Kander’s Candor: Rum Cellar and Beyond

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization, Raiding

EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee has posted more details on the upcoming Rum Cellar DLC, as well as a peek at the large fall update which the EQ2 team has been careful not to describe as an expansion, yet will have an overland zone, quest lines, and numerous dungeons.

I’m relieved to read some of the details and this paints a better picture overall of what we can expect this year. If I had to ask for “one thing more” in the statement, I’d have liked to see the Echoes of Faydwer Fabled dungeons mentioned by name. They’re a nice summer holdover for players who can run the Altar of Malice instances in their sleep, and it helps us stretch out the content until the fall update. The announcement doesn’t touch on pricing, but I think it nudges in the right direction that we’re not going to be nickel-and-dimed for single dungeon updates. Players just want to know that the overall cost and rate of content release isn’t going to unexpectedly jump. Without that assurance, it’s understandable that some players are hesitating about the Rum Cellar DLC.

For many of them, it’s not the pricing of Rum Cellar so much as the total pricing for all the content coming in 2015 that players are curious about. If the overall number excluding extras such as prestige houses, mounts, and mercs is reasonable, then I think people will get on board. I plan to buy Rum Cellar on my main account, and will evaluate the Octoberish update when it’s around the corner. So without further ado, let’s read up!

From the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Fellow Norrathians!

I was asked by Windstalker and a few other prominent Norrath citizens to come and expand on the information about the Rum Cellar Campaign as well as give some hints about what we have in store for the future.

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Some of the big questions we received were asking about the play styles that the Rum Cellar zones will be concentrating on, and the sort of drops that’ll be inside the 6 different zones. I will start off by saying we really felt that our original release of Altar of Malice was a little light on content for casual to mid-skill level players. So this release is really concentrating on that. Although there should be something for everyone, the heroic, advanced solo and raid content is more concentrated on those play styles. The Rum Cellar raid is meant, as far as difficulty and itemization, to supplement those who are finding it difficult to get through the tier 1 and tier 2 level raid targets. This raid should be able to support some pick-up raiding and really add a good amount of loot to progression.

So what will be dropping in this Rum Cellar campaign? The heroic content should have drops for everyone, solo, casuals, heroic, and hardcore players alike. There are new green adornments that will be dropping in the solo/advanced solo zones as well as new heroic green adornments located in the heroic and event dungeons. Expect to be able to obtain both blue heroic and green heroic gems. We have made some really cool rare drops as well as additive drops [In the Ill Will, Rancor, Nox Incessit style accessories], along with new armor and appearances, and some new very special additions to armor adornment sets. Collections for Rum Cellar have a very nice end line reward, very much in the spirit and power of the Mithril Ring of Amplified Power.

Some other specifics are:

Solo and Advanced Solo drops:

  • Blue Malice Shards for purchasing tier 1 heroic armor.
  • Heroic collections drop from named encounters.
  • High end armor piece via a new quest.
  • Chance for rare elite mercenary.

Heroic specific drops:

  • Red zeppelin flying mount (obtained through collection drops from a named encounter).
  • High end armor piece via a new quest.
  • Special War Rune that add an 8th bonus to current armor gems.
  • Chance for rare elite mercenary.

We’ve also got tons of achievements, many of which are hidden, and a bunch of new titles.

Also, a live update releasing alongside Rum Cellar will include quality-of-life improvements to Scouts and Fighters and Summoners. Scout and Fighter improvements focus on increasing ability damage as well as making backend changes to allow for dynamically adjusting each archetype independently for continued tuning. This will be the first pass of several aimed at bringing interactivity and fun to Scouts and Fighters and moving away from an over-reliance on auto-attack damage. Summoner changes focus on improving the functionality of pets, including both UI customization and the long-awaited pet tab on the character information window.

We invite you to check out the Rum Cellar Campaign before it launches, and you can help out our team by beta testing this now. Information on this can be found here.

So what are we doing now and what is in the future? As far as the content for the future, we will most definitely be expanding the world of Norrath! We are currently in development of a substantially larger campaign release for later this year that will include a new overland zone (all new Geo courtesy of our terrain tool) and new dungeon themes that will include heroic, advanced solo and raid zones – as well as new signature lines, quests, collections, achievements and more. Fabled and agnostic zones are still on our list of things to do, but we aren’t scheduling those yet. Right now our focuses are performance, class tuning, and new campaign content and features.

Speaking of features, did we also mention that All Access members will be able to pull AA points in and out of stacks without having to respec their entire trees? Oh yeah!!

