Highpass Hold is the on-foot entrance to the new expansion zones. THAT is why it made sense to revamp it at this time, and why you will be going through this zone.

Highpass Hold is the on-foot entrance to the new expansion zones. THAT is why it made sense to revamp it at this time, and why you will be going through this zone.

I disagree with everything you are saying. I dont think that they should touch the old zones and I definitely think they should not change the old world NPCs. I loved classic eq and I wish Everquest would have never gotten all these new expansions and fancy graphics. Sony is ruining one of the greatest games of all time with all their "updating".

Here's a look of what they will look like, they are human after all and will have mostly the physical attributes of a human but will have added traits of the dragonkind that created them.... male and female facial features(white dragonkind) shown here
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=255484

Vahlar-Dev wrote:

Good day folks!

There's a lot of speculation on the drakkin, so I thought I'd give you their background here and show a couple of concepts. The drakkins are dragon-touched humans. They retain most of the their human physical attributes and take on traits of the dragon that created them -- like unique runic patterns of scales on their faces, chests, arms, and legs. Some vulnerable parts of their bodies take on some scale qualities but they are subtle and difficult to distinguish from normal skin. The drakkin also get small horns on their foreheads in a variety of arrangements. No tails, no wings. They have created amazing armor for themselves as well. Because their skin is scaled in some areas, like their sides and ribs, their armor is built around it, revealing their scale patterns underneath. We'll get some of that concept art up soon.

There are six dragon parents that create six types of drakkin, identified by color -- blue, black, red, green, white, gold. Each drakkin reflects their parentage in the color of their hair, draconic scale patterns, and horns. As you can see, they are more human than dragon with a regal beauty.

Here is the drakkin background:

After Venril Sathir's curse was released into the Nest and destroyed the dragon eggs, it was clear that the future of dragonkind was in danger. With the next generation of dragons lost forever, Veeshan's bloodline was in jeopardy. Six dragons who were children of the Nest proposed a plan to their elders -- the creation of a race to protect dragons and the Wyrmqueen's bloodline, something they had seen done once before.

The six dragons were scoffed at by the elders of the Nest, but they were so adamant with the idea that the elder dragons ordered their exile so their ideas would not gain a foothold. To the elders, it was unthinkable. The six left the Nest and ignored the decree of the elders. They settled in the nearby Serpent Spine Mountains to carry out their plan to create a new race to protect the existence of Veeshan's bloodline on Norrath. They would create a race of dragon-touched humans and call them Drakkin which means “Dragon Child” in the language of the elders.

They called themselves the Circle of the Crystalwing, defining themselves as the future of dragonkind. The six dragons in the Circle: Venesh the Greenblood; Draton`ra, Master of the Void; Keikolin, Bringer of Enlightenment; Mysaphar, Seeker of All; Atathus the Red Lord; and Osh`vir the Windspirit.

In human form, the dragons traveled to Freeport and combed through the taverns and inns, looking for the right humans to suit this new race. The honorable dragons found many who sympathized with their plight and plans and agreed to help right the wrongs that mortals inflicted on dragons of the Nest by unleashing Venril's curse. Many humans considered it a great honor. The darker dragons were not so willing to negotiate and simply took the human subjects they desired. Each human taken was touched by the magic of a single drop of dragon’s blood across their cheek.

In only a matter of months, the dragon-touched humans began to experience changes, a coming-of-age that became known as the Awakening. It is then that the latent strengths they inherit from their dragon bloodline surface and they have a burning desire to better understand them. Their hair takes on new texture and color – the same color as the dragon who touched them. Parts of their skin show small, toughened scales, and runic patterns representing their new race began to show on their face, torsos and legs – all in the color of their dragon progenitor. Delicate horns appear in patterns on their foreheads. They are the essence of beauty to most who see them.

As their new traits develop, the drakkins yearn to meet their parents. They find themselves on a pilgrimage into the Serpent Spine Mountains. Their final destination is the ancient abandoned ogre city of Nokk, now alive with drakkin who call it Crescent Reach.

As they enter the Dragon’s Grove of the great stone city where their parents await them, their human past is lost forever. It is from their parents that the drakkin learn their purpose – to live and grow stronger to protect the future of Veeshan's bloodline on Norrath. With their new identity affirmed, their drakkin life truly begins.

The graphic artists are not the programmers.

These two different groups of people work on different tasks, and the graphic artists must be kept on the payroll for upcoming expansions etc. They might as well spend their time between projects upgrading the old-world areas with modern graphics and models to help keep eye-candy players from running off to the newest games.

That said, Highpass Hold was graphically upgaded because it is the entrance to the expansion zones and so it made sense to do so once the artists had the new zones done. You can be assured that the world-builder graphic artists will be working on another old-world zone upgrade as soon as they take their accrued time off from the TSS project.

[rant]
You, sir, need to press "caps lock" button one more time, then remove it from your keyboard, along with your shift key. Then you need to accept that fact that, in time, all zones in everquest will be redone to keep up with what is now considered "good". I didnt like the fact they changed Nektulos the first time, I complained alot about it, not much on boards, but to people.. the only reason they changed Nektulos to version 3.0 is because old school players were outraged by the fact they didnt even pay attention to what the actual layout of the zone used to be. Trust me, if they revamp Halas and Everfrost.. it will not be a Nektulos 2.0...I dont think they'll change the layout of highpass much either... they have no reason to. Im surprised they're doing highpass, not highkeep myself, seeing as they found goblins when they were digging, why not say they went digging more and found say a whole new city? Its true that alot of older zones have alot of room to expand, and its nice to know they're finally catching up with what they forgot.
[/rant]

Edited, Jul 22nd 2006 at 3:03pm EDT by Paylin