Brenlo Looks Forward to Game Update 56

In an unusual move, Alan “Brenlo” Crosby, Senior Producer of EverQuest II, has posted some high level updates on what we can expect from Game Update 56 coming in May.

As many of you know, several items planned for the expansion and corresponding Game Update 55 slipped: New Halas, Shaders 3.0, New Spell Animations, Thundering Steppes revamp, etc. Also, there have been major performance problems with many of the live servers, which have been alternately attributed to Battlegrounds, Database Issues, or the expansion itself.

After the jump, you can read Brenlo‘s response to these issues, copied from the EQ2 Forums:

I am going to try something new and try to provide a high level update of where we are headed with EQII.  I would caveat that anything talked about as being in the planning stages, e.g. not actually on release notes, is subject to change.  That said our next update is planned for the month of May.  We have a lot planned for this update, not the least of which is to continue to improve live game performance.  Some servers are struggling a bit with the new load created by returning players, Battlegrounds, more items in the database, etc and are not reacting well.  This is our engineering team’s number one priority. They are working hard with our Database Operations folks to figure out what is causing the issue and how best to correct it.  They are streamlining database queries and cleaning up old data.  This will be an ongoing effort and is of great importance to our team, especially Rothgar, our lead engineer, as you may have noted through his hundreds of posts.

Shader 3.0: Is going well.  Yup this is taking a lot longer than we had planned.  The reason?  We had hoped to make performance gains for all Shader 3.0 cards, but as we continued to progress, we actually saw diminishing returns on all but the most high end cards.  This lead to the Graphics Coder, reworking the lighting engine and other systems to try and get those performance gains back.  We are starting to see some success and we should be pushing this live with the next update.  In fact, I think it is already enabled on Test where we encourage you to give it a try.

New Halas:  We shifted around some of our priorities leading up to the expansion launch and this included shifting New Halas back one update.  Frankly we needed more time.  New player zones actually require a lot more work than a dungeon, overland, or raid zone.  Significantly more work in fact, so rather than rush it, we moved it back.  You will be pleased to know that it is progressing quite well.  The zone art is amazing, as is the housing. I think a lot of players may be moving their homes in the near future.  We have a team of designers working on the quests and population, along with a team of artists working on items.  There has been a good deal of excitement from the team as they watch it all come together.  New Halas is coming in the next update, barring some unforeseen event, like a comet smashing into the Earth or something.  Oh and no, there will not be guild halls available in New Halas at launch.   Sorry folks.

Travel Revamp:  As we look at the systems in the game, one of the most deficient and illogical, in our opinion, is our current travel system.  We used many mixed systems which often do not make sense.  Some zones have bells, some have spires, etc. . .  So we are in the process of cleaning all of those up for our next update.  Expect a more streamlined, logical system that makes a lot more sense, coming to Norrath in the near future.  Expect more details on the forums as we get closer to May.

Storyteller System:  Just in time for Halas, and hopefully an influx of new players, we will be adding the Storyteller system.  A new UI element that tracks quests together, in a meaningful way, to tell a larger story.  When you are sent out to kill ten rats, we hope to provide a deeper understanding of why and how it fits into a larger picture, as well as showing how far along you have progressed in the story.  This is the system that will tie the Golden Path together, giving new players a guided experience, if they choose, through some of our best content.

Itemization:  We know that there are many concerns over the itemization in Sentinel’s Fate and we are already working to make those items more desirable and chase worthy.  Frizznik has done some of the messaging on the forums, and Kander is implementing those and other changes as I type this.  We appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you on the items and ask that you please continue to look over the adjustments we make.  We need and value your opinions, so get back to us if you can.

We will continue to support the Battlegrounds, making changes to abilities that we find to be over- or under-powered, adding new rewards, and some new maps for players to enjoy.   Battlegrounds are going to be a constantly evolving feature as we tweak it towards perfection.   Remember this is still the pre-season, while we work out some of the issues, most of which are related to the amount of database traffic they generate, as they seem to be pretty popular.

We do have a solid plan for the next fiscal year, which runs from April to March around here, and while I will not go into all of the details, we do have quite a bit planned.  Some of the items planned are:

• UI Revamp – Allowing for more customization from the community

• Reworking the Welcome Screen, so it becomes more relevant to your play sessions

• Class adjustments, although as you all know this is never ending

Alternate Rule Set Server: Something similar to the progression server used in EQ, or a permadeath server or a special PVP ruleset server.  The possibilities are endless.  We plan to make this a cycling system allowing for new sets to be popped up every few months, using the same server hardware.

And of course, new content to include raids, quests, and goodies.  You should see at least one raid each update, of which there are four major updates planned for the next fiscal year. Details of those to follow but I can say they will be a mix of reworked content e.g. Lavastorm revamp, and all new content.  Through the next year, we plan to bolster our events as well, eventually having one event each calendar month, providing more entertainment for you.