Happy Holidays!!

[timetravelling]

As a New Year’s Resolution (a few days early, admittedly), we pledge to create within a few months (aka GU52):

• A brand new two-group instance with 9 bosses—over half of whom drop Void Shards—balanced for players in legendary gear
• A very challenging brand new four-group raid instance
• Brand new tradeskill instance in the Void
• A Lavastorm revamp
• Brand new areas added to Lavastorm with level 80 solo content
• A new faction with gear to gather from the new Lavastorm content
• 12 new armor sets
• All of them with brand new armor appearances
• Including a brand new robe model in which the Helm and Shoulders and Legs are all visible, separate pieces from the Chest
  • And it looks rad *cough* See also: Varsoon *cough*

We have SO MUCH cool stuff planned for y’all, and can’t wait to show it to you!

Enjoy the holidays!!

[Junaru]

timetravelling wrote:

• 12 new armor sets

Thanks and Happy Holidays to you to.

Are we talking 12 new Void Shard armor sets or drop/quested armor?

[Loolee]

Very cool to hear!  Thank you for the good news!

[JenarieII]

Sounds like fun!  As much as I dislike Lavastorm (what is with all the RED zones in the game???), I'm looking forward to the new quests! 

[GPA_Coyote]

Two words to improve Lavastorm:

"Flaming Fae"

Port all of the [Removed for Content]' fairy folk to Lavastorm and hang a huge bug zapper in the center.

As much as I've always hated Lavastorm, I promise I'd never leave.

[Kiara]

GPA_Coyote wrote:

Two words to improve Lavastorm:

"Flaming Fae"

Port all of the [Removed for Content]' fairy folk to Lavastorm and hang a huge bug zapper in the center.

As much as I've always hated Lavastorm, I promise I'd never leave.

Thank you.

I just snorted hot apple cider.  I hope you're pleased with yourself.

[madha]

timetravelling wrote:

As a New Year’s Resolution (a few days early, admittedly), we pledge to create within a few months (aka GU52):

• A brand new two-group instance with 9 bosses—over half of whom drop Void Shards—balanced for players in legendary gear
• Sounds good but will the mobs have normal loot tables with a chance to random drop shards or will they allways drop shards? and will it be enough to warrent fatming the zone? Cause 12 people with a random maybe 4 shard dropping is very week, even if the zone is fun. Now if you add shard missions for the raid zones that would be hawt.
• A very challenging brand new four-group raid instance
• Please please make shure what ever encounter scipts this zone will have make sure they work 100% before you release it
• Brand new tradeskill instance in the Void
• Nice the same 3 instances where getting old, make sure the bug you get when you do all the combines then turn them in at once is ironed out for this and the otehr zones
• A Lavastorm revamp
• You guys need a great job in EF, i have infact takin all my lvl 80's through EF for AA, please keep up the great work, of and hey No one ever goes to fearrot (sp)
• Brand new areas added to Lavastorm with level 80 solo content
• Better be at least 8-10 AA to make it worth my time to go to the zone =)
• A new faction with gear to gather from the new Lavastorm content
• Make sure the quest line gives enough faction to get all the faction rewards doing once a day repetables sucks
• 12 new armor sets
• All of them with brand new armor appearances
• Apperance or color? think we have seen about ever recolor for every armor apperance their is
• Including a brand new robe model in which the Helm and Shoulders and Legs are all visible, separate pieces from the Chest
• Finaly been what 4 years?

We have SO MUCH cool stuff planned for y’all, and can’t wait to show it to you!

Enjoy the holidays!!

[Aera]

Thanks for the info.!  Have a safe holiday.

[Loolee]

madhatr wrote:

timetravelling wrote:

As a New Year’s Resolution (a few days early, admittedly), we pledge to create within a few months (aka GU52):

