GU44 is currently on the Test server, and, as expected, Mum and Kaisha have taken a look at the crafting-related items. Join Mum for a GU44 Crafting Preview and then see what happens when Kaisha takes a closer look at one of the new provisioner mastery recipes.

March 13, 2008 - Did You Know?

Random helpful hint: Did you know that alt-f brings up the faction section of your paperdoll? This can be especially handy for crafters as various factions become more important. Also note that Qeynos, Freeport and Neriak crafting society factions will be listed in the "Shattered Lands" dropdown on that page.

Update: On top of Brew Day events going live today, the following was also patched in this m*rning:

Danak crafting fuel merchants are now no more greedy than Riliss and Bathezid crafting fuel merchants.

March 12, 2008 - Decorators! Input Needed

Domino stopped by our forums to let us know about some discussion regarding possible changes with houses and how they handle LORE items. Before such changes are implemented, they need to know what LORE house items decorators use a lot of that may need the LORE tag removed. Please add any input you have to this thread on the SOE forums.

March 11, 2008 - Stray Updates

A gallery for the RoK faction furniture recipes from GU43 has been added to the furniture gallery. The images have also been added to the appropriate by-type gallery (rugs, lights, etc.) This gallery includes links to the size comparisons (including the two resized lights) and the recipes. Since the above takes a solid chunk of time to code and such, it may take a bit before the RoK fashion images are properly set up in the fashion gallery, but we are making progress!

Domino stopped by our forums to respond to a thread discussing Ironforge faction, and mentioned that GU44 will see the addition of two more quests in the Journeyman Service questline, both of which will give increasing amounts of faction with your city's crafting society. (The first two give 250 and 500 faction, respectively. They are also the only way to obtain Provisioner Mastery Volume 1 and Volume 2 and/or an Advanced recipe book of the appropriate class/tier.) You can be sure I will get more details posted as able!

March 06, 2008 - Downtime Next Wednesday

Here is early advanced warning about downtime for all SOE products (games, forums, etc.) next Wednesday:

Beginning at 1am PDT/8am GMT on Wednesday, March 12th all SOE services including game servers, forums, game websites, and subscription services will be unavailable due to system maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 4 hours.

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

March 04, 2008 - GU43 and a Housing Note

Game Update 43 was released today. You can find patch notes here. If you have somehow missed all the hubub this game update, you have a bit of reading to do. I recommend starting here and working your way through the linked articles.

Now, for an important housing note. If you visit the broker and find that he thinks you have only one broker slot to sell from, vist your home and/or pay your rent. (Just a visit will do the trick, to remind the server, and the broker, that you are allowed more vault slots, but it never hurts to make sure your rent is current!) SOE Developer Zoltaroth has commented on it in the SOE forums:

We cleaned up some of the code relating to minimum house slots. The effect of this is that you may have to load into your house for the new data to be picked up by the server. Once you zone in to your house, it should be fixed permanently. If you have problems beyond that please /petition or PM me.

March 03, 2008 - GU43: More Updates

We've had a bit of news about updates/changes to items that have been previewed here. Check out this late-breaking-news article for more details. Even later-breaking news is that GU43 will be released tomorrow.

March 01, 2008 - A Closer Look at GU43 Furniture

For those of you who are trying to figure out which of the GU43 you really want, and how it will fit inside your home, Kaisha has done up size comparisons of all pieces with the exception of three. (One is delayed until GU44, the other two are due for some size tweaking before this update is released.) There's no real fancy formatting to this page, just large images, since they'll all need to be relinked once this has been released and the recipes are added. You can check it out here.

February 28, 2008 - GU43 Preview-ish

GU43 looks like it will have quite a bit of crafter goodness. I promised folks that I would have a preview up today, and, given the amount of information to wade through, it is coming out in installments. First off is a mini-humor piece introducing some of the changes to Qeynos and Freeport city zones. Nothing too fancy, but appropriately "Mum" For those who just want details, without the frufru, you'll be better off starting with the GU43 Crafting Overview. There will be more, lots more, meaty information, later in the day, k? {crawls into a pack to sleep for a few hours}

Edit #1: Operating under the assumption that folks will want to know "is it worth" it on grinding any specific faction, before they get much more eye-candy, I spent the day working on testing and documenting recipes for every class. I could have had this up much faster, but I feel pretty strongly about helping to test things while on Test, not just slipping over, grabbing data, and sneaking off again. Without further ado, here are the GU43 Recipe Details for each and every crafting class. I will now begin image juggling left, right, sideways and diagonally, thanks to my partner-in-crime, Kaisha.

