Hardcore Heritage

Hardcore Heritage is a yearly event where they revisit some older zones and update them to provide a more challenging environment. Each zone update lasts a few weeks and then they revert it back to the old zone.

For 2013, it begins on June 28, with the Blackburrow and Cazic Thule zones. It rotates through eight zones and ends on September 16. 2013 also introduces two new zones, Castle Mistmoore and Nagafen's Lair, as well as a Nagafen's Lair raid.

In the September 18 patch it was extended to September 30.

2013
On June 28, Blackburrow and Cazic Thule will be the first zones you can visit. Then on July 19, Lower Guk and Unrest will be changed and Blackburrow and Cazic Thule will go back to normal on July 22. In early August, Crushbone and Permafrost will change and in late August, we will have two new zones we have not released before under the Hardcore Heritage banner.

June 28 – July 22


 * Blackburrow (Level 80) - a/k/a Reinforced Blackburrow
 * Cazic Thule (Level 80) - a/k/a Lost Temple of Cazic-Thule

July 19 – August 12


 * Lower Guk (Level 85) - a/k/a Darkened Ruins of Old Guk
 * Unrest (Level 85) - a/k/a Greater Unrest

August 9 – August 26


 * Crushbone (Level 90) a/k/a Clan Crushbone - There's a new challenge for two to three groups of players, can you defeat Emperor Crush and his stalwart allies?


 * Note that the Hardcore Heritage revamped Crushbone will not cause any faction problems with the Indigo Brotherhood that the normal zone does.


 * This revamp and raid is aimed at roughly T2 [HoT] difficulty and reward.


 * Permafrost (Level 90) a/k/a Permafrost Caverns.

August 23 – September 16


 * Castle Mistmoore (Level 100) a/k/a The Castle of Mistmoore (Map)
 * Nagafen's Lair (Level 100) (Map)

The Hardcore Heritage events in Nagafen's Lair and Castle Mistmoore have been extended by one week. They now end on Monday, September 30th.

2012
Hardcore Heritage zone revamps begin with Blackburrow and the Temple of Cazic Thule on May 11th, 2012! Lower Guk and Unrest will transform on June 1st, and Crushbone and Permafrost will transform on June 22nd.

The schedule for 2012 is as follows:

May 11 – May 31?


 * Blackburrow (Level 80) - a/k/a Reinforced Blackburrow
 * Cazic Thule (Level 80) - a/k/a Lost Temple of Cazic-Thule

June 1 - June 21?


 * Lower Guk (Level 85) - a/k/a Darkened Ruins of Old Guk
 * Unrest (Level 85) - a/k/a Greater Unrest

June 22 - ???


 * Crushbone (Level 90) a/k/a Clan Crushbone - There's a new challenge for two to three groups of players, can you defeat Emperor Crush and his stalwart allies?


 * Note that the Hardcore Heritage revamped Crushbone will not cause any faction problems with the Indigo Brotherhood that the normal zone does.

This revamp and raid is aimed at roughly T2 [HoT] difficulty and reward. This was stated as much in the Webcast I did a month ago [June 2011] or so.


 * Permafrost (Level 90) a/k/a Permafrost Caverns.

2011

 * EQ Players News: Are you ready for Hardcore Heritage? - dead link.

The schedule for 2011 is as follows:

May 23 – June 12


 * Blackburrow (Level 80) - a/k/a Reinforced Blackburrow
 * Cazic Thule (Level 80) - a/k/a Lost Temple of Cazic-Thule

June 13 - July 3


 * Lower Guk (Level 85) - a/k/a Darkened Ruins of Old Guk
 * Unrest (Level 85) - a/k/a Greater Unrest

July 1 - July 21

Lady Vox sits in the icy depths of Permafrost, her spidery companions lying in wait for those adventurers who are willing to challenge this queen amongst dragons. Emperor Crush resides upon his orcish throne, plotting with his Teir’Dal allies to destroy his enemies. Do you and your fellow adventurers have what it takes to defeat these enemies of Norrath?

The final phase of Hardcore Heritage is now live with the Crushbone and Permafrost revamps lasting from Friday July 1, 2011 until Thursday July 21, 2011! These classic zones have been upgraded to be a challenge for level 90 players, and both include raids to further reward those ready for new risks. Get to the upgraded Crushbone and Permafrost today. They won’t last long!


