The Trials of Atlantis expansion contains alot more than just some new areas to explore and new monsters. There is a whole range of new commands and types of encounters as well as new ways to get around the world. All of this information can be pretty confusing when you first get started, so we've added this section to help you get started in exploring Atlantis.

     In order to play Atlantis you'll need to have the original Camelot game and the Shrouded Isles expansion. Having the 'gold' version of DAoC works as well. Basically, as long as you can play in Shrouded Isles, you be able to install and play in Atlantis.

     The short answer is yes, but ultimately you don't need that much better a system. If you want to see all the new graphic effects you'll need to have a video card that supports DirectX 9. This isn't an offical recommendation, but I'd also highly suggest having at least 512 megs of RAM. I've found that Atlantis tends to load quite a bit more information into memory at a time than SI did. Having said that, if you don't care about seeing the new trees and improved water effects, you should be able to run it about the same as SI. Because of the more complicated geometry and higher quality textures it may run a bit slower, but just about any machine that runs SI should be capable of running Atlantis as well.

     The main two features of the new engine are the new tree textures and the new ground textures. Both of these effects are present in the old world, but are even more spectacular in the new regions.

In addition to this, you will find that the new Atlantis zones have some really interesting architecture and higher quality monster models and textures. Oh, and you can swim underwater which is pretty neat in itself.

ToA also introduces a new User Interface for the game. It's pretty similar to the Shrouded Isles interface, but it does include more ornate windows with realm specific designs, and has some new functionality, like being able to resize all the windows. The new interface is also user skinnable, although this feature isn't being supported by Mythic.

To find out more information about the features and interface of Atlantis, you can check out the Mythic ToA site, where they've got full descriptions and screenshots showing the difference.

     In each realm you get to Atlantis by taking a ferryboat near the main city in Shrouded Isles. From Domnann the ferry is down the hill to the west on the river. In Gothwaite Harbour and Aeghrimm the ferry is by the docks right at the city. To board the ferry you can double-click on it, or select it and type /v. Then just wait a few seconds and it will take you to Atlantis.

     Atlantis is broken into 18 different zones arranged into a few regions. These regions are referred to in general as: the Remnant Zone, Oceanus, Stygia, Volcanus, and Aerus. Here's a brief introduction to each region:

The Remnant Zone
This is the area you first arrive in when you take the ferry to Atlantis. It is an inbetween zone between Shrouded Isles and Atlantis. The main features are a small archaeological site by the docks and the Hall of Heroes. From here you can talk to the npcs to get a sense of the backstory to Atlantis, and through the Hall of Heroes you can port to Atlantis proper. It's also recommend that you speak to the Arbiter in the Hall of Heroes to start your journey to mastering the trials.

Oceanus
This is the main region of Atlantis. It consists of scattered islands across 5 zones of water. You'll find alot to explore both above and below the sea here. This is also the location of the four havens, the towns of Atlantis. You'll start out in Hesperos haven in the Western edge of Oceanus, and you can travel across the oceans to the different regions of Atlantis. You'll also find that many quests and story encounters start in the various Havens. Under the waves you can also find 3 different dungeons to explore.

Stygia
Stygia is a desert realm to the North of Oceanus. You'll find a variety of desert dwellers and some incredible structures including a giant pyramid and the daunting Necropolis, the city of the dead.

Volcanus
Volcanus is a dark and sulfurous land to the East of Oceanus. The terrain is difficult to travers as it is crisscrossed by deadly flows of magma and is home to a number of races including the vicious Taur. At the far edges of Volcanus you may find entrance to the dark halls of Deep Volcanus.

Aerus
Aerus is a beautiful heavily forested land to the south of Oceanus occupied by a variety of centaurs, cyclops, and strange moving statues. In the eastern regions of Aerus you'll find a number of strange floating ruins, and through them you can reach the ethereal lost City of Aerus which hangs suspended far above the forest.

     There are 6 main dungeons in Atlantis. The three dungeons in Oceanus are available at anytime. However, the three other dungeons, one in Stygia, Volcanus, and Aerus, are limited by Master Level. In other words, you can only enter them if your characters has a certain Master Level. Right now it's set to ML 1 for Necropolis, 3 for Deep Volcanus, and 8 for the City of Aerus.

     There are a few different ways to get around. You can just plain swim around, although that can be very slow without potions. The two other ways are to take the ferries, sail around in your own boat, or get a djinn port.

     Swimming above water is just like in the old world. Just use your normal movement keys to get around. If you want to swim underwater you need to use two different keys. Your jump key will cause you to swim up, and your down key will cause you to swim down. The down key is probably one you haven't used much in the old world. You can see what it's bound to from in game by typing /keyboard. And you can set it from the options menu at the char select screen.

