Breaking News: Serpent's Spine Announced
by Loral on July 10, 2006
The Everquest website recently posted some initial information on the Serpent's Spine, the twelfth Everquest expantion.
View the official Everquest homepage for this intial information or the Mobhunter capture of the information.
The new race, a draconic race known as the Drakkin, was one big surprise. Most of the other information we heard at the last Everquest Fan Faire including a level increase to level 75 and content that will take a new player from level 1 to 75.
Recapping some of the information we gleaned from exhausted and inebriated designers at the last Fan Faire we know that the expansion will be mostly static content with a larger set of base zones and fewer instances. We will also see a new starting city called Crescent Reach.
No date has yet been given for the release.
While initial details are sketchy, I expect we will hear more over the next few days.
Loral Ciriclight
10 July 2006
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on July 11, 2006 12:42 AM
Um... Drakkin Rangers ftw?
Comment Posted by: omg on July 11, 2006 03:20 AM
What a useless article. Well done!
Comment Posted by: Loral on July 11, 2006 12:47 PM
This just in from the worthless Mobhunter news section: SOE Press Release for Serpents Spine.
SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES THE SERPENT’S SPINE™ EXPANSION FOR EVERQUEST®
Players Will be Introduced to the Drakkin, the First New Player Race in More Than Three Years
SAN DIEGO, CA – July 10, 2006 – Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a global leader in the online games industry, today announced EverQuest® The Serpent’s Spine™, a new expansion for the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMOPRG), EverQuest. EverQuest The Serpent’s Spine will only be available via digital download beginning in September for the suggested price of U.S. $29.99.
"In an ongoing commitment to introducing new features into EverQuest, The Serpent’s Spine introduces the Drakkin, the first new player race since the Frogloks were added to the game seven expansions ago," said Chris Sturr, Senior Brand Manager, Sony Online Entertainment. "In addition to the new race, players of all levels will benefit from this expansion, as we are including content for levels 1 to 75."
Players will also be able to explore a new starting city, Crescent Reach, which contains merchants, quests and combat. As in the last expansion, there will be new dynamic features such as auras, traps and destructible terrain. Players will be able to reach level 75 with new spells, raids and abilities.
About EverQuest The Serpent’s Spine
Nestled in a great ravine in the Serpent Spine Mountains is an ancient abandoned ogre city now called Crescent Reach, which is home to a new race born to protect the future of dragon kind, the Drakkin. Six dragons defied the council of the ancient dragons of the Nest and chose to create a new race to protect their future. The Drakkin are borne of humans touched by a dragon's blood and their colors and appearance represent the dragon that created them. Rapidly aging and reaching maturity in only months, the Drakkin forget their human beginnings and make their pilgrimage to Crescent Reach, the home of their dragon creators and the rest of their kind. EverQuest The Serpent’s Spine features the following:
* New Player Race: The Drakkin have been created from both human and dragon blood to protect the future of all dragon kind. Several colors and customizations will be available to make each Drakkin character unique, such as elegant scale markings and horns.
* Level Cap Increase: Players can now reach level 75, complete with new spells, abilities, raids and quests for greater power.
* Content for Levels 1 to 75: Play through every level of the game without ever leaving the Serpent Spine Mountains.
* New Starting City: Crescent Reach is a fully functioning city with all that is required to learn and thrive in EverQuest, including merchant, quest, combat and tradeskill areas.
* Dynamic Features: New zones, NPCs, destructible and interactive objects.
* New AAs, Spells: Experience new spells and Alternative Advancement abilities.
The EverQuest base game is required for this expansion. For more information on EverQuest The Serpent’s Spine, please visit: http://www.everquest.com
About Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) is a recognized worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers around the globe. SOE creates, develops and provides compelling entertainment for the personal computer, online, game console and wireless markets. Known for its blockbuster franchises and hit titles including EverQuest®, EverQuest® II, Champions of Norrath®, Untold Legends™, and PlanetSide®, as well as for developing Star Wars Galaxies™, SOE continues to redefine the business of online gaming and the creation of active player communities while introducing new genres on various entertainment platforms. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, with additional development studios in Austin, TX, Seattle, WA, and Taiwan, SOE has an array of cutting-edge games in development. SOE is owned by Sony Pictures Digital and Sony Computer Entertainment America.
