September 2017 Producer’s Letter: It’s Expansion Season

Greetings Citizens of Norrath!

When the air grows crisp and the leaves turn golden, it’s time for expansion season! (And… pumpkin pie!)

We’re thrilled to share our expansion announcement for our 14th expansion, EverQuest II: Planes of Prophecy (That’s right, PoP)! This year we’ll embark on exciting adventures to the planes… and more! You’ll explore the perils and mysteries of the Plane of Magic, the Plane of Innovation, Solusek Ro's Tower, and the Plane of Disease, just to name a few. Are you ready? The planes await!

As you cross to the planes, you’ll encounter many obstacles, not the least of which is the mechanical sentinel in the Plane of Innovation, the Manaetic Behemoth!

There is much more to tell, but you’ll need to check back in October for more on expansion details, features, and information about pre-orders and beta. PoP is slated for launch this November! Until then, we hope you enjoy a series of in-game events leading up PoP to help you prepare for what lay ahead:

• Starting today, EverQuest II: Kunark Ascending will be on sale at 50% off through Monday, October 9th, 2017 at 11:59PM PDT. NOTE: Collector’s and Premium editions of EverQuest II: Kunark Ascending come with bonus items that won’t be included with expansion purchases after PoP pre-orders begin in October.
• If you want to get a jump start and be ready for PoP, check out the prelude storyline to our expansion which is live NOW! Characters that complete it will earn a consumable bauble that will advance one of their Ascension classes from level 10 to level 11! Woot!
• Gear Up, Level Up is back too! Starting Monday, October 2nd we’ll bring you bonuses each week up to the PoP expansion launch, including boosts to Ascension experience, loot, currency, status and more! Look for new bonuses each Monday.

Don’t forget there are still 2 weeks left to go in our Days of Summer event! Be sure to go help out our bumbling tradesbear before he closes up shop! The final wave of summer Ethereals are live now too and will have drop rates tripled from September 29th to October 8th! We went ahead and added a couple of days onto Ethereals for extra fun!

Lastly, to help get ready for PoP we will be doing a Name Purge on October 17th, 2017. If a character hasn’t logged in to the game within the last 5 years it will have a letter appended to the end of its name. Any characters that had their name changed will be able to change their name one time using the slash command ‘/rename’. We hope this helps clear up some unused names! If you have an old character and want to keep the name then all you have to do is log that character in by October 16th, 2017!

As always, we’d like to thank all of you, our players, because you let us craft magical experiences for you! You’ll be hearing from us soon!

This is really exciting (did I say that? it sounds soo... marketing-y, but it's true). I came back in March and this letter reminds me how much I have enjoyed EQ2 over the years. Prelude quests <3 live events... etc.

I like the way the feet bounce when they hit the ground. I definitely laughed when I saw the potbelly mech, so full points for amusement.I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for the heads up.

....Oh god.

I was actually almost ready to quit.

But this may have been the single most necessary thing that would have kept me as a customer lol.

Hopefully the Expansion's as good as the theme.

I never played EQ1. but I've heard so much about PoP and how it was pretty much everyone's favorite expac.. Excited to see what this turns out to be, maybe I can talk a few friends back into playing

Yeah, the potential EQ1 nostalgia factor HOPEFULLY means we'll get something really amazing.

Ttobey has been alluding to this being the Expac theme for awhile with some of his redesigns, but I'd really like to see the transplanar travel and keying concepts played to the max on the coding side. Especially since we're going to have 10 new player levels, consolidated spell lines, and potentially new Ascension powers to work with.

Big things I wanna see, in no particular order -- A stat crunch, Askr the Lost and the Storm Giants, and trains running 24/7 to the PoI zone line because someone forgot about the wandering Automatas.

This just means he'll stop giving quests and not that he is going to disappear, right?

Sounded like he's literally gone for good after the end of the 9th week.

So basically make sure you do all 9 before the following Tuesday.

Yup, Yun Zi himself should stick around for a while even after the Days of Summer event wraps up!

Thanks Roxxlyy for the clarification

I believe they are saying he will stop giving out the quests at the end of the event, but he will continue to act as a merchant for those who have completed the quests.

Any date yet for SH merger please?

Have just returned after about a year and woot!! I find I am just in time for the latest expansion Just finding my way around again at the moment.
Have experienced all the EQ1 expansions from Velious onwards - never fail to re-energise my enthusiasm - can't wait!!!

Yay thanks for the heads up! Really looking forward to this new Xpac

Please please pretty please make it less grindy than this one. I don't mind doing old content as it brings back fond memories, however repeating steps over and over again is tedious. Make it fun instead!

Okay, I'm old and was actually playing when PoP was actively being raided.

PoP was cool in EQ1, but you have given us ZERO information on what is important, such as:

- How will drops for spell/CA level ups be handled?
Currently you have made it pretty straight forward with ascensions. You are keeping drop rates so low as to force us to spend real $ or we can do without, and all your content from T3 up has been tuned for GMed ascensions.
Will it be the same in the next xpac?

- What is the approach on class rebalancing?
The disparities between healing classes if you aren't over-geared for content are a bit ridiculous. Unless the characters out-gear the content, no matter how good the player, without wards (Shamans) most content is not going completed.

With the moronic levels of mud hyperinflation in mob stats. You have made the "utility" of most utility DPS classes pointless and given them nothing return. Having comparable gear and ascensions aside, some DPS classes are consistently doing 2-3 times the damage of others on heroic and raid parses.

Tank survivability balance does not exist. Because of your mud hyper-inflation with mob damage output, the self-healing abilities of Crusaders that they are supposedly lacking in defensive temps for have become pointless but no reasonable temps were given to replace it. Monks ability to actually avoid 3-4x more auto attacks than plate puts them head and shoulders above even Guardians / Berserkers to nothing of Crusaders in most cases.

- How will drops for spell/CA level ups be handled?
Currently you have made it pretty straight forward with ascensions. You are keeping drops so low as to force us to spend real $ or we can do without, and all your content from T3 up has been tuned for GMed ascensions.

I am sure other people can add other important concerns to the list.

How you answer questions like these that you have been avoiding, ignoring or talking around are what will determine if many us actually pony up for this expansion or leave EQ2 once and forever.

So, how about giving us some information on how you plan to handle things like this?

There is much more to tell, but you’ll need to check back in October for more on expansion details, features, and information about pre-orders and beta. PoP is slated for launch this November!

How EQ1 lore gets implemented in EQ2 is interesting. Can't wait.

I can appreciate and am looking forward to the new expansion etc...

BUT!!!!

IMO - The name change requirement is too weak.

During the last merge, dozens of players logged in just to keep their names and logged out and never came back - now you're just replicating the same ridiculous requirement!

It should be more than just logging in - it should have additional requirements like hours played > 80 (2 weeks) or some other requirement that will keep these players from antagonizing the loyal base that plays regularly.

Said my piece...

Yup and they only came back to log in and save their names that they haven't used in 10 years because they were sent an email.

Cant help but agree here... Im sure DB has done the research and run numbers on how many names this would free up, but honestly, if you haven't logged in Since the merge, then you aren't gonna miss your toon name.

Requirement should have been logged in 3 times in the last 2.5 years (i think thats how long ago the merge was) AND at least 1 currency, or item, or something earned in that time frame.... I dont like the play hours idea as you know people log i and leave their chars in game for 400 hours.... literally just need something to show that they physically moved their character around and looted a corpse, or did 1 quest, or something....

Mooncast,

Any plans on doing a livestream for the xpac beta release, or on the day pre-orders start like you have done in prior years?