EverQuest will be growing soon with its twenty-second expansion, The Broken Mirror. We had a chance to chat with the team behind the expansion to find out more about its systems, features and new zones.
MMORPG: After 16 years and soon to be your 22nd expansion, how do you still manage to keep the game fresh for players?
EQ Team: The great thing about working on EverQuest is that you can really stretch your imagination. With EQ's powerful scripting system and a heavy dose of creativity, there's no limit to the amount of compelling content we can make. We strive not only to create more unique content, but also respond to areas and stories that players are curious about. Our goal is to continue to bring life to this incredibly deep and longstanding world.
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MMORPG: What can you tell us about Anashti Sul and her different aspects?
EQ Team: Anashti Sul's Life aspect is dedicated to rewarding those with faith in her with eternal life after death. Those that have been “relifed” become honored and respected citizens in her plane having proven themselves to their goddess. Her Decay aspect requires those to whom she grants “relife” to be faithful to her. They have little choice in the matter and serve her with perfect faith.
MMORPG: What can we expect from the new zones thematically?
EQ Team: Sul Vius, demiplane of Anashti Sul, is a bit of a change of pace for us. The Demiplane of Life is a bit Day of the Dead style with bright colors and decorations. On the flip side, we have darker, more muted colors in the Demiplane of Decay. This theme is reflected in the citizenry of the zones, with brightly outfitted citizens in one and more sinister looking folks in the other.
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MMORPG: With each expansion you keep adding in new AA’s. How do you go about deciding what AA’s to grant players? Do you have certain character builds or fun little tricks you are aiming for?
EQ Team: It's a time-intensive process with part of the time expenditure researching and finding of how we can evolve AAs without stepping on, destroying, or breaking historical AAs. From there we have to make decisions about how much power progression is appropriate for characters and/or how to make new offerings worthwhile and creative. At over a decade of AAs, there is a lot to consider and evaluate, but we are always looking for fun tricks and gameplay to keep players engaged and seeing growth in their characters and the game.
MMORPG: What is an Illusion and why is an Illusion Key Ring a new must have item in this expansion?
EQ Team: For more than 15 years, EverQuest has created many memorable characters, and memorable character models. When a model is popular (or when a designer really likes it) we tend to make items that let players turn into those models. We call those illusions. As you can imagine we have made a rather large number of illusion items. Keeping them in your inventory can take up a lot of space, especially if yours is a character that likes to dress up. Some days you want to be a scarecrow, some days you want to be a werewolf.
So we created the Illusion Key Ring, a new feature for storing the many illusions that have built up over the years. On player accounts that own The Broken Mirror, you’ll be able to free up some of that precious bag space using this feature. Not only that, but you will be able to easily locate them in a single location. You will also be able to assign a "stat illusion" that grants stat bonuses from one illusion while keeping the appearance from another. By allowing separate stat and appearance illusion buffs, the Illusion Key Ring gives you more ways to customize your look in-game.
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MMORPG: Can you tell us which zones are in line to get a revamp and what you plan on changing about them? Gearing them for new high level content or just giving them a much needed touch up after years of release?
EQ Team: As of right now, we don’t have formal plans for making changes to existing zones. The team’s focus has mainly been on the expansion. This doesn’t mean it won’t be considered in the future, just that we do not have plans currently in place.