We appreciate everyone’s honest feedback and we appreciate those of you who have joined us at the EQ2 subreddit to chat with us about this upcoming content. We’ll see you on April 28 with the release of the Rum Cellar Campaign

Kyle “Kander” Vallée
Lead Designer, EverQuest II
Daybreak Games, LLC

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Comments (22)

  • Pijotre

    |

    Sorry to be nitpicky but where does it say that there is an overland zone? So far all I have seen are new NPCs in front of the existing brewery door, 2 dungeon layouts with different content/population and thats it. I for one will most likely not buy this and wait what they think they can snatch out of my wallet within 1 year of playing EQ2.

    Reply

    • Desius

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      The overland zone was mentioned as being a part of the next update later this autumn. Both Feldon’s article and Kyle’s post specify this.

      Reply

    • Karsten

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      The new overland zone is scheduled for the fall release, not the upcoming Rum Cellar.

      Reply

  • Wirewhisker

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    I still don’t see enough value (replay value expecially) in this should-be-GU to buy it, and will wait until October to get the “bringing everything up to date including the not-expac expac” release.

    Reply

    • Kralus

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      Me either. I would have paid $5, but $15, hell no.

      Reply

  • Oxymorphone

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    Should be free for subscribers imo.
    Judging by what I saw in the lifestream, this content is NOT for me, so not buying it !

    Reply

  • Katz

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    With expansions you get additional things, mounts, appearance items, houses, maybe house items such as a painting, an item to travel to the new content, ….. a variety of potential items.

    I’d like to know if the DLC items are in addition to expansions or in place of expansions.

    That makes a real difference in how I look at them. If they are in addition to and I can pick and choose what is appealing or of use to me, then I might be ok with it.

    One concern I have is that it may become likely that groups will not have content in common. For example, someone in your guild says, hey lets do “DLC something” and people say, sorry didn’t get that one. When everything is packaged into one expansion, that is less likely to happen.

    Reply

    • Mermut

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      The livestream stated explicitly that they are in place of the expansions and that for future DLCs they plan on offering ‘purchasable bonuses’ that were similar to the CE versions of the expacs but aimed more directly at specific play styles.. so there may be a ‘crafter bundle’, ‘adventurer bundle’, etc

      Reply

      • madrat

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        that is going to suck, you have to buy a crafting bundle for your crafers and a combat bundle for your level 100’s. Talk about double dipping and making your customers pay though the nose. That would be totally uncool.

        Reply

        • Mermut

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          Actually, from the comments they were explained as extra boosts, such as CE gives, but aimed at particular play styles. Not ‘regular content’ penny-packetted out.
          Only time will tell what is really is, but I tend to assume people are telling me the truth until they prove I shouldn’t.

          Reply

      • Katz

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        Then I fear it will be expensive and will fragment the population but I guess we will see.

        Reply

        • Noctew

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          Maybe it will be like AoD, only that you can buy it as a bundle or piece by piece from Day 1. You don’t raid, you don’t craft…just buy the new zones. You don’t care for the 20th mount and the 30th cloak, you skip on those. You want it all, you buy the bundle.

          Reply

    • Oxymorphone

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      That’s hilarious 😀

      Reply

    • Archangel

      |

      Priceless.

      Sadly the real thing is likely not that far removed from this parody.

      /*

      http://tinyurl.com/ptu5597
      “I use your service all the time, and I think my loyalty should translate into a resolution of my complaint. I don’t think I should have to pay more for better service — I pay plenty already. There are a variety of reasons why I use your company.

      Because of this, I have every intention of finding another ISP, and I can’t in good conscience recommend you to others. How can you make it up to me? I’m glad you asked. THEY HAVE DONE THEIR DEED, AND A VERY DIRTY DEED IT WAS. THE LOWEST, MOST DISCRACFULL MONEY GRAB I HAVE EVER SEEN.”
      March 20 2001 – Compuserve

      “That’s just the way it is
      Some things will never change
      That’s just the way it is
      But don’t you believe them”
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeKidp-iWo

      Reply

    • mithreal

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      =)

      Reply

  • Striinger

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    @Wurm
    I thought that was just another stupid video (which it sorta is), BUT… the longer it went the more a chuckle grew until I had to keep rolling it back to read (couldn’t see with tears in my eyes). I’m betting the people near me on the train think I’m on something.
    Thanks. I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. Not since “watermelon face”. 🙂

    Reply

    • Wurm

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      I’m not a huge fan of meme videos to be honest, but that one is so well done and made me smile so much (even though the truth does hurt) I had to share it.

      Reply

  • Sigtyr

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    As I understand it this DLC requires AoM? And if you did not buy that because you were one of the casuals who felt that AoM is not for me at all you really have no use for this DLC either?

    Reply

    • Feldon

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      Rum Cellar is a direct add-on to Altar of Malice. There will be a discount to buy AoM and Rum Cellar together. Otherwise you can wait till this fall’s expansion campaign.

      Reply

  • Nolus

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    I feel as though it’s like watching a train wreck. You know it’s probably not going to end well. 15 bucks for variations of one reskinned zone.

    Reply

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