I'd like to take a moment and express my sincere gratitude to Ferrek who took my We Need Screenshots call to arms as a personal challenge and set out to document every Insect and Arachnid that could be found in Norrath! Every screenshot and note on the Insects tab (as well as numerous contributions elsewhere in the Warder guide) was submitted by Ferrek.

I'm happy to announce that our Beastlord Warder Guide now sports 39 Insect appearances.

Note: 6 of the appearances are "bone spiders" and right now, charming any of them results in a grey beetle, but hopefully this will get fixed soon. Also, perhaps I was a bit overenthusiastic, but I've added a black scorpion style for which we have yet to locate a tameable example.

After several months neglect, I took some time to go back and update EQ2Wire's Guide to Beastlord Warders. I've added the new Insect category and some new Warder appearances. However the most important thing I need is your screenshots! It really helps us if players can take a moment to submit a screenshot to us of new warder types. Just e-mail me at warderphotos (at) eq2wire.com.

Posted by Ttobey on the EQ2 Forums:

Most of the bugs ingame didn't have very fulls sets of animations, so they wouldn't work all that well as a warder, but we are working on it.

Jump to EQ2Wire's Beastlord Warders Guide >>

This Guide is would not be possible without Whilhelmina's fantastic Beastlord FAQ she wrote during Beta.

Introducing Beastlords

Beastlords really are a very different class, which means we get a whole new set of UI elements. This includes a Beastlord Bar, a Savagery Bar, a new tab in the Character window for keeping track of all your Warders (pets), and a large blue Weakness paw icon which comes up whenever your Warder pet is ready for you to fire off an coordinated attack.

If all of this were available at level 1, you'd be overwhelmed, so these features are unlocked as you level up. There's also an in-game tutorial specifically for Beastlords.

At level 1, you get your first warder (based on your race). At this point, it really just acts as a basic pet and you can't do any special abilities with it.

Read More»

A few (22) hours behind schedule, EverQuest II has launched their Age of Discovery expansion, which includes the Beastlord class, Item Reforging, Tradeskill Apprentices, Mercenaries, and the Dungeon Maker. Today also marks the introduction of a revamped Freeport, with new questlines starting at level 20 and every 10-20 levels until level 80. Also, EverQuest II has now gone entirely free-to-play. The Freeport server joins the other EQ2 servers as a regular server, and players can start on any server they like, either at the Free, Silver, or Gold levels. Heck even Frostfell goes live today.

If you are an EQ2 subscriber, then NOTHING changes for you.

LAUNCHERS: If you are using any of the older launchers such as the original EQ2.exe launcher in the Retail box, the blue-grey Station Launcher, or Launchpad 3 (either regular or streaming), you must upgrade to either the regular or streaming version of Launchpad 4 before you can patch in and play EverQuest II. If you point the installation at your current EQ2 directory, you will only need to download approximately 2.4GB of data. See our Launchpad 4 Patcher article for more info.

VETERAN REWARDS: If you are not able to see Veteran Rewards in your Claim windows, this will be fixed in tomorrow's hotfix!

GUIDES:

• If you are looking for guides to the new features in Age of Discovery, or where to find all the new quests in Freeport, check out Cyliena's helpful guides at EQ2 ZAM.
• Niami Denmother has posted her Age of Discovery Preview as well as her Frostfell 2011 Guide.
• If you have reached level 10 on your new Beastlord and are looking for a new pet, look no further than EQ2Wire's Beastlord Warder Guide.
  

See you in the game!

From the EQ2 Forums:

EverQuest II Behind the Scenes Videos: Beast Lord Warders & Mercenaries

We've got a special treat for you! Check out our two new EverQuest II behind-the-scenes videos, covering two of the awesome features coming with the new expansion: Age of Discovery! That's right - we're be taking an inside look at beast lords and mercenaries!

Beastlord Warders by Akil "Lyndro" Hooper

Mercenaries by Carlos "Gninja" Mora

Direct Links: http://youtu.be/AOhi4_g82oM & http://youtu.be/vCt4sI-Hcps

We are happy to present our EQ2Wire Exclusive: Beastlord Warders Guide. Check it out!

Are you ready for some concrete info about Beastlords?

The decision to bring Beastlords to EverQuest II was made less than a month before Fan Faire according to an SOE source, and a lot of things were said at Fan Faire, including what type of armor and weapons they'd use, what class they'd be, and how Warders would work. Now that the team has been working on them for four months, there have, not surprisingly, been a few changes.

