Feldon 
This month will see the introduction of the Sleeper’s Tomb group and x4 raid zones. So when can players test these zones? Oh, really any time.
Some astute players noticed late last week that the EQ2 Beta server was accessible from the Launchpad. We received confirmation last week that the Test Copy server was morphing into the Beta server. That’s great, but there was no clarification or announcement of whether anything was ready to be tested. Until today…
From Gninja:
Currently the beta server has the next update on it (Prelude). It has been getting some focused testing in preparation for going live. If you would like to check it out feel free to log in over there copy a character over and check it out. You can find the entrance in the Pit of Awakened in Eastern Wastes. As far as expansion content that content has not been added to the beta server as of yet.
How Do I Get to Beta?
At least for now, there does not seem to be a separate Beta launcher. Start your EverQuest II launcher as you normally would, then click on “Version” in the upper left corner of the Launchpad window. In the Select Game Version tab that appears, select “Beta” from the list and click the Apply button. The Launchpad will now start downloading the ~14GB of data for a full install of EQ2.
After a couple of minutes, you’ll want to click “Open Game Directory” in the launcher, and then exit out of the program. Now you should be inside your main EverQuest II install folder. Select the “paks” and “music” folders. Then press Ctrl-C to copy. Open the newly created “BetaServer” folder inside your EQ2 install folder and press Ctrl-V to Paste. Once this copy is complete, you should be able to restart the EQ2 Launchpad and only need to download about 20-30 minutes of data before you are able to login to the Beta.
NOTE: If EQ2 Beta crashes immediately after launching, go to your main EQ2 directory and copy the D3DCompiler_43.dll and D3DX9_43.dll files to your BetaServer folder.
What about Beta Copies?
We confirmed that Beta copies were working shortly after we saw this note from Bunji:
The /beta command should be working now (which queues up your character to be copied). I believe the copy script for it is running about once every hour.
Where is the Sleeper’s Tomb?
The Sleeper’s Tomb portal stands on the edge of the Pit of Awakened which can be found in roughly the center of the Eastern Wastes. The quickest way to travel there is to take any Wizard Spire to Eastern Wastes. You can then fly southwest or travel on foot to the Pit of Awakened and speak to the Chronomancer there.
The portal offers two choices — Group and Raid.
Where are the Beta Signups? What About NDA?
There is no Beta signup, at least at this point. It seems everyone can see the Beta server on their Launcher whether they have signed past NDAs and been accepted to previous Betas or not.
Commentary
Again, let’s not shoot the messengers here. Gninja and Bunji are content creators. They are just trying to be helpful. It is up to the Community Manager to be aware of what content is in the pipeline, what state of testing it is currently in, and to manage the expectations of players. And it is up to the Producer(s) to communicate to the players where we are in the lifecycle of different content and how we can get involved. The moment Sleeper’s Tomb was available for testing, there should have been an announcement.
The quickest way to travel here is to make your way to Velious, and then take a griffon to Eastern Wastes.
The quickest way is by wizard spire direct to Eastern Wastes…
Ah well, there is that.
I logged over to beta last week and the copy was not working also could only start at lvl 1 with no buffer. So until now it was pointless to be there.
Do the changes mean that we can delete the old Testserver directory and its’ contents?
Hmm got a new group/raid zone coming out I guess in september (any bets it will be late?) and apparently a new paid xpac in november with a level cap boost…does anyone besides me feel they have no clue…once that xpac goes live most current tier raid zones if not all will be completely invalidated.
^^^ They already mentioned PoW will remain the current top tier zone. I’m quite curious what the gear is going to be in sleepers…UDx4 but with a red adorns?
“does anyone besides me feel they have no clue…once that xpac goes live most current tier raid zones if not all will be completely invalidated.”
It has been like that since this game was released.
New Expansion = old stuff is junk.
The gear found at 92 will help push into the 95 gear tho.
what about hm drunder
well let’s see…
UDx4 = 172 stats (no red adorns)
HM Drunder = 183 stats (dem adrons)
PoW = 196 stats (red adorns)
Where does that leave upcoming content? Oh i know, the coveted 179 stats ermagerd!
Well, If they have Ear’s and Shoulders then they will be upgrades over UD.
So another way I could have presented this article is “Sneak Peak — Test Sleeper’s Tomb Now!” and “SOE hasn’t posted their announcement about Sleeper’s Tomb entering testing, but if you just can’t wait for the official postings by Community or Producers, go ahead and jump on Beta.”
I’ll always write with some color, some personality. But it could be a bit more optimistic I suppose. 😉
The sleeper returned? Interesting… Or is it just his tomb, without him personally.
If you have trouble getting the launcher to get back to your ‘regular’ account, launch the EverQuest2.exe file directly from your EQII folder.