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Last week I was lucky enough to go on a sneak-peek press tour of the upcoming Echoes of Faydwer expansion, which is due to ship November 14. Even going into the tour with the expectation that I would be bowled over by new content, nothing prepared me for the reality ... and there is still over a month to go on content, fixes, tweaks and so on! While I wait on NDA approval and clarifications on a few tradeskill questions that I lobbed at them at the last minute (which will be included in Part 2 of the tour later this week), please join me as I give you a partial preview of what is to come in this amazing new expansion, featuring a myriad of content for all levels of players, catering to a variety of playstyles ... (Part 1 of A Visit with the Fae continues here)

October 05, 2006 - A Visit with the Fae ... Coming Soon

I went on a press tour for the Echoes of Faydwer expansion today, and ... wow. Just ... WOW. Rather than racing through a writeup, and missing something vital, I am taking my time, asking some extra questions of a tradeskillish nature and so on. I hope to have the writeup ready for public consumption Monday-ish and promise it will be worth the wait!

October 04, 2006 - GU28 Is Here!

Game Update 28, with the addition of tradeskill equipment to various outdoor locations, has been patched to the live servers. (A copy of the patch notes can be found here on our forums). I still can't figure out if I should laugh or scream at the folks that are still screaming that the sky is falling and all their instances will be closed today. The information that they were not removing the instances was posted on the front page and the forums of this site, and in several spots, repeatedly, in the SoE forums. But folks that seem unable/unwilling to read that information are flipping out. {gibbers}

Meanwhile, I am getting in yet another /bug, as well as a direct ping in, regarding the fact that, as per my bugs when this was on Test, the fuel changes for rare potions and poisons has created more of an issue than it has fixed, with rare potions/poisons now needing less fuel than their common counterparts.

September 26, 2006 - Tradeskill Instances Update

If you have been following either the SoE forums or the EQ2TC forums, you probably have heard about the tradeskill instances on Test being closed down, and the crafting equipment being moved to the main city zones. It caused a {cough} bit of hubub on many fronts, ranging from outright knee-jerk reactions from folks who liked the ambiance and convenience of the instances, to very real concerns over crowding, lag, etc.

I would like to personally thank those who aided in the playtest on Test yesterday, and managed to do so in a civil manner. For the folks who couldn't even follow simple requests during the final minutes of the test and restrict their ooc comments accordingly - BAD trolls, you failed Reading Comprehension 101 and Common Courtesy 101. No cookies for you!

I am happy to say that despite the sort of behavior (thankfully only from a small handful) that reinforces why the devs often don't like dealing directly with the players in emotional situations, there is some good news from Glendral:

• First, we are adding the tradeskill society instances back in. We still may remove them in the future but we definitely need to do a lot more work before we can do that. The devices that are in the main city zones are staying in as well.
• We are looking at a lot of the feedback we got from the playtest, /feedback, and the boards for possible implementation. Among the topics we're discussing include adding more bankers and brokers in other zones, cost of the tradeskill devices you can purchase for your house, etc.
• I have added a Work Order Clipboard that you will be able to purchase from either the Coalition of Tradesfolk or the Ironforge Exchange once you have amiable faction with either of them.
• I added/fixed a number of merchants that were missing tradeskill fuel in the city zones.
• I know about the problem in the Clothespinners, in North Qeynos, with the collision between the desk and the loom, and this has already been fixed internally. Unfortunately since this fix requires changes to art assets that are already locked for this update, we won’t be able to get it out until Game Update 29.
• The wholesalers on the Queen's Colony and the Outpost of the Overlord will once again correctly begin you on your path as a crafter.

September 20, 2006 - Crosseyed Redhead

I have the feeling that my eyes are permanently crossed after this afternoon, but hopefully folks will appreciate the end result(s).

Thanks to the Furniture Gallery Goddess, Elyana, the last of the furniture images has been redone into the gallery format. I've scrapped the T6 rare and T7 temporary furniture pages and juggled everything into the appropriate gallery category.

You will also notice a new category of "Fashion" on the navbar for the main site. Another talented lady, Kaisha of Permafrost, is hard at work putting together a really snazzy bunch of images for a tailored armor fashion gallery. It will be under construction for a while still, as that darn real life thing takes precedence, but you can get a solid look at several tiers of cloth and leather armor fashions from the new fashion link. (If any graphically-inclined person is willing to take the lead for whipping up something similar for chain and plate armor, please let me know. With everything else that is going on, I need someone other than me to coordinate getting screenshots, giving them a standardized look, etc.