     Everything underwater works just like above water. You can still use /stick to get close to people or mobs, although there may be some difficulty in adjusting your elevation. You attack mobs and cast spells just like normal. You can /sit as well. The animation sort of shows your move from treading water to floating idly.

     In order to breathe underwater you need to use special water breathing potions. There are three different types of potions. Here's the rundown:

Store Potions
These are the weakest potions. You can buy them from merchants in each of the havens. They have 3 charges that last 15 minutes apiece, and they don't increase your swim speed.

Bounty Potions
THese potions can be bought using bounty points. They are on the old world bounty merchants as well as new bounty merchants in the Havens. They have 5 charges that last 30 minutes apiece and also increase your swim speed by 80%.

Alchemy Potion The Alchemy potions are by far the best. They have 20 charges that last 30 minutes each, and they improve your swim speed by 90%. An alchemist can make them at 750 skill, and the material cost is about 18 gold.

     Basically there are three ferry routes, all originating in Hesperos, and one each going to Stygia, Volcanus, and Aerus. There are two boats that run along each route. After figuring out which route you want you wait at the dock until one of the ferries get there. You then board it by double-clicking on it, or selecting it and typing /v. When you reach the destination you'll automatically disembark from the ferry at the dock. You can also choose to jump off the ferry anywhere along the way. With the way the routes are set up, you shouldn't ever have to wait more than 5 minutes or so to get the boat you want.

     Sadly there are no plans to implement peglegs, eye patches, planks, or parrots- so I'm afraid your pirate dreams are going to be dashed. You can however, sail around your merry way in your very own boat. Here's what you need to know. There are two types of boats that you can buy from the shipwrights at the Haven docks, one seats 8 (500 gold) and one seats 32 (5 platinum). When you buy the boat you get an icon for it in your inventory. You then drop the boat in the water by dropping the boat on the ground, it'll appear directly in from of you, assuming it's in deep enough water. Please note, you keep the boat icon in your inventory even when you're sailing around in it. So if you go linkdead or log out your boat will disappear from the world when you do and you'll still have it in inventory when you log back in.

     Alright, so you've got your boat and you've placed it in the water. Now in order to sail it, you need to crew it with at least half as many people as it can hold, so that's a minimum of 4 for the smallest boat and 16 for the large boats. In order for people to board your boat you need to invite them with the /vinvite command. Once you've invited them, they just have to accept and they'll hop on board. If you want you can then kick people off your boat with the /vboot command. (I guess that's a little bit like being a pirate.) If you sail alot it can be very helpful to make a macro for inviting people. "/macro Invite /vinvite" will invite whomever you have selected.

Once you've got enough people whomever owns the boat can move it around by clicking on the water. The boat will move towards wherever you click. When you get wherever you're going you can just leave the boat in the water, or pick it up to remove it. Either way it will still be in your inventory. The only other thing you need to know is that from the shipwright on the docks you can also buy hull dye and new features to individualize your boat however you like.

     Well in addition to there being a bunch of places to camp xp and, of course, just exploring the new areas, there are three main things that you can do in Atlantis: quests, story encounters and the trials. Since the trials are the probably the biggest feature of Atlantis, let's look at those first.

      I'm glad you asked! The Trials of Atlantis are a series of 9 massive quests. Each quest is divided into 10 related encounters. You can do the first 9 encounters for each trial in any order, but the tenth has to be done last. You may also find that it is helpful to do some of the encounters in a specific order. Sometimes items you gain from encounters will aid you in the other encounters.

     Speak to the Arbiter in the Remnant zone. He will give you the information about the trials and get you started on them. You should also speak to him when you've completed a trial to begin the next.

     When you get the trials from the Arbiter he will give you some information about each encounter. In the new User Interface you'll also find a master level button which brings up a journal, much like the quest journal, that gives you some brief information about which trials you need to do and which are completed. You can get this same info by typing /master. The Primary Scholar and other scholars in Hesperos Haven will also give you much more detailed information about the encounters and how to find them, including hints on what order to do them in.

      For the most part, no, you can't solo them. We don't know what all of the encounters are, but from the 25 I've seen there are only 2 or 3 encounters that you'd be able to solo. FOr the most part you can get through many of the trials with one good group of high level characters. There are a few encounters, usually at the end of each trial and during the higher level trials that will require larger groups, like 3-4 groups of players to complete. In order to complete each trial you'll also need to gain a certain amount of xp and rps . The amounts you need are shown by two bars on the /master window.

