The Darkened Sea: Feature & Zone Preview

The Darkened Sea is set to officially launch on Tuesday, November 11, 2014 (with an early release exclusive to All Access members on Tuesday, October 28, 2014).

Here, we have a rundown of what's to come, along with a look at each new zone.

Storyline

Firiona Vie and friends are back (you might remember them from the events in Al'Kabor's Nightmare). The city of Katta Castrum is in dire straits, and our old nemesis, Lanys T`Vyl, is up to no good, having acquired the services of some new faces to help stir up problems... 14 (+2) quests and nine missions will see you through from beginning to end (numerous non-progression/storyline quests emanate out of each zone as well).

Locked Zones & Progression

Of the eight zones, six of them are locked behind progression. The two Tier 1 zones (Tempest Temple and Katta Castrum: Deluge) are open. The two Tier 2 zones (Brother Island and the Caverns of Endless Song) are unlocked together. And the four Tier 3 zones are unlocked one at a time in the order of Degmar, the Lost Castle; Thuliasaur Island; Combine Dredge; and Arx Mentis.

(More below the jump.)

Heroic Adventures

Heroic adventures are back, with six such quests spread among the zones (no new changes to how they function or with their difficulty). They reward a single currency ("Fists of Eight") used across all three tiers with one equipment vendor for each tier.

Mercenary Gear

Once you reach the end zone (Arx Mentis), you'll find a vendor with new mercenary gear to be had (upgrades for current slots only; there are no new mercenary item slots). These items will be bought with currency earned from heroic adventures. A few examples:

Raiding

There are seven new raids in The Darkened Sea, all emanating out of Arx Mentis: Five primary raids and two "one-off" raids. "One-off" means that you only get one shot at beating it (you get a lockout timer upon engage rather than upon victory).

Achievements & Collections

The standard set of achievements and rewards (Hero, Mercenary, Partisan, Champion, Paragon, etc.) that we've seen with recent expansions is in place. Collection achievements are again in place, with four sets per zone.

Special Items

Remember Jonas Dagmire's Skeletal Hand from The Buried Sea? Well, it seems his parrot met with a most unfortunate fate as well: You'll find what remains of his 'Tiny Parrot' as you do quests on Thuliasaur Island, eventually being able to put together a special Shoulders-only augmentation that gains strength as you do more quests and missions in The Darkened Sea.

There are also several chase items spread throughout the expansion, such as:

Mount Keyring

You'll see a new tab in your inventory window labeled "Mounts". This is your Mount keyring, and to add to it, you just hold a mount item on your cursor and click on the window. This keyring can hold up to 10 mounts (with option to buy more slots). You can select any mount on your keyring to lock in its stats to be used regardless of what mount you're visually using.

Zone Screenshots

And here are a couple screenshots from each zone in The Darkened Sea:



Tempest Temple:
Atop the Floating Island

 


Tempest Temple:
Mountainous Terrain

 


Katta Castrum:
A Flooded City

 


Katta Castrum:
Some Residents Didn't Make It...

 


Brother Island:
Creatures Wander the Isle

 


Brother Island:
Some Very Angry Parrots

 


Caverns of Endless Song:
Silenced Sirens

 


Caverns of Endless Song:
Entering the Caverns

 


Degmar, the Lost Castle:
In the Brewery

 


Degmar, the Lost Castle:
Care to Dance?

 


Thuliasaur Island:
Expect Some Big Game Hunting

 


Thuliasaur Island:
The Ominous Bloodwail Docks

 


Combine Dredge:
The Stranded Ship

 


Combine Dredge:
Traversing the Isle

 


Arx Mentis:
The Garden

 


Arx Mentis:
The Base

 

Comments

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Kata Kastrun
# Dec 08 2014 at 6:01 AM Rating: Decent
How can i get there?
Roshen
# Oct 26 2014 at 11:00 AM Rating: Decent
Just goes to show you what a pathetic person Roshen is and how bad he is at his job.
old school flashbacks
# Oct 25 2014 at 1:19 PM Rating: Decent
40 posts
Locked Zones & Progression

Of the eight zones, six of them are locked behind progression. The two Tier 1 zones (Tempest Temple and Katta Castrum: Deluge) are open. The two Tier 2 zones (Brother Island and the Caverns of Endless Song) are unlocked together. And the four Tier 3 zones are unlocked one at a time in the order of Degmar, the Lost Castle; Thuliasaur Island; Combine Dredge; and Arx Mentis.

