Calthine has posted some great survival tips for the coming Fan Faire convention. If you plan to make it, or just want a funny read:

http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=18064

Some of you will be thrilled to know that FreeRealms is out of Beta and now LIVE.

I have not kept up to date on FreeRealms since its splashy debut at FanFaire ’08, but it certainly showed a lot of promise in the initial demo and playthrough. There are a gazillion things you can do once you login. You can race cars, buy and care for a pet, go out adventuring, questing, and exploring, craft, play minigames (checkers, chess, cards, puzzle games, etc.) chat with friends, put on a concert, etc. It’s The Sims meets Guitar Hero meets Petz plus a whole world to explore. There is even a built-in LoN type game if you are into card games.

Some of the big selling points of the game (other than being free) are that there is no complicated character creation system. You choose an appearance, type a name, and you are in. During the game, you can switch character classes or “roles” instantly and level them up. You can switch from driving race cars to mining to questing in dungeons. Another point is that there is no huge download before you get to see anything. The game downloads in the background while you are running through the tutorial and simple character creation screen.

As we were told at FanFaire, FreeRealms gets most of its funding from purchasing in-game items through microtransactions through the StationCash system which was revealed in November.

But I will admit I was a little surprised to see that some of the primary character classes in the game, and the ability to create more than 1 character, also require a monthly subscription. Most importantly, it seems that Adventuring is impossible without a monthly subscription. Wizard, Warrior, Medic, Archer, and Blacksmith are all premium classes. I really hate to be negative about the launch of a game, but requiring a monthly subscription for one type of gameplay seems shortsighted.

It is a nice touch that the monthly subscription can be funded with StationCash, from your Station account, or with gamecards purchased from Wal-Mart (avoiding the whole credit card situation).

Presumably SoE will monitor how much funding they get from hundreds of in-game items purchaseable through StationCash (certain pets, clothes, games, etc.), and how much they get from the monthly upgrades and make adjustments. They may find that folks prefer to spend $10-20 a month in items through SC but don’t want the monthly subscription.

http://www.freerealms.com/

On April 22nd, 2009, Allakhazam (now known simply as ZAM) relaunched their EQ2 Portal. First announced at Fan Faire in August ’08, the new website is the first (and possibly only?) fan site with live data feeds directly from EQ2. This means that EQ2 Zam has live Broker search which are on just a few minutes delay. Also, loot drops from the various dungeons now have actual percentage drop rates.

As of April 28, EQ2 ZAM’s live data is only available for US servers. No word on when EU and other servers will be providing this data.

I will say the new EQ2 ZAM portal is a bit startling. The new color scheme and new style is attractive (no more station wagon green!), but I would love to see a splash page or entry page which has lots of highlights on what is new to the site and recently new to EQ2.

It should be noted that this is not just a new skin. A tremendous amount of effort has been spent over the last year upgrading, polishing, and reorganizing content in the EQ2 ZAM wiki system. I have written pages for EQ2i and I’ve written pages for EQ2 ZAM and I am quite satisfied with what ZAM has done. In particular, the TSO content seems more complete on ZAM from what I have seen.

New to EQ2 Zam:

• A live Broker feed that allows you to track sales, items, and their pricing data across all servers
• Loc’s and other detailed information on every mob
• Drop information of every item, including drop tables with exact percentages
• Quest data from the game
• Complete recipe information

From EQ2 Forums:

From 3:00 AM PDT until 6:00 AM PDT on Thursday, April 16, 2009, the EQII servers will be undergoing maintenance and will be unavailable.

Also beginning at 3:00 AM PDT on Thursday, April 16, 2009, SOE Account and Commerce flow, Station Store and the Station Marketplace will be unavailable due to maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 5 hours.

This might also cause some forum accounts to temporarily lose permissions, due to the inability to verify account status while the maintenance is taking place. This is only temporary and normal permissions will return automatically once the maintenance is complete.

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

TerraNova has a posting from one of the researchers on this EQ2 data dump on record. From the report linked here, I find the relevant quotes:

Players were sampled across the game’s servers by inviting all players to participate in a survey if they logged in during the study time window.

After providing consent, players completed an online web-based survey that took about 25 minutes. Players…were promised a special in-game item as compensation. This item, the “Greatstaff of the Sun Serpent” was created by Sony for this unique use. According to the Sony team, the item was made to be desirable for players of all levels because of its rarity and its usefulness in combat for any player, and proved to be a valuable recruiting tool for the survey. A total of 7,129 players (5,719 males and 1,406 females) participated in the survey in just over two days.