For both of the above projects, full credit and thanks go out to the graphical goddesses who made it all possible. Any and all blame for creative typos and/or coding errors are all my fault, and likely part and parcel of going crosseyed over the editing of raw html and php coding to format the pages properly. {grin}

September 18, 2006 - Brace for Possible Lag

Due to the release of the next EQ expansion tomorrow, and the fact that the main EQ2TC site shares a server with the main EQTC site, and the forums for both share another server, we may see a bit of lag in the site/forums. Please bear with us. (Again, for those who read the above quickly and immediately went into a tizzy, tomorrow is the EQ Serpent Spine expansion release not the EQ2 EoF expansion, which is going into beta this week.)

September 15, 2006 - EoF Beta Signups Announced

Sony Online Entertainment is pleased to announce that signups for beta testing of Echoes of Faydwer, the 3rd expansion for EverQuest II, are now open. Prospective adventurers can sign up and have a chance to see or even play as the Fae, the new playable race in Echoes of Faydwer, as well as tour the new zones, many of which are taken from the original EverQuest, such as Greater Faydark, Steamfont Mountains and Butcherblock Mountains.

Beta registration is open to current EverQuest II subscribers. To sign up for the beta, visit http://eq2beta.station.sony.com/beta_reg/register.jsp to register. The first wave of players approved for the beta will be allowed in on Wednesday, September 20.

September 12, 2006 - Hotfixes

Today's patch notes includes the following:

The resident scribe has been at it again fixing more spelling errors in tradeskill writs!

September 07, 2006 - More on Tradeskill Writs

I finally surfaced for air, and worked on a small writeup on the writs for the quests section of the site. You can reach it directly here. There are still a couple niggly issues in higher-level provisioner writs where it may ask for the wrong items, but those are being caught and fixed quickly. Enjoy!

September 06, 2006 - GU27 - Tradeskill Writs and More

With the implementation of Game Update (GU) 27 today, the new tradeskill writ system has been implemented. Several other tradeskill changes went in, including many fuel change costs (which will, once again, make the much-abused database be far more incorrect than correct), the addition of imbued bandoliers and the like, and so on. You can view the full patch notes here.

Addendum: Dymus has already acknowledged this issue, and coded a fix, which will be patched with the next live server hotfix. However, until the next hotfix, provisioners that get the level 59 writ "Culinary Creations by Courier" (rush order or work order) AND have prickly pear muffins as the 4th item on the list, will actually need to make prickly pear cookies instead. If muffins are 3rd on the list, it is actually looking for the muffins.

August 28, 2006 - Dialogue with the DenMother

Over the weekend, Radar-X from Ten Ton Hammer conducted an interview with me for TTH. You can read it here.

August 25, 2006 - GU 27 Preview and Writs!

SoE has announced that they will now have previews of major game updates, starting with the upcoming GU27 on the EQ2Players site. Those who wish to comment on this informative new preview feature should use this thread.

An excerpt from the preview follows:

Tradeskill Writs Return

Here's a very quick run-down of these new tradeskill writs, which includes time-sensitive Rush Orders and untimed (but less rewarding) Work Orders:

• You will need to be level 20 and have chosen your specialty before the Rush Order or Work Order foreman will give you one of the new orders.
• After getting a Work Order from the foreman, you need to pick up your invoice from one of the Work Order desks which can now be found in the tradeskill instances. The invoice will give the details on what the Work Order is asking you to make and will start the timer if you are on a Rush Order.
• If the timer on a Rush Order runs out before all the items have been created, the quest will revert back to the step in which you need to pick up the invoice again and you'll need to start your crafting over.
• Finishing all items within the time limit will direct you to the foreman for your reward.
• All Rush Orders have better rewards than the untimed Work Orders, but both will award coin. If you are a citizen of either Freeport or Qeynos the order will reward you with status and appropriate faction as well.

Game Update 27 also includes another tradeskill addition: new recipes for Imbued Bandoliers, Pouches, Satchels, and Sheaths. These new recipes will appear automatically in the appropriate recipe scrolls. In addition, all level 60-70 Imbue recipes will no longer require any additional components besides Scintillating Materials.

