New Expansion (Yep, That's Right) and More!

Good day, Norrath!

We are excited to announce we have an expansion on the way – that’s right, expansion – not “campaign.” As we’ve been toiling away this year, the content we’ve been working on evolved and grew more than we expected.

We wanted this expansion to have content that reached beyond the highest-level players. So, in addition to new and updated zones for levels 105, we are including two instanced raid zones for levels 75 to 105 to play in together! These “level agnostic” raid zones will balance themselves to the highest level player in your raid. It just so happens that these two level agnostic zones are the original Plane of Fear and Plane of Hate! So if you never got a chance to raid in those planes, or long for them, you can relive those days with a broader range of players when we launch.

This expansion includes over 15 raids – after getting feedback for more raids over last year’s expansion – and a ton of level-scaling missions and Heroic Adventures! And as with previous releases, there will be new AAs, spells, and gear. The story is innovative and impacts gameplay in interesting ways too.

In addition, if you purchase (or pre-order) the next expansion, you’ll also get access to ALL of the previous expansion content.

We’ll have the full expansion reveal and pre-orders for the 22nd expansion will start on Thursday, October 1, 2015 with detailed information on our website and forums. Also, the EQ team will host a livestream and share highlights, walk through some zones, and answer your questions!

Also, our September update is right around the corner on September 23. It is hefty indeed! It includes a whole host of fixes and updates – with a couple we wanted to highlight here.

We all know that having to reapply all of those clicky buffs from your gear after you die – like Ancestral Memories, Expanding Mind, Form of Defense, Grim Aura, Prismatic Ward – is really annoying! The team “fixed” it! Now you can opt for a permanent passive AA solution for a lot of your clicky gear buffs! This update also addresses some issues we’ve had with pulling and aggro management in the game. Successful pulling in EQ is – or was – an art form that was eroded over the years and we are bringing some challenge back with some adjustments to Fading Memories and Fling effects. See this post for more info.

For our Time-Locked Progression server players on Ragefire and Lockjaw, we will be adding load-balancing instances, like we did for Nagafen’s Lair, to the Plane of Hate and Plane of Fear zones to help with overcrowding. Raid bosses will only appear in the base zones, however. There’s a lot more in the update, so look for the patch notes soon!
Of course, as we head into October expect to see the Nights of the Dead come to…uh…life in Norrath! Starting October 1 in the marketplace, we will begin selling new holiday themed weapons, a direhound mount, the long-lost hand mounts, and…a bag with a random adoptable housecat familiar! Trade them to your friends or collect them all yourself, and keep an eye out for the easily terrified Scaredy Cat familiar and always agitated Cranky Cat familiar! We have some wicked Player Studio items too! Nights of the Dead kicks off on October 28 this year until November 11.

As we head into October 1, we’re offering a last-chance 50% discount on web purchases of our The Darkened Sea expansion. This will be your last chance to get The Darkened Sea Collector’s Edition items. Also, for this limited time, you can also purchase The Darkened Sea at regular price if you want to use Daybreak Cash. This sale ends at 11:59PM Pacific on Wednesday, September 30, 2015!

We will have more details for you about our next expansion in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Some questions:

1. Original Plane of Hate (aka the 2 story version) or the version currently on all servers (including progression ones)?
2. When does the sale for the collector's edition of The Darkened Sea expansion start?
3. Is the full reveal and livestream on October 1? (That paragraph got a little confusing on what is happening when).

Nicely done crew, thank you for all the hard work. I hope you see a good return from the players!

It's like Christmas came early!

Happy happy happy.

Yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

We'll have information on this available October 1st ^_^

Today! The prices have already been updated on the The Darkened Sea expansion sales page

Yes. October 1 is our 'full reveal' day... and the day when players can start pre-ordering the next expansion.

Will there be new raid content outside the 2 updated planar zones, the blog says 15 raids, but this is vague enough to be 15 different mobs in the 2 zones.

So since new stuff is going in the marketplace soon does that also mean the player studio housing decoration items that have been sitting there saying accepted since like march. Ive been waiting months to buy certain player studio items to get put into everquest

Also, I really hope new raids have monsters to kill, not "possessed humanoids" thats been the trend for recent content.

DKP means Dragon kill points ....

That is very cool. Can I ask if these two "level agnostic" raids, at level 105, will be on par with the "normal" raids for the expansion as far as difficulty and gear goes?

Spell file alone points to more than just planar raids.

When and how long is beta?

Keep the questions coming.

We won't be giving any more of the expansion details before October 1, but I want to make sure we cover all of the points that are important to everyone during the stream.

Goes on sale oct 1, but when is start date? beta?

We all know that having to reapply all of those clicky buffs from your gear after you die – like Ancestral Memories, Expanding Mind, Form of Defense, Grim Aura, Prismatic Ward – is really annoying! The team “fixed” it! Now you can opt for a permanent passive AA solution for a lot of your clicky gear buffs!

HUGE FAN

Will there be tiers of raids, or all just end zone raids again?

Will everything be open such as CoTF or locked behind progression such as TDS?

Hmm how about a bit of tease info...What's the expansion called?

No beta would be great! Let everyone figure the encounters out once it goes live...

I think it's just going to be revealed on October 1st.

Finally some info and something to look forward to! Thank you so, so much Holly!