The Shadow Odyssey is here! The Game Update 50 patch notes are live and the servers should be available for play shortly. Raring to go but don’t want to see the spoilers? Here’s the information you need to get started without giving away any endings. I’ll race you to the Moors!

Travel to the new zones

Head to Sinking Sands to the D.I.R.T.Y. Excavation Site where there is now an airship which will take you to the overland zone Moors of Ykesha.

Moors of Ykesha is an overland zone packed solid with quests aimed at 70+ so if you are on your own and want to dive straight in, this is the place to be.

While you are there, be sure to make future travel easier by harvesting the bush at the druid ring.

Heroics

Groups of adventurers will no doubt be rushing to take a look at the new dungeons spread out all over Norrath. These dungeons offer heroic missions as well as raid instances. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.

The launch date for The Shadow Odyssey is Tuesday, November 18th — not long now! It’s time to start getting prepared so that when those servers come up, I can hit the ground running. Here’s my list of things to do over the next two weeks:

Complete the D.I.R.T.Y. Collection

The purple shinies at the D.I.R.T.Y. site are now all in place for the Excavation Trinkets Collection. Although it has been confirmed that the shinies will remain in place for gathering after the live event has finished, it is unlikely that there will be any way to get the helmet in order to see them.

I’d like to complete this collection on all my characters as the reward is a house item which includes a port to the D.I.R.T.Y. site - which just happens to be the location of the airship to the Moors of Ykesha. Useful! [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.

There is a new collection in game! Trinkets: Excavation Trinkets Collection.

The purple shinies which give the excavation trinkets are not visible to the naked eye. In order to see the shinies you must be wearing an Excavation Helmet with the effect of Excavator’s Dedication. It is this which makes the question marks visible to you.

Note: This collection can not be completed at this time (directly after the launch of Game Update 49). Only the worn and broken trinkets are in game; stained and silvered trinkets are not yet available to be collected.

Jimbo McDaniel, the D.I.R.T.Y. Merchant at -1379,-168,-739 in Sinking Sands, has Excavation Helmets for sale but he will not deal with you until you have helped him deal with the curious monkeys. He has a series of four quests which scale to your level. Once completed, he will be happy to show you his wares for purchase.

The Excavation Helmet is available at a cost of 10 [D.I.R.T.Y. Money]. You gain [D.I.R.T.Y. Money] by doing the quests in the Encampment and Excavation sites.

The Live Event is split into two parts and only half of the collection items are currently available. The stained and silvered trinkets can not be harvested until the second half of the event. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.

So the Las Vegas Fan Faire 2008 was a big success and news is making it onto the community sites. Discussions are quickly getting heated and misinformation is already starting to spread.

In order to keep things on an even keel, here’s a quick collection of eye-witness reports and opinions to get you up to speed quickly on the released information. Feel free to add other links and additional details in the comments.

Fan Faire blog offers quick notes about the new expansion:
The Shadow Odyssey News Rollup

Niami writes about guild halls:
Fan Faire 2008 Guild Hall Preview

Massively interview Bruce Ferguson about the new expansion:
Exploring the Shadow Odyssey

Allakhazam and SOE join up to create EQ2 database on ZAM.com:
Allakhazam announces Zam.com, SOE Partnership

Ogrebear wonders if this will kill community sites:
Disappointed by the Zam.Com Announcement

I have to admit that I’m wondering about the community aspects of this. It doesn’t seem to bode well for sites like mine.

Photographs from the Fan Faire:
Flickr Fan Faire Group

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.

Game Update 47 has a new live event for players to become shadow assailants and fight off the void tempests still threatening Norrath.

This quest progresses on from the quest in GU46 and is quite similar but there are a few critical differences, including that you must clear a Void Tempest storm which is “level appropriate” in order to get the initial update.

Get the Quest

North Freeport
Go to the Academy of Arcane Science and speak to Librarian Motius Feldarn, who is standing at the book shelves near the lifts. He will give you the quest Becoming a Shadow Assailant for Freeport.

South Qeynos
Go to the Concordium and speak to Librarian Dungil who can be reached by taking the blue portal. He will give you the quest Becoming a Shadow Assailant for Qeynos.

Find a Void Tempest

For this initial phase of the quest, you will need to find a storm within your level range to get the update. Void Tempests which spawn gray mobs will not update your quest and if the mobs are green you may not get an update. I found that green storms that were within one level of being gray to me did not update my quest. [More...]

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.

Tipa is ahead of the game once again, posting the latest trademark filing by Sony : Everquest II: The Shadow of Odyssey which will be the fifth expansion for the game. She predicted that the next expansion would be Luclin - and I hope she’s right with this description:

Well, no, I didn’t love Luclin as it was in EQ1. I love the idea of what Luclin will be NOW — blown apart, flying between the shards of the moon, an entirely new landscape and a chance for EQ2 to finally break from EQ1 and do something totally original.

Doesn’t that sound awesome?

But then there have been the recent lore articles posted, telling the tale of the Escape from Guk and the Flight of the Mudskipper. Odyssey could quite simply be a reference to Odus, known to be a favorite of Vhalen, who has recently left Sony but confirmed that the lore for the next expansion is complete.

Certainly it’s not sounding like Velious, which had been the most common guess.

Now that the speculation has started, hopefully it won’t take long before we get some real information!

Edit: Tipa points out in the comments that Cyanbane from EQ2-Daily made the find - and if you are interested in speculation you should keep an eye out for her piece in Massively.

Posted by Taymar on http://proof.mmorpg-info.org.