EverQuest II: Producer's LetterSep 6th, 2013 at 4:10 PM by Cyliena

Holly "Windstalker" Longdale details the xpack launch date shift and more.

Holly "Windstalker" Longdale released a new Producer's Letter today. In it we discover that the next expansion, Tears of Veeshan, has moved to a mid-November launch date and that its beta is expected to start on October 15th. She mentioned how the team is continuing to work on Heroic Characters (insta-85 chars; details on these is still very limited).

In the letter, Holly also announced that Free and Silver players will be given the Destiny of Velious zones for free (no ETA stated), while Age of Discovery and (presumably) Chains of Eternity remain pay-to-unlock content. The Age of Discovery features will be sold individual, which includes the Beastlord class, Mercenaries, Tradeskill Apprentices, Dungeon Maker, and Reforging. No prices are available at this time for the AoD features.

Continue reading the entire Producer's Letter below or head over to the official forums to give your feedback!

Mighty Norrathians!

Since SOE Live and Game Update 67: Darkness Dawns there’s been a lot of focus and excitement here about Heroic Characters and this year’s expansion, Tears of Veeshan. We’re well on our way and working hard!

To begin with, we have some date adjustments. Our expansion launch date has moved out a bit to mid-November and our Level 85 Heroic Characters are likely coming in the first week of October.

We got some great feedback on Heroic Characters and we wanted to polish it up to make it more user-friendly before we launch! We are still working on fine-tuning the details and I will have more info soon, I promise. Until we nail it down, I don’t want to throw misinformation about.

The introduction of Heroic Characters also made us change a few other things, like including EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious zones into the Free and Silver account access so Heroic Characters have a place to play! And while we are still going to offer the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion, we will also sell the features individually, including the Beastlord class, Mercenaries, Dungeon Maker, Reforging, and Tradeskill Apprentices. We’re still working on pricing and have some other cool things in progress we'll announce shortly.

Our 10th expansion, EverQuest II: Tears of Veeshan, is getting closer to Beta. This team is putting together an expansion that will be something special! The overland -- Vesspyr Isles, the Eternal Broodlands -- is really amazing. Flying through it is incredible with more and more variety and flavor every day. The dungeons are coming together beautifully and the content is too! We appreciate all the feedback we got during SOE Live and are grateful for all the playtests of the Channeler class. We are putting final touches on that too.

When Beta opens on Oct. 15, we hope you’ll come take a look at Tears of Veeshan and give us feedback!

There will be lots more to come so you’ll be hearing from me sooner (tm) rather than later!

Holly Longdale
Senior Producer
EverQuest II

 Source: EQII Forums

Tags: EverQuestII, Feature, News

Comments

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Keep lower level content!
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# Sep 20 2013 at 8:45 AM Rating: Decent
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13 posts
I agree. Some of the lower level content is really fun. In fact, much of it is fun! And we paid for it! It just seems to me though that there are fewer and fewer reasons to stay Gold membership.
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Heroic Characters and Revamped Lower Level Zones
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# Sep 08 2013 at 2:44 PM Rating: Decent
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Scholar
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87 posts
Another way to help draw higher level players to lower zones to mentor up:
Instead of a random chance at a Beta code,
x number of levels mentoring up a lower level player *earns* you a Beta code, or a lvl 85 char slot.

OR

You start at level 1 but upon acceptance to a guild, you complete a tutorial quest to *earn* your lvl 85 char.

I cannot help feeling that the unstated goal here is to facilitate community participation. If so, that's a great goal, but I think the means of reaching that goal with heroic characters will have many unintended negative consequences.
If I'm mistaken, if the only goal is to make the game easier and shorter, then, oh well, I guess they are accomplishing their goal.......for the short term. What that says about SOE's commitment to their veteran customer, I'm waiting to see.

Edited, Sep 8th 2013 5:57pm by Maccabee4
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Heroic Characters and Revamped Lower Level Zones
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# Sep 08 2013 at 2:18 PM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1681690628842
Scholar
*
87 posts
Heroic Characters:
Why not help everyone level up faster by drawing some of the higher level players back to the lower levels to mentor with serious incentives such as:
1. Enough AA or guild status awards to make it worth their while.
2. Higher level rare harvests or loot (make it no-trade if the devs cannot make it pop only for the higher level players in the lower zones)
3. Whatever motivates higher level players. ( Maybe *ask* them, there's an idea!)
4. Okay, here's a zinger -- random chance at a beta code for EQNext.

Whatever you do, *do not* delete lower level content. I paid for it, my sons are still playing through it, and darn it, its some of the best content in the game.
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