Sony Online’s game databases collected data on player actions across four different game types. Players were asked for their age, gender, race, personal income, education, and whether they had children. Relationship measures included questions about relationship quality (“If you are in a relationship, how would you describe the quality of that relationship?”) and co-play of EQ2 (“Do you regularly play EQ2with a romantic partner, e.g. spouse, fiancé, boyfriend/girlfriend?”).

Want these mounts?

\aITEM -1230427643 -1500374663:[Saryrn Deathcharger whistle]\/a (evil version in-game link)

Invite a friend, recruit them into EQ2, and off you go!

Details at EQ2Players.

From WorthPlaying

Sony Online Entertainment has signed a distribution agreement with Valve to bring its MMO titles to Steam, starting with the EverQuest and EverQuest II collections, as well as Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Pirates of the Burning Sea.

“We are always looking for additional ways to introduce our great catalog of games to new audiences. It’s hard to think of a larger group of PC gamers interested in multiplayer games than those connecting to Steam,” said John Smedley, president of SOE.

Inexplicably, old versions of EQ and EQ2 are being offered through Steam as well. Users have a choice of purchasing last year’s EQ1: Secrets of Faydwer and EQ2: Rise of Kunark at a reduced cost. I am not a Steam user, but hopefully it is obvious which versions are the latest so people aren’t confused. I’d hate for someone to buy Kunark, realize it’s a year old, and then to get TSO they have to spend another $40.

December 18, 2008 Update

A ton of changes small and large have been implemented throughout Norrath, “as a special gift from the developers”

• The master scroll drop rate in Desert of Flames has been increased to more closely match those of the rest of the game.

• The twin dragons in the Pedestal of Sky now drop 3 pieces of fabled armor.

• Godking Anuk now drops 3 pieces of fabled armor.

• When clearing a filter your last scroll location will be restored.

• Collections can be sorted by:

• 1. Ready to turn in status (Default)
  2. Name
  3. Level
  4. Category
  5. Progress – sorts by the number of items needed to complete the collection, starting with the smallest number needed. (Does not including ready/completed collections)

• The Harvest Supply Depot can now hold up to 150 unique harvestables.

• The max player / detrimental spell effect icons displayed have been increased from 30 to 45.

• The player house window will now display the address of the house below the house name.
  Your full house address and location will be shown on the Details tab of the Persona window.
  Players who currently own a house will need to enter then exit their house before the data will appear.

• Many of the deity avatars have enhanced damage abilities, and will grow stronger during long fights.
• The Pythoness should no longer cast a de-level, and players should be able to obtain Clan Leader powers if they return to a saved instance.
• Void Shard and Far Seas Trading Company Tokens are now No Value to prevent accidentally selling them to merchants.
• When you /camp to a specific character the client will choose the character on the existing world if that character name exists.  (Thank you Blackburrow.Rheem for the feedback!)
• The guild bank transaction limit has been modified so you no longer become throttled for an hour.

• Swapped the 3 and 5 piece bonuses on the Dauntless void shard set back to their original places.
• Raid Armor Sets have been altered to better match progression from Veeshans Peak raid sets. Several of the effects on leggings have been improved.

• Empowered Essence now enhances Combat Arts granted by achievements.
• Displacement and Disruption will no longer refresh themselves while their stoneskins are still in effect.

And on December 22nd, a longstanding bug in what was the most accessible (and probably most often completed) Void Shard Quest — Liquid Hot Mag-ma in Najena’s Deep Forge — has finally been fixed after bugs were introduced to it on Frostfell. This quest now requires killing the Overseer.

On December 11th, Allakhazam had a developer chat with the EQ2 development team on Dec 11th.

Some relevant quotes:

Anon: Is there any plan to at Raid x 2 content to TSO?

• Ilucide: Yeah, absolutely. Though not necessarily ‘part’ of TSO, we will be adding a pretty nice sized chunk of x2 content in the not-so-distant future. Keep your eyes peeled, it will be part of a larger content release with a new x4 zone, and a whole bunch of new solo content in Lavastorm for level 80ish players.
• Ilucide: Timetravelling and Kander are hard at work on the x2 zone, and it’s shaping up beautifully!
• Ilucide: (Addendum: Domino totally reminds me that she’s got something special for tradeskillers as a part of that content update too.) *ducks*

It seems that a LOT of people have been raising a stink and filing /bugs and /petitions about how easy it is to get void shards in certain TSO dungeons. I will admit that the current situation is exploitable in a couple of different ways.

