Overview
The Promised Islands are three areas focused on an alternative path for getting the Tier 7 armors (Aqua Shellplate, Oracle, and Illusionary) with creatures of approximately the Great Pyramid level. Characters need to be able to move around the Ocean area freely, i.e. being able to kill a Whirlpool because completion of the Bottle Quests are required to enter some of the areas and obtain the quests needed to complete explore each of the hideouts.
There were/are plans to expand these areas, but this is how they currently stand.
Getting There
Each subarea is located at specific coordinates that are "discovered" through completion of the above mentioned Bottle Quest. The Land of the Lizardfolk can be found at (4, 81) in the [[[Open Sea]], the Avian Hideout are at (13, 67), and the Dark Elves are located at (24, 47). A character will also have to have completed enough of the Shilla Bay quests to have access to the Open Sea to get to these areas.
As Training Areas
Generally speaking the level of difficulty proceeds from Avian Hideout, Land of the Lizardfolk, to Dark Elven Hideout. Not having to deal with the Great Pyramid's traps is balanced by the massive amount of quests a character needs to have completed to reach these areas. Currently, the Dark Elven Hideout islands require the ability to see in the dark. Neither of the other two areas currently have similar requirements to move around them.
Obstacles
As it was mentioned these areas are not necessarily in their complete form, and therefore have certain obstacles to success. At present there is no food drop on any of the islands, so pack in plenty because there isn't any Return Scroll drops either. The drop rate for the Tier 7 armors is relatively low as well, making completion of the fetch quest slow. The quests also proceed from regular versions of armors to Elite versions, putting into play a characters needing to heal because of the Elite creature getting initiative. Also, the low drop rate of regular armor drops on regular level creatures, is even lower when trying to complete Elite armor fetch quests, so bring a lot of food and wait for an Elite Hunting Day.
Reward
Each quest completion does reward the character with a nice amount of experience, (1.44B to 11.2B, with an average of 2.2B) and completing all the quest on all the islands does give much easier access to Tier 7 armor vs traipsing all over Shilla gathering pieces.
