Preview of the Buried Sea
by Loral on February 01, 2007
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to walk through the new lands found within the thirteenth Everquest expansion, the Buried Sea, available 13 February 2007. Today I will discuss my experiences and discoveries as I walked the lands of the Buried Sea.
The Buried Sea contains seven new overland zones as well as over 60 instanced missions. The overland zones are huge, with some reports that crossing from one side to the other can take fifteen minutes or longer. The expansion's namesake zone, The Buried Sea, has seven islands spread across a large sea. Each of these islands acts as its own adventuring area with large boats and player-controlled rowboats shuttling players from island to island.
The expansion is split into two major areas, the pirate sea-faring area and the underwater Combine city of Katta Castrum. While many spend much attention on the pirate aspect of the expansion, I found the combine city to be the richer of the two areas - with ties to Rathe mountains, Luclin, and even Planes of Power.
The overland zones include a newly revamped Toxxulous Forest, The Buried Sea, Katta Castrum, the Jewel of Atiiki, Thalassius, Zhisza the Shissar Sanctuary, Silyssar, and the ultra-high-end Solteris - the Throne of Ro. The single-group zones range in difficulty from level 55 through Direwind, Valdeholm, Frost Crypt, Ashengate, and post-Ashengate in difficulty. Unlike The Serpent's Spine, the entirety of this expansion's content will focus on level 55+ characters.
The zones range in geography from islands among a great sea, to small pocket-environments encapsulated in magical shells deep under the water. The Buried Sea contains Egyptian-style ruins, ancient temples of the Shissar, a huge combine city that reminds us of Sanctus Seru, and the scorched homeworld of Solusek Ro.
Instanced missions make up most of the content within the Buried Sea. These six-person events range in duration from 30 minutes for sea-battles to 60 to 90 minutes for missions similar to the ones we saw in Dragons of Norrath and Depth's of Darkhollow. The missions start with lower-powered level 65 missions in the pirate area and escalate to level 70 and 75 missions in the Combine city. The Shissar missions will prove to be the most challenging set.
Like Dragons of Norrath and Lost Dungeons of Norrath, The Buried Sea will contain a point-based loot system. Players will earn points on each successful mission and can use these points to purchase new equipment and items at loot vendors in the pirate and combine areas. While the power of this armor is still changing, it looks like the most powerful set of armor purchasable from single group missions, once powered up with an Energeian powersource described below, will rival Anguish-level equipment.
The point system will be split into three tiers: pirates, Combine, and raid. Points earned on pirate missions can only be used to purchase lower-power items while Combine missions reward points used to purchase higher-powered equipment. There is a little overlap between the highest power pirate rewards and the lower powered Combine rewards.
The point rewards for these missions will also shift as missions become more or less popular. This will avoid bottom-feeding for points on the easiest or fastest missions like we saw on Creator missions in Dragons of Norrath.
This point system will also extend into the ultra-high-end raids in Solteris. Very powerful equipment can be purchased with points earned from these very difficult raids.
The Buried Sea includes a new type of equipment, the Energeian power source. This new inventory slot can contain a power source that can affect any of the new armor acquired in the Buried Sea expansion through drops or vendors. It is these power sources that add unique effects to the somewhat generic point-based loot.
The raids contained within the Buried Sea will focus almost entirely on difficulties above that found in The Serpent's Spine. The one raid zone, Solteris, is intended to be extremely challenging for current players. Giant beams of focused sunlight are able to scorch characters for over 100,000 damage. Solteris is built into tiers much like the islands in the original Plane of Sky raid zone. According to SOE, a raiding guild that makes it half way will have major bragging rights.
There are no monster missions in this expansion but SOE hasn't given up on them. We will see new monster missions entering the game in the future.
During the preview, SOE revealed that they are planning to release a new human model based on their work with the Drakkin model in The Serpent's Spine. This model will be seen on human NPCs in the Buried Sea. After this expansion's release, SOE plans to test the models out with the players and release them once they feel they are ready.
