Next week marks one year down for Secret World Legends , but the party has already started! From June 20th through July 17th, 2018, players can smash piñatas, scoop up goodies galore, and celebrate. There is tons of loot to get, all new lore to find, and even new Gaia golems to meet. (And by meet, we mean beat down and collect a reward from).

So what does this anniversary event entail? How does it compare to the anniversary events of yore in The Secret World? I’m glad you asked! There are some similarities, but even those are adapted to fit this incarnation. The giant golems are back, but with the SWL raid twist. And remember their shem pets? They are easier to get this time around; no need to pray for good RNG from the bags. And that is just the beginning. I can understand why it has been billed as a Megaversary; there is a whole lot more to this anniversary event than expected, so here’s a guide to help you keep from missing out on any of it.

A new way to party

Because SWL is not TSW, you knew there would be changes, and events are no exception. And in most ways, many aspects of events are actually better in the reboot (the big exception being the loss of the Samhain missions). That certainly holds true for this first anniversary event. One of the biggest differences is the fact that practically the entire anniversary party is there in Agartha, from the loot to the lore. (OK, so you can get the daily logins from anywhere, but Agartha is needed if you want to open the special beehives!) Veteran bees are used to the many Gaia golems of TSW days inhabiting a specific zone that players traveled to looking for a fight. You had to travel to the area, search, and then hope you could get in an instance before it fills up. Now, the fight is in the same place all event raids are: that special portal in Agartha.

And that is only the beginning. There is also much more to the party that just the daily rewards, lore, and golems. There are piñatas placed around the world tree, with bats at the ready to pick up and smash them for their sweet candy contents (as well as the dreaded anniversary flare guns). If you are lucky enough to catch one, there is also a GM spawned Beehemouth piñata that grants its own special bag and rewards (including the title Beehemouth and the GM t-shirt Apiculturist’s souvenir t-shirt). And don’t forget the Hatekeeper raid; that rage-filled Gatekeeper will also cough up another bag, Spoils of the Hallowed Earth, when you defeat it. (Please don’t be a meanipants and use the consumable assault automaton reward when people are trying to do the Happy Feet achievement as that temporary golem kills a random pet!) There are also special museum items to populate a wing with golems as well as the Custodial Anima Infusers to upgrade the centerpiece (need three). Of course, you also have achievements! See, there’s a bit to keep you partying throughout the month.

Daily presents

Parties mean presents! Every day you log in, you get to claim a present. Not just one present, but on most days, two! And claiming is easy; you can’t really miss it because it pops up on your screen as soon as you log in. The first is automatic when you claim it. These include get piles of anima shards, weapon and talisman distillates, anima imbuers, a signet fusion catalyst, AP, SP, a special sprint called The Malus Run (anyone with live bees chasing him would be running!), and an anniversary t-shirt.

The second gift is wrapped neatly inside a beehive, called Buzzing Hive. And there are many beehives to collect! When SWL started this tradition, the The Whispering Tide and Samhain events offered only 14 gifts. Then, Krampusnacht bumped that up to 21. For the anniversary, however, players can get a total of 28 daily log-in beehives to open. That’s a lot of goodies! And luckily, like the last holiday these beehives will also stack, so you needn’t open them every day if you haven’t the time. Unfortunately, the devs apparently used the wrong template to make the event and you couldn’t claim each day’s item on your alt. This was remedied in yesterday’s patch, so be sure to log in those alts! Remember that your alts have to do a raid in order to get the buff to open the beehives. You can save time by doing two characters in one hour as long as your first fight finishes in under 10 minutes. Hint: Log right from the instance after opening your beehive to skip loading time.

If you are new to SWL since the last event, you may wonder how to open said beehive (safely — this is a beehive after all!). This is accomplished by completing the anniversary raid. That portal is locate to the left when you spring to the World Tree platform. Once you down the boss, you get a 10-minute buff that will allow you to open one Buzzing Hive to unlock the goodies within. Now, once you open these goodie hives, what do you get? Here is the list (that I’ll be adding to each day as I discover the items):

#1. Party hat 2018

#2. Title: Buzzed

#3. Emote: Make it Rain Confetti

#4. Bee Tee

#5. Leather gloves. yellow

#6. Title: Sweetling; beehive x5

#7. Canvas sneakers high top, yellow and black

#8. Military beret, yellow

#9. Cat ears headset, yellow and black

#10. Confetti trail sprint

#11. 2000 Anima shards

#12. 2000 Anima shards

#13. 2000 Anima shards

#14. 2000 Anima shards

#15. 2000 Anima shards

#16. 2000 Anima shards

#17. 2000 Anima shards

#18. 2000 Anima shards

#19. 2000 Anima shards

#20. 2000 Anima shards

#21. 2000 Anima shards

#22. 2000 Anima shards

#23. 2000 Anima shards

#24. 2000 Anima shards

#25. 2000 Anima shards

#26. 2000 Anima shards

#27. 2000 Anima shards

#28. 2000 Anima shards

Gotta get all the golems

Do you want to see those golems that everyone has talked about? Do you want to open all your Buzzing Hives? Do you want all those golem pets? Then you need to dive into the anniversary raid. As in events past, the event raid starts every hour at two minutes past the hour (so 12:02, 1:02, etc.) at the event portal right there in Agartha. The great thing about this is that everyone who gets there and wants to participate can get into a raid, a stark contrast to folks missing out in TSW because instances were full. Whenever a raid instance fills with its 40 folks, a new one is generated. The portal stays open for 10 minutes, but get there at the beginning if you want to make sure to get into a raid with enough people to off the boss, or have enough time to do a second on an alt.

