Tag: Everquest

New Everquest Server Will Never Catch Up


Everquest pumps out progression servers on a pretty regular basis, but have you ever looked at them and wondered what life would be like if the community never voted to progress past Planes of Power, aka when the game stopped being good (your words, not mine). Well consider that thirst quenched, as Daybreak Game Company has announced that the next progression server will do just that.

When server Agnarr launches on May 24, it will unlock new expansions every 12 weeks, without interference or vote, until finally Planes of Power unlocks. After that, nothing more. The server is true box, meaning one client per computer. As always, All Access membership will be required.

More details can be found at the FAQ below.

(Source: Everquest)

Daybreak Continues Shrinking: Landmark To Shut Down


Daybreak Game Company’s library continues to shrink just a little more, with the news that the rest of Everquest’s Next’s failed dream, Landmark, will shut down February 21st. As of right now, the game will be unavailable for purchase while all items in the marketplace will have their cost turned down to 1. In addition, Player Studio items will not be available for listing and purchase in the Landmark Marketplace. The servers will come down on February 21, 2017.

Landmark, originally known as Everquest: Landmark, was a supplementary game sold to players on the foundation that it existed to test Daybreak’s engine for use in the full Everquest Next. When Everquest was cancelled last year, Landmark dropped the Everquest name and was spun off into its own building game. Fans hoping to see compensation are out of luck, Daybreak will neither be making it possible to host your own server nor will they be reimbursing anyone who invested in the title.

Our thoughts: Landmark is probably the most fraudulently marketed game in recent memory, from the fact that it was sold as a supplement to an MMO that the studio knew wasn’t fun and was potentially on the chopping block, to the fact that the announcement of EQN’s cancellation came conveniently after the no-questions refund period expired, to the fact that people who put in for the $100 founder’s pack only got to have the game launch and not even last a year. Considering this is the second game shuttered within the last year, and it looks like Daybreak won’t even take the easy route and compensate people with digital goodies for their other games (at no cost to themselves), Landmark and EQN should be a shining example to avoid putting any money into this company until the game goes gold.

(Source: Daybreak)

Community Is Reviving Everquest Online Adventures


Everquest Online Adventures probably should have been shut down years ago, but Sony Online Entertainment has a habit of refusing to let their games die until the very last minute.

You don’t need to look far to find fans of Sony Online Entertainment’s foray into console gaming, Everquest Online Adventures. The lesser known cousin of the series, EQOA shut down back in 2012 due to dwindling populations and the inevitable decline of the Playstation 2 as a gaming platform. A group is working on an emulator over at Reddit, and they are looking for people to assist in any way possible from technical programming to writing and simple publicity.

SOE, aka Daybreak, has historically been a team player when it comes to classic revivals. The company gave its blessing to the Everquest 1999 server and has so far left alone the teams working on Star Wars Galaxies emulators. Considering the company has zero financial interest in Everquest Online Adventures, it seems highly unlikely that problems should arise out of the emulator’s existence.

(Source: Reddit)

Everquest Promises New Progression Server, Less Drama


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Daybreak Game Company has announced that the next progression server for Everquest, Phinigel, will not allow multi-boxing. Set to launch on December 9th, Phinigel will follow a strict schedule of one expansion release every ninety days, with no voting on the player side or manipulation from Daybreak. In addition, raids will have an instanced mode with an account-wide six and a half day lockout, alongside the open-world version of said bosses.

This is a server where each player will only be able to play on one EverQuest account from their computer. We want to encourage players to play with their friends on this server, and not just form groups of only their alts. If people are truly wanting to multi-box, they’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. Phinigel is a TRUE box server, which means in order to multi-box you’ll need a set-up that looks something like this:

While they’ve proven to be popular among players, Everquest’s two progression servers have not been without a good deal of controversy, not least of which were complaints of players using multiple accounts to make the game very easy and overcrowding in most areas of the game. Daybreak also made a large misstep in the decision to issue account suspensions (later overturned) to an entire guild of several hundred players because one single member was killing raid mobs out of guild rotation.

