In the first part of our interview with the EverQuest II team, we take a look at the new content, progression and more.

Tears of Veeshan is quickly approaching, with less than one week remaining to pre-order EverQuest II's 10th expansion pack. As the launch date of Tuesday, November 12 looms, we took some time to speak with the EQII team about Tears of Veeshan and beyond.

So many features and so much content will be included in both Tears of Veeshan and Game Update 68 (launching concurrently) that we wondered if everything discussed during this summer’s SOE Live would still be included or shifted to future updates. "Everything is still included in the expansion," the team replied. "We came up with a few ideas that will be implemented next year that build on the content of ToV. And Dungeon Finder updates may come a bit later than the expansion because we want to make sure we do it right."

One of the highlights of the expansion is the introduction of EverQuest II’s 26th player class, the Channeler. The ability to play the class "requires the expansion." When asked how the team sees a Channeler supplementing a group or raid they responded, "They will be a primary healer in a group, in a raid it’ll depend on your makeup, but they will really shine in an off-tank group." Those who haven’t done the Channeler Prelude quests yet can check those out in-game currently, but will also be happy to know that these quests are now permanent content.

Vesspyr Isles, the Eternal Broodlands, is the final resting place of dragons (also known as the dragon Ethernere). We were told that throughout Vesspyr Isles and its instances we would encounter "at least 20" dragons. Early on in the quest series you will see Lord Yelinak and Harla Dar, and even encounter a shockingly familiar face from many years back.

One of our concerns was would Vesspyr Isles have an openness to its quest hubs, unlike the extremely linear progression players unfavorably faced in the Chains of Eternity overlands. We were told that "There are a lot of individual storylines in this expansion that don't have the same kind of progression CoE had. The quests are set up to [be] more sandbox-like and give people more options as to how they want to tackle the quest lines." Throughout beta testing we have discovered that the signature series is not required to progress through the content, the mode of transportation to Vesspyr Isles and the expansion instances have no pre-requisites and that, while some quests do require others to unlock them, there is a wider approach to the adventuring solo series. As for the ratio of content, the team confirmed that "the bulk of the content is Advanced Solo and Heroic, though the raids are pretty spectacular."

Continue reading on page two, where we discuss character development, crafting and lore!