My bags are half unpacked, my cats are "speaking" to me again, I've had a couple nights of blessed sleeeeeeeeeep, Denmother's Trail Mix is long-gone, Facebook has way too many pictures of me that make me flinch (cameras and I hate each other with a bone-deep loathing) ...

That means it must be time for my inevitable brain dump from Fan Faire.

Yes, there is some crafting news, but not a huge ton of it, since Domino is pretty good about keeping crafters in the loop. So, instead of a tiny little crafting bit, you get my notes about anything and everything that caught my ear at Fan Faire.

Without further ado, I give you my Fan Faire 2009 Writeup.

I think I need another nap. {crawls into the nearest pack to do her Pocket Hobbit imitation and promptly dozes off}

June 27, 2009 - Hello from Fan Faire!

I will not be providing you with many details quite yet, as the panels with all the meaty information will be happening later today (all the expansion information had to wait until after the community address that officially announced the expansion), but I wanted to check in and give folks a couple details before I head off to panels today.

The sixth expansion for EQII will be named Sentinel's Fate, and it will give us our first look at what has happened to the land of Odus since the Shattering. Due to the extra TLC that is being given to the overall game experience, it is expected to be released in February 2010. Also planned for release at roughly the same time will be a new good newbie starting area, Frostfang (Halas!)

I already have a couple pages of notes from various features that are coming in the next few months (including the next GU), but I will not be putting together a more in-depth writeup until this coming week. I am sure I am going to be getting tons more information at panels today, and I want a chance for it to percolate, to get some clarifications, etc., before I present it all. (Folks are, of course, welcome to discuss what they have heard on our forums, I just will not put up a formal write-up for a couple days.)

For now, however, it is time to throw on the rest of the costume, package up a bit more of DenMother's Trail mix to hand out, and trundle down to the con!

~Mum

June 18, 2009 - Moonlight Enchantments Mini Live Event Announced!

Last month, folks on Test server noticed the appearance of some mysterious mushroom rings in various forested areas of Norrath.

These rings are only visible when the phase of the moon is right ... which appears to correspond to the 20th of every Earth month (PST time zone).

Those who wish to investigate where the mushroom rings may take them should therefore keep their eyes open this weekend, and around the 20th of each month in the future!

We hope this regularly occurring little mini event will give you something to look forward to each month. And if you happen to miss it one month, it's not long till the next time the rings appear!

Thus read a post by Domino in the SOE forums this afternoon. Those of you who saw my post about the Denmum Diaries, Vol 2 a couple weeks ago already knew this was coming, sometime, but until today, we had no idea of just when they would appear.

Even if that real-life thing gets in the way of you participating in the event this weekend, fear not! This little mini event will be occurring every month around this time, so there will be plenty of time to collect these lovely items.

What lovely items, you might ask? A lovely bounty of nature-themed house items. Check out the Moonlight Enchantments article for more details as well as five linked articles that contain lots of yummy pictures.

(Those of you planning on running alt armies through, now would be a good time to make sure that they already have access to the appropriate druid rings!)

June 16, 2009 - GU52 Patch Day!

The servers are still busy counting their virtual fingers and toes before allowing players to run amok in the new content. While we are waiting for them to unlock, here is a handy list of patch-related items here on the site:

• GU52 Patch Notes - slightly easier to read than straight from the patcher :)
• Furniture: Notebooks - a new furniture gallery page for the player-made notebooks, with reminders about broker searches, use notes, etc
• Quest: In a Bind - a short writeup on the Sage quest to obtain recipes for the notebooks mentioned above
• GU52 Crafting Preview - includes handy notes about several of the crafting-related item from this patch

Update: I would like to remind folks that neither live event (Tinkerfest or the Enchanted Grotto mushroom rings are NOT actually turned on at this time. At last check we do not have an ETA for either of them, which is why I did not rush with getting complete details up on them. I have images in-hand for both, and will be working on previews for both as soon as I find my brain.)

Update 2: (Yep, more than one update to a front page post - can tell it is a big patch day!) There is now a Furniture Gallery page up for the new carpenter items. (And the locations of the carpenter recipe book and the provisioner recipe book have been updated in the appropriate spots.) I have been adding new articles and editing old ones a lot today, and I am sure errors slipped past me. Anyone wanting to help proofread my gibberish can find links to stuff that I poked at today in this Help Wanted thread in the forums.

