During our time at Fan Faire, we got details on EverQuest II's eighth expansion and upcoming Game Updates.

The Age of Discovery Expansion

The Age of Discovery is launching in November. It will introduce new features and game updates will continue to deliver content. Here's a list of the features and some new screenshots.

Tradeskill Apprentices: Train them up over time and they can "make really cool items that you can't get any other way" that will be Heirloom.

Item Reforging: Players will be able to shift stats on items to something they like. They can also change particle effects on weapons with existing effects.

Alternate Advancements: AA limit will be increased, although we don’t know yet by how much.

Mercenaries: Hire a mercenary that takes up a group slot, has a monetary fee and takes a small slice of experience and coin from fighting. They are varied and have different AIs based on racial characteristics that will make them behave differently in combat. You can customize their appearance with armor, set their gender and their actual look as well as even teach them phrases to say. They can all be collected (though city alignment may restrict access to some) but only one mercenary can be in use at a time.

World Lore Mercenaries: In-game lore characters (example given was Lucan) that are extremely expensive, exceedingly rare spawns found randomly around the world and are very powerful, but may decide to hang out with you until they get bored and leave.

Beastlords: Scouts that rely heavily on their warder pets but use Brawler armor with scout stats. The warders will have their own AAs (panel Q&A revealed that other pets will not get this treatment) and their own hotbar. The Beastlord and Warder will work in synergy which we are told is a completely new and immersive style of gameplay. Beastlords will be fully itemized and is already in progress.

Design Your Own Dungeon: You can choose to be a Builder or a Player. Builders have to acquire the items for building the dungeon out in the world through gameplay such as maps, spawners and decor. The interface is an advanced housing interface which is expected to be applied in the future to normal housing. The finished dungeons can be tested first with NPC invaders and then published for players to enjoy. Players will collect adventurers out in the world through gameplay and play them akin to arena champions in the dungeons. When a Build Your Own Dungeon adventuring run is finished, the players will be awarded tokens based on the difficulty level set by the game as well as any other possible rewards.

Written by Calthine and Cyliena