EQ2 Chronoportal Event, Moonlight Enchantments, and more

There's a few things going on in Everquest 2 this week. One is the annual Chronoportal Event which starts today and runs until the 28th. This event comes around during original Everquest's birthday. EQ is celebrating 13 years this year. During the event you can hop through portals in 8 different zones which take you to an instance that might bring back some memories of your EQ days. The instances are intended for groups but as an Illusionist I found all but the Lavastorm portals soloable when using a tank mercenary like the Shadowknight. Each instance is a different level and you are automatically mentored down to an appropriate level. You will not however have your level raised should you want to do an instance much higher than your actual adventure level. The instances have an 18 hour lock out after you kill a named. The final boss of each will drop a chest containing 2 platinum coins, an adornment and some gear that is appropriate to the level of the instance. From what I can tell all items are tradeable or heirloom so you can give the items from the lower level instances to your alts. You can spend the platinum coins at merchants in Antonica and Commonlands. They sell replicas of the bosses for your home, books, paintings and a harp. HERE is all the details over at ZAM.

Also today and tomorrow is Moonlight Enchantments. This is the monthly event where mushroom rings pop up in certain zones and you complete quests for tokens to buy house and vanity items. HERE's the post I have written about them in the past.

There will be a new backpack on the Marketplace soon. The devs couldn't keep the news to themselves so they gave us a preview. The backpack called the Heraldry Flag Backpack holds a flag which will display your guild's logo on it. No word on the price yet.

I also missed posting about the latest Marketplace items so here they are...

Shadowforged Cinder Gi- 1200SC

Guilded Vanity Set- 400SC

Dragon Fang- 500SC

EQ2 Game Update 63 Skyshrine. New Level cap and content. April 17th

A lot of people were upset when they found out the latest Everquest 2 expansion, Age of Discovery had no new content. It implemented a lot of new features instead. The folks over at SOE explained that it was because new instances, zones and other playable content were now going to be added in game updates instead. So with the expansion came mercenaries, design your own dungeon, beastlords, and tradeskill apprentices and coming April 17th the next major game update will add all the content people have been waiting for.

If you have Destiny of Velious you will get...

• a new level cap of 92 (up from 90). 
• A new zone with over 100 quests. 
• Multi mode instances, so now if you can't find a group, heck, do the solo version. 
• Heroic group and raid instances. 
• Prestige class talents and all new tradeskill quests. 
• New drake mount

If you have the Age of Discovery expansion you will get...

• a new dungeon map and items with a Poet's Palace theme. 
• New dungeon maker adventurers. 
• Tradeskill apprentices with new recipes including one ELITE recipe. 
• Elite Mercenary
• New warders for beastlords to tame.

Here's the whole scoop on Everquest2.com

EQ2 players pull together to cheer a terminally ill child.

A few days ago an Everquest 2 player posted on the Decorators forum on the EQ2 website, the Norrathian Homeshow, asking for some help. Here is her post...

This is a depressing post but I need some help.  My 6 yr old son has cancer and was recently given 6 - 12 weeks to live.

He has a frog that he likes to run around Tenebrous Tangle Island on; however, it is sparse and he has requested to add trees, fences, stairs, animals and all kinds of  other  items to make his  island fun and exciting.

Are there any decorators out there that would be willing to assist in adding these items (and any others their imagination poses) to help me make the island even more fun for him.  I don't know how much I'll be able to accomplish on my own while still providing him quality time to enjoy it.

The boy's in game name is Ribbitribbitt.

This post was not only read by people on her home server of Guk but also by players of other servers who wanted to help. Many of the Guk players donated items and their time. Players from other servers copied layout files of fun items they had built in their homes and made temporary characters on the Guk server to load those layouts onto the island home that belongs to the young boy. Within two days a whole playground has been erected complete with a tree house, carousel, games, forts, aquarium, rollercoaster and more.

Not only did tons of crafters and decorators help but Adventurers came to help as well. A guild was created for the boy and since yesterday Players of all types have been raiding, grinding writs and whatever else they can do to gain status to help level up the guild in hopes that on Saturday they'll have a Tier 3 guild hall to give to him.

On Saturday the guild hall as well as the island will be presented to him by his parents. They have promised to take pictures and video of his reaction to his incredible play island. At 4pm EST/1pm PST an event will be held on Ribbitribbitt's Tenebrous Island home. There will be donations and duel bets taken to help buy even more stuff for the island and guild hall.

I was happy to put in a few hours today building a rollercoaster on the island and I hope to make the event on Saturday. Please come out and show your support for Ribbitribbitt and his family. HERE is more info on Saturdays event.  If you'd like to read and/or get involved in the decorating aspect of the event please read  THIS thread to find out what's been going on and what items are still needed.

