with a different playstyle.  They will have progression and items and we hope add a whole new element of fun to the game.   Unfortunately we didn’t quite get as many players as we had hoped on the server to give it a proper test, so we are going to use this pre-season phase to iron out any kinks and tweak the balance a bit more beyond the testing phase.  When we are ready, we will begin Season 1 and the mayhem will begin in earnest.  You will be able to work towards the new Chaos Armor during the pre-season, which might be the best looking armor we have added to the game. 

With a game like EQII, it is evergrowing and everchanging, on occasion we find the need to adjust items, spells etc. . . and some mythicals had their power reduced with the release of the expansion.  With each launch, we have to look at the items released previously and decide if they are perhaps too high to encourage players to look for upgrades.  EQII is, at its core, a game driven by itemization.  The constant desire to get the next biggest, baddest piece of gear.   So on occasion we have to make some difficult decisions.  This was one of them.  For those who feel their mythical was devalued, I offer my apologies. 

Next Tuesday is the retail head start, so to get you all ready, we are turning on Bonus XP from now until the servers come down for the update Tuesday morning.   I hope you all login and enjoy.  We look forward to seeing you on the Battlegrounds and running around Odus.  Mostly, we thank you for playing EQII.

 Alan “Brenlo” Crosby

Senior Producer EQII

Hello Norrathians!

Lots going on in the EQII world!  We are just about to release our next update, Will of a Tyrant and couldn’t be more excited!  With this update you are going to see a few hundred lingering bugs fixed in EQII.  Some of these bugs date back to launch and are being knocked out before we gear up for the expansion.  In fact, we have taken to calling this update our “bug bash” as we pulled out our hammers and smashed them into oblivion.  As for content in this update, it might feel a little lighter than recent updates however there is a reason for that. Actually, there are a couple of reasons.  The first is that it was a shorter development cycle for us, with only about two months of time between this update and last.  The second reason is that we are starting to shift many of our resources over to expansion work as it gets closer to its release.  In addition, we have some as yet to be announced surprises coming.  They’re some rather large features, which we hope will excite you.  More on those in the months ahead.

One feature we have been receiving a lot of questions about is the Item Ratings system, which some of you may know as item degradation.  I know that since it was announced there has been a great deal of confusion over the system and what it is intended to accomplish.  After many internal discussions, and listening to feedback from you, we have decided not to move forward with this system.  We are exploring alternatives that would allow us to continue to grow items and allow your gear to advance in meaningful ways, without giving the impression that you are going backward.

Another long announced and long awaited feature has been the rework on the “fighter revamp”. This is another project that is going to fall by the wayside as we now focus on small changes, rather than sweeping revamps.  Fighters are going to see some love here in the near future, thanks to Xelgad, who is taking on some of the class balance responsibilities.Other classes will be seeing improvements and tweaks as we take a hard look at how each class performs in solo, group and raid play.  Our goal is to make sure every class has a role and will be wanted in groups and raids, as well as being able to successfully solo.

Shader 3.0 work is pretty much complete at this point, with all of the shaders being converted to the new system.  That being said, we will not be releasing it with Will of a Tyrant.  We are not seeing the performance increases that we had hoped so we will continue to optimize and tweak until they provide not only a visual boost, but a performance boost as well.  We do not want to take a step backwards in performance just to make things look shiny.  Currently it looks as though this feature will land with the next game update, on expansion launch day.

I know you are all excited about the upcoming expansion, or at least I hope you are.  We are very excited as a lot of hard work has gone into making Sentinel’s Fate.  We still have a lot to do and the time for release is getting close!  So close in fact, that you can now sign up for beta which should begin admitting folks in less than two weeks. You can sign up on the EQII players site, so if you are interested in joining in, make sure you sign up soon.

Lots going on,

See you soon in Norrath!

The EQII Team

Tomorrow, Shards of Destiny is going to the Test server!  Woo Hoo!  We hope you are as excited as we are to see the new content and try it out for yourselves.  I encourage you, if you have time in your busy schedules, to jump onto Test and try the new content out.  We would love to hear your feedback and the more people that take part, the more solid we can make sure this update releases.

One thing you will notice missing from the update notes are the Shader 3.0 changes.  Unfortunately the work is turning out to be a little more time intensive than our initial estimates.  We did not want to rush it out, as it is a far reaching change that can impact many players and systems, so we are going to let it bake a little longer.  Working with it and testing it internally on as many system configs as our compatibility lab can put together, and they can put together a TON, to make sure it causes as little disruption as possible.  We want everyone to enjoy the vibrant lighting and shader changes this brings to the game and we hope you can be patient as we continue to tweak it until the next game update, which is tentatively scheduled for early December.