Comment Posted by: abcd on July 11, 2006 01:41 PM
Cut-n-paste news sites and rant boards have their place, but the community needs more than that, and thankfully Mobhunter will continue to deliver.
Comment Posted by: abcd on July 11, 2006 01:42 PM
http://mobhunter.com/moorgard/-1455192782.html
Damn you for eating the HTML. URL above is link for previous comment.
Comment Posted by: concerned1 on July 11, 2006 02:05 PM
dude loral isnt worried about that. he just got married and is still on honeymoon time line. soon he will have kids and more responsabilities then he ever had before.he will become a true casual player due to the nature of the beast of real life. he will have even less time for eq and writing stories about it. heck he may even have to quit eq alltogether. as for the next expansion; look for it to flop. it wont even have a box version. go talk to some people in real life that dont play eq.try to act enthused and get them interested in trying it.to help bring new blood to eq so to speak. explain to them how "awsome" it is to put all your spare time into a virtual world cartoon character building it up while all the while you know one day eq will be shutdown and the data erased.think they will rush out and buy it or suggest you seek mental health aid? eq is tired.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on July 11, 2006 02:44 PM
At least EQ will get one good looking model set...
Now if only this expansion had something akin to new models... heck, all I want are new animations... hope this new race brings new animations and these get applied to all other races, because the biggest thing I was not able to stand last time I tried the game was precisely the horrid animations.
Comment Posted by: Simkine on July 11, 2006 02:48 PM
EQ has plenty of good looking models. It's just that they animate terribly, are resource intensive, and have limited visual changes. Sorry, I don't see that changing this time around.
Comment Posted by: MithMarrShaman on July 11, 2006 06:20 PM
lol did you put those images in your flikr account so that we all could see pics of your house? anyway, house looks nice, the next expansion looks decent, almost like eq is morphing into eq2 graphics. i guess the jury will be out when we can check if the content is interesting or not.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on July 11, 2006 06:33 PM
Only thing I want to know is which Ink Pen did you end up using after the Testing?
Comment Posted by: Loral on July 11, 2006 08:04 PM
Aethn, I personally use a Namiki Vanishing Point fountain pen with Noodler's black ink. It's the most durable ink in the only technology proven for writing for over 100 years - the fountain pen. I use a Pelikan M-1000 for my serious story writing but its mainly for special occasions. For non-fountain pens, nothing beats the Uniball 207 rollerball pen. It is fade resistant, pH neutral, water resistant, and cannot be washed by check forgers. It is the strongest ink I have found in a pen. I'm so glad you asked!!
As far as just posting SOE press releases, I'm trying to get the news out in a short period of time to stay current. I plan to write a full editorial on the announcement, what it means, what cool things we might see, and what mistakes were made. Have patience - I want to get all of the facts before I start pontificating.
Comment Posted by: Retsin on July 11, 2006 10:19 PM
Anyone else catch this tidbit in the press release?
*The Serpent’s Spine will ONLY be available via DIGITAL DOWNLOAD* (caps added for emphasis)
I kind of doubt any new expansion, no matter how well done, can attract any sizeable number of new players without there being a boxed version in stores.
Comment Posted by: Loral on July 11, 2006 11:02 PM
I am going to look into the Digital Download thing. I agree, if they are only releasing digitally, that negates much of the reason to have this expansion as a new introduction to Everquest. However, they may be pushing to release it in a box for Christmas instead. Either way, I will investigate and find out more.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on July 11, 2006 11:33 PM
Yeah, I agree.. Hell, they should just put it in a box and make it all green and shiney and have it be all 12 expansions for $30. Or, I don't know. PoR was useless enough people can just get titanium and serpent's if they're starting new.
