SOE Live: Chains of Eternity's Big Plans

Large changes coming to Norrath with EverQuest 2: Chains of Eternity

Chains of Eternity's biggest highlight, in my opinion, is not Firiona Vie's lifeless body --  though a few folks cheered at the confirmation of the adventurer's passing --but instead, the wealth of crafting changes being done for the upcoming expansion. The positive response from attendees at SOE Live was not surprising, given how much EQII players have thirsted for them.

Tradeskill Alternate Advancements (AAs) have been removed from the Adventuring AA trees, which means crafting experience goes into Crafting AAs, as it should. Furthermore, prestige lines for crafting are being added; with options of Salvaging/Refining, Mass Production, and Experimentation. Salvaging allows disassembling for materials and a boost to harvesting skills. Refiners will convert rare to pure elements, which boosts the stats of the items made. Mass Production adds volume in favor of power, allowing less consumption of resources while making items. Experimentation involves a improving an item by changing stats or adding procs; each follow-up experiment gets riskier, increasing the chance of the item exploding.

The adornment called Spirit Stones (green slot) will be added, which grow and gain experience with the wearer. They unlock new abilities and can only be equipped in the ring and neck slots. At launch there will be dozens to choose from in a variety of methods, such both forged by Tinkering and dropped by rare monsters. Adornment removal will be available, utilizing removers created by Tinkerers, for a cost -- though they are destroyed thereafter. 

Guild Halls are being tweaked, providing more ways to spruce up your guild hall and make them look prettier (known as amenities, but god that word is hard to spell). The number of unavailable ones will be reduced, and guilds will be able to add Chronomages and deity altars. One will even reduce the cost of guilds.

Lastly, the usual level cap increase, this time to 95, will be adorned with new content. Two new zones and nine new instances, including Temple of the Faceless, The Ancient Vault, additions to the current Sleeper's Tomb (that one perked my ears up), the Dreadcutter (a ship), and Harrow's End. New PVP and prestige abilities are being added. The ability to get into the new content requires level 92 and completion of Unexpected Consequences, so SOE has given out bonuses to all players who get the expansion - new baubles grant a player 280 AA points to their level 90 adventurer, which are limited to two per account. That's a good reason to pick it up in itself.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

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What about the 3rd new guild feature?
# Oct 22 2012 at 9:25 PM Rating: Decent
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Personally I am wondering about the announced Guild Standards. The third of the new guild features. It's not likely a banner/tapestries, but I do would like know what exactly it does.
Again Help for those that do not want to do the work
# Oct 22 2012 at 3:09 AM Rating: Decent
I have only one level 91 character at the moment. I worked to get to that level ..long hard AA grind. At the moment when I see someone else at a level above 90 I know that they also have put in the time and effort to gain that level ..and therefore the respect.
So now anyone that is level 90 will get the 280 AA. This is of course to make the power leveler happy... get to level 90 with only a few AA points.
What would have been better would be to give those that have done the work .. put in the effort a reward... but of course if they had done this then the power levelers would have cried even more and thrown their rattles out of their prams.
Again Help for those that do not want to do the work
# Oct 22 2012 at 7:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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FUJIKOO wrote:
So now anyone that is level 90 will get the 280 AA. This is of course to make the power leveler happy... get to level 90 with only a few AA points.

Just woke up from getting home after Fan Faire. Just wanted to try and clarify this point.

From my understanding, the "280 AA bauble" is limited and only TWO will ever be available on any given account. I could have heard wrong or that could be changed, of course, but I'm fairly certain that it's restricted.


Off topic, somewhat:
I got to have a *really* long chat with Holly Longsdale while I was there and my opinion of her changed. She really has the best interests of the majority of people who love and dedicate themselves to this game in mind. We've all gotten a bit bitter and jaded from some things in the past (yes, myself included), but let's give her some time and a shred of optimism, mmmkay? Smiley: grin
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Again Help for those that do not want to do the work
# Oct 22 2012 at 5:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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I too wanted to mention that after talking a LOT with Holly my optimism in the game is renewed. She's no one's puppet, and a strong independent thinker, and on top of that she's an old lore dev :)

Unproven, yes, but I'm willing to give her a shot.

Also: The 280AA pots were indeed TWO TOTAL PER ACCOUNT, PERIOD.
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