We are into November and it is time for EverQuest II to start kicking off its 15th anniversary. First up on the list are new special rules servers!
As their anniversary splash screen proudly declares
On the EverQuest II side of the house, the Rivervale server, set to launch today. Rivervale was the home town of the halflings back in the original EverQuest and a strange sub-zone in the Enchanted Lands in EverQuest II. It still houses halflings, and the old Fool’s Gold, but it is also home to a lot of demons as well as hosting the bee and bixie dungeon, the Tower of Drafling. I remember spending a lot of time in a group with Rarik in that zone.
The Fool’s Gold still stands… somebody scrubbed off the sign I guess
The new Rivervale server will be a “Live Heroic Server,” which is an all new name, so I’ll just quote Daybreak from the FAQ as to what that means:
Any new character on a heroic server is granted a level boost bauble that will enable them to jump directly into some of the more recent content, boosting to level 95 with a gear set that will set you on your path in the Phantom Seas (released in 2014’s Altar of Malice expansion).
So it sounds like if you join in you’ll be able to jump straight into the content that went live around the game’s 10th anniversary. I wonder if that was planned?
Otherwise content on the server will be the same as on a live server, which means if you own the latest expansion, last year’s Chaos Descending expansion, you will be able to play right through into that.
As with other such special servers, you will not be able to transfer on or off of the server and, of course, you will need to have a Daybreak All Access subscription in order to play on it.
Also, as a bit of a late update yesterday, it was announced that the Rivervale server would be a “free trade” server. The FAQ was poor about indicating what that actually means, but fortunately they did a such a server previously. The Isle of Refuge server, launched back in 2016, was also a free trade server. You can read what I wrote about it back then, but the upshot is in this quote:
Isle of Refuge is what we call a “Free Trade Server.” This means that almost all items can be traded freely between players. There are a few exceptions – Heirloom items purchased via a merchant or in the marketplace, granted from repeatable quests, or received via /claims will remain Heirloom.
So that will be it. Most everything that you might think of as “bind on pick up” on this server will be “bind on equip” and tradeable, to sully this conversation by using WoW terminology.
Meanwhile, older sibling EverQuest, which turned 20 back in March, is also opening up a special server today to help celebrate the EverQuest II anniversary.
The Miragul server, named for the lich of Everfrost, is billed as a “Heroic Progression Server.”
According to the FAQ that means that new characters will start at level 85 with gear, spells, and AA points. Content will be unlocked up through the 2010 House of Thule expansion, after which later expansions will be unlocked based on whether or not they include an increase in the level cap. Expansions that do will be held for three months, while those without an increase will be active for two months.
It is also a “true box” server, which means that the client will try to keep you from multi-boxing your way through things. And, as always, a Daybreak All Access subscription is required to roll up a character on the server and you cannot transfer characters from other servers to this server.
And so the anniversary celebration begins.
Both servers are slated to go live at noon Pacific Time today, but we know how that goes. Still, they will probably be up and running before you’re done with dinner this evening.
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