Destined to remain ever in the shadow of World of Warcraft, EverQuest II has its fifteenth anniversary coming up in November, just a few weeks before WoW celebrates the same milestone.
Oddly monochromatic logo, but sure
Daybreak published a Producer’s letter for both EverQuest titles yesterday which give some details, and more hints, at what to expect from the coming anniversary.
The EverQuest update says that the senior title, which turned 20 earlier this year, will celebrate the EQII milestone with the launch of a new progression server. Go figure.
This will be a new style of server, with players starting as level 85 heroic characters… nice to use a mechanic that is already in place… and content through the House of Thule expansion unlocked, with further expansions unlocking every 2-3 months. The details are not set yet, so there will be further updates as the plans mature.
The EverQuest II update offers both more and less when it comes to anniversary celebration details.
A progression server for EQII is also planned, also featuring players starting off with level 85 heroic characters, with content unlocked through the Chaos Descending expansion.
There are also mentions of completely new server-wide event on live servers, including a dragon themed event that will reward players with something never before seen in the game. As before, more details will be made available as the events draw closer.
The Producer’s letters for both games also reference the coming expansions for each game. While no names or themes were mentioned, both will see a increase in level cap, boosting the top level in EverQuest to 115 and in EverQuest II to 120. As is customary, the current expansions for both games are now available for a discounted price.
There was also a mention of in-game bonuses for the coming US Labor Day holiday, and a reminder that the next update for EverQuest II, which includes the annual summer panda event, will land on August 27th.
August 27th is also the official opening date for WoW Classic, so in a way history continues to repeat itself.
Finally, there is also a poll linked in both producer’s letter related to a possible EverQuest oriented player event, possibly for next year.
Addendum: The latest episode of The EverQuest Show has some extra screen shots from the next EverQuest expansion which they have posted to their site if you want to examine them for clues as to what to expect.
Also on this topic, Inventory Full has a post up about both producer’s letters.
And Massively OP has their own update on the letters.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
That EQII “Progression” server puzzles the heck out of me. There’s going to have to be some very particular new ruleset or else it’s just last year’s Live server when everyone else is playing the new expansion.
Also, if these servers, EQ and EQII start everyone at almost the top of the level range, what’s the point of the rest of the content even being there? Ok, on EQII you could mentor down but on EQ everything for about fifteen expansions will be grey. I wonder if they might scale the entire world to the Heroic starting point? Or maybe there will be an option to make a normal-level character, although I doubt many would take it if there was.
Very curious to see where this is going.
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All the EQ2 anniversary and expansion stuff sounds good, even the later timing is good for me as I have other gaming to focus on at the moment. I’ll knock out the new Days of Summer stuff ofc on my two main characters, but would happily leave EQ2 on a backburner for a bit otherwise. Gah, progression servers are beginning to annoy me (WoW Classic included), it’s just such a great way of splitting a playerbase – sure WoW can afford to do that, but can EQ2?
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