Please join us on Wednesday, January 24th, for a House of Commons with the developers of EverQuest at 5:00 PM Pacific / 8:00 PM Eastern in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC.
You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client, such as mIRC, ircle, xchat, or whichever you prefer. Connect to irc.stratics.com port 6668 or whichever server is closest to you:
stratics.frws.com port 6668, USA - Colorado
irc.glowfish.de port 6668, EU - Germany
stratics.afraidyet.net 6668, USA - Atlanta
You may also connect through our handy Java link which may be found right here. You must have Java installed to use this which can be downloaded from the Java homepage.
We will be discussing general topics with the developers, and general chat will be in our IRC channel #everquest before, during, and after the House of Commons.
Kwill's Quill: MMO Stories[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Part of the fun of playing an MMO is all the stories and tales that get told by the community. EverQuest players have the pleasure of having eight years of stories to tell!
Descendants Guild Recruting[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Descendents is always interested in adding talented, dedicated players to our roster. We are a high-end PST raiding guild on the Saryrn server of Everquest. Current targets include TSS, Deathknell and Demiplane of Blood.
The key things we expect from our guildmates are maturity, team spirit, the drive to succeed, promptness, attentiveness and the ability to play within our scheduled raid times. Our scheduled raid times are Tuesday 7-11pm PST, Thursday 7-11pm PST, and Sunday 6-11pm PST. These times were chosen to enable people on the West Coast with day jobs and active lives to participate. We raid fewer days per week than other EQ raiding guilds at our level, so regular attendance is absolutely vital to our success. If you cannot participate in all of our events in their entirety, Descendents is not for you.
Requirements for joining are:
Level 75
500 or more TOTAL AA points
Keys/flags for Dreadspire and Theater of Blood
Hitpoints/mana/ac within 80% of the average for Descendents members of your class
Good knowledge of zones, and the ability to travel to common raid destinations on all continents with a minimum of death and carnage
The ability to meet all our raid times in their entirety
A reliable, preferably high-speed internet connection
A functioning sound card and speakers
Please recognize that Descendents is highly selective, and we take the application and temp process very seriously. The quality and legibility of an application, responses to questions on the application and conduct during the temp period carry great weight. Our continuing goal is to experience and enjoy the end game of Everquest with people who will make it worthwhile.
Ultimately this is a guild for active, highly skilled players, and our recruiting decisions will be made with the intention of enhancing our team's ability to win the battles we choose to fight. If this sounds like fun, please visit the Descendents website at www.descendents.org for more information, or contact Finista in game with any questions.
I attended the session, which was held in the Pirates Online game space. It was kind of enjoyable listening to the sound of the ocean around my creaking ship while talking about EverQuest!
Here are some highlights:
Taskmistress encounter: It's currently set to 18 minimum. Prathun is going to lower that to a full group of 6.
Prathun on Monk Echo of Misdirection: I plan to change the Echo of Misdirection so that it's only usable outside of combat. I might make a few other tweaks to the ability, as well, and I'm always interested in the community's feedback on these kinds of changes.
Buried Sea Expansion: Rashere: In addition to the features for the expansion, The Buried Sea is set up to offer a lot of single group mission-based content similar to what we did with Dragons of Norrath. There's content both for the more casual players and the high end.
Nodyin: As far as the expansion goes there is going to be a variety of content in the form of Missions that players at a large variety of levels will be able to do and improve their characters. There are several distinct areas in the expansion with a lot of different missions to explore. That's one of the main things I see being a positive for this expansion. We're definately giving the level 71+ crowd a lot more to do than they saw with TSS in this expansion. .... Energeiac armor will allow players to "customize" stats to a certain extent.
Itemization -- Merloc: I'm planning to go over TSS items next week, he'll be adding more secondary mods to single group gear, upgrading some weapon ratios, and he'll be adding/changing focus effects on several items both raid and single group.
Fellowships: Fellowships are a form of mini-guild that are targeted at players who tend to play with the same folks often. They support about a groups worth of players (maybe up to 9...final numbers are still being decided) and allows those players to share a dedicated chat channel as well as create campsites. The campsites, in turn, can be upgraded to provide beneficial effects to the fellowship members that are near it and other fellowship members can use a token to travel to the campsite quickly.
The Buried Sea (TBS) Lore: Vahlar: Nolrog, the lore in TBS is focused on two major themes really -- the Buried Sea and its islands and inhabitants including pirates, aviaks, goblins, sirens and more and the story that drives that area. Under the water, the Combine Loyalists have secured Tsaph Katta over the ages and are working to cure him still. We will have lore available on the site soon to give you more background.
Prathun: The most important thing to know is, there's pirates and Shissar.
TSS: Is it All Underwater?
RashereEQ: Lewin, underwater combat is only a minor part of the expansion and we have made changes to the underwater physics to make it more fun to play underwater.
Prathun: it's funny how often the underwater combat question comes up. There is very little underwater content in The Buried Sea, despite what the lore or zones may suggest.
Vahlar: There is almost no underwater combat in this expansion!
Merloc: Most of the expansion is "under" water, but not "in" water.