Two other new features round out this expansion: Fellowships and Guild Banners. Each of these features is targeted to a different play style.
Fellowships will help smaller groups of players with less time available get together faster and begin hunting. The fellowships will let three players in a group summon the other three directly to a hunting area. Fellowships also dedicate a chat channel for each fellowship even if ungrouped. It isn't clear what advantage this gives over traditional chat channels or group chat, but we will have to see it in action to judge. Upgraded fellowship campsites can also offer offensive effects, defensive effects, and even illusions to the fellowship. SOE hopes to extend the concept of fellowships but not before the expansion's release.
Guild Banners can be customized by guild leaders and can help a small set of guilded players summon the rest of a guild to a raiding area. Upgraded guild banners can also add beneficial area effects.
My preview of the Buried Sea surprised me. While I expected to see a lot of missions and a new point-based loot system, I didn't expect to see such large overland zones. The artwork in this expansion is excellent and helps bring back memories of our days in Luclin, Planes of Power, and even in the original lands.
It's a hard time to release a new Everquest expansion with all of the attention paid to the Burning Crusade. SOE wisely focused this expansion on Everquest's strength: dynamic mission-based group content. World of Warcraft's unfocused instances don't have the same focus on group missions found in Everquest. As a contrast to the strong static content found in the Serpent's Spine, the Buried Sea has a lot to offer veteran Everquest players.
And now, the screenshots.
Loral Ciriclight
3 February 2007
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Bonzz on February 4, 2007 11:59 PM
More content for the high end. No content for the small group.
Every night I log on, and if I don't want to raid, there is NOTHING for me to do. I'm ready, I'm eager, I'm disappointed.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on February 5, 2007 12:00 AM
The question is, does this expansion have what it takes to bring old 55+ players back? What does it take to visit Katta Castrum? Can you just PoK there or is it easily reached IE: LoY or GoD cities or do you reach there after a certain progression in the expansion? Hell, is there even a significant amount of pickup players to "casually" level and gear this expansion? Can you wander in and get a group like you could for Karnor's or any similar area? Hot spots? I have a love for EQ deep inside me and I don't know if it's even worth the reinstall or subscription fee to find out of their world is still for me.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 5, 2007 06:59 AM
Most of the content is unlocked to begin with. One final single-group zone is unlocked after accomplishing a set of missions and the raid zone is likewise unlocked with another set of missions.
Comment Posted by: concerned1 on February 5, 2007 07:25 AM
more catering to the ubers. the so-called abguish level group gear will infact require you to already have anguish level gear to obtain so that will cut casual players out to start with.soon it will be ghost town and a flop just like tss was. same old eq dev horse crap just released on a new day.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on February 5, 2007 09:37 AM
/yawn
Nothing in this expansion has zip, zeal or pizzazz enough to bring people back or new people in. Couple this with the fact that it comes out next week, (WTF !?!) and I havent seen one single advertisement for it on the web, in print magazines or even an email in my box telling anyone about it.
You know the old rules of thumb, when you start to see a trailer for a movie come out only 2-3 weeks before the movies release, your looking at a craptastic movie from the get go.
What exactly does the SOE marketing team do again? Hell I know more about the new Pirate game SOE released then The Buried Sea, and I am in the TBS Beta !!
For the first time in 8 years, I wont be buying an Everquest expansion x3. And I agree, the gap from Casual to Endgame has just gotten wider. I have been endgame for most of my time in EQ, but I know that is the Casuals that keep the lights on in San Diego, not the raiders. Way to further push the bulk of whats left in EQ to another game.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on February 5, 2007 12:59 PM
I'm curious about how the point rewards shift depending on popularity. Is that actually dynamic? (As in an automatic response rather than a dev making the decision?) If so I'm impressed. Call it a "wisdom of crowds" thing but I've always thought the usage numbers of the various zones are a more accurate reading of their practical risk vs. reward levels than any ideas a dev might have about them.
Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on February 5, 2007 04:50 PM
Loral,
Have they moved back to to a LDoN system of non-transferrable point and then multiplied it by 3? I sure as hell hope not, LDoN was bad enough earning points that by the time you get enough SOE has released a ne expansion and the gear you were about to buy is obsolete. At least with DoN I could sell the crystal or transfer them to an alt and they remained usefull.
I am interested on how SOE has futureproofed this expansion? Has it again been designed in isolation with no thought on how SOE wants players to interact with it after the next expansion release.
I am also really disappointed with another instant mission heavy expansion as well. All those people locked away in their own little worlds is going to make Norrath seem really empty again. Sigh. For people who rely on pickup groups, like myself this will be devestating.
Fellowships may help but I wonder can you be summoned into an existing mission instance?
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 5, 2007 08:43 PM
You are able to trade points between characters.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 5, 2007 09:25 PM
"the so-called abguish level group gear will infact require you to already have anguish level gear to obtain"
I talked to the developers about this. There are basically four tiers of armor starting at level 65 and each tier helps lead to the content for the next. So, for example, if you have the top-end gear from the pirate missions, that should be all you need to defeat the first set of Combine missions which leads to better gear. This tiered loot system has the capability to help players break free of the required raid gear for single group content issue you mention.
"I'm curious about how the point rewards shift depending on popularity. Is that actually dynamic?"
It is dynamic.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on February 5, 2007 09:33 PM
I didn't miss something and everything still looks the same right? Damn has WoW spoiled me.
Comment Posted by: Bonzz on February 6, 2007 12:51 AM
it's a total mystery to me why SOE spent so much time and effort on the MM .. hhk, bb, etc ..
a neat way to log on, play for a short time, get a little exp or aa .. hang out with friends dint need a guild or a raid or 40 friends .l...
then decided to nerf all so no one plays in them .....
HELLO SOE !!!!
Comment Posted by: dreaded_dark_knight on February 6, 2007 02:23 AM
And Bonzz, there are only 8 raids, and 60 instanced small group missions. The small group missions have a gear progression so you don't need raid gear to do them.... reading comprehension is apparently not your strong suit.
My only fear is that Fellowships will intensify the "cliquish" nature of most guilds.
Comment Posted by: coolio on February 6, 2007 04:09 AM
Really loving WoW BC. EQ BS will be another expansion I have no need for. 4 months until my EQ subscriptions expire for good and they will not be renewed. Sure, it was hard to give up EQ after 5 years and leave behind all the characters I leveled and geared, but WoW is worth it - it is that good. I'm only sorry I didn't jump into WoW sooner. Pirates? Aaargh, no thanks maties!
Comment Posted by: coolio on February 6, 2007 04:10 AM
And yes, you may have all my stuff so STFU.
Comment Posted by: Bonzz on February 6, 2007 10:44 AM
Dreaded Dark Night, Are you talking about the missions that no one does and weren't even popular or imaginative when they were new?
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on February 6, 2007 01:56 PM
He's talking about the ones that haven't been released yet, Bonzz...
Comment Posted by: Maeven on February 7, 2007 02:34 PM
What was wrong with most of the Monster Missions? They were tons of fun, IMO. Some examples: Coldain missions, Brainnnsssssss! (zombies eating Halfling brains, lol, the Halloween "Gods" mission, the Naggy mission (you get to be Naggy and kill a raid, lol).
I agree with you though, that SOE overnerfed them. It would be a boon to casuals, as well as Raiders who may have limited EXP time, if SOE would un-nerf them somewhat...not completely, some of the missions gave way too much exp, but the nerf was too drastic.
As for TBS _ I will give it a try. Worst that happens is I get killed - repeatedly - lol. And I'm sort of happy that the missions are instanced, TSS open/static ones brought back one thing I could have done without - players griefing, KSing & Ninjalooting from other players. /sigh
Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on February 7, 2007 04:55 PM
Instancing does though make grouping harder. The following will never happen in instances.
