I was killing alot of colored mobs this saturday to get hold of at least a few of the new promocards — unfortunately with no avail. Meanwhile I was able to obtain the cards, 4 each, for ingame platin :-).

Here are the item links for the two promocards:

• \aITEM 371226533 819846666:Legends of Norrath Promotional Card: Hatred\/a
• \aITEM 1770258306 1333679661:Legends of Norrath Promotional Card: Switch\/a

After claiming my LoN cards I’ve also noticed the following at my SOE Account subscriptions:

Claiming the cards generates a 99 month non-recurring “pending” subscription to “Norrath Casual Strategy Game”.

Interesting to know is that the two promocards — despite the fact that the cardnumbers are 1P1 and 1P2 — are named #3 and #5 in the subscription details, I wonder where #1, #2 and #4 are hiding :-) :

EDIT 2007-10-01: The Promo weekend is over now. Overall I did not have the feeling that droprates for boosters or even the promo cards got significantly increased — it seemed as low as always. I’ve never hat a LoN ingame drop before so it is 0% chance for me against 0% chance whilst in the promo weekend. According to the broker on my server there must have been quite some promo drops as they are still on sale for a few platin. Even while I already grabbed 4 of each card I might go for a buyout on the broker. You never know if there could be a use for some surplus promo cards someday.

Checking my /claim window revealed two unclaimed items. I was a little bit confused and promptly claimed both. It looks like EQ2 Russia just happens to celebrate it’s 1st birthday — congratulations.

Players worldwide seem to be able to claim a birthdaycake and vodka.

Itemlinks:

• \aITEM -823740517 -1242563056:A 1-Year Birthday Cake\/a
• \aITEM -2076048093 639387762:Vodka Akellovka\/a

Screenshots will follow as soon as my english localized EQ2 client finished patching. I also apologize for only providing german named item links :-) I will followup with the english names ASAP.

UPDATE:Here are the promised screenshots. I’ve also edited the item links to reflect the english names.

I just encountered a strange thing. I went over to the SOE EQ2 Forum to check test patch notes. But there was nothing — and with nothing I mean there was not even a forum for the test updates, for the game updates and also no test feedback forum.

I’ve sent a PM to Grimwell and then noticed that as soon as I logout from the forums the update/test/feedback boards are visible again — but of course you cannot post a feedback since you are not logged in.

I hope this gets resolved quickly.

UPDATE (2007-09-28): This issue has been solved ;-)

I had no raid today so I was hanging out in Legends of Norrath. Suddenly a system Message announced a test tournament.

Actually the first tournament should have been completed last weekend, but servers kept crashing with 1000+ players in the tournament queue. This time it was more or less unannounced and only about 350 players took the opportunity to attend.

This tournament rewarded 3 booster packs to the first 5 ranks and had no entry fee. It was a constructed best of 8 with chessclock timed matches set at 30 minutes max (15 minutes for each player per match). Winners earned 3 points while the loser still got 1 point for the tournament ladder.

Congratulations to the winners.

PS: I managed to get ranked #147 out of 351 (16 points).

In the last Thone of New Tunaria raid we managed to take down the Harbinger of Absolution.

This time we have been prepared to get further. The trash encounters posed little resistance to our raidforce and even those niffy Gardist/Highpriest/knight encounters fell swiftly. We faced the Harbinger of absolution again and quickly dispatched that mutant.

So here she was — again — Queen Lenya Thex. She charms, she has a nasty knockback and is no easy going like the Harbinger is. We managed to get rid of her sources of might, the two statues that are quite hidden and managed to take her down.

Unfortunately this encounter is not meant to drop any loot - it is just a timesink — but it was great to see her in the dust, and to see Mayong Mistmoore spawning at her spot. This is where we will continue next time but then Mayong will follow her into the abyss.

Almost forgot to post that — via wordpress.org:

I’m thrilled to announce that Version 2.3 “Dexter” of WordPress is now ready for the world. This release includes native tagging support, plugin update notification, URL handling improvements, and much more. This release is named for the great tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon.

The entire team is really proud of this release, and I’m happy that this is our second on-time release under our new development schedule. The grand experiment of a more agile WordPress with significant features in the hands of users more often is working. I could write a blog post about each new feature, but I’ll try to be brief: Read the rest of this entry »

Via eq2players.com:

Calling all EverQuest® and EverQuest® II players! What’s more fun than defeating opponents in your game and picking up Legends of Norrath booster packs, starter decks, and combo packs? Well, how about the opportunity to get even more of them?

