The 4-days patch we announced recently is finally ready. We will close the servers next week, from Monday the 12th at 8am to Thursday the 15th (GMT+2, Paris time).

As you won't be able to play during the patch, 4 extra days will be credited to your account.

This heavy patch includes a change in the server architecture that will allow you to meet players from other servers in Ring sessions later. Once the patch is done, your account will grant you access to Arispotle, Aniro and Leanon. You will still have 5 slots for your characters, but when creating new characters you now get to choose the server that they will play on. Characters are still bound to a server, meaning that you won't be able to play on different servers with the same character.

Are they ever going to announce a ship date?

In a word, yes. But don’t go scanning to the bottom of this log, because it’s not in here.

As we’ve noted a few times on the forums, we’ve been working on the schedule to release. Usually on a game this is a tough period, in that you have to make some painful cuts to get ready for release. In our case, it’s been exhilarating. We’ve cut some things here and there, true, but most of them are behind-the-scenes things you’d never see, or things we still intend to do after we launch (such as my supercool Officers system – sob!!). What’s exhilarating is that we have a specific date that we’re confident in. To give you an idea of where this confidence comes from, half of every milestone is reserved for bug fixing and general polish, so we’re not exactly cramming in features to the last second. Also, we’ve had very good feedback from beta, and while we’ve got a lot of improvements planned, we know we’re on a good course.

There’s a lot of excitement going around about The Fallen Dynasty and Update #24, with both coming out next week.

The past couple of weeks of the adventure pack's open beta on Test Server have really been fantastic. To those of you who make your home on our Test Server, as well as those who’ve taken their valuable time away from your normal play servers, we thank you all.

The stories that begin with The Fallen Dynasty set the stage for a series of exciting in-game live events you’ll be seeing over the summer, and those stories continue through Echoes of Faydwer this winter.

We are proud to offer the first official MMO podcast to our communities, and hope you all enjoy the first installment of our podcast series. In our first installment Community Managers, Christina "Kytherea" Delzer and Ryan "Blackguard" Shwayder talk about what's new with EverQuest and EverQuest II while Associate Producer, Leah Ruben, discusses recent happenings in EverQuest Online Adventures.

With the launch of the Twilight Forge Module, we will be introducing a new system through which players gain favor with different groups by completing specific adventures. Favor allows you access to special items and rewards; the higher your favor, the greater the rewards. This will be a dynamic system – as DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE™: Stormreach™ grows, the Patron system will grow, offering the chance for new and better rewards as well as greater ties and involvement within the various patron groups.

The loot tables in the alien missions will be all new, for new rewards, we didn’t want to damage the activity around the alien city missions. It is important that we still leave the incentives in place for the guild content as well. Whilst there might be some cross-over the new alien missions will provide a whole new set of items to look out for. We don’t want to remove the need for alien city raids, the new missions are seen as a way to address the players wishes to be able to able to access Alien content in addition to city content, and that’s what we are aiming for.

There are 3 different endings, based on choices you make in the endgame. It's up to you to decide which is the "correct" one, but I know which one I preferred, even if it perhaps imperilled the world.

Daemonica isn't perfect but it certainly made me want to play, which is a lot of what you want from a game. Its dark side appealed to mine, and for me, its strengths overpowered its flaws. Its final rating might not be the same as yours (isn't that always the case) but reflects how much fun I had over a few very lengthy and absorbing playing sessions.

GGMania: Which characters from Night Watch movie appear in the game?

Dmitri "Zak" Zakharov: As a Night Watch operative you will meet the head of Night Watch Moscow department Gesser. Another famous Light Others, such as Olga and Tiger will sometimes fight together with you against the forces of Darkness. You will also meet Zavulon, "the main mean guy" who is the head of Day Watch as well as his witch-lover Alice.