• A brand new two-group instance with 9 bosses—over half of whom drop Void Shards—balanced for players in legendary gear
• Sounds good but will the mobs have normal loot tables with a chance to random drop shards or will they allways drop shards? and will it be enough to warrent fatming the zone? Cause 12 people with a random maybe 4 shard dropping is very week, even if the zone is fun. Now if you add shard missions for the raid zones that would be hawt.
• A very challenging brand new four-group raid instance
• Please please make shure what ever encounter scipts this zone will have make sure they work 100% before you release it
• Brand new tradeskill instance in the Void
• Nice the same 3 instances where getting old, make sure the bug you get when you do all the combines then turn them in at once is ironed out for this and the otehr zones
• A Lavastorm revamp
• You guys need a great job in EF, i have infact takin all my lvl 80's through EF for AA, please keep up the great work, of and hey No one ever goes to fearrot (sp)
• Brand new areas added to Lavastorm with level 80 solo content
• Better be at least 8-10 AA to make it worth my time to go to the zone =)
• A new faction with gear to gather from the new Lavastorm content
• Make sure the quest line gives enough faction to get all the faction rewards doing once a day repetables sucks
• 12 new armor sets
• All of them with brand new armor appearances
• Apperance or color? think we have seen about ever recolor for every armor apperance their is
• Including a brand new robe model in which the Helm and Shoulders and Legs are all visible, separate pieces from the Chest
• Finaly been what 4 years?

We have SO MUCH cool stuff planned for y’all, and can’t wait to show it to you!

Enjoy the holidays!!

Nothing like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

[JeffreyDeb]

Continuing updates with the kind of content we have seen lately (most especially the great re-vamps of the old areas) will help to ease the fears of those who see the real-time-monetary transaction debacle as a slide down a slippery slope to having to pay for content that once was free.

Keep it up, folks!

[KachikoJa]

timetravelling wrote:

• Including a brand new robe model in which the Helm and Shoulders and Legs are all visible, separate pieces from the Chest
  • And it looks rad *cough* See also: Varsoon *cough*

I can't remember what Varsoon's robe looks like *pout*... unless they're talking about the robe he drops...

In any regard, thanks for all the hard work guys... hope you all get some rest over the holidays!

[evilbp]

I don't see how any of this is going to help the casual player and the current state of the instances. EQ2 doesn't need any more solo quest. What I would love to see is some scaled down new instances (since some people love the harder instances) and small group content. Or possibly some scaling instances. If you all are going to keep pushing new content like the instances/raid in ToS I wish you would just tell us. This casual gamer would go ahead and find greener pastures.

[Cele]

GPA_Coyote wrote:

Two words to improve Lavastorm:

"Flaming Fae"

Port all of the [Removed for Content]' fairy folk to Lavastorm and hang a huge bug zapper in the center.

As much as I've always hated Lavastorm, I promise I'd never leave.

*Hides her wings and /bonks Cyote*

[Harvash]

Wow, everyone always complains because they feel the Dev's don't have a closer community communication thing going on...then, when they do - they complain about that. /sigh

Anyways, this all sounds great! I look forward to yet another zone revamp, they have been done pretty well so far.  I even got down to rolling an alt and I am doing EF stuff right now....maybe I won't out level LS revamp.

Sounds like you guys (dev's) are taking everything in a good direction, keep up the good work!

To address another comment I do agree with however, yes - small group stuff would be very welcomed.  I tend to Duo with the wife alot, plus it's easier to find one or two guildies to group up with on short notice then filling a "Dream Team" to conquere the harder zones.

I have been reliving some of the good times by leveling the alt, although XP gain seems incredibly much faster than I remember 2+ years ago.  Yes, I am aware they increased the rate - and I do have 2 80 toons giving bonuses - but we barely get half way into the content before it starts graying out!  This is not a gripe either however, I have done this stuff a lot, so I don't want to drag it out.  I am however doing a lot of the weird, out of the way stuff I didn't do previously.

Getting a good balance of solo content, group zones (taken care of alread..lol) and giving the short of time or duo type players something to work with would be great.  Please though, just say "No" to RoK style questing - that was the reason i quit for a year...lol.

Be safe,

G.

[ThankYouVeryMuch]

Aaaaagh a wholebunch more high level stuff aka TSO which is (NO there is no adventuring content for anyone under vl 70 contrary to your advertising etc. your shard incentives/mentoring and mission system have made sure of that, the scaling the the dungeons doesn't mean a thing with the aforementioned).  The massive insult that the more than misleading marketing for TSO was, for me . .   ..

Ah, well.

Revamped Lavastorm and the third tradeskill, yay.  New faction, yay, altho it sounds like perhaps it'll need one to be very very very high level to work on it? hope not, that wouldn't fit with the current level of the zone (Deep Forge excepted).   But since some of the new content being added to Lavastorm is level 80 Solo, maybe it is.

I just feel like I'm being told how to play, where to play, in what position to play, on what day of the week to play, in what weather to play, how often to play, why to play, oh and don't forget to rub your belly and pat your head every other tuesday, and then you can reset and do it all over again . . . . . exaggerated there for effect. 

