Duck Mounts Arrive in Norrath

It's been a long time coming. After well over a year of player campaigning duck mounts have finally come to Norrath. You'll find them in the in-game store for 1950 Daybreak Cash, and they come in a variety of plumage: Midnight Waterfowl (black duck), Waterfowl (Mallard duck), and Winter Waterfowl (white duck). The Quacken, which is a yellow duck, will only be available for two weeks, and will migrate away from the Marketplace at noon Pacific on Tuesday, May 19, 2015.

Enjoy our fine feathered friends!  And look below the jump for the video story of the duck mount.

Daybreak Games: Roundtable With Smedley & Naviaux

Daybreak Game Company unveiled its new logo and website last week, giving a fresh face as it looks toward the future. We chatted with Daybreak President John Smedley and the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing Laura Naviaux yesterday evening about the origins of the company's new name and logo, Columbus Nova, the future of its fan convention, and more.

Landmark's New User Experience

Landmark has been in closed beta for quite some time now, and recently developer Daybreak Games announced several changes to the game that they hope will improve the new user experience. We chatted with Senior Producer Terry Michaels and Lead Game Designer Darrin McPherson about these modifications and how they will impact the game.

Hands-on with TERA's New Gunner Class

TERA will be getting both a new class and a Steam launch next week. On May 5th, the Gunner—a fast-paced, ranged DPS—will be added to the game. The class will introduce a variety of skills and flavor, including special abilities that use Willpower.

We went hands-on with the Gunner class last week, accompanied by TERA Producer Patrick "Treeshark" Sun.

Daybreak Unveils New Site and Logo

Daybreak Game Company finally unveiled their revamped website and logo after months of waiting. The new logo features the eye of an owl who appears to be glaring at the rising sun. As for the website, www.daybreakgames.com is finally active and has received a makeover. The top part has jumbo-sized features while the bottom allows you to navigate between their different posts and social media feeds. Also of note: Station Cash is now called "Daybreak Cash" on the new site (it's just renamed; your balances remain the same).

What do you think of the new logo and website? Check after the jump for more info on celebration livestreams and in-game bonuses happening this week. UPDATE: A letter from Smed to the community is also below the jump.

Rum Cellar Launch Details Revealed

The first campaign of Daybreak Games' new DLC strategy for EverQuest II is scheduled to launch on Monday, April 28, 2015. Here's the nitty gritty on the campaign's cost and contents.

Rum Cellar is available as a stand-alone purchase for $14.99. And, since this new distillery-themed environment is full of Level 100+ content is connected to Altar of Malice (EQ2’s most recent expansion, which is required to play the Rum Cellar campaign), you can also purchase Rum Cellar bundled the campaign with the expansion: $49.99 for Rum Cellar + Altar of Malice, or $94.99 for Rum Cellar + Altar of Malice Collector’s Edition.

The campaign's features include:

  • 2 Solo Zones (1 Solo and 1 Advanced Solo)
  • 3 Heroic Zones (1 Heroic, 1 Event Heroic, 1 Event Heroic-Challenge)
  • Raid Zone with 10 Bosses
  • Lots of Loot, including drops of a Rare Elite Mercenary and a Zeppelin Mount
  • New Achievements and Titles
  • New Gems for Armor
  • New Collections
  • Merchant who accepts Far Sea Ferrin (who also sells a Zeppelin Mount!)

If you want to check out Rum Cellar early, you can hop onto the Beta server and help test!

The Rum Cellar Campaign is on Beta!

The recently announced Rum Cellar Campaign is on Beta and ready to test! Head to a world bell and choose "Far Seas Distillery" (above Tranquil Sea on the map) to get to the area outside the zone.

Rum Cellar will introduce the level 100 Far Seas Distillery zone to Altar of Malice. This zone has six instance types (Solo, Advanced Solo, Heroic, Event Heroic, Event Heroic – Challenge Version and Raid), but none of the content is locked. In the story you'll find yourself teaming up with the Brokenskull pirates to help prevent the Rumpocolypse (an end to rum production—such a travesty), starting with a temporary undead parrot companion named Nibbles who will assist your recon of the distillery. The entire campaign story is delivered through the solo and heroic zones, while the raid zone story is complimentary to the storyline. Raiders can expect 10 raid events: nine plus a one-shot boss.

Join fellow testers and sneak-peek enthusiasts on the Beta server! Two important notes:

While we'll continue to be reviewing reports we get in-game sent via /bug and /feedback, we'll also using Reddit as a place to collect feedback and bug reports from the Rum Cellar Campaign beta. If you haven't used this before, you can find it here: www.reddit.com/r/EQ2/. The devs will be will be using Reddit as one of their primary ways to discuss and review Beta issues so we can stay current and have the community up-vote and down-vote relevant or irrelevant issues.

Please use the Full Download setting in the patcher for Beta. The streaming client is choking on some assets at the moment. You can use our Beta Copy feature by typing /beta on a character you want to copy.

Rum Cellar is expected to be available for purchase on Live servers on April 28, 2015. For more information, tune in to the Rum Cellar Campaign Livestream on Tuesday, April 7, 2015 starting at 1PM Pacific on Twitch!

EverQuest II: Campaigns, Pirates & Rumpocolypse

Yes, we know it's April Fools Day. This announcement is 100% serious.

One of the major concerns players had back in February was whether or not content would continue to roll in as expected for EverQuest II. In a Producer's Letter released this evening by Executive Producer Holly "Windstalker" Longdale, it was announced that the team will now be releasing content in "campaigns" in lieu of the common expansions and game updates we have become accustomed to in years past. We attended a roundtable with Holly this afternoon to discuss this change as well as the upcoming Rum Cellar campaign and beyond.

UPDATE April 2nd: Clarification on zone instance types has been included below.

The Highest of Silly Days - April 1st Only!

April Fools Day marks the Highest of Silly Days for the Bristlebane Day celebration. Three quests are only available on this day (one is new), given by the sphinx Imenand just off the dock in the Enchanted Lands. Test your brain by trying to solve his many riddles and take a gamble at your choice of house pet rewards.

If you've been waiting for a Berry-fed Bovich since last year they'll be available on the Marketplace for 2250SC. There will be a new winged version, shown above, available for 2950SC.

In your travels you may have noticed bunnies all over Norrath. Today, and only today can you collect the silly wabbits and earn four Bunny Achievements! The 500 bunnie achievement was added this year.

Players can also harvest from the Jester's Superior Gardens on this day, which are found in Enchanted Lands. These gardens give harvests from every holiday event that has crafting, so be sure you have a lot of backpack space to spare! Those wanting to sneak in some mid-year Frostfell crafting can do so as well. Check the Marketplace for some special Bristlebane Day promotional items!

The Highest of Silly Days starts as soon as it's April 1 in Pacific time, and goes until 11:59pm PDT on April 1st.

Formerly Hardcore #3: Adventures in BRF, Part 3

Hello and welcome to the 3rd edition of Formerly Hardcore, ZAMs column on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. For our third column, we’re continuing our look at WoW’s latest raid, Blackrock Foundry. So far we’ve covered the six of the ten encounters in BRF, as well as some talk about my experience with using WoW’s Group Finder tool and Looking For Raid difficulty. That leaves us with four more bosses to talk about.