From EQvault : http://eqvault.ign.com/static.php?page=don


Dragons of Norrath Q&A

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Dragons of Norrath is the 9th expansion for EverQuest and set to come out later this month. Robert Pfister, producer of EverQuest, was kind enough to answer some questions for us regarding the upcoming expansion.

EQ Vault: What can new players look forward to with this expansion?

Robert Pfister: Probably the new mission system and the amazing art are two of the most notable things about Dragons of Norrath. The dragon models and the zones are absolutely stunning. The mission system allows players to receive a hand-crafted mission to engage a zone instance specific for their group. It’s really a lot of fun and should be a big hit.

EQ Vault: Some of the screenshots released so far look amazing. Will Dragons of Norrath be more taxing on a system than Omens of War?

Robert Pfister: Nope. We work hard to provide players with high end machines the absolute best graphics they can experience, but we’re also aware of our foundation and don’t want to disenfranchise any players on older machines. The system specs will not change.

EQ Vault: Do you expect Dragons of Norrath to have any effect on class balance?

Robert Pfister: With each expansion we’re conscious of how the features and design may affect classes. The work we’re doing with classes specifically is continuing through the expansion and after launch. That work won’t be completed with launch, but we’ll be sure that each class has a role in the expansion and that we’re cogniscent of ensuring that everyone have something fun and worthwhile to do.

EQ Vault: How many of the new zones will require access quests or flags to enter?

Robert Pfister: Players will be able to access all of the expansion zones without the need to undertake quests or earn flags. One zone won't be available when the expansion first opens, but players won't need to obtain flags to enter. A special event must take place before anyone can enter the zone.

EQ Vault: What will the level range for the new zones be?

Robert Pfister: 45-70. Lavastorm is open to all and has the same level range as before.

EQ Vault: How fast do you see players progressing through Dragons of Norrath content?

Robert Pfister: That’s always a difficult question. It depends on your play style, your play time, whether you play in groups or guilds, etc. Suffice to say there’s enough to do in Dragons for a long, long time. The Mission system alone has over forty mission types.

EQ Vault: With the addition of a potion belt, will more items that are inventory right-clickable be added to the world?

Robert Pfister: The potion belt is usable with any item we have tagged to be useable in it whether it’s right-clickable or not, so you can expect that going forward, more things will make use of this feature.

EQ Vault: Could you explain how the Barter System will work? Will it be connected to the Bazaar?

Robert Pfister: The Barter zone is a separate zone next to the Bazaar. All players can go to the barter zone, those with DoN can use the /barter or /buyer command to place items available for barter into the system. If I have bone chips, for example, and I want rat fur, I’d put in my stack(s) of bone chips and state that I would trade them for a certain number of rat furs. Much like the bazaar, the player doesn’t need to be at the keyboard to affect the transfer.

EQ Vault: One of the features for Guild Halls is a “Looking for Members” tool that includes an in-game e-mail system. Could you explain how the in-game email system works?

Robert Pfister: The in-game email is available to all players on the launch day of Dragons of Norrath. Players will use the interface to send another character in the game an email. That email will stay available to the character until it’s read and the receiving character decides to delete it.

EQ Vault: Will all guilds, large and small, be able to own a Guild Hall, or will the requirements be aimed toward larger guilds?

Robert Pfister: All guilds will have access to their own guild hall.

EQ Vault: Can guild members decorate their own Guild Halls?

Robert Pfister: At this point in time, no. It’s an instanced zone that is available to any guild member at any time, but for right now, they’re not customizable.

EQ Vault: Could you go into detail on how the Mass Corpse Summoning Altar works?

Robert Pfister: It’s quite simple, really. A player purchases a focus item from a Disciple of Luclin in the alter room of the Guild hall. That player turns in this focus item to a Priest of Luclin who in turn will summon their corpse or corpses.

A guildy of mine copy+pasted this on our guild boards. I am trying to find a link directly to it (to give the author credit...) and I will edit it in when/if I get it. Its by someone named

Since the NDA on content has been lifted for Dragons of Norrath, I'd like to take this opportunity to give my preview.

It is my firm belief that this is the most all encompassing expansion imaginable when it comes to playstyle and variety. I'll try to cover as much as I can here.

