Hot zones for uS servers?

[Iceband]

So yea...since the Euro guys got it last week, and being that its a long weekend in the US, how bout them Hot zones we were promised?

[Alienor]

Hehe Feel ... the .... pain!

[Noaani]

This is something I find kind of funny.

I hope they turn around and say getting these early on EU servers is a kind of appology for getting everything else later than US servers.

Doesn't quite make up for it, but its a nice gesture.

[Yimway]

Noaani wrote:

This is something I find kind of funny.

I hope they turn around and say getting these early on EU servers is a kind of appology for getting everything else later than US servers.

Doesn't quite make up for it, but its a nice gesture.

They already said they got it early cause they got the last update late.

[Noaani]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Noaani wrote:

This is something I find kind of funny.

I hope they turn around and say getting these early on EU servers is a kind of appology for getting everything else later than US servers.

Doesn't quite make up for it, but its a nice gesture.

They already said they got it early cause they got the last update late.

But they get *every* update late...

[Landiin]

AND?

[Noaani]

Toran@Oasis wrote:

AND?

5 posts too much to follow?

And, I think it is good that they get this before the US servers... but I do not think it makes up for getting every update late.

[Iceband]

while its great fun watching you guys go back and forth, can we get an answer from a red name on this one?

[Yimway]

Give em some time, they've not even had thier coffee yet...

[ashen1973]

The Euro servers got their first 'hotzone' day on Saturday, so I would guess the US servers will get theirs tomorrow ( I may be wrong of course).

Not sure yet if the hotzones are running to a Pattern, or if they are random picks, but, here is the list of the zones we had on the Euro servers so far

Crucible

Scion of Ice

Evernight Abbey

Necrotic Asylum

Cavern of the Afflicted

Halls of the Foresaken

Lower Corridors

[Jonaroth]

Any idea what the drop rate increase is yet?

[Kiara]

The plan is for this to get turned on at 2pm Pacific today.

Should that plan change, we'll let you know.

There are no plans for bonus exp this weekend. 

The way this works:  The code goes through and randomly picks a different dungeon each day.  That dungeon will have increased drop rates.  The welcome screen will display which zone is the hot zone for the day

If you're online at the time that it gets turned on, you will have to zone in order for the welcome screen to refresh the information.

[Maroger]

Kiara wrote:

The plan is for this to get turned on at 2pm Pacific today.

Should that plan change, we'll let you know.

There are no plans for bonus exp this weekend. 

The way this works:  The code goes through and randomly picks a different dungeon each day.  That dungeon will have increased drop rates.  The welcome screen will display which zone is the hot zone for the day

If you're online at the time that it gets turned on, you will have to zone in order for the welcome screen to refresh the information.

Does it always have to be a dungeon?? How about something for soloers like overland zones.

[Geothe]

Maroger wrote:

Kiara wrote:

The plan is for this to get turned on at 2pm Pacific today.

Should that plan change, we'll let you know.

There are no plans for bonus exp this weekend. 

The way this works:  The code goes through and randomly picks a different dungeon each day.  That dungeon will have increased drop rates.  The welcome screen will display which zone is the hot zone for the day

If you're online at the time that it gets turned on, you will have to zone in order for the welcome screen to refresh the information.

Does it always have to be a dungeon?? How about something for soloers like overland zones.

The entire reason for doing this is so that people have better chances at getting the rare fabled items in zones.Increased drops in overland zones?Grats on more Adept 1 books and randomly generated treasured armor!

[ashen1973]

Nice to know how it works (random zone rather than a rota)

from my experiences over the last week (running zones and the amount of loot-right auctions being run), its quite a big increase in the chances of Fabled loot (Every hotzone I ran saw at least one exquisite chest).

legendary/treasured rates do not seem to be changed.

[feldon30]

Started exactly at 2pm PDT on the dot. Guk: Lower Corridors on several servers that I checked (maybe all of them?).

