EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity, Level 95, Prestige Abilities, Organic Adornments (November)

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrath!

The time has come! We are very proud to announce our next expansion, EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity!

The team is hard at work developing our ninth – yes, our ninth – expansion and implementing the finer details, several of which I will go into here.  When the expansion launches, Norrathians will pass into Ethernere, the realm of the afterlife, where all spirits pass after death on their way to their final resting place.

Recently, something has gone horribly wrong in Ethernere and it is bleeding through in the mortal plane.  Over the summer months, evidence of ripples between the realms was in evidence as items with ethereal energy appeared upon the dead.  As the tears between the realms widen, it will be up to the heroes of Norrath to save the immortal and mortal realms from collapse!

The adventures in this expansion will be great ones! The team is spending a lot of time ensuring that you experience the story, rather than merely read it, so I won’t give it all away in this letter.  As for features and details, we’ve got a lot to crow about.  We hope players enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed weaving it together.

Cross Over to More Content

In two re-imagined Ethernere overlands inspired by Feerrott and Loping Plains, players will find a region in chaos.  The natural ebb and flow of spirits passing through the Ethernere to each spirit’s final resting place is corrupted and on the edge of destruction, threatening every mortal’s life and afterlife.  Through the trials of nine new instanced dungeons, players will attempt to mend the end of all things.  Prelude content and dungeons give insights into the threat from the other side while telling all new stories – including advancing the story behind the Ages End Prophecy.  Players meet new creatures from the beyond and face a whole host of new challenges.

Lots of Quests!

In this expansion, the signature, or main, storyline quest will be available to everyone no matter how they play the game.   Every player tough enough to access the expansion content will have the opportunity to see how the story ends, and raiding guilds will have opportunities to take part in special events that support the story.  Even when the main quest line completes, players gain access to benefits as a result of their heroic acts and get rewards for replaying content.

Adventure and Tradeskill Levels Increased to 95

We are adding three more levels onto the cap which gives us a lot of opportunity to create new spells, recipes, and Prestige Abilities, our next feature…

Prestige Abilities

Each subclass will get access to new Prestige Abilities.  Our engineering and design teams are hard at work creating new abilities that will set a new bar for players and for creating events.  The new abilities give players more tools to tinker with in combat, and designers too.

Tradeskill Prestige Abilities

We have started implementing Tradeskill Prestige abilities too.  These allow our tradeskill classes the ability to become specialists in their chosen craft in a variety of ways.  We’re still creating these and excited about the opportunities that will open up for our tradeskillers!

Guild Level to 95

To provide new benefits, we wanted to increase our Guild Levels .  We will speak more to that when we are further along with the implementation.

Organic Adornments

We have a new adornment type in development!  These Organic Adornments, as the name suggests, will gain experience with the player and grow more powerful as a result.  There will be many to choose from so players can focus on how they want to increase the power of their characters.

Loot and more loot

Of course, there are going to be plenty of items in the expansion for players to discover. This is a very strong content expansion with lots to do and find.  We heard our players ask for fewer features and more content that builds on the core game so we’re doing just that.

Extra content

At the same time as we’re focusing on the expansion, we are still offering live content prior to the expansion.  We are releasing the first areas of Sleeper’s Tomb in mid-September which we refer to as the “Prelude.”  This advances the world story as players find entry into the tomb.

We have another event that we’re keeping under wraps that releases closer to the expansion and then, of course, there’s “Chains of Eternity” itself releasing in November.  We’re even releasing additional free content at the same time that the expansion launches.  Players will discover that avatars are once again making an appearance in Norrath. These avatars are different from those who appeared in the past.

All in the all, the team is driving hard to bring the players awesome content — time and time again. I’m among a team of perfectionist gamers making a game for gamers. It’s been incredible to see them work tirelessly for excellence and everyone’s entertainment.  Hard not to be romantic about gaming…

There’s more to come in the details, of course, but we have been bursting at the seams to tell you what we can…and now we have.

We invite you to come on this crazy ride with us.  We really think you’ll love it!

Update From Windstalker:

P.S. We will be adding window recipes for tradeskillers with the expansion, as well as others…thought I’d mention it given the recent marketplace release.