Remember EverQuest? It's one of the very first MMORPGs that has yet to kick the bucket. The game originally launched in 1999, and now it's celebrating its 15-year anniversary with the launch of its 21st expansion pack, The Darkened Sea. This expansion takes place in the Buried Sea, which was introduced in the 13th expansion pack released in February 2007.
The announcement of The Darkened Sea was made at the SOE Live 2014 event in Las Vegas last week. According to senior producer Thom Terrazas, the new expansion will provide eight tiered zones at launch, including Tempest Temple, Cavern of Endless Song, Degmar the Lost Castle, Thuliasaur Island, Combine Dredge, Arx Mentis, and more. The expansion will also raise the level cap to 105.
According to Terrazas, the new expansion pack will provide new quests, new mission raids, new spells, AAs, items, trade skills, cultural armor and more. Also introduced will be a mount keyring so that the inventory isn't crammed full of mounts, allowing players to store up to 128 mounts in a single "keyring" container. The video below also talks about a new loot system, which will "learn" the player's preference so that undesired loot never appears on the loot screen.
Creative director Akil Hooper and lead designer Jonathan Caraker also provided some details as seen in the video below. The main plot will see Tunare at the Buried Sea trying to heal the Emperor of Katta Castrum, but somehow the Emperor was kidnapped by a splinter cell of the Combine Empire. Naturally, it's up to the player to save the Emperor.
The Darkened Sea follows Call of the Forsaken, which was released in October 2013. Before that was Rain of Fear (2012), Veil of Alaris (2011), House of Thule (2010), Underfoot (2009) and Seeds of Destruction (2008). Before that, SOE was releasing two expansion packs per year after the release of The Planes of Power in 2002.
The expansion will be made available this October 28 for All-Access customers, and then on November 11 for the free-to-play crowd, giving the premium members a head start on the expansion. The video below also provides a Q&A session with the EverQuest team that covers some of the expansion's details and changes to EverQuest in general.
So what were you playing 15 years ago?
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