I spend a lot of time wondering what’s going on in the minds of EQ2 producers. They are beings of awesome power, but frequently indecipherable motives. But what if a common player could get a taste of that power, just for one day? What wonders might be wrought upon the world?
There’s a limit to what you can get done in a day, even with the might of the EQ2 Dev team behind you, so I’m going to limit myself to what I think would be reasonably quick jobs that someone could do in a day or less.
1. Fix Heritage Quest rewards.
This should be a pretty quick one, seeing as there’s really not that many items to worry about. Heritage quest rewards are supposed to be amongst the best gear for their level, but the older ones have fallen behind further with each update. Not only that, but stat-simplification has rendered some of them utterly useless other than as furniture.
Take the Dwarven Ringmail Tunic. This is the lowest level HQ, and gives a quite nice chainmail top, with strength and stamina. However, strength is entirely useless to any chainwearing class now, who want either wisdom or agility. That’s not putting our best foot forward for new players on their first HQ. So, I’d go through all the rewards and make sure that their stats make sense under the new regime, increasing their power where appropriate, to at least bring them in to line with modern Legendary gear.
For extra credit, make sure that the level 20 Qeynos and Freeport class armour quests, and the Blood Iron class-set recipes from Deathfist are also suitable for their intended classes. Currently they are frequently not.
2. Restore Removed Quests
At some point in the first year, as my memory serves, a large number of quests were removed from Qeynos and Freeport. These were high quality content, complete with voice-overs. Apparently players were “confused” by having so many options. Pffft. Any that would work correctly out of the box should just be turned back on. The NPCs are still hanging around for the most part anyway. Some might require a little bit of tweaking to work with the current zone populations. We’ve got a day. Get done what you can, going for the easy ones first. Update any item rewards if needed, or maybe see if the crafting team have any spare furniture items that could be used for that purpose. Change the level of the quest if necessary, or if it would fill a gap somewhere.
There have been a great number of quests removed elsewhere for often impenetrable reasons, which I’d also like back, but restoring the city ones would be my priority. Bring them back with a triumphant fanfare, as for most people they would be all new content.
3. Turn the Isles of Refuge back on
Same as the previous entry. No good reason why they needed to be removed. Give ’em a polish if they need it. I’ve ranted enough about this in the past, and won’t bore you with it again!
If we could get just two of those tasks accomplished, I’d consider that a good day’s work, and I think the lower end game would be much stronger for it
 The Coming of the Cloakbearer, by Maltheas Shadowsqueak. From the Crafting Channel!
I thought I’d ask the good folks of the crafting channel what they would do with a few hours dev time.
4. Mara Housing
Doesn’t have to be fancy. One of the Qeynos inn room type instances would do for now, but we’d love to see player housing on the Isle of Mara. Failing that, maybe the entrances to the prestige homes that are currently only found in Qeynos and Freeport could be put there. An actual Mara style house would be fantastic, but would take longer than we have here.
5. Collectables filter
Currently, when searching for collectables on the broker, any that you no longer need are greyed out. It would be very nice to be able to tick a box to have them not appear at all.
I kept the list deliberately short, as we only have one day, after all, and I might do another post in the same vein soon. What small change or fix would you do, if you had just a few hours of dev time to play with?
We’ve just had a Press Release regarding the near future of Everquest 2. GU 60 will be concentrating on expanding Velious, and also improving the Battleground system.
 The Fortress of Drunder The plans of Rallos Zek are beginning to come to fruition and the mighty Fortress of Drunder, which once sat within the Plane of War itself, has appeared on Norrath, and now rests high above the Kromzek city of Kael Drakkel. From Drunder, Rallos Zek plans to rally his war parties, scale the massive sheer cliffs leading to the Western Wastes, and execute his plan to steal the power of Roehn Theer. It will take bold and daring adventurers to enter the fortress itself, unlock the secrets to the salvation of Norrath, and thwart the destructive agenda of the God of War.
