View Full Forums : Depths of Darkhollow Sept-13


Naturer
06-13-2005, 02:47 PM
Loral's Preview of the Depths of Darhollow EverQuest Expansion
http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=9010 (http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=9010)

I just returned from the preview of Depths of Darkhollow, the tenth Everquest expansion. It is with cramped hand that I bring you latest details on this exciting expansion. The expansion has three major aspects; play as a monster, intelligent items, and the traditional expansion zones and missions. SOE will release Depths of Darkhollow on September 13th, 2005. Let’s dig right in.

Play as a Monster
The most exciting feature of Depths of Darkhollow lets players select monsters as play characters. Anyone who remembers Project M remembers how much fun it was to jump into the body of a moss snake and pwn newbs. The Play as a Monster features improves on this idea in many directions.

There are two ways to play as a monster: within missions and using a system called the Spirit Shroud.

Using the Spirit Shroud, players can select lower level beasts to hunt with lower level friends in old-world zones. This meets a long-standing problem where friends of mixed levels could not hunt together. Though high level players may pick lower level monsters, the experience gained will improve both their primary play character and their selected beast. The creatures a player can polymorph into are limited by the infamous global memory file; a large file containing all of the player models, armor, weapons, pets, and other common world-wide models.

The second method of playing as a monster lets players jump into missions as any monster within the dark minds of the SOE designers and artists. Players can jump into a variety of missions with a variety of different monster PC models. We heard whispers of a lower guk mission with the PC playing the Froglok assassin or Froglok Shin Lord fighting the hoards of beasts from Cazic Thule’s armies.

These missions offer unlimited potential for historical EQ battles fought from the other side. Players might play as Nagafen and eat raids full of NPCs who wish to slay the great red beast. Using spirit shrouds, players of high-end guilds can switch to a pack of level 50 beasts and hunt Lord Nagafen once again.

This feature alone fixes many outstanding difficulties in massive online games. It lets players play with lower-level friends. It helps players hunt even if they are missing a required class archetype. It helps revitalize old-world content by making any zone lower than a player huntable once again.

Since missions, this is the most exciting feature I have ever seen added to EQ.

Zones and Graphics
The expansion itself will include seven large static zones and fifteen instanced missions. This doesn’t include a large raid-level instance of the final zones, Darkspire, intended to offer a large amount of content for current high-end raiders who quickly run out of existing raid content. This high-end zone will offer uninstanced single-group hunting as well as single-group and raid missions.

From the screenshots we see large dark forests inhabited by ghost-white werewolves (perhaps that’s your friend Bob! Hey Bob!). We see huge bottomless caverns full of criss-crossing walkways between giant stalactites. We see the giant cathedral of the Darkspire. We see the twisted cities of the Illithid-Liches (Nanyea says they’re called “Alhoon”). The first shot of the large forest is called “Nektulos”. Could a zone revamp of our favorite dark forest be in our future?

The zones look beautiful and it sounds like they’ll have a lot of content for a lot of players.

The monsters themselves, both PCs and NPCs look excellent including werewolves, the liches mentioned above, eels, big mushrooms, minotaurs, gnomish lockwork rogues, orcs, and drachnids.


Intelligent Items
The final feature discussed during our preview of Depths of Darkhollow were Intelligent items, also referred to as “Evolving Items” and “Smart Items”. Did you ever read the R.A Salvatore Legacy of the Drow books? Remember Dantag Banere’s intelligent demonic sword, Khazid'hea? Imagine that in EQ. Swords will insult their slain masters and desire the expert hand of another. These weapons earn experience as though they were characters, growing in power as their master (or servant?) wields them. The possibilities are endless.

During the last three days, Craig Knapp, Everquest producer describes his visions of Everquest growing in depth instead of breadth. His philosophy seems to be both metaphor and literal at the same time. Depths of Darkhollow looks to take Everquest into whole new directions. Most importantly, the features of Depths of Darkhollow clearly define Everquest as a continued force in a fiercely competitive world.

Naturer
06-15-2005, 03:42 AM
oh and, greetings all- new to the boards.

Koldriana
06-15-2005, 04:40 PM
Welcome!

I was lucky enough to be at Fanfaire to see the video which I thought was on the CD that they handed out to all of us, unfortunately it wasn't but Loral has the screenshots up on Caster's Realm.

Looks like a neat expansion and quite 'off of the beaten track' that we have been used to seeing from SoE. Basically the Dev's were saying that they wanted something innovative. I guess we will see how it turns out.

Gruven
06-15-2005, 05:04 PM
Hmm Interesting Idea's..

