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Legends of Norrath launches fifth expansion: Ethernauts
Today marks the release of the fifth expansion to the Legends of Norrath digital trading card game -- Ethernauts. More than 280 cards join the existing arsenal, including four avatar cards, two new unit races, and 20 loot cards. They all play into a story that sets the stage for EverQuest II's upcoming The Shadow Odyssey expansion. In fact, there are even some scenarios based on never-before-seen TSO content. In an attempt to give would-be newbies an incentive to buy in, SOE has also introduced the Legendary Starter Pack at the price of $19.99. If you're a vet, though, you can pick up Ethernauts booster packs for $2.99 each. Current EverQuest or EQ2 subscribers will get a free starter deck, 'cause, y'know -- you're not hooked on Norrath enough already, right? Oh, and there are a bunch of special events all weekend celebrating the launch. Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest! %Gallery-17086%
EverQuest 2 team delves into The Shadow Odyssey's dungeon lore
We're still a little more than a month away from the release of EverQuest II's next expansion, The Shadow Odyssey. Ramping up to that November 18th launch the folks at SOE have been releasing information about some of the dungeons coming in the expansion, and allowing players entrance to a fantastic playable preview of the Veksar crypts. Now they're offering up more details on specific subwings of some of the Shadow Odyssey delves. Head down the rabbit hole to explore the Necrotic Asylum portion of Befallen, and Mayong Mistmoore's personal sanctuary Mistmyr Manor. There are a ton of restless undead to face in the Asylum, and Mistmoore's lackeys are seriously living-challenged to boot. Meanwhile the return to Guk will have a lot of EverQuest fans cheering. Take a look at the official site's look at the Guk Stronghold and (deeper in) the challenges and horrors of Lower Guk. Ribbit!%Gallery-30866% Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
EverQuest 2 Game Update 49 goes live
It's been a bit of a wait for this one, but finally the fan-anticipated Game Update 49 has gone live on the EverQuest 2 servers. We had a chance to preview all of the great new content that SOE has put into the game late last month. Go check out our post to get a look at the fantastic new guild halls, an extension of the current quest line for the Void Storms world event, and (among other things) the ability to resize housing items. The other big pull for GU49 is, of course, the newly-revamped leveling curve that players will be able to surf. Expect to make it to make level a lot faster after today.Allakhazam has a number of guides that will help you out with this content as well. Head on over there to check out their guide to the new Guild Halls and their amenities, as well as a walkthrough for the Void Storms world event. For fully formatted patch notes, click on through below the cut!%Gallery-32571% Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
Explore the dungeons of EverQuest 2's Shadow Odyssey expansion!
There are a bevy of brand-new screenshots and an all-new trailer out for the dungeons of Shadow Odyssey, the next expansion to Sony Online's EverQuest 2. The new screens center on the mysterious resting place of Miragul's phylactery, the mystical talisman that keeps the ancient lich tied to the physical realm. Others explore The Void itself, the high-end dungeon tied directly into the expansion's backstory.Click through to the gallery for these images, or through below the cut to watch the video exploring both of these locales and more!%Gallery-30866% Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
The Daily Grind: How's EQ2 treatin' ya?
A while back we checked in with players of The Lord of the Rings Online to see how their experiences were going. Most responses were positive, with a few folks saying they had quit due to boredom. Now we'd like to check in another game -- this one a little older. EverQuest II went head to head with World of Warcraft. It's clear that if we're just counting subscribers, WoW is the winner. But maybe quality trumps quantity.So how is the quality of one of the world's only surviving MMO sequels these days? SOE has certainly had time to refine the game. There have been four expansions to date, with another one coming up very soon. Do you go to the Fan Faires? Do you already have four level 80s? Will the mid-level experience boost bring you back for more?Tell us: how's EQ2 treatin' ya?
The Shadow Odyssey's Befallen dungeon featured at EQ2 website
SOE posted a preview of Befallen, one of the classic EverQuest dungeons that will be reborn in EverQuest II's upcoming The Shadow Odyssey expansion. Included are several screenshots of the dungeon along with its background in the game's lore. The aesthetic of the old Befallen seems to be preserved -- and amplified -- in EQ2's newer graphics engine.The story goes something like this: a bunch of Knights of Marr built the keep in the Commonlands as a headquarters in their quest to chase off the giants and orcs that terrorized the people in the countryside. Their fortress became their tomb, though, as orcs laid siege to the keep. A warrior named Gynok Moltor came to them to help, but it turned out that he had been cursed. He betrayed the Knights and turned Befallen into the dangerous mass grave that it is today.It's standard fantasy fare. Cool enough, but we're sure most of you just care about the loot. Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
A walking tour of EverQuest 2's new Veksar dungeon
As we've done in the past with new updates to EverQuest II, we recently had the chance to go on a walking tour of the brand new Veksar Invasion dungeon. Just as with our looks at the Shard of Hate, GU 47, and GU 45, we were able to go deep inside the new content to get a sense of what's new and interesting about the game. Regardless level or interests, EverQuest II Game Update 48 has something fantastic for every player. For high level characters, of course, the Veksar dungeon is the place to be until The Shadow Odyssey comes out. Designed as a 'teaser' for the upcoming new content, it'll have you thinking and laughing your way through the short number of encounters.If you're not max level, you've still got a bunch of new content to tackle in this Game Update. There's a murder mystery in the city of Qeynos, and a busybody in Gorowyn wants to know what's up. Help out your faction to understand what's happening before the other side does! Plus, the construction workers preparing for the new guild housing system are running low on supplies. Traders and Adventurers alike are tasked with helping them get things back on track. There's tons of stuff to do in Norrath today. What are you waiting for? Go Check out Game Update 48 >> %Gallery-31613% Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
The Daily Grind: It's expansion season!
