Destiny of Velious Launch Day Coverage & Patching

EQ2 Servers will be going down in about 10 minutes to commence preparations for the Destiny of Velious expansion. We thought we’d take a quick look around the web to see how other press and EQ2 sites are covering the expansion.

• Calthine and Cyliena over at EQ2 ZAM have been working their fingers to the nubs catalogging every Quest, NPC, and Item in Velious. They plan to unlock their quest guides throughout the day.

• Niami Denmother at EQ2Traders has loaded up her site with tons of Tradeskill info about Velious.

• Karen Bryan at Massively has checked in another edition of the Tattered Notebook, providing an outlook on EQ2’s seventh expansion. SOE provided their Destiny of Velious “sizzle” trailer exclusively to Massively.

We are hopeful that EverSeek, Beetny’s AA Calculator, and Mitzy’s Adornment Guide will be updated soon to reflect Velious changes.

If you find any other sites that are working on EQ2 coverage, please drop a note in the comments and we’ll update this article!

EQ2 ZAM got the ball rolling today with their Flying Mount Guide. Their detailed guide covers not only Adventure and Tradeskill versions of the Flying Gryphon Quests, but also the Freeblood flight quest:

In Destiny of Velious players can earn gryphon mounts that will take them high above Norrath, giving them a new perspective of the lands. Their journey begins in a village that is nestled high in the mountains of the Great Divide. The Goahmari who dwell there are a peaceful tribe that cares for the local gryphons. They are willing to impart their knowledge of gryphon care and training to those who prove their reverence for life.

Level 85+ adventurers and tradeskillers can learn the arts of gryphon training from the Goahmari. Read all about the quests that will lead to this exciting new feature and more in our Flying Mount Guide!

We’re happy to now be able to post a nice high rez picture of the Tradeskill “Boreal” version of the Flying Gryphon. This image is based on an original image.

EQ2Traders proves yet again why they are the undisputed champs of EQ2 Tradeskill coverage. Each of the Velious pages on Niami’s site are loaded to the gills with info about everything from new Carpenter quests to the Coldain Prayer Shawl. Scroll to the bottom of the Destiny of Velious: Mock Turtle Soup article to find these links:

• DoV carpenter furniture gallery
• DoV General Crafting Information
• DoV Recipe Book Rundown
• DoV vendor-sold and adventure-quested furniture
• DoV Crafting Quest Overview
• The Return of a Gathering Obsession

Karen Bryan at Massively has turned in an outlook on the Destiny of Velious expansion — The Tattered Notebook: What will Velious bring?:

It’s been a long wait, but tomorrow, EverQuest II players will finally get to explore the frozen continent of Velious. Longtime players, including me, worried that the expansion would not pay tribute to the features that made the original Scars of Velious so popular. The official site isn’t very reassuring, either, as it’s dominated by announcements of appearance gear and marketing promotions. Veteran players are left feeling like the Wendy’s lady, pointedly asking, “Where’s the beef?”

With the arrival of launch day, what will the Destiny of Velious expansion bring to players? Is there more to this expansion than flying mounts and cute othmir illusions? Read on to see what players might expect to see.

It Could be a Long Patch

As of 12:01am Feb 22nd PST, I have not yet received any exp07 (Velious) files on my EQ2 Launcher 1.0. It seems likely that, unless players run the launcher around 7am PST, we’ll be facing a 1-2 hour patch when servers come back up, especially getting into primetime as the servers are at their busiest.

In the past, expansion files (VPKs and music files) have been flagged as optional downloadable content up to 2 weeks in advance.

Fortunately, those of us who were in Beta and used the old launcher will be able to just copy some of the updated files from our Beta paks folder to our Live paks folder. We’ll probably have a 5-10 minute patch max. But, if you played Velious Beta and only used the Streaming Launcher, then I’m afraid you’re stuck.

Patch Notes?

From Amnerys:

Patch notes will go up sometime around 6:30am PST.