One day some whacky gnomes and their mechanized workforce, with the help of some adventurers make an amazing discovery, which will forever change the face of the planet. Digging through in Lavastorm, they happen upon a wondrous land filled with long forgotten beings... drakes, their goblin labor force, mighty basislisk, advanced forms of the mysterious swirling dervish, new forms of arachnae, and structures built from a long forgotten land.... built and controlled by the workforce and overseen by mighty and mysterious dragons.

One dragon in particular, Tirranun, the Lord of Magma is none too pleased with this turn of events, and in a bold move, invades Lavastorm, Angry, Wrathful, Challenging any who dare to come spoiling, or as the arrogant adventurers always put it "exploring" his hidden lands....

At the same time, two different, and opposing organizations of Norrathians set up command posts within Lavastorm, the Dark Union and Norrath's Keepers, one dark, one light, to try to make sense of it all, to try to gather any advantage they can from these lands to bolster their side for success against the other. The neurtal Wayfarer's Brotherhood being relegated to acting as mercenaries, messengers, and runners for the two more powerful, and more committed sides can only watch from the outside looking in.

The stage has been set...

Themes:

From the Screenshots and WebPage, you could probably already ascertain that this is a Dragon Oriented, and Oriental Oriented expansion. The "oriental" aspect of it is stellar. It's less of a "Look how oriental we are" than it is just an accepted fact, it becomes part of the identity rather than being brought to the forefront all the time. There are tended gardens, classic Japanese walls and structrues where it means something.

Dragons are also a big theme, but from a respectful and historical perspective, not necessarily from a "Throw Dragons in your face" perspective. You dont' see 1400 diferent dragons, there's a handful of very powerful ones, their legends are the content, not their duplication. Most of the beings encountered are dragon support staff, and natural fauna. Goblins, drakes, Kirin, Cats (some great new cat models), Spiders are all meaningful, and they all seem to have specific roles and meaning. The spiders are spider like, they don't care about dragons, they care about spider stuff, like munching on things, and eating. The goblins are cool, kind of almost stoic. The Kirins are wise beings, keepers of lore, lovers of knowledge, but fierce opponents nonetheless. The drakes are well.... drakes.

The whole thing starts in Broodlands, an area which is off of Lavastorm, but is a mysterious conglomeration of Magma area, where the Lavaspinners make their home, and myths tell the tale of a path to the Lair of the Short Tempered Tirranun himself. There is a lake in the middle, which separates it into Lush Greenery, Wind Swept Desert, Jungle, etc. A truly multi climate zone. There are mysterious statues and monuments honoring the accomplishments of various dragons, like the Mighty Yar'Lir, dragon of storms, and others.

A mysterious temple sits on the side of a mount, the temple called "Stillmoon". This temple is a breathtaking place, an oriental building with closely tended gardens, libraries, bath areas, the works. It also leads to the back side, the mountain itself, called simply... "The ascent", where word has it that not one, but two dragons rule from on high.

There's another area they call "Thundercrest isles", with an Oriental Fortress type of theme, several isles, and home of the Callers of Storms, and the mighty Yar'Lir.

There is "The nest", the heart of the brood, where the dragons most fiercely protect their young, their progeny, and their privacy. Only the strongest fools dare enter the nest, and few make it back alive.

Now, onto content:

This is the single most well packaged expansion ever, because it looks so shallow, but in reality is so deep. It seems so simple on the face of it. A few new zones, some dragons, wrap it up, ship it and call it a day. When looked deeper, it's STUNNING how much content is put in this expansion and how much can be done.

There are 7 static zones along with the new Lavastorm, where lots of people will be spending lots of time. Broodlands is aimed at people oh level 45ish to level 55ish, LOTS of NPC's, lots of "camps", lots of lots of stuff. Lavaspinners' lair would be a 50ish to 60ish zone, Tirranun's Delve being a 60ish to 70ish zone, Stillmoon being a 60ish to 68ish zone, Ascent being a 65-70ish zone, Thundercrest being a 70ish zone, the Nest being a little higher end 70ish zone.