The first exploit that people discovered was the sharing of cleared instances so that other members who had not initially been present during the group could come into the zone and get harvest/clickable updates and get their Void Shard.

The first attempts by SoE to close these exploits was to close the Lava Wall in Deep Forge under certain conditions (i.e. turning in the void shard quest). However there were complaints that this locked people out of coming back and getting that named if they wanted. Recently, some of us noticed that the Automated Hammers (required to kill Doomsmith with lower DPS groups) despawn under similar conditions. I had suspicions but there seemed to be no good reason for this behavior. Now I have my answer:

Starting with the Frostfell patch, all the Deep Forge missions require a kill.

The Cold Heat mission I can deal with. It requires killing an automated hammer in addition to collecting the idols. This seems to have the desired effect of making it difficult to share an instance.

However the mission Liquid Hot Mag-ma now requires killing the named Overseer.

If you are a frequent reader, you know that Deep Forge has been my “Example A” of easier TSO instances that allow even casual groups of 4-6 players to work towards getting void shards.

It is obvious that the named mobs in Deep Forge — Doomsmith, Overseer, and Firelord Kaern — have been tuned up in difficulty the release of The Shadow Odyssey. With the recent tuning up of Deep Forge’s difficulty, I have been encouraging people to merely skip the nameds and work towards their void shards. I have recently found myself in groups who were not able to kill Overseer who were previously able to kill him with no problem.

I have not checked out the other missions, but if they put named kills on more missions then they’ll certainly be slowing down the flow of shards for at least one group of people: Casual Groupers. I’m sure well-informed players will be able to dodge the bullet and find more devious or coordinated methods to rack up the void shards. However the main people who will feel “screwed” are casual players.

I can tell you if you are in a low DPS group, Evernight Abbey is a one hell of a lot of clearing work for 1 shard if all you can get now is the Void Shard. Remember this zone was flagged “easy” by developers.

P.S. According to the recent SoE Developer chat, the 3 TSO instances which take place in The Void will soon reward Void Shards as well. I wonder what circumstances will be required to get them.

From http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=144049

First of all wanted to say “what a crazy launch”! Many of the developers have spent countless hours in the Station Wallet design and implementation. Our morning started pretty early (1am) and we wanted to make the downtime as quick and painless as possible. As part of our new update roll out we aim to have the servers back up at 8am so that everyone can jump back into the game after getting a few hours rest

I know that Station Cash surprised many of you and I can assure you that we planned it that way! We debated back and forth on the offerings. Some items were far to powerful and others weren’t worth a players time. What we ended up with was a unique combination of items that any player in the game can benefit from. The key decision in each offering was… does this unbalance the game, or does this make the game more fun? Convenience was a critical part of the decision making process as well.

The initial items available for Station Cash can help anyone who wants to use them and they don’t ruin the experience for those who don’t want to participate. That is the balance we were looking to achieve.

I have been watching the boards and many of the devs have been in the game watching and listening to players’ feedback. Sure, some of it is good and some is bad… but that is what makes SOE so unique. Your feedback will directly impact the future offerings via Station Cash. I can assure you that we have some really cool things planned and this is a perfect time to get involved as a player with the dynamic relationship we have together.

If you have a suggestion… or if you have 10 suggestions… please share them. We are always looking for constructive feedback that has an angle we didn’t think of or a way to improve the current offerings.

Sure, Station Cash isn’t for everyone and that is OK. For those of you who are checking it out, let us know what you think. For those of you who are on the fence, we pre-funded it so you can check it out for free. Finally… for those of you who are steadfast against it, I think you might be surprised when that friend you have always been wanting to play EQ with can now lvl up quicker, fight longer and be able to join you on the front lines of our latest expansion!

It’s interesting to see this posting from John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment from Dec 22, 2007:

I’ve been a regular lurker on this site for a while but I wanted to step in here and dispel something that’s just plain not true – I don’t have my name highlighted here, but anyone that doubts it’s me can email me at jsmedley@soe.sony.com and I’ll happily reply.

We aren’t going to be allowing RMT in any way, shape or form on the non-exchange enabled EQ II servers. Period. End of statement.

EQ2Flames Posting by Smed

He responded today with:

Just to be clear here – We aren’t allowing RMT (i.e. players selling items to each other for real money) on servers other than the existing Live Gamer enabled servers. What I said still stands.