(Source: Everquest)

Both Everquest Titles Reveal Upcoming Expansions


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Everquest and Everquest 2 are set to receive their next expansions, and yes I said expansions. In both cases, more details are expected to be released on October 1st, alongside a live stream where Daybreak will be running through some of the new zones.

For Everquest, the expansion includes 15 new raids accompanied by new AA’s, new gear, new spells, and more. The news post also notes that this is the last chance to get your hands on Darkened Sea collectors items.

We wanted this expansion to have content that reached beyond the highest-level players. So, in addition to new and updated zones for levels 105, we are including two instanced raid zones for levels 75 to 105 to play in together! These “level agnostic” raid zones will balance themselves to the highest level player in your raid. It just so happens that these two level agnostic zones are the original Plane of Fear and Plane of Hate! So if you never got a chance to raid in those planes, or long for them, you can relive those days with a broader range of players when we launch.

For Everquest II, the expansion promises content that everyone can enjoy, from dungeons to raids, new items, and plenty of new things to craft. Similar to EQ1, the latest expansion Altar of Madness is 50% off in the store and will no longer be available to purchase after October 1st.

The 12th expansion for EverQuest II includes a sprawling overland and loads of content with quests, advanced solo and heroic dungeons, and a healthy number of raids including x2s and x4s. Not only that, but we’re doing level-agnostic versions of each of the new dungeons! We have a couple of new types of items to talk about as well as an updated Deity system to give you details on! Tradeskillers, we’ve got new quests and recipes for you as well!

More information is coming October 1st.

(Source: Everquest, Everquest 2)

Rant: Customer Service Doesn’t Get Much Worse Than A Full Guild Suspension


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As you read this, Daybreak Game Company is busy cleaning up the mess of another incident in a series of customer service missteps. This time it involves the unfair suspension of several hundred (sources place the figure at least 400 and possibly upwards of 600), in a guild-wide three day ban in retaliation for the actions of one member. Yes, an entire guild had their accounts suspended because one player broke not the terms of service, but player-agreed rules.

Here’s how the story goes: Everquest’s lack of instancing means that the community has to compete for raids, leading to a raid schedule agreed upon by the leaders of the top guilds. If your guild isn’t scheduled to raid, and they do so anyway, breaking the rotation can result in penalties levied against the entire guild. Yes, the entire guild, even you members who don’t raid or might raid every once in a while.

That’s exactly what happened when one player from the Modest Man guild was recorded on video killing mobs outside of the Sky raid. In total, the player allegedly killed two mobs with a multi-box group of five accounts. The player was reportedly booted from Modest Man before Daybreak Game Company handed out a three day suspension to every single member of the guild. The suspensions were quickly overturned with players being allowed back into the game, but the policy that would hand 3-day and potentially 7-day suspensions to entire guilds still seems to be in place.

It also doesn’t address the underlying problems here. The fact that, as one player put it, a single player can “blow a 4-6 hour block for a whole guild” is ridiculous, a sign of a game far out of touch with today’s expectations. The idea that Daybreak is willing to suspend an entire guild, hundreds of players in total, for the dissociated actions of one member (who was kicked out) is unacceptable, regardless of it being overturned, and the fact that it was even considered for a moment to be an appropriate response should be worrying to Daybreak’s customers, aside from perhaps the toxic portion that supported the decision.

 

But ultimately every fiasco that seems to come out of Everquest’s timelocked servers is Daybreak’s fault, fostering and encouraging an atmosphere of exclusion, and nothing encompasses the attitude of a company that once stated that casual players don’t deserve to access content like Nagafen, than punishing an entire guild for the actions of one person. Again they pretty quickly reversed the decision, but they went ahead with it in the first place. And that is the problem.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Daybreak Ignores Everquest Ragefire Vote


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When it comes to Everquest and time-locked servers, polls ensure that the servers only progress as fast at the community wants them to. For Ragefire/Lockjaw, the latest set of progression servers, players voted by a very large percentage in order to keep the servers as they are for another six months, with the second most popular option being ASAP on Ragefire and 3 months on Lockjaw.

