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Everquest I and II Slated For Expansions
GinoMGG writes "Talk about a quick release. Hot on the tail of Desert of Flames SOE is acting fast to give those at the 60 cap something to do. WhoDigs has news from Ubisoft Germany on the Everquest 2 expansion, 'Kingdom of Sky'." Gamespot has word on both the EQLive and EQ2 expansions, while Mobhunter has a closer look at Everquest's 11th expansion - The Prophecy of Ro. From the Gamespot article: "The second expansion for EQII, Kingdom of Sky, will add an all-new structured skill and ability achievement system and will raise the level cap for adventurer and artisans to level 70 and guilds to level 50. It will add 10 new zones, 25 new monsters, and 'troves' of new items. Its plot will concern the Overrealm, a new realm of floating islands suspended at high altitudes, as well as a plot by ancient foes of Norrath to wreak havoc."
Curious. Expansions in EQ1/2 is starting to mean more vastness that will not be filled. Meanwhile, WoW is getting an expansion, and people are confused. Now...when D&DO comes out, expansions 'should' have a different meaning since D&D type P&P games live on from expansions. I am curious what fealing will be different. I think the mindset toward D&DO is different than other MMOs simply because of its heritage. After finally stopping my WoW habit, I am interested in trying out EQ2 or D&DO, but if EQ2 is going to be coming out with so many pay to play expansions so quickly, I am not sure I want to go that path. However, just having them available to me when my char gets high enough, is a welcome option.
And the irony is that I was the one here who got modded troll.
Anyway, there are two issues with the expansions. One is that there are so many of them that it costs too much over and above the subscription cost to continue buying the expansions. And two is that buying the expansions is pretty much required if you want to play the game at all, because of the rampant equipment inflation that occurs with each release - that is, if you want to continue upgrading your gear, you have to look toward the next expansion, because it's guaranteed that not only will it have new content, but the equipment available in the next expansion will beat anything you could get previously.
Sony's policy toward EQ/EQ2 is to churn out expansions as quickly as possible for the extra revenue. The first EQ2 expansion was released less than a year after the game went live, and there were two "adventure packs" (mini-expansions) released before that. By comparison, Blizzard has yet to announce the release date of its first expansion for WoW, and its equivalent to the adventure pack (aka content patch) has consisted of several dungeons available for free.
Not to make this solely a WoW versus EQ debate, note that Sony is way out ahead of the entire MMOG pack in terms of expansions. For that matter, EQ is even outrunning itself, in a sense - for the first three years of its existence, they averaged one expansion per year. Once SOE became firmly entrenched (remember, EQ was independently operated for the first 15 months by Verant Interactive), they cranked up the expansions to two per year.
From the summary:
Its plot will concern the Overrealm, a new realm of floating islands suspended at high altitudes, as well as a plot by ancient foes of Norrath to wreak havoc.
That sounds an awfully lot like the WoW expansion, except it's Outlands, and it's a plot by the burning legion to destroy everything.