EverQuest’s annual expansion, The Outer Brood, will be out next week. The team recently streamed some insights into the development and details about the next release, from lore to inspiration,to those new dragons.
The team discusses the premise they arrived at and the initial prototyping behind this more unusual expansion for the EQ team.
Vulak was disappointed at the fragmentation of power, and hoped that Veeshan would answer his call about the failures of the Norrathean dragons. He did get an answer, as new elder dragons arrived to find out more about their Norrathean counterparts. And were very disappointed. They “discovered how pathetic” they were, and decided “Norrathian dragons really don’t deserve their planet”, according to Principal Game Designer Alan VanCouvering. So, they seek to continue their domination, this time over their pathetic cousins and the territories of Norrath too.
That sets things up. One of the standout features is the magic system unique to these elder dragons. You'll also have to comprehend language from these dragons to utilize some of the trade skills. There are several new zones, many of them more expansive than you might think. Makes sense when you're talking about large creatures and enemies like dragons, so this gave them the opportunity to go big in scale. For a decades-old game (albeit with optimizations and upgrades over time), there were also some limitations that led to them needing to be creative and they go into that discussion as well.
We get details and some previews of those zones, including ruins, structures inspired by RPG miniatures, and even an Old Fort in India. Going for the look of a war-torn environment that shows history, along with some tranquil elements including a reflecting pool. There's a giant Leviathan in the backdrop in the zone, and this will be important later. Not just for scale, but for expansion-specific lore decisions too.
The full stream is very in-depth, and if you're looking to go into the December expansion without any spoilers, you might want to hold off a little. However, if you want a peek at what's coming, there’s no better way than here in the nearly 90-minute stream.
The Outer Brood will be out on December 3rd..