John Smedley

No response yet to this Smedley quote:

This [LoN] is not some slippery slope towards selling items directly in EQ & EQ II.

A quote from Brenlo:

Station Cash is not tradeable nor are the items purchased and they will not be. The items will remain “fluff” items for convenience or customization. House items, pets, etc. . . This will not take away from anyone’s hard work and no one is forced to purchase anything. If you like the items offered, you can buy them. If not, keep on playing the way you always have.

and further (in response to the idea of trading plat for cash):

Well again, I suppose, however you would not recieve cash for the plat. You would recieve Station Cash which is only usable on the Marketplace. Thus you would be trading plat for access to potions, house items, pets, etc. . . I guess for me I an not seeing the incentive to do this. I imagine that some folks out there would try but the payoff just does not seem to be there.

The discussion rages on in the main Station Cash forum topic.

Here’s the FAQ:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=438343

Here’s the Official Website:
http://www.station.sony.com/stationcash/

Conversion Rate for Dec 9, 2008 is $1 (or 1 Euro) for 100 Station Cash.

But what I think most people are interested in is the LIST of items.

Cosmetic Pets

• Knight of Shadow’s End
  • Summons a pet shadow lich knight
  • Duration: until Cancelled
  • 400
• Zhog, Groz’s Little Brother
  • Summons a pet Zhog, Groz’s Little Brother
  • Duration: until cancelled
  • 700

Equipment

• Seafury Buccaneer Armor Crate
  • a 7 piece set of statless/appearance armor with only one adorned shoulder.
  • 1000
• Tunarian Alliance Armor Crate
  • a 7 piece set of statless/appearance armor (identical to Wilderness set but bare arms and 1 shoulder is bare)
  • 1000

House Pets

• Slimy
  • An electrically charged slimy ooze!
  • 100
• Grunting Warrior
  • An armored boarfiend
  • 300
• Handy Servant
  • Disembodied hand (Thing!)
  • 500

Potions

• Flask of Achievements I
  • Increase Achievement XP by 10% for 4 hours.
  • 100
• Flask of Adventuring I
  • Increase Combat XP by 10% for 4 hours.
  • 100
• Flask of Tradecrafting I
  • Increase Tradeskill XP by 10% for 4 hours.
  • 100
• Flask of Achievements II
  • Increase Achievement XP by 25% for 4 hours.
  • 300
• Flask of Adventuring II
  • Increase Combat XP by 25% for 4 hours.
  • 300
• Flask of Tradecrafting II
  • Increase Tradeskill XP by 25% for 4 hours.
  • 300
• Flask of Achievements III
  • Increase Achievement XP by 50% for 2 hours.
  • 1000
• Flask of Adventuring III
  • Increase Combat XP by 50% for 2 hours.
  • 1000
• Flask of Tradecrafting III
  • Increase Tradeskill XP by 50% for 2 hours.
  • 1000

Note these potions DO NOT STACK with any other potion.

Arctura has posted a bunch of screen snapshots here.

Grunting Warrior
Handy Servant
Slimy
Tunarian Alliance Armor
Seafury Buccaneer
Marketplace

Although there have been ways to get plat with money (for instance, buying packs of LoN cards and then selling them in-game), selling looting rights to items, and “buying” mythicals, there has been no official RMT in EQ2 other than the Station Exchange servers (which fell under the management of LiveGamer last year). Until now.

The servers are presently down and the Live Server has the following Update Notes:

Live Update December / 9 / 2008

STATION CASH

Station Cash is a new virtual currency from SOE that has been created to allow for the purchase of premium in-game items within EverQuest II.

To get started, access the “Marketplace” from the EQII Window within the game. Click on the “Add Funds” button to purchase Station Cash to fund your wallet and then select items to purchase.

EQ2 Forums (2 independent posters)

Click to view Update Notes

Frequent readers of EQ2Wire may be wondering where to buy the Ykeshan Warbears which were teased at Allakhazam last month. I know several folks were looking forward not only to the 65% runspeed but the various buffs available on these warbears.

A price of 50 void shards was given by Kiara late in the “Retail vs. Download” firestorm for this bear, but as yet nobody has been able to buy them. Turns out this was a bug. In a future hotfix, they will be available from the Void Shard Miscellania Merchant for 50 void shards.

EQ2 Forums: Void Shard Mount?

Frostfell
Frostfell appears to be in full testing mode, with some new zones and quests being added. There is supposed to be a group instance similar to the Haunted Mansion during Halloween.

