We recently participated in a roundtable interview with Executive Producer Dave Georgeson to discuss EverQuest II's Game Update 60 and beyond.

We recently had the chance to participate in a roundtable interview with EverQuest II Executive Producer Dave Georgeson to discuss “The Children of War” Game Update 60 that's scheduled to launch on May 17. This is the first update in the Age's End Prophecy saga, which was introduced in the Destiny of Velious expansion. Of course, we also asked some general EverQuest II questions that touch on various aspects of the game's future.

Georgeson explains that the bulk of GU60 focuses on PvP and battlegrounds. He gives details on the update's new battleground map and game type, as well as a new lobby system. He also confirms that there will be a new expansion next year that has nothing to do with Velious, and he hints that players will soon be able to enjoy some new transport mechanisms at levels 30 and 60.

Keep reading after the jump for the full Q&A!

UPDATE May 15, 2011: This Game Update has been delayed since the original posting of this article and is expected to hit Live servers in late May or early June.

Will there be any gameplay changes to the EverQuest II core experience with Game Update 60? How much new content can players expect to see in the update?

Dave Georgeson: The gameplay changes that are happening in this game update are mostly revolved around PvP and battlegrounds. When battlegrounds came out, we were really pushed to get it out by the time we wanted to get it out. Some of the stuff wasn't as refined as we wanted. What we're doing is going back and addressing the features that battlegrounds revolve around and making them a lot more fun and balanced. We're adding things like a lobby so PvP players will be able to work together to create a better community. When you come out of a battleground game, you'll be in this very cool battleground lobby area. Everybody that comes out of a battleground game will be able to hang out in that lobby and all of the merchants will be there, as well as other stuff. That way they can mill together and decide to go into a game together and so on, and have more fun.

As far as the mechanics changes themselves, we're setting things up so that the armor for PvP is more specialized and easier to fill up with adornments the way you want. And in general, we're going through and making a bunch of gameplay mechanics changes so that it's more fun to play in PvP. Future game updates will deal more with stuff outside of PvP, but this one is mostly about that.

Content-wise, there's a bunch of stuff coming out in this update. We have three new instance dungeons, three new raids, the Crystal Caverns area, new heritage quest chapters, and a whole bunch of different things. I think players will be really happy. I'd say that people are just now starting to finish Destiny of Velious content. There are always some people who race ahead and finish early, but the majority of players are just now working through it all. The timing is good for a new release.

What's in this update, as well as recent updates, that will bring old and new players to the game?

Georgeson: If you haven't played for awhile and you have a level 90 character, you should come back and check out the game because flying is amazing. I know flying has been done in other games, but it makes such a huge difference in the game. We've been doing a lot of stuff with refinements on intuitiveness and working to make the game in general more fun. If you talk to people who have played Destiny of Velious versus older expansions, I think what you'll find is people are excited about what we've done as far as quality and improving the pace and the drama of the events, and definitely improving your access to the storyline as you go through the game. There's always been a lot of lore in EverQuest 2, but a lot of it has been fairly successfully hidden. What we're doing is developing new ways to bring that up into your face as you go through the game so you can understand what's going on and why you're going on adventures.

This year we'll be concentrating specifically on increasing the quality of content, as well as delivering more content. There are a lot of reasons to come back and check the game out right now, but there will be even more as we go through this year.

Can you give us some details about the new Vanquish battleground type?

Georgeson: Vanquish is the battleground game type we're adding in Game Update 60, and the battleground itself is called the Frozen Tundra. It's pretty cool. It's very different from the other battlegrounds. There will be up to 18 players on a side and there are NPCs involved in this battleground. Basically there are these towers on each end of the battlefield and NPCs from both sides are pushing against each other to try to take over the opposing tower. There's more lore to it than that, but that's basically what it is. If the NPCs are left on their own, they basically create a stalemate in the middle and they can't really push through to succeed. The players are doing two things: they're trying to protect their side and get the NPCs to the other tower, and also be able to hold the other tower. There are mechanisms by which the scoring is done, but there's a lot of protect and hold involved, and well as capture and hold elements.

Frozen Tundra looks brilliant. I think people are really going to like the way it looks. It feels very outdoors, which isn't typical. The new game type is excellent. We've been playtesting it recently and having a good time with it.

Can you tell us about the itemization tweaks coming in the update?

Georgeson: As far as near-term tweaks, one of the things people didn't like recently that we kind of had to suck up and suffer through as developers was going down to essentially a single primary stat for all the classes when they're hunting for loot. We knew that wasn't the best result, and of course the players didn't like it that well at all, but it was a necessary step for us to do what we're going to do next. We're going to start adding in the secondary stats and adding in a bunch of other mechanisms that will make it easier for people to understand what's going on with their items and how they affect their character, as well as making it a lot more fun.

We're doing some small things, like adding in an adornments interface so you can see easily what's slotted in and what's not, but it also allows more flexibility so you can decide what types of adornments you want. We're doing a lot of things like that and they'll be debuting all the way through the next couple of years. We have a slate of stuff we want to do, and we'll start releasing more details on that in the next month or so after we nail down the annual slate.

Will there be a new overland zone in Game Update 60?

Georgeson: No. There won't be a new overland for a little bit.

When should we expect Game Update 61?

Georgeson: In mid-August.

Continued on Page 2.