Caralyn Koh was in attendance at this year's SOE Fan Faire in Las Vegas, and she brings us the low down on EverQuest's next expansion, The Seeds of Destruction, which takes players on a trip through time to play the history of EverQuest.

John Smedley in his keynote address at the SoE Fan Faire mentioned that the Living Legacy celebration increased the population of EverQuest and EverQuest 2 by 20%.  He also officially announced the next EverQuest Expansion, Seeds of Destruction to be available October 21, 2008.  All players attending FanFaire would get into the beta, and would also received a digital copy of the expansion for free.

Seeds of Destruction brings players back into historical periods of EverQuest through a number of portals.  The lore behind the story is that the Riftseekers have used the Plane of Time to corrupt the essence of the world and rend Norrath into millions of pieces.  On the largest is found a seedling tree and the fallen god Zebuxoruk, tending that tree.  Only he knows the secret to mending the world, but to do that, he needs assistance.  That of brave adventurers such as yourselves, who will venture through the portals he tends, to crucial moments in Norrath’s history.  To make sure they unfold without the interference of the gods of Discord.

Read more here.

*jaw drops*

NPC Mercenaries? In Everquest? Whoda thunk!!

That could really change the dynamics of the game in so many ways. It will be quite interesting to see how this plays out.

The problem with EQ is the quality of the game is all over the place because all the new content is up to date but all the old stuff is soooo dated and horrible to use. Examples starting out at a Lizardman type thing and their zone on Kunark is terrible and empty and soooo dated. The map is dated and nasty to use like it was made by a 5 year old. The character models are nasty and animations are horrible and yet on the new npc's added into the game and new zones they look sooo much better and it all feels out of place. You would have thought they'd revisit all the old crap and yet they don't.

Been asking for them to change the ugly human female model in EQ2 since 2004 and they still havn't gotten around to it, for some reason in beta they decided to change it so they look soooo dopey and ugly and their eyes look like they're high.

Well honestly graphics arent the problem with eq its how huge and spread out it is, they have made great progress with this but even still when willdevs learn nopt to make worlds bigger just add more content to present world  there was so much eq could have done in different original zones yet every expansion spread everyone out.

also i see a growing trend with folks where if a game is a year or 2 old its considered dated, i dont really see why either because alot of the older games got it right where as im sick of almost all of these new games  including warhammer trying to be something new and its all rehashed and repackaged .

i break gaming down to this

wow = easier casual pvp/pvp with great story line

Eq1 semi casual /hardcore pvp epic raiding and questing. some of the best lore and storys a game could have.

the rest of the games out there in the fantasy mmo market to me are just wastes of time and copys of the originals.

im starting to feel like i will never stop the comparisons so why try the new stuff when im just going to go wow eq had doors that actually opened , wow was seamless, i think its time to stop supporting new games hashing old ones and let them sink money into old ones to make them updated graphicvs wise.

I always wished SoE would come out with an EQ1 with updated graphics. I never minded the grind in Highpass Keep or camping the Frenzy in Lower Guk. Hell, I always got a kick out of seeing large trains wiping groups out. I remember when EQ first came out you didn't see a maxed out character for months. maybe this was because of those nasty hell levels hehe. I liked how you really didnt see magic gear in the game til you got higher in level. Who knows maybe one day we will see a game like EQ1 come back out