Edit #2: Ohmygoodness. You want eye-candy? You get eye-candy. This page has a huge amount of graphics and some of the images are rather large, to display the finer details of the items, so be prepared to be hit with a bit of loading. I suspect you will find it worth the wait when you see the GU43 Faction Items Image Gallery that contains the various house or worn items that can be crafted from the RoK crafting faction recipes.

Heartfelt thank you's go out most especially to: Kaisha - for all the image editing and re-editing, late-night image shoots, and everything else she does so wonderfully, all while still under the weather with "the Kunarkian death flu". To Domino, not only for this lovely update, and all the crafter love she continues to give us, but for the immeasurable patience she has when I interrupt her busy schedule with random comments, whimpers, and sometimes just plain bouncing off the walls. To Fedd of the amazing crafting alt-army on Test, as well as the rest of the Test community, for all their helpfulness and company as I poke, prod, spin in circles, gibber as I test things, distract them with creative terms such as "oomph", and so on. I hope you folks realize that if I wasn't so attached to my guild of friends and family on my main server, I would so be living on Test with you folks all the time! To Rothgar, who has shown much grace under pressure on the SOE forums when folks got heated with their opinions on mannequins (and placement surfaces on furniture), for still being willing to post updates for us regardless of the sometimes aggressive behavior there. And, last, but not least, Domino's mysterious apprentice Olihin, for all the work he put into all this faction-stuff.

February 27, 2008 - Equinox and other News

Preorders are being taken for EQ2's official print gaming magazine, Equinox. This magazine, which contains no commercial ads, will include the following features: Artisan Section (including a brief bit by yours truly), Legends of Norrath Forsworn Feature and Collectible Poster, Role Playing Tips, Leadership Guide, Norrath Guild Bill of Rights, Developer Interviews, Community News, Fan Fiction. There are also a couple of spiffy preorder goodies as well. You can find out more details here.

GU43 goodies for tradeskillers have been patched to Test. Expect a preview within the next day. There's a lot there for crafters, so it is taking time to wade through it, even with some fabulous folks on Test helping out. While you are waiting on the preview, why not take a peek at the new mannequin page?

February 26, 2008 - Yummy Forum Tidbits

Browsing the SOE forums, as well as our own forums, can net some very interesting bit of information now and then.

Dev tracker over on the SOE forums netted me a little blurb last week from Rothgar regarding mannequins and house items that don't allow items to be placed on them. It mentions not only some fixes incoming with GU43, but also some long-term hopes for different mannequnin poses and sizes. Edit: also check out this thread for more details on fixes to several table/rug placement issues.

Next is a bit on node locking ... sort of. Autenil mentions that due to some changes made to fix an exploit, as long as you are harvesting a node, nobody else can. (This means having a harvest in-progress, not just standing there staring at the node.) For those of you who have gotten into the habit of having the harvesting abilities (found in your knowledge book) on a hotbar, so you can queue up another pull on the node while one is in progress, you should have a lot less issues with node ninjas. You can find the relevant thread here on the SOE forums.

Have a way with words, or just enjoy a cleverly-turned phrase? Tock started a crafting haiku thread on our forums. Join in the fun!

Domino has been posting a bunch of "Know Your Factions" threads on the SOE forums to give folks a little insight into various crafting societies. I have taken the liberty of compiling them here.

February 21, 2008 - A Different Epic Note

The EQ2TC community has been, understandably, focused on the crafting "epic" quests lately. However, it is time to turn a little bit of attention to those hardy adventurers working on their epic weapon lines. We are putting together a guide of Adventurer Epics Needing Tradeskills/Harvesting. This small guide should be of use not only to adventurers, but serve as a head's up to several crafting classes regarding the demand for certain items, requests for commissioned combines, etc.

February 19, 2008 - Erollisi Day Warning

This was posted by Gnobrin over on the SOE forums:

Such as with any starstruck love, it can be fleeting.

Erollisi day festivities will conclude across all EQII Servers (US,EU and JP) in the AM (PST) of Wednesday, February 20th, 2008.

February 12, 2008 - Hotfix, Feb 12

From the hotfix notes:

Scholars who die within the Library of Light while working on their errands for Neeta will now revive within the library.

Edit: After Mum obviously starting the day off on the wrong foot, both she and the Erollisi Day festivities are back on track. Check your in-game email for hints on more ways to celebrate the holiday!

February 11, 2008 - This and That

While Bristlebane is fond of overturning the best-laid plans, love will prevail ... at least in this case. Erollisi Day events are scheduled to go live with tomorrow's (Feb. 12) hotfix on U.S. Servers. The last word we have had says the event will last for a week, so if you haven't made your crafting wishlist yet, you might want to do so soon!