It's expansion season in MMO-land. World of Warcraft will of course see the Wrath of the Lich King, which will add the continent of Northrend, a prestige class, and numerous enhancements. The Lord of the Rings Online will open up the Mines of Moria -- a massive dungeon environment for levels 50 and up. There will also be two new classes, and yes, numerous other enhancements.Then there's EverQuest II's The Shadow Odyssey, EverQuest's Seeds of Destruction, and Asheron's Call's just-released 100th update. If you've got long-inactive accounts with any of these games, the devs are trying to win you back! If you're still there, they're trying to keep you from leaving for Warhammer Online or from freeing yourself from the genre completely.Are any of these expansions going to do the job for you? And if so, which ones?
Take a visual tour of EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey's new dungeons
EverQuest II's The Shadow Odyssey expansion is set to launch this November. In addition to heritage quests and the shard reward system, the expansion will add an EverQuest classic -- the dungeon of Guk. And in the days leading up to the launch, EQ2 players will get to start exploring another dungeon: Veksar.To build up anticipation, SOE is rolling out articles, screenshots, and concept art related to the two new dungeons. For Guk it put together a series of lore-oriented postcards and images explaining what the place is all about, culminating in some concept art wallpapers. The Veksar article is a little more traditional in its presentation, but the substance is all there. We've put together in a gallery all the images from both of those tours.SOE also released concept art for guild halls, which will be implemented soon. Guild halls date back to Meridian 59 and text MUDs before it, but for some reason they've been out of vogue in the 21st century.%Gallery-30866% Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
The week in Massively features
The Hyborian Backpackers' guide: Conall's ValleyThis week, we present to you the first installment of the Hyborian Backpackers' guide to the zones of Age of Conan. Over the coming weeks, we'll be scouring every nook and cranny of Conan's world to bring you all the sights, quest locations, and notable local characters that make up the areas of AoC. Massively's state of the game: Warhammer Online betaToday this blogger has attempted to do the same for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the fantasy MMO slated for release by EA and Mythic Entertainment on the 18th of September. If anything, Warhammer Online is a title with a more tightly-wound, highly anticipatory audience than Conan was. The Digital Continuum: Memoirs of a WAR beta testerIn my time interacting as a member of the beta community with Mythic -- concerning Warhammer Online, of course -- I think I've seen more progress made on any MMO in the span of about a year than I have in any other in beta. And I've been in a lot of them. What you need to know about The Shadow OdysseyThe Shadow Odyssey, EverQuest II's fifth expansion, is not just the usual bump to the level cap, a couple of new raids, and a reset for all the armor you already got. It's none of those things. What SOE has done with this expansion is go through the level 50 to level 80 portion of the game and say, let's make an expansion that has something for pretty much everyone. Let's make an expansion where even if no upgrades drop, you can be working toward some awesome stuff just by playing. Massively catches up with Dungeons and Dragons Online at Gen ConMassively dropped in on their show floor booth to see what they had to see and chat about the brand new character creation system coming to the game, as well as upcoming enhancements, including an increased level cap and maybe even a chance to see Khorvaire in DDO.
