Fragmented Ceramium

In my last post I mentioned that I didnt know what fragmented ceramium was used for,  and that its an item thats given through blood marks quests and is stored in the quest item cube. 
I recently found out how this item is used in the game.  When I was doing base camp dailies today I noticed an NPC there who had a "Ceramium Trade Administrator" description below his name with a quest for me.  I clicked on it and this is what I saw:

Taking the quest "Cebe's Tempting Proposal"

I had the ceramium so the quest is completable on the spot

The turn in

You trade in 10 fragmented ceramiums for an unknown reward.  The dialogue indicates that it could be a ceramium medal.  It seems that these ceramium trader NPCs are almost the equivalent of the platinum medal
fountain in Tiamaranta.  Remember those?  You throw in a plat medal and hope to get a mithril one in return?
My estimate on the mith medal return was about 14 plats for every mith,  with some variation at certain points,  like getting your plat returned to you on some throws,  or *surprise*,  getting a mith on the first try. 
Here,  instead of a fountain and a total game of chance that we play on a whim,  we have an actual quest that demands a definite number of frag cerams that we have to exchange for our chance to get a medal.  Did I get a ceram medal?  No,  but I got some fragmented ceram kicked back to me on one try and finally learned what the item is good for!

4.0: Blood Marks Quests

Every base camp in Katalam and Danaria  give a series of quests that give a new unit of currency in the game called Blood Marks.  Each base camp gives 2 weekly pve quests that ask you to kill a few mobs of the opposing factions in the area surrounding the base camp.  This can be confusing because the quests are labled as dailies,  but they're actually weeklies.    They spawn every few minutes or so,  and there
are often alot of players waiting on them.  This can make for competition between players,  so the way most people solve it is by making quick groups of those who are standing and waiting.  This is the best way to get these quests done when there's a crowd of players.  Both of those quests give 12 and 8 blood marks each.




Checking my quest log

The mob needed for the base camp weekly

Working on the weekly

The other daily is a pvp daily asking you to kill a member of the opposite faction who is in the area of the base camp that your faction currently owns.  This quest rewards with 3 blood marks.  These kinds of quests activate automatically when you enter a region near a base.  They're filed under a new tab that's been added with the 4.0 update,
the War tab,  in your quest log (see pic below).

The pvp quest is auto added to your quest log when you enter a region near a base

The other dailies are also pve but give only 1 blood mark for completion.  They ask the player to kill a number of creature mobs around the base camp,  and aren't very hard to complete.   While they don't give many blood marks,  they do give kinah and a ceramium fragment,  which the other blood mark quests do not.  To be honest,  I don't know what ceramium fragments are used for yet,  but I'll post it when I find out.  They're stored in the quest items inventory.



Turning in the pve quest

These quests have become very popular because with the blood marks you can buy level 65 pvp gear,  which is sold by a merchant in the Kaisinel's Beacon Fortress.

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 :)