One of the new systems we are really excited about is the Chronomagic, formerly Auto-Mentoring, system.  This allows you to level down your character and experience lower level content that you may have missed, want to play over, or experience with new friends.

Houses are getting room upgrades! How exciting is that?  Most housing will soon have at least one additional room added to their architecture.  Maj’Dul housing gains multiple new rooms, I may finally up and move there.  Along with the new rooms, there is a modest increase in the number of items a house can hold, so we hope that you decorators out there make good use of the added space.  If you are a decorator and have something to show off, we encourage you to show images on the forums or even send them to us as we love to see the imaginative things you create.

There are a good deal of additional features and content pieces coming too, so check out those Test update notes and let us know what you think.

You may have noticed a hotfix this morning with a couple of small code changes.  One of which was a small change to the Welcome Screen.  Nothing huge, just a single new field in the lower right corner.  The welcome screen now displays each days Daily Mission!  A welcome and useful change I hope!  Above that you will see a new field that simply says Hot Zone.  “What is that Brenlo?” Well I am glad you asked!  Our brilliant coders and designers have come up with a new feature that each day increases the fabled drop rates in one dungeon.  The welcome screen will display which dungeon currently has the increased drop rate.  “But Brenlo, right now it says None!  I want my Hot Zone!” Do not fret my friends, we will be turning it on soon.

In fact. . .  Because we were unable to provide our European and Japanese players with GU 52 at the same time as our North American servers, we will be turning the Hot Zones on for those servers this weekend!   Look for an announcement from Kiara on the specific time it turns on and then watch the welcome screen.  For our North American servers, you will get this new hotness, yes I just said new hotness, let the hate mail begin, the following weekend.  Just in time for Labor Day.

We have lots going on here in the EQII laboratory so we will continue to keep you updated and keep that feedback coming as we love to hear from you.  Well most of you, you know who you are . . . Kendricke.  =P

I hope to see you in Atlanta at Dragon Con.

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby
Senior Producer EverQuest II

You know, the most awkward part of writing one of these is the introduction; it almost always comes across as cliché.

So, now that we have that out of the way….

I am extremely pleased to join the creative and passionate EQII team as the Senior Producer.  Bruce has always been wonderful to work with and leaves me some rather large shoes to fill (speaking of clichés; they are actually about the same size as my own).  Bruce has been a strong shepherd for the team and the game and we all wish him well as he moves into his new role here at SOE.  I know he will do well, as he carries the dedication he shows in all things with him.

As far as Community Relations, I am leaving the team in very capable hands.  Richard “Greeblen” Schmelter will be giving that team the love they need now, and I know he will shine.  Why the change for me?  Well, first you should understand that it is not as different a career as you might think.  A producer is a manager, just like a director.  So, many of the skills are the same.  Just different processes, more people, more assets.  More, more, more.  And of course, now I have these large looming deadlines.  What was I thinking?  I love games, especially MMO’s.  EQ was my first love and brought me to SOE, but it was EQII that held me longer than any other.  I love the game and when the opportunity arose to work with this team, I could not pass it up.

This team is amazing!  I have spent the last two days in meetings as they talk about their work and their passion for this product; I am excited, as I could not be blessed with a better group to help me make this transition into Production.  Coders, Designers and Artists are all working very hard to make sure EQII stays the quality game it is today.  Over the next few weeks you will see some of their plans come to fruition as we publish Monument and Might (GU 52) to Test and then Live servers sometime in June (possibly before Fan Faire).

But that ain’t all we have in store for you.  As we sat together and went over the plans for GU 53 and beyond, the player in me was piqued.  I wanted this new stuff NOW.  I wanted to play with the new zones, items, and dungeons.  I smiled and laughed as I saw new creatures and their animations (complete with sound effects provided by Tom Tobey, one of our Senior Artists), and I know that you will love them too.

We also have some not so much fun stuff to get to, maintenance to the game to allow us to continue to develop content, expansions, and items for years to come.  Some of those pills will be tough to swallow (cliché).  The team and I will work hard to make certain you understand why we’re making these changes, why they are necessary.  We will discuss them with you and listen to your feedback.  While that doesn’t mean we can always go the way some players feel is correct, it does mean we want you to know the WHY of our decisions.  I used the word “shepherd” for Bruce and it is fitting, as that is what a producer does.  They make sure the game is headed in the right direction, away from cliffs and pitfalls so that it stays around, competitive, and most importantly fun, for a good long time.

