EverQuest II Producer's Letter September 2022

Let the good times Ro!

Can you believe it? It’s the end of September already and we're barreling into the busiest time of year. But wow, what a ride so far! We’ve braved Myths and Monoliths, wrapped up our first ever Summer Jubilee with Oceansfull Festival, maxed our Golden F'Aestival Bracers, raked in some great bonuses, and adventured in The Fractured Cache in the hopes of bringing the aerakyn home. This year has been so much fun so far and there is still a lot more to come! Oh, and don’t forget, Visions of Vetrovia is still on discount until we launch the next expansion so don't miss out on this.

Let’s dive into the roadmap for this year to see how things have progressed for these past few months, and what's yet to come to finish up 2022.

2022 Roadmap Update:

• Completed
  • July:
    • 64-Bit Servers and Clients
  • August:
    • Game Update 120: Myths and Monoliths
    • Oceansfull Festival Updates
  • September:
    • Desert of Flames Unlocked on Varsoon
    • 2022's Expansion Prelude – Secrets of the Sands
    • Panda, Panda, Panda!
    • Gear Up, Level Up
• Coming Up Soon:
  • October:
    • 2022's Expansion Beta + Preorder - Preorder of EverQuest II's 19th expansion begins! Purchase your copy and join us in beta.
  • November:
    • Heroes' Festival - Celebrate our 18th Anniversary!
    • Extra Life - Help us raise funds for the Children's Miracle Network.
  • December:
    • 2022's Expansion Launch - EverQuest II's 19th expansion launches, bringing new zones, new quests, and new adventures to Norrath!
    • Heroic Opportunity System Update - Making heroic opportunities fun and relevant again!
  • TBD:
    • Swag Store - We wanted to release this in September, but due to production delays we couldn't get the stars aligned to launch this. We're still making progress, so be on the lookout for updates for when this will open.

We're partnering with Extra Life again this year to help raise funds for Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. Donations go to the selected children's hospital that the fundraiser selects, so if you'd like to help raise funds for a different hospital join the Darkpaw Games fundraising team and select that hospital. Children's hospitals perform such an important role in our communities. They literally are the difference between life and death for some children. On a very personal note, my family would look very different today if not for the lifesaving services that Rady Children's Hospital provided. The official Extra Life Game Day is November 5, 2022 and we have some plans to make this year bigger than before. So be on the lookout for the announcement!

Now you're probably anticipating the next expansion so let's get into it! Beta opens October 4th, 2022. To see what's coming, get your pre-order in to gain access and then fire off a /beta on your favorite Live and/or TLE characters to be ready once the server unlocks. (You can learn more about participating in Beta here.)

And now for the first time, we're so excited to reveal the name of EverQuest II's 19th expansion: Renewal of Ro!

More details about our next expansion are in the works so stay tuned. This about wraps it up for now except for one more thing: Thanks to all of you for all of your love and loyalty for so many years. We truly couldn't do this without you. I'll see you next year with a whole new roadmap for 2023!


Get ready to Tack on your best gear and establish yourself as one of the greatest of spelunkers in hiztory,

Head of Studio
Jenn Chan

Wooooohooo, here we go! Most certainly gonna be part of the beta, looking forward to fixed and improved shadow and water effects after all (flora too?), and I will also be preordering the newest expac too. Love Sinking Sands, beautiful region. Happy the desert is getting some well deserved love and attention this round! That said, looking good @roadmap. Loved the last expac, VoV, one of the most beautiful regions I have ever seen in an MMO, and I'm sure this new expac is going to be a real beauty as well. Feels like yesterday when we bought VoV, and now we're already heading into the next expac. Time does fly by really fast once you have kids, no kidding. Hard to keep up with all the newest trends in gaming etc, but we try.





Looking forward to a new episode of arabian nights! Btw, just a tipp, try to make the next trailer for this expac a bit less bombastic and a bit more subtle but interesting in terms of new or old regions and make sure to add a beautiful and high quality soundtrack to back it up. Fits more with the overall quality, tone and level of the game and its "older" community. Action paced and bombastic trailers are for a younger audience IMO (*cough* WoW *drools*). Make it something magical - take inspiration from old Disney movies like above

Anyway, congrats on a great year so far, and thanks for keeping the lights on in this old gem of a game. Love the open communication we have been seeing lately and look forward to more. Keep it coming and never give up.

