Depths of Darkhollow

[Lynnsie]

I haven't seen anything for the new EQ expansion due out in September anywhere on VV so I figured I'd go ahead and post this link incase people didn't already know it.

The zone screenshots look really neat and some of the NPC models look really nice. It's definately a positive change from the Alien Invaders we saw in Gates of Discord. This expansion comes with a zone wide revamp of Nektulos Forest, that's supposedly where this new expansion takes place. Enough rambling from me.. here's the link. Enjoy!


http://everquest.station.sony.com/dod/index.jsp

[Dregor Thule]

It's nice to see the evolving graphics for a game of EQ1's age. A lot of those screenshots (took a look at DoN's screens too.. missed that one entirely it seems!) look more inviting than most EQ2 screens :/

[Madren]

looking forward to this.

download the wmv movie from the hollows site, looks good.

[Sylvos]

wow that's kinda cool.
im surprised EQ is still going and making expansions.

[Aslanna]

wow that's kinda cool.
im surprised EQ is still going and making expansions.

It's not too late to come back... You know you want to play!

[Mr Bacon]

*cough*project m was clearly halted so they could make money off the idea*cough*

[Lynnsie]

My guild got invited to do the beta testing for the raid stuffs in DoDH, so I'll see what I can dig up and dish out when we start the testing. As far as it looks from all the previews it looks to be promising, but then GoD did too and then Aliens came and took over the developers brains. I think they got half the names from that gay ass, half done expansion, from a dude with a speech impediment trying to pronounce normal names. "This kid keeps saying Pixxt, or shit, what's he saying? Ya, Pixxt sounds right." Hopefully the trash mobs in this expansion don't riposte for 5.5k and Ramp you to near death then make you die due to low health aggro.

[Siji]

DoN was great and I was really looking forward to it. This stinks of crap and I'm dreading how they implement the 'players playing mobs' "feature". So much room for complete asshattery.

[Aslanna]

http://mobhunter.com/001416.html

"While time will tell for sure, Depths has all of the signs to be the best Everquest expansion ever released" is a bold statement!

Depths of Darkhollow: In-depth Preview
by Loral on September 09, 2005

Nearly a year has passed since the release of Worlds of Warcraft and Everquest 2. With such fierce competition, many worried that Everquest was finally on the downward spiral. We worried that these new games would have features and functions impossible in a game like Everquest and that the EQ development team would be hard pressed to add anything unique or interesting to Everquest that hadn't been done before.

We should not have worried.

Depths of Darkhollow is Sony Online Entertainment's tenth Everquest expansion in six years. It is, by far, the most bold and innovative expansion ever released. While other games struggle to keep up with features like LDON adventures and the Mission System, Depths of Darkhollow adds unique, useful, and fun features never seen in any other massive online game.

Since the difficult release and lackluster response of Gates of Discord, SOE has improved Everquest with every expansion. Every expansion improved upon the strengths of the previous and Depths of Darkhollow appears no different.

One would assume that a tenth expansion in any game would have difficulty improving upon the original game and nine previous expansions, but Depths of Darkhollow shows once again how far this six year old game can go.

Let's dig in. We start with the basic content found in most expansions and end this preview by looking at the more radical features: spirit shrouds, monster missions, and evolving items.

Depths of Darkhollow includes six new large static zones including The Undershore, Stoneroot Falls, The Ruins of Illsalin, Corathus Creep, The Hive, Dreadspire Keep. The release of Depths of Darkhollow also included a rebuilt Nektulos forest for all EQ players including those not purchasing the expansion. These zones scale from level 45 to level 70 with three zones tuned for level 68 to 70 hunters. Dreadspire Keep should give a good challenge to those bored of Riftseekers.

These static zones include a wide range of design from huge statues and torch-lit tent cities to huge suspended stone bridges crisscrossing huge chasms. The EQ artists found an excellent balance between the hyperrealism of Everquest 2 and the epic, but cartoony feel of World of Warcraft. The design and architecture of Depths includes a lot of detail without sacrificing the feeling of epic fantasy.

