Okay, so, first of all, listening in over voice chat was pretty nifty.
Secondly, everyone sounded incredibly awkward. 
So anyhow, here is the EQ2 news:
As speculated, Sentinel’s Fate will be the 6th EQ2 expansion.
It will explore the continent of Odus, and the only name that I managed to snag out of the amazingly nervous-sounding Brenlo was Toxxulia Forest.
The level cap is raised 10 levels, also. No word on whether this will be a 1-90 expansion ala Faydwer, or if it will be a linear expansion like DoF/KoS/RoK/TSO. I personally would really like to see a 1-90 progression.
However, Brenlo did mention that Halas will be a new Good-Aligned starting city, and will be the “best new-player experience” to bring “hundreds of thousands of new players to what we know is the best MMO on the market” (I won’t disagree with that, it surely is) — however, it is being made available a la Darklight Woods and Neriak, as a free content download “at or around” the time of launch of Sentinel’s Fate. So it seems doubtful to me that the new expansion will be 1-90 … or else it would encompass the Halas update by default. But perhaps 20 – 90? I could do for that.
Live Updates are officially occurring every 3 months (as we already knew if we have been reading the forums).
In the next Live Update, there will be something called Auto-Mentoring. Specifics weren’t given, but essentially your character can be “down-tiered” and can thereby complete old quests and run old dungeons for achievement and experience.
My questions here are myriad:
- What measures are in place to prevent this from absolutely destroying any and all incentive for players to create alts, and thereby group with other low-level players? We all know mentoring is highly overpowered as your stats, spells and equipment scale down at the maximum caps for any given level. It seems to me, many players will go back, destroy old content solo or in two or three, monopolize dungeon named, and really make things generally lonely for genuine new players or genuine low level characters. I’m not trying to be gloomy gus about this, but the reality is that after 5 years of playing this game, I know how players are — and if they can do something alone, they will, as opposed to grouping.
Other things planned (whether for the next LU or for the expansion, or somewhere in-between, wasn’t clear):
“EQ2 achievements”
- Apparently you will be able to display, in some form other than in-game titles, your various achievements. Not really much in the form of example was given, although it seems like it would be the virtual equivalent of a sign telling others what you’ve done. Like, how many times you’ve killed this or that name, run this or that dungeon, or whatever. (Just my own speculation — not actually stated that this is what could be done.)
The Shard of Love
- Okay … I seriously thought this was a joke. But I guess not. Apparently Erollisi Marr is going to return along with … The Shard of Love. I mean … really? Why not the respective shards of the Tribunal, Karana, Brell, or Rallos? Justice, Storms, Underfoot, and War would all be MUCH more interesting than … fluffy pink unicorns and heart-shaped windows.
Nothing mentioned of EQ3 … not that I expect it will come this year. But maybe later in the event!
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