An Age of Discovery for EverQuest II

Age of Discovery is an expansion that makes EverQuest II feel new again.

December 6th, 2011 is going to be a big day for EverQuest II players. That’s the day Age of Discovery, the latest expansion for the long running MMO EverQuest II launches, along with Game Update 62, Freeport Reborn. Did we forget to mention that EQII goes Free-to-Play on that day as well? It’s a lot to take in, so ZAM Staff Writer Patrick Do went on an in-game tour in EverQuest II to see what Age of Discovery will bring.

The Age of Discovery expansion will see the long awaited return of the Beastlord class to Norrath. The interesting thing about the Beastlord class is that players will have the opportunity to tame wild animals throughout the world and summon them into battle. The Beastlord class plays a lot like a combination of Scouts, Coercers, and Brawlers and brings yet another dimension to one of the deepest MMOs on the market. It’s also a class that appeals to the collectors amongst us, as you can go about taming many types of animals to suit your needs.

Also coming out in the expansion is another feature known as Mercenaries. These mercenaries can primarily be found in Freeport and Qeynos, and serve as an NPC party member to fight by your side. You’ll be able to recruit mercenaries of several different classes. SOE was quick to point out that these mercenaries would scale to match the player’s level but would overall be slightly weaker than a real player of the same level to encourage partying with real people.

Also included in Age of Discovery is a fully featured Dungeon Maker. Players are given the ability to populate various collectable dungeon layouts with monsters and a cavalcade of decorative options. There is a ton of collectables to be had here and has the potential to be something you could easily lose an afternoon or two messing around in. The feature seems like a bit of a misnomer considering you won’t actually be able to manipulate the layout of the dungeons themselves and playing the same dungeon layouts repeatedly may take away some of the long-term appeal of the function. However, this looks like a great first step, and one that SOE is willing to throw a lot of energy into developing further.

Item Reforging and the Tradeskill Apprentices are two more new features launching in Age of Discovery. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much of a chance to check out Item Reforging or the new AA limit possibilities (new max limit of 320 was announced during tonight's webcast), but you can get all the information at our Age of Discovery page when it releases.

The city of Freeport has received a long needed makeover. Freeport Reborn sees the return of Overlord Lucan D'Lere to Freeport as well as a host of new things going on in the city. The city itself looks sharp and deadly; there are even public executions being held in the middle of it all. It’s a veritable gong show voiced by the actor who played Sarumon (Christopher Lee).  If you look around the city there are many new quests to be found and completed. What you won’t find, however, is a single loading screen — the major portions of Freeport city are now zone-free.

The core game (free through the Sentinel’s Fate expansion) itself is switching over to the F2P model that has put DCUO back on the map. The EQII traditional and EQII Extended subscription models will be merged into a new and improved version for the upcoming Free-to-Play transition. You can see the new subscription model on our EQ2 Membership Matrix.

If you’ve ever had even a passing interest in the world of EverQuest or enjoy content-rich MMOs in general, you owe it to yourself to experience EverQuest II. There literally is no better time to start or return: the game will have a Free-to-Play model, is deep in features and content and is well supported by a passionate development team. The move to F2P should boost an already dedicated player base. Mark the date on your calendars: December 6th, 2011 will herald a new Age of Discovery.

Patrick "BakersMan" Do, Staff Writer.

Comments

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Did they fixed the graphic engine?
# Dec 01 2011 at 7:51 PM Rating: Decent
Did they fixed the graphic engine at last?

Can we play and not having less than 30fps?

Good thing it's f2p. I will be able to try and see if they fixed that for free 8)
AoD
# Dec 01 2011 at 6:02 PM Rating: Decent
Other players can enter your dungeon that you created, only you can not enter your own dungeon and run it, everyone else in the game can access any zone you create. On the other hand, you can enter and play any dungeon that any other player has made. Think about it, it wouldn't be very fair to run your own dungeon that you created, you would already know all of the "Safe places" you built into the zone as well as how to beat any of the puzzles/strats needed to win the scenario.

This game has been in dire need of some new things to do and I think this expansion as well as the coming updates with new zones for free should greatly increase play experience. It has great appeal to those in the game that love to craft (crafting apprentices)as well as those not in guilds that group a lot with the new Mercenaries. 20 AA, well I am not amused by that but it does help make up for the 25 I had to drop into the tradeskill tree for my harvester. Reforging, this should be a pretty nice addition for people worried about their looks in the game, which a lot are (including me as I hate looking like a Skittle in my armor). Reseting the Armor? first I have heard of that and I highly doubt anyone would go through with that as to affect game play for the large raiding guilds. Put up the link that says they are going to do this if you are going to blast them about it so I can blast em too. I am not a fanboy but I have been playing this for many years and while some areas have become tedious with the raid mobs having so many hit points (click, click, click, the same buttons for 20 minutes if you don't have massive DPS in the raid etc, these new areas are pointed towards most of the other players than the hard core. Those new items will come later in the game updates.
AoD
# Dec 02 2011 at 1:58 AM Rating: Decent
I already tried the dungeon maker on the beta. And it was possible to enter my own dungeons. Who said that only other players could try?

Edited, Dec 2nd 2011 3:01am by w3bwatcher
Necrosis is a level 73 guild on the Freeport Server
# Dec 01 2011 at 1:15 PM Rating: Decent
Necrosis is a level 73 guild on the Freeport Server.

Casual, Adult, Casual.

We have a kick *** Gorowyn guildhall that a room designer was paid to make our home. Jam packed with features no other guild has and ready for all your teleporting and tradeskill needs.

