EverQuest II's lastest game update, Scars of the Awakened, is right around the corner with new content for Norrathian crafters!  Be sure to take your artisan to Cobalt Scar where Acting Supplymaster Grant could use a hand. Along the way you'll help the Othmir, save the day at the main camp, and help a mysterious dark elf. Your reward is a nifty set of gloves handed down the Bayle line. Check out our Cobalt Scar Crafting Series guide and the shopping list so you're not shy on resources.

Level 95 crafters will find that their Apprentices have some new ideas and need new equipment to get the job done.  The new researched recipes will use Tier 10 resources and are set up so that while they require more reactants, those reactants aren't as hard to come by as they are in the level 80 recipes. 

Tier 10 recipe books are being renamed to be consistent with other tiers. With GU66 all volumes will be available on the usual merchants, although the Advanced once are quite expensive. It's important to note that you can still get these recipes adventuring and questing, and you don't have to buy them from an NPC to obtain them.

Game Update 66, Scars of the Awakened, is slated to hit live servers Tuesday April 30. Be sure to log in this weekend and get some of that bonus experience!

Holly "Windstalker" Longdale just made this announcement:

Wee! Double XP weekend starts 12pm PDT this Friday until Sunday 11:59pm PDT! It includes adventure, AA, tradeskill AND guild XP!

Enjoy double experience on adventuring, alternate advancement (AAs), crafting, and guild (status contributed) experience. The bonus weekend will run from 12pm (noon) Pacific Time on Friday, April 26 and will conclude at 11:59pm Pacific Time on Sunday, April 28.

SOE Live (formerly Fan Faire) will be held from August 1 - 4, 2013, at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Late this morning Sony Online Entertainment announced that badge registration is now open, with special Early Bird pricing available. There are a variety of passes, which offer the following:

• Friday or Saturday Only Day Pass: $39* (reg. $49), includes an SOE Live T-shirt and Swag Bag; exclusive SOE Live in-game goodies**; access to the exhibitor showroom, panels, and roundtables; one complimentary green screen photo; eligible for game tournaments and live quests.
• Evening Only Pass: $99, grants entry to the Welcome Reception (including the Thursday Keynote Address), Pool Party, and Grand Banquet (including the Costume Contest). 
• All Access Pass: $129* (reg. $149), includes everything the Day and Evening passes get, as well as complementary copies of both the upcoming EverQuest and EverQuest II expansions.
• Optional Dev Brunch Add-on***: $59, join various SOE developers for a breakfast buffet on Sunday, August 4 from 10am - 12pm. Space is "extremely limited" and registrants are accepted on a first come, first serve basis.All Access Pass is required. Seating is assigned based on primary game chosen during registration.
• Kids ages 12 and under are free and must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

* Special pricing only available for a limited time. Register by May 22, 2013 to take advantage of these prices.
** In-game goodies will be granted after SOE Live, but the registrant does not need to attend to receive their goodies. See below for more details.
*** Dev Brunch requires that you have an All Access pass.

Find out more information about SOE Live this evening (Thursday, April 25) during the webcast on Twitch TV! Tune in at 4:30pm PDT (7:30pm EDT) to watch Brasse will chat with Jen Belfield (Marketing Services Director) and Casey Roberts (Marketing Services and Events Specialist) to give you the details on registration, tournaments, panels, Live Quests, in-game items, the Keynotes, and more.

Register now for SOE Live and continue reading for more info on the exclusive in-game items!

With the announcement that Storybricks will be joining SOE in breathing life into EverQuest Next, time has come for the prognostication to recommence.

We expect that we will have some more concrete information revealed at SOE Live this year, but there are some snippets that are certainly making me a little rabid with anticipation.

The involvement of the Storybricks team itself is exciting, in that it reveals SOE is looking to add levels of player interaction with the world that will have some interesting AI and choices under the hood.

For a better idea of what we can anticipate from Namaste Entertainment’s involvement, check out this enlightening interview by David Souza, formerly of RepublicTrooper.com and now one of our marvelous new writers at ZAM (keep an eye out for his excellent first editorial on PvP, coming soon).

Zjeven of OGRShows' new show, Critical Hit, tells us they're having one of our favorite EverQuest II developers on this week! Assistant Lead Designer Nathan "Katheel" McCall will be on Wednesday evening's live show. 

If you'd like to submit a question for Nathan, head over to the OGR website and leave a comment. Then tune in Wednesday, April 24th at 9pm EST (6pm PST)!

US EQII Servers will come down on Tuesday, April 23, at 7:00 am Pacific Time for an update. The expected downtime for US servers is one hour. The EU servers will come down at 9:00 pm Pacific Time; the expected downtime for EU servers is 2 hours.

Here's the update note:

BATTLEGROUNDS
Fixed an issue that could cause battlegrounds to crash.

The monthly live event Moonlight Enchantments starts tonight! It is scheduled to turn on April 20th at 12:01am PDT and run until 11:59pm PDT on April 21st. The time applies directly with no conversion to all servers. Check out our Moonlight Enchantments guide and peek at the rewards!

Nathan "Kaitheel" McCall has provided an update on art changes that will be coming to the Watery Tile, which was first released last month.

The water tile (without sparkles & cloudiness) will be coming with GU66 "Scars of the Awakened." This means that the water tiles will automatically have their art updated at that time.

The sparkly water tile (water tile with sparkles) will be available on 5/20, the first Moonlight Enchantment celebration following GU66.

~Kaitheel

US EQ2 Servers will come down on Thursday, April 18, at 7:00 am Pacific Time for an update. The expected downtime for US servers is one hour. The EU servers will come down at 9:00 pm Pacific Time; the expected downtime for EU servers is 2 hours.

Here's the patch note:

AMENITIES
Fixed some issues related to guildhall gatherers.

US EQ2 Servers will come down on Tuesday, April 16, at 7:00 am Pacific Time for an update. The expected downtime for US servers is one hour. The EU servers will come down at 9:00 pm Pacific Time; the expected downtime for EU servers is 2 hours.

Here's the patch notes:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Harrow's End [Raid]

• Drinal should no longer have a chance to cast more than one curse on the raid force at the same time.
• Drinal should no longer drop hate on targets in the first half of his encounter.
• Spiritual Exhaustion should no longer hit the entire raid 4 times. Instead the person in group that has to react will affect only their specific group with the damage. This damage has been made unable to be AE blocked.
• Concussive Mindmeld can no longer be AE blocked.
• Drinal should no longer occasionally cast spells on dead players.

SOE will be doing some work on the EverQuest II forums on Monday, April 15, 2013. The forums will be inaccessible from 12:00 pm (Noon) to 5:00 pm PDT.

During the forum downtime, you can find news and updates on EQII's official website, Facebook, and Twitter.

UPDATE:  Around 5pm Pacific SOE posted on the EverQuest II Twitter page: "Our forum maintenance is taking longer than anticipated. The forums will be down past 5pm PDT. We apologize for the inconvenience."

UPDATE: at 8pm Pacific the forums were still unavailable.