 * Crushbone (Level 90) a/k/a Clan Crushbone - There's a new challenge for two to three groups of players, can you defeat Emperor Crush and his stalwart allies?


 * Note that the Hardcore Heritage revamped Crushbone will not cause any faction problems with the Indigo Brotherhood that the normal zone does.

This revamp and raid is aimed at roughly T2 difficulty and reward. This was stated as much in the Webcast I did a month ago or so.


 * Permafrost (Level 90) a/k/a Permafrost Caverns.

Clan Crushbone
Demise of the Emperor is an 18 person instanced raid. It is given by Elwin Faerlin at the zone line of Clan Crushbone. It has a lockout of 2 days, 6 hours.

It was dropping the same loot as the group Clan Crushbone mobs, however this was fixed on the night of July 5, 2011.

Permafrost Caverns
Lady Vox's Lair is a 54 person raid in Permafrost Caverns. It is designed as Tier 2 HoT difficulty, with Tier 3 HoT rewards.
 * The raid has several checks in place to prevent people from zoning in unless they were present during kills or they arrive soon afterward.

Players don't need to kill A Guardian of Vox to gain access to Vox's Lair, though anyone who wants to participate in the raid will need to click on the door to Vox's Lair soon after the Guardian has been killed (they should have enough time to make their way to the door before it stops working, though it won't work for too long)!

You are correct in that once flagged for entry into Vox's Lair, you will always have it. Those who do not have the flag should still be able to receive it from killing the Guardian, and/or clicking on the door soon after the Guardian's death.

The respawn timer on the A Guardian of Vox in order to get flagged or trigger to spawn the guardian is 2 hours plus or minus 20 minutes.

UPDATE: With the July 6, 2011 patch the following is now true -

Anyone without a lockout should be able to access Vox's Lair if A Guardian of Vox is down, regardless of who killed him.

Nagafen's Lair
Nagafen the Ancient is a 54 person instanced raid in Nagafen's Lair.

To begin the raid, speak to the Stoic Imp which resides within Nagafen's chambers.

The Nagafen HH raid has been taken offline temporarily until we are able to address a zone crash bug. We're sorry for the inconvenience. It should be back up early next week, and we'll extend the duration of the event to make up for the downtime.

Here's the thing.. The event isn't crashing. In reality, the zone isn't crashing either. Something is causing the static zone AND the instance to freak out so badly that the world server disconnects the zone. It's still up, but not responding to anything because the CPU is running at 130% and is just going NUTS. It's hung, but never actually explodes.

Worse.. because the zone never actually crashes, there is no crash log, so chasing what's going on is that much harder. We've found ZERO repeatability on this. In fact, neither myself, nor QA has EVER been able to make it do this. We literally can't make it happen. I've looked over every single element of this raid, regardless of how small or big it might be. I can find nothing wrong with my event. We're still trying though. Today was obviously a rough day though all around. I wish I had a better update.

As for the duration of the event, we're going to leave it up longer. We're going to make sure you guys get plenty of time to play with it. I've also reduced the lockout timer on the event to 2.5 days (something we're eventually going to do with ALL limited duration events).

Items
Here are some items that can only be found in the Hardcore Heritage zones and raids.
 * Ancient Cloak of Flames - Drops off random trash mobs in Nagafen's Lair.
 * Chestplate of the Dark Flame - Drops off of Garton Viswin in Castle Mistmoore.
 * Crested Mistmoore Ring - Drops off random trash mobs in Castle Mistmoore.
 * Issis' Fang - Drops off of Maid Issis in Castle Mistmoore.
 * Noble's Blood - Drops off of A Fallen Noble in Castle Mistmoore.
 * Possessed Stone Fragment - Drops off of The Stone Guardian in Castle Mistmoore.

Nagafen the Ancient (raid)

 * Bladestopper
 * Blight, Hammer of the Scourge
 * Gauntlets of Fiery Might
 * Gold Plated Koshigatana
 * Hierophant`s Crook
 * Mighty Cloak of Flames
 * Prayers of Life
 * Red Dragon Scales
 * Selo`s Drums of the March
 * Treasure Hunter`s Satchel