Dreadspire Keep, the end-zone of Depths of Darkhollow, is not locked by a raid like the end-zones in most previous expansions but instead by a single group event. Dreadspire is an entirely different style of zone, one of such strangeness that it must be seen and heard to be believed. You will travel through the depths of shadowy hell only to find yourself walking into the set for Masterpiece Theater with a pale-skinned butler handing you a warm glass of brandy.

Since Lost Dungeons of Norrath, every Everquest expansion has included instanced single group hunting areas. Dragons of Norrath included the Mission system and Depths further capitalizes on Missions by adding over forty single group missions from level 55 to 70. Depths of Darkhollow changes the path towards mission progression from the ways of Dragons.

Depths mission progression consists of a set of missions in each of the static zones. You are rewarded for each mission accomplished and again when you complete a set of missions in each of the zones. There will be random rewards for those who do a mission more than once, but unlike Dragons, you will be rewarded for completing a variety of different missions rather than completing the same mission over and over.

Here is an example. You and your ragged band of adventurers meets an important figure in the Depths of Darkhollow who sends you on a mission. You go on the mission, fight a big horrible creature and its minions. When the boss is defeated, your group is rewarded with a dropped item you may divvy up as you choose. If this is the first time you or any of the others have done this particular mission, you will receive a one-time reward that may be a piece of gear or some other tasty treasure. Future battles against this mission will still drop a piece of gear off of the boss, but future one-time rewards must be received from different dungeons you have not yet defeated.

One important note and change that may frustrate some players. Mission entrances are sometimes very deep in hostile zones. Getting TO a mission can become as difficult as the mission itself. These missions are tuned to include the time it takes to arrive as well as the time it takes to complete so they shouldn't become much longer to complete than missions in previous expansions. It can be frustrating, however, to accept a mission and not actually begin it until after an hour of traveling.

Depths of Darkhollow also includes some single group events (I heard them referred to as single group raids, a term that made my head spin but my heart soar) that are triggered by a group but take place in open zones. These are a mixture of instanced missions and regular overland killing but the idea is unique. This fits well with my previous request for more interesting single group content than static hunting and boring boss monsters.

Many Anguish-level raiders found the high-end raids in Dragons of Norrath to be too easy and not rewarding enough to hold their interest. Once Overlord Mata Muram was defeated in the Citadel of Anguish more than a few times, these raiders had little to do. Depths attempts to pacify and perhaps humble these high-end raiders.

Depths of Darkhollow includes two dozen events and raids ranging from 24 person elemental level events to 54 person Anguish and post-Anguish level raids. Anguish raiders can expect over a dozen 54 person high-end raids. This will hopefully give high-end raiders more than enough challenge and also offer further parallel progression paths for lower-end raiders to reach more powerful challenges and greater rewards.

While not a level-cap increasing expansion, Depths offers a bit of character progression. Depths includes about a dozen new AAs for each character class for a total of perhaps 200 points of further AA progression. Depths includes one new discipline for melee and even a new discipline for hybrids, something they have requested for some time.

Spell casters will see two or three new spells for each caster class in the level 65 to 70 range. New forms of spell research will allow players to research previously dropped spells from older expansions including the elusive 69 and 70 runes from Omens of War. The exact details of this research is still unknown but acquiring these spells should be less frustrating than in the past.

Now we will look at some of the unique features of this expansion.

One of the greatest challenges and frustrations of a massive online game comes when two friends both play the same game but one quickly outstrips the other due to longer play times. Soon these two friends, who used to hunt together often, cannot hunt together at all due to such a wide level range. A Penny Arcade parody of Worlds of Warcraft covers it well.

Other games have found ways to solve this problem. City of Heroes included the sidekick system that raised the level of one player to meet the other. Everquest 2 included the Mentor system that let one player lower his or her level to that of a friend. Everquest added a big twist on this mentor system with Spirit Shrouds.

Spirit shrouds allow players to polymorph into a monster of their level or below in increments of 5. These monsters are broken up into archetypes called "templates". Each template includes a set of skills that meet a typical character archetype such as melee, spellcaster, healer, utility, or tank. There are eight sets of spirit shrouds with over twenty different monster models and over thirty different shrouds total.

My good friend Nanyea wrote a detailed look at spirit shrouds and I recently wrote an instructional guide to spirit shrouds. I also wrote a previous article called What Will Play as a Monster Mean for EQ feature.