Game Balance is a difficult and complicated and not the only issue involved but my heck, it's certainly feeling like the above paragraph anymore.

Edited to add:  Thanks for all the work you do on the game; whether I stay or go based on the decisions of the kinds of things you add is up to me.

[Necrotherian]

evilbp wrote:

 EQ2 doesn't need any more solo quest.

I will never understand people who say this.  Solo content exists so that people who opt not to group with others can still reach level cap in a reasonable amount of time, without being forced to group with others.  It is called EverQUEST II not EverLFG II. 

I would prefer it if HQs had alternate paths to finish them, with an award with the same name, but with different stats for the different paths taken.  For instance, a solo reward would have an item which, although it has the Legendary tag, has Treasured stats, the group would have Legendary with Legendary stats, and the raid would be Legendary with Fabled stats.

That said, here is a good rule of thumb for adding content.  25% Solo content, 25% Group content, 25% Raid content, and 25% Tradeskill content. 

It won't stop all the griping, but some people just have to have something to whine about.

[skirge66]

Sounds great, can't wait!!

p.s. any word on the summoner rework?

[Caelen]

Thank you devs, that looks like the start of a lot of great new content. Looking forward to seeing what the new year brings!

[Titigabe]

Thank you so much for giving us a clue on what's going to happen !!! Communication is getting better and better

The upcoming months sound great

Though I don't understand the meaning of "rad" (french speaking, sorry )

[Ilucide]

Titigabe wrote:

Though I don't understand the meaning of "rad" (french speaking, sorry )

It's ok, poor Timetravelling is stuck with 80s slang. 'Rad' is a word I hope isn't making a comeback anytime soon... like, maybe in my lifetime.

On a more serious note, yeah, all that stuff is coming soon! (though, not in GU51) Our artists and designers have been putting out some really awesome stuff that I can't wait for everyone to have a chance to play. =)

Edit: Before coffee, typos happen!

[Rijacki]

Titigabe wrote:

Though I don't understand the meaning of "rad" (french speaking, sorry )

"rad" is short for "radical" which was a slang term (in the 60s as well as the 80s) for something really nice and exciting. A substitute for "cool" or "hot" or "bodacious" or "sick" or "spiffy" ... well lots of different slang words from various times meaning the same thing.

My French slang is extremely limited so I can't even think of an equivalent in your native tongue. How would you express it in French, to describe something that you think is really great and want others to know how excited you are by it?

[Firecracker]

I have to say thanks fo update on what is coming perhaps over the next few updates.

I also want to add few other things I woud love to see in near furture at least before next expac too. At least two new five room houses each in Qeynos & Freeport for the ones we have now are all the same with the exception of Freeport having thier front zone in door in different places. You can use 2 of the Freeport exsisting houses & Qeynos maybe add two in Elddar but give them a totally different inside house plan, also at the same time add a bell too there?  

In this idea Freeport perhaps, if done could have the two exsisting houses in Freeport place the players stuff in the 'Moving Box' or if possible merge with a old exsisting house? I know some peeps may be very upset by this, even I have spent hours on some of my places. I know and maybe some others wouldn't mind so much if we can get more choices to choose from?

I want to see more recipes for house wares please, staircase and a Sink(s) of some type too? No more quest's for these please or least not ones that take a while to do to just get a complete set to set a table with for I have many alts.

I know some have asked for single players owned Big Grand Castles type places with back yards with beaches and that would be great too.

[XRQuest]

evilbp wrote:

I don't see how any of this is going to help the casual player and the current state of the instances. EQ2 doesn't need any more solo quest. What I would love to see is some scaled down new instances (since some people love the harder instances) and small group content. Or possibly some scaling instances. If you all are going to keep pushing new content like the instances/raid in ToS I wish you would just tell us. This casual gamer would go ahead and find greener pastures.

I would really like to agree with evibp statement and take it a little deeper. Besides part of splitpaw the majority of solo content is in the overlands. I have nothing against group content but I would to see more solo instances or scalable instances of current dungons. I like to group when I can but there is nothing like sticking the ye ole looking for group flag out and hitting the lvl chats only to waste a couple of hours waiting for something interesting to come my way. trying to find groups for older quest lines are nearly impossable as well even guilded. Havn't finshed half of my sig quests because of this. I want to be able to log on and have an adventure. I pay enough a month and with expansions that this shouldn't be to much to ask. with this last expansion there is far too much group content not enough balancing of the different play styles. I know i'm going to get flamed for this but this is my oppion and groupers for life can have theirs.  We need a way to finish quest lines that are out dated I don't want to just delete and forget about it or hope they go grey enough for me to complete solo.   