Progress in TBS: Merloc: I think the progress will be like a toned down version of the progress in DoDH.
Nodyin: I won't go into too much detail but everyone will need to do the progression to get into the end zone with the normal 85/15 rules in effect.
Merloc: Lewin, there are going to be rewards for completing quest "arcs" that will appeal to both raiders, and single groupers.
The Balance of Levels in the Game: RashereEQ: I actually plan to take a look at the levelling curve, hopefully in the next few months, to see where we can smooth it out...particularly in the 50-60 range.
Join the EverQuest Developers on Friday, January 19th from 4pm-5pm PST in the Pirate's CSG Online "Deserted Isle" main lobby for an EverQuest Developer Chat. To attend the chat you will need to download Pirate's CSG Online which is free to all users. We look forward to seeing you there!
Remember, you have to actually have the game to talk to the developers. It's free though!
MASSIVE Magazine[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News If you happen to pick up a copy of this issue of MASSIVE magazine, be sure to look for the editorial by your very own Kwill!
I am glad to be promoting and supporting the EverQuest community!
Most of these changes are already on Live (sans the Rank III turn-in). Please let me know if you have any questions!
A vendor named The Quiet Wanderer has moved into Sunderock Springs. He offers spells and abilities of the calming persuasion, including several which were not previously available: Song: Whispersong of Veshma, Spell: Drifting Fog, Spell: Dulcify, Spell: Nature’s Placidity, Spell: Quiet Mind, and Tome of Phantom Silhouette.
]
Based on feedback from the Druid community, Wildskin and Blessing of the Wild have been replaced on a one-for-one basis with Blistering Sunray and Sunscorch. The old spells will be replaced with the new ones.
Based on feedback from the Cleric community, Rectitude and Cure Corruption have been replaced with Blessing of Purpose and Ward of the Dauntless. Rectitude was swapped on a one-for-one basis with Blessing of Purpose. However, because Cure Corruption is used by multiple classes the spell could not be swapped directly with Ward of the Dauntless, so clerics can simply no longer use the Cure Corruption spell. Turning in a Rank III spell rune while you have Cure Corruption Rank III scribed will result in a copy of Ward of the Dauntless Rank III and a return of the spell rune. Aside from that, Cure Corruption can be deleted from the spell book.
The statistics on the items created by Summon Aenda’s Trinkets have been improved.
The number of “procs” that Steeltrap Jaws can fire before fading have been doubled.
Skin to Vines will now work on a wider variety of NPC targets.
You can read comments from players about these changes here.
Fun Thread: No More Internet[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News What would you do if suddenly the internet was gone? Well you wouldn't be reading this, that's for sure. Anyway, the peeps who posted on the SOE temporary board had some fun ideas about what they would do if the internet was no more.
Check it out now, before the temporary boards go away just like the internet on this thread!
"We will be updating ... to fix some spell issues. Servers will be coming down at 6am PST and the estimate is they will be down for 4 hours.
No, beta rewards will not be given out tomorrow during this update. If you were on my list to receive rewards today and were missed due to servers coming up early and scripts not completed in time, I will be manually fixing those 36 accounts (about 1/3 are done already)."
The servers are now up, and she should be fixing the beta rewards.
If you are experiencing issues, you can check out the problems with the patch thread on the SOE boards.
Kwill's Quill[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will soon be part of the SOE gaming community on January 31. Some of you may already be trying the beta, since with an all-access account came an invitation to try out the beta in the last two weeks of testing.
In this Kwill's Quill I talk about the decision by the Vanguard staff to discard the model of official forums and let the fan sites do all the work. And interesting idea, don't you think?
Patch Today[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News All EverQuest servers will be coming down at 4:00 AM PST (-8 UTC) on Wednesday 01/17/2007 for a game update. Estimated downtime is 8 hours.
"It will be hot when and where we have Fan Faire and there is the possibility of a price decrease. That's all I am saying until I have more official news,"
The Buried Sea Makes Waves as the Thirteenth Expansion for the Successful EverQuest Franchise
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a global leader in the online games industry, today announced EverQuest® The Buried Sea(TM), a new expansion for the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), EverQuest. EverQuest The Buried Sea will only be available via digital download beginning February 13th, for the suggested retail price of U.S. $29.99.
"As the new producer on EverQuest I am very excited to have this tremendous opportunity to work on such a storied franchise, as well as be part of a development team that has delivered successful expansions time and time again over the past eight years for our many loyal EQ players," said Clint Worley, Producer, Sony Online Entertainment. "As the thirteenth expansion for EverQuest, The Buried Sea will continue to challenge players with two new worlds to explore, ship-to-ship combat on the open seas against swash-buckling pirates, and a variety of new missions created especially for this expansion."
"The success of EverQuest is both a tribute to our devoted player base and our very committed development team," said Christopher E. Sturr, Senior Global Brand Manager, Sony Online Entertainment. "EverQuest continues to deliver innovation, new features and challenging new content, which will be evident in The Buried Sea."