Comment Posted by: Bolas on July 12, 2006 01:36 AM
I betcha they'll come out with a new fancy box of all expansions in one, including this one, just in time for xmas.
-Bolas
Comment Posted by: Skuz on July 12, 2006 02:12 AM
My only hope is with this being for 1-75 they actually get this out in the mainstream media & get it some hype, & get a push for new players rolling.
Comment Posted by: wiggles on July 12, 2006 02:07 PM
Level from 1-75 in the new zones sounds like nice marketing spin. What about spells? Can I get my 50-70 spells without going to Kunark, Velious, Luclin, PoP, OoW zones? It's supposed to be stand-alone right (well, with original EQ)?
Comment Posted by: Belgrath on July 13, 2006 01:08 AM
Also fairly recent news is one the progression servers the uberguilds have killed the triggers needed for opening kunark. Bad news is SOE is not ready to open kunark for at least a couple more weeks...
Comment Posted by: Belgrath on July 13, 2006 02:31 AM
from sony boards..
Where is Kunark?
The Combine has completed all of the necessary steps to open the Ruins of Kunark expansion but, as you know, the continent is still not open. The fact of the matter is that you have hit our minimum timer. We are going to let the timer run out as initially planned which means that the Kunark expansion will open just about on July 28th...
Comment Posted by: Moorgard on July 13, 2006 04:34 AM
"explain to them how 'awsome' it is to put all your spare time into a virtual world cartoon character building it up while all the while you know one day eq will be shutdown and the data erased."
Yeah, unlike our accomplishments in real life, which will endure for all eternity.
Comment Posted by: Greif on July 13, 2006 05:33 AM
New char models darnit!
"The problems are one and the same. EQ's new graphics engine is very modern and very efficient, but the Luclin character models are not and when you get a lot of them into one area, it bogs things down. If we were able to replace all the old character models with updated ones made under the new systems, you'd likely see a significant peformance increase even though the graphical quality would be much higher.
Rashere"
Luclin models are old, rushed, ugly and holding EQ1 back. If you want to revive EQ1 and compete with the new bigger dogs - you gotta have new models.
PS: News of the new Serpent Spine being digital download ONLY is disturbing. Is SOE giving up on EQ1?
Comment Posted by: Armarant on July 13, 2006 03:24 PM
Grief wrote: PS: News of the new Serpent Spine being digital download ONLY is disturbing. Is SOE giving up on EQ1?"
they are going to only digitally distribute this expansion but they plan for their next fully encompassed expansion box to be distributed by retail so sometime in december you should expect to see a box with everything upto Prophecy of Ro. then you digital download Serpent spine.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on July 13, 2006 03:42 PM
Man.. I want box goodies! Really, they need to release it in stores and get it out there. They NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED to do Loral's "AOL disk" idea with EQ. Make up nice boxes of like 30 free unlimited trial zone disks and have them on the counter of every gamestop, eb games, software etc. best buy etc. etc. etc. etc. so every person who goes to buy a PC game grabs it.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on July 13, 2006 05:53 PM
If Serpent's Spine is download only, it instantly goes from "The expansion that tries to draw in new players with a new race and newbie areas that are up to modern graphical standards" to "The expansion that tries to keep current players busy playing alts." SOE needs to release a box with base EQ AND Serpent's Spine (and ideally all the other expansions). I think they know that, but they may not announce it for a while for marketing reasons. Patience.
I agree though: if there's no EQ new box on store shelves for the holidays, we can conclude that SOE has given up on expanding EQ's subscriber base.
Comment Posted by: Skuz on July 14, 2006 02:20 AM
With all the work that has gone into old zones recently with putting old mobs onto the new system, I think we can expect a big push for new players from SoE.
Exactly how they'll do that remains to be seen, but a multi pronged approach would work best, but the key factor will be opening up the market, they learned from seeing how WoW suceeded that there is a big market untapped out there.