EQ2 Brewday starts today and Newest Marketplace Items include a new fish!

The Neriak City Festival ended yesterday in EQ2 and you'll have to wait 6 months for it to come back. Next month is Qeynos. If you weren't able to get your hands on enough of the blue marble building blocks during the festival and don't want to dish out the plat to buy them off the broker from people who put them up for sale, they have been added to the Station Cash Marketplace. Price is 50SC per item or you can purchase a set of 10 tiles or the set pictured below for 250SC.

Here's the other 2 items added yesterday to the Marketplace. One is a new fish. If you're a decorator like me fish are treasured items. Most of the ones in game are no-trade or can only be obtained one per character so building multiple fish tanks can become difficult unless you have a lot of alts to run the quests for more fish.

Luxurious Fur Cloak- 800SC

Piranah Plushie- 200SC

Also Brewday starts today. It's the celebration of the diety Brell. It's kind of like a St. Patrick's Day or Oktoberfest type event and of course is a favorite of dwarves. If there's ale, they will come. Here's the write ups on the event from 2 of our favorite sites, ZAM and EQ2traders. Although it's called Brew-DAY it does run from the 8th to the 19th of March. Hic!

March Game Changes in EQ2

There's a few changes being added to EQ2. The much talked about removal of critical mitigation will be implemented. This will not effect PvP crit mit. Here's a forum conversation all about that.

Another change is to mob pathing code. Pathing is the path mobs and pets take when they walk.

There will be an addition to the Destiny of Velious signature quest line as well.

A MAJOR change for those who are dungeon grinders is that DoV dungeon timers will be reduced significantly from 18 hours to only 90 minutes.

Several of these changes are still on the Test server but hopefully they all make it in this month. A recent letter from the game's new producer said they're also working on that pesky bug that has been turning quest feathers and other items into white wisps.

There's also several in game events and holidays coming in March but I'll talk about them when they get closer.

Neriak City Festival this week in EQ2

The Neriak City Festival started at midnight and will continue until the 7th. There are some new items at the city fest this time around. Just like last month's Kelethin festival different shaped blocks and dividers have been added to match the Neriak blue marble theme. Along with the blocks there is also a new Neriak roof tile. The festival items are purchased with city tokens which can be earned in many ways. One way is available at any time by doing crafting or adventuring writs. A faster way is to wait until the festival comes around and pick up one of the repeatable quests at the festival. I find doing the crafting quest is the fastest way as I can place a portable stove and keg right at the quest giver. A final way to earn tokens is by doing the aether race. Doing these races in a certain amount of time will also give you a title. Each city has a different one. Here are some helpful links about City Festivals. Have fun.

• General City Festival Info
• Aether Race Info
• City Fest Items
• Neriak Specific Items (newest items not shown)

A Goodbye to Domino

Many players have met a wonderful lady named Emily or "Domino" as she is known to most in EQ2. Some have become very close to her over the years. I personally have only known her through forum posts, twitter updates and SOE videocasts, but I know of the wonderful work she's done.

Many years ago in EQ2 raiding was king. If you had an issue regarding house decorating or tradeskilling it was hard to get things changed and improvements made. Then along came Domino. When she became tradeskill developer, Norrath started to change for the better. She added tons of quests for tradeskillers so we no longer had to stand in front of a stove or loom from 1-90 we could now travel the world and explore like adventurers and it made the tradeskill grind a lot more tolerable. She also helped add more housing items and improve on the ones we had. From what I've heard she had a love of decorating so it was only natural she helped improve that aspect of game by getting us new and exciting items to work with like tiles and tons of other new furniture.

All her amazing work as tradeskill dev paid off as she was eventually promoted to a producer's position. As associate producer she continued to help EQ2 improve on an even larger scale.

This morning I was shocked to see facebook and twitter posts announcing that she has left the EQ2 team. It's a very sad day. As far as I know there's no official word on if she left SOE altogether but because of that I fear the worst. Hopefully we haven't seen the last of Domino.

Domino, Thanks for everything you've done in making Norrath a better place. We love you even if we might not have known you.
-Twinklin

PUG TV features one of my homes... Little Dahling's Carnival

PUG TV features a different Free to play game each night of the week Mon-Fri. Thursdays are EQ2 night. During their online show they tour player decorated homes and player created dungeons. They also have been offering challenges where they give a theme and restrictions to 2 decorators who then go head to head and do their best to complete the task. Players can then vote on which home they think best filled the requirements of the challenge.

Jaedrian does a great job narrating the tours with a little background help from his wife. They used to cram several things into each episode like a dungeon run and a house tour for example. They recently started splitting their episodes up to feature individual homes and dungeons. I saw Jaedrian post on the Homeshow forum not too long ago that he was looking for homes to tour. When I contacted him he informed me that they had been through my botanical garden home on a previous episode. You can see that tour HERE. The garden tour is towards the end of the video around the 1:10:00 mark. I invited them to tour any of my other homes if they wanted to and they chose to do a run through the carnival. You can watch the recorded video HERE. 