- PvP & Battlegrounds improvements, including but not limited to:
- Lobby system so players can hang together between matches with PvP merchants available locally
- New Velious battleground map (“The Frozen Tundraâ€)
- New Battleground game type! (“Vanquish!â€)
- PvP and Battlegrounds rule modifications for better balance and fun factor
- Fame system improvements
- New PvP armor
- Itemization:
- New Adornments interface to make this system easier to understand
- Continued honing of the itemization system
- Drunder!
- Three new instanced dungeons
- Three new raids with all new bosses
- New daily missions
- Crystal Caverns
- Solo shard quest
- Two new heritage quests
- Additional signature quest line
NOTE: Drunder content is locked to DoV expansion owners only. All other GU content affects all players.
Sounds like a decent lump of content for the high end. Not quite so sure about concentrating efforts on the Battlegrounds, but some people enjoy them, and perhaps more will after the changes.
There’s also a free week for all inactive accounts starting from this Thursday:
From April 14 to April 21, 2011, former players are also invited to log back in and experience the unparalleled depth and adventure that can only be found in EQII with the Take Flight Winback promotion. Eligible inactive accounts can log back in for free for 7 days, claim their free flying mount and reunite with friends and enemies alike for 7 days!
And they’re getting flying mounts! How is that going to work? Will be a bit of a swizz if its a unique one and folks who have stuck around can’t get their hands on it. And will it require high level? Much is yet to be revealed about this promotion!
Update: The flying mounts will only last for 12 hours. You can go claim another one when your current one runs out, but they will only be available for that week. So returning players get to have some fun with them, without cheapening the effort everybody else has to go through to attain them.
It has been a mere 20 days since last we had a look at the Extreme Quester Leaderboard, but Maltheas has been a busy bee during that time. So much so that the moment has come to include the level 70-79 tier in the calculations.
The good news is that that means that my friends Annyya and Kirskax are back at the top! Ahoy up there! Since the server merge, we’ve even found common cause against a few particularly insidious quests, and I’m sure we’ll continue to work together! With the addition of the 70s Maltheas has plummeted back down to 13th, but he’s by far the lowest level there. He’ll begin his mysteriously both painful and fun struggle back up with his eyes wide open about what needs to be done!
The majority of Maltheas’ new quests in the past weeks have been from getting back up to Master Carpenter, and devouring the delicious new Velious crafting quest lines. This has had some material benefits for his adventuring. Meet Snowberry the Gryphon!
 The Isle of Mara from the sky. For a low level adventurer to be able to get a flying mount through crafting is wonderful, though I miss having the gryphon as a little pet that followed you about as you care for it over the course of a few days, until it grows big enough to fly on! I got rather used to it! It has been great to visit all my favourite old zones and have a fly around. I must be careful to not get too used to it though for general adventuring though. It’s only when you’re down in the muck that you learn what makes a zone tick.
I decided it was time for an update because this is a special day for Maltheas. I’m going to let him level to 43, and he’s terribly excited about it. Mostly because he’s going to be able to use all the jars of mechanical spiders that he stashed away when levelling tinkering. Before he unleashes his spiderbot army, to Cheeves’ dismay, let us have one final look at his current quest journal.
 Maltheas' Quest Journal, April 8th 2011 Theoretically, he should be able to polish off the two Bloodline Chronicles (Marked as Nektulos Forest above) quests he has left, but they don’t seem to be working properly, with the necessary items that need to be clicked not spawning after many attempts. Apart from those two, I’m pretty happy with taking a level. There’s a few I could probably accomplish with sufficient gruntwork, but what the heck. It’s been at least 6 months since he last levelled, and the little fellow needs a bit of cheese from time to time to keep going.
With the Chronoportals finally sealed for this year, another festival is upon us in Everquest 2! Bristlebane Day is here, with all the fun of the Master of Mirth himself. Fun and frolic, ho!!!
