Come November 13th, Everquest II will launch yet another full-featured expansion, "The Rise of Kunark". With this, the fourth major expansion since release, the EQII dev team has maintained their commitment to provide a steady flow of new content for players, arguably delivering more new content than any comparable MMOG currently on the market (aside from original EQ itself).

The announcement came hot on the heels of the subdued fanfare heralding the introduction of Neriak and the Arasai (evil Fae) at the end of May, in Game Update 35. It is regrettable that this substantial and long-anticipated free content has been overshadowed by Kunark looming over the horizon. I hope the dev team gets the credit they deserve for this work. You know how us players are quick to forget achievements and even quicker to whine the minute we stub our toe on gameplay, hehe.

Back to Kunark – it is no surprise to old school EQ fans that this is the continent chosen for the new expansion. Kunark was a favorite destination in the old days, and has a wealth of lore built on ancient enmities between powerful empires.

I was taken rather by surprise by the new playable race… Sarnak. Hmmm, thinks I. Just what the universe needs, another scaly lizard-man type race. In case you missed my sarcastic tone – it was there. I never did like the Sarnak of old; I found them to be gimpy, ungainly and rather more insectoid than dragon-like in appearance. I quickly looked to see if they'd been substantially revamped, and found a few pieces of concept art (including the one shown here) that showed them to be much the same as ever. Bleh, says I. They even retain the old "dodo bird" beak that I remember.

Still, I was not enamoured of the choice of Ratonga for the original release of EQII either (I believe I said "Bleh"), and we know how that turned out for me. Once I saw them finalized in character creation I determined the Ratonga model to be one of the best realized and most attractive models available. My Rattybonga Shadowknight Fhuji agrees.

So I will not curl my lip too much until I have the opportunity to get into character creation late in the year. Well… maybe just a little. You know me. So I tracked down Senior Producer Scott Hartsman (working on a weekend, as usual) for some brief pestering about why they went with the Sarnaks.

Fortunately, Mr. Hartsman always seems to have time for a grumpy old Dwarf who fixates on silly details…

Scott: Sarnak were chosen over Iksar because you can already be an Iksar.
(Oh he thinks he's so funny, that lad)
Scott: And they're *way* cooler than Kunarkan goblins, and have a much higher coolness/fondness factor than, say, Burynai or Drolvargs
Brasse: Heheh, oh come on, Burynai are cool! Kinda... Dwarflike!
Scott: Extremely, but not fleshed out enough to be a playable race - at least not in the memories of anyone who plays. The info/past/development just isn't there, not the way it is with Sarnaks.
Brasse: Yeah, yeah... you and your logic!

I really must get my lobby group formed before the next expansion so that I can mount a valiant effort to get Gnolls, Goblins, Shades or Demons as playable races.

Till then, I am open to the idea of Sarnak, although I never recall being on friendly terms with them in ancient times – that was probably my fault, as we Dwarves are not known for our good manners when trespassing on other people's kingdoms. I guess the Sarnak decided on neutrality because they couldn't quite make it on their own, or because SoE bribed them. Lore is extremely well-developed in EQII, and much can happen in 500 years time since the last contact we had with this race. Time for me to go re-read Sarnak history.

Meanwhile, let's get out the parade of features that Kunark is going to bring to our EverQuest II experience this fall…

The new starting area within Timorous Deep will be available to Sarnaks as well as all other "neutral" races: Barbarians, Erudites, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Humans and Kerra can all choose to start their careers here, in the city of Gorowin.

Level cap uppage for Classes and Guilds – you will be able to mosh your way to 80! Don't worry about the creeping effects of age. 80 is the new 50, trust me. AA lines are being tweaked as well, which is always exciting. No details are forthcoming about that yet, though.

The Rise of Kunark will bring with it a whole lot of new zones, including those that may of us will recognize from the days of old. I will restate my belief that EQII's zone design is second to none, and I really look forward to seeing these brought to life.

Kunark will have fewer and much larger zones than previous expansions. There will still be a tremendous amount of land to explore, incorporating many sub-zones, but with less zoning. In essence, you could fit two or three "old" EQII zones into some of the new zones. I have not had a chance to ask about it yet, but I suspect this new size of zone increase stems from the same sort of code optimization that allowed the tree-city of Kelethin to be a part of Greater Faydark without a separate zone required.