Each raid will have one of the golem bosses, but it won’t exactly be random. The golems run on a schedule, so you could conceivably get all 11 in a row if you hit 11 raids in 11 hours. You can even use the schedule to anticipate which hour you need to attend to get a boss you are looking for — just hop in one raid, see which one is present, then count ahead. My first golem was Concrete. From there, the order goes: Concrete, Stone, Water, Sand, Swarm, Verdant, Magma, Silver, Frost, Clay, Technology. Each one also has a corresponding mini version as a pet.

Something vets will certainly appreciate is how much easier it is to get the shem pets in SWL as opposed to in TSW. Each time you kill a golem for the first time, you get a special animated particulate shard. Each time you open one of the reward bags from killing the golem, you also get a shard. Combining five of these shards grants you a random shem pet that you don’t already have of a golem you have slain, meaning you are guaranteed a new pet every five shards until you have them all as logn as you have killed each golem once. In order to collect all 11 shems, you will need to fight 44 golem raids to earn enough shards (one per bag and one per every first kill). Once you have at least one of the original shems, you can then try to participate in the Happy Feet achievement that returned from the original game.

Anniversary lore

A new lore is in place for this auspicious event, and it’s called The Talos of Gaia. In case you need a hint for finding them (since the disappear when the event ends), I offer this little list. As always, the locations are hidden behind a spoiler tag so you won’t accidentally stumble across them. Of course, you might very well stumble across the lores yourself as I did.

#1: Agartha (546, 244)

#2: Agartha golem raid (216, 298)

#3: Agartha (597, 524)

#4: Agartha (809, 439)

#5: Agartha (630, 330)

#6: Agartha (349, 367)

#7: Agartha (540, 614)

#8: Deep Agartha (208, 196; Hatekeeper respawn platform)

#9: Agartha (552, 188)

#10: Deep Agartha (141, 290; Hatekeeper, main platform)

#11: Random from golem reward bag (if you receive an angry feet shard)

And guess what? There is another set of lore available for the event! That’s right, two sets of new lore. The second set is called Golems and the Fourth Age, and these are the one part of the party not in Agartha. That’s the only hint you get outside of the spoilers, though I will say this set will not be completable by new players. (Note: The list will be completed when the final lore is finally found.)

#1: Scorched Desert (542, 879)

#2: Blue Mountain (542, 424)

#3: City of the Sun God (716, 933)

#4: Savage Coast (293, 300)

#5: Kingsmouth (629, 553)

#6: Kaidan (573, 396)

#7: Carpathian Fangs (381, 640)

#8: Besieged Farmlands (318, 615)

#9: Carpathian Fangs (675, 945)

A great achievement

If you want to get all the achievements, you will need to put forth a little bit of work. Some can be gotten quickly, some need some luck, and some need work. Although it’s not an achievement, for a chance to kill the Beehemouth and get its rewards, you have to be on the watch for a dev/Beehemouth sighting and meet up on someone who is there. The achievements available during the event are as follows.

Sweet Like Honey: Eat one of each of the three candies. That sounds easy enough, but the candies are bound to the character, so you can’t trade, even to your own alts. Also, you can only get one candy a day from the piñatas, and those candies can be duplicates of what you already have. So there is a minimum of three days of piñatas bashing to get honey stick, candy chews, and honey drops.

Batter up!: The easiest — you just need to pick up a bat and bash one piñata open.

The Bigger They Are: If you want the achievement for killing each of the anniversary golems, you will need to enter 11 or more fights, as there are 11 golems.

Gate Crasher: The achievement for killing the Hatekeeper is likely the next easiest, as you just have to enter an instance of Deep Agartha when it is open and participate in that fight just once. You don’t even have to summon him (although doing so with a shard will complete Angry Feet). This grants the Gatecrasher title.

Angry Feet: Use a shard (reward from the red Gatekeeper fight or purchased — frenzied, destructive, agitated, crazed, irasciable, roiling, aberrant, furious, ruinous) to open the portal to the Hatekeeper event raid in Deep Agartha.

Written in Stone: Find all The Talos of Gaia lore.

*Happy Feet (A return from TSW, under pets): Use one of the original 10 shem pets (clay, concrete, stone, water, verdant, sand, swarm, magma, frost, silver) at the London portal in Agartha. When one of each is there, they begin dancing and summon a Gatekeeper. If your pet is dancing you will get the achievement. If your pet won’t dance, go to a different Agartha instance and try again.