NektulosForest is dark, scary and foggy. At a rather low level you will arriveeither at a bridge leading over a river that stretches across the wholezone if arriving from the Commonlands or at the docks if arriving fromthe Thundering Steppes. If your coming in to the zone from eitherdirection there will be some quests you can pick up on either side, butthere are more at the docks. Also while you're close to the zoneentrance, don't forget to pick up the quest form the Griffon Tamer, itwill make traveling far easier later on.

On the docks side ofthe zone, you will mostly have crabs at the shore and pirates a bitfurther in. From the other side you will meet a lot of undead that arelurking through the mist. In between will be where you will meet bearsand snakes that are marking their territory. Conveniently located inthe middle is the spire that serves as a transportation medium to theOverrealm, which we will discuss another time. As you delve deeper intothe zone you should consider banding together with some others as thezone gets progressively tougher the further you go.

Progressingalong the road towards Nmar's Ascent you will come across a

First Place:
Amphar, SuperheroChick, and kieranmSecond Place:
Wreakin, lonestar, Ssliasil_Tunare, Kwill, and Kokuten_isThird Place:
Galidin-Prexus , aweasel, SindyinCJ, Beemerboy, and Eriient

New loot and Lucan D'Lere illustrated by Jim Lee!

Legends of Norrathtournaments are scheduled to go live Saturday, October 27th, 2007.  SOEis set to host large scale tournament events where players can winextraordinary in-game loot rewards!  All weekend long players can jumpinto one of the "Loot Tournament Weekend" event queues which will startwhen all slots have filled.  

Each player that participates inone of these tournaments will have their account flagged to receive aLucan D'Lere, Ruthless Tactician (1P3) promotional card (illustrated byJim Lee) and a choice of either an EverQuest® Scale of Rodcet Nife or EverQuest® II Bottled Breath loot card! Please note that participation is limited to U.S. residents only.

Scaleof Rodcet Nife: A bauble that graces the user with the touch of RodcetNife. Heals 5,000 hit points – usable once per day.

Bottled Breath: A bauble that heals the caster for 100% of max health – usable once per day.

Toplay in one of these events, just head over to the tournament lobby onOctober 27th and 28th and join the next available tournament queue.Below are specific details of this event and what you can expect.  

Tournament Times

• 9:00 a.m. (PDT) Saturday, October

MMO publisher NCSoft and in-game advertising company Double Fusion haveannounced a partnership which will see two of NCsoft's free-to-playgames supported by in-game ads.

Dungeon Runners, a fantasy MMO which is currently live andalready free-to-play, will be bolstered by "in- and around-gameadvertising," as will Exteel, a futuristic mech-based shooterwhich is currently in beta. Both games were planned to make the bulk oftheir money through in-game item sales, which will continue.

According to Jonathan Epstein, president and CEO, Double Fusion,"Partnering with a leading MMO publisher like NCsoft, a leader infree-to-play as well as subscription online game models, allows us toset the type of example we hope other publishers will look to and wantto join." Gamasutra recently interviewed Epstein about fusion.runtime, the technology which allows the company to serve ads into its clients games.

Dungeon Runners is NCsoft's first free-to-play MMO. It launched earlier this year. The company also continues to publish other subscription-based MMOs, such as City of Heroes and Lineage II. Its biggest title for this year, Richard Garriott's Tabula Ras

When Level-up Games launched Ragnarok the Animation, they had thechance to have TV Commercials on one of the most popular local TVStations. I was able to find the old “Lex Divina” TVC and another cutecommercial which was used in Malaysia. Maybe we can have morecommercials in the future, especially when we launch Ragnarok Online 2.

I’ve personally experienced the horrible feeling you get when youlog-in your account and you find all of your equipment and charactersgone. Hacking is still one of the most pressing issues in the onlinegaming industry. It really sucks when everything you’ve worked so hardfor suddenly disappears just like that. To give Level-up Games more security, we’ve come up with the Level-up Mobile Account Lock Service!As the name suggests, you can literally “ban” yourself using yourmobile phone so no one can access your characters until you decide tounlock it again.

Find out how to avail of this service after the jump! I stronglysuggest that you do this since a lot of people are really prone tohacking.

Directly taken from the Level-up Mobile Website:

1.) This service can only be used by SMART Subscribers
2.) To start, text Levelup and send to 299 to download the Level-upMenu which you’ll be able to access in the SMART services section ofyour mobile phone.
3.) You need to LINK your Mobile Number to your My Level-up Account. Type MYLU LINK send to 299. You will then receive a confirmation message that the operation was successful.
4.) Go to ACCOUNT section in the Level-up Menu.

Lock or Unlock Game

We have a lot of things happening today for the most successful MMORPG in the country, Philippine Ragnarok Online.Other than the stuff that I already posted earlier, we’re also going toapply some more temporary anti-bot measures while the permanent bot fixis being finished by Gravity and our outsourced developer. That’scurrently the number one priority right now and hopefully we can haveit resolved ASAP. I’ve already asked the Community Managers if they canstep up recruitment for the Midgard Police until this gets implemented.We also have a problem with the log-in for Valkyrie and this should beresolved during maintenance as well.

Check out all the other stuff happening today after the jump.

ELEMENTAL CONVERTERS
We’ve added Elemental Converters to the Armory of the Gods. This willdefinitely give melee characters a big boost in leveling as well asMVP’ing. For more details on the Elemental Converters, please click here.

BUDGET CARDS
A new batch of cards will also be uploaded to the Armory of the Gods.These cards are not as powerful as the previous ones but they candefinitely help and they’re light on the wallet. To learn more about the Budget Cards, please click here.

ITEM MALL SALE
Let’s

• Real life first name: Zeke
• Main Character name: Leithe
• Server: Antonia Bayle
• Guild: Ghosts of the Jaggedpine

Where in the real life world do you live? I live in Norrath. I mean...California.

What type of work do you do? I am a musician and will eventually be a music and English teacher.

What got you into gaming and what sort of games do you like the most?I was introduced to MMO gaming by a friend of mine named Evante. He gotEQ1 for me about 8 years ago, if I recall correctly. My favorite gamestyles are first person shooters and adventure/RPG games that arefantasy based.

What other hobbies or activities do you take part in, other then playing EQII?Music, of course. Most recently I've been learning a lot of Dethkloksongs. I used to take Tae Kwon Do, and got up to 2nd degree Black Belt,though I no longer take it. The extent of martial arts I practice thesedays is occassional bo staff/escrima stick training with friends.

What other MMOs have you played? Everquest, Guildwars, Red Faction, Battlefield 2, Infantry.

How long have you played EQII?I would have played since Launch, but my computer wasn't good enough atthe time. I have played since January after launch - so nearly three

MMO middleware and online game developer Monumental Games has announcedit will offer a fee-free limited license of its MMO middleware dubbedthe Monumental Technology Suite (MTS) to developers for the purposes ofcreating a prototype.

MTS is based on a number of component systems which form a completetoolset. The components include server technology, client technology, agraphics engine, development and management tools. These tools sit atvarious stages of the development, product and market life cycle ofonline project development.

Intended for smaller development studios, who are typically restrictedby the substantial middleware investment required for MMO titles, thenew license allows full, unrestricted use of the Monumental TechnologySuite for prototyping. The company is itself using the MTS suite todevelop the forthcoming MMO Football Superstars in conjunction with CyberSports.

The company says the offer is aimed at helping offset the cost oflicensing a commercial game engine. Under the new model, studios candevelop an operational prototype of their product to better positionthem to secure funding, publishing, and distribution deal