[TheDawsonator]

Loolee wrote:

madhatr wrote:

timetravelling wrote:

As a New Year’s Resolution (a few days early, admittedly), we pledge to create within a few months (aka GU52):

• A brand new two-group instance with 9 bosses—over half of whom drop Void Shards—balanced for players in legendary gear
• Sounds good but will the mobs have normal loot tables with a chance to random drop shards or will they allways drop shards? and will it be enough to warrent fatming the zone? Cause 12 people with a random maybe 4 shard dropping is very week, even if the zone is fun. Now if you add shard missions for the raid zones that would be hawt.
• A very challenging brand new four-group raid instance
• Please please make shure what ever encounter scipts this zone will have make sure they work 100% before you release it
• Brand new tradeskill instance in the Void
• Nice the same 3 instances where getting old, make sure the bug you get when you do all the combines then turn them in at once is ironed out for this and the otehr zones
• A Lavastorm revamp
• You guys need a great job in EF, i have infact takin all my lvl 80's through EF for AA, please keep up the great work, of and hey No one ever goes to fearrot (sp)
• Brand new areas added to Lavastorm with level 80 solo content
• Better be at least 8-10 AA to make it worth my time to go to the zone =)
• A new faction with gear to gather from the new Lavastorm content
• Make sure the quest line gives enough faction to get all the faction rewards doing once a day repetables sucks
• 12 new armor sets
• All of them with brand new armor appearances
• Apperance or color? think we have seen about ever recolor for every armor apperance their is
• Including a brand new robe model in which the Helm and Shoulders and Legs are all visible, separate pieces from the Chest
• Finaly been what 4 years?

We have SO MUCH cool stuff planned for y’all, and can’t wait to show it to you!

Enjoy the holidays!!

Nothing like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

/groan ... Aint that the truth ....

Personally I am pee my pants excited about the prospect of adventuring and discovering these things without having the devs having to walk us through exactly what we are in for.I am also looking forward to the Sacrificial Fae Pyre and will be there with Coyote and a stein of Vodka and Lemon ...Cheers and BeersDaws aka Cyndaa, Dawsonator, Tinkle etc

[Bhagpuss]

The Everfrost revamp was excellent, so even though Iam normally against revamps of old content (nostalgia trumps novelty in my rulebook), I am looking forward to a new take on Lavastorm.

New solo content for 80s is always welcome, but now that we have an absolute ton of high - level solo content (all of Kunark outdoors for a start) and high-level full-group content (Kunark and SoD dungeons), any chance of adding some dedicated high-level small-group (duo/trio) content?

[OutcastBlade]

ThankYouVeryMuch wrote:

Aaaaagh a wholebunch more high level stuff aka TSO which is (NO there is no adventuring content for anyone under vl 70 contrary to your advertising etc. your shard incentives/mentoring and mission system have made sure of that, the scaling the the dungeons doesn't mean a thing with the aforementioned).  The massive insult that the more than misleading marketing for TSO was, for me . .   ..

Ah, well.

Revamped Lavastorm and the third tradeskill, yay.  New faction, yay, altho it sounds like perhaps it'll need one to be very very very high level to work on it? hope not, that wouldn't fit with the current level of the zone (Deep Forge excepted).   But since some of the new content being added to Lavastorm is level 80 Solo, maybe it is.

I just feel like I'm being told how to play, where to play, in what position to play, on what day of the week to play, in what weather to play, how often to play, why to play, oh and don't forget to rub your belly and pat your head every other tuesday, and then you can reset and do it all over again . . . . . exaggerated there for effect. 

Game Balance is a difficult and complicated and not the only issue involved but my heck, it's certainly feeling like the above paragraph anymore.

Edited to add:  Thanks for all the work you do on the game; whether I stay or go based on the decisions of the kinds of things you add is up to me.

Seriously. Level up. It's not that difficult... In fact it's dead easy with the massive quantities of content provided. And when you're level 80 you will be very very thankful that the content is the way it is, because otherwise you'd run out of things to do fast.(RoK)

As for scaling dungeons, you're wrong. You just need to practice and get a little bit better at your class. I played in a level 70 dungeon and it was hard but it was rewarding. I did Deep Forge with one group that kept wiping, and another group that cleared through no problem and I was the only one mythicaled. Difference between the two groups? Collective Skill.

