The Rebirth of Neriak

A Game Update Spoiler

By: Savanja

The very moment I heard that the new content was finally on test, I patched up and logged in. How exciting to get totally new and FREE content! I really could not wait to see how they made the old, new again.

The first order of business was to check out the Arasai character creation. I was a bit under whelmed. I knew they were simply evil fae, but I was hoping for a bit more variety somehow. These just basically look like the good fae, just minor differences, the most obvious being in hair style, wing style, and skin color. Think of these as the emo fae. But even as evil, these little guys are just so darned cute.

Once I had my super cute faerie all ready to go (as a bruiser of course, since monk isn't an option), I logged into the test server to check it all out.

You spawn into a small town in Darklight Woods rather than directly into Neriak. This is a very nice starter area, similar to the newbie fae area in Greater Faydark. Since its meant to replace the evil and good islands that most races start out on, everything you need can be found here. A guild mate of mine described it as "quaint", and it very much is. If it weren't for the dark elves roaming the town, you wouldn't realize that it actually was evil.

Darklight Woods has an impressive amount of quests. Probably more than a little Arasai would ever need, and in fact, I found myself out leveling my quests quicker than I could do them all, so some eventually got deleted. There is a very definitive progression to the zone, and you will see that you end up hopping from outpost to outpost as you gain in level, until you completely out level the zone. This is nice because it keeps content that is really too big for the baby Arasai further away from the starting town so you aren't accidentally running into it.

The biggest surprise in zone was Nagafen. I ran across him when I jumped into a chasm called Innoruuk's Scar. However did he get out of Solusek's Eye? I checked around a bit, but I didn't find anything on why he was there, or if he would continue to be there after the game update went live. A lot of people were having fun jumping down into the Scar, and challenging the formidable dragon. Events such as that make me miss being able to see the corpses pile up!

**Update** Grimwell was kind enough to inform us that Nagafen was a temporary solution and will be removed soon. It seems that the silly Arasai were finding their way down into the Scar and have been unable to get out! Unfortunately, nothing cool nor mysterious going on there. So if you wanna catch Nagafen, better log onto test to see him!

After playing around the Darklight Woods a bit, I headed into Neriak. It's a lovely city, and I love the architecture. I loved it in the Village of Shin when The Fallen Dynasty went into beta too! This game addition is heavily Soga in style, not just the fae, but also the city and surroundings. That will be a disappointment to those that did not like that style of graphics, but rest assured, the NPCs in the city are still mostly in the traditional style so that is some consolation.

Welcome to Neriak

Entrance	The City	The Palace	Your Queen
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All in all, it is what it is. A very nice addition to the game, free of charge. This is a game update, not an expansion, so while it is very nice to have, it isn't a huge amount of content, and once your Arasai out levels the zone, you will be off to the Commonlands and Nektulos Forest like the rest of the evil players.

We expect this much anticipated game update to go live later this month, so keep an eye out here, on Ten Ton Hammer for updates, news, and more info on this very exciting content!

If you have any question, concerns, or feedback, please drop me a line via e-mail.