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One Shots: The asylum awaits
With SOE having now rolled out the EverQuest II Extended servers into a soft launch, there are tons of folks heading into Norrath to check out the game. Meanwhile, life continues as normal on the EverQuest II servers, with higher-level groups heading into strange dungeons. One such example is the spot we see in today's One Shots, courtesy of fellow MMO blogger Ratwarlock, who also goes by Araxes on the Antonia Bayle server. He notes that this "is from the interior of the Necrotic Asylum, another of the 6-man instanced dungeons" from The Shadow Odyssey. Ratwarlock also assures us that the dungeon this was taken in is "one of the harder ones!" Calling all MMO players! We need your screenshots for One Shots. If you've seen anything fun, imposing, interesting, or silly, we want to hear from you. If you haven't, gather up your group of friends and go have some fun -- then send some screens of that in! All MMOs -- from large-budget to tiny indie, East to West -- are welcome. Send them to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name/server/game and a quick description of what we're seeing. Reader submissions keep One Shots running, so send some in today! %Gallery-85937%
SOE updates EverQuest II's UI and kicks off the Extended beta
If we've learned anything in our long-term relationship with games, it's that no matter how much we love a title, sooner or later we're going to demand a bit of plastic surgery to bring back those youthful looks. Happily, EverQuest II's user interface got a much-needed facelift with today's GU57 patch. The update ushered in a new hotbar, merged windows, and a choice between a red and a blue theme. GU57 doesn't just stop at the UI, however. New tradeskill quests now available at levels 10, 20 and 30, granting both advance recipes and mounts upon completion. Lowbie players should enjoy the revamped Greater Faydark and Darklight Wood zones, and SOE has moved a number of group-oriented spells to higher levels so that greenhorn characters won't feel as overloaded as they take their first few steps into the game. Players should also find that EQII's spell effects have a bit more of a kick to them. In all of the hubbub of the new patch, it's important not to overlook EverQuest II's other big update: the kickoff of the public beta for EverQuest II Extended (EQ2X), the F2P version of the game. You can check out the full patch notes over at EQ2 Wire.
The Tattered Notebook: Flying mounts and what's Next
Well, it's been quite the week and a half for EverQuest fans, with not one but two expansion announcements, a few more details on the upcoming EQII Extended service courtesy of various Fan Faire panels, and of course the speculation supernova surrounding the pseudo-reveal of EQNext (is it really a reveal though if we know virtually nothing about it?). You might think that here at the Tattered Notebook, we'd be quivering with excitement for more EQNext info, or salivating at the prospect of a return to Velious as well as gearing up to visit the House of Thule. You'd be right, but all of that pales in comparison to two very special words (no, not Station Cash): Flying frickin' mounts.
The Tattered Notebook: F2P bombs and views from the fallout shelter
Well, this week takes the proverbial cake when it comes to the least amount of time spent head-scratching over a column topic. Thanks to Dave Georgeson and the executives at Sony Online Entertainment, I pretty much had this little opus sketched out by dinner-time last Tuesday. Anywho... a week ago tomorrow the bomb dropped. It wasn't a stink bomb, a 50-yard bomb, or even an F-bomb (though there were no doubt plenty of those uttered in some circles), but rather a Hiroshima/Nagasaki type of bomb that changed the world and effectively ended the war between P2P and F2P, at least as far as Norrath is concerned. Or did it? Turn the page to find out.
