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

You've stated that Velious content will be coming for a long time. Will there be another expansion next year?

Georgeson: There will be an expansion, but that's about as much as I can say about it right now. We're really excited about what is going to be in the expansion. It has nothing to do with Velious. We can't wait to be able to tell you about it, but we're not ready yet.

Everybody loved the original Velious back in EQ1, and it was really big content. We have this Age's End Prophecy and we wanted to make sure that we took the time to tell that story properly, and have the dramatic moments and cliffhangers and elements that need to be in that story for people to actually appreciate it. After looking at how long it would take to be able to do that and how big the expansion pack would have to be if we wanted to roll it up into just part two, we decided to create a schedule in which we can continue to put out releases for the expansion and tell the story the way that we want to.

The really good flipside of that is that anyone who buys Destiny of Velious is getting honestly one of the biggest and baddest expansions that has ever been made for an MMO. We're going to be putting this stuff out for awhile. I know how big it's going to be and I can't really tell people because it's too far in advance, but it's going to be huge. I think eventually people will be really happy with it. They like the game right now as it stands with Destiny of Velious, but by the time we're done with it it's going to be epic.

Why aren't flying mounts available at lower levels?

Georgeson: Somewhere between GU60 and GU61 we're going to release a couple new features that will be very cool. What we've identified is that having fliers at level 90 is a really cool hook. It's a way for people who push to 90 to show off that they got there, and it's also a really neat gameplay experience. All of a sudden everything feels very free. You've been walking and running all over the world for 90 levels and this just feels fantastic when you get there.

We have a lot of people who have gotten to level 90 and get used to flying and then they don't want to play their alts anymore. At levels 30 and 60 we're going to add some more hooks in there and we're going to create transport mechanisms by which players can have fun as they level toward 90. That's all I'll say at this point.

How many people are now playing EverQuest II?

Georgeson: A lot. I can't answer that, but I will say that populations are pretty solid across all servers. EQ2X is still doing extremely well and we're quite pleased with how many players are playing the game, but we can't get into specific numbers.

Have you ever thought about the possibly of merging the EQ2X server with live servers, or is that completely off the table?

Georgeson: It's never off the table, but right now the players on the EQ2 live side of the fence are adamant that they don't want that to happen, and so we haven't broken that fence down. If the players ever decide that they would love to freely transfer back and forth, I'll be honest and say I'd love for that to happen.

The chief concern is that players on the EQ2 live side are essentially earning everything they own, and players on the EQ2X side can purchase things like mastercrafted armor and self rez scrolls. The players on the EQ2 live side feel that those people are essentially using their wallets to achieve a goal they had to earn. They don't want those characters to come over because they feel that it cheapens their own experience. That's an understandable reaction. If the majority of the people on the EQ2 live side decide that it would be fun to freely transfer back and forth, then at that time we'd break the wall down, but probably not until then.

Can you talk a little about the recent discussion surrounding your winback promotion ideas for level 90 characters? Do you have any other ideas for getting players into the game?

Georgeson: Sure we do. That's one of the things we talk about all the time. The conversation on the forums was hopefully the first of many of that kind of conversation. What I was really trying to do was get people into more of a conversational attitude about the game. It worked to a certain extent, but it was a little bit of a culture shock because they're not used to me doing that. It's going to take a little while before they get used to it, but it'll be really good once we get to that point.

As far as brainstorming about the ways of bringing players into EQ2 live, we have lots of internal discussions about what's going on. We're talking about revitalizing the free trial and a bunch of other stuff. We don't have anything really solid, but that conversation with the players gave me a lot of ideas that we've talked about internally already. I think that some good things will come out of it. It was a really productive conversation for me personally, and hopefully the players will embrace those in the future.

Were you surprised at the reaction you received from the players?

Georgeson: I was only surprised that I got so many reasonable conversations back (laughs). I fully expected people to hate the idea, but what I wanted to do was discuss the reasons for why they hated the idea, so we could tinker with those reasons and figure out what would work. That was really successful for us.

Do you have any details on your plans for veteran rewards?

Georgeson: I can't really say what players should expect to see because we're still brainstorming the ideas. One of the crazy ideas we're talking about – this isn't for sure, and we don't have plans for implementation – is it would be really cool is if you were earning tokens as a veteran the longer you play. Then it would be nice if there was a catalog of veteran rewards you could buy from so you could basically play, earn tokens and then buy from a a catalog of items. We'd like to move in that direction, but the details of that program might fluctuate wildly from what I just described.

Public quests seem to be very popular. Are there any plans to add more? Are you considering to add them in the lower level zones?

Georgeson: Yes and yes. But we don't have any details yet. We have a lot of stuff to do between the Age's End Prophecy, all the Velious stuff we're doing, the Freeport revamp, and all of the different game features and mechanisms we're adding. There's a huge slew of stuff we're doing. And we want to go back through and rework a bunch of the old areas and add in public quests and things like that. The dev team will not be bored, let's put it that way.

Once EverQuest Next comes out, there will be three EQ games on the shelves. How do you see EverQuest II fitting into the EQ family once that game is released?

Georgeson: EverQuest Next is going to be a very different kind of game. EverQuest II, in my opinion, will continue to exist side by side with EverQuest Next in perpetuity. I don't see any reason why either product should ever die. They will end up being extremely different products and will attract different audiences.

Darryl Gangloff, Editor-in-Chief