Logilitie
06-17-2005, 01:08 PM
would be neat if you got to start playing as a level 1 mob..
the more noobs or other mobs you killed the more xp you're mob woul dbe..
so you could play a higher level mob as you gained mob XP.
kick arse!!!

Aluaeia
06-17-2005, 02:54 PM
From the follow ups that have been posted by Absor, you aren't going to be able to grief noobs when you're in monster form.

Grenoble
06-18-2005, 12:42 AM
Who needs to play a mob?

I go to OT, pop chaotic jester, and if the bugger changes me into either a dragoon or a scorpiki I haul ass to Skyfire to freak everyone out.

Naturer
06-21-2005, 12:37 PM
There are hardly any newbs in them old zones anyhow :/ they all seem to be hiding from my trains of skeletons and bats and beetles--oh my!
:mage01:

Kinyenya
07-05-2005, 02:06 AM
I actually thought this was a very bad joke when i heard about this expansion. What the hell is Sony thinking.

Shamarra
08-13-2005, 07:40 PM
Are we going to get a level up increase to 75??

Galain
08-13-2005, 08:54 PM
Are we going to get a level up increase to 75??

No

noirblood
08-17-2005, 12:38 PM
So wait, you get relative experience gains while using the shroud that will actually accrue as higher level xp?

Does this mean that u lose high-level xp when u die as a low-level monster?

Nimchip
08-17-2005, 06:15 PM
So wait, you get relative experience gains while using the shroud that will actually accrue as higher level xp?

Does this mean that u lose high-level xp when u die as a low-level monster?

Sounds promising, hopefully exp won't be mediocre COUGH COUGH.

Alwind.Siafu
08-18-2005, 10:14 AM
It seems like it will be easy to PL high level characters this way. Picture the scenario:

I'm a level 70 druid. My Level 70 Warrior buddy uses his "Spirit Shroud" and becomes a Level 1 Warrior. We hit the Warrens and just slaughter Kobold after Kobold. For a level one this exp is astronomical. I know because I use the area to PL people. Am I missing something? It seems like it will be far to easy to get exp this way. Let me know if I'm missing something. Thanks,

Alwind Siafu.

noirblood
08-19-2005, 12:36 PM
I was pondering this today and was worrying that people will stop grouping in high level zones because they can just go to crushbone and xp with ease. Of course, keep in mind that if u bring urself down to a level 8 monster u wont exactly be a powerhouse...and you'd need PL help to really take advantage of it, which has always been the case...just never for high level folks.

The one thing I could think of that will keep people in their high level forms and in high level zones, aside from the obvious fun/challenge/respect of being in a high-level zone, is the loot. If you're PL'ing in crushbone u won't be getting many runes or nice drops...

But yeah it does sound like it could potentially change things pretty drastically. We'll see :)

Nimchip
08-19-2005, 12:53 PM
You guys really have to wait and see.. there's more to it than what's told there i'm sure. I personally find the idea to be fantastic, and I will love to get new buddies in EQ now that I can exp with them, while using my own char and not an alt :)

Taeyn Kaidyrsi
08-19-2005, 05:34 PM
I doubt you will get the full amount of exp you'd normally get at those levels. When mentoring in EQ2, you got only a fraction of the exp. I expect it will be similar in EQ, even though we're not mentoring.

The expansion is still not available for preorder though Amazon.com. All other expansions were available months before release. With the release date less than a month away, I'm beginning to wonder if the retail box version is really going to be available. After all ... a 10k mount is quite an expensive gift.

Adrius
08-22-2005, 12:15 AM
I have 1 thing to say, GIMMI MORE AA SOE, AND TAKE OFF THE AA CAP!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10k is nothing these days really. , well to me its nothing, maybe thats just cause im loaded =x

oakdad
08-22-2005, 01:29 PM
I like the idea of being able to change classes. Just hope we can use it in the summon hall so I can turn myself into a cleric and rez myself:wiggle:

Naturer
08-23-2005, 01:12 PM
change classes? thought you could only change levels

Aluaeia
08-25-2005, 01:02 AM
I have 1 thing to say, GIMMI MORE AA SOE, AND TAKE OFF THE AA CAP!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10k is nothing these days really. , well to me its nothing, maybe thats just cause im loaded =x

It's not just you, 10k is nothing.

Adrius
08-25-2005, 04:32 AM
i still remember your hawt! do you still remember mine?

Aluaeia
08-27-2005, 01:40 AM
Yes, and I haven't washed my face since last we met.

Adrius
08-29-2005, 03:27 AM
aw gawd /drools

Naturer
08-31-2005, 01:28 AM
Any leaks of the AAs yet? :elfbiggri

Naturer
09-01-2005, 01:47 AM
Oh, and

:bubbrubb2