The primary purpose for spirit shrouds is to allow higher level players an opportunity to effectively hunt with lower level friends. It meets this job very well. Shrouds also let players try out templates vastly different from their own. If you spent most of your time playing a pasty cleric, you can now try out playing as a melee, spellcaster, or tank.

At higher levels, shrouded monsters become less powerful than characters of the same level. Much of this is based on the large equipment and Alternate Advancement power increases at higher levels. Shrouds should allow players to switch to a needed archetype if a group is missing one core member, but they will not be able to hunt in the most powerful areas. A group of three primary characters and three shrouded characters should to be able to hunt in places like Wall of Slaughter and the lower Dragon missions.

However, if a group cannot find one core class for a hunt, they might consider monster missions instead.

When I first heard about Depths of Darkhollow I was most excited about spirit shrouds. After my first Nagafen monster mission, I changed my mind.

Monster Missions are the best feature of Depths of Darkhollow. Monster missions let any group of four to six players of any level and any class face a challenge as monsters in an instanced scenario. Monster missions open the door to entire new possibilities for challenging encounters. They are self-contained events under perfectly controlled environments and power levels. They are easily balanced and not affected by any outside influence. They are the most fun I've had in EQ in a long time.

There are twenty such monster missions in Depths of Darkhollow. About half of these are in the depths itself while ten go back to old world zones to let players face some old world challenges. Imagine invading Freeport as a band of pirates. Imagine fighting off the undead hoards as froglok paladins in lower guk. Imagine breathing waves of fire upon sniveling raiders who invade in an attempt to steal your Cloak of Flames. The possibilities are endless. My only hope is that we continue to see new monster missions added in the future.

Depths offers a new form of equipment known as "evolving items". These items grow in power the more you use them. They may start off as weaker pieces of equipment but the more you use them, the stronger they get. There are several dozen such items in Depths of Darkhollow. Intelligent items are a rare subset of these. These items will actually communicate to the player through emotes and possibly tells. Though these items will be quite rare and unique, they will be available to single group hunters as well as high-end raiders.

Depths of Darkhollow is the first expansion to offer a box prize so useful that I will suffer the traffic of Washington DC to buy my copy retail rather than download it from SOE directly. Those who purchase the retail version of Depths of Darkhollow will receive an in-game clockwork boar mount. This mount is comparable to the 10k plat horse and drogmar mounts but with a unique model and look. Rewards like these offer an incentive to retail outlets to carry this expansion and it is these boxes on the shelf that bring new players to Everquest. Unfortunately, poor retail systems between the US and other countries make it nearly impossible for non-US players to receive such a reward.

Depths of Darkhollow shows how far Everquest can evolve. While many questioned how long a game like EQ can survive, we only have to look at the ingenuity in expansions such as this one to see how far Everquest can continue to go. Depths of Darkhollow offers all of the strongest features of a good solid expansion along with two of the most radical concepts I have seen in any roleplaying game. Considering the hours and hours of content this expansion contains, it is easily worth the $30 price tag. While time will tell for sure, Depths has all of the signs to be the best Everquest expansion ever released.

[Winnow]

When does this go live?

I like the monster mission and spirit shroud ideas.

[ieail17]

they keep stealing my money:(

[Aslanna]

Tuesday.

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

EQ 1 really looks good there!

[Aslanna]

Haven't tried the shroud things yet but it will probably end up being a novelty type thing. Mainly just did some instanced missions... Seemed decent enough. The first ones had some fairly tough mobs for the level of loot you got (elemental basically). Did two others and the loot wasn't all that better but it's still fun doing new stuff. Only saw 2 zones but that was to run to the instance. Reminded me of Fungus Grove. But it's been so long since I've been to FG my memory could be hazy.

Anyway, too early to see how it stacks up overall but it seems decent so far. Hopefully the raid content will take longer to defeat than it did in DoN.

[Winnow]

I tried out the shroud thing. You get the gargoyle shroud with the purchase of the retail expansion box. After hailing the shroud guy for the mob you want to be (gargoyle is only one I know of so far) a window pops up and you can select what level mob you want to be and maybe choose where to put some AAs...I saw an abilities window briefly before closing it and not knowing how to reopen it...you may have to do the monster modifying at the shroud guy before wandering off.

