Today’s announcement of the EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious digital pre-order and retail strategies includes 8 screen shots. It’s worth pointing out that these screen shots DO NOT reflect the quality of graphics being seen in Beta. The posted screen shots appear to have been taken at the lowest possible graphics settings, with textures turned down, Shaders 3 disabled, and resemble EQ1 graphics. We look forward to the lifting of the NDA so we can post some higher resolution screen shots that exhibit the exceptional quality of the art assets in Velious.

In a recent mailer the pre-order items were revealed for the up coming Destiny of Velious expansion.  The pricing costs for the digital versions were also released here.

Digital Collectors Edition

Station Exclusive – Available until 2/21/11 for only $59.99*

Includes: Loyal Snow Hound – Siberian Husky Puppy Four Different Velious Portal Paintings – Paintings with teleportation powers Tserrina’s Wedding Present – Tower of Frozen Shadows house item with special ability Cryomantic Armor Crate – Magical ice appearance armor Everfrost Summer Home – Menagerie Prestige Home Stormfeather Brood Guardian – Alternate griffon mount appearance Free 30-day subscription for new accounts *On February 22, 2011 the Digital Collector’s Edition price will increase to $89.99. Items one per account. Non-tradeable and no cash value.

Standard Digital Version

Available for $39.99

• Loyal Snow Hound – Digital Pre-Order Exclusive
• Four Different Velious Portal Paintings
• Free 30-day subscription for new accounts

Items one per account. Non-tradable and no cash value.

Retail Version

From Amnerys on the EQ2 Forums:

UPDATE: January awards will not be delivered until Wednesday. We had a little snafoo on the back-end.

we’ve also been told we can expect a screen shot of the wolf pup pet:

I actually do have new screens of the puppy coming later today!

Karen Bryan over at Massively has turned in another great expose on the deafening silence on the upcoming release of EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious. While expectations are ridiculously high and fed primarily by nostalgia, you would think there would be SOME more information about the game at this point. Remember, last year at this time, we’d learned some things about the expansion, started to receive zone and lore previews, etc. We know hardly anything about the Destiny of Velious expansion which was not released at August’s Fan Faire.

One month.

That’s all that’s left before EverQuest II’s new expansion, Destiny of Velious, goes live. I’ve been looking forward to this expansion since 2009, when rumors first emerged that there was some work on Velious content quietly going on. It’s my favorite content from EverQuest, and it really marked a Golden Age for those who look back fondly at the game.

But with one month left, I’m left feeling frustrated and concerned. There’s just too much silence about the expansion and too many questions left unanswered. Read on to see why the blank slate of Destiny of Velious is a troublesome sign for players.

Continue Reading The Tattered Notebook: How Not to Sell an Expansion at Massively.

From EverQuest2.com:

On Tuesday, January 18, qualifying EQII and EQ2X accounts who have met the requirements for Velious Winter Rewards will find a new bag in their /claim window which contains two new items; an Ice Wolf Pup and a Superior Potion of the Advanced.

ICE WOLF PUP

ttobey (EQ2 artist/animator) would like us to know that this is not merely a scaled down Ice Wolf Mount or existing Wolf graphic, nor does it inherit existing animations:

The puppy also isn’t just a shrunk down wolf . He’s a brand new model with exclusive puppy animations.

SUPERIOR POTION OF THE ADVANCED

The Superior Potion of the Advanced grants a bonus to all three types of XP at once; achivement, tradeskill and adventure. This potion will increase your XP gain for all three by 100% for a duration of two hours. The potion is for characters higher than level 10.

Normally we don’t cover the week-to-week additions to the StationCash store as it would be half our content, however when there is a discount like this that is a service rather than an RMT item, we’ll bring it up.

Race Change Potions have been discounted through Monday, January 24th to just 1500SC ($15 normally, $7.50 if you bought SC at half price). From EverQuest2.com.

GameStop.com has further details on the EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious retail release…

Thanks to an eq2wire comment from Tom, we now know that EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com for $39.95 and will include two in-game items.