June 04, 2009 - The Denmum Diaries, Vol.1: Monument & Might

Two weeks ago I gave folks a sneak peak at GU52 crafting goodies before it was even available on the Test server. It took a bit of time for the update to reach Test, and then a bit more time for my eyes to stop whirling like pinwheels over it and the two Live Events we have been testing over there, then a bit longer for me to gather up my brains (they had leaked out my ears by then!), but finally, I have a more detailed GU52 Crafting Preview for everyone. Check it out in The Denmum Diaries, Vol. 1: Monument & Might. You may wish to also check back here in a few hours for an update, as Kaisha has handed me some lovely images that may get turned into an event teaser once I am more caffeinated!

UPDATE: on top of already having to add some updates to the bottom of the above-linked preview (including a release date!), I have made good on my promise of a teaser. You can find The Denmum Diares, Vol 2: Dreaming of Enchanted Grottos here. Yesssss, I am a cruel, wicked halfling!

May 22, 2009 - Bonus XP Weekend

A bonus xp weekend is now in effect for both crafting and adventuring experience:

Greetings Norrathians! There will be a bonus applied to combat and tradeskill experience this weekend starting at 10:00am PDT on Friday, May 22nd and ending at 10:00am PDT on Tuesday, May 26th.

In other news, it looks like GU52 will not be arriving on the Test server until this coming Tuesday.

May 20, 2009 - Sneak Peek at GU52 Crafting Goodness

GU52 is due on the Test server RSN (Real Soon Now), and I was lucky enough to get a few looks at some of the crafting goodness that is in store for us. Have you been judging books by their covers and feeling a bit underwhelmed by the amount of greenish grey in your in-game library? How does 16 different book cover styles sound for the new player-created books? Vexxed by how hex dolls have not kept up with the changing gear progression in the game? Yep, we just might see a happier hex ... as well as happier crafted ranged goodies for those who shoot and throw. What, you are still feeling blue about player-made furniture and want more?! Yes, we might just even manage to see that one, too.

Take an exclusive look at the images that make me say these things in my GU52 Sneak Peek. (Once this hits the Test server and I get my hot little halfling hands all over it, I will give a more in-depth preview, but until then I am going to coo happily over these images that they shared with me!)

May 14, 2009 - GU52 Prep

Game Update 52, which includes player-made books, among other things, will be hitting the Test server soon. Have you done a /testcopy on any character that you will wish to use to test this and other features? Have you got a Test client directory that is relatively recent, so patching the update will not take as long? Why not get set up for it today? :) ~Mum

May 06, 2009 - EQ2TC Database Changes

In EQ, the item and recipe databases have played a more vital role on the site. This is especially true since crafters there sometimes have to make items A, B and C, combine them to make item D, then combine item D with other items to make item Z and so on.

In EQ2, however, the database has been the bane of my existence from Day 1. (Some folks have likely lost count of how many times I professed my hatred for the database and the mess it has been in!) Not only is there significanly more data that needs to be entered for every single item and recipe, which tends to scare off too many would-be volunteers, but there was a larger volume of crafted items and recipes to deal with. Items and recipes that have changed, a lot, sometimes more than once, since the launch of the game - the removal of subcombines, an armor revamp, weapon revamp, held item revamp, etc.

Change on these fronts was very good, overall, for the players, but it has been bad for the database. We ended up so far behind on getting data entered, updated, corrected, re-corrected, etc. that even I couldn't bring myself to do much with it, not to mention what it did to volunteers already busy with Real Life, etc.

Fast forward to current times and the upcoming changes to the names of pretty much every spell and combat art in the game. Add to that the fact that 'Zam now has data feeds from SOE for every item and recipe, and I finally have the reason/excuse to put the database out of its misery.

Mostly.

Kind of, sort of.

When the hubbyogre has a bit of spare time, he will be removing the Find option, and searchbox from the left-hand menu on the main site, as well as the tabs for Recipes and Search. The database itself will stay in place, since it will still be in use in a couple spots on the site. (Item/recipe info is linked from almost all thumbnail images in the furniture gallery, and similar information is linked to the crafted food & drink charts.)

This doesn't mean the site is closing down, or anything as dire as that. It simply means that I am letting go of a feature that never reached full potential (and that ate far too much time and attention), and will focus, instead, on guides, quest writeups, game update crafting previews and the like. They are our true niche in the EQ2 world, after all, and deserve the extra TLC.

~Mum

April 29, 2009 - Free Realms Launches!