Update Notes
Mobs in TSO dungeons will have an appropriate number of hitpoints for mentored instances; Tupta, Grobb, and Survival Accord faction merchants require less faction to sell; [Dec 3 2008]
Stability update for Windows Vista; [Dec 2 2008]
Fix for Repeatable Missions; [Nov 25 2008]

As you know, I had further problems with these Repeatable Missions. I was unable to get either the mission for Deep Forge or the Daily Tradeskill Group Mission yesterday. I petitioned and a GM deleted the quest from my “completed quests” journal which may be what people have to do if they are completely locked out of getting missions for certain zones.

Hey folks,

I’m back from Big Bend National Park.

First up, the bug with Void Shard Missions being unrepeatable was supposed to be corrected on the 25th. EDIT: This is still broken, as I am unable to get missions for Deep Forge or Tradeskill Group Missions. I hope it is properly fixed in the near future.

In other news, a bug with the amount of AoE damage being put out by the boss of the Atrocious Amalgam in Miragul’s Phylactery : the Anathema will be corrected in the next hotfix. Thanks Kander!

There were reports that the “Daily Double” 2 Void Shard quest NPC in Moors of Ykesha had been “nerfed” and was only offering 1 shard as a reward for his missions. This is being investigated.

Will check back as there is more to report.

Aside from the 3 new TSO dungeons located in the Void (including Obelisk of Ahkzul), the other 17 TSO dungeons located around Norrath each contain a “bonus” void shard quest. Find the key and loot it, and your party each get void shards. Until a bug is fixed, the group leader must temporarily switch looting to “Lotto” before everyone clicks on the chest.

Each of these chests has a key hidden somewhere in the zone. Some are harder to find than others, and fastidious EQ2 players have been documenting and reporting the locations of these “key” mobs and some of the chest locations as well. Sometimes, the holder of the key is obvious because they are 1-2 levels lower than the rest of the mobs. Sometimes, the chest itself gives clues with its name.

Here’s our first, incomplete, Void Shard Chest and Key list:

• Najena’s Hollow (Key) – At the bottom of the lava spiral ramp (4 levels down) is a goblin in the Lava Pools hiding behind a ramp.
• Najena’s Hollow (Chest) – Halfway down the lava spiral ramp. You have to kill a fire golem to get to it.

• Najena’s: Deep Forge (Key) – “a Spurned alumnus”

• Miragul’s Scion of Ice (Key) – Kill “a frozen thought”. A white ^^^ mob in the upstairs “open” area.
• Miragul’s Scion of Ice (Chest) – In the room to the right of the frozen thought with one of the 4 elemental orbs and the bed with the robe on it.

• Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted (Key) – “a thieving jester”, hidden in the corner of the room with the 2nd maledictive terror.

• Befallen: Halls of the Forsaken (Key) – a drunkard

• Necrotic Asylum (Key) – a tiny glob of goo (?)
• Necrotic Asylum (Chest) – near Wilhelm Horrorbile.

• Mistmyr Manor (Key) – Click a book in the Library, it spawns “a possessed tome”.

• The Anathema (Key) – On the left side of the outdoor area where the Amalgym spawns, look for “a wandering experiment”.

• Miragul’s: The Crucible (Key) – In the right side room with polar bears, look up for “a hidden tome”.

• Evernight Abbey (Key) – Near Marcus Thex and one of the vampire lords look for “an enraged libant weard”.

Thanks to Detor and others in this thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=436968

P.S. I will be back after Thanksgiving to post more EQ2 info as I get it. I’m hoping that more locations will be discovered and the bugs with the void shard quests will be resolved by then!

The TSO Mission system is, how shall we say, VERY buggy at the moment. Especially if someone shares a mission with you. Some people are getting totally locked out of missions if someone shares the Double Void Shard mission from Moors of Ykesha and they complete it. Quest Sharing is often not giving people the items necessary to do the missions (Holy Water, etc.).

All of this is being investigated by the Developers according to Kiara:

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=436585

I have been pleasantly surprised by the range in difficulty of the TSO Dungeons. Other than my my previous blog entry, which left no ambiguity about my opinion of Befallen, players have been presented with a lot of choices about these dungeons.

Don’t give up just because you do a few runs and die a lot!

The most important point I can get across is that some Void Shard quests only require killing 1-2 of the easier names, some require none at all. I could see a mastercrafted/legendary group of 4 determined players completing some of these Void Shard quests and gearing themselves up over time. Of course if you are doing tradeskill group missions, then the recipe books you collect there will help you stretch your void shard dollar further, as each recipe costs 1-2 void shards less than retail.