Here is EQ2's Lead Designer Akil "Lyndro" Hooper talking about Beastlords on EverQuest2.com:

Q. What is a beastlord? What makes it different from the existing classes?

A. "Beastlords are a new class for EverQuest II, based on beastlords from the original EverQuest. In EverQuest they were loosely based on a combination of shaman and monk. In EQ II we've tried to keep them based loosely around a combination of these two classes. One of our goals for beastlords is to experiment with some new play styles. Beastlords have warders that they can tame, who work in combination with the beastlord to create a new style of combat tactics. Beastlords have fewer buttons to press, and a more active and reactive playstyle than our other classes as they react and interact with their warder."

Read More»

So we've just posted our transcript of last night's Freeport Revamp webcast. If you don't want to read the whole thing and just want the top five items you should know, here you go:

and a sneak about Beastlords:

When 85% of the news articles on EverQuest2.com are about other games, it's easy to miss bonafide EQ2 items. That said, a new article has been posted outlining some of the Lore related to the Beastlord class coming in the Age of Discovery expansion.

The beastlord class is coming in winter 2011 with the EverQuest II expansion: Age of Discovery!

In North America, Winter is defined as the time period from 21 or 22 December and 20 or 21 March. With the last Beta invites scheduled to go out on November 16th, we were assuming that the Age of Discovery would launch on either November 22nd or November 29th. Should we revise that estimate?

You can read "The Path of the Beastlord" at EverQuest2.com.

With today's update, the entirely optional Beastlord Prelude #2 quest goes live.  It provides an explanation for where Beastlords have been and why they're now returning to Norrath. Don't worry -- whether you complete these brief lore quests or not, anyone who purchases the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion (when it goes on sale) will be able to create new Beastlords in November.

More controversial in today's update is the removal of any "shard" cost from Thurgadin and Ry'Gorr armor.

You can expect crafters to be exceedingly busy today as they fulfill orders for full sets of Thurgadin armor as it is now essentially free minus the cost of common materials. Ry'Gorr armor also requires one of the tradeable gems listed below from Kael Drakkel zones. Don't forget to tip your crafter!

If all crafters are currently assisting other customers, or you just prefer to go the Vendor route, Thurgadin and Ry'Gorr will be happy to sell their armor to allies with +40,000 faction, and a few plat. In the case of Ry'Gorr armor, you'll also need one or more of the above gems from Kael Drakkel.

Check out EQ2Wire's Guide to Velious Heroic Armor & Jewelry

Apparently any possible disruption this might cause to Progression or reduction in Tower of Frozen Shadow 1-3, Pools, Ascent, and Fortress groups hasn't dampened the spirits of players excited to get free lootz for all their alts! Don't worry, be happy!

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Cronyn, who designed and implemented the Beastlord Prelude Quest, has produced some hilarious MS Paint comic strips in the past, but this is the funniest yet. This was in response to a player request...

Cronyn, can those of us who don't want to go through the whole quest, get one of your legendary MS paint summaries of it?

image courtesy fangshendo.com

Does your Bard bear a secret admiration for the martial arts? Does your barbarian Shadowknight aspire to move with the deftness of a butterfly? Maybe you've just been feeling a little punchy?

Silliness aside, the latest patch to the Test servers seems to have had an unintended consequence: Every class has now inherited the Class and Subclass trees of a Monk. While this could normally be chalked up to "expect the unexpected on Test", what makes it interesting is that everyone's Class and Subclass tabs have been relabeled Animalist and Beastlord. This led to early morning speculation that Beastlord AAs were about to be revealed.

Read More»

Bunji dropped the news that Game Update 61 is hitting Test today:

We plan to push the current GU61 content to Test tomorrow morning.

GU61 (or most of it) is scheduled to hit Test around 7-8am PST tomorrow morning, 7/28.

What's in Game Update 61?

• Dynamic Dungeon: Silent City [60~90]
• Dynamic Dungeon: Djinn Master's Prism [60~90]
• Plane of War: heroic dungeon (normal and challenge)
• Plane of War: x4 raid (normal and challenge)
• Reitemize Level 20-90 dropped, quested, and crafted Items
• Alternate Advancement (AA) Revamp, especially Subclass (Monk, Templar, Paladin, etc.) tree.
• Tradeskill AAs [25 pts]
• House Rating System
• Dungeon Finder -- Dungeons of any level, same-server only
• Fae/Arasai Flying
• New content in Eastern Wastes
• Beastlord Prelude Event for Good or Evil (Exile may choose one)
• Velious Signature Quest continues

The disclaimer above makes it clear that not all of Game Update 61 will be on Test today, but we're anxious nonetheless. Read more about Game Update 61 in the Fan Faire EQ2 Panel.

Note: The Freeport Revamp, Tradeskill Apprentices, Item Reforging, Mercenaries, Design Your Own Dungeon, Beastlord Class, etc. are all part of the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion to be released this November.