Many times with TSS I will be kiting in Sunder or Icefall and see someone pop into zone and /ooc lfg. Now I am perfectly happy soloing so I am not going to look at the LFG tool but I occasionally will send them a tell ask if they want to join me. Sometimes they do, sometimes not. Often I can build a nice group from this.
I also see it a lot from the other side as well. If I am soloing (love being a necro and being able to do stuff while waiting) and there are others in the zone I will occasionally send out an /ooc lfg. From this I get invites to groups of 4 or 5 who are XPing just fine but who don't mind having an extra member tag along to speed things up a bit or to have an extra person to chat with.
The proliferation of BoT teams in EQ atm is exasibated by instancing. People have 3 or more accounts so they can solo instances.
The advantages to instances are it's a protected environment. As such, better than normal rewards can be offered for beating it.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on February 7, 2007 05:32 PM
It saddens me to know that they will release yet another expansion without releasing the previous one (a perfect jump in point) to retail.
It does however makes me glad to hear they are finally thinking of tweaking the models slowly. Once the human one is working, it should be rather easy to tweak the heads a bit to get Erudites also going.
Comment Posted by: Lost in Katta on February 7, 2007 10:24 PM
"The overland zones are huge, with some reports that crossing from one side to the other can take fifteen minutes or longer"
You could always turn on RUN.
Comment Posted by: SomeoneNolrogIsGonnaFlame on February 8, 2007 04:10 AM
Let's see;
LDoN; heavy instancing, content was abandoned completely by the Dev's, as was the entire mechanic, as levels increased. Currently if you don't have a reliable group of close nit friends your only hope of doing LDoN's are to learn to use Xylobot and BOT 3 to 5 additional accounts at 14.99 a month.
DoN; heavy instancing, content was abandoned completely by the Dev's, many missions where nerfed to the point no one wants to do them. Currently if you don't have a reliable group of close nit friends your only hope of doing DoN instances or progression is to learn to use Xylobot and BOT 3 to 5 additional accounts at 14.99 a month.
DoDH; heavy instancing, + Monster Missions, content was abandoned completely by the Dev's, almost ALL missions where nerfed to the point no one wants to do them. Currently if you don't have a reliable group of close nit friends your only hope of doing DoDH MM's or progression is to learn to use Xylobot and BOT 3 to 5 additional accounts at 14.99 a month.
There's a re-occuring theme here.
Sorry, but as someone that once went the way of multiple accounts and is now back down to a sane ONE account, I'm just not seeing the reason for yet another block of content that will be abandoned by the developers within 4 months as they work on expansion 14, knowning full well that pick up groups for most of the 60+ instances will die down to 1 or two instances in use after the first week.
Nothing about this says that the dev's have had a philosphic change. This is just yet another shiney carrot on a stick for the remaining raiders that don't have anything else to do, and yet more open dead space for non-raiders to sit and /lfg.
Sorry, but no. Nothing here say grouping will be re-invigorated in EQ, and nothing here say SOE has embraced soloing.
Comment Posted by: Horde on February 8, 2007 05:16 AM
"Sorry, but no. Nothing here say grouping will be re-invigorated in EQ, and nothing here say SOE has embraced soloing."
WoW has a healthy mix of casuals and raiders. Both soloing and grouping are feasible and encouraged. Blizzard seems to understand that casuals pay the same monthly fee as raiders and use fewer resources, which is fine, as it all goes into a bucket to pay for salaries and further game development. Problem is, EQ is run by fanboys and not by anyone with long term business sense and a dedication to effective marketing and quality customer service.
EQ is dead (for me and many others), long live WoW.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on February 8, 2007 08:27 AM
Thank you Someone for spelling out the sad reality of things... I loved LDoN when it came out and ther were tons and tons of groups for it even though when leveling it was very difficult. It was fun though, I really wish I could have played the DoN or DoDh missions that were more than just "Spawn map, kill 50" and actually had some story or content to it... I did Creator only once and I thought it was super cool. It's such a shame that there is so much content in EQ that is wasted every day.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on February 8, 2007 10:13 AM
-----------------------------
Currently if you don't have a reliable group of close nit friends your only hope of doing [XXXX] or progression is to learn to use Xylobot and BOT 3 to 5 additional accounts at 14.99 a month.
