EverQuest II's Nights of the Dead event starts Tuesday and your faithful ZAM staff have killed themselves getting the goodies for you! This year we have eight new quest rewards, four spooky achievements, a recipe book full of new items to craft and fun new items on the holiday merchants. There's also creepy candy dropping in more places all over Norrath! You can find all the info in our Nights of the Dead guide.

We've updated our popular Nights of the Dead Quest Tracker! Print out the handy sheet to help keep track of which alt did what!

Nights of the Dead is scheduled to run from October 15 through November 11, 2013.

In each article of The Scrying Pool, I look at what is and what could be. After taking a look at what is present in Guild Wars 2 now, be that lore or game mechanics, I then ask What If? What if this happened in the lore or this feature was added in a future patch.

Since the World vs. World (WvW) Rank and Ability system was implemented earlier this year, players have complained about the system being tied to each individual character. The cause for complaint is not entirely unfounded. A character would need to gain 1,315 ability points to unlock every WvW ability. With a single rank, and the single ability point awarded with the rank, requiring a reported average of an hour or more, acquiring a substantial amount of abilities on a single character is an undertaking, let alone multiple alts.

One of the many hurdles that MMO players face is knowing what server to roll on at launch since we all want to get in and play with our friends. That's what MMOs are about right? However, Along with the desire to play with your buddies usually comes the hanging feeling that, if you're late boarding the "everyone pile on one server" train, you'll end up getting left at the station. Well WildStar Wednesday is live and this week Carbine talks a little bit about how cross-realm features will help in this endeavor. It's ok to "cross the streams" guys - just this once.

The EverQuest II: Tears of Veeshan open beta will begin next week and now more information about what the expansion will include and the pre-orders are rolling in. Yesterday evening images for all the pre-order items were released and a short time ago Holly "Windstalker" Longdale posted a Producer's Letter, which had a few points of interest in it. Continue reading below for the full details!

Pew pew! Everyone loves space combat, which is why BioWare has announced the new Galactic Starfighter expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Available as early as December 3rd, subscribers will take off into 12v12 PVP space combat with multiple zones and gameplay modes.
It will also feature ship customization and 'ground game' rewards to boost your character.

Not happy with your world on Final Fantasy XIV?

Community Representative Camate reached out with a message to the community: the World Transfer Service is coming "soon". Transfers will be free for the first five days. Camate provides a very detailed post outlining the requirements and risks, but here’s our summary:

At this summer’s SOE Live convention EverQuest II players were first introduced to the concept of Heroic Characters, an instant level-85 character that came equipped with level-appropriate gear. It was met with mixed reactions and over the following months players have demanded more information on the feature. Early last week a Producer’s Letter was released that dished out a lot of information, including the revelation that all Destiny of Velious content (which includes additional content spanning at least four game updates) will be made free for all players.

Like any information that is released into the EQII community, the letter was met a large flurry of questions. There were some issues that needed to be addressed, which we dug into when we recently spoke to Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Senior Producer of EverQuest II, and Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson, Director of Development for the EverQuest franchise.

Image credit: http://cynwise.wordpress.com

The intrepid diggers at MMO-Champion have uncovered what may be our biggest clue yet toward the future of World of Warcraft. A recent trademark filed with the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office indicates that the next expansion may be titled “Heroes of the Storm.” As of September 27^th, an application was also submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Though the nature of this claim is unknown, it seems likely that it is indeed related to the expansion.

In today's EverQuest II Producer's Letter, Holly "Windstalker" Longdale brought exciting news about the Age of Discovery expansion and upcoming changes to the Membership Matrix.

On October 1 Age of Discovery features will be available individually or as a bundle for Station Cash in the in-game Marketplace. Those who did not want to buy the entire expansion can now choose only the features they want as follows:

• Beastlord: 2500 SC
• Mercenaries: 1500 SC
• Tradeskill Apprentice: 1000 SC
• Reforging: 1000 SC
• Dungeon Maker: 1000 SC
• Bundle of all the above features:  4000 SC

On the Membership front item restrictions are being removed from Free and Silver accounts.  Gold accounts are getting permanent increases to Coin Loot (15% increase) and Mount Speed (10% increase) added to their membership benefits. These changes also happen October 1.

Also on October 1st the AA Bauble, which raises your character to 280AA and is usable at level 10, will be available on the Marketplace for 2000 SC.

Continue reading for the entire Producer's Letter and leave your feedback on the official forums.

Earlier today Square Enix released information and a video covering a new FATE (Full Time Active Event) in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn which features the character Lightning from the Final Fantasy XIII series. In this cross-promotion FATE players can fight alongside Lightning and earn the chance to receive gear and weapons modeled after Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, seen in the video below.