EverQuest II’s 11th expansion, Altar of Malice, launches today for All-Access Members! Are you ready to take up arms and unravel the mysteries of The Shattered Seas? This expansion is packed full of adventure and brings a ton of exciting new features to players! Let’s take a look at some of the things you can look forward to in Altar of Malice.
More Levels and Abilities!
Adventurers rejoice! You will now be able to reach level 100 and unlock some exciting new prestige abilities. There are also new Grandmaster Spells and Rare Ancient Spell scrolls available, giving your characters some truly powerful potential!
The tradeskill cap is increasing to level 100 as well, and players can enjoy a tier of content that contains some dynamic new tradeskill quests. Make sure you check your in-game mail to learn how to begin helping the Far Seas Trading Company in the Shattered Seas. The new zones will also yield a brand new tier of harvestable resources, which tradeskillers can use to create some amazing new items!
In addition to adventure and tradeskill level increases, guild levels are also being increased to 100. Reaching this prestigious guild milestone unlocks some new guild hall amenities! Be sure to check out the new scroll depots as well as larger versions of your favorite, current depot boxes.
New Quests and Items!
Get ready for an incredible adventure, because Altar of Malice is introducing over 100 new quests! Adventurers should seek out NPCs in Qeynos Harbor or East Freeport in order to begin a heroic new signature quest that will send them on a journey through the beautiful lands in the Shattered Seas.
With new quests, comes new loot - lots and lots of loot! Players can look forward to a variety of new obtainable rewards, including new gems which give bonuses to armor. There’s even some awesome gear specifically available for players who prefer PVP battles!
New Zones and Raids!
Altar of Malice will also include some breathtaking new zones, ready to be explored! The Shattered Seas is made up of two new overland zones, The Tranquil Sea and The Phantom Sea. Whether you enjoy grouping or playing solo, 15 new heroic zones and six advanced solo instances means that there’s a zone that will appeal to everyone! If you enjoy some friendly competition, there are also two new contested zones just waiting for some player action. Let’s take a closer look at some of the new zones available with this expansion!
- Tranquil Sea
- Zavith’Loa
- Brokenskull Bay
- Phantom Sea
- Ossuary of Malevolence
- Castle Highhold
- Ssraeshza
Are you an adventurer who’s looking for an epic battle that requires the strength of many skilled allies? Get ready for some ground-shaking battles, because Altar of Malice is introducing six new raid zones as well as four new Avatars of the Gods raid encounters! Visit the Arena of the Gods entrance in Freeport of Qeynos to access the Precipice of Power to see where the Altar of Malice Avatars can be summoned. What treasures will these epic bosses drop? You’ll have to defeat them in battle to find out!
Many More Exciting Features!
Do you enjoy changing your character’s appearance outfits and creating sets of armor for specific adventuring situations? The Equipment Sets feature can help simplify equipment management and remove the need for clunky equipment swapping macros. Players may access Equipment Sets via the new Sets tab in the Equipment and Appearance sections of the Character window and start organizing up to 20 sets of armor today!
A new feature, Spell Filtering, can be found in the Options tab of the Persona window under the new Advanced Options section. By enabling Spell Filtering, players will see a new option in the context menu when right-clicking a spell effect in the spell effects window: Hide Effect. Hiding an effect will exclude it from being sent down to the client, Hiding an effect will exclude it from being sent down to the client, just in case you’re a little tired of hearing your Bard sing the same ol’ tune.
We’ve also made an improvement to player housing. Characters on an account now have trustee access to other houses on that account! This requires no action on your part. The other characters will not appear in the access list.
In the past few months, our teams have spent a lot of time monitoring performance and issues on both Live and Beta servers. Based on the information we collected we’ve decided we should increase the min specs slightly in order to reflect what we feel is a good visual and play experience in EQ2. We want our players to enjoy the best gameplay experience possible, so the recommended minimum specs are as follows:
- Operating System: Windows XP-SP3, or newer
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4400/AMD Athlon x2 4050e
- Ram: 3GB RAM
- Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 8800/AMD Radeon HD 2650
- Hard Drive: 17 GB of Free Disk Space
- DirectX compatible sound card
- Broadband Internet connection
The sea is calling and adventures are waiting! You can purchase the Altar of Malice expansion here!
and also receive some of the Bonus Items just for purchasing the expansion!
Special Note: Altar of Malice will also include all of the exciting content from previous expansions! This does not include features from Age of Discovery, The Channeler Class, or the Freeblood Race, all of which are available as separate unlocks in the Marketplace.
But wait…there’s even more!
New Player Race: The Aerakyn! (requires separate purchase)
The Aerakyns are a new player race that features a variety of special customizations that include various horn types and a wide variety of colors for skin, scale, hair, and eyes. Special wing appearances, animated wing attacks, and a fiery racial trait help make the Aerakyn race stand out from the crowd. Such a wide selection of customizations means that you will be able to create a very unique character!
The Aerakyn options are available for purchase at the Character Select screen through the “Shop Now” button, during character creation, and under the “Prestige Races” category in the in-game Marketplace. While the Aerakyn are available today, they are not included with an Altar of Malice purchase.