Introducing the Legends of Norrath Promotion Weekend beginning at 2PM (PDT) Friday, September 28th and concluding at 11:59PM (PDT) on Sunday, September 30th. During this special weekend, EQ and EQII players will not only enjoy a significantly increased rate of card pack drops, but will have the opportunity to obtain two brand new cards, Hatred (1P1) and Switch (1P2):

For now, these two new cards will only be available during this three-day promotional weekend, so don’t miss out on the chance to get them!

It’s not only a great time for current Legends of Norrath players to score big, but the perfect opportunity for EQ and EQII players to come see what all the buzz is about with this great new addition to the universe of Norrath. It will be a blast – especially with such an increased opportunity to win cards!

So combat those EQ and EQII enemies this weekend and loot, loot, loot! Then use your card bounty to continue on your way to becoming the ultimate Legends of Norrath player!

UPDATE: In case you are having problems reading the cards description:

Hatred:

Card type: Ability (1 Leveltoken)

Card cost: 1 Mana

Card text: “While your avatar is in combat with one or more light combatants, this ability gets +2 defense. (SHADOW) This ability gets +3 defense in combat against one or more light combatants instead.”

Card comment: “Forget all the poetics about stabbing and spitting your hate. I loathe all who walk in the light with the blunt force trauma of a battle hammer and I exult every day I crush their skulls in my hands.”

Cards number: 1P1

Illustrator: Kieran Yanner

Switch:

Card type: Ability (3 Leveltoken/3 Defense)

Card cost: 2 Mana

Card text: “When you play this ability, destroy one of your abilities.”

Card comment: “We cannot see beyond the choices we must make. So choose — wisely! ~Lanken Rjarn, Erudin’s Craftkeepers Enchanter Guild”

Cards number: 1P2

Illustrator: Kieran Yanner

UPDATE: Added “Hatred” card comment. meanwhileI was able to get 4 of each cards for my collection ;-)

Via eq2players.com:

Beginning at 11:30 p.m. PDT on Monday, September 24th, all SOE services will be unavailable so that we can perform significant upgrades to our authentication and account management systems.

Currently we expect this maintenance to take approximately 14 hours. But as first indicated, it could extend to as long as 24. Customer service, chat and support will also be unavailable at this time. Phone support will still be accessible. SOE websites will indeed be inaccessible at that time but there shall be an automatic site redirect that will be continually updated throughout the day as to the progress of the maintenance.

We apologize for this interruption, however when service is resumed you will have an enhanced user experience to manage your accounts at Station.com.

UPDATE: Maintenance seems to be finished — all EQ2 forums, the eq2players.com site, Legends of Norrath and EQ2 itself seems to be up and running again.

VMware Server 1.0.4

Latest Version: 1.0.4 | 9/18/07 | Build: 56528 | Release Notes

What’s New in Version 1.0.4

Version 1.0.4 is a maintenance bug fix release to address security issues. See Resolved Issues for information on what has been fixed.

VMware Workstation 6.0.1 for Windows

Latest Version: 6.0.1 | 9/18/07 | Build: 55017 | Release Notes

New in Version 6.0.1

Updated Support for Host and Guest Operating Systems

Workstation 6.0.1 adds experimental support for the following operating systems:

• 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Server 2008 (code name Longhorn) as host and guest operating systems
• 32-bit and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 as host and guest operating systems
• 32-bit and 64-bit openSUSE Linux 10.3 as host and guest operating systems
• 32-bit and 64-bit Turbolinux 10 Server as a guest operating system

Workstation 6.0.1 adds full support for the following operating systems:

• 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 7.04 as host and guest operating systems
• 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 (formerly called 4.0 Update 5) as host and guest operating systems
• 32-bit and 64-bit FreeBSD 6.2 as a guest operating system

What’s New in Firefox 2.0.0.7

Release Date:

September 18, 2007

Security Update:

The following security issue was fixed.

Earlier Changes:

For information about previous changes, please see the Firefox 2.0.0.6 Release Notes

Firefox 2 Features:

For an overview, please see Firefox 2 Features.

Fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.7

MFSA 2007-28 Code execution via QuickTime Media-link files