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Inspired by mystical visions, a crew of explorers sailing the uncharted waters beyond the Shattered Seas, have found an isolated continent plagued by dark curses and discordant energies. Ruins of an ancient civilization are scattered across the landscape, while the imposing silhouette of an opulent castle rises from the highest point of the land for all to see. Whispers can be heard, in the native villages found along Vetrovia's coast, of its supernatural master and the horrors it contains, but are any of them true?
The 18th expansion for EverQuest II, Visions of Vetrovia, releases to the public on December 1, 2021. It will include a five-level increase for both adventurers and crafters, including new signature lines for both, a full tier of spells, recipes and gear, and more!
Understandably, due to my new job, work on the preview has been at the bottom of the to-do pile, but I am squeezing in work on it as time and energy permit. Once you take a look at all the eye-candy, you might see exactly why it has taken some time to get this write-up started. (Frostfell being in testing at the same time I had a day off to work on this didn't help, either!)
As with all such massive projects, there will be updates to this page in chunks and things will continue to be added for at least a week or two after expansion launch. An update list will be added at the bottom of this page so that you can see what has been updated since the last time you visited it.
You will initially access the island of Vetrovia via the Svarni Expanse Gateway via the world bell system. (Lower lefthand corner of the world map.) Once there, flight will be unlocked in each of the three overland zones after you complete either the tradeskill or adventure content for that zone. (i.e., finish Svarni Expanse content and be sent on to Karuupa Jungle, and flight in Svarni will unlock; finish Karuupa Jungle and go on to Mahngavi Wastes, and flight in Karuupa will unlock; finish Mahngavi Wastes and be sent on to the city of Forlorn Gist, and flight in Mahngavi will unlock.) When you finish the entire tradeskill signature line, you will receive an item called "Renfry's Basement Bauble" which will give you unlimited port access to Renfry's Basement, the crafting instance within Forlorn Gist. There will likely be adventuring baubles or such unlocked through the adventuring line that allow fast access to certain areas, but since I had zero time to play with the adventuring stuff, I can't tell you anything about that.
Our itemization devs have been hard at work on making all the gear, spells, adornments, consumables and more. As of this writing, they are STILL working hard getting all the last bits and pieces into place, so I can't give you a lot of details. There is essentially a full tier of "stuff" crammed into five levels, which means that some of the normal recipe books are crammed "just a bit" full.
The tradeskill signature line "Were is the Messenger" is a ten-quest series that leads you from one end of Vetrovia to the other, with a solid chunk of story involved. No, the "were" is not a typo. Really. Please don't bug report it. Completion of this signature line grants you access to both daily and weekly tradeskill missions that will be available from Renfry's Basement. (Hence why you are given a port item to that instance at the end of the signature line.) You will also be granted a rather unique tradeskill mount (which is still having the tradeskill stats on it tweaked at last check, so I am not posting them here). Were Is the Messenger initial writeup done during beta by Taled of Maj'Dul and reused by permission. I'll flesh it out more as time permits.
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Please be aware that I cannot post a quest walkthrough for the tradeskill line until after the quest is live. (Conflict of interest and all that) Once it is live, I will get up a text walkthrough as soon as I can. A video walkthrough will be done after release as time permits as well.
After completion of the entire Were is the Messenger series, the daily tradeskill mission will be offered by Renfry in Renfry's Basement. The weekly tradeskill mission will be offered by Igore, also located in Renfry's Basement. In both cases, the missions use the same mission timers as the adventuring missions, which means that the weekly resets on Thursdays, and the dailies reset every 18(?) hours.
Completion of the daily mission grants you status, 2 expansion currency (Vetrovian Dres'Ag) and a random item. The possible items granted are advanced recipes, level 125 transmutation stones, potions of limited progress, one of several house items only available from the missions, etc.
Completion of the weekly mission grants you status, 20 of the expansion currency, a single charge weapon upgrade recipe, and a random item. The item in question can be a weapon upgrade mold, higher-end advanced recipes, level 125 transmutation stones, potions of limited progress, one of several house items available only from the missions, etc.