Now, here's where it gets tricky. The mission system. The mission system is somewhat similar to LDoN but oh... 1000 times better. Instead of using some hidden caverns that look similar to one another but not realy compelling, the DoN mission system uses instances of existing static zones. You are given missions, not lame "Go kill 50 mobs and come back", but complex missions into the zones you're familiar with, yet usually a bit harder than the static zones, but... the trick is, with compelling tasks, things to figure out, really a LOT of fun, and MUCH MUCH more than the mindless pulling and killing of mobs over and over for small chunks of exp. Things like talking to some lone lorekeeper who has some information, but he won't talk to you until you find the perfect cherry blossom, then he sends you on your way to talk to someone else, who is generally reclusive, but can be drawn out if he's made mad, and so on and so forth. There's a main theme to the missions, but each one has several substeps... the absolute best part is that they're in existing zones, that you're already familiar with. You really feel a sense of immersiveness with the mission system, because it's not "Go into this cave which is the same as the last cave with right turns instead of left", but rather, "Sneak into Stillmoon Temple and talk to this guy who we've contacted to help us, he'll instuct you further".

The rewards for the mission system is similar to LDoN but better. You're paid in a special currency, which is called "Shards". These "Shards can only be spent at the camp where they're earned, and there's 2 camps. The Evil Camp, and the Good Camp. You pick which one you're gonna help. For those concerned about friends picking other factions and whatnot, that's covered. Anyone can go on a mission for either camp, as long as they're grouped with the person that's requested the mission. The shards are droppable/tradeable as well, so if your friends are goody goodies and you go on a good mission and get paid in good shards... you can trade them for bad shards, heck you can even sell shards and buy shards.

There's mission vendors who sell some QUALITY gear, we're talking some serious stuff here, from new proc augments to the new spells/skills, to armor sets, to weapons, new armor augments, etc. They're not nearly as overpriced as they were in LDoN either, 7-10ish missions will net you top of the line stuff.

Tradeskills are being focused on.... HOT HOT HOT cultural armor sets.... and yes, this time Half Elves even get to make cultural armor. There's even rumors of skill cap increases.

Guild Halls: Holy Convenience Batman, this has it all... from the "Looking for Guild" tools, to the Corpse Summonners in the Guild Hall Lobby where you buy a stone which will summon corpses based on level (all priced accordingly of course) to instanced Guild Hall specific areas which contain Aug Sealers, Bankers, Guild bankers, Portals, Rejuvinating pools, Tradeskill Areas.

Barter Zone... the "reverse Bazaar" where if you know what you want, set yourself up to buy it, put in "buy orders", someone can walk in and sell what they're looking to sell and so on and so forth, it's really cool.

Bandolier... amazingly simple and easy to use, makes the switching to pre-selected weapon sets easy and instant. This is useful for every single class, not just melee, and covers primary, secondary, range, and ammo slots. you start with 4 configurations... we'll see how far it goes.

Potion belt: I didnt' play much with this feature, but you can right click from potion belt slots rather than general inventory, and it's a small UI box, so it's fairly easy to use a potion in a pinch.

Raid content... there's a bit of raid content, from instanced raids to the dragons themselves, interesting and quite difficult.

It's not a "progressive" expansion per se, insofar as locked/flagged zones, but there's progression in the mission system, and LOTS to do.

Frodlin's Preview Ratings:

Graphics: A
Content: A-
Story: B
Rewards: B+
Challenge: B

Overall, it's a great expansion, EVERY playstyle, fromt he most casual, to the most hardcore seems represented here, the only exception being that it's a little shallow on the raid content, but the quality of the raid content almost makes up for the quantity.

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=59694

thanks!

nice post netura!

Can you get singles missions in DON? That is my selling point for the expansion. There is not many people on my server anymore so you are basiclaly forced to solo. I was on yesterday and did a who all 1 65 LFg and got 9 people listed. Only one of the people was in my level range for that character level 51 which was a 55 mage. So right now solo missions for these shards would rock. Something solo that even a warrior could do would be great.

Not my post Logilitie, tho I wouldnt mind taking credit...From Frodlin; I think he is The Steel Warriors warrior correspondant.

You can request DoN missions solo as of the end of beta, You can even kill some things in them as a druid and if you're patient maybe win one after 4 or 5 hours, but as a solo warrior? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah... No.