We attended a pair of Fan Faire panels to get all the details on EverQuest's Veil of Alaris expansion and other upcoming features.

Veil of Alaris Features

Producer Thom Terrazas then outlined all of the features that are coming in the expansion.

• There will be 12 new zones (4 of them being end zones), as well as new quests, spells, missions and raids.
• The level cap will be raised by 5 to level 95.
• A new rank-based guild permission system will add about four more guild ranks and give players a lot more control over who can do what in the guild. You can change the names of the ranks and assign different permissions to those ranks. There will be approximately 32 different permissions that can be individually assigned, such as bank access and guild tags.
• The new guild permissions will also have a tie-in to housing. You'll be able to assign your entire guild permission to hang out in your house and move around your stuff.
• There will be two new guild halls, and both will have interior and exterior models. They also created an exterior model for the current guild hall. You can decide if you'd like to keep the statue or remove it.
• The tracking of housing objects will be easier.
• The new guild trophies will be similar to housing trophies.
• The hotbar system is getting a revamp. You will be able to resize the hotbars to any width and height, as well as resize individual buttons. The amount of buttons on each hotbar will be increased to 12, and you'll be able to place more hotbars on the screen.
• You will be able to click on items in your inventory that are linked to your hotbar. This means you'll be able to cast from your hotbar without opening up your inventory.
• Cooldown timers will be visible when you click something on your bar. The team said the visual cooldown timer will be difficult to implement for some AAs, but it can be done with macros.
• They're adding a new parcel delivery and money system. You'll be able to interact with a vendor to send your items to players on your server.

Other Future Plans

During the second panel, Terrazes outlined even more features that are planned for EverQuest.

• Offline brokering is coming. You will be able to log out your character while you're selling, which means you don't need to leave your computer on overnight. You can set up shop in your home and guild halls, and they'll possibly allowing you to broker in places that aren't in your home. Players can buy directly from you and get the item immediately, but there will be an extra charge.
• They're going to allow you to have more than one mercenary, but you can only play one at any given time. There will be a delay in reuse and recast times, but this will give you more flexibility. You will have access to a high amount of mercenaries. This feature isn't tied to the expansion, but it should launch around that time.
• Bigger bags should be coming back to the marketplace in the next couple months. They will also be added as drops in the game, but not as tradeskill items.
• A simple item comparison tool will be added to the game.
• They're working on a feature that will easily allow you to upload EverQuest videos to YouTube. It might be available by the end of the year.

Getting Players Into the Game

Lastly, Terrazes discussed some features that are currently in the game that attempt to recruit new players into Norrath. Most of the people in the audience weren't aware these features existed, and Terrazes said they plan to make the welcome screen more useful to promote them.

• Recruit-a-Friend recently launched, which gives you benefits for bringing your friends into the game. Your buddy starts at level 51, but not on progression servers. They also get high experience gains. If the invitation is accepted and your friend subscribes to the game for a month, you will automatically receive one month of credit for EverQuest.
• There is also a free trial available for players who don't want to use the Recruit-a-Friend feature.
• Fellowship experience allows players in a fellowship to share experience even when they're offline. This keeps friends from outleveling each other.

Darryl Gangloff, editor-in-chief