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EverQuest: Veil of Alaris goes live today
It's been a long time coming, but EverQuest's 18th expansion, Veil of Alaris, is now live. Players can now progress all the way to level 95 while adventuring through a variety of new zones. Guilds can now purchase customizable guild plots and guild halls, allowing them to display their uniqueness through their residences. And of course, there are a wealth of new quests to complete, new monsters to kill, and new loot to pillage. For the full set of notes on what's new with the expansion, head on over to the EverQuest official site, and don't forget to check out our own Karen Bryan's exclusive tour of the expansion.
Preview EverQuest's upcoming City of Bronze
The development of EverQuest has been a steady constant amidst seas of change, with the development team hard at work on the Veil of Alaris expansion. This 18th update for the venerable game will usher in a variety of updates and improvements -- and, of course, new zones. Erillion, the City of Bronze, is one such region and quite fittingly is the latest zone to have a video overview for players to inspect before the expansion's launch. Narrated by Alan VanCouvering and Bob Painter, the video describes both the original concept of Erillion and the challenges faced in designing such an orderly environment. It had to look as mechanical and orderly as possible, after all, but it also had to look organic rather than just being the same building pasted in dozens of times. Click on past the break to watch the video if you'd like to see the city before you can venture there in person. [Source: Official press release]
EverQuest displays new screenshots for the Veil of Alaris expansion
In March of 1999, the upstart studio Verant Interactive created a little game called EverQuest. Who knew that 11 years later we would still see growth from the spearhead MMO of the company now called Sony Online Entertainment? Last week at SOE Fan Faire, the developers announced that EverQuest will see its 18th expansion, Veil of Alaris, sometime in November of this year. SOE promises to reveal more about this about this hidden continent of Norrath in the coming months, In a post on the official forums, the community manager reiterated that the level-cap increase and the guild-hall revamp will be added to the game with this expansion. However, the true reason behind the post was to show off the new screenshots from the land of Alaris. Keep in mind that this game is 11 years old when you gaze at these screenshots of the deadly Resplendent Temple, mysterious Windsong Oratory Crypt, and beautiful Rubak Oseka in the gallery below. %Gallery-128419%
The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts in raids
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we return to flogging the guts out of bosses that might puke up a horse. Today we're going to look at mounts that drop in (or, in one case, as part of a quest within) raids. I'd initially expected to include mounts like the Ulduar proto-drakes and Icecrown frostwyrms, but they're really more the result of a series of achievements rather than encounters themselves. Otherwise, there are more than enough pure drops to keep us occupied today; Blizzard's always been fond of making unique mounts the potential reward of difficult raid encounters, and you'll get a few extra feats of strength if you nab some of these beauties. Also read: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons
Toravon: Strategy for the latest Wintergrasp boss
Toravon is the latest boss to appear within the Vault of Archavon, however we're not quite sure if he is the last of the VoA bosses to be seen in this expansion. The boss is fairly simple conceptually, but don't take him too lightly. I'll walk you through what you need to know to get score some sweet tier 10 PvE gear and equivilent PvP gear. Gear Drops He drops tier 10 level gloves and legs along with PvP gear (like belt and boots). Unlike his brothers, he drops 3 items on 25 instead of 2. And yes, he does drop Emblems of Frost. Its a fairly simple encounter for an equipped raid group. There aren't any fires to stay out of or anything. You'll need 2 tanks and at least 4-5 healers (on 10 man, you can get away with 2). Tanks Tanks will need to switch off of each other to shake the Frostbite debuff. It can stack up to 100 times and each application places a DoT which hits for about 1000 every couple of seconds. Your tanks can switch when they feel the debuff is getting high.
Arena season 7 end date announced
Bornakk has just announced that Arena Season 7 is about to end. The planned end date is January 19. Avoid or delay any realm transfer plans on your arena characters until the process is over if you think you can obtain an arena-specific title and/or the Relentless Gladiator's Frostwyrm. During the one week grace period after the end of the season, rated matches will not be in effect. Season 8 is expected to start one week after the current season ends, which means we expect it to begin on January 26. When the new season begins, your team ratings, personal ratings and arena points will be wiped clean. Your matchmaking rating and honor points will be untouched. This also means that Toravon the Ice Watcher will be available to us soon. He is the fourth (and final) boss in the Vault of Archavon. Good luck to those of you who are competing for the rewards!
The Queue: My Gimp
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky be your host today. Yesterday Alex posted a pretty picture. So I thought I'd retort with my Gimp. Now I need to go talk to Mr. Wallace... Bonc asked... "When we get cross server LFG, what will happen to VoA, for example if I dont have it on my server, can I go to another and get in there, does it go by raid leaders server?"
Guildwatch: Loot reservations required
The hilarious screenshot above comes from Blitzkrieg of Twisting Nether -- I think it's probably the winner of guild screenshots we've seen so far. It's too bad they didn't get the actual Flame Leviathan model in there, but the guildies' names above their heads are perfect. Very well done.Lots more downings (we're still cleaning up the ones before patch 3.2, but I expect after today, we'll be seeing some serious Crusaders' Coliseum progression), and of course the usual drama and recruiting news in this week's GW as well. Click the link below to read on, and enjoy.
Defining "PuGgable"
Alan over on WoW LJ has a great question: just what is PuGgable? Lots of people are talking about Naxx and Vault of Archavon and Obsidian Sanctum as PuGable, or able to be taken down by a pickup group, but just where does the line get drawn? Is 25-man Naxx able to be killed by a PuG? Sarth with three drakes? Ulduar?Most of the 10-man instances are generally easy enough to be dropped by a pickup group, in my experience, though probably not for the achievements. A well-geared PuG can roll right through Naxx or VoA without any problems at all. But when you start getting into the achievements (Sarth with drakes) or the higher content (Eye of Eternity is tough unless everyone in there is experienced), then things get a little shady. Which is why lots of PuG leaders will be checking gear and achievements -- they'd rather take along someone who's already done the content than worry about pulling newbies through. Services and reputations can help that a little bit too -- a good friends list can come in very handy for PuGging even hard content.And I'd say Ulduar is not PuGgable, yet, for a number of reasons. First of all, it's brand new, which means that most pickup folks won't know the fights, and that leads to wipes and only about one or two bosses down. Plus, since it is so new, every raid reset counts, and guilds don't want their raiders using up their resets when there's a guild run later in the week (of course that's not an issue for Naxx, which most guilds have on farm anyway). Though as more people gear up and more guilds make progress in Ulduar, you have to think there'll be PuGs in there as well