Thanks to PUG TV for taking the time to make these videos. They've been very enjoyable to watch. Follow Jaedrian on Twitter @Jaedrian01 or visit their website http://jaedrian.enjin.com/ and TwitchTV channel. 

EQ2 New Marketplace Items- tiara, Heartsfire, and faedrake petamorph wand.

Tiara of the Depths- 500SC

Heartsfire- 400SC

Everlasting Petamorph Wand: Faedrake- 100SC

(turns your combat pet into a faedrake for 2 hours or untl it's killed, wand has unlimited uses)

Also a new 100% XP bonus potion was added for 1800SC, the Extended Potion of the Advanced. It is one use, lasts four hours and grants the bonus to adventure, AA and tradeskill XP. 

Moonlight Enchantments 20th-21st

Erollisi Day celebrations are ending tonight but there's always something to do in EQ2 even though I'm a bit late in posting this since it already started, you still have another day left to get your Moonlighting on. If you're unfamiliar with Moonlight Enchantments here are more of those nifty guides on ZAM and EQ2traders.

The event occurs on the 20th and 21st of every month. During these 2 days in Antonica, Darklight Wood, Enchanted Lands, Nektulos Forest and Greater Faydark (exact locations can be found on the guide links) rings of tiny mushrooms spawn. Each ring can be clicked on which zones you into a small solo instance. Each zone's instance is different. There are 1-2 quests in each instance. One of the quests in the Darklight Wood instance requires you to have an artisan level of 2 and asks you to create rootbeer using supplies found in the instance. This quest is repeatable which comes in handy because each quest rewards a token. The tokens can be used to purchase items from merchants in each instance. You can grind out as many tokens as you wish to purchase items from the merchants until your time runs out on the 21st. Most of the items are nature themed house items like trees, grass tiles, flowers and animal plushies though there are a few appearance gear and mount items as well. Each instance also has 1 purple shiny located in it. Only one purple shiny will spawn per instance for each character that month. You can alt hop and get the purple shiny from each instance on all of your characters and hope to complete some of the collections but unless you have a TON of alts and a TON of time it might take the event coming around next month to complete them.

Well that's all I have to say about that.

Double XP, Marketplace Sale, and only a few more days of Erollisi

This weekend has plenty to do in EQ2. If you haven't finished up getting your Erollisi titles, stocking up on candy and love notes for crafting those E-day recipes year round or any other lovey type stuff you wanted to complete you only have a few more days. Erollisi Day celebrations are scheduled to end midnight on the 20th. I know I didn't make an official Erollisi Day blog post so if you want to see all that you can do and get your hands on during this holiday event, head on over to ZAM or EQ2Traders for the always awesome write ups.

Also this weekend will be a President's Day Double XP (17th-20th) and Station Marketplace rebate sale (18th only). The sale will work a bit differently than most SC sales. Instead of items being marked a % off you will purchase items at full price and receive 50+% SC back after you make the purchase. So if I understand the concept correctly, if a 1000SC item has a 60% rebate making the item 400SC and you only have 400SC in your account you will not be able to purchase it. You will have to buy more SC to purchase the item at 1000SC and then get your 600SC back.

So enjoy the weekend in and out of MMOland.

EQ2 New Marketplace Items- High Elf Heritage Armor, Pretty Mirror and an Epee

3 new items on the EQ2 marketplace today.

High Elf Heritage Armor- 1750 SC

Vengeance (epee style sword)- 400 SC

Mahogany Vanity Set- 400 SC

EQ2 New Marketplace Items- Misty Unicorn, Emerald Lichslayer sword and another home weapon display crate.

3 New Marketplace items came out today. Here they are...

Misty Unicorn- 1950 SC

Emerald Lichslayer- 500 SC

Stormcatcher's Weapon Home Display Crate- 100 SC

For more info on all 3 hop on over to the Everquest2 site.

A helping hand for new Everquest 2 players

EQ2 goes fully Free to Play 12/6 and I hope it brings new players to the wonderful world of Norrath. It can be hard starting a brand new game with no connections, no coin and limited bag slots. I will be enthralled with Frostfell and the new Freeport revamp and the new Beastlord class and dungeon maker, but I will always find a few minutes to help out a new potential friend and Norrathian. So if you decide to join EQ2 in the near future and create a character on the Antonia Bayle server feel free to comment here on this post, message me on Twitter @Girlygamersite or find me in game most likely on my main "Twinklin". Introduce yourself and I'll toss you a few strong boxes for your inventory to make it a little easier on you. I'll also be happy to answer any questions you have when trying to figure out starting game mechanics or how to get around. I hope to see you in Norrath.