For some, advanced recipe books will be what keeps you doing the missions, for others it will be the house items, still others will be going after the expansion currency (which is earned by adventurers as well), and for others it will be those weapon upgrade recipes and molds.
This was explained in Discord, and will also go into the Tradeskill forum soon:
Adventurers will get weapon drops from heroic II and raid content that will be labeled as able to be upgraded (I haven't seen the actual text). Crafters will get charged recipes from the weekly tradeskill mission with a guaranteed drop of one per week from the weekly tradeskill mission in addition to one other reward from a random pool. There will be multiple upgrade recipes due to the numerous weapons there are that will be able to be upgraded, and the game will check so it does not award you a recipe you already have in your books. A tradeable mold will come from the tradeskill missions as well, and it will be a single mold type for all weapons.
Adventurers will then have to find a crafter that has the appropriate recipe and either provide the mold or negotiate a price for one with the crafter when they are commissioning the weapon upgrade. Since the molds are tradeable, they can also be sold on the broker.
How good is this weapon upgrade thing, and why is it important? It upgrades level 325 resolve weaponse into 330 resolve weapons, which is meant to be a big thing for players who do more difficult heroics and raids. If you haven't done commission crafting in quite a while, you may want to refresh your memory a bit on how commissions work. You might also want to think about what you will charge customers, as they will be using your only charge of that specific recipe that you may have had to run many missions trying to earn.
Another thing that is unlocked when you complete the Were is the Messenger tradeskill signature line is access to the tradeskill blueprint system. As per Caith:
The tradeskill blueprint system allows players who have completed a recipe at pristine quality to automatically complete the recipe in the future without all the button mashing at a 20% increase to fuel and build components (but not Primary Components) required. Items created with the Blueprint system will not update achievements or quests.
To qualify for the blueprint system the character must meet the following requirements:
- Have completed the “Which Were, Where?” achievement.
- Have membership
- Be Tradeskill level 125
- And as previously stated, have previously completed the recipe at pristine quality.
To make use of the blueprint system, simply select the Blueprint checkbox on the recipe window, and press begin.
The "Which Were, Where?" achievement is the completion of the tradeskill signature line, and by the end of the sig line, you should already be level 125.
Some people will not use this feature because there is that 20% increase to fuel and the build (non-primary) components. Others who have materials coming out their ears and a ton of things to craft, will not mind spending extra materials and fuel if it means they can have an instant combine. Mileage will vary, but this was a feature that was apparently requested enough that work began on it before I was on the team...
Pro-tip: Make sure that if you use a custom recipe UI, that you either get an updated UI from where you obtained the UI in the first place, or you disable the outdated UI if you want to access the blueprint feature.
All kinds of normal fuel, plus the various purchased cooking bits like milk, dough and the like, will stack to 800 instead of 200 effective December 1.
One of the advanced tinkerer scrolls will contain recipes for both a scroll depot (previously only available for home use via the marketplace) and a home depot that will store stackable, tradeable house items. (This means that things like housepets, mannequins, house actors, writeable books and signs will not go into the depot, since they don't stack due to being able to be customized, but it will make for a good storage spot for more normal furniture.) There will likely be some items that were missed, and players should put in bug reports for things that should fit in there but don't. (There will be a forum post up in the Homeshow forum on December 1 for players to add information on items that were missed.)
That is only part of the depot happiness, though! Starting December 1, the following changes will automatically happen for existing depots as well as for any new depots:
Increased (guild) storage depot size limits to the following amounts:
For personal depots placed in the home, the following will be the new storage capacities:
This line is in the patch notes:
Status rewards from repeatable quests will now contribute to guild status for guilds above level 100.For those wondering, this also means work orders/rush orders. Level 120-125 rush orders will be added, hopefully in the next patch or two.
As I process well over 300 images, I will repeat to myself that this is all my fault. I went digging for house items in the zone art files, trying to find things that players might like, and I fell down the rabbit hole. You will see the results as I populate this section with links to image pages.
First is a video that was done by Mum as part of the Extra Life gaming marathon, and gives a visual tour of the three overland zones and the city of Forlorn Gist.
Our beloved Ocarinah, aka Building Inspector, is hard at work with house item preview videos as her time and energy allow. More links will be added as she provides them.