Boxed complete up to Serpent's Spine on shelves, free trial downloads (Escape to Norrath), maybe the free trial + a couple lowbie zones on a disc like the earlier poster mentioned complete with a taster video of the rest of the game expansions & the Serpent's Spine, all backed up by a "Comprehansive" media onslaught with TV,Internet,billboard & magazine coverage would be great.
Just hope they don't miss this opportunity.
Comment Posted by: Greif on July 14, 2006 04:09 AM
Teremar wrote:
If Serpent's Spine is download only, it instantly goes from "The expansion that tries to draw in new players with a new race and newbie areas that are up to modern graphical standards" to "The expansion that tries to keep current players busy playing alts."
Aye, QFT right there. I don't see the point of creating 1-75 content + new race, if your not pushing for new players with a retail box. Someone in the EQ1 team needs to talk with the weasels down at the marketing dept.
Be that as it may, the new race Drakkin can be monks; so I will be playing a new monk with all the twink items (Fungi FTW) that I have stocked up over the years. I think with the new expansion being download only, lots of people will have the same idea.
So yeah, Looks like TSS will be a land of twinks, alts and PL-ed doods.
Comment Posted by: Nolrog on July 14, 2006 08:50 AM
>>> Level from 1-75 in the new zones sounds like nice marketing spin. What about spells? Can I get my 50-70 spells without going to Kunark, Velious, Luclin, PoP, OoW zones?
You can already do that, at least with Kunark, Velious, Luclin and PoP spells. You can research most, if not all of them. They should have the research components of the appropriate level dropping in the new zones (something I'll keep an eye out for.)
Comment Posted by: aethn on July 14, 2006 09:43 AM
I am actually disappointed they didnt take the cap to lvl 80 like they eluded to. lvl 75 is already going to reivialize alot of content but at least going to lvl 80 it allows SOE to take a nice big step in difficulty and make some really big encounters to accomodate the 80 cap.
The other question is will the stat caps increase? Most people are capped at 365+ on stats already. But will thre cap go beyond the +5 per level you get when you ding?
Comment Posted by: Lumilla on July 14, 2006 01:55 PM
Posted by Greif
Be that as it may, the new race Drakkin can be monks; so I will be playing a new monk with all the twink items (Fungi FTW) that I have stocked up over the years.
Do we know for a fact what classes the new race can/will be? I have searched and can find no info at all - also, do we know base stats, or special abilities?
Comment Posted by: Skuz on July 15, 2006 02:24 AM
Confirmed on the eqlive forums that Monks will be a class option for the Drakkin, rest of the classes not currently decided on but expect a wide range.
I am guessing Berserkers, Beastlords possibly Shamans will be excluded, Berserkers as no monk races/humans get that option so far & Beastlords for global model reasons.
Comment Posted by: concerned1 on July 16, 2006 07:46 AM
this expansion better be verrrrry good. that new race better just blow people away. i been reading alot of different gaming boards and it seems quite a few casuals are getting excited about the new WoW expansion and the release of Vanguard. could this be another mass exodus of the EQ population unfolding before our very eyes? just imagine what eq is gonna be like when about all that is left is uber guild types running around trying to show who has the larger e-peen.
Comment Posted by: Kaelon on July 24, 2006 05:18 PM
I tend to agree with Teremar that if there is no boxed version of EverQuest for the holidays, it's very clear to most people that SOE has become more interested in retaining the 100,000 or so subscribers that it still has left, and for good reason: it has been well-stated that a critical number of subscribers is needed for the game to remain profitable and still churn out new content. If you slip below that number, the game either has to go into update-less maintenance mode, or worse yet, shut down. I doubt very much that it would come to that, however.
Skuz proposes a radical, aggressive advertising and promotions blitz for the original EverQuest, but I don't see this happening without widespread modernization of the game, including at the very least, new character models and emphasis around a new "newgame" experience that is faster-paced and more competitive for players of the new Age of Warcraft.
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