[Vraeth]

and it was the whole day on eu servers too

[Tavi]

So it looks like hot zones will only be 70+ zones?

[Bookbunny]

Is there a way to bring up the welcome screen once you have closed it?

[Morghus]

Bookbunny wrote:

Is there a way to bring up the welcome screen once you have closed it?

Ctrl - L, or the eq2 button.

[Buneary]

[Dechau]

Its a nice change, and not to OP for sure..

I've run a hot zone and gotten as much as 3 exquisite and I've run another and not gotten 1, so its ok I'd say

Does not mean its a guarantee, so its not like - Yea we get a free fabled - update

[rbritz]

Well unless I'm not seeing it, I think we have a bug or serious programming decision. Since release at 2pm, it's been all Guk instances for the hot zones. If random, why all Guks?

[Rqron]

Just another worthless ""feature"" concocted by some stoned SOE employee that only benefits a few and not the average players that could care less about instances.

[Bookbunny]

Thank you Morghus... I always forget to check the eQ2 button!

FYI we ran the hot zone today (Guk 1) and only the final guy dropped an exquisite and it was the common fabled drop.  Bummer!

[feldon30]

Rqron wrote:

Just another worthless ""feature"" concocted by some stoned SOE employee that only benefits a few and not the average players that could care less about instances.

What a strange response. There are many different gameplay styles in EQ2. Solo questing, Duo questing, Heroic dungeon running, and Raiding. There is more than enough solo and duo quest opportunities in this game. There are something like 6,000 quests in the game.

If grouping instances were "worthless" and not something players wanted, do you think SoE would have spend 70% of the development time on The Shadow Odyssey on group instances? One of the biggest complaints about these instances is that the documented drop rate (which can be confirmed at EQ2.ZAM.com) for some of the better items are less than 1%. So this increases the % drop rate for all Fabled items in one instance per day.

[Rothgar]

rbritz wrote:

Well unless I'm not seeing it, I think we have a bug or serious programming decision. Since release at 2pm, it's been all Guk instances for the hot zones. If random, why all Guks?

I take the blame for not communicating this to Kiara, but actually the choice of hot zone isn't random.  It's on a specific rotation and I'm sure it won't take long for someone to create a wiki article that shows the rotation.  It works very similar to the Daily Mission in Moors.

[Barx]

Rothgar wrote:

rbritz wrote:

Well unless I'm not seeing it, I think we have a bug or serious programming decision. Since release at 2pm, it's been all Guk instances for the hot zones. If random, why all Guks?

I take the blame for not communicating this to Kiara, but actually the choice of hot zone isn't random.  It's on a specific rotation and I'm sure it won't take long for someone to create a wiki article that shows the rotation.  It works very similar to the Daily Mission in Moors.

We're already keeping track of the zones at EQ2i, and once we have the full list (once we see it start to repeat) I'll update our "Daily Double" widget on the EQ2i homepage to automatically determine and show the hot zone as well

[Aule]

Rqron wrote:

Just another worthless ""feature"" concocted by some stoned SOE employee that only benefits a few and not the average players that could care less about instances.

The average players don't care about instances?

I'll bite then, what do the average players care about?

[ashen1973]

Rothgar wrote:

rbritz wrote:

Well unless I'm not seeing it, I think we have a bug or serious programming decision. Since release at 2pm, it's been all Guk instances for the hot zones. If random, why all Guks?

I take the blame for not communicating this to Kiara, but actually the choice of hot zone isn't random.  It's on a specific rotation and I'm sure it won't take long for someone to create a wiki article that shows the rotation.  It works very similar to the Daily Mission in Moors.

Good to know.

If we are going to see the rotation follow the current pattern (Crucible, Scion, Evernight, necrotic, Befallen COA, Befallen HoF, Guk Lower, Guk outer, Guk halls, Anathema) would it be possible to change the rotation slightly?

Currently the firts 3 on this list are all hotzones on the day before they are Daily-doubles. It would be nice to have at least a couple of days between them.