Maltheas: Bristleybane is the annoyings, always he playing the mean tricks! Why nobody celebrate the gods who is behavings themselves!? Shiny Rodcets, Karana the Freshmaker, or pretty Tunare?
Oh, right. I forgot that Bristlebane is another one of the gods that Maltheas takes a dim view of. There are those that say that Bristlebane assisted Brell in the creation of the Ratonga, and like Brell, promptly lost interest in them and went off to play with something new. The Ratonga are still a little bitter about that. It left them open to approaches from other gods, who lacked children of their own, but perhaps that’s a tale best saved for another day.
In any case, everybody who isn’t being unreasonably grumpy is having a lovely time playing pranks, and getting sent to slay seemingly never-ending tens of rats. While he was quite determined to not enjoy a moment of it, Maltheas could not resist the plea of Galan Jokepeddler who had had his joke supplies stolen. By pirates!!! It’s a new quest for this years event, though several of the old quests have new rewards for this year. They’re mostly based around the Enchanted Lands docks, with an extra questline that exists in multiple low level zones outside the cities.
 Gnome Pirates. They're usually the good sort of Pirate, but Gnoggin was a bad lot. No quest is complete without a reward, and Maltheas chose the Bristlebane Jester house item. He could also have chosen a magical colourchanging steed, “The Horse of a Different Color”, but he has quite enough mounts for one person already, while you can never have too much junk in your home, especially if it plays “Pop goes the Weasel”!
 Don't ask. Fippy is stuck here since the Chronoportals shut. In probably unrelated news, Maltheas got an A on his history presentation. On April the 1st there is a questline that only appears for that day, and this year there’s a second part to it, so Maltheas will be grouching his way through that too! After all, it would be wrong to refuse the Stone of Gygax.
Not only that, but an Aether Race throughout Antonica has been added to the Qeynos City festival which begins on the same day! Truly, it always seems like there’s something going on in Norrath these days, and Maltheas will be in the thick of it if he has anything to say about it
This morning, Maltheas’ mailbox received an important missive. Maltheas’ very favourite sort of letter. An invitation to adventure!!!
Maltheas,
We need your help! Portals to a different time have opened up in Antonica, Enchanted Lands, Thundering Steppes, Steamfont, Lavastorm, Sinking Sands, Feerott, and Innothule. We need you to investigate them. Please make your way to the lighthouse by the docks in Antonica. there you will find one of the portals. I will be nearby, and you can speak to me about how your efforts will be rewarded.
Distun Delki
Maltheas: Ooohs. Let’s be goings Cheeves! We have to go BACK TO THE PASTS!!!!
Cheeves: … I’ll fetch your time-travelling trousers, Sir.
Maltheas: Thats being my’s new catchphrase, by the ways!
Cheeves: Great Scott!!!
 Maltheas visits his hero, Fippy Darkpaw! I have been incredibly impressed at how big this event is, especially given that it appeared from more or less nowhere. There are 8 instances, one for each tier from the second. You are automatically mentored down to the appropriate level when you enter. Each has an 18 hour lockout, so you can effectively do them once per day.
Within each, you will find an iconic foe from Everquest, along with their guards. The boss will drop a chest containing a fabled piece of jewelry, and a fabled augmentation. Those must be split between your party members, but everybody also receives some ancient coinage that can be spent at the Chronomancers near Antonica’s lighthouse, for a variety of nice house items. Nearby, you will find the Chronoportal to the level 20 instance.
For Maltheas, it was also a portal to a dream come true! Fippy Darkpaw is the patron saint of Extreme Questers. He never gives up, no matter how great the challenge, and Maltheas has always wanted to meet him. Alas, in his eagerness he forgot that Ratonga were unknown to the surface world during this time period.