Enthusiasm is still high on many fronts with regard to the crafting epic. I've added a few more maps and images and such, thanks to Kaisha, as well as some hail text in various parts of the writeup. I have more logs to wade through once I get a bit more "oomph".

The Food and Drink Progression Charts are now complete for tier 2 and above. I'll eventually get the information organized and coded for tier 1, for completeness' sake.

The sound of crafting! Domino is seeking input regarding adaptive crafting music. Check out the details here.

February 09, 2008 - Did You Know ...

... that you can perform commissions with members of your group or raid that are in the same zone, but not beside you? Stand at your crafting station and click on their name in the group/raid window to start the commission. This is where crafting raids really shine, as the folks getting work don't have to run from station to station (unless they want to be social, which is a pretty good thing to be with folks that are helping with your epic!) Thanks for the tip, Oisin!

February 07, 2008 - An EQ2 First ...

Last night, an unusual event spontaneously occurred on several servers. Forget, for a moment, those hardy adventurers scurrying hither and yon to find hints regarding their epic weapons. Level 80 crafters were on a quest of their own, one which caused them to form ... crafting raids! Through much hard work and significant cooperation, crafters banded together to work through a questline that hearkened back to the days of EQ and the "PoTC Earring" as it was often referred to, and tried to recreate the long-lost Earring of the Solstice, only with a very decided crafter twist to the final product. More importantly, in many people's eyes (yes, we really do like our fluff that much!), they were then able to claim a Master certificate for their home, and a class-specific cloak. Well done, for all those who have already obtained these lovely items, and three cheers (and then some) to those who participated in our forum discussion. EQ2TC is pleased to provide crafters with their very own epic quest writeup. I'd also like to remind folks that our Marketplace forums are a lovely spot to coordinate the search for other epic crafters on your own server.

February 06, 2008 - GU42 Patch Day

The eagerly-awaited Game Update 42 is currently being patched to U.S. servers, and as you may have been able to tell from the previews already posted on this site, there is quite a bit in it for crafters. Check out the patch notes here for more information.

One of the things going in that has not had a lot of coverage (due to intentional lack of hard details) is what many folks are calling Tradeskill Epics, which are the class-specific quests that Domino told us had been in the works for a while (and which sparked the lovely cloak teaser that we put up last week). About all we know about them is that they will be for level 80 crafters, and that the cloaks are NOT the main reward for these. As more details become available, I will be starting up master threads in each profession forum, tracking the various hints, clues, etc. from different players until we have enough for a proper quest guide on each. Please DO remember that this site is founded on the concept of sharing information in order to make the game more enjoyable for crafters. If you have solved some part of your class quest and don't feel like sharing, do NOT post gloating about it. Either post the details so others can help sort out the next step, or don't post. The long EQTC/EQ2TC tradition of "share or shush" is in effect. 'Nuff said. You can find out what we've already learned here.

It will take a bit for us to get all the various little nigglies on the site edited to reflect all of the things being tweaked/changed/added today, but the Erollisi Day recipes, at least, should be ready and waiting for folks. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Erollisi Day events are NOT live with this update, but will be released later in the month. I apologize for the confusion. Bleah.

Addendum: There is only one master thread discussing the epics, since they all share the same first three quests, and one rough quest writeup that will get more enhancement after I finally take some breathers.

February 05, 2008 - GU42 News

We just received notification that GU42 will go live tomorrow at 6 a.m. Pacific (just under 11 hours after I am posting this news). For those who are interested in seeing it, there is also a teaser video, BUT the link is not Firefox-friendly, so you might want to dust off IE before you try to do much with this link to the preview.

February 01, 2008 - Vanilla Note

Raw vanilla has had quite the convoluted history over the last couple years. From tier 2 food harvest, to "retirement" back with LU24, to tuber substitute, to suddenly reappearing as a Frostfell harvest in 2006, and then again in 2007 (but not fitting in the Frostfell shopping bag), and still working as a tuber substitute long after all of it's GU24 kindred had mostly stopped lurking around. Seriously, the poor thing is as bad as me with my "I'm sort of retired, but I'm doing all this stuff, so I'm not really retired, am I?" routine.

Starting with GU42 next week, raw vanilla will be allowed to retire except at Frostfell. It will no longer be used as a tuber substitute, since the intent of that substitution was to allow folks to clear out pre-LU24 stockpiles of it, not make totally new stockpiles. It will also have the tag that allows it to be properly stored in the Frostfell shopping bags.

Warning: Undefined variable $article in /home/eqtrader/public_html/eq2/articles/news_page.php on line 64
Printer Friendly version