What you need to know about The Shadow Odyssey
The Shadow Odyssey, EverQuest II's fifth expansion, is not just the usual bump to the level cap, a couple of new raids, and a reset for all the armor you already got. It's none of those things. What SOE has done with this expansion is go through the level 50 to level 80 portion of the game and say, let's make an expansion that has something for pretty much everyone. Let's make an expansion where even if no upgrades drop, you can be working toward some awesome stuff just by playing.The original EverQuest started out as a supremely casual and social game. It was the players that pushed SOE to make the game more raid focused, but sometime after the heavily raid-oriented Planes of Power expansion, the casual players asked when they'd get an expansion for them. SOE came out with the Lost Dungeons of Norrath, which offered three or four variants at each of six dungeons, meant for single groups of averagely-equipped players. The difficulty and mission type could be selected, and every time you completed a mission, you got points with which you could buy hard-to-find spells, armor of near raid quality, adornments which would push that armor into the quality of raid gear, and some cool stuff only available through the LDoN merchants.The Shadow Odyssey is EverQuest II's Lost Dungeons of Norrath -- and more. Click on through to see why TSO might be the best EQ2 expansion yet. Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
Sony Fan Faire drops debut trailers for Everquest and EQII expansions
At Sony Online Entertainment's Fan Faire event in Las Vegas, expansions to two of the MMO developer's major titles, Everquest and Everquest II, were revealed and dated: EQ fans will be planting Seeds of Destruction on October 21, while EQII players will find themselves embarking on The Shadow Odyssey November 18. Shortly thereafter, SOE revealed a teaser trailer for each expansion. We debated about which one to feature on the main page, and ultimately decided upon the expansion for the game that hasn't been out for a hojillion years (fret not, Seeds' trailer is after the jump). The Shadow Odyssey's teaser shows off some of the rather uninviting locales featured in the update, and not much else. The Seeds of Destruction trailer previews the new mercenary system, and flaunts a number of new areas which will be added to the title. Pretty impressive from a game that, if it were a human being, would be entering the fourth grade this Fall, where it would slowly begin to develop funny feelings towards its classmate, Asheron's Call. Read: EverQuest: Seeds of Destruction teaser trailer released Read: EQII: The Shadow Odyssey teaser trailer released
The Daily Grind: EverQuest expanding
Yesterday evening at Fan Faire, SOE announced expansions for EverQuest and EverQuest 2: Seeds of Destruction and The Shadow Odyssey, respectively. This will be EQ's 15th expansion and EQ2's 4th, with SoD promising 20 new zones and a new level cap of 85; and SO promising new zones, new dungeons, new quests, and additional achievement points. But what we're wondering is: how long can a game last? (15 expansions at least, apparently!) How long can expansion packs up the excitement factor? Tell us, will these new expansions keep you playing? Will they bring you back into the game? And if so, what has you excited about the latest additions to SOE's online world? %Gallery-29748%%Gallery-29751%
EQII: The Shadow Odyssey teaser trailer released
As we reported earlier from our ongoing coverage of SOE's Fan Faire in Las Vegas, a new expansion has been announced for EverQuest II entitled The Shadow Odyssey. The details of this expansion can be found in the original announcement post, as well as an extensive interview with EQII's Senior Producer, Bruce Ferguson.In addition to this, we have some fantastic new video footage to present as well. This footage shows some exciting new content such as a few new goal-based dungeons, as well as some old favorites like Ruins of Guk and Befallen, plus new creatures and much more. Check out the complete video after the cut and let us know what you think! Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
Exploring The Shadow Odyssey with EQII Senior Producer Bruce Ferguson
SOE just announced the newest expansion to their EverQuest II title, and we've got plenty of answers for your burning questions. We had the chance to sit down with the game's Senior Producer, Bruce Ferguson, to talk about what makes this such an important product for Sony Online. Join us as we talk through some of the fantastic new content coming to the game. Some of it is "old content", revamped and updated areas from the original vision of Norrath the company created back in 1999. Befallen and Guk are fan favorites, and are making a comeback with a vengeance. Some of it is distinctly new, like the shard system that will allow players to customize their loot for the first time ever. And some of it is a mix of both! Read on for full details on this interesting new product. Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
SOE announces the next EverQuest II expansion: The Shadow Odyssey
Just moments ago in Las Vegas, Nevada SOE CEO John Smedley took the stage to announce the next expansion for the company's flagship product, EverQuest II. The fourth expansion to reach the game will be entitled The Shadow Odyssey, and is slated for release to players on November 18th of this year. The expansion will seek to expand on themes begun with the best-selling Rise of Kunark expansion, returning a number of nostalgic elements to the shattered world of Norrath. Players familiar with the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion to the original EverQuest may find several similarities in this newest content release, which is slated to include a number of instanced dungeons.Other feature highlights include: Brand new zones with some old favorite names. Innothule Swamp? Wall-to-wall dungeon crawling, revisiting some of the highlight real best of the original EverQuest. Guk, Mistmoore, and Befallen are all ripe for the picking. No new level increase, but a big bump in the number of Achievement points you can get - up to 200. Additionally, the expansion will feature brand new class-specific AA lines! Tons more, including new deities, new Heritage quests, and a new 'Shard' system that will let you pick your loot rewards instead of hoping for drops! Read on below the cut for the full press release, and be sure to explore our exclusive interview with EverQuest II Senior Producer for Bruce Ferguson all about the upcoming expansion.%Gallery-29748%
SOE announces EverQuest: Seeds of Destruction and EQII: The Shadow Odyssey
At its annual Fan Faire, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has revealed new expansions for EverQuest and EverQuest II. For EQ players, The Seeds of Destruction expansion offers a new level cap (85), 20 new zones, a new mercenary system, and all fourteen previous expansions in one box. EQII: The Shadow Odyssey will feature brand new zones, some revisits to the original EQ dungeons, a bump in the number of achievements you can get (up to 200), new deities, new quests and a new loot system that lets you pick your loot rewards. Our MMO-obsessed colleagues at Massively have interviews with the EverQuest design team and EQII Senior Producer Bruce Ferguson about the expansions. All Fan Faire attendees will receive both games for free and will be able to participate in the SoD and TSO betas when they begin on August 19 and September 2, respectively. Seeds of Destruction will come out October 21, while The Shadow Odyssey is scheduled for November 18. Stay tuned to Massively all week for more Fan Faire coverage. Gallery: EverQuest: Seeds of Destruction Announcement Gallery: EverQuest 2: The Shadow Odyssey Announcement
