From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue with the ticket goblin not spawning correctly.

POPULATION

Obol Plains

• The Steward of Drinal merchant is now located in Cardin Ward.

Harrow’s End

• Drinal’s soulwells have returned and should correctly render when it is time to select his challenge level.

ITEMS

• Shift+left-clicking on a green adornment should now properly create an item link in the chat window.

TRADESKILLS

• Upgrades to Bloodbath and Bria’s Entrancing Sonnet are now craftable.

QUESTS

• In Vanishing Act, the visage of fear will no longer attack mercenaries and pets once it is defeated.
• On Circumstantial Evidence, the stalkscouts in will no longer repeatedly reset in the middle of combat.
• On Clash of Souls, you may now use the gazer eye on soullights starting at 50% health.
• On Scary Forest, dying with a soullight following you will now cause it to stop following you.

EQ2Wire answers 20 Frequently Asked Questions about EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity:

• Help! All My AAs Were Reset! Is there a Backup?
• What about my AA Mirror?
• Can I Turn Off the AA Spending Prompt?
• What is this Chains of Eternity: Touch of the Steward item? Can I get 280 AAs for free?
• What is the Level cap for Adventuring, Tradeskills, and Guilds? Did they increase the AA cap?
• Have there been any changes to Adventure XP in this expansion?
• How come I’m not getting Veteran Bonus anymore for having Max Level Characters?
• Help I’m not getting any XP!

Today’s the day that gaming news sites who went on tours of the upcoming Chains of Eternity expansion are able to post their impressions and screenshots. And to go along with these stories is a new video interviewing the talented artists and animators of Chains of Eternity.

Commentary

I have to be honest. After seeing how energized the EQ2 team were at SOE Live, this video is a bit uninspiring. Everything is given in a flat inflection, and the visuals are mostly slow flythroughs. Where’s the combat? Where’s the epic battles?

I’m genuinely excited about Chains of Eternity, and there was an infectious enthusiasm when talking to different developers and designers in Vegas. After a year of revamps, retooling, and not enough endgame group/raid content, this expansion delivers massive, beautiful, well put-together zones in spades. But this video doesn’t quite communicate the team’s efforts.

Showcased above is the new EQ2 Character Select screen set in Eidolon Plains.

Screenshots of the two Chains of Eternity: Collector’s Edition mercenaries (your choice of Templar or Paladin for each of your characters), as well as the SOE Live mercenary (a Vampire Shadowknight) which became available early this week can be seen in our previous article EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity CE Items, AoD, and SOE Live. We’ve also posted a screenshot of the Collector’s Edition exclusive Wyvern Flying Mount in Ethernere colors.

At SOE Live, we got to see some amazing flythrough videos of the EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity. A Youtube video has been posted by CyberInk which includes just some of this.

NOTE: Some of these zone flythroughs were taken a few weeks ago, and we were told by artists at SOE Live that changes have been made since then, so if you want to see how these zones look now, head over to the Beta server!!

Ahead of schedule, the EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity Public Beta is NOW OPEN!

How Do I Get to Beta?

Unlike past betas, there is no Non-Disclosure Agreement to accept, and no separate Beta launcher to run. To access the Chains of Eternity, simply close and reopen your EverQuest II Launcher, click on the Version link in the top left corner (US English for US players), switch the region to “Beta“, click Apply, and let the patching begin!

Beta Copy is 1000% better from how it has been handled in past expansion Betas. Instead of typing /beta and hoping that an hour or two from now, your character will miraculously appear on Beta, the /beta command now takes between 10 and 15 SECONDS to copy your character over.

After the jump, a detailed pictoral of how to do these steps, and some useful time-saving info…

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Sorry we haven’t been more specific. We will do a stability pass in the morning and open when it is stable. We are aiming before noon PDT and we will keep you updated.

So wait a minute… Every other beta, there have been e-mail signups a month prior for us to all sign NDA and all that jazz. I guess we’ll know in a couple of hours what path they choose to go. 🙂

Normally I’d be banging the drum about Public Beta being cool, but hory shet I’ve got plenty of stuff on my plate with SOE Live videos (11 hours), and various articles before I can even get started screenshotting and previewing Chains of Eternity. 😉

I just received an e-mail indicating that the new Chains of Eternity expansion is available for pre-order at EverQuest2.com.

Introducing Everquest II: Chains of Eternity™!

This is the 9th expansion of the revolutionary EverQuest II franchise. This expansion contains must-have features such as level increases, prestige abilities and new game items only available with this expansion, such as adornments that become more powerful with your character. Also, explore new content in two overlands in the spirit realm, and experience adventure with new dungeons and quests. Put right the imbalance in the Ethernere!

From EverQuest2.com:

Death is rampant across Norrath. Citizens are suddenly falling dead as their spirits are torn from their bodies. No one on Norrath seems to understand why the souls are being pulled from the mortal plane, but all signs point to a massive disturbance within Ethernere, the realm of the dead. The heroes of the world must travel to Ethernere to find the cause of the unbalance in the Grey Wastes, and discover what has become of its caretaker – the mysterious being known as Drinal. If the heroes can return balance to Ethernere, the siphoning of souls may be halted. Should they fail, both the living and the dead will suffer a dismal fate.

Introducing EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity! This is the 9th expansion of the revolutionary EverQuest II franchise. This expansion contains must-have features such as level increases, prestige abilities and new game items only available with this expansion, such as adornments that become more powerful with your character. Also, explore new content in two spirit-realm versions of familiar lands, and experience adventure with new dungeons and quests. Put right the imbalance in the Ethernere!

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrath!

The time has come! We are very proud to announce our next expansion, EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity!

The team is hard at work developing our ninth – yes, our ninth – expansion and implementing the finer details, several of which I will go into here.  When the expansion launches, Norrathians will pass into Ethernere, the realm of the afterlife, where all spirits pass after death on their way to their final resting place.

Recently, something has gone horribly wrong in Ethernere and it is bleeding through in the mortal plane.  Over the summer months, evidence of ripples between the realms was in evidence as items with ethereal energy appeared upon the dead.  As the tears between the realms widen, it will be up to the heroes of Norrath to save the immortal and mortal realms from collapse!

The adventures in this expansion will be great ones! The team is spending a lot of time ensuring that you experience the story, rather than merely read it, so I won’t give it all away in this letter.  As for features and details, we’ve got a lot to crow about.  We hope players enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed weaving it together.

Cross Over to More Content

In two re-imagined Ethernere overlands inspired by Feerrott and Loping Plains, players will find a region in chaos.  The natural ebb and flow of spirits passing through the Ethernere to each spirit’s final resting place is corrupted and on the edge of destruction, threatening every mortal’s life and afterlife.  Through the trials of nine new instanced dungeons, players will attempt to mend the end of all things.  Prelude content and dungeons give insights into the threat from the other side while telling all new stories – including advancing the story behind the Ages End Prophecy.  Players meet new creatures from the beyond and face a whole host of new challenges.