EverQuest Producer Thom Terrazas talks about the thought process behind Hero's Forge Armor, Hardcore Heritage events, hot zones, and SOE Live in his letter to the community:

We were very excited to bring a new system to EverQuest last year that enabled you to change the look and appearance of your character for the first time in many years. Hero’s Forge Armor was that system and it was a great accomplishment for us to try out new tech and see how well it worked. We loved the core elements it gave to everyone and after it was released, we soon started talking about how we could make it better.

Lots and lots of meetings and discussions were had and we also read a bunch of your feedback to start research on new processes and techniques to resolve some of the issues present in the original version. Mainly, we wanted to address the bulkiness of the armor. At the same time, we looked at the detail and color compositions of the sets and addressed some of the texture issues and started to get to work. As we finished up with some of the new sets, we realized that some of them had changed so much that it looked nothing like the original version. Soon after, many people on the team who wore cloth armor on their characters started to complain that they were going to lose the unique looking armor that they really liked. Many discussions ensued after that. There were pros and cons for each side of the office to only go with the Reforged style and another side of the office saying we should allow everyone to wear both. Many of us were concerned at this point, because we knew that there could be some potential issues with mixing-and-matching the original version with the Reforged version. Finally, we decided that the sets were so different in appearance (like the cloth set) that the right thing to do would be to allow everyone the flexibility to mix-and-match sets. The biggest advantage to this approach is that we essentially doubled the number of armor sets that are available with Hero’s Forge Armor.

So, fearing the worst nightmare to fix all the potential issues, in the end it wasn’t as bad as we thought. . We did the work and we are very proud to have finished some great armor for all of you to achieve and find throughout Norrath.

That said, after many months of iterating on the Hero’s Forge Armor, we released the "Reforged" version on Wednesday of this week. It was a group effort and every part of the team has had a role in its success.

Some of the hi-lights are that you can wear both the Original version and the Reforged version. How do you ask? Well, if you have any armor currently being worn, take that armor off and put it in your inventory slots or bag slots (if that is less confusing). When you have it placed there, Right Click on it and it will change to the Reforged version. Then put it on and done! If you want to play around and mix-and-match pieces, then just repeat those steps to find the best look for you. Since posting an update about this earlier in the week, I was very surprised to see so many people happy that you could wear both versions and that there were some that prefer the original to the Reforged version. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I figured Reforged would be 100% desired by all. Lesson learned.

Another change was made for flexibility’s sake. If you could only wear Cloth before, you can now wear Cloth or Leather and vice versa. The same scenario is true for Plate and Chain users. Those two work the same as the Cloth and Leather.

To check out more behind the scenes on what we did with Hero’s Forge Armor, see the VIDEO HERE

Hardcore Heritage

Back in 2008, we launched the Living Legacy promotion. As part of that promotion we introduced Hardcore Heritage events running in classic EverQuest zones. We are bringing back the Hardcore Heritage events starting on June 28th and they will be running through September 16th of this year. Now, in case you are not too familiar with Hardcore Heritage, what we have done is changed all the content in classic zones with higher level content, loot, quests, and raids. So every three weeks, you can re-visit some of your favorite zones of the past that have new and harder challenges. On June 28, Blackburrow and Cazic Thule will be the first zones you can visit. Then on July 19, Lower Guk and Unrest will be changed and Blackburrow and Cazic Thule will go back to normal on July 22. In early August, Crushbone and Permafrost will change and in late August, we will have two new zones we have not released before under the Hardcore Heritage banner. If you are hungry for a bit of nostalgia, this summer is the perfect time for you to log in and play Hardcore Heritage.

Hot Zones

Yay! They are back in rotation and have been updated. If you are not familiar with Hot Zones, we increase the experience and rewards in a long list of zones ranging from Level 20 to Level 90. Find Franklin Teek and Skal Nethul in the Plane of Knowledge to receive new quests for the following zones:

• Level 20 - Warslik's Wood
• Level 25 - Marus Seru
• Level 30 - Frontier Mountains
• Level 35 - The Dawnshroud Peaks
• Level 40 - Jaggedpine Forest
• Level 45 - Burning Woods
• Level 50 - Corathus Creep
• Level 55 - The Bloodfields
• Level 60 - Undershore
• Level 65 - Plane of Air
• Level 70 - Wall of Slaughter
• Level 75 - Oceangreen Hills
• Level 80 - Hills of Shade
• Level 85 - Old Bloodfields
• Level 90 - Valley of Lunanyn
• Level 90 - The Grounds

Big Bags are back!

Today on June 21, we have brought back the Big Bags to the Marketplace in our quarterly offering. For the past two years, the biggest bag that you could have obtained was 32 slots. Today, we are introducing an even larger bag, with 36 slots, with the same discountswe have given in the past for multiple bag purchases: 10% for buying 2 and 25% off for buying 4 (essentially buying 3 and getting 1 free). We believe this is a good time that we can increase our bag size after going through some extensive coding and testing processes and we do not intend on increasing the largest bag size for the near future.

SOE Live

EverQuest is a little behind EverQuest II in SOE Live Registration numbers (Formerly known as Fan Faire). Now, we are all a big family here at SOE and we all cheer each other on but to be honest, I would rather hang out with my EverQuest brethren than any other game’s comrades… So if you are planning to go to Vegas for SOE Live, please sign up soon and be sure to select EverQuest as your main game. If you are signing up a friend to go and they play another game as their main game, then be sure to select EverQuest as the main game. It’s the best thing to do for all of us /wink. Either way, sign up at your earliest convenience before registrations fill up.

SOE Live is where you find out about everything that is going on with the game and you get the earliest scoop on what is going on in the next expansion. Here is the link to be on your merry way for a fun filled time hanging out with the EverQuest Dev Team: https://www.soe.com/soelive/ Hope to see you there!