August 17, 2006 - Rush Work Orders On Test

The new tradeskill writ system is now on Test. These new writs, known as Rush Work Orders, will be timed quests to craft certain items. While there are still some kinks in the system to be worked out before these go live (such as basing the reward off your adventuring level instead of your tradeskilling level), the basic functionality is there and ready to be tested. Testers, please be sure to make good use of the /bug and /feedback commands while testing these, as Dymus has specifically asked us to give these things a thorough once-over. The original post is here on the SoE forums. For those who can't read those forums from w*rk, but can reach ours, there is a repeat of the basic information here.

I will be spending a good chunk of time testing these, when I'm not off dealing with my attack hummingbirds, and ask that if you see me on Test, you do NOT fling me tells with details of bugs you find, but rather drop me an in-game email or a PM here on the forums if you feel the need for more elaboration than went into your /bug or /feedback. My tell load when I "go public" over there gets a bit insane, and it is going to be really hard to test out timed quests if I have a couple dozen folks all clamoring for my attention at the same time. :)

August 09, 2006 - Game Update 26

Game Update (GU) 26 was patched in today. Below are some of the highlights that are of greatest impact to tradeskillers. Please click here for the full patch notes.

Partial Patch Notes (see link above)

*** Items ***

• Mastercrafted (rare tradeskilled) Armor, Weapons, and some treasured items have had an increase in mitigation and damage values applied to them.
• Tranquil Wind Bracers are now cloth rather than leather.
• Hex dolls now use Magic resistance instead of Heat to determine success chances of landing on target.
• Hex dolls that decrease resistances or attributes were adjusted to scale appropriately for their level.
• Dragonhide Tomes are now equippable at level 62.
• Harvesting Tools will no longer spam you when you zone or unequip them.
• Cobalt Reverent Boots now have the correct appearance.
• Harvesting Tool buffs no longer stack.

*** Tradeskills ***

• Any of the Crafting Trainers in Freeport, Haven, or Qeynos can certify characters for their crafting class and specialty. The message received at levels 9 and 19 have been modified to make this clearer. The old certification NPCs can still be used and they now have the Crafting Trainer purpose tag. Also note that you can no longer accrue additional experience into levels 10 and 20. You can no longer get to level 9 with 200% XP then have that carry over into 10, for example.
• The amount of fuel needed for Wild Apple Juice was reduced from 3 to 1.
• Pugilist's Fists Wraps will now list Raw Rawhide Leather as their primary component.
• Pontiff's armor will now have a description of Raw Rawhide Leather.
• Spirit Totem of the Carnivorous Plant can now be only be equipped by level 60+ characters.
• A number of recipes that would previously show the item stats for the crude product will now show you what a pristine product will look like instead.
• The Maj'Dul Coffee recipe now uses the correct amount of fuel.
• Recipes found in Tailoring Essentials Volume 64 should now all be level 64.

August 06, 2006 - Writs - Another Change In Plans

At the House of Commons (HoC) dev chat last week, along with some follow-up on the SoE forums, we learned that there has been another change in plans with regards to tradeskill writs, as well as some scheduling changes. Dymus had the following to say during the HoC Chat:

The current tradeskill writs are slightly different than the previous implementation. The new writs will typically ask you to create 1-6 different items with variations on the number within those different items. The new writs will award coin, status, and faction (if you are a citizen). The major difference is that the new writs will have a timer to complete the writ. Since that provides more challenge we can give them greater reward.

At the moment they (the writs)should be slated for Game Update 27, this will depend greatly on how they do through testing of that update and the feedback we get on them.

He then posted later in the SoE forums with the following elaboration:

To answer a couple things since there's some question about it. The new writs will not have a timer that locks you out from getting another as the old ones did. As soon as you complete one, you can pick up another. Since the amount of time it takes to create an item doesn't vary an incredible amount (and there are no subcombines to factor in complication now) it is possible to set these up without a lockout since there are fewer variables.

The new writs are also going to require pristines to be created. With the timer on these 'rush job work orders' it is possible to fail, thus the reason they can have decent rewards. As these go up on the test server expect me to start asking for feedback on all aspects of them, I'd like them to be something people find useful and enjoyable.

As a final note, this system is going in instead of the selling items for status idea we had mentioned previously. There was little, if any gameplay value to selling things to a vendor after creation. In order to give that system some gameplay value we would have to tie it into some sort of supply and demand evaluation and have some ways to affect supply or demand. This is not to say we wouldn't consider something like that for the future, but in a previous post I had mentioned going with smaller content driven systems with the tradeskills rather than larger code driven ones and this is where that has brought us.

