4.0: The Katalam Region

I've been playing 4.0 for almost 2 weeks now and I'm having a great time!  There are 2 new regions to quest in:  Katalam and Danaria.  Katalam is the region that I'm most familiar with so far,  mainly because Danaria
has higher lvl quest mobs and I'm still busy leveling up.  At the time of this writing I'm lvl 62.   Some major changes have been made in this recent upgrade and Katalam is unlike any other region in the game in a few ways:

•  Katalam is mostly an open world pvp zone.  Unlike Sarpan,  which was a pve zone during the day (for NAtime zones)  and became a pvp zone from midnight-8 a.m.,   I'd say about 75% of Katalam is pvp at all times.  There are some areas that are pve only but they don't cover that much area.    
• There are base camps that change faction affiliation.  These camps can be controlled by either faction or the Balaur. 
• There are "safe zone obelisk pads" throughout Katalam.  These are non-pvp circular obelisk pads that can be used by either faction as sanctuary from pvp and can be bound to like any other obelisk.  They are lacking a soul healer however.

The new region of Katalam with new feature of base camps circled

The above pic shows the map of the Katalam region.  I circled the base camps.  As you can see,  some of the base camps are owned by Elyos ,  some by Asmos,  and at the time when this pic was taken,  one camp was owned by the Balaur.   These camps
can't just be taken at any time - a certain mob known as the Warcaptain has to spawn
in order for a takeover to be possible.   There are numerous quests to be picked up at these camps,  and when completed they can only be turned in when the camp is owned
by your faction and the quest NPC is actually there. 

The areas of the map that are colored pink/purple are the pve zones.  There's no pvp allowed in these areas. 

The kind of quests given by the base camps are often for blood marks,  which can be used to buy gear for lvl 65 chars.  My next article will look at those quests and how to get them done.  Thanks for reading and keep on questing :)