Sony had its annual
Fan Faire held in Vegas this past weekend. This is where most of their announcements come from in regards to expansions and features they plan on releasing in their online games like
EverQuest,
EverQuest II,
Star Wars Galaxy, and
Free Realms. This was year was no different as they have announced some EQ expansions and updates planned for Free Realms. So, let's jump right into the announcements...
Free Realms* Very close to
4 Million subscribers - (maybe a new party pack :)
* Demo Derby and Race Car driver will be able to advance to level 20!
* Each job will have 40 missions along the progression path.
* Players will be able to customize thier cars in a
garage* Soccer Star will be a new job! -
Coming this Summer!!* Guilds will be able to have matching uniforms for soccer.
* We showed a new desert region that will be the home of the dwarves.
* A new Druid job will come will be part of this region.
* TCG - There will be a feature where you can have your character portrait added to a physical card. You can buy a bunch of cards and give them to friends who can use a digital code to add your card to their digital deck.
* New Desert area to be released -
Dwarven Homeland* Methods to gain Levels beyond 20 for some jobs -
Late Summer* Sony is teaming up with HP to offer high quality art prints of
YOUR CHARACTER for station cash.
So, all in all, lots of good info for Free Realms coming out of the Fan Faire.
Here are some newsletters recapping the daily events of the Fan Faire.
Thursday Night RecapFun FridayAlso, in further news Sony has announced new expansions from EQ and EQII.
EverQuest II’s next expansion is not Velious, as widely assumed based on the (now known to be) red herrings seen in Kunark. EQ2’s next expansion, Sentinel’s Fate, will bring the island of Odus back to Norrath.
At the same time (but not as part of the expansion), good races will be able to start in the frozen city of Halas, a move widely expected as it brings the number of good/evil starting cities to three each — Freeport, Neriak and Gorowyn vs Qeynos, Kelethin and now Halas.
Sentinel’s Fate also carries with it ten new levels — raising the bar for endgame activities to level 90.Back in old EverQuest, their sixteenth expansion will be Underfoot, as in the Plane of, and Brell makes an appearance. Looks great for such an old game. All new underground content for EQ players to experience.Expansion is scheduled to be released in November with small additional game updates every other month or so up until April of next year. EQ will be seeing no new levels which has some players happy and other upset...From an EQ Game Designer: Doug Cronkhite: aka ElidrothIt's strange.. so many of you said the level increase only added about a week's worth of grind time to the game, yet now no level increase has got some people in an uproar.
No level increase means I need to work extra hard to make sure the AA's are worthwhile. It means Raramor has to work extra hard to come up with new and unique spell ideas. It means Ngreth and Aristo have to work that much harder to give you quality tradeskills and items. We're well aware of the task we've taken on.. and not one of us thinks it's going to be easy.
BUT.. it also means that come tuning time, we'll have a much better reference point for raid tuning, rares, basic population, etc. We know SoD was too easy in the end, for whatever reason. There were several raids in SoD that nobody in beta came ANYWHERE CLOSE to beating, yet who blew through them come live release. Why that is nobody is really sure, but it is the way it happened.
You guys have been asking for more challenge.. and I believe the new raids we're making are going to give you exactly that.Thanks you for viewing my Blog, and check back daily for updates on Free Realms and Everquest.
There is some interesting Free Realms development news from Sony Online Entertainment’s annual Fan Faire in Las Vegas. In his State of the Game address, SOE President John Smedley revealed some tidbits on what our players can anticipate seeing in the future.
Posts
