Feldon The EverQuest II keynote ended just over an hour ago here at SOE Live 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we were given some great hints of things that will be expounded upon more tomorrow in the three EQ2 panels — Mechanics, Expansion, and Itemization Evolves. (please check our list of panels we’re covering)
First up, this fall’s expansion is Tears of Veeshan. It’s a high level expansion with a huge overland zone and 9 massive dungeons. Each of the dungeons in the expansion will have quests and storylines.
Dragons AA Tab — The Dragon’s tab has 4 lines to choose from which vary by Archetype. Depending on your archetype, the AA tab will have a different label — Dozekar, Yelenak, Woushi, and Trakanon. (This is just flavor text). With the expansion, the Alternate Advancement cap is going up to 340 points.
What can I say about tomorrow’s Itemization Evolves panel? (without being hunted down by Georgeson?) Not much, but just imagine me with duct tape over my mouth, two thumbs way up, and smiling. In Kander‘s EQ2Talk interview a few months back, he told us that linear, static, and boring itemization is going out and player choice is coming in. I am very excited about this panel and hope you don’t miss our Liveblog of it!
Mercenary Slots — You will now be able to store a Merc and swap them out without having to go back to your home city or (in the case of rare/elite mercs, re-find them in the world). This got huge applauses. By the way, EverQuest is getting Merc powerups of some kind. Wonder if we’ll see that in EQ2.
Tier 4 Guild Halls — Kinda surprised at this one. They’d have to have an item limit of 2,500 just to decorate all the rooms, and nobody would be able to zone in. But maybe they’ll find a creative way to manage the memory on this one! I still want to see a cozy 5-8 room guild hall in New Halas.
Dungeon Finder 2.0 — Don’t miss the Systems/Mechanics panel!
and last but not least, a NEW CLASS for EverQuest II.
Channeler class
- Archetype: Priest
- Class: Shaper
- Subclass: Channeler
- Priest with a Construct pet
- Channeler pet is completely customizable.
- Channeler primary weapon is a bow.
- Leather wearing
Tears of Veeshan
- When dragons die, they go to the Eternal Broodlands. that will be where we go for the overland zone in the expansion.
- Yelinak will send us to different places in time and space to find all the Tears of Veeshan. Darathar’s area is gold. Yelinak’s is purple like Ethernere. Lord Vyyem, etc.
- Dungeons
- 2 brand new Shissar themes. Chamber of Stasis. –
Abandoned by the Shissar and the Nayads have moved in.
- Highkeep — both a City and Dungeon. Huge, beautiful. Overrun with Goblins.
- new Stonehive theme — new Bixie model
- Nexus Core —
an incredibly energetic zone. Energy flowing everywhere.
- Temple of Veeshan — Largest dungeon we have made in recent memory. 20 Bosses. First dungeon that will allow flying because the zone is so massive.
- 2 brand new Shissar themes. Chamber of Stasis. –
After the Expansion
- Frostfell — Totally new zone for Frostfell this time. Looks really fantastic.
-
January — new raids and fabled dungeons (Kingdom of Sky this time), also an interactive PvP zone
- Expansion #11 for 2014 — Yes, we already have it planned out.
We already have our theme planned out for our next expansion for 2014. Some NPC animations were shown.
Yay merc slots!
And other stuff.
Hmmm…compare the Channeler specs to what we’ve seen with FV in recent art and other things…
I think I see what’s up with her now in current lore…
Hehe yea! FV is clearly a Channeler, although I didn’t see her construct pet, did you?
Feldon, either you recorded this then wrote this layer, or you are the GOD of note takers!
Great summary.
I wrote the bullet points based on the Liveblog which I typed at 75-80wpm. 😉
Holy crap, I was all ready to give up on this game, after the borefest that was the last three GUs and how lazy the CoE felt.
This could be good, I just hope the heroic content is both plentiful and challenging, I am well past tired of getting even moar top end raid content I’ll never see. Last three GUs totaled we got, what, 5 heroic zones and 7 raids, if you count AotG as a raid and TA HM as heroic level content. And Fabled Clefts as a heroic dungeon, rather than an advanced solo contested.
has there been any word on of the dungeons (with quests) will have advanced solo versions. As a mega quest nerd who’s too shy to group ;), I’ve really enjoyed getting to play through!
Pretty much a given that we’ll see both Advanced Solo zones AND Challenge Duo zones (duo zones tuned for high end raiders) Those have been extremely popular btw.
