SOELive 2012 has come and gone, and now comes the process of braindumping all my notes into some form of semi-coherent, semi-organized whole. Please bear with me, as information will appear on this page in fits and spurts. While I arrived home in one piece, my voice, and most of my "oomph" seem to have stayed behind.

While I work on the brain dump, a few quick notes:

• When I specify that a feature is something the devs "want" to do, it really means just that. They want to do it. This does not mean that they can/will do it in the next little while, but that it is on their mental radar, and that they know we want it, and they want it too, but it still has to be wiggled into the schedule, battle with other things for priority, etc. Please don't beat up the devs if it doesn't miraculously appear in the next little while -- or if it doesn't appear at all.
• If I say it is something they'll consider, it means they'll think about it, discuss it, etc. No promises. Don't hold your breath. :D
• If I say it is something they're going to do, it is on the priority list ... somewhere. The ETA may be the next hotfix, or it may be next year sometime. I have no way of telling. It may also need to be pushed back, scrapped, or changed, once they get to trying to make the mechanics work.

Keynote Addresses

Krono - are tradeable/resellable objects that allow you to add 30 days of premium membership to your account. Rather than trying to paraphrase it all, I'm just going to point you to the SOE page on Krono

Expansion Launch Date - November 13th is the launch date for Chains of Destiny. As I work on these notes, open beta is already going on. You can /beta any of your characters to copy them over to the beta server, and use the version dropdown on the top left side of your launchpad, to select the beta server.

Player Studio is now accepting item submissions. While I missed most of that panel at SOELive, you can find some more details here. Also note that at some time in the future, they plan on allowing decorators to sell deeds to homes. The decorator will be able to decorate a home, and essentially bundle up the entire home, and market it via player studio in some manner. Hopefully we'll hear more about that process in the near future. They also mentioned that they plan on allowing player-designed hairstyles in future player studio offerings as well.

Mechanics & Tradeskills Panel

EQII Expansion Panel

This expansion contains content for level 92+ adventurers and crafters.

On the adventuring side of things, the new signature line is going to be soloable.

Ethernere is an afterlife, NOT a realm of undead.

As mentioned in the mechanics and tradeskills panel, spirit stones will be green slot adornments. You will have room to equip 3 (neck, both rings), and they will grow in power/abilities, based on different requirements. Some will be made by tinkerers, some will drop throughout the lands (at all tiers/levels).

The adventuring prestige tree for 90+ adventurers is being expanded and changed a bit now that it will go up to level 95. Over 300 new abilities were added to it (across all classes).

To repeat from the mechanics/tradeskills panel, tradeskill AAs are no longer being included on the adventuring AA tree. Instead, they are included in a totally separate tradeskill specialization tree. (Crafters will earn their tradeskill specialization points between tradeskill levels 10 and 18, with higher level crafters being autogranted the specialization points.)

A bit of info on the group xp changes. Currently, if you're in a full group of players, you are receiving 1/6 of the xp for the kills. With the upcoming changes, IF you contribute to the kill (hit the mob, heal a groupmate, etc.), you will gain full xp (as if you were soloing). Sorry, that's about all the details I have on it right now.

EQII Q&A Panel

There were complaints about Call of the Veteran bugs. Please, please, please, players, put in a /bug with full details. (Where the person being called was when the call request failed, where they were being called to, the level of the player being called, what message was given, etc.) So, instead of just saying that call failed with the in-combat message when there was no combat going on, tell them, for example, that a level 92 character in a T3 Antonican guildhall was unable to be called into the Skyshrine raid zone due to a false "in-combat" message.

There was a request for player-made kilts. The request was noted, but no promises were made on if they'd make that happen in the future or not.

There was a question about improving the housing UI. It is something that the devs want to do. (see disclaimer at top of page)

There was a request for in-home bulletin boards to have the ability to let players make purchases from them, instead of having to run to the guildhall or other broker location to shop. The devs seemed to indicate it was something they'd like to do, but check out that disclaimer at the top of the page. ;D

There was a request for a "want to buy" section for the broker. The devs seemed to like the idea, but no promises.

There was a request to be able to do transmuting via the consignment system. They'll consider it. (see disclaimer at top of page)

Some quests still leave quest items in your inventory at the end of the quest, that should be deleted. Please make sure to /bug the individual quests that have this issue, and the item that they leave behind, since each quest will need to be manually fixed. (Obviously, don't /bug the ones where you need the item still for a later quest, etc.)

There were comments about the recipe book UI, and the inability to resize the edit page of that UI (where you select all the fancy filters like recipe book.) There was also a request for a hide feature, so you can hide things like quest recipes you will not use again, and so on. They'll look into it. (see disclaimer at top of page)

Stray Notes

Tradeskill AA mirrors will be boxed up, so they can be sold on the broker and then unpacked. It was unclear if this was going to be in the expansion, or just "soon", but it is being worked on.

There will NOT be a new tier of reactants from the tradeskill apprentices with this expansion.

For those folks who were interested in more from the writer, Maxwell Alexander Drake, who presented two fabulous writing panels at SOELive, be aware that his graphic novel, Downfall, only has 4 more days on Kickstarter (as of Oct. 22nd)and is underfunded. If you are interested in getting in on it, act fast at this link!

The Fan Faire claim merc will be a vampire SK. The collector's edition merc will be a werewolf (your choice of paladin or healer)

Veteran xp bonus will be reset to level 95!

I want to thank those of you who showed up to my player panel on the role of crafters! It was nice to see you all!