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EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin at E3 2001

The Specs

EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin is the third EverQuest expansion. It will introduce new adventure zones, new items, creatures and spells, a new playable character race and class, the Beastlord. The Shadows of Luclin will also feature improved graphics for all the EverQuest character models, as well as improved textures for the new adventure zones. The new zones are on Luclin, the moon that orbits EverQuest. The new playable race are the Kerrans, the cat people that up until now have existed as non-player characters in the game.

The Speculation

Tom's Comments: I'm particularly fascinated by Luclin's animated facial models, which look great. But I don't do massively multiplayer online role playing games. Yet. Luclin looks good, but it's still not enough to sway a holdout like me. So let's move on to the guy with the more informed opinion. Mark, take it away.

Mark's Comments: A new expansion with better graphics to the massively popular EverQuest? This one's bulletproof. The new graphics engine wasn't quite as good as I expected after seeing the initial batch of screenshots, but the new character models are nice. Verant's still undecided about the Beastlord class, though it's going to be a melee class with a pet, so expect it to be quite popular. One new wrinkle is that they hope to allow the pets to accompany the player when the player travels into a new zone, something that hasn't been possible before. Perhaps the biggest impact this expansion will have is on the competing products that will be out or near release when Luclin is finished, such as Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot. It's going to be hard enough to pry away EverQuest players who have invested hundreds of hours in the game. Giving them a new EverQuest world to explore and a new character class to play will make it that much harder for competing games to lure them away.

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May 22, 2001