Anyways, the monster form you turn into is permanent, even if you log off, until you return to the same shroud guy and "say remove".

Here's what the garg thing looks like:



The movement "flying" animation is pretty good for EQ1 graphics.

It might be fun. I didn't get to check anything else out as I spent the rest of the night finding a decent UI that works with the new expansion.

[Boogahz]

V pulls up the alternate advancement window. While you are in monster form, it will pull up the window for the monster skills. Some come automatically with the level of monster you pick, and others you must spend points on.

[Dal-KoE]

First let me say that EQ is the only MMO that I play (besides MMOFPS Planet Side)...and I still play 20+ hours a week.

I bought DoDH for one of my accounts and I am sorely disappointed so far to say the least. I won't be buying it for my other accounts. My opinion is that its a waste of good development man hours... They could have completly left the spirit shrouds out...worked more into OoW or DoN with the "progressive" items / gear and spent some time working on new zone / model revamps. Who wants to play a level 70 warrior with 5k hp..? "Oh but you can do it in werewolf form"!! Ok..sure. The new zone revamps are pretty nice Lavastorm (DoN) was very cool.. the new Nektulous is done really well... the DoN NPC models are some of the best I have seen (in any game). I honestly think the EQ devs have run out of ideas for EQ and this expansion is no more than another LoY money grab.

[Siji]

I thought that I read somewhere that you got a clockwork mount for buying the retail box.. someone said the pre-order was what gave you the gargoyle illusion thing.

[Boogahz]

Got both items with store-bought box. Mount and Runed Gargoyle shroud.

[Winnow]

I thought that I read somewhere that you got a clockwork mount for buying the retail box.. someone said the pre-order was what gave you the gargoyle illusion thing.

You get both. I have a clockwork mount as well. It's pretty fancy looking but slower than my normal Black Fur Boots SoW speed I think.

[Fairweather Pure]

Question:

So, when you put a shroud on, do you have a set amount of AAs to distribute, or would I be able to distribute all 700+ of the ones I've earned with my main on the monster form? Does the game remember where you put your points for each monster shroud or do you have to redo the AA's everytime?

[Aslanna]

Spirit shroud infos!

http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=9515

http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=9550

[Winnow]

Spirit Shrouds might be the coolest thing Verant's ever done for EQ to allow new players and veterans to play together. I wish these were around back in the day of high adventure.

For those that play CoH. Do sidekicks get used a lot?

[Boogahz]

Question:

So, when you put a shroud on, do you have a set amount of AAs to distribute, or would I be able to distribute all 700+ of the ones I've earned with my main on the monster form? Does the game remember where you put your points for each monster shroud or do you have to redo the AA's everytime?

One thing I haven't seen anything about is if the points spent on one Shroud are spent for good or if you get the same number of points available for each shroud.

[Winnow]

One thing I haven't seen anything about is if the points spent on one Shroud are spent for good or if you get the same number of points available for each shroud.

That's explained in one of the two links provided by Aslanna above. (you can save monster point profiles and reload them to save time, but they aren't permanent)

[Boogahz]

I read through those links but I didn't catch that the points spent weren't permanent. Cool, might make it worth playing with, but I still need to get progression missions done whenever work leaves me some time to actually play without passing out. Working in insurance is a bitch after a hurricane where over 450k policies are impacted.

[Sendarie]

Hell even once your in the mission if you dont like the way you spent your points you can, /resetaa

This has the possibility to be the best expansion ever. Do the Cartographer missions (can be done solo if you think about it for 2 seconds)....this expansion is HUGE in area. The zones are enourmous and beautiful. Best part about them is when you zone in and think you have explored the zone...well some of them are like when you zoned into GD the first time via wizy portal. You think..."Wow this zone is cool" then you go through the tunnel are are like "SHIT" there's all this too??!

On top of that the old, scary run to ToV is back. Getting to your instance is tough, hell getting anywhere is tough.

[Siji]

So, when you put a shroud on, do you have a set amount of AAs to distribute, or would I be able to distribute all 700+ of the ones I've earned with my main on the monster form?

You get a set amount, and they're not ones from your normal class, they're the ones for the class of shroud you pick.