Director of Development Dave Georgeson explains the update plans going forward.

The EverQuest Franchise Director of Development Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson took to the forums last Friday to explain how the EQ and EQII teams are tackling updates going forward.

We’ve decided to release regular improvements every week, then every month we’ll push something cool to you. Beyond that, we’re focusing the rest of our efforts into making great expansions!

Here’s a bit more detail:

What sorts of things will come out weekly?

These will be things like straight-up feature refinements, holiday events, short adventures, or pretty much anything that doesn’t merit being in the expansion or being a big monthly highlight. But something of this sort comes every week.

What sorts of things will you deliver monthly?

Each month, we’re going to do something interesting and fun, like aging a cool existing dungeon up to end-game levels and itemization, or adding a series of quests for players to find and explore. Maybe even a new zone sweeper or random world event, or that sort of thing. Something new and fun to experience with friends and guildies.

How will this impact the quality of the expansion?

We’re putting a huge emphasis on how important the expansion pack is to you. The feedback on that has been almost universal. “Make Our Expansion Matter.” So that’s what we intend to do.

Is SOE locked into this schedule? Do we mean EVERY week and EVERY month?

Answer: Yes, we mean it. We’re going to work hard to make it happen regularly and dependably.

We like this new strategy as a whole. The EQ and EQII team Producers (Thom and Holly) have created detailed schedules of how the rhythm of this stuff will play out across the coming months. And my reaction, as a player of these games, is that it all sounds pretty fantastic.

Again, this doesn’t reduce the amount of content we’re delivering to you. The EQ and EQII dev teams are robust in size and are constantly overhauling tools so that higher quality content can be created in even less time, so we can deliver even more. They work tirelessly throughout the year making our Norraths better because we (the dev teams and SOE) all love these worlds.

But what do you think? Does this sound like fun to you too?

• Weekly and monthly improvements and adventures
• Major focus on the annual expansion content and story

For the full announcement and to give your feedback, head over to either the EverQuest or EverQuest II forums.