/facepalm....PoP all over again. Hope i can find a group as a Necro. Oh wait, since all are being pushed into the new zone, that shouldnt be a problem.Maybe the people with older computers can get a task add and not have to worry about the massive lag that will happen with all those peeps in the zone. Where could one go to get XP that can solo w/o summing mobs?

Raiding

There are seven new raids in The Darkened Sea, all emanating out of Arx Mentis: Five primary raids and two "one-off" raids. "One-off" means that you only get one shot at beating it (you get a lockout timer upon engage rather than upon victory).

Great Idea. when a raid wipes or doesnt win, lets go back to RoF and NOT get XP.
old school flashbacks
# Oct 27 2014 at 1:29 PM Rating: Decent
*
125 posts
I will have to say, if you can't solo summoning mobs and do most of the group content yourself with a merc, a necro is probably not your forte' Just saying..
BS
# Oct 25 2014 at 10:42 AM Rating: Good
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69 posts
The past couple of weeks has had more posts removed and posters suspended or banned than I've ever seen before. Of course SOE will see all of the posted vitriol as a problem with the players, not as valid feedback on their **** poor offering of an expansion. Not to mention the lies and misleading BS they've fed us in recent years.
____________________________
Fendy
lvl 101 add extra restrictions against ROF for exp
# Oct 25 2014 at 10:05 AM Rating: Good
i will only be buying for my main for raiding. was going to buy for two others but now i dont think its worth my time. to restrict my exp on these two other accts who need EXp for AA's at lvl 100. my raid main Iam glad is almost maxed AA. I have not finished ROF progress with any toon and plan to work on ROF with my boxes and then once I hit CoTh i will decide after the HA- i could not do HA before with my boxes due to all 3 were lvl 100 and my SK did not have the augs. to tank and the merc tank sucked. ,
Important to note for people who may buy TDS
# Oct 25 2014 at 2:44 AM Rating: Decent
Scholar
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269 posts
As announced at the EQ Forums by Roshen,:


We have some new changes in mind that are more about providing bonuses to players that seek out challenging content and choose to complete a variety of Heroic Adventures, and less about restrictions against players that choose not to. We'll be communicating these changes with you soon. They will not be ready by Tuesday for The Darkened Sea early access on October 28th.

NOTE: As of now, all the reductions in experience for pre-CoTF content for those level 101+ AND the six (6) hour lockout time for Heroic Adventures in both CoTF AND TDS remain in effect. Mention has only been made about some changes to Heroic Adventures which will NOT be ready for the early access launch on 28OCT. A "promise" of a future change? Keep in mind, the EQ community is STILL awaiting the re-appearance of the "rare items" which were originally announced for the CoTF launch and mentioned again when they launched the Hate Rising portion of that expansion in conjunction with the Heroic Adventures,
SOE Forum ban for this.....
# Oct 24 2014 at 5:51 PM Rating: Good
Scholar
Avatar
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187 posts
SOE Forum ban for this.....

Original (now locked) Topic: Sense Heading: Grinding XP in The Darkened Sea

Started a new thread under the Veteran section titled: Told Ya

Quoted myself and Roshen exactly as seen below.


Smallpox, Tuesday at 8:40 PM
"I can already tell you what is going to happen.

The Dev's will back-pedal, then concede to some sort of (perceived) compromise. What this really means is they had some sort of intended nerf in mind. They then over inflated it just to get the feathers ruffled, then will move the change back to where they wanted it in the first place. After the compromise, people will feel like they got some sort of say in the matter and start singing praise to the Dev's for listening to them.

From a Necro viewpoint, this has been their Modus Operandi for years, only now they are doing it to everyone."



Roshen, Today at 2:45 PM
"Hello all,

Thank you all for taking your time to share your thoughts with us on these changes. We hear you and based on your feedback we plan on making changes to how we're handling Heroic Adventures. We still want to make sure that the most difficult content is more rewarding and we want to incentivize variety. We also don't want Heroic Adventures to feel punishing.

We have some new changes in mind that are more about providing bonuses to players that seek out challenging content and choose to complete a variety of Heroic Adventures, and less about restrictions against players that choose not to. We'll be communicating these changes with you soon. They will not be ready by Tuesday for The Darkened Sea early access on October 28th.

Until these new updates are ready to announce, feel free to continue conversations about The Darkened Sea in other threads.
Roshen, Today at 2:45 PM"


Just goes to show you how much censorship goes on there. What a bunch of hypocritical weenies SOE Employees are.

Edited, Oct 24th 2014 7:11pm by Sparxx
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