With a twirl and a quick change that would make Wonder Woman green with envy, a sweatsuit-clad adventurer changes jobs and is clad in a cooking apron and fast food hat as they whip up some tasty stir fry. Another quick twirl-n-change, and they're ready to rumble in a brawler outfit. Another twirl, and the suspender-wearing hero or heroine is ready to use their trusty mining pick on the nearest node of silver.

April 29, 2009 - A Few Things of Note

Scholars (that means you, Sages, Alchemists and Jewelers!) should be aware that there are plans in the works to revamp spell/combat art names allllll across the board. Domino posted about it in this thread on the SOE forums, with a more non-crafter thread about it here.

Player-written books?! There are currently plans to release player-written books with GU52 (I got the impression that the blank books would be created by sages, but I am too sleep-deprived to go digging through all the posts right now). You can find out more information here on the SOE forums.

In both cases, if you wish to discuss these in more depth on the EQ2TC forums, feel free to do so. :D

Free Realms I am going to be updating my mini-review of Free Realms with a couple things, then I will stop pestering you folks about it.

I will be making some announcements about our out-of-date and relatively unhappy database later this week or early next week - too out of it to be coherent about it right now.

April 07, 2009 - Hotfix Notes

From hotfix notes today:

• The Advanced Armorer Service quest now requires the new improved version of fulginate kite shields.
• Scholars’ volume 12 books now once again contain recipes for idols, symbols, tomes, and orbs.
• Jeweler Far Seas writs now correctly accept the new secondary items.
• An issue where Adornments would disappear when upgrading or imbuing items through tradeskills has been fixed.

April 07, 2009 - Grumble

Mutter.

Growl

Good thing my RPoD isn't handy.

The forums for both the EQ and the EQ2 site are kaput at the moment. I have no clue when Racknine will get them working again. Yes, today feels like Monday on several fronts, and any week with two Mondays in a row is a Bad Thing.

April 02, 2009 - Whoops!

It seems there's an issue with the newest crafting mission, Emergency Portal Repairs, where if you leave the zone and come back later, the dead folks and fuel are not respawning. (Things decay quickly up in the Void, it seems!) There is a fix in the works, so just be aware of this in the short-term when running the crafting missions.

March 31, 2009 - G51 For Real This Time

The long-awaited Lavastorm revamp, complete with solo-friendlier content, a new crafting quest series, etc. is now live. (I think the new crafting mission is also in, but it isn't mentioned in the patch notes.) In addition, a limited-time Bristlebane Day event has gone live. You can find the GU51 Patch Notes here

UPDATES!: The patch notes on the SOE forums were changed after I posted the patch notes here. In addition, I have been running around changing and adding pages due to the patch, so here's links to new/changed stuff on the site:

• Updated: GU51 Patch Notes
• New: Crafty Sootfoots/Sootfoot Service quest writeup
• Updated: Red Glowie Collection information
• Update: Far Seas Supply Division quest information

March 18, 2009 - Feedback Wanted - Fashion Fact Sheets

I'm toying with a new way to handle detailed views in the Fashion gallery, and would love some feedback. Please check out this thread in the forums and tell me what you think.

Thanks!

March 17, 2009 - 2009 Fan Faire Announced!

Fan Faire once again returns to Las Vegas, June 25-28. Niami and Ngreth plan to be there, and hope to see some of you there! Further details can be found on the SOE Fan Faire page.

March 12, 2009 - Brewing Up Mischief

A week's worth of Brewday celebrations arrive in Norrath today (March 12-19), and while there's nothing crafting-related in this world event, there are a few neat new house items. In celebration of this event, Mum has put together a story that is bound to bring a giggle or two ... or make you swear off alcohol for life! Perhaps even a bit of both! Check it out in Brewing Up Mischief

March 09, 2009 - GU51 Delay

Game Update 51 is being delayed a bit longer while they iron out various issues. (Read the official announcement at this link) When we have a release date, I'll make sure to post it. Meanwhile, why not checked out the GU51 Crafting Preview if you haven't already?

March 03, 2009 - Of Goblins, Gnomes, Garbage and Goo

What do gnomes, goblins, garbage and goo have in common with GU51 other than the letter G? What would lure Mum to ride a flaming horse?. Check out the short humor piece inspired by GU51 here. Would you rather cut to the chase and just read the GU51 crafting preview without any of that story-stuff? You can do that here. Meanwhile, Mum is off to chase more pink elephants in prep for a Brewday story later this week, ok?

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