If you are a group that is not the best geared or don’t have a full group, I’d look at:

• Najena’s: The Deep Forge
• Najena’s Hollow
• Miragul’s: Scion of Ice

If you decide to give Najena’s Deep Forge a shot, I recommend skipping the sadistic smithy Doomhammer. There are at least 2 Void Shard missions which don’t take you anywhere near him. Unless you’ve got his strategy hammered out. 🙂 Yes, that was a little joke. A bad one.

The first four names (everything up to and including the Jailer) in Najena’s Hollow are a pushover once you’ve got them figured out, and at least one void shard quest there requires going no further than the Jailer.

Similarly, the names in Scion of Ice have little tricks to them, but once you figure them out, it’s not all that tough.

Let’s take a look at The Void: Obelisk of Ahkzul. Yes, it does not reward void shards, so you may have trouble getting pick-up group members excited about attending, but with the high likelihood of Ornate chests, and a bonus chest waiting for you, the rewards are still worth it. The names are of a reasonable difficulty.

You must clear the first room entirely and then Executor Vark will shove off, clearing the way to zone into the next room.

The second room, clear the possessed trolls around the pond in the middle to spawn Proto-Ravager. This room does not necessarily need to be cleared.

Port into the next room which is actually a hallway.

Kierax the Energy Wielder

Kierax the Energy Wielder seems daunting at first. Between you and your bounty, there’s a gaping chasmin the floor revealing the void. Further, if he gets ahold of even one energy orb, he will probably wipe the group. But don’t panic! He’s actually quite easy (although your tank may need dramamine before it’s over).

Your tank and another member of the party need to carefully navigate towards the center of the crevasse and leap onto the purple orb. They will start bouncing up and down. They need to grab every energy orb that appears (simply pass through it with your body) so it does not get to Kierax. If you can keep all these energy orbs away from Kierax, then he is essentially completely harmless. If you don’t see the particles, TURN UP YOUR PARTICLES! Have your ranged and caster DPS burn him down. Note it is VERY easy to slip through a crack and fall down into the Void here. If you do, it counts as a death and you are teleported back to the beginning. You DID clear all the trash, right? 🙂

Loot your 15 plats from Kierax’s Treasure chest. That should help a bit with the mounting mender bills from the zones you’ve tried so far. 🙂

Executor Vark

You saw Executor Vark busily making plans at the front of the zone, but now it’s time to end his conniving. He has a rather annoying knockback, so just tank him against the wall and healers out of range of the AoE, and he is mostly a straight burn.

Obelisk of Ahkzul also gives credit for part of The Shadow Odyssey Signature Quest, so make sure you’re on it. 🙂

This zone itself is a puzzle, where you have to clear names and open pressure relief valves to unlock further parts of the dungeon. A bit like Tomb Raider or Legacy of Kain really. The zone opens with a brief cinematic showing you the whole zone before Najena’s henchmen fill it up to the brim with lava

Fitzfangle <Foreman>

Clear the trash and open the 4 steam vents (ignoring the warning that only the Foreman is permitted to open them!). Naturally, this will make Foreman Fitzfangle very unhappy with you.

Every 20-30 seconds, he will spawn 6 bombs. These do Tick, Tock, Tick, and BOOM and kill your group in about 8 seconds. You will want to have a scout or secondary tank target these bombs and burn them down and then switch back to Fitzfangle.

Take your loot and head down the lava spiral in the middle. But what’s this? A fire golem slinging molten lava chunks at you? He’s perma-rooted, so have ranged DPS and Mages stand on the spiral ramp and kill him from there. He does rain down nasty lava which moves and interrupts you

Ra’zhish <Steam Lord>

Ra’Zhish draws his power from steam. Every 30 seconds or so, he will start filling up the water reservoir. The water will start rising and he will get much more powerful, stoneskinning himself and doing massive AoE effects on the group.

The solution is to park two ranged dps (ranger, wizzy, etc.) on the steam handles and be ready to turn them whenever he emotes and you hear a warbling sound to drain the water.

You’ll want the tank, healers, and other dps parked on either the left or right side about halfway between the two valves. This way the ranged DPS can get close enough to the healer(s) to get healed, but are also close enough to the valves to be able to click them quickly. He is otherwise a straight burn.