Farewell old drab dirty Freeport, Hello New SHINY Freeport!

The servers just went down in EQ2 for the implementation of the new expansion, game update, and Free to Play. The game update includes the new improved Freeport, rebuilt by Lucan now that he is back. I guess he likes shiny too. I took my one Freeport character "Milldew Millie" and for the last hour of the old Freeport's life, ran around to take some screen shots. Even though my dislike for Freeport was one of the reasons I played mostly Qeynos characters over the years I wanted to pay my respects since Freeport as it has been is no more. I had over the years snuck some of my goodies into West Freeport to RP in the tavern or do Heritage Quests. I will be heart broken when they redo Qeynos this summer as it's been my home for many many years and it will be so strange having it change. Here's a slide show of the old Freeport.

Kristin's Adventures in MMOLand Episode 4

So I had a decision to make this week. Do I, 1. Buy Skyrim, 2. Get SWTOR, 3. Resubscribe to WoW for 4.3 or 4. Get the new EQ2 expansion Age of Discovery. Since like most of America I'm poor I had to choose one and only one for right now. So I made a pros and cons list. It basically came down to which had the most options for me.

Skyrim looks pretty fun but there's a lot of talking to NPCs which isn't really my thing. I have heard so many great things about the game though. I have a friend with the game so I can just play theirs though I won't get my own Steam achievements. Plus it's single player and I love MMOs.

SWTOR ended up being really fun when I played it last weekend. A lot of the questions that I had early on were answered as I played more. But only playing to level 20 I couldn't get a full grasp on how soloable it is. Since my raiding and grouping is minimal I need a game that can keep me busy for a long time. Many games lose me once I hit max level because there's nothing to do beyond that except raid. I fear SWTOR will be like this so I would rather wait until my friends get to max level and see what they say about non raiding end game content. It also comes out only a few days before I take a holiday and so I wouldn't be able to play much until I got back.

WoW 4.3 has some fun stuff like Transmogrification and the new Darkmoon fair but DMF is only 1 week a month and since I solo most of the 4.3 content does me no good.

EQ2 Age of Discovery has a ton of new stuff like the new and improved Freeport, Tradeskill Apprentices, and Dungeon Maker. I listened to the Design your own dungeon podcast for a bit the other day and it seems that since you run the player created dungeons using avatars you can do some of them solo which is perfect for me. Plus it's more decorating. I also "know" EQ2. I know it can hold my interest long term being as there's a bazillion quests and has the best player housing available in any game. It's going free to play with the release of the new expansion which I hope brings me new friends. There's the new mercenary system coming with the expansion which will hopefully help me complete some of the not so soloable content. Plus there's always an in game event going on. Currently the New Halas City Festival is going on plus with the new expansion they're starting FROSTFELL!!!!

So looking at the pros from each game it ended up being a pretty easy decision. I went with Age of Discovery. It releases Dec 6th. I'm currently playing one of my very few evil characters so I can fully enjoy the new Freeport Revamp.

EQ2 News! Expansion Release Date, New Martplace Items

MMORPG.com has announced the release date for the Age of Discovery Everquest2 expansion. December 6th. This will also be the release of the Freeport Revamp as well as the implementation of Free to Play on all servers. You can pre-order the expansion now.

There was also a few new marketplace items added this week.

Another kilt set...

The Clan McNaff Set (800 Station cash)

Earth Runed Bow and Shield (together for 300 Station cash)

and finally a CACTUS!!!

Succulent Plushie (100 Station cash)

EQ2 New Marketplace Items, Shadowed Deathcharger and Heartblood Armor Crate

EQ2 has added a couple new items to the Station Marketplace this past week. A new mount, the Shadowed Deathcharger and a new appearance armor set, Heartblood. Check out the EQ2 site for all the details. 

The Shadowed Deathcharger (1950 Station Cash)

Heartblood Armor Crate (1100 Station Cash)

EQ2 Double XP Weekend and Black Friday Sale

 Starting Thursday the double XP will be turned on in Everquest 2. If you're lucky enough to have a long weekend it's a great time to bust out those alts and get to leveling. The double XP applies to adventure, tradeskill and AA. Also this Friday look out for big sales in the Station Cash Marketplace in EQ2. Clicky HERE for the full story.

Moonlight Enchantments EQ2

Moonlight Enchantments: November 20-21, 2011

 It's that time of the month again. Time to grind rootbeer all day and all night for that creepy faun elder so you can get all the super awesome house items. If you don't know what I'm talking about you're probably better off. But if you REALLY want to know head on over to ZAM where they always have the great guides to in game events.