• Standard of the Dain Cloak
• Velious Portal Painting

From EverQuest2.com:

EverQuest II – Destiny of Velious will be available for pre-order beginning on Tuesday, January 18, 2011! This exciting new expansion to the world of Norrath will be released on February 22, 2011.

We’ll have more information about the pre-order options on Tuesday, so be sure to check EverQuest2.com for all the details. For more information on Destiny of Velious, please see Announcing EverQuest II – Destiny of Velious.

Keep watching EverQuest2.com for more official information about Destiny of Velious, and don’t miss the new DoV note from Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson, EverQuest II Producer, over on the forums. Click the “Join the Discussion” link for your version of EverQuest II below to read the note and chime in the conversation.

There is no word on whether Destiny of Velious will have a Retail box or be Digital Download only, if the Retail box will contain any special items, and whether last year’s frustrating staggered start date plan will be repeated.

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

As you know, we’ve been working hard on the “Destiny of Velious” expansion pack. It was originally scheduled for release on Feb 8th, but after getting feedback from players, spending time playing the game internally, and discussing ways to make things better, we’ve decided to move the release date back to Feb 22nd instead.

Feb 22nd gives us another couple of weeks for polish, tuning, and a honing of the fun factor for the expansion. We think the wait will be well worthwhile.

Check EverQuest2.com for the announcement on pre-order dates! And also stay tuned for an announcement about a raft of cool events coming out in the week after DoV becomes available!

On a side note, we’ll be adding another batch of players into the Closed Beta on Jan 24th, so if you put in an application and haven’t been accepted yet, don’t give up yet. Your time may be coming!

If you left a character in the Frostfell Wonderland Village and that character has been inaccessible since Frostfell concluded, you’ll be happy to read these updates from Bunji:

We’re working on freeing those toons right now.

Script is running now to relocate those stuck toons.

Ashlanne has posted this over on Station.com:

Beginning at 12am PST on Tuesday, January 11th, ALL SOE games, subscription and commerce services will be unavailable for maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately ten hours.

This might 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 the affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

I suspect this has something to do with DC Universe Online which launches worldwide on 1-11-11 but that’s just a guess on my part.

Update:  News of this downtime has now been posted on Everquest2.com with conflicting estimates of how long things will be down:

An unexpected server downtime has been reported with login and authentication servers offline. More as we have it.

A tongue-in-cheek Update from Brasse:

Tha Internetz are down at SOE-SD. My team would be happier about it if it did not impact their ongoing “testing” of Dungeon Overlord.!

Update 1:22pm PST: Login & Authentication Servers are back online.

It looks like those plans to merge Lucan D’Lere with Crushbone weren’t quite so preliminary and subject to player input. From SmokeJumper:

It’s official. We’ll be doing the merge that Rothgar describes. LDL will merge with Crushbone. Sometime in early February, preferably. (It’ll take a bit to get everything set up for it.)

This just in from Everquest2.com:

Still need to finish some of your Frostfell quests, and get those last few once-a-year items? Well you’re in luck! Enjoy a little more time with the festivities and stuff your pockets full of as much Frostfell goodness as you can, until the hotfix on Tuesday morning, January 11th!

So there’s still time to get a few more lumps of coal before Frostfell goes away for another year. 🙂

Rothgar has put forth a possible server merge scenario for folks on the Lucan D’Lere server. This is not a merger that would be taken lightly, as Lucan D’Lere is a Role-play server and there is currently no server that its members could merge to that wouldn’t result in an overpopulated server. It will be interesting to read player reaction to the idea of merging with a non-RP server.

You would think that the Non-Disclosure Agreement for the EQ2 Destiny of Velious beta had already been lifted, given the Youtube videos and unintended leaks on EQ2’s own and other sites. But we can assure you it remains firmly in place. Today, we plant tongue firmly in cheek and deliver another illustration brought to us by CheesePirate.com.