Loot the chest and head out, opening the 4 steam vents. Head back to the lava spiral and check out your handiwork — the lava has once again been lowered.

Head down the corkscrew ramp and you’ll have another enslaved lava golem bothering you from the sidelines. Ranged burn him down and continue down. This second golem is parked in front of the bonus Void Shard chest — Najena’s Treasure. One more named to go, then you can get the key.

Jailor Ca’iluer <Master of the Flame Tempest>

The jailor will make several hasty retreats, throwing Najenaar flame constructs and magis between himself and you, but eventually he will run out of minions and have take you on himself.

The tank can peel off the fire mages and then it’s just you and the Jailer.

The Jailer’s main trick is that he will periodically summon an uncurable, unkillable fire elemental behind him. He will emote “I summon now the flames of my heritage!” when he does this. If any group members are able to stun/stifle/interrupt the jailer during the fight, this will dramatically reduce the number of times he summons this fire.

If he manages to summon a fire elemental, the whole group needs to move down the hallway away from the elemental. Otherwise the AoE damage done by the elemental will eat the group. If he summons another elemental you’ll need to move the group up the stairs back the way you came. Hopefully he only gets to spawn the elemental 2-3 times during the fight.

Head down the spiral staircase to the bottom. Kill the self-rooted golem, and then kill the sneaky goblin thief who is holding Najena’s Key to the Void Shard Chest. Climb back up the lava ramp and loot your shards!

Fortunately, the easiest Void Shard quest ends with the Jailer and getting the rock sample in the hidden tunnel between the two jail cells. If so, and you’ve got your 2 void shards, I suggest all but the strongest groups zone out and do something else with your day. 😉

Head to the next level down and clear the drakes and fire golems out of The Magma Pools.

Magmadin <Father of the Brood>

Magmadin will spawn baby drakes and randomly teleport group members into different lava pools, making this a challenging fight. Because of the individual deaths which will probably happen, power becomes a big concern, so have any summoners hand out shards, hearts, etc.

This can be a frustrating, tricky fight, as you will get constantly teleported into lava and have to figure out how to get out, and then you’ll get thrown into the drakes which will then agro all over you. Fun times!

Loot your chest and head to the bottom!

Najena, Gurg Flameeater, and Reformed Magolemus

If you were hoping for a finished, working strategy for Najena, then I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. However I can give some background which might help your group. I spoke with several groups who have done this, and it became clear to me that this boss requires a minimum amount of Area of Effect DPS and if you group does not contain a swash, warlock, conjurer, and crusader, you will not be able to burn down each wave fast enough before the next wave comes. We found no way to slow down or stop the waves before the next one came, and we were overwhelmed over a dozen times before we called it a night.

Fortunately, at least 1 void shard quest does not require killing her.

Here’s the incomplete strategy:

Najena summons three waves of Najenaar flamelords, Najenaar waterlords, Nejanaar dreadstalkers, and Najenaar darkguards. The stalkers and guards are highly resistant to mezzing.

The second wave also contains the named Gurg Flameeater, who does a massive frontal AoE. Have the tank face him to the wall so he doesn’t eat the group.

The third wave also contains the named the Reformed Magolemus. Unfortunately we did not even get to him.

This is a ring event, but it does not wait for you to clear each wave before dumping the next ever-increasing throng of mobs upon your group.

You will want to tank the initial and subsequence waves as far from Najena as possible. Most advised us to tank them around the corner up the stairs. We tried much further than back, at the bottom of the lava spiral staircase, but to no avail.

Best of luck to you!

Today’s post is all about the asterisk. Because there should be an asterisk next to the Blue Square next to Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted. Here’s what I can determine:

Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted is easy IF you have:

• Shadowknight or Berzerker (with Mythical)
• Illusionist (with Mythical)
• Warlock (with Mythical)
• Swashbuckler (with Mythical)
• Inquisitor (with Mythical)
• Dirge (with Mythical)

Sense a theme? 🙂

We tried it with Ranger, Wizard, Illy, Templar, Fury, and Shadowknight. Except for the SK, we were all single-target DPS, and it showed.

Did I mention that Befallen respawns as fast as a contested dungeon?

I knew Guk would be difficult, but I did not realize Befallen was in the same category. So that’s 13 out of 20 group zones which are off-limits to all but the best geared groups.

Three of us got together today and did one of the Tradeskill Group Instances, specifically the Shipyard Cove.