If you are a crafter, quester, raider or simply a player looking for a new home and not just being a body in a guild; we could be the place for you. All levels, races, classes accepted but we want you to play when you like and what you like we want this to be your home not a stepping stone to "end-game" content.

FIND US: /who all necrosis

and contact any one about being a member.

Requirements for our guild are simple

You must be 18
You must be able to get in voice chat (even if you never talk just so we can coordinate battles)
Bring a sense of humor and gaming knowledge.
Age of Discovery will be Epic
# Dec 01 2011 at 11:42 AM Rating: Decent
Got to say this is going to be Amazing! This game keeps getting better and better.

No new zones? Totaly fine we are getting new zones for FREE with the next GU which comes out very soon.

Playing custom Dungeons with Avitars ? Totaly fine will allow for everyone to play and will make the dificulty settings have meaning for everyone and oh yeah the tokens you earn can be spent on items for your main characters so very much worth doing.

Only 20 AA bump. Again totaly fine will help offset the AA spent on tradeskills... heck I will now keep some of them after level cap... Improved chance to harvest rare anyone?

New class? Awsome!

Mercs ? Fantastick ! Wow now as a casual player more options!

Reforging including partical effects ? Love it!

Trade skill Apprentice ? New recipies, more options, Sound great !

Seriously, what is not to like? Soney is giving us more ways to play this game than ever.

Bravo Soney!

Gonna be Epic
Sony Hates You
# Nov 30 2011 at 10:27 PM Rating: Decent
This steaming pile of refuse is the latest garbage SOE is going to sucker people into buying. THERE ARE NO NEW ZONES. THERE IS NO NEW CONTENT. In addition, these "design your own dungeon" gimicks CANNOT BE PLAYED WITH YOUR OWN CHARACTER. They are like the old EQ1 monster missions--you have to run them with a premade template avatar, not your character.

Add to this that the +20AA has NO NEW AA -- only an increase in the cap to buy the worst stuff you passed over before. Oh, and in addition to this big pile of TOTALLY WORTHLESS that you will be paying $40 to swallow, you get to be abused, maltreated, and generally treated like garbage by the worst GM and developer staff in the industry.

Oh, and if that was not good enough reason to RUN SCREAMING from EQ2, the developers have recently decided that they like to COMPLETELY DELETE stats from quested gear, void out the total utility of COMPLETE GEAR SETS, and leave some people's characters with NO FUNCTIONAL GEAR and do so with NO exchanges, no refunds, and no recourse for that gear. So, yeah, go play this if your local masochism parlor is closed and you really need someone to treat you like total garbage and charge you for the privilege.
Sony Hates You
# Dec 02 2011 at 5:30 PM Rating: Decent
So tell me, if you are so sure it's as bad as you claim it was, and it's getting worse, then why the HECK are you so obviously still playing it?
(Listens to the sudden silence for a couple minutes then nods)
Thought so, just another whiner and ******* with no life and gets their jolies trying to put everything down,do us all a favor and get a life of your own and quit trying to ruin the pleasures of our own!
Sony Hates You
# Dec 01 2011 at 4:16 AM Rating: Decent
ok, i have to wonder something though...you CAN'T play other's made-dungeons with YOUR characters ? Is this true ? or is it just that you can't your own dungeon with your characters (this is normal to limit the abuse) ?If it is, it seems first hand quite counter productive to the all feature.
For me the fun of being able to do dungeon is to create a new and cool story that other player can enjoy, with their characters right ? This is a MMORPG , right ? like role playing Game ok. anyone knows ?
Sony Hates You
# Dec 01 2011 at 6:01 PM Rating: Decent
picpus wrote:
ok, i have to wonder something though...you CAN'T play other's made-dungeons with YOUR characters ? Is this true ? or is it just that you can't your own dungeon with your characters (this is normal to limit the abuse) ?If it is, it seems first hand quite counter productive to the all feature.
For me the fun of being able to do dungeon is to create a new and cool story that other player can enjoy, with their characters right ? This is a MMORPG , right ? like role playing Game ok. anyone knows ?



Other players can enter your dungeon that you created, only you can not enter your own dungeon and run it, everyone else in the game can access any zone you create. On the other hand, you can enter and play any dungeon that any other player has made. Think about it, it wouldn't be very fair to run your own dungeon that you created, you would already know all of the "Safe places" you built into the zone as well as how to beat any of the puzzles/strats needed to win the scenario.

This game has been in dire need of some new things to do and I think this expansion as well as the coming updates with new zones for free should greatly increase play experience. It has great appeal to those in the game that love to craft (crafting apprentices)as well as those not in guilds that group a lot with the new Mercenaries. 20 AA, well I am not amused by that but it does help make up for the 25 I had to drop into the tradeskill tree for my harvester. Reforging, this should be a pretty nice addition for people worried about their looks in the game, which a lot are (including me as I hate looking like a Skittle in my armor). Reseting the Armor? first I have heard of that and I highly doubt anyone would go through with that as to affect game play for the large raiding guilds. Put up the link that says they are going to do this if you are going to blast them about it so I can blast em too. I am not a fanboy but I have been playing this for many years and while some areas have become tedious with the raid mobs having so many hit points (click, click, click, the same buttons for 20 minutes if you don't have massive DPS in the raid etc, these new areas are pointed towards most of the other players than the hard core. Those new items will come later in the game updates.
Sony Hates You
# Dec 01 2011 at 3:11 AM Rating: Decent
Man that guy hates discovery.
Sony Hates You
# Dec 01 2011 at 12:53 AM Rating: Decent
Why don't you tell us how you really feel. Don't hold back now.
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