shards-of-destiny posts

EverQuest II's Shards of Destiny game update goes live

by William Dobson Sep 24th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Events, in-game, Patches, Raiding, Grouping, News items

EverQuest II's next game update Shards of Destiny is now live, and that means that players can take advantage of a number of new features. We've summed up the biggest ones just below:

Chronomagic: Visit some new "mysterious erudites" that have moved into Freeport, Kelethin, Neriak, Qeynos and Gorothyn, to lower your adventuring level for a small cost. This allows for grouping with lower levels, and a lot of older content has been revamped with more frequent bosses and changed loot rarities to make this option more attractive. There are also 37 new missions related to going back and seeing dungeons of differing levels.
Achievements: A new way to compete with other players. Most achievements will just give Achievement Points, but some will offer non-stat item rewards. Achievement categories include Exploring, Dungeons, Quests, Raids, Player versus Player, and Tradeskills.
Miragul's Planar Shard: a x4 raid zone and the first in EverQuest II to have a scaled difficulty feature.
The Shard of Love: Choose to help or hinder the Sisters of Erollisi, beginning by visiting either a Disciple of Love or a Disciple of Hate.
Teleportation Spires Event: Rewards are up for grabs for those who can assist the Quellithulians with the reactivation of the Ulterian Teleportation Spires.

Check out the full patch notes here, and before you head in-game, dip past the break to see the official Shards of Destiny trailer.

Tags: achievement-points, achievements, chronomagic, eq2, eqii, everquest-2, everquest-ii, game-update, miraguls-planar-shard, shard-of-love, shards-of-destiny, soe, sony-online-entertainment, teleportation-spires-event

Test out the new Shards of Destiny raid in EQ2

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 14th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Previews, Endgame

Shards of Destiny is EverQuest II's newest update, and with it will be coming a wash of new changes to the game. One of these new additions, however, will be a brand new raid that will feature the new scaling difficulty feature, also being introduced with Shards of Destiny.

The new zone, Miragul's Planar Shard, is an x4 epic level raid, which means that it will require four groups of six people to complete. The raid is linked to Norrath through Everfrost through the same door that starts the other Miragul instance. The raid will offer a challenge to all players who enter its halls, but skilled groups can choose paths that will increase the difficulty of the instance even further.

Tags: dev-raids, everquest-2, everquest-ii, miraguls-planar-shard, playtest, playtesting, raid-x4, raids, shards-of-destiny, soe, sony-online-entertainment

EverQuest II producer's letter looks at "Shards of Destiny"

by William Dobson Aug 28th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Patches

EverQuest II's senior producer Alan "Brenlo" Crosby has penned his latest letter to the community, mainly to talk about the next big Game Update Shards of Destiny and its arrival on the Test Server. While the patch isn't slated to go live until late September, players on Test can try out some of the new features already. One new system that is being introduced is Chronomagic, which allows players to reduce their level by speaking to an NPC in town, meaning they can play with lower level friends or simply revisit earlier content. Another Shards of Destiny addition is housing renovations, providing more space and room for items.

If you're just after new content, the patch will have some of that too. There will be a new x4 dungeon called Miragul's Planar Shard, and Erollisi Marr's Shard of Love ought to bring some romance to Norrath. EverQuest II will also be jumping on the achievement bandwagon, adding their own Achievement System. All of the above isn't coming for another few weeks, but Brenlo did mention a small patch that just went in a few days ago too. It added a field to the "Welcome" screen that lists the current Daily Mission, as well as the current "Hot Zone". In the past, EQII's Hot Zones were temporary experience bonuses, but the term's meaning has been changed to indicate zones with an increased fabled item drop-rate. Not too shabby.

Tags: alan-crosby, brenlo, daily-missions, dungeons, erollisi-marr, everquest-2, everquest-ii, game-update, hot-zones, miraguls-planar-shard, shard-of-love, shards-of-destiny, soe, sony-online-entertainment