There's a re-occuring theme here.
-----------------------------
The re-occuring theme is so obvious and you yourself stated it!!! You cant do what you want in a group oriented social game without making friends!
If you want to rely on pickup groups, you will have to do what the majority's of the population wants to do, and this will be the newest content.
Also note, its not the developers that abandoned the content, it was the player base. You may have a point about it may not being worth investing in it if your demographic will replace it with something new in a few months, but I hear that Sony will be changing their schedule of expansion release to one per year from now on (this was commented by Woody in gucomics.com)
Comment Posted by: wiggles on February 8, 2007 10:33 AM
What's recurring is paying $30 for ~6-10 months of enjoyment (over and above the monthly fee).
I missed a lot of DoN and DoD when it came out but I met a few people who also want to complete the missions and we do them as time permits (I have 2 arcs done). Along with ToB keys, Dreadspire keys, MPG trials, TSS armor and item quests, even some LDoN's for tribute items and charm upgrades (and get some healers rgc). There's always something to do and goals to complete. As long as it's like this EQ is worth my time and money.
I sincerly hope TBS obsoletes DoN. Time marches forward. I don't do Fear raids, hunt in sebilis, clear VT, exp in PoP zones, etc anymore either although I enjoyed it. DoN rewards outstripped LDoN and the missions were more fun. If TBS outstrips DoN rewards and is more fun, that's a good thing.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on February 8, 2007 05:02 PM
Wiggles you don't understand though, LDoN and DoN could easily be changed to increase mission difficulty and also add in new rewards to match the increased difficulty. They have the possiblity to never become obsolete.
Comment Posted by: Ignignokt on February 9, 2007 05:37 PM
We are the Shissar and our culture is advanced beyond all that you can possibly comprehend with 100% of your brain.
Comment Posted by: Glormane on February 12, 2007 07:41 AM
Are the missions going to be like DoN (no real progression loot only points) or like DoD, cursor loot and chest loot?
I preferred the latter by far.
Comment Posted by: Horzek on February 15, 2007 02:35 PM
I got the chance to log in last night to give the new expansion a shot. After a download time I logged in only to find out that they have tampered with the UI a lot and instead of a play experience I am getting crashed to the desktop. Once again they have broken my gaming experience. The only way I could log in to play was by deleting my custom UI folder and letting them install the default UI. Once this was done I would get in to play but with the UI and all the screen positions scrambled I faced a whole evening of having to find UI patches if any existed and piecing things together again.
Let me compare this with my WoW experience. Once again I use a customized UI and with a new WoW patch I find that I must find the replacement UI. There is a MAJOR difference here though. With WoW I can still log in and I can play immediately. With EQ I crash to the desktop and when I try to log in I am stuck until their sleepy server "sychronizes". It must take 5 minutes or more to get past this fun little item.
Why the SoE people can not take into account the fact that many people use custom UI is well beyond my understanding. In a new patch the last thing I want to do is crash and have to spend the night doing internet research to see what I can do to let me get in and play again. In WoW I know in about 2 minutes what the problem is. In EQ it takes much longer.
I then think to myself " I just paid $30 for my game to crash and for me to spend my night having to troubleshoot it?" I confess this is the straw for me that is the one I am not willing to take. The problem with EQ UI builds is that many of the really nice ones are no longer supported. Kudos to those who do still support theirs but sadly many have moved on and the UI becomes orphaned.
To me it was a bone headed oversight and as a result I decided it would be a perfectly good time to delete EQ from my computer and let my account go.
I could quote from that movie of a few years ago: " I'm mad as hell and IM not going to take it anymore.!"