The Destiny of Velious NDA is likely to be lifted towards the end of January. Until then, please be aware of the legal ramifications it may have for you, not to mention losing access to EQ2 and SOE games, should you choose to leak information which has not been released by SOE.

Last night, the Destiny of Velious beta forums were taken offline and then restarted from scratch under the EQ2X Forums. It has been indicated that this change was to allow EQ2X players to contribute their feedback and reports in the Beta forums. However this means all discussions and threads about the Beta will need to be restarted, as the current Forum software lacks the ability to move threads from one game to another. Users who have signed the NDA and wish to participate in the Destiny of Velious beta forums must now first navigate to the EQ2X forums and, if necessary, re-register their account to access them.

EQ2 Servers are back up after an extended update.

EQ2 Live Servers are offline for an extended window for today’s hotfix. an unscheduled downtime. More as we have it.

• Antonia Bayle(is currently locked)
• Butcherblock(is currently locked)
• Everfrost(is currently locked)
• Freeport(is currently locked)
• Guk(is currently locked)
• Lucan DLere(is currently locked)
• Nagafen(is currently locked)
• Splitpaw(is currently locked)
• Storms(is currently locked)
• The Bazaar(is currently locked)
• Unrest(is currently locked)
• Valor(is currently locked)
• Vox(is currently locked)

A cantankerous discussion on the EQ2 Forums posted over the New Year’s holiday addresses the issue of Account Hacks and Compromised Accounts. Due to the holiday schedule, some players have experienced as long as a 2 week wait to have their accounts restored or rolled back. Update: We’ve found a far more constructive thread on the subject of the increase in Compromised EQ2 Accounts.

Amnerys has posted an update on the situation as well as a word on Velious Winter Rewards for those who were not automatically granted them:

From the EQ2 Forums:

Attention Fan Faire attendees! Are you in the Destiny of Velious Beta test? Do you want to be?

So far, fewer than 200 Fan Faire 2010 attendees have been flagged because they either haven’t filled out a Beta application, or because they haven’t yet accepted the NDA. If you would like to participate in the EQII Destiny of Velious Beta, these are two things you need to do before we can flag you for access!

If you attended Fan Faire 2010, you will be admitted into the Beta program as a thank you for attending. However, you must still register and accept the NDA. Please make sure that you click this link and register with the same account that you used to register for Fan Faire.

Here are your exceptionally brief Update Notes for today, January 6, 2011:

ITEMS

The following adornments should now properly display what slots they can adorn:

• Focus: Lesser Intimidation
• Focus: Lesser Power
• Focus: Lesser Vengeance
• Focus: Lesser Effectiveness
• Focus: Lesser Resilience

We are hearing reports from the community that the Destiny of Velious EQ2 Beta is now underway. As the Beta is under strict NDA, that is the limit of what we are able to report, however as we get closer to release, we’ll post any free-and-clear information we get our mitts on. 🙂

If you have not already filled out the Destiny of Velious beta application, you may do so here. If you went to Fan Faire you should be flagged by the end of the day today (January 5, 2011).

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

The first 1000 folks (well, actually a few more than that, but roughly a thousand) have been authorized for the “Destiny of Velious” Closed Beta.

You should be receiving emails at the email address you have registered for your Sony Station Account. If you have not receive such an email by the end of the day today (1/4/11), then you weren’t accepted into Closed Beta…yet.

Depending on how many folks pile into the beta, and how many testers we need, we may authorize extra groups of people later this month. Stay tuned for more details!

Those of you that made the cut…congrats! We’ll see you on the beta forums and on the Beta server!

It’s unclear if that 1,000 figure includes or excludes Fan Faire attendees.

Here are your blink-and-you-missed-it Update Notes for today, January 4th, 2011:

GENERAL

• Escrow deposit log entries will now be combined properly when a player makes a deposit if the player’s name or ID changed due to a server transfer or server merge.

QUESTS

• Freebloods can now complete the Heritage quest “The Journey is Half the Fun“.