     'Zerging' is a term that you've probably heard alot from players in Camelot. In reference to PvE encounters it usually means taking a huge number of characters and throwing them all at one large mob until it dies. Alot of people consider this to be pretty boring. Many of the Trails are set up specifically to discourage this type of attack. In some cases, the more people you throw into an encounter, the harder it gets. If everyone just charges and attacks- you'll all be dead very quickly. Alot of the encounters are actually easier when you approach them with fewer numbers and a good plan of attack. For the larger encounters that do take 3-4 groups you need to use quite a bit of strategy, rather than just mindless attacking one monster. I won't go into details, but often this involves creative use of items that have been acquired in the lower trials, or creative use of the environment that you're fighting in. I've found that if you step back and take some time to think about the encounters in the Trials they get quite a bit easier and are alot more fun.

     This is the part where it helps to be friends with other people in your realm. When you complete the encounters that yield an item to help with the final trial, the encounter usually only gives one item to the group. So, when you go to the final encounter, most people there won't have a full set of items. When you plan out the expeditions to attack the final monster you'll need to coordinate between the people who are coming to make sure you've got a full set of items. This is part of the mentality of the expansion. Playing lone wolf and trying to do these things on your own isn't going to work to well. At every step of the way cooperation with the other members of your realm is encouraged.

     In alot of parts of the Trials you'll have the opportunity to get some standard drop loot or special static items. Many of the monsters you have to defeat will drop nice RoG items in addition to advancing the quest. You'll also find that in a few instances if you do an encounter particularly well, or choose to take a harder path you'll be rewarded with special items. Of course, the main reward for doing the trials is going up in master levels.

     Master levels are a new ranking system that is completely independent from xping or rvring. As you complete the trials you go up a master level for each trial you've completed. When you go up a master level you gain access to a new class specific ability. Many of these abilities are still a mystery, but in general they are new or unique version of already existing spells.

     Yes, you have some coice based on your class. There are eight different 'paths' of abilities and each class has a choice between two of the paths. For the path descriptions, look on the Camelot Herald.

     When you choose a path it determines all of the abilities you get as you go up master levels. In other words, it's not like speccing and you get to allocate points each level. According to Sanya there will be some mechanism for changing paths, although we don't know what it is yet.

     You become a dev.

     No! We have no idea what happens when you complete the master levels. I would assume that nothing in particular happens other than you having a slew of new abilities and mad props.

     Story encounters are also known as artifact quests and, as the name suggests, they involve doing something to get hold of a powerful artifact. There are two parts to getting the artifacts that you need. You need to get the artifact itself by doing the encounter and you need a series of scrolls to activate the item.

     The scholars in the havens can give you some information about the various encounters. They will also tell you which type of monsters to kill to get the necessary scrolls. You can also search out the elusive sphinxes in each region. If you ask them nicely they may give you hints about the story encounters in their region.

     The encounters are at different places all over the world and each one is unique. On some you'll just have to kill a certain monster, on others you need to protect a town from attack, on another you need to keep some monsters from reaching a certain point. Some of these encounters are very difficult and can take multiple groups. Other can be done with just a few people. Successfully finishing the encounter will cause the artifact to drop.

     Yes, that's right. Even if you get three groups of people together to do the encounter completing it will only yield one artifact. However, in my experience, for the more difficult encounters you usually get a number of high level RoG drops along with the artifact.

     The artifact that you get from the encounter is in an unactivated state. It's an item with no stats or level or anything. You can't actually do anything with it. In order to activate it, you need to take it to the appropriate scholars back in the Havens along with the appropriate scrolls.

     The artifacts are sort of like normal pieces of equipment, with a specific set of magic bonuses. In addition to that they grant special powers to the user, like being able to cast certain spells. As you gain xp while wearing the artifact it will go up in level and unlock more powerful abilities.

     Each artifact has a specific set of conditions under which it will gain experience. By delving it you can find out what these conditions are.

     The scrolls drop as random loot from certain types of monsters. You can find out which monsters to fight for them from the scholars back in the Havens. Each scroll that drops is numbered. So, you might get a scroll entitled "GOld Spear 1 of 3". That means there are 2 other versions of the scroll you need to complete it. When you've got all the copies of the scroll you /use them to put them together into the completed scroll. Please note, the individual pieces of the scroll can be traded like normal loot- but when you've combined them youcan no longer trade them.

     You can do either the encounter or getting the scrolls first, but it's usually easier to get the scrolls, as you'll know what you're looking for. So, to start off, talk to the scholars in the Havens to find out which artifact you want to look for. Then go to whichever mob they mentioned and kill them until you get a full set of story scrolls for the artifact. Then combine the scrolls and use the information to find the actual encounter. Defeat the encounter and get the item. Then take the item and the scrolls back to the scholar to activate the item. That's it!

