We had the opportunity to go hands-on with Square Enix's Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae on the PlayStation 4 at PAX East yesterday, and it definitely left us wanting more. From stunning visuals to the amazement over an open world in a Final Fantasy title, XV is set to not disappoint.
Final Fantasy XIV fans are rejoicing as the release date for the first FFXIV expansion, Heavensward, has finally been announced by game director Naoki Yoshida at PAX East.
EverQuest II has announced a beta test weekend designed to test changes to their databses.
We’re working hard on database changes for EQ2, and we need your help to make sure they’re awesome!
Starting today and running until Monday, March 9 at 11:59AM PST, we could really use your help on the beta server. You can use our Beta Copy feature by typing /betacopy on a character you want to copy.
What we are looking for?
Weirdness or issues with the entire game, but our top test requests are:
- If you used /betacopy, is your character in the EXACT same state you left it on live?
- Enter/Exit Housing & Decorate
- Contested Dungeons like High Keep
- Lock-out timers of various types
- Broker functionality
- Guild functions, changes, updates
How do I get the mount?
- We’ll be hooking up everyone that assists us on the beta server this weekend with a Blessed Sokokar mount for one of their live characters. To earn this for a live character, you have to kill at least 250 things on the beta server.
If you notice any quirks, please /bug immediately. We’re grateful for everyone’s help and support, and we’ll see you on the beta server this weekend!
Customer Service has been spotty since Sony Online Entertainment transitioned into Daybreak Games. First phone service disappeared, then customers started complaining that petitions were not being answered. March 4, 2015, Daybreak Games updated their Knowledge Base with an article called [EQ2] Cases where Game Masters will not intervene. They have severely restricted the role of GMs to "errors with the game and/or servers" and remove the GM ability to help with gameplay issues.
UPDATE: Astute players have pointed out that EverQuest GM's have suffered a similar scope reduction. There's a very similar article called [EQ] Cases where Game Masters will not intervene. Below is the EverQuest II version:
Game Masters are available to assist with errors with the game and/or servers (such as crashes/rollbacks, zone down, etc)
Game Masters will not be able to intervene with simple gameplay errors. Gameplay errors should be resolved by further gameplay and players should use in-game means to address these errors.Some examples of situations where Game Masters will not intervene:
- Deleted items: Please reacquire any deleted items through gameplay.
- Accidentally sold items: Buy the item back from a vendor. If it cannot be bought back, reacquire the item through gameplay.
- Accidentally bought items: Sell the unintended item back to the vendor (not all items can be sold back unfortunately) and purchase the intended item.
- Misloots: The Game Masters will not move items that were looted by accident or sent/traded to an unintended character.
- Accidental item modification (transmutes, adornments, gems, etc): There are in-game means to correct this issue which the player should explore.
- Renaming: The Game Masters will not change a character's first name, surname, or guild name upon request. Name change potions are available on the marketplace.
- Guild Administration: The Game Masters will not administrate a guild or intervene in guild management affairs in any way. If your guild leader is absent, please create a new guild of your own or find another guild on the server that meets your needs.
- Deleted characters: There are various mechanics in place to assure that characters are not deleted by accident. Let's be careful out there. Deleted characters will not be restored. Feel free to re-roll a new character.
That's right, Daybreak Games will no longer help you when your Guild Leader disappears from the game or your eight-year-old deletes a character to make room for his new "mouse pirate." So be careful out there, Norrathians, and be really sure before you click "Yes" and delete something!
Brewday kicks off on March 5th and your faithful ZAM staff has been working hard to bring you all the help you need. While drunkenly stumbling around Norrath be sure to stop by Enchanted Lands and talk to Maisy Sweetbread about a goblin problem. In the Butcherblock Mountains the pesky goblins are trying to ruin the local Brewday festivities can once again be gleefully knocked over by clover carpets there's a new prize to be won. The event also features a new crafting scroll, Brewday Accoutrements to Craft VI, and new Beer Token wares from Balin Copperfoot!
Back by popular demand we also offer you our updated Brewday Quest Tracker! Happy drinking!
Hello and welcome to the 1st edition of Formerly Hardcore, ZAM’s column on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. The title probably makes it obvious, but in case anyone hasn’t guessed, this column is going to be from the perspective of an ex-hardcore raider. There will still be plenty of talk about raiding in general, especially for this first post, but I’ll also talk about different aspects of WoW as a whole as patch notes and my whims take me.
For our first column, I’m going to talk about my adventures into WoW’s latest raid, Blackrock Foundry. The gates of BRF opened up to Normal and Heroic groups on February 3rd with Mythic opening the following week and Looking For Raid difficulty a week later. My raid team is not large enough to try our luck in Mythic BRF, but after three weeks of Normal difficulty, dipping our toes into Heroic as well as trying the first two wings of LFR, I’m ready to talk about the raid.
This morning saw the release of 15 fresh screenshots from the Final Fantasy XV -Episode Duscae- demo. They feature the environment of the Duscae region, the camp system, as well as some Noctis and his party. The demo itself will be available with the Day One edition of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD.
Click on any image below to enlarge it.
On February 18, 2015 the EverQuest team held a livestream Q&A to answer questions provided by players on our official forums and Twitch chat. This stream includes Jonathan "Prathun" Caraker, Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Ry "Roshen" Schueller (community), Jenn Chan, Kevin Lydy and Ed "Aristo" Hardin.
Executive Producer Holly Longdale and other members of the EverQuest II developer team will address the community and answer some questions during the Wednesday, February 18 Twitch livestream. It kicks off at 3pm PT/6pm ET.
THE LIVESTREAM HAS ENDED! Notes we took during it are after the jump; the recording is now available below. EQ2 Wire has also posted a recap of the stream.
NOTE: I saw a lot of people complaining about how vague the livestream was afterward in the Twitch chat.
Hello and welcome to the 34th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’re going to look at something a few other MMOs have played with over the years: player-generated content. Typically when an MMO gives players room to create something in-game, it’s usually limited to something like player housing and crafted items, where the impact on the game as a whole is limited to the player themselves or at most a small group of other players. MMOs like Neverwinter and the now defunct City of Heroes took this to another level and gave players the chance to add more substantial and long-lasting content to the game.
