[Mewkus]

I went to the SOE block party this afternoon. While there, they were showing off the next expansion (the Serpent Spine). Since this information was freely given there and there wasn't any kind of NDA, I figured it'd be ok to discuss it here.

The new race - Drakkin - They only had the male models available (all the female models where human). When you create a Drakkin character it sound like you pick one of the 5 dragons (by color) sort of as your sub-breed. At the time, it sounds like most (but not all) classes will be available to be played by drakkin, but some classes might be restricted to the color you choose. The character models appeared to be similar to humans. The only exceptions are that they have small scales from their armpits down to about mid torso, they have extensive tattoos (moreso than barbarians), their eyes glow (im assuming the color of the glow is based on which dragon color they choose).

The new zones - The Drakkin have their starting city. The lore is that it's an abondoned ogre city that became home to the new Drakkin. So a lot of the features of the city are designed for ogre sized people (tunnels, doorways and such). As I gather the Drakkin city is connected to Highpass, which is supposed to be getting a revamp (although it sounds like it's a lite revamp) along with Kithicor Forrest.

Then there's a couple of zones that go from newbie up to 60ish. These are big zones. They were running around at bard on steroid speeds but I could still tell the zones where pretty big. Following those zones, the zone path splits up. Either up into the mountains (where the dragon types are) or down underground to a city under a frozen lake (where the zek giants are).

So there's gonna be two end-game zones for this expansion. One killing giants, the other killing dragons. I know you're thinking velious all over again, but they said that it's not going to be a faction thing like that and they fully expect people to be killing in one chain one day, and the other chain the next.

On the way up to the dragon area, there's lots of ledges, bridges, lava, and all sorts of other environmental hazards you'll have to watch out for (in addtion to the monsters). The final zones looked pretty impressive and you could tell that their artists put a lot of attention to stuff in there. Up in the dragon area, you'll see the CoV logo thing on lots of stuff. Similarly, in the giants area, you'll see symbols of zek everywhere, along with something like 4 or 5 big statues of him. Another thing that looked neat about the giant city is that there's a maze in there that they said was going to be dynamic (think moving walls) that will have several events tied to it. And you'll need to work your way through the maze before getting to the final boss mob for the giant chain.

Mob models - They didn't have any of the unique boss mob type models up to be seen, but there was one water dragon that we came across that looked pretty neat. It kind of looked like a kalorek'dar type dragon but it's body had lots of bends/twits to it. They've got new models for gnolls and griffons. One of the griffon models was suited up in what looked like some kind of feather armor that looked pretty cool. They said there were new models for wolves and bears comming too, but neither of those were loaded for us to see.

Graphically, the most impressive place was probably bee hive city. (Entrance screen shot on SOE site at http://everquest.station.sony.com/media/screenshots/lg/tss1.jpg and interior shot at http://everquest.station.sony.com/media/screenshots/lg/tss17.jpg). The cities populated by bee girls (think cross breading a pixie with a bixie). The screen shot for the interior linked above does not do the place justice. Lots of the walls and stuff are honeycome and glowing yellow/red. This zone will probably excercise all the possible 24 million colors your video card can reproduce. He was running around as a GM, so nothing aggroed on him, so I don't know if these pixie/bixie things are gonna be KoS or not. If they are KoS, this will be a target rich environment cause there were lots of them. I dunno what level they were, so I dunno if they'd be viable targets or not. But my impression is that the area demonstrated a lot of Tunarian influence, so they might be friendly to those who follow/promote Growth.

While there, I also went on a tour of their facilities, including their network operations center. A couple little tid bits if you're interested...
It was saturday afternoon/evening (prolly around 6pm pac time) and most of the servers had around 1800 to 2000 characters logged on. The exceptions were the various test/beta servers which were between one and two hundred and the zek and FV servers which were somewhere around 700 to 800.

That pretty much sums up all that I can remember. If i remember anything else, I'll add it.

[Herkybevo]

Here is another link to a write up from the block party. They have some pictures included.

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=261205

[Prettything]

im getting really sick of all the new models.. they look really cool but for me they really arent worth the lag.. i really wish they had an option to turn them off like they do for the player models.. oh well cant have everythign i guess
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And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive

[Gharret]

I'm just amazed and impressed that they finally managed an expansion without 'of' in the title.

Ruins of Kunark
Scars of Velious
Shadows of Luclin
Planes of Power
Legacy of Ykesha
Lost Dungeons of Norrath
Gates of Discord
Omens of War
Dragons of Norrath
Depths of Darkhollow
Prophecy of Ro
and finally...
Serpent of Spine!

**Sadly, plans are already in the works for the expansion that will be developed after this one. It will be another installment that allows us to explore other ways of playing EQ (like shrouds, missions, and MM's did). The 'of' will be back in this "WWII Re-enacted in a Child's Bedroom First-Person-Shooter" entitled Invasion of Hamsterdam. Think Army Men and Doom meets Sonic the Hedgehog and you've pretty much got it. The boxed version will come with a different digital Cracker Jack prize for each individual character slot. The mobs will be tiny but deadly and some of the bosses will have the ability to hack an adventurer's legs off at the knees (Mimifoo the Bunny hobbles their opponent!). This will also be the expansion that will introduce the long awaited Wheelchair Mount.

**Gharret is not responsible for the actions of anyone who actually believes this crap.

[Herkybevo]

Only class mentioned so far is Monk. There are no stats released, and with today's gear starting stats shouldnt really matter.

[Mewkus]

Regarding classes for the Drakkin, they said, 'think what classes are available to humans'.

From that, I'd gather they'll be able to play just about any class other than the large race classes (shm, bst, bzk). I've not played a human, so not sure what other classes are restricted from them... ranger?

[Herkybevo]

I am a human ranger. The only classes that are human restricted afaik are the ones you listed.

[vishia]

For anyone that hasn't had a chance to play on beta server thought i'd share a few things that i've seen. I know we're not supposed to but figured i'd be safe here.

The graphics in the new zones are really cool, looks more like eq2 type graphics. there are some waterfalls that just look amazing. have seen some new creatures and some old ones in the new zones too. I haven't explored them all yet, is kinda hard to do when there's no maps available yet :/

As for the new aa's well umm, i'm personally not impressed. there are some that are 1 time use things then you have to spend 3 aa's to get them and use them again. I guess it give the people who have all their aa's maxed out and nothing left to do something to spend them on. but as for nice class specific aa's... nothing :/ other than an improved forage aa for you foragers. there is one that raises the stat cap 25 pts. and why they keep giving us bind wound aa's i'll never know.... the healing potions have pretty much made bind wound obsolete. so the new aa's in general kinda suck.

I haven't done any of the tasks nor have I seen any of the new spells yet as I haven't really gotten that much into it. looks like there are tons of tasks and quest givers all over the place so alot to accomplish with this expansion.

Oh and so far they haven't added the graphic for the new race yet, all we see are human models.
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~^*Vishia*^~

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