Feldon 
From EverQuest2.com:
Death is rampant across Norrath. Citizens are suddenly falling dead as their spirits are torn from their bodies. No one on Norrath seems to understand why the souls are being pulled from the mortal plane, but all signs point to a massive disturbance within Ethernere, the realm of the dead. The heroes of the world must travel to Ethernere to find the cause of the unbalance in the Grey Wastes, and discover what has become of its caretaker – the mysterious being known as Drinal. If the heroes can return balance to Ethernere, the siphoning of souls may be halted. Should they fail, both the living and the dead will suffer a dismal fate.
Introducing EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity! This is the 9th expansion of the revolutionary EverQuest II franchise. This expansion contains must-have features such as level increases, prestige abilities and new game items only available with this expansion, such as adornments that become more powerful with your character. Also, explore new content in two spirit-realm versions of familiar lands, and experience adventure with new dungeons and quests. Put right the imbalance in the Ethernere!
Features:
- Prestige Abilities – Each subclass will get access to new Prestige Abilities!
- Prestige Tradeskills – Your crafting will shine like never before with Prestige Tradeskills.
- Organic Adornments – New adornments that gain experience with you and grow in power.
- Guild Level Cap Raised to 95.
- Adventure to Level 95.
- Tradeskill to Level 95.
New Content:
- Obol Plains – Discover the realm of Ethernere and the mysterious Obol Plains where an imbalance in the realm of the afterlife is apparent in all the surroundings and its inhabitants.
- The Eidolon Jungle – Every area of Norrath has its own home in Ethernere. Adventure through the amazing, transformed lands of the Feerrott as it exists in the afterlife.
- 9 New Instanced Dungeons – All new dungeons with unique, exciting encounters…and loot!
- All New Quest Lines – Experience the story of this unique realm in any play style you choose. There is plenty for everyone!
First Screenshots
All I want to know is if this new expansion has a x2 zone. I would really love a regular x2 zone then a x2 challenge zone as well then it would really be more “play your way”.
@Lokim – This! A x2 raid zone was gravely missed last expansion
The old x4 zones are the new x2 zones yaa!! Just kidding. Yeah x2’s are a nice change of pace and PUG-gable…sometimes.
Sevalak’s (not counting Sevalak himself) and all of easymode UD zones are x2 raid content, tbh.
Also, I *really* like the Organic Adornment idea, I hope it turns out to be good and not me playing for hours and hours a day for a +20 agility bonus.
@Buffrat,
It is a X2 zone for your guild and many other raiding guilds, but not for a casual guild. There are minimum DPS requirements to have any success in there. Of course if all they want to do is trash, then it is a X2 zone.
The organinic adornments reminds me a lot of shrouds in EQ1. Guess we will see how it turns out.
I’m actually really excited. This is an expansion worth buying.
Too bad you can’t buy it with Station Cash lol.
@Buffrat, I like the idea of those organic adornments too. But for me it’s not really my adornments that get out of date, it’s the gear the adornment was on. I go through tons of gear as I’m progrssing through content and the adornment gets tossed out with it.
Maybe they will create a new slot for organic adornments (green slot? that seems organic lol) and those adorns aren’t attuned to gear but tied to characters instead.
I prefer them being tied to the gear personally. If they make them tied to the character they’d take longer to level than bl pets. Ideally imo, each adorn would cap out at ~4-5 hours of normal heroic play. But we’ll see what happens, I guess.
So… we’ll buy this and *then* the P7S1 deal goes through? Do they think we’re all f*cktards over here on this side of the Atlantic?
No, first the P7S1 deal go through, if it all goes well, THEN we buy the expansion.
And yes, that is what they think.
luckily, next xpac is at the cheap price of +20% ,) … do P7S1 will allow customer to sell stuff with marketplace too ? LOL … the game is saved then. Or borring.
Balanced, free bug xpac ? come on, let me dream a bit.
Organic Adornments dont look so good, they increase as we grow ? and if we r at max size already ? That look so borring. It’s just good for freebee or new players.
The fun part is level 95 ? so all people who keep doing BG will be soon in out dated gear, do the stuff level 95 will be better than easy raid mod 92(and so BG stuff who r at insane price)
So Quest asking me to kill 6 wolf for a legendary item + 186 stats things is coming ? Cry BG cry.
I was really hoping for the Deadhills..but whatever
Maybe I am missing something here but the above info does NOT mention even A raid zone. Much less several. Or a x2 even. Just says 9 new instances. Usually they say new raid zones ect. So I am kinda worried about this expansion.
The people who have a use for a new raid zone all know there are raid zones coming. Everyone else still has Drunder, SS HM, and PoW to clear.
Organic Adornments sounds interesting to me.