In an announcement posted on the official forums, however, Daybreak developer Aristo announced that the company will react to player votes by ignoring them, bending the rules and combining answers from two categories (ASAP and 3 months) and calling it the majority opinion. Instead of going with the top voted option (six months), Daybreak will instead open up voting for the Kunark expansion after three months.

Players stuck on Ragefire might have the option to transfer to Lockjaw, perhaps. It’s a possibility that Daybreak is investigating with no details or confirmation that it would be possible, also noting that the transfer wouldn’t be possible until after the servers fell out of sync.

Once Ragefire is settled into Kunark we’ll have to explore whether they want to return to the 6-month schedule or adjust it to a faster track. Likewise, although Lockjaw will hopefully be full of people who want to stick around in an era for a long time, we’ll check to make sure that remains the case as time goes by.

Daybreak Game Company seems to be suffering from a case of foot in mouth disease, as earlier today community manager Holly Longdale ruffled some feathers by stating that “casual players shouldn’t be allowed to fight Nagafen,” a rather out of touch comment considering that much of the content and competition is currently being nullified by large groups of players multi-boxing and botting.

“What we don’t want to do is instance raids, which is what casuals want us to do because they want to fight Nagafen. Casuals shouldn’t be allowed to fight Nagafen… that diminishes the achievement of others. That’s part of the challenge: You have to be better than the other guy; you have to be more strategic that the other guy.”

As for multi-boxing, Longdale assures us that they are “looking into it.”

(Source: Everquest)

Development Shifting Over To Everquest Next


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Since Landmark and Everquest Next share the same engine and certain mechanics, it’s possible to develop both games simultaneously at some level. In the latest producer’s letter, Daybreak announced that development on Landmark-specific content is taking a back seat to Next.

So, as we shift our focus and development to EQN, it just doesn’t make sense to continue with the Blueprint, since the goal of that has always been to provide short term, concrete plans of what you could expect and when, and that isn’t something we can reliably estimate at this point. When we have a better idea of timing on the various pieces, we will make sure to let everyone know.

(Source: Landmark)

[Community] Are Boxers Harshing Your Ragefire Buzz?


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(Community is a weekly column discussing ongoing events in various MMOs. Agree or disagree, we’d like to hear what you think in the comments below.)

Everquest’s Ragefire progression server has been up for less than a week, actually it’s been up for about four days, but if you’ve been trying to make headway in the game it might feel more like a week. Unfortunately, parts of the community are at each other’s throats over the issue of people not being able to play, and who is responsible for clogging Ragefire and camping its mobs. Daybreak has been working to alleviate problems without trampling on either side’s shoes, and the fighting is getting worse.

The culprit of choice for Ragefire are the boxers, players who run two or more copies of Everquest simultaneously, either controlling accounts separately or using programs like isboxer to direct multiple characters at once. A distinction between boxing and botting is important, since botting is unattended and boxing is one player actually operating multiple accounts. Boxing has become very common over the years in Everquest, as computers have expanded and become capable of running multiple instances of the game very easily. For Ragefire, where getting a spot on the server has been rather difficult, members of the community are understandably angry over long queues that are at least partially the fault of single players taking upwards of six or more slots.

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With Ragefire requiring a subscription, it’s also easy to see why Daybreak doesn’t want to tread on the shoes of someone paying $15 per month, per account.

On Daybreak’s end, the company has implemented an afk timer that apparently goes up and down based on how much demand there is to get into the server. I haven’t been able to test this out myself, but reports from other players indicate that the timer can swing as high as over an hour to as low as under ten minutes. In addition, Daybreak cobbled together a server queue that allows players to get their place in during peak hours and alt-tab out of the client or go into chat without worrying about the system automatically logging them out.

How do you feel about boxers in Everquest?

Half-Elfs Break Everquest’s Progression Server


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If you’ve been waiting for Daybreak to unlock the Ragefire progression server for Everquest, you’ll be waiting a bit longer. The server has been taken down due to a bug allowing players to log in with fully-formed level 50 characters. The Daybreak team is currently looking into what caused this.

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