Letter From the Producer

Some items touched upon in the latest Letter From the Producer: Beta recruitment and release/ordering information for The Darkened Sea expansion; Player Studio robes; the Plane of War's "flaming helm"; and changes in this week's patch:

Hello Norrath!

It’s been about a month since SOE Live and in my opinion it was best SOE Live event ever. I was extremely pleased and excited to see the increased participation and interaction between you and our team over the course of this year. It has to be the most positive response I have seen and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope you did too.

Well, we’re all back in the office and the team is focusing on The Darkened Sea Expansion coming to you in just over a month. We will begin our expansion Beta tomorrow (September 16, 2014) and it will run through October 24, 2014. The Early Access launch of The Darkened Sea for All-Access members starts on October 28, 2014. If you have not signed up for our Beta period yet, I urge you do that now to get in as early as possible to check things out. You can SIGN UP HERE.

For Raid testing, I’m making a call out to the Guild Leaders! If your Guild would like to help Raid test the expansion, start organizing your Guild to sign up for the Beta now. Once you know that you will have plenty of Guildies to help Raid test, email me (raid leaders only, please), and include:

  • Two guild contacts in Beta with their email addresses
  • The days of the week and times that you are able to Raid test.

This is very important to nail down as soon as possible as we will want to begin Raid testing on September 22nd. Keep remind your players to be ready 30 minutes before the Raid testing start time, and to cooperate with the Developer in charge of that testing cycle. We have had a few problems in the past, so some guilds may not receive an invitation to test. I’m sure that is not you, but remember the cooperation rules apply all throughout beta and anyone may be removed without notice. Keep calm and enjoy beta testing!

As announced at SOE Live, The Darkened Sea will be our 21st Expansion and it will be launched in a slightly different way than in years past. We do not plan on having a Pre-Order period this year before the launch date. However, if you are an All-Access Member, you will be able to buy and get into the expansion on October 28, two weeks earlier than our full release on November 11, 2014. We are also working on an easy way for players to purchase the expansion plus a monthly subscription to get in quickly and avoid getting left behind. Stay tuned for those details very soon.

Also for the expansion, we held our annual IRC chats to discuss important issues with the players concerning their class, focused specifically on AA development. These are open to anyone, veteran and new player alike. This is the 4th year that Doug Cronkhite, AKA Elidroth has done this, and as in past years, these discussions have really helped connect us to the players on a direct and interactive level, and fits in well with our ongoing Open Development style here at SOE.

Though we have our own ideas on where we want the classes to go, it's always nice to hear from the player's perspective as well. Even when we don't always agree on things, overall you come away from this experience with a better understanding of how and why we do things, while at the same time you get to participate in the shaping and molding of your game. Response every year has been universally positive, and generates nothing but good will towards the EQ team as a whole. We doubly appreciate your help and participation!

Game Update Next Week

Now I have gotten a little ahead of myself on what is coming sooner than the expansion. We have a game update coming up this week and will be releasing some exciting new items:

  • Player Studio – New Category: At SOE Live, we announced that players can now make items for a new category: Robes! Within just 1-2 days of having the new Robe templates up on the website, we started to see new creations trickling in each day. They are looking great and we are very pleased with the Artist Community response. You’ll see new Robes starting next week and we’ll be releasing a batch of new robes each week.
  • The Flaming Helm that you saw some time ago finally has found a home. Check out the patch notes to chart your path on obtaining the flaming and also the non-flaming helm useable within the Hero’s Forge Armor System.

Lots of requests from SOE Live have been implemented. We’ll denote them on the patch notes but here are some highlights:

  • Players will now be able to sell all the items within a container in the merchant window. You can simply select the container you wish sell all items from and click on the sell button. Wah-lah!
  • Dot damage done by procs from pets will now show up for parsing
  • We found Merchant Rehema in Crescent Reach! You can find her too!
  • A new currency has been created: the Noble. You can use it to transfer very large amounts of currency at once. Look for Noble merchants near banks in starting cities and the Plane of Knowledge.
  • You can now disable your active tribute upon logging off
  • ...and many more changes!

Thank you to everyone for a great year! To my contacts at SOE Live: thank you for the awesome Rogue daggers, chipotle jelly, and custom brews!

See you in game real soon!

-Thom

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