I guess an 8 year ride is long enough. Game Over
Comment Posted by: Bonzz on February 15, 2007 04:32 PM
No question, Blizzard makes getting started or restarted a painless experience. EQ is a daunting nightmare. Not only is the log in and recovery from crash tedious and slow vs quick and easy, WOW stores a lot of info on their servers vs text files on local computers so it's easy to get up and running FAST on any computer that has the game installed.
It continues to be a mystery why these things can't be streamlined by SOE, but I guess their attitude toward fixing even small things, such as the clunky 3rd person view, reflects their attitude toward paying customers. They just don't care. Every time a player switches to a new computer, it takes a week to set up the UI for all 8 chars, not to mention the 24 hour game download even on a high speed connection. NOT something to look forward to.
Comment Posted by: Bored on February 15, 2007 06:48 PM
I've had enough. Not working quests, continual nerfs, instances that LD groups. Spending the last 2 nights trying to play, trying to do 2 quests, one of which when we tried to enter LD'd the group, to the second quest that ended up being unable to be completed due to bugs (that would of been seen in beta testing by anyone) has been enough for me. Not to mention the sudden emergency patches that interrupted us in the middle of what might have been a working quest,we'll never know.
Most of the group has Vanguard accounts, we'll not be back to EQ for a long time, if ever.
Takes great effort to make a turd out of a diamond the way SoE has.
Comment Posted by: SomeoneNolrogWillNoDoubtFlame on February 16, 2007 02:38 AM
QTF - "Takes great effort to make a turd out of a diamond the way SoE has. - by Bored at February 15, 2007 06:48 PM"
And yet, somehow SOE makes it seem effortless.
Comment Posted by: Nolrog on February 16, 2007 05:02 AM
"I guess an 8 year ride is long enough. Game Over"
CAN I HAVE YOUR STUFF?
Comment Posted by: Shadowrevenant on February 16, 2007 12:25 PM
Omg if I see anymore complaints. Didn't soe just release an expansion dedicated to players of all levels not too long ago(TSS)? And now people are complaining about this one which is for mid to higher levels? /whine off please. And the people who say that soe has failed to come out with anything interesting or worth while to make you want to take up playing again? It may be difficult, but I'm sure they will get over it. I think those who actually give the expansion a try will be most likely be a lot more impressed than the people who just like to make assumptions about something they never tried. And if not, go play another game. There's no need to make a soap opera about you quitting eq after 8 years and never coming back.
Comment Posted by: Eviljoe on February 16, 2007 04:02 PM
Instead of buying an expasion with pirates just get into World of Warcraft and with the right food...Deviate Delight you have the chance to turn into a pirate for 60mins! You also have a chance to turn into a ninja...which leaves the question which is better a pirate or a ninja?
Comment Posted by: ack on February 16, 2007 04:29 PM
which leaves the question which is better a pirate or a ninja?
dunno, but WoW is a better game than EQ.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on February 17, 2007 01:05 AM
>>Didn't soe just release an expansion dedicated to players of all levels not too long ago(TSS)? <<
Why yes, they did. You wanna know why everyone is so pissed off ?? Its simple. For the first time in a REALLY LONG FREAKIN TIME, SOE had the chance to draw in new players, with a all new lvl 1-75 stand alone expansion. Pretty genius huh?!?
Well the brain trust over there in LaJolla fucked it up. They advertised it to no one, they sent out exactly 0 bos sets to stores, they played zero commercials, zero movie trailers, zero free CD's in video game mags, zero public advertising whatsoever. They relied on word of mouth, something that frankly they have lost over the years with bad patches, bad expansion releases and bad customer service.
TBS has followed in that footstep. A fast build cycle, a shitty release and patches to patch the patch that fixed the patch that over wrote the patch that generated a hotfix for the patch that patched the untested patch that patched the release patch.
"Drop the Ball" 10 - SOE 0 -- Game... Set... Match !! The "Fat Lady" will now sing the curtain down for the finale.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Email Mike at mike@mikeshea.net for more questions or comments.