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EverQuest II server merges begin today
It's been quite a while since SOE announced server merges for EverQuest II. While they're not all happening at once, the big day is finally upon us for a pair of the game's under-populated shards. Blackburrow and Everfrost are down for approximately 24 hours (which began this morning at 12:00 a.m.). The new Everfrost should emerge from the ashes around midnight if all goes according to plan. In addition to those two outages, cross-server chat, in-game mail, and friends lists on all servers may experience some shenanigans while the work is ongoing. Check out the official word on the EQII website for more information. While you're waiting, have a look at what our EQII expert Karen Bryan has to say about the changes in a server merge edition of The Tattered Notebook.
Massively explores EQ's upcoming expansion, Seeds of Destruction
On October 21, SOE's EverQuest will release its 15th expansion, the Seeds of Destruction. Along with with a level cap raise from 80 to 85 and twenty new zones, EQ will also introduce a new Mercenary system to the game. Long considered a grouping dependent game, players have often struggled to find a group at odd hours or on low-population servers. SOE's solution is the new ability for players to hire NPC tanks and healers. These fill-ins will do the job adequately until the group slot can be filled with another player.What of those 20 new zones? Some are re-imagined classic zones and some are entirely new. And they all are tied together with the new storyline. The agents of Discord have tampered with Norrath's timeline to engineer the destruction of the planet. Players must travel back in time to make sure history goes as planned, even if it means letting good people die and treacherous creatures prevail.Though we've interviewed the design team, read the lore as well as watched an introductory video, we were given our own tour of the expansion by Lead Designer Ryan Barker. You can join us in the tour either by clicking on the first picture below or heading after the jump to watch the 2 minute video of expansion highlights we recorded. EQ expansion tour begins here >> Watch the video here >> %Gallery-32253%
Into the depths of EverQuest's most famous dungeons
We've been following along as the official EverQuest site offers up new articles about very old things. They're working through the game's lore, pointing out some of the most important places in all of Norrath. Today the folks at SOE have a pair of writeups on two of the most important dungeons in all of the original continent of Antonica. The city of Guk is one of those, the swampy ancient home of the Froglok people. Driven from their ancient lower chambers by Trolls, undead, and things even fouler still, the upper reaches of Guk are still home to noble frog warriors. The lower depths, though, are some of the most dangerous areas in all of the older game. Whether you were bashing bones on the 'Dead Side' or ruining your Froglok faction on the 'Live Side', these confusing caverns were home to some great victories and defeats over the years.The other dungeon covered this week is the gnoll-infested hole of Blackburrow. Given its low level and proximity to the goodly starting city of Qeynos, Blackburrow is a locale almost every EQ players will be familiar with. It's famed throughout the game as one of the most interesting lore areas in all the game. It's also well known for the endless trains of monsters that typified low-level questing there. From the top of the great pit to the wet-dog smell of the Commanders' room, the place is steeped in EverQuest lore through and through.