Right now, once you have flagged yourself for a Red adornment, then that’s it. You can go and get it any time you want for all your characters. And then each expansion, older Red adornments get outdated and don’t match the changed mechanics. Organic Adornments will improve over time and take some of the pressure off from trying to balance Adornments every content update.
I can’t wait to see that there aren’t any raids and the new adorns completely obsolete all previous ones (not that we aren’t pushing that already.)
•The Eidolon Jungle – Every area of Norrath has its own home in Ethernere. Adventure through the amazing, transformed lands of the Feerrott as it exists in the afterlife.
Is it just me or does that hint they are going to start adding ‘new’ content by recycling older zones into a more ‘spooky’ versions following the release of this XPAC?
Organic adornments sound like that, after getting your new gear and adorning it, you then have to grind in sebilis for half an hour to make it actually be an upgrade over your last piece of gear.
And Feerrott 2.0? Yuck.
That would worry me too, but the released screenshots don’t really bear that out.
On the subject of the game art… and this may seem a little silly, but I might be the only person to be happy to see normal sized trees again 🙂
@Feldon – ohhh that makes sense now. I don’t raid so I’ve never had the pleasure of replaceable adornments. Good for the raiders, then. Hopefully there will be some compromise where at least some types of adorns the regular folks can obtain would be organic, like ones from PQs or special quests. We’ll see.
Brigh.Guk, Rahael
Technically Kingdom of Sky was built this way to some extent. All three of its outdoor zones were actually based on geometry taken from previous zones. I think the zones they were based on were Lavastorm, Pillars of Flame, and maybe the third was the Feerrott, I can’t remember for sure. I am guessing this time will be a little less extreme in remaking the landscape but I bet there will be additional buildings caves etc. It might be Ok in the end.
I feel like a dunderhead for not noticing the Lavastorm/Bonemire connections 8)
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=446805
just great, just F’ING great…as usual, spend all this time, plat, and so forth gettin all this current gear, and just about when you have most of it, here comes an update, making all that you work for obsolete…now joy joy–we get to have fun groveling for the new stuff, bustin our @ss’es, spending way to much plat, rinse repeat…………. sigh
Ok, I admit that I do not understand this point of view. I get that you invested alot of time into getting all the gear you want, and you feel that all that time is wasted if you have to replace it when a new expansion comes out. First, didn’t you enjoy playing and the journey of getting that gear? Isn’t that the point rather than the accumulation of the gear itself? Second, what’s the alternative? An expansion where all the rewards and drops aren’t as good as what you already have? What fun would that be? I understand that people will say they need to balance it better and not make everything obsolete each expansion, but the mechanics changes they have made over the last couple years are as responsible if not more responsible than the new content itself.
Screenshots look cool, interesting ideas. Avatars coming back could be awesome if they do it right. Organic adornments could also be cool, depending on how it’s done.
Replace Hard Mode group zones with x2 zones. Really the itemization is so messed up that I honestly don’t think x2 zones should be around anymore. Where do you place them?
I’m already very curious what the solo and group contents itemization will be like. Solo = 140/140 and Group = 170/170?
x2 zones could be a necessary stepping zone to enter the x4s. a normal part of progression. kind of like how tofsx2 wasnt unlocked until you finished heroic line.
over time as more players gear up the initial difficulty of the x2 will need to increase. meaning get in while the getting is good, right at release. get discos etc.
should be like kerafyrms power is spilling out in waves, making it harder. cuz after just a few weeks you will have ppl doing the zone with x4 gear.
a fun challenging progression timeline that resets when playerbase advances would be awesome. x2 SHOULD be the bridge from heroic to raid.
I really dislike the increased level cap so soon after previous one. OK the itemization is craps, but it will again change everything (not in the good way), even for biginer in PUG.
Instead of polishing the itemitation they kick it again for push the blush more far.
I also do not understand this reasoning. Yes, you work hard to upgrade gear, skills, AA’s etc., That then allows you to tackle new challenges and progress. If one wants an easy way, it ain’t gonna happen. Some may think they can enter some instance or raid zones without first doing the work necessary in order to be successful. e.g. I’ve heard of one guild attempting POW with 3 groups when they haven’t even been able to get past any of Drunder HM with a full 4. You cannot sidestep progression. If you want to see new content AND be successful, you have to do the work. Current gear gets one this far and qualifies one to move further.
ROBERT for one not many people at all are even close to having end game gear right now, it will give tons of people oppritunities to catch up to the people on top right now…. for them thats great, for the people that have end game gear right now they can jump right into the harder single instances or even raid zones with no problems and continue gearing. imho if its such a big problem then you shouldnt be playing this game. the value of the gear you wear is so important it does suck when you have to upgrade it but think there are people 10 tiers lower than you that arent complaining at all. if you want to get max level and fully geared in a week go play WoW or other casual mmos…. everquest isnt a hardcore mmo for no reason. end of story if you dont like it dont play.