Feldon From the EQ2 Forums:
We are pleased to announce our next Game Update titled “Darkness Dawns” coming on July 30! For our 67th game update we have great stuff in store for you!
We are really excited about a new story quest line that will pick up from our last game update in April (GU66: Scars of the Awakened). We can tell you that there is an EPIC event brewing in Cobalt Scar that could turn the world on its head and YOU are the catalyst.
SPOILER: At the end of GU66, players uncovered an artifact of power — a Tear of Veeshan — that will lead into the story quest line in Darkness Dawns. The events you will experience are jaw-dropping and the team has been pouring its energy and passion into making this very special — from art to dialogue. You, our hero, will be central to the story that will change the world!
Here are some of the features we have lined up for Darkness Dawns!
1. Fabled Dungeons: We’ve taken some dungeon favorites from the very first EQII expansion “Desert of Flames” and created additional versions of them with current high-level content and loot. You can experience Clefts of Rujark, The Djinn Masters Prism, Scornfeather’s Roost, and Pedestal of Sky at a high level range!
2. Character Advancement Templates (CATs): With the vast amount of points to spend on Adventure and Tradeskill Alternate Advancement and Prestige Abilities, it can be very tedious to spend all your points and decide the best way to specialize your character. We have a great new feature to solve all that!
With Character Advancement Templates players can select fully completed character builds that will spend advancement and ability points as they are earned with a scrollbar that shows how all past and future points are allocated. Each character will have access to pre-built templates from us that can be exchanged and rebuilt at will with no need to pay any re-specialization fees.
The player can also save three custom templates on our servers to be used anytime, anywhere the player logs in. Not only that, players can save unlimited builds locally to upload and share. Changing templates requires a cast time and for the player to be out of combat.
The data format (xml) of the templates will be made available soon for fansites and players who may want to start tinkering with CATs in advance. (Meow.)
3. Three New Contested Avatar Raids: Pit yourself against three new contested avatars in the overlands – Prexus, Solusek Ro, and Drinal!
4. The Arena of the Gods is a raid instance that allows 24 players to challenge any of the 9 avatars that are in game (includes the new contested avatars released in this GU). Once you kill an avatar and are rewarded, you can continue to practice the encounters as much as you want (there is a 3-day lockout timer for rewards).
The loot from the arena avatars is not as powerful as loot found on contested avatars, but worth getting. The arena avatars are the identical avatar fights from the overland zones so you can train your raid force for the real deal!
5. Tradeskill & PvP: We’ve got new high-end tradeskill apprentice goodies and new PvP rewards too.
I’m so proud of this team! They give their all to bring you new content at this unprecedented pace of updates. We are working on a few things for SOE Live too and will have some cool expansion and feature announcements and previews. We’re putting some final touches on the heroic Dreadcutter tournament zone right now too that will be a lot of fun with a prize pool of $10,500! Join us for SOE Live: www.soe.com/soelive.
And finally, on June 21, we’ll be starting our Summer Gold Rush promotion. Until Sept. 21, existing and new Gold members will get access to a 4-hour daily spell (in your spell books or in an available hotbar slot) that gives you +15% Coin Loot, +10% Experience, and +5% Mount Speed while it’s active!
We will be talking a lot more about Darkness Dawns and SOE Live over the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more details.
See you in game!
Holly Longdale aka Windstalker
Sr. Producer, EQII
and an update about the Loyalty Reward system which was shelved this spring:
So it’s clear, we will continue to offer some kind of commemorative item each year for veterans, but the other system we were working on is still undergoing some thought. We want to be sure we are creating a rewarding, fun system — not one that feels like an obligation or “work.” It’s a delicate balance and we continue to address and discuss it and test it. When we all feel jazzed about it, we’ll launch it. No ETA right now though.
Nice that new update is coming but seems very little is coming with it. Hope they will add some stuff before lanuch date.
Wasn’t the loyalty reward program supposed to come in GU 65.5 (Wurmbone’s End x2)?
On the bright side, maybe my guild will kill
contestedinstanced avatars now.Seems a shame to only grab those 4 dungeons to remaster. I would have liked to see some KoS dungeons at level 95.
wow, people can never be happy. It takes time to do some of the things they have done. Some of these are items we have been waiting years for. I would rather see updates like this than a bunch of stuff that is half baked. Looking forward to what is coming.
Looking forward to this update!
@Kruzzen
This is half baked.
They need to just merge the PVE server into one so they’ll be more then 10 people on at a time.
@Kruzzen
I’ll agree that some people will never be happy and will always be negative, but there’s a lot of problems with EQ2 right now that aren’t being addressed. As much as I’m interested in the solo storyline, it isn’t going to keep the population around, it will only alienate people who are fed up with constant lack of consistent priorities.
Fable Dungeons? Why is this even a thing? Why add more dungeons when most of the current content like the group versions of WBE, WBC, and CAV are useless? What chunk of the community thought this was a good idea? Hey, remember those two remade DoF instances that came out in the Drunder update? Those sure were popular….oh wait.
@Honk,
I agree that there are a lot of issues in EQ2 right now. The question is have they dug themselves in such a hole that they are banking on EQ next to dig them out. I know they need to figure it out as it seems that there answer lately is just keep adding more in hopes people forget about all the broken stuff.