TSO is right where it should be for difficulty, otherwise everyone would have completed everything by now.

[evilbp]

Hey Necro I didn't mean anything by my statement. Just the way the current content is geared it really hurts my group of friends. We all have 40 hour a week jobs and only get to play around 2 hours a night. We have been trying to do the instances but to be honest it is hit or miss. We usually have 4 people on and for the life of us we can't seem to get a group up in guild, alliance or general chat. Like someone else said when you have limited time it is hard to put the best group together. I was just saying all that so the Devs would think about the content they are putting out.

All they would need to do is have different options for quest and instances (solo, small group, group, sometimes raid). First I by no means think I should have the same gear that someone who plays 40 hours a week has. You get what you put into the game. It is just very frustrating for us when we have to do the solo quests with a small group (very boring but fast). At level 80 we cant do anything harder with 4 peeps because we will get the crap beat out of us and when group mates are limited that basically limits us to either tradeskilling (which we are all already max level) and solo quest.

Please Devs add something for small groups. I think my suggestion would help ALL involved. Something similar to what Anarchy Online/City of Heroes is doing. Have mission hubs and the mission automatically scales to group makeup. So if you zone in solo it will be a solo zone. If you zone in with a 3 man group it will be for a three man group. If you zone in with 6 raid level geared group members it will be scaled for 6 raid level geared group members. The loot would change in a similar fashion. There might be a very small percentage of something really nice dropping in the solo instance but in the 6 man version there is a much greater chance. You could also have quest for these zones and have some kind of tech that randomizes the zones each time it spawns so it is never the same twice. I think something like this would be a great addition to the game and help ALL play styles.

The different play styles need to stop fighting and work together to make EQ2 better or we are going to be stuck with this crap of one play style getting all the love each expansion. I think this would help maintain subs as well.

I need to work at Sony !

[evilbp]

Kanolth@Antonia Bayle wrote:

ThankYouVeryMuch wrote:

Aaaaagh a wholebunch more high level stuff aka TSO which is (NO there is no adventuring content for anyone under vl 70 contrary to your advertising etc. your shard incentives/mentoring and mission system have made sure of that, the scaling the the dungeons doesn't mean a thing with the aforementioned).  The massive insult that the more than misleading marketing for TSO was, for me . .   ..

Ah, well.

Revamped Lavastorm and the third tradeskill, yay.  New faction, yay, altho it sounds like perhaps it'll need one to be very very very high level to work on it? hope not, that wouldn't fit with the current level of the zone (Deep Forge excepted).   But since some of the new content being added to Lavastorm is level 80 Solo, maybe it is.

I just feel like I'm being told how to play, where to play, in what position to play, on what day of the week to play, in what weather to play, how often to play, why to play, oh and don't forget to rub your belly and pat your head every other tuesday, and then you can reset and do it all over again . . . . . exaggerated there for effect. 

Game Balance is a difficult and complicated and not the only issue involved but my heck, it's certainly feeling like the above paragraph anymore.

Edited to add:  Thanks for all the work you do on the game; whether I stay or go based on the decisions of the kinds of things you add is up to me.

Seriously. Level up. It's not that difficult... In fact it's dead easy with the massive quantities of content provided. And when you're level 80 you will be very very thankful that the content is the way it is, because otherwise you'd run out of things to do fast.(RoK)

As for scaling dungeons, you're wrong. You just need to practice and get a little bit better at your class. I played in a level 70 dungeon and it was hard but it was rewarding. I did Deep Forge with one group that kept wiping, and another group that cleared through no problem and I was the only one mythicaled. Difference between the two groups? Collective Skill.

TSO is right where it should be for difficulty, otherwise everyone would have completed everything by now.

This is rich coming from someone that has 13 fabled pieces and one mythical.  The content may be scaled to your level of play but not to mine.  I wish the devs would hear the casual players and just add scaling instances.  We always don't have the time to look for the perfect group to do instances so we are FORCED to run solo content.  At this point I dont ever care about the silly shards.  I just want some small group content that we can do when we all jump on.  You guys can have all the uber loot.  I just want some new content we can do.

[Pitt Hammerfi]

Awesome, thanks very much

[Southwitch]

Happy Holidays to all the folks at SOE, too. And heck, to all you other players as well. Happy Holidays to everyone!