I will be available on the forums occasionally, on Twitter often (handle is Brenlo) and in game when I can log in to chat with you.  I look forward to hearing from you.  I look forward to playing with you.   I look forward to being a shepherd for this game and development team.  Leading them, shaping their plans and guiding their passion.  A passion you, I and the team share.

See you in Norrath.

Alan Crosby
Senior Producer – EQII

This is a big week around SOE. We’ve launched Free Realms! Free Realms now joins the wide selection of games we already have in the SOE portfolio.  It’s a different kind of game for us, and one we hope will reach a much broader audience than our other titles. Free Realms isn’t the typical  MMO that we’ve done in the past, but a much more accessible and light hearted look at a world. This game was designed with the idea that it would be playable by a much wider range of ages, the 8 to 80 that you hear so much about. I’ve seen children playing this as young as 3, and folks my age (and that’s old!) having just as much fun. With a plethora of minigames, to more 3D style events like kart racing and combat, there’s fun for everyone.
 
There’s a new business model involved, too. As the name implies, you can play for free. Just hit the website, sign up for an account and you are off and running! If you already have a station account, then just sign in! There’s an optional membership available for purchase that gives you access to even more stuff like additional jobs, more character slots, leaderboards and much more for only $4.99 per month. There is the opportunity to engage in microtransanctions to purchase items for use in-game, from clothing to pets, trading cards for the card game, potions and other boosts, weapons, tools, racing karts, food…and I’m pretty sure I saw the proverbial kitchen sink! Of course, this is the first time we’ve done a game like this, and it’s pretty darn exciting for all of us.

I would heartily encourage you to jump in and have some fun. Check it out at:  www.FreeRealms.com.

Bruce “Froech” Ferguson

One of the upcoming features for GU52 is a new system that will allow players to write and distribute their own books in the world of Norrath. These books look and act just like the current books in the game. You can hold them in your inventory or place them in your house or guild hall for other players to read.

These user-written books can be obtained from a crafter and will start out blank. Any player can write in a blank book, but as soon as you write the first word you become the author of that book. From that point forward, only the author may edit the contents of the book.

The book window will display an “Edit” button whenever you read a blank book or a book you have authored. Clicking the edit button will reveal controls that allow you to enter text and see the layout from page to page.

There is no limit to the number of pages, but books are limited by the amount of text. A progress bar will let you know how much more text your book can hold as you are typing. There is also an auto-save feature that will periodically write the contents of the book to your hard drive in case of a crash.

When you’ve completed the book and you’d like to distribute it, you can make as many copies as you like. All you need is the original book and a blank book.  Right-click the original book and choose “Copy”. Your cursor will turn into an arrow allowing you to select the blank book in your inventory that you’d like to copy it to.

User-written books are tradable allowing you to give them to friends or place them on the broker. We’re really excited about this new feature and look forward to seeing your creativity!

Come join the discussion in the official EverQuest II Forums.

We have some exciting new features in the works for EQII! One of the first we’ll be talking about is Research Assistants. 

These hardworking researchers will help you acquire upgrades to your spells and combat arts while you’re off adventuring in the deepest darkest dungeon or asleep in your own warm cozy bed. Even though they’re hardworking, they’re not a speedy service and they are limited in how much they’ll help you.  Because this kind of research is complicated, they’ll only be able to work on one spell or combat art for one character per server.

All research requires a base amount of information to work with. In the case of the Research Assistants, this manifests in that they require you to have the previous tier of the spell being upgraded before they can begin work for you. So, in order to research that Master I, you’ll need to first know the Adept III version, though it doesn’t matter whether that Adept III version came from researching or from your friendly neighborhood sage, jeweler or alchemist. The time required to research a spell increase will vary based on the level and tier of the spell. A level 20 Adept I may only take an hour, while a level 80 master will likely take a month or longer.

We’re still working out the details of how these assistants will work in Norrath and we want to hear your feedback.  Do you have a preference on how these researchers would look or how you interact with them?

All those and anything else you’d like to share with us is welcome feedback on the official forums.

Kirstie

Hello, my friends! It seems as though my letter that was posted last Friday has had the desired effect. What I tried to say was ‘Hey, we appreciate your feedback’, and ‘we’re not going to release the additional changes to fighters while we continue to evaluate your feedback and continue to make any necessary changes”. And it has indeed caused a significant increase in feedback, so thank you very much. Now we need to parse all the data that you’ve presented, and continue that process.

So, what is our goal on EQII? It really is two-fold. One is to provide Tanks an opportunity to have more control over their own destiny, rather than requiring others in a group to channel hate to them, by dealing directly with the aggro. Secondly, we’re trying to make them slightly more versatile in a group setting that has multiple tanks, by allowing them change their stance and do something a little different, without significantly impinging on the roles of others. It comes down to allowing the Fighters to be more versatile, and consequently give them a higher level of desirability in groups.

