I sold a crapton of status loot last night so I could dump status into the hall escrow, and I wasn’t even looking at the guild XP bar — BAM. Level 70!

In other news, Game Update 63: Skyshrine hits live servers tomorrow. Here’s a rundown of various previews and guides already floating around the interwebs:

• EQ2 Traders: Crafting Preview
• EQ2 Traders: Furniture Preview
• ZAM: Skyshrine Preview
• SOE Community Fancast: Skyshrine Part 1 – Part 2
• Heroic & Raid content in Skyshrine

EQ2Interface doesn’t have a UI comparison up yet, but I imagine it will be coming sometime today or tomorrow morning.

Stay tuned for downtime updates, and I’ll post the patch notes as soon as they’re available!

=====

Update #1: ZAM has posted that the downtime is expected to last 5 hours, beginning at 7am Pacific tomorrow morning.

=====

Update #2: The servers are up and Skyshrine is live! Patch notes incoming momentarily… Enjoy!

The winner of the level 64 guild hall amenity poll has been purchased! You can find Aoife Bristlethorn, the guild hunter hireling, downstairs next to her fellow harvesters. She will bring back fish, pelts, and meats (if meats are available from dens in the tier you specify) for your crafting enjoyment!

With our level 64 goal reached, it’s time to look ahead to our level 66 guild hall amenity; you can find a new poll to the right. :)

We hit level 62 last night and unlocked a new amenity for the hall! You can find Sorcha Bluebones downstairs, who will be more than happy to bind your completed collections for you!

Our next milestone is level 64, which will unlock one more amenity slot. Be sure to cast your vote in the poll to the right and choose the amenity you’d like to see purchased next!

Ysharros has deferred the bonus prizes she won for Kalliste and Fairuza, so I’ve had to dig in the event logs to find the next runners-up. :)

They are DENAT (first writ of the day) and PRATT (most writs on the day), respectively. I’ll be shooting them a letter in-game shortly!

Edit 11/29: Maxum (one of Pratt’s alts) has also deferred his prize…it will instead go to CATARYA.

First, I have to say thank you to all the members who helped get us this far. Whether you did one writ or a hundred, you made a real difference. Everyone’s selfless contributions to the guild and to each other are what make Halasian Empire so wonderful.

With level 60 come a number of great perks:

• A new row in each of our guild bank vaults, which you can access by right-clicking any banker
• The ability to add a pattern to our guild heraldry, which is modeled by Kharri, to the right
• New mounts available for purchase from stablemasters
• New items & titles available for purchase from city merchants
• Three new guild hall amenities, which were chosen by a poll here on the website:
  • Gatherer Hireling: After 2 hours, gives you 200 random common harvests from root, shrub, & lumber nodes in the tier you specify
  • Miner Hireling: After 2 hours, gives you 200 random common harvests from stone & ore nodes in the tier you specify
  • Tradeskill Recipe Salesman: Carries all Essential recipe books for all tradeskill classes

Hopefully the 60s will be much easier going than the 50s were — seems like those 10 levels took us forever! We still have bigger and better things waiting for us down the line, though, and our next goal is to reach level 62. We will get one new amenity slot at 62; you can vote on what you think it should be in the poll to the right.

Once again, thank you all, and congratulations! :)

I inadvertently left two of our newest members out of the tally I posted yesterday. The original post has been corrected to reflect the proper standings!

In the overall increase category, Pratt comes in at #30 with 639 points earned, and Phlebas comes in at #32 with 119 points earned. In the percentage increase category, Pratt comes in at #4 with a 63,900.00% increase, and Phlebas comes in at #6 with a 11,900.00% increase.

In other news, we’ve just dinged level 59! Level 60 is within our sights… Don’t forget to vote for your 3 amenity choices in the poll to the right; when we hit 60, the top 3 amenities will be purchased for the entire guild to use!

Well done, everyone!

As of this writing, we’re 17% into level 58, and the long slog to level 60 is almost over. To get everyone motivated to help us reach our next big milestone, I’m holding a guild contest!

There will be TWO WINNERS in this contest:

1. The character who has the overall highest contributed status increase between now and the time we hit level 60 will receive

25 PLAT!

2. The character who has the highest percentage increase in their contributed guild status will receive their choice of ONE of the following prizes:

7-PIECE SET OF MASTERCRAFTED ARMOR

5-PIECE MASTERCRAFTED “COMBAT PACKAGE”
primary weapon, secondary weapon or shield,
ranged weapon or symbol, cloak, & pair of hex dolls

DUNGEON CRAWL OF YOUR CHOICE
with 5 high-level guildmates who are ALL mentoring you

By “highest percentage increase,” I mean the character who, during this content, increases their contributed status by the most, relatively speaking. If you go from 1,000 status to 2,000 status, your increase was 100%. If you go from 0 status to 1,000 status, your increase was 1,000%.

The contest runs from today, October 1, until we ding level 60 in-game. I’m making a note of everyone’s status as of tonight, and those are the numbers I’ll be basing the prizes on when they’re awarded.

Many thanks to Elyssia, who contributed half of the 25-plat prize!

In the event that one of my alts qualifies for either prize, it will be awarded to the next character in line.