The Buried Sea will also feature the ability for guilds to create a unique Guild Banner from a large selection of symbols and colors. The banner becomes the mark of the guild and when enough guild members are in the same zone, the guild leaders or officers can plant the banner in the ground. Once the banner is placed, members of that guild are able to teleport directly to that banner. In addition to the banners, players will have the ability to acquire Energeian items, utilizing ancient Combine technology; they can gain access to a new inventory slot that can be fitted with an Energeian power source and armor that can tap into the energy held within.
Endeavour is a raiding guild with a family atmosphere. Our current raid schedule is 3-5 nights a week at 8:30 PM EST until roughly 11:30-12:00 PM EST. Currently, our goals are Anguish and Tacvi. We have just recently become Txevu flagged, and are a couple weeks out from Tacvi. We have completed 3 MPG raid trials and are close to Anguish access as well. Endeavour uses a DKP loot system. We are seeking the following classes:
Our High priority classes are as follows:
Enchanters, Monks, Rogues, Wizards, Bards
We require level 70 minimum for high priority classes with a minimum of 150 AA. All applicants must maintain at least a 50% attendance to raids in order to make full member. All classes are welcome to recruit, however there are higher level and AA requirements for other classes than those listed above.
Feel free to visit our website Endeavour Guild for more information and videos of our recent kills. We look forward to raiding with you!
"Join the EverQuest Developers on Friday, January 19th from 4pm-5pm PST in the Pirate's CSG Online "Deserted Isle" main lobby for an EverQuest Developer Chat. To attend the chat you will need to download Pirate's CSG Online which is free to all users. We look forward to seeing you there!"
The 75% Solution: Raider versus Non-Raider Gear[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News The gap in statistics on gear for raiders and non-raiders has always been a point of contention for those players who want to play but not raid. The non-raiding players ask that they be allowed to have a chance at some good armor and weapon upgrades; the raiders counter with the argument that because they work harder at defeating encounters, the rewards should reflect their greater commitment and their need for better gear.
Developer Merloc stated in a thread on EQLive that he felt that non-raid gear drops should be at 75% of the average raid gear. Rashere agreed:
"Merloc and I have chatted about where we'd like the gap between raider and non-raider gear to fall and the 75% figure for stats is what we're shooting for (focus effects are a different metric). He has the support of the design team to make that happen."
The problem arises in what is "average" raid gear is. That isn't clear, since some raid content drops amazing gear, and other raid content gear is very comparable to current groupable content drops.
Some folks feel that groupable gear already is almost at 75% of raid gear, and this isn't nearly the problem that people are making it out to be.
Other non-raiders argue it's not the gear that needs the upgrades, it's the weapons they have access to.
Deciding the direction of the game, and making equitable decisions for players who want to choose their own path, are some of the most difficult decisions the development team has to make. In other words, keeping everyone happy and interested is a pretty tough job. The 75% change hasn't happened yet, but with the lead developer in agreement with the itemization guy, it's probably something that will happen eventually.
Guild Progression Website[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Ever wonder what the raiding guilds on your server are doing? This Guild Progression site lists all the expansions and shows where the top raiding guilds on each server are in defeating the content. The encounter progressions also note the amount of time it took to finish each one, and relative rankings.
Currently, many guilds are working on the Serpent's Spine Ashengate and Frostcrypt encounters. Here is the most current progression data from the site:
Ashengate:
2007-01-08 Guild Fama Volat defeated Lethar (The Rathe)
2007-01-08 Guild Silent Resurgence defeated Lethar (The Nameless)
2007-01-08 Guild Silent Redemption defeated Sothgar (Cazic Thule)
2007-01-07 Guild Elysee defeated Vergalid (The Rathe)
2006-12-30 Guild Fire and Fury defeated Lethar (Firiona Vie)
2006-12-29 Guild Silent Redemption defeated Stitch (Cazic Thule)
2006-12-20 Guild Final Door defeated Vergalid (Stromm)
2006-12-19 Guild Fama Volat defeated Dyn'Leth (The Rathe)
2006-12-17 Guild Darkwind defeated Dyn'Leth (Antonius Bayle)
2006-12-17 Guild Shadows of Doom defeated Sothgar (Antonius Bayle)
Frostcrypt:
2007-01-09 Guild Tide defeated Beltran the Shade King (Antonius Bayle)
2007-01-07 Guild Tide defeated Harfange the Black (Antonious Bayle)
2007-01-04 Guild Raging Fury defeated Harfange the Black (Antonius Bayle)
2007-01-03 Guild Crimson Tempest defeated King Odeen (Maelyn Starpyre)
2007-01-03 Guild Cestus Dei defeated Beltran the Shade King (Luclin)
2007-01-02 Guild Echoes In Eternity / Dol Amroth defeated King Odeen (Quellious)
2006-12-21 Guild Raging Fury defeated Lorekeeper Grenwald (Antonius Bayle)
2006-12-20 Guild Club Fu defeated King Odeen (Bristlebane)
2006-12-20 Guild Tide defeated Lorekeeper Grenwald (Antonius Bayle)
2006-12-17 Guild Dark Horizon defeated King Odeen (Xegony)
