EverQuset II Senior Producer Alan "Brenlo" Crosby discussed the future of EverQuest II at length in a new forum post made to the official EverQuest II forums.

In the post Brenlo reveals that the next game update is set to launch in May, and one of the update's major focuses is to deal with the myriad technical issues that have cropped up since the launch of the Battlegrounds feature, returning players, and tons of new items in the database.

Shader 3.0 will also finally go live with May's update, as will New Halas, which was previously pushed back as it required more development time. The team will also reveal details on a proposed travel revamp as May approaches, as SOE wants to streamline the travel system so that is more logical and makes "more sense."

Brenlo also announced a new storyteller system, which is a new UI element that " tracks quests together, in a meaningful way, to tell a larger story."

Itemization will also be addressed in the near future, as Brenlo notes that the team is gathering and responding to feedback.

Brenlo reaffirms SOE's committment to the Battlegrounds feature, stating that the feature will be constantly evolving. Battlegrounds will get new maps, receive tweaks, and SOE is looking to add new rewards.

What about SOE's plans for the next fiscal year? Well, they are certainly interesting. Read below:

We do have a solid plan for the next fiscal year, which runs from April to March around here, and while I will not go into all of the details, we do have quite a bit planned.  Some of the items planned are:

                UI Revamp – Allowing for more customization from the community       

                Reworking the Welcome Screen, so it becomes more relevant to your play sessions

                Class adjustments, although as you all know this is never ending

                Alternate Rule Set Server: Something similar to the progression server used in EQ, or a permadeath server or a special PVP ruleset server.  The possibilities are endless.  We plan to make this a cycling system allowing for new sets to be popped up every few months, using the same server hardware.

And of course, new content to include raids, quests, and goodies.  You should see at least one raid each update, of which there are four major updates planned for the next fiscal year.  Details of those to follow but I can say they will be a mix of reworked content e.g. Lavastorm revamp, and all new content.  Through the next year, we plan to bolster our events as well, eventually having one event each calendar month, providing more entertainment for you.

Read the original post here.

The Alternate Rule Set server is definitely going to spark some interesting discussion. Would you be interested in a permadeath server? Let us know in the comments below!

[Thanks AmazingAvery for the tip!]