The quest starts in Isle of Mara (Village of Shin) and all members must be a level 50-80 tradeskiller and have first completed the quest Ship Out in the Moors of Ykesha. There are a couple of other quests in Isle of Mara you’ll definitely want to check out too, including Rush Orders and a soloable quest that rewards a Far Seas token. Click on everything you can in the upstairs area of the Isle of Mara dock alehouse so you don’t miss anything!

The Mission

Each phase of the construction requires 3 items crafted by 9 tradeskills. There are 4 phases to the mission, so that’s a total of 108 total combines. The entire quest can be done solo, but it will take over 3 hours to complete, especially since out of those recipes, you are doing almost all of them with foreign reaction arts. It’s really best if you can get a group, as a Jeweler will have a tough time with the Forge, just like a Woodworker will stumble a bit on the Sewing Mannequin. 🙂

Once you zone into the tradeskill group instance, it takes a bit of looking around to find the materials (you don’t need to bring any materials with you), the recipe book (A smaller book), the progress book (a large book), and talk to the NPC who gives each of you the “complete 3 items” quests. It just means that one person can’t make different items at the same time — you must make 3 pulleys, turn them in, then make 3 of something else, turn them in.

It will take a bit of coordination to figure out which items each member of your party will craft. Even with a full group of 6, three of your members will be making recipes for a foreign tradeskill, so it will take a bit more effort to make the items with full durability. The reaction arts here though are completely different than you are used to! If you pull off each reaction art, they give a BIG bonus, but if you fail on a reaction art, well let’s just say you can be killed by the forge again!

I strongly advise that you have your tradeskillers do the recipes with which they are most familiar first. For instance, have a jeweler do the work bench recipe. Have a sage do the engraved desk recipe. They will be able to complete them in just a few steps with almost no chance for failure. Then focus on the tough ones — the tradeskill recipes for which you have no present members.

After four phases of crafting you get to see the fruits of your labor. In the shipyard cove, you’ll get to see the boat you created sail away. In the firemyst gully, you’ll get to see the dwarves kick some serious skeleton butt. And in the Clockwork area, you’ll get watch a bit of Battlebots. 😉

So what’s the result of all this work (and it does take a while, even with 6)?

1. A tradeskill class-specific piece of jewelry granting a bonus to critical success chance (See the Far Seas Supply Division faction vendor in Isle of Mara to see all the possible jewelry.
2. One of three earrings with overall harvesting skill boosts (tradesman’s/artisan’s/crafter’s)
3. One of two wieldable tradeskill weapons
4. Level 70-79 rare material
5. an extra Far Seas Trading Company Token
6. One of four recipe books (non-charged) that allows any level 70+ Artisan to craft Void Shard Armor at a slightly lower Void Shard cost.

I seem to remember commenting on the Beta forums about 3 weeks ago that an awful lot of items have Shield Block and were very desirable for tanks. Fireflyte said he would probably be reducing it on some items. Well…

Originally posted by Fireflyte:

I’m making a number of changes to the items currently available for purchase with void shards. The majority of the changes are improvements to the advanced armor sets, however I wanted to drop in a quick warning about a couple of changes that could affect the desirability of certain items:

The Shield Block effect is being removed from all tank-usable items. It’s being replaced with mitigation modifiers that equate to roughly the same % increase in damage reduction.
Shield Block is being left on the Righteous Rage jewelry set. These items, however, will no longer be available to crusaders. If you are a crusader, please do not purchase the Righteous Rage jewelry pieces, as they will be retroactively hotfixed to exclude your class.

These changes will hopefully be hotfixed early next week.

and further…

Originally posted by Fireflyte:

I created these items several months ago, and have been busy with raid gear design up until now. During this time, Aeralik has been involved in some revamping of the way tanks are being balanced, which includes bonuses to their mitigation and avoidance. In addition, I did a sweep of all the TSO items and found the Shield Block effect on far too many non-shields, to the point where players could nearly double their shield’s effectiveness. There are still a number of armor pieces with Shield Block on them, but I’ve tried to limit which slots they occupy, as well as the ease in acquiring them (void shard armor is not difficult to attain).

The mitigation bonuses I replaced the shield block with translate to nearly the exact same % increase in defense. The only difference is that you get that % added to your mitigation rather than your avoidance. Since this reduces spike damage, most players are going to find it a favorable change.

and last…

Originally posted by Fireflyte:

I could have removed the shield block here and replaced it with a mitigation bonus, but the set is actually intended for priests, and those that use Shield Ally highly prize shield block ability. I chose to leave it in and just remove crusaders from the usable classes.