As far as Larix comment about 10 peeps being online, I found that quite hilarious. Maybe they were just talking about in there guild. We have more than that on at any time of the day.
@Benj
Yeah, I’d love to run through a 95 version of Blackburrow, Stormhold or Fallen Gate!
They had me at “Prexus” 😀
There is going to be negativity when people pay hard earned money to play a game when they try to log on after working 10 hours only to find that their account has been banned??? Not only mine but my wife’s and several of my friends….after checking the SOE.com website not even an update or any info on what the issue was??? Very frustrating and makes me believe that SOE does not have a care or concern for their loyal players. I am considering leaving the game for good it seems to recently be causing more frustration than fun (IMHO) than it is worth. I don’t know where Smokejumper’s head is but if dose not leave his rear end many players may leave the game for good…Not to include the many that will not even try EQ Next due to having “A bad taste in their mouth”. Please SOE figure it out LISTEN your loyal customers they are the “Lifeline” of your company. (With out us, the players…you will not succeed!)
@Thaleem
No one got banned. The server was broken earlier and the message it gave out for some people was they were banned. Server got sorted out and fixed within an hour or so. Stop being melodramatic.
@Kruzzen
EQ2 is the MMO equivalent to “60 Games in 1″ with all but a few fully functional and while others are half ass or given up on. *insert PVP battleground, Dungeon Maker, Dungeon Finder, Monster Arena, Public Quests ect ect”
I m also unhappy when i see this, some raid, some junk… full of nothing. That will not add much to the game in less than one week and it will be done again. This update will not revive the flame. perhaps next one.
All i see is for casual or raider, nothing for hardcore players who dont raid (advenced casual if you prefer).
i love the excuse they cant do more than 4 because it take time… they got more than 10 years of work behind them and they keep trying to sell us they need time ? just hire more people and work on other thing than is not related to eq2 ingame… easy. It really feel they dont even spen more than few hour a month for this game.
They got LOT of time, player wait since so long … in 6 months they could do more than 4 zones. They have nothing to creat all tools are already done.
It would be great if they add some support to old unfinished feathure like bg,dm,df,PQ… some unexploited potential. I loved public quest in rift…
Even house decorator is totaly dead and unsupported.
“people are never happy”… give reason and we will.
And for me summer gold rush look more a wast of time that add nothing. It will just help some people to be rude to other ingame “hey it’s consteted so i have full right to train,ks,ninja you !”.
but at last i m glad some raider will be happy few min until they see thing are broken 😛
Fabled Dungeons – a nice touch for those who remember leveling up in them (not being PLed throough them.)
CATs – about friggin time! Feldon and I will both intend to support the exporting of CATs on our sites.
New Avatars – nice!
Avatar Arena – even better for those having problems getting raid groups together to kill EM content, let alone contested.
Tradeskill & pvp rewards – always nice to see, I ponder what the gear will compare to.
I’m more annoyed that there is supposedly a section in there on tradeskills, while there is nothing but the mention of apprentice “goodies” without a single hint of what exactly that will BE.
@Honk
I agree with you 100%. I have seen so many great ideas started but never finished it is just sad. The splitpaw saga was one of my favorite times as it had scaling dungeons, interactive walls and items to selve zones. It was great and had such great promise, but they just left it all by the wayside. I do like some of the changes that have come, but I am really sad for all the great things that are available in the code that they just give up on. 🙁
Me Im just glad they keep my favorite game up and going. After all they could shut it down.
I just quit raiding a couple of weeks ago due to the fact we were hitting the same targets over and over and kept seeing the same old loot, while being a 95 defiler and the wife being a 95 inq, unlike a lot of folks you get geared out and are forced to stay on raid main healers, while everybody else and their brother gets to gear out their toons that never get used. So the avatar stuff seams somewhat worth finding a new raid guild on guk.
Were going to get old things reworked new for high levels. I sure hope the do something about the loot that drops in them, considering how bad the itemization was with the scar region.
Still it could be worse, we could be stuck with all the old stuff and nothing new to do.
Silver lining were getting new stuff, and the game is not closed.
Well I’m looking forward to the new avatars, I hope Sol Ro isn’t as bad as it used to be and god I hope Drinal avatar doesn’t have a lift.
Arena is a good idea but shouldn’t drop loot at all, the current 6 are just stupidly easy, the only reason they have the best loot is because they’re contested and they made them this easy to try and make them that easy.
Was hoping that the Fabled dungeons would include some of my TSO faves but oh well.
At first glance down the list I though it said “tradeskill pvp”! LoL. Death by uncountered reaction? Let the crafting wars begin!
I need a coffee now, obviously. 🙂
Tradeskill wars — now that could be interesting …
I will kiilll you for a chance to make a fancy coffee drink! One crafting table …two dedicated crafters. Let’s rumble!
^^^ LOL…love it, wish you were still writing for the site, were some great articles.
Kwill – you made me rofl – seriously – could totally see having a crafter rumble! We need “Iron Chef” or “Chopped” type crafting in game.
Mmmmm-K so when are they going to fix the Garbage Mage classes, especially the Warlock who has been S(*&T on the last 2 xpacs. i mean its pitiful when im out parsing a pure caster that has better gear then me just because my multi auto attack is OP 😛 i like playing my casters emm well i used to anyways my warlock got deleted made me a necro and replaced my warlock with a Trouby since they can outparse a wizard while afk.