Starting at 12:01 pm Pacific (Noon) on Friday, May 25, 2012, and lasting until 11:59 pm Pacific on Monday, May 28, 2012, we’ll offer Double Experience in EverQuest II! Take advantage of these three days and watch those XP bars fill up!

Source: EverQuest2.com

While we are still watching Skyshrine and responding to any issues that come up, we are obviously marching onward to our next big projects. Also, as we’ve said many times, we are looking at the existing game and how to make improvements to what we have. We’ve jotted down a few things below that are in progress this month to give you an idea of just some of what we’re working on right now. We hope to release them in May but won’t until they are ready:

• Remember in December 2011 on Test server we offered the ability to play as your character in Dungeon Maker? We took a look at the results and it was pretty clear we needed to make some significant improvements. Our team of engineers took to doing some research and experimentation and has come up with a great solution that we feel will have other applications as well. We are calling it “Level Agnostic” game play. What it means is that no matter what your level, you will be able to go into Dungeon Maker as your character and be effective. While that’s a bit of a no brainer, this goes for groups in Dungeon Maker too. We have already done early tests of groups of level 90s with level 50s and lower and it’s really fun! There’s a bit of tuning we need to do here and there, but there are definitely other ways we can use this. We are still in testing and want to get this one right, so we are going to do a lot of testing before we go live. And of course we’ll have it on the Test server when we feel it’s ready.
• On a more practical side, the team has been looking at low-impact solutions to improve the game experience for everyone. One of them was to be able to target an NPC and have an indication of what quest they might update. The engineering team already has this working for simple quests. The challenge now is to make sure we get every quest in the game flagged appropriately. That’s going to take some time, but the functionality is already there and it’s been great to see it working in game. We are hoping to get the first phase of this out to the Test server soon.
• Another challenge the team faces is being responsive during testing during our Beta periods. It’s very frustrating for designers and engineers to be testing raids and group content and have to stop due to a bug or difficulty and have to wait a day for another build. Not anymore! The engineers are already well into developing a testing tool that allows developers to make changes on the fly in real time. This is HUGE news for us and those players who help us test certainly will recognize the value. We certainly hope to start using this during testing for our next update.
• We are also starting to push through a list of historical bugs and prioritizing those and we’ll give updates on those as we go forward.

So from all of us, to all of you, thank you for the amazing support and playing the best MMORPG around!

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale

• Level 85 Minimum
• Available on the Marketplace
• Currently 1950 Station Cash

The City Faire travels from city to city on the 1st of every month, bringing you city specific items which may be placed in your house or guild hall.  Check out the city reward galleries (listed below) for a better look!

• Jan/July – Gorowyn Faire
• Feb/Aug – Kelethin Faire
• Mar/Sept – Neriak Faire
• April/Oct – Qeynos Faire
• May/Nov – Freeport Faire
• June/Dec – New Halas Faire

Click HERE to purchase!

500 (USD5.00) Now 1500 Station Cash™!	1000 (USD10.00) Now 3000 Station Cash™!
2000 (USD20.00) Now 6000 Station Cash™!	2500 (USD25.00) Now 7500 Station Cash™!
5000 (USD50.00) Now 15000 Station Cash™!	10000 (USD100.00) Now 30000 Station Cash™!

The season of events comes to a head with a prank-filled celebration.

Antonica found itself bustling with activity early on April 1st as the Far Seas caravans arrived to celebrate the Qeynos City Festival. The local specialties merchant has stocked up on several new items that are sure to please any Qeynosian. Also featured this month is the Antonica Aether Race course, which awards a prefix title to those who can master their race times. The festival will continue to run until 11:59pm PDT on April 7th.

Bristlebane Day is still being celebrated, with the main parts of the event occurring in Enchanted Lands. A new snack snatcher race is available and the older quests have some new rewards to choose from. Crafters can enjoy a new recipe book as well as a red shiny collection that harkens back to memories of old. Bristlebane Day will run until 11:59pm PDT on April 9th.

During the first full weekend of April a “Spring Fever” double experience bonus is expected. We’ll have more details on that as they are released.

Game Update 63 is slated to launch on April 17th. This update will feature a new Velious overland zone, Withered Lands, and the old dragon city of Skyshrine, which has solo, heroic and raid instances. Crafters can enjoy some new quests and recipe books in this update. Keep an eye out for our features as GU63′s launch date approaches!

The phases of the moon will reveal the mysterious grottos again later in the month and their denizens will gladly offer you some tasks to perform. Moonlight Enchantments will run from 12:01am PDT on April 20th until 11:59pm PDT on April 21st. No new items are expected to be on the grotto merchants.

EverQuest II takes part in the celebration of 13 years of EverQuest with the Chronoportals live event. Ancient portals take players back in time to battle creatures of a distant past. Several of these encounters have memorable dialogues that any former EverQuest player can appreciate.

Whether you’re looking for the chronoportal that Quillmane dwells within or need some help defeating the Nagafen’s Lair encounter, our Chronoportals guide has it all. The event begins at 12:01am PDT on March 20, 2012 and will run until 11:59pm PDT on March 28, 2011.

Heraldry Flag Backpack

From EverQuest2.com

Normally we don’t announce our new Marketplace items until they are live, but some are just so cool we have to spill the beans early. That’s certainly the case with the Heraldry Flag Backpack, which gives you an all new way to show off your guild allegiance! Not only does the Heraldry Flag Backpack appear as a stylish, functional backpack, where you can store your valuables, but the banner on the pole changes to match your Guild’s Emblem.