Producer's Letter: Darkness Dawns on July 30 [UPDATE - Launch Date July 23]

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Windstalker, Jun 14, 2013.

  1. Windstalker Executive Producer

    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. Arena of the Gods: 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
  2. Lempo Well-Known Member

    So no word on the new reward system that was to replace the veteran rewards with the last expansion but delayed....
  3. CoLD MeTaL Well-Known Member

  4. Buffrat Well-Known Member

    Wasn't patching right before SOELive a bad idea last year?
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  5. Windstalker Executive Producer

    @Lempo: 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.
  6. Cloudrat Well-Known Member

    Yay! I love the sound of the templates, seems like it will be a real boon to all the players:) However, maybe we need to rethink it's name? CAT ???

    [IMG]
    P.S. still waiting for crafting progress potions on the market:)
    suka, Laiina and Wirewhisker like this.
  7. Qixil Active Member

    So, was the whole House Market idea just scrapped?
  8. Malleria Well-Known Member

    Little disappointed with the timing. Leaving for Vegas the next day :(
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  9. Geothe Active Member

    No kidding.
    Incoming broken game for a week again!
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  10. Deveryn Well-Known Member

    It's another one of those things they want to get right before releasing it.
  11. Silzin Active Member

    Since we can swop AA specs at will with no cost, will the cost of resetting AA trees the "Old Way" going to be removed?
    Ranga and slippery like this.
  12. Elostirion Well-Known Member


    No thanks. (I think I detect your sarcasm, but I'm never sure).

    However an NPC that would trade two or three or five potions you dont want for one that you do would be nice.
  13. Davngr Well-Known Member

    the template thing is great, thanks.
  14. Deveryn Well-Known Member

    This would be a better idea if they even consider anything that allows us to get more progress potions. I seriously doubt it.
  15. Torri Active Member

    If I am understanding how the CAT works (Basically an AA spec swap on the fly), then provided the GU doesn't break the game as everyone leaves town it's a winner
  16. Absyntheea Well-Known Member

    Please tell me CATs aren't going to cost SC...cause.. y'know.. doesn't sound like it.. but I am getting wary of $OE lately.
  17. Absyntheea Well-Known Member

    ..Oh and.. Arena of the gods? How about fixing the old arena. Some of us want the house items y'know.. and have been asking for that fix for AGES...
  18. Avirodar Well-Known Member


    This. Please learn from the past.
    Karrane, Wirewhisker and Feldon like this.
  19. GabenBison Active Member

    I don't recall anyone wanting remakes for these zones. There are a ton of zones that need to be looked into. SoE should put this time and effort into making the CoE group zones more relevant outside of HE and DC. And if I remember correctly, we had two DoF based instances that came out in the Drunder update two years ago that were never used....so what makes you guys think this will?

    Vague. Will this be important for raiders as well or is it only focused on the solo/groups? Raiding is a very picky process on figuring out the right combination. Nevertheless props that i can pick a different setup on the go rather then having to go into my house to get a different version.

    That sounds neat. Though I don't think many if any guilds outside the top 3 for each server will even care for it.

    Lot of TS stuff that needs to be fixed ASAP including the stuff dropped in the SG zones that have below average stats.
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  20. Ucala01 Member

    I like the 3 new contested avatars, although I kinda wish you would have picked someone other than Drinal, saw him enough already :p

    you would be surprised what of people /feedback and stuff in to try and get.
    also what were the DOF based instances in the Drunder update? I just remember the 3 drunders and EoW. nothing comes to mind of DoF.


    the old arena and the Arena of the Gods are completely different and not related in anyway except the name, a little.
    connecting the two is just goofy and seems you made the connection just cause you wanted to cry about the old arena