I am especially anxious to see the redeveloped Karnor's Castle, the site of some of the most hideous trains known to humankind in old EQ. I had some great evenings there.

Sebilis promises to be interesting as well – it was the old ancestral home of the Iksar, and ol' Ventril Sathir has left Karnor's to found the new Iksar empire with Sebilis as its capital. I am curious as to how Iksar players will be received there. Knowing the Iksar attitude, it is possible that "modern" Iksar will be shunned as impure or as traitors to the race. Incidentally, the former starting city of Cabilis has been largely rendered unusable by The Shattering.

Chardok has been mentioned as one of the playable zones – the stronghold of the Sarnak race, it has undergone a lot of change as a result of the new magic and artifact-based culture of the dragon-men, who still desperately defend it against the Iksar who seek to annihilate their race. Other familiar names include Field of Bone (formerly the Iksar newbie hunting zone, which I enjoyed a lot) and Burning Woods (Ooooo, do we get to revive the old Burned Woods jokes? Twenty-five bonus points to anyone who can find the old reference in full and post it on our forums!). Skyfire, City of Mist and Overthere will be available to discover or rediscover, depending on whether you knew the zones from EQ.

There will be new zones in addition to the ones oldsters will remember, and these will be geared toward long-time players. In all, Kunark covers two level spreads – the 1-20 content geared for hatchling Sarnaks, and 66-80 content aimed at veteran players. Echoes of Faydwer had a more even level spread across zones ranging from 1-70, and this left some of the old master-class folk at loose ends pretty quick… Kunark aims to fill that gap.

Originally, a new in-game uber-mapping feature was announced in conjunction with Kunark, but it appears that this will be pushed live when ready, and separate from the expansion. This Dwarven cartographer may soon be out of a job - we shall see!

Hundreds of new quests are coming, they say, for solo, group and raid content. That is the name of the game after all. Of course, there will be all manner of new equipment to be had, and we are all looking forward to seeing screenshots of new armor, weapons and doo-dads. My favorite road-kill hat could use a replacement.

There are new Epic Weapon quests that I will never finish on any character! Huzzah for those of you who will! I may well be able to get some funky weapon though… the Legendary versions will be available through solo and group content, while taking the weapon to Fabled status will require a raid force to achieve. Each class will have its own quest, for 24 unique weapons in all, such that each subclass has its own path. For instance, the Fury and Warden, while both Druids, will each have different quests and different rewards. It is a daunting task to create that many quest series all balanced in difficulty. Further, Hartsman has stated that the Epic weapons were developed with the AA system in mind – remember that many lines require a different sort of weapon to be equipped in order to be effective. I hope they got my request for a shimmering blue Mystic SPEAR of much-poking-goodness!

You will be able to ride a Rhino and take him home – never mind what your mother will say, just keep him under the bed and hope she doesn't vacuum there any time soon. Actually, I think a Rhino is a perfect ride for a Dwarf. We have matching temperaments!

More Gods come back to Norrath to mess up your life with their whims and demands:
- Bertoxxulous, the plaguebringer is the darling of the ebil set; he was down with the sickness and missed the first boatload of returning gods.
- Karana, he who made it rain all the time and was soundly cursed by all players in old EQ; I can understand why he was in no hurry to come back.
- The Tribunal, everyone's favorite group of judgemental bastards. They most definitely believe in capital punishment. I think they were caught in a backlog of court cases when the other gods went back to Norrath.

I look forward to seeing some of the new creatures and NPCs… the Fishmen (if that is their name – I am going by the concept art title here) look pretty neat. I suspect they might actually be refugee Murlocks from WoW that are sick of being killed 30 times an hour. We'll raise it to 40 or my name isn't Brasse Grinds-to-Eighty. Actually, I cannot grind because my brain shuts down after 20 identical kills, but I bet many creatures will never know what hit them when level-fever strikes the EQII populace.

Best of all, like Echoes of Faydwer before it, purchasing The Rise of Kunark will allow brand new players to access all existing content. I think that is a very smart move on behalf of an MMOG company.



Let's talk about Kunark, old and new. I can hardly wait!