PS: Almost forgot, also really like the new wallpaper with the golden EQ2 logo in the background. Seeing that with the text "Renewal of Ro" sounds like a fresh wind of change is upon us. Nice!

soooo Ta(c)kish Hiz will be involved in the new expansion I assume?

I knew it sounded familiar, but couldn't place it! Ruins or a rebuilt palace? Sol Ro coming back?

Takish Hiz was the center of the Elddar Empire, long before the Elves of the Elddar Forest were forced to relocate to Faydwer after Solusek Ro raised the Serpent's Spine mountains, which caused the forest to turn into the desert.

Purely speculation here, but our prelude event deals with the Aerakyn race being contacted by another timeline-- the original timeline that they originated from. The Chains of Eternity and Tears of Veeshan expansions have gone into time travel and other dimensions from our own version of Norrath in the past, so it's entirely possible we may be entering another timeline where Takish Hiz and the Elddar Forest still exists... or perhaps we're finally uncovering the ruins of the empire from within the desert. I'm looking forward to it.

Is there something you don't know about the lore? Hm, Elddar FOREST? Now that sounds super interesting to say the least. So you think a new region could be introduced with this expac?

I dont understand why its such a super duper secret that you want people to spend daybreak coins to upgrade abilities every single expansion now. Like just come out and say it so people knows if masters and GMs will be worth anything in a month.

Take the heat, let people know if they are wasting their dollars/plat upgrading abilities right now and lets move on with it.

I would expect a new region since it would probably ruin all of the quests, mobs, and quest mobs found in the level 45-60 Sinking Sands and Pillar of Flames zones to just place level 125 mobs and quests within them. there is that entire southern part of the Ro continent below Maj'Dul that just seems to be nothingness, so I'm guessing we're going to find some underground area kind of like Thalumbra. Or something time portal related that'll take us to new overland zones. We'll just have to see.

Oh I'm all for expanding the desert, same goes for VoV tbh. Doing it like you suggested would be a nice way to keep the stuff that we have now intact and add more to it by opening up a new and unknown part of the map. Sounds great to me, can't wait! Some of the zones we have are perfect for further expansion, VoV and SS are two of my absolute fav.

That said, I wouldn't mind being sucked into a magic lamp only to find myself in a beautiful oasis or tempel of some kind. Hope I get three wishes this time, last time the genie tricked me out of two.

I asked this in another thread, but where exactly is the "Level Up" part in the "Gear Up, Level Up" event?

Considering all the 'spelunking' notes, my assumption is that it is buried in the deserts of Ro - EG, beneath Living Tombs/Silent City, or maybe even through Clefts of Rujark.

Thanks for the update! Super excited to visit Ro again.

Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get that swag store up and running!

Lastly, thank you for giving us the opportunity to support the children's hospital. I hope everyone here gives what they can. Every dollar makes a difference!

How exactly does donating work btw? Can you elaborate a bit pls? If I click on donate, I get to select a team member. Can I just select Darkpaw and that's it or does it have some deeper meaning? What is the roster for?

Desert of Flames is my favorite era! Already excited about the new expansion let's go !!

Niami Denmother - Fundraising For Extra Life (extra-life.org) - this the one for Den Mother.

Kingdom of Sky release in December for Varsoon TLE seems to have been left off the coming soon list.

And where is Nights of the Dead and Frostfell?

lol I am playing DoF on Varsoon right now, and we got less time for that, because people kept on saying that expansion sucks
meatballs.
I think people should run the quests, take in the lore, and yes, I agree Cusashorn they should make you the historian of this game .
I was always wondering how Silent City would look like when it was still a living town with living people.

Herne that's a given I guess Night of the Dead begins on the 13th of Oktober and ends on the second of November.

Frostfell begins on the 6th of December and ends on the 4th of January.
But I understand what you're saying Herme, why is the Hero Festival on the roadmap but not Night of the Dead and Frostfell.

Is there a preview of the expansion this week prior to launch? A zone overview, basic lore premise, etc. would be nice prior to just landing on beta.

I found that odd as well, since they're major holiday events, but remembered that they're on the in-game calendar, at least.

Hoping to see this too! At this point I'm assuming it's going to be loosely based off of EQ1's Prophecy of Ro xpack.