Feldon 
To date, we still don’t have an exact launch date for EverQuest II: Age of Discovery.
Well, we have a date — November 30, 2011 — but then we’ve seen two other more general time windows of “early December” and “Winter” which might well invalidate it.
If Age of Discovery really hits on November 30th, then this would mean there are 11 days to go til the expansion launches and 2 of those days have become national holidays in the USA — Thanksgiving (a harvest festival) and Black Friday (a capitalism festival).
If the Age of Discovery beta is terminated 1 week before expansion launch as it so disruptively was for Destiny of Velious, then the Age of Discovery Beta could come to an end an alarming 4 days from now. With Dungeon Maker just hitting Beta last night this doesn’t seem plausible.
In other news, some Twitter updates yesterday from EQ2’s Associate Producer Domino which may be of interest:
Currently watching a progress bar increment … as 400 of the earlier registrants for #EQ2 beta get sent their invites! Exciting! =)
Typed up and printed my “to do by expansion launch” list today. Single spaced, it was 2 pages long. >_<
Your Thoughts
Do you think the expansion will be delayed?
Not sure if it will be delayed, but I see good reason for it to be delayed.
I’ve preordered it myself, but giving it a couple more weeks (or at least one week) so it launches early to mid December seems sensible to me.
I don’t think it will be delayed, but I do think the Nov 30th date is wrong. It has already been stated multiple times that this would be an early december launch. The arguement comes from what they consider to be “early” December.
That said, I’m still nowhere near impressed with this “expansion”. To me it feels like it would have been better as an adventure pack (like Splitpaw, Bloodlines, and Fallen Dynasty were back in the day). I would gladly pay $8 for it, or maybe some Station Cash to unlock some of the features. I’m just glad we’re getting this for free from going to Fan Faire because there is no way I would waste the money to actually buy this one. Still feels like we are getting ripped though, because we usually get a full sized expansion for free from Fan Faire and this year all we’re getting is glorified GU.
SJ said this a week ago
We are saying “early December” at this time to give ourselves a bit of breathing room. It may come in earlier than that if the stars align nicely.
SJ is full of blah,
Anywho I just want My mount and AA, the later the better so I dont have to stop raiding for 2 weeks due to mobs hitting for 9999999999 million damage with uncurable dots.
I’d bet on second week of December.
While I’m very happy with AoD as an expansion, it would clearly have worked better as separate items in the SC store. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see AoD turn out to be the last expansion as we’ve known them and all future content delivered incrementally through the store.
Although now I think about it, a better model might be to release an annual expansion and then break up the features a few months after launch and offer them individually in the store.
Sony launching something that is riddled with bugs and hasn’t has enough time to be fully tested?
What is this madness you speak of? Sony would never do such a thing!
I am still standing by December 15.
If Domino just wrote up a to-do list that’s two pages long of things to do before launch, it’s either an indication of how efficient she is OR that she’s delusional about how much stuff actually needs to get done. Or her list is things like, “4. Fix bugs in DoV.” Now if you were that vague, it could be just two pages long. And still be undo-able.
They’ll Launch on Nov 30, Leave the public to find the remaining bugs, and patch every day for 2 weeks.
-B-
Although now I think about it, a better model might be to release an annual expansion and then break up the features a few months after launch and offer them individually in the store.
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This will happen for sure, as soon as sales drop on the expansion
Nothing Sony can do at this point surprises me, unless it’s a hella out-of-the-ballpark expansion. I’m not holding my breath on that one.
That said, I’m beginning to think it won’t be released until after the first of the year.
will release ? The question really is SHOULD it release ? And the answer is HELL NO … let the beta testers have it for a month and THEN fix the stuff they find for a month. THAT will reduce all the BS patches and crap … but what am I thinking … they are STILL patching changes and fixes from the LAST expansion !
I think releasing it in December is a bad idea. Why? SWTOR on Dec 20. I’m a big EQ’er like the next person, but the fact is that SWTOR is going to take lots of subs from lots of games. Releasing it around the end of November will get people into the expansion and Beastlords and giving them time to decide. Releasing it anywhere near Dec 20 is just an expansion killer imo. Sure, the 25k die-hards will get it. But the rest of the population wont even bother. For instance, me. After 7 years I’m standing pat and seeing what they do. Enough SOE bs for me. If it releases sooner than later, I’ll buy it. If not and SWTOR ends up being really awesome, well SOE had their chance to push it and didnt.
Garic – know what you mean. I let my subs run out a month or so ago and every day it has been easier to not go back. Got into the weekend beta for SWTOR for this weekend. Many of my normal play group were in the last one. Definitely think SWTOR is going to put a dent into the EQ2 population.
Was with EQ2 since the day it launched. I just finally had enough.
I’d be surprised if it wasn’t delayed. I wish I were testing, but no invite yet, so I can’t even guess how delayed it might be. I’ve always been a strong supporter of releasing something that’s finished rather than full of problems, so I hope they don’t just release it to beat the dates of SWTOR and other games/expansions. It certainly would be nice to have some definite date though. 🙂