     Well, in large part they're the same. They are mostly aimed at around the 45+ level. For many of them you'll need a group or a few friends to help out. The only other differences are in the faction quests and the new commands you'll need to complete the quests.

     Throughout Atlantis there are a number of different factions. For example, they are many different tribes of tritons throughout Oceanus. Unfortunately they're predisposed to dislike eevryone who isn't in their clan. However, many of them have some nice quests that you can do. In order to do the quests you'll need to get good faction. The easiest way to do this is by undertaking certain faction quests. For the different Trito clans you get these quests from the different sphinxes. She can give you quests to raise your faction with a number of different clans.

     Well, it's not quite that simple. Completing the quest won't automatically raise your faction all the way to neutral or friendly. Instead it raises your faction by a certain, set amount. So, you may need to do the faction quests several times to raise your faction high enough. Luckily the faction quests are endlessly repeatable.

     There are a number of new commands that you'll need. Most of them involve ways of searching for an item in a certain area. The ones I know of are /excavate, for underwater, and /dig, for on the beach. You'll receive specific instructions during the course of the quest, but they usually involve finding a specific place and then using the command there. Each time you /excavate you get a random item. Sometimes it's useless rubble, other times it'll be something you need for the quest. Usually you'll get a text message whenever you enter or leave the appropriate excavation area letting you know you're in the right spot.

     Usually they're equipment pretty much the same as in other quests. There are a few important differences. FOr one thing, there are a number of different graphic sets for armor from ToA. Basically each region has it's own set of graphics. One for Oceanus, Stygia, Volcanus, and Aerus. Also, items in Atlantis have different types of bonuses than from the old world.

     Well, there are a few things to notice. First, ToA items have 6 slots for bonuses, as opposed to the 4 slots in SI and the old world. Secondly, there are a whole slew of new types of bonuses. These include bonuses that raise stat/power/hit caps, bonuses to damage against certain types of mobs, bonuses to af, bonuses to range of spells, and many others!

     Not quite. The items still play by the same rules in terms of imbue points. All of the new types of bonuses have similar limits on how much can be placed on equipment. The entirely new types of bonuses aren't currently replicated on any SI items, though, so you might consider the wider range of options to make the items more powerful. It all depends on what you're looking for.

      At this time I'm told there are no plans to include the new bonuses in Spellcrafting or Alchemy.

     These are a new type of weapon with ToA. They have entirely new graphics and fill a slightly different role. Instead of just being more powerful than normal weapons, they are more powerful in certain situations and less powerful in other situations.

     There are a couple of differences. The main one is that they do damage types based on spell resists instead of melee resists. So, although you still use your slash skill to use the item, it might be doing cold damage or heat damage. In addition to this, each weapon has a level 50 proc that does dd damage and a 10% debuff to the weapons damage type. So, a weapon that does matter damage would proc a matter dd/debuff making the weapon do more damage for the length of the resist effect. The weapons are also designed so that they get a 10% damage bonus to certain types of monsters.

So, as you can see, against mobs that the weapon does a damage bonus against, they may be much more effective. However, against mobs that are resistant to the damage type they may be much less effective than a normal weapon. In terms of RvR a similar situation applies. In many situations RvR opponents will have higher magic resists than melee resists, since magic resists can be buffed with spells. However, against opponents who have armor that is resistant to your normal weapon type, it could be an advantage to switch to a legendary weapon. Also, if you coordinate your attacks with a mage who can debuff the damage type of your weapon you can greatly increase the damage you are doing.

     The process of getting a legendary weapon is rather arduous. They can only be crafted by Legendary Grandmaster Weaponcrafters, and in order to craft them you need to combine parts made by a LGM Alchemist and a LGM Spellcrafter with a level 51 crafted weapon. In addition to that you need some rare components that drop off of powerful monsters.

     No. The quality of the level 51 crafted weapon that you use does not matter. However, the quality of the legendary weapon you create follows the same percentages as crafting a normal weapon. Needless to say, getting a masterpiece one will be extremely rare.

     Each level 51 weapon will result in a different type of legendary weapon. The actual bonuses and stats will be equivalent, but the damage type may be different and the bonuses could be to different stats.

     There isn't much other information out there right now. You can always check the Camelot Herald for information. You can also check out the Official Trials of Atlantis Site although they don't have too much specific information right now. One last place to check is Sanya's Overview of ToA from the herald news. That article has some detailed information on the setting and some of the features, as well as a description of the different master level paths.

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