Year of Darkpaw – A Celebration of EverQuest

Darkpaw dropped a surprise producer letter as we round out 2023 announcing The Year of Darkpaw, an EverQuest Celebration! 

2024 will be a monumental year for the franchise,  with EverQuest celebrating 25 years online in March of 2024 while EverQuest 2 will celebrate its 20th anniversary in November.

This is just the start of what think will be a whole host of announcements from Darkpaw, and while a December producer’s letter is uncommon, I think that it was needed given a very big January 2024 producers letter that is likely on the way.

So what was announced?

Well, to start, we got this amazing logo artwork from Darkpaw, which declares 2024 as the Year Of Darkpaw.

This borrows from several previous celebrations of the past.

In 2014, The Year of EverQuest was announced, when EverQuest celebrated 15, EQ2 celebrated a mere 10 years and EverQUest Next was on the horizon. The Year of EverQuest (15th anniversary) artwork piece is still one of my favorites, incorporating many of the landmarks of Norrath into it.

And the graphic also borrows from the anniversary logo used for EQ’s 20th and EQ’s 15th, featuring 2 dragon heads. 

Now, the Darkpaw logo features prominently in the middle, and the logo has a nice golden 3d bevel. I would have preferred silver since it is the silver jubilee (that’s 25 years for those that didn’t know).

But the gold does look good and contrasts nicely with Darkpaw’s signature purple.

I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of this logo over the next year, and my vote is for LOTS of merchandise in the Darkpaw Swag store! Let’s hope we see that as the anniversary approaches.

The producer’s letter gave a recap of the very busy year for EverQuest, but it also teased ahead to the Year of Darkpaw. So what is it?

Well, plenty of events, plans and more are planned, according to Darkpaw and it starts in the new year!

Over in EverQuest, starting January 1 and running through January 31, You can log in to claim your free classic style Orc Warrior metamorph wand. And new collections in some of the most nostalgic zones.

And for a limited time in the marketplace an Argent Clockwork Bear Saddle will be for sale.

I believe this is just a start for limited time rewards, that perhaps could be monthly to keep players logging in all year long.

As always with the producer’s letter, a clue was left for us to guess what’s to come.

Jenn Chan signed off with “2024 towers above the rest”

It’s my belief that this is a hint towards an anniversary tower zone that will commemorate the 25th year, much like gnome memorial mountain was during the 20th anniversary.

In EverQuest II, also in January you can claim your free pet Maxembert the Feisty. There will also be 5 new fabled collections, a new Darkpaw Celebrator merchant with new wares.

And that’s not all. There are new missions, achievements, and a new event called Masquerade of Divinity. 

And of course, there’s a clue in the EQ2 letter as well, with “The heat is on for 2024.”

Still a little vague but interesting none-the-less.

Ok, while those 2024 updates are exciting, let’s get to something a little more current.

Latest Updates

There have been a few scheduled and unscheduled updates since Laurion’s Song launched addressing a few community concerns.

First, picks were enabled for Laurion’s Song zones, helping to ease some of the quest and camp bottlenecks in the latest 30th expansion for EQ. 

Additionally, the Legacy Bonus available on the Oakwynd server for max level characters is now appropriately applying to AA experience. 

In response to this, the Darkpaw team has enabled 200% bonus experience on Oakwynd until December 19th at 2pm PST.

Frostfell Continues

And the Frostfell season continues with EverQuest entering the 2nd phase of Frostfell on December 16th. You can assist Santug and Hargar the chef and you still have phases 3 on the 24th through the 26th where you get free gifts, and Phase 4 which celebrates New Year’s Eve through January 7th.

Server Unlocks

Mangler Unlocked The Burning Lands on December 14th

Vaniki unlocks The Darkened Sea, The Broken Mirror and Empires of Kunark on December 21st.

In EverQuest II the Varsoon server unlocked The Shadow Odyssey on December 12th