 Maltheas did get the autograph in the end, after a little misunderstanding. Be warned, these are not intended for soloing, though you may, as Maltheas did, find you can solo the level 20 or 30 ones. Beyond that they get very nasty very quickly. You will want to gather a couple of your most stalwart companions in order to defeat such foes as the Minotaur Lord, or Pyjzn the Necromancer. It’s unusual for events to not be soloable, but it fits well with it being a tribute to EQ, and I have enjoyed grouping with my friends to get things done.
I’ll probably write up a few of Maltheas’ time travel adventures over the coming days, time permitting!
When last we cast our eyes over the state of Extreme Questing in Norrath back in January, we were rather badly hampered by the EQ2 website’s leaderboards being completely broken. However, in the last week those leaderboards have made a remarkable recovery, so normal service can once again resume! Normally I like these to coincide with a mighty deed (for the pictures), but I wanted to get this out as soon as I heard we had functionality again.
In that time, a number of servers have merged. Maltheas’ server, Lucan d’Lere, has merged with Crushbone. This doesn’t really change our table, though it does mean that characters from lost servers will appear twice, once for their old server, and once for their new, but as we use a composite, it is easy enough to strip those out. It has been quite nice to see more people around on our adventures.
The 60-69 tier is still a recent addition to the table, and we’ll continue with that being the maximum for now. Beyond that, there are so many people with large numbers of quests done that heroic lowbie Ratonga just can’t compete! Mind you, we are getting close to the point that the 70-79 tier might still leave a little room at the bottom for Maltheas to cling on to.
 There's all to play for in the EQ2 Extreme Questing League!! There’s been quite a lot of shuffling since the last leaderboard, and several mighty questers have levelled out of the top. I have no doubt that we’ll see many of them again when I raise the level-limit!
Since the leaderboardless update, Maltheas has not been exceptionally active. Brewday, Erollisi day, and Aether Racing have come and gone (Brewday is ongoing), and he picked off the new quests that came along with them. He has continued to slowly drag himself back up the crafting levels, and the carpenter writs have played a part of that. He has also passed through the excellent Steamfont tradeskill questline.
Most recently, Maltheas has been finishing up in the Feerott. He managed to sneak in to Freeport (always a rather tense business) and pick up 5 quest tomes for both the Feerott and Zek. It would have been nice to deal with those while he was still dealing with the bulk of those zones’ quests, but they didn’t take too much time to polish off, and his library is all the messier for it!
Lavastorm has occasionally made for a change of scene, and he’s probably about halfway through its main questline, but I suspect there won’t be too much progress there without a level or two.
 Maltheas and Voidy. It was a very short-lived friendship. Deathfist Citadel is about half done, but the above-ground areas are rather testing, and may not be completed soon. Emperor Fyst himself gave Maltheas a good hiding not so very long ago. He stands, Everling-like, between Maltheas and several Heritage quest completions.
The Bloodline Chronicles have yielded most of their secrets, but I’m a little burned out on it at the moment. Having to go back in to the same instance over and over, for each stage of the quest-line, is a little draining, and I don’t mean that as some sort of vampire-pun. I’ll get that done once I can face fighting my way through armies of heroic Mist Grinnin’s again.
The Lost Temple of Cazic Thule begins to beckon, and I’ll definitely make a start on that before levelling, but I don’t think it is a nice place for a lone level 42. Nor is the Obelisk of Lost Souls, but both must endure his investigations in the near future. I’m pretty sure he can get something done in there.
So that’s that. I’ll make sure the next update coincides with something exciting!
EQ2 added a house item to its marketplace today. It is 500 Station Cash ($5.00), and the proceeds will be going to help with the ongoing humanitarian emergency in Japan.
Called “Memory of Spring”, it is an statue surrounded by falling cherry blossom. It can be found under its own section within the marketplace, marked “Japan Relief Effort”. There is also a similar item available for Everquest.
 Memory of Spring It seemed appropriate for Maltheas to place it next to his shrine to the god of healing. We wish the Japanese people all the best in the coming days.
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