EverQuest: Omens of War Interviews

Not one, but two interviews for Sony’s newly released EverQuest: Omens of War expansion have made their way to the web. The first is at GameSpy:

Q: High-end encounters currently have issues with class balance. For example, warriors are sought after almost exclusively for tanking duties, leaving most knights in the dust. Has there been any effort to balance the other classes for the high-level content?

A: Some Gates encounters did prove to be a bit tougher than we had planned and gave secondary tanks a rough time. We have since gone back and revisited many of those areas to try and make the encounters more manageable for groups that may not have a warrior readily available. With Omens, we feel that adding new levels, AAs, spells, and other means of improving your character will also help to remove any other sticking points where content may have made certain classes more desirable. We have also used a much better test plan for Omens to make certain we do not repeat any mistakes we made with Gates. This included bringing many guilds and high-level class folk into the beta and letting them take a stab at the content. We think that this approach has yielded some very good results and increased our avenues of receiving feedback from the community.

And the second is at GameZone Online:

Q: The game sports new graphics in the added zones. What have you done to elevate the graphical content of this title?

A: EverQuest has come a long way graphically and will continue to move forward. With the new graphics engine in place we are taking advantage of all sorts of new technology to make the game look better than ever before. We have added spectacular lighting and bump mapping. We are utilizing 2.0 shaders to give the game a richer feel. You will also see some new surprises with little things that just add more ambience and immersion. One of the things the environment artists are excited about it the option to add a second UV layer to objects. A brick wall can have a second layer that gives the appearance of dirt and wear or ivy growing upon it. As it would be on top of the original texture, the appearance will be much more natural. And there is a fallback solution to each of the improvements, so if your video card doesn’t support 2.0 shaders, for example, the engine won’t use those when rendering that scene for you. You still get great art and a game that plays well.