Wish they would just allow us to convert the Marketplace houses into guild halls.
Mercenary Slots – i really hoped they would say something about EQ2 getting a way to buff mercs as well. aside from the ultra rare ones anything but a healer is pathetic in current content.
Mercs + Players are Gods in all but current tier content. I think they’re already at the glass ceiling of merc power unless they make the game just auto-complete for ya.
Maybe I’m getting old… sounds pretty meh.
After a couple of years of ‘hey I’m glad for the folks that enjoy that stuff but there’s nothing here for me’ I’m kinda at the point where I wonder why I bother. (If I never hear the word ‘mercenary’ again I’ll be a much happier person.)
Maybe the new AAs will be interesting.
Hey, SOE, get off my lawn!
– DELETE Mercs of game
– Dungeon Finder 2.0 ? I hope it will have smart serching to grp composition and actual zones to queue not instances 2 expansions back
Keep dreaming, mercs aren’t hurting anyone.
Mercs are great for those of us who like running older stuff mentored down. Many zones are still a challenge for some classes (esp those of us who don’t raid or even group much for one reason or another, which restricts our gear), even when uber because of mentoring. I can run zones with my merc that I missed at the time, like Guk or even the Vigilant. Solo, even at 95, nope.
Yes for pve may be.
But it ruins pvp server
Would it help if they made mercs automatically “suspend” (or possibly just become “inactive”) when you fight against other players and reappear (for free) 2 minutes after you are done with a PVP fight?
I don’t play on a PVP server (nor have I) but that sounds like a reasonable compromise; They still allow for mercs yet they aren’t a factor during PVP fights.
Haha, I like my guild: they have a guild hall with no front lawn (not sure which it is) and the first room has basically the most often used amenities with portals, vendors and such, and all the less common stuff is in other rooms. No frills, just practical. And the “zone in” hall room basically makes for a great meeting spot.
Ha..; and raid FPS lag is also massive. This is going to look weird when I hit my “RAID ON” macro at the start of a raid, which turns of mounts, shadows, and pretty much all eyecandy so I can maintain like 20-25 FPS on a 2560px screen.
Maybe I’ll have to add a “mount on” and “mount off” macros just for raid so I don’t see people doing weird dances in the air…
Flying mounts auto-magically reappear as soon as a person takes off from the ground, even if you have mounts turned “always off” so people aren’t flying around like a super hero.
Luckily, we can’t fight while flying nor take off in combat, so you’ll lose your 20-25 FPS while the raid is moving, but regain the better frame rate during combat.
Some new high level dungeons where the mobs drop actual loot instead of dull ‘help-you-just-in-this-dungeon’ items and one chest, usually with something you cant use, from the final mob. I hate it.
I really miss the old days where you had plenty to sell after running a few dungeons, stuff for alts, paying for repairs etc. The new Clefts etc zones are a step in a better direction…
I am a little disappointed to see more aa.
eq2 needs simplification. server lag is out of hand.
the resources players have to win will inevitably become necessary.
this means more complexity per subclass that will need to be mastered. the only way this can make any sense is to widen the gap between high end and casual. otherwise every level of play will need better performance just to keep up.
the complexity of this game has been increasing for years. just a few expansions ago ppl where complaining about the curefest of TSO.
now we got 26 classes for a max raid of 24 players.
feature creep over time is distorting the game.
Is the new frostfell zone an entire new frostfell area, or just a new zone for a frostfell quest?
I am VERY disappointed that we didn’t see a level increase. I would like to see a level increase to decrease the amount of meh gear out there.
I agree!
i am sick of level cap increases since the start of 2005 seen tons of them . each time i got my raid geared toon all sweet and done then it is BAM your gear is trash regear . so unlike you i am very happy to NOT see a level cap rise . YAY
Regardless of level cap increase, ALL of your accumulated raid gear will be obsolete. Yes, it may allow you to ignore the quested and heroic gear that will drop from the new instances ( which is more than likely going to be better than you current raid gear) and jump right into the new expansions raids, but all that does is accelerate the time to clear new content and for people to start asking for more new content.
Will expansion 11 comprise a level cap increase? Or will we stay at 95?
Nebu
Colour me unimpressed with this frankly for the 3rd year running,not much to make me get excited but i hope as the time gets closer ill get more upbeat about it.
Looking forward to Highkeep..wonder if the bards and nobles are still around…
All this jump to level 85 Crap wirth AA is a load of balls tbh
Will there be a video of the expansion panel?