August 03, 2006 - Change in Tradeskill Profession Selection Process

We've an update from Blackguard that there are going to be changes to how you obtain your level 10 and level 20 tradeskill profession. Here's the quote for the folks who can't hit the above link from w*rk:

I wanted to give fair warning for a change that's coming in Game Update #26. We're changing the way you get your tradeskill profession very slightly to make it a lot clearer. Basically, we're posting an NPC at each major tradeskill instance entrance that will be called "Crafting Trainers." You will speak with any of these NPCs at levels 9 and 19 to get 10 and 20, respectively.

The impact this could potentially have is that you will no longer be able to save up experience into the next level. For example, if you have 150% XP into level 9 and get your profession, you will be at 0% XP into level 10 when you transition. If you have any characters that need to get their level 10 or 20 professions with XP saved up, I recommend making the transition before Game Update #26.

July 26, 2006 - Writs, Secondary Tradeskills and Homes

The only thing these three items have in common is that they are all items for which I have updates today.

Writs

You will be able to sell a certain number of products that you made every hour to a specific vendor. This vendor will allow you to choose to sell the items for profit OR sell them for status. Quality level for these items will not affect price in any way.

Edit: In late-breaking news, Dymus added some additional explanation regarding the writ issue over on the SoE forums.

Just to give an update on tradeskill writs / quests and some background info:

We removed the tradeskill writs when we removed the subcombines and changed the recipes for the tradeskill revamp. The changes to the overall system were so extensive that updating the near 1500 existing writs (and associated files for each one) was just not going to be feasible in a reasonable time frame. The way writs were created originally also meant the upkeep for the system and all the data contained within was extremely difficult and error prone. It was also felt that crafters weren't getting as much benefit out of the current implementation as they could.

We've talked about several things we could do to replace the old writ system with something a bit more engaging, varied, and fun. To get to this point we had two choices: Work on something fairly extensive and code driven that would take several updates to complete or work on a few smaller content driven systems and get them into the game in stages as each portion was completed. After considering these options we are going with the second of the two. From feedback here on the boards and from talking to people at the block party it seems that something needs to be in place to fill the hole left by the removal of the old writs, and fairly soon, we're working on it.

The original goals are still valid and we have the first stage of what we'd like to do in progress. I cannot promise anything for update 26 but if everything goes well, then you should see the first of the tradeskill writs with the new format soon. We'd like to allow for several options in gameplay for these writs and future quests with varying degrees of difficulty and reward. So please keep in mind that the first set of writs are geared for one style of play. Additional content will be added as it gets finished to reach the goal we've set for some diversity in crafting. Now that we have a more easily maintained system more of our time can be dedicated to creating new things rather than trying to maintain the existing system.

Secondary Tradeskills

Home Sweet Hovel

July 24, 2006 - Fan Faire Poll

SoE is trying to decide when and where next year's Fan Faire will be. There will be a poll going for the next month, so make sure to go over and vote. Details on the date/location options, as well as details on how to sign up for the specific forums where the poll is being held (a general SoE forum, not the EQ2 forums) can be found here.

July 19, 2006 - Update Notes ... We Think

These update notes were posted to the SoE forums. However, they are not showing when you patch the game, so I am not 100% positive that they made it live yet.

*** Zones and Population ***

• The reuse timer for the Halls of Fate should now set correctly after killing one of the bosses.
• The Transmogrification Elixir found in the Halls of Fate can now only be used within the dungeon itself.

• Imbued cloth vests/pantaloons/blouse/bloomers can now be placed in merchandise racks specific to cloth armor.
• Imbued pantaloons are now flagged as cloth armor.
• Crafted chainmail armor can now be placed in merchandise racks specific to chainmail armor.
• Crafted chainmail armor now has "chainmail" in the name instead of "chain." Mail carriers felt left out.
• Several culinary product names were changed to be singular so that they don't get an extra "es" at the end when being made plural.

• Pasting multiple lines into the chat window should once again work correctly. Parsers rejoice!

July 15, 2006 - Tackling the Lag-Monster

The hotfix this m*rning included the following:

A speculative fix has been made that should reduce the incidences of lag spikes that have been occurring since Game Update #25.

To translate for folks, they think that they found the problem, and hope this will help everyone who been suffering through lag-storms since GU25.

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