It may surprise some of you, but we don’t sit around discussing the best way to break any specific class. Sure, we tease you about working on Beastlords, or deleting the healing classes, but that’s just good natured ribbing. What we do, on a rather frequent basis, is to look at the way that things are working out in the game, and try to make adjustments to it that will make game play more fun for more people. Game balance itself is a very funny thing, as I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a game that is properly and consistently balanced across all classes. And the fun part for us is to see all of the innovative and previously unexpected ways that people play. As many folks that have been on EQII from the beginning, I can assure you that we’re constantly amazed to see what we call “emergent gameplay” in the biz, which is just a fancy way of saying “huh, I never thought they’d do that!”. But our ideal really is that every class is equal, in different ways. (Go ahead, make sense of that statement, I dare you!) Each class needs to have something they can do that’s fun, and important in a group. At the same time, and often in direct conflict to that goal, each class needs to be able to solo effectively. Finding the balance between those two goals is what we do, over and over. Every time we add some new item, boss, combat effect, spell, whatever change there happens to be, we end up having to look at balance again, as the landscape is constantly changing. And as developers, it hurts our pride to have one single class combination that is clearly better than another. For every min/maxer out there, there’s an equally passionate developer saying “I can fix that!”, or so it seems. We’re trying to balance each class in relation to all of the others, rather than off by themselves. Sure, it would be easier to do each alone, but the fact is that in an MMO, you play with other people, and we really want to encourage that. We have solo content, and we’ll continue to work on it, but there is an extra payoff of fun when you share your time in game with others. So, we want to move forward with our intention to make each class meaningful and useful in a group, with a unique play style that doesn’t get duplicated too much by any other class.

We do feel as though the direction we are heading for the fighters will be good for the game in the long run. We also recognize that the concept needs to be thoroughly tested by many folks, so we can optimize the way it affects gameplay, and even then not everyone will be ardent supporters. I can assure you that we’re trying to make the game more fun as a whole, not less. And when we’re done with this pass on the Tanks, we’ll move on to the next class, looking to make additional tweaks, to ensure that there isn’t a class or play style the feels as though they are being neglected, and that the game remains fun for all.

I’ll continue to say it….thanks for all the feedback. All of us appreciate it. See you in EverQuest II !

Bruce “Froech” Ferguson, Senior Producer

So, here we are in the afterglow (cough) of shipping our expansion, The Shadow Odyssey™. I have to say thanks, not only to you, our players, for the inspiration, but also to all of the individual teams at SOE who pulled together and worked so hard to bring you this monumental achievement. Often, it’s the game team who gets to be in the limelight, and they certainly did an outstanding job, but there is a whole crew of other folks who support us in all sorts of ways and deserve praise as well. We couldn’t do the things we do if we weren’t part of a great big family.
 
But what lies ahead for EverQuest® II? We realize that there is a great diversity of games for you to choose from, with different play styles, rewards and even payment methods. Every day it seems existing online games are offering deeper, more robust commerce systems, and that, coupled with the players’ desires, led us down this exciting path.

Over the last several years, we’ve been asking you about what kinds of things you generally want from SOE and specifically from EverQuest II from different forums. At the last two Fan Faires, and other venues as well, we’ve seen an increasingly large number of players indicate that they want new methods for achieving convenience, customization and avenues for fun.  So, we’ve designed a system to satisfy that need. We’ve tried to tailor it so that you can choose to participate or not, as you prefer.
 
Our new system is called Station Cash™, which opens up new options and gameplay choices for players. We’ve developed three main categories for items – convenience, customization and fun – without significantly impacting the core gameplay experience. For convenience, we’re offering potions of various types, from health to experience boosts broken down into adventure, tradeskill and achievement.  For customization, we have several appearance packs in various armor types, and, for fun, a wide selection of pets for your house and out in the virtual world. Of course, one of our most important concerns when implementing this was to ensure that the game balance wasn’t impacted. These items, and any future offerings, are intended for convenience and fun, and shouldn’t be required equipment to achieve a goal in game.  
 
We’re really trying to target everyone by making these items available in a wide variety of sizes, uses, effects and costs. They should be useful for almost every player level, whether a new character/alt or an experienced raider. And, of course, we’ll be continuing to create new items, giving you an even wider variety to choose from in the future. We’re very excited by this new step forward and welcome your feedback to help us refine our offerings to meet your needs.

Thanks again for your support and feedback!
 
Sincerely,

Bruce A. Ferguson
Senior Producer, EverQuest II
Sony Online Entertainment