Thom Terrazas and Adam Bell on EverQuest - Part 2

Here's the first part of the whole interview: Thom Terrazas and Adam Bell on EverQuest

Ron: Now, we were talking about the interactive elements in Veil, such as Soulsek Ro attacking Argath, that players can take part in. What other big interactive elements are there that you can describe, and which are the most noteworthy to you?

Adam: Well, naturally, everything about Veil is interactive, though what you're mentioning with the camp is mostly window dressing. But to give a better answer, there is a great deal of interaction going on in the huge raids, but we also made mission versions of those raids, so that instead of bringing 54 people, you can just bring only 6 or 12 people. A few of them were so big enough where we had to bring in 12 people instead of just 6, but most of the missions are intended for just 6 people. Now these 6 people can do this large interaction that used to be exclusive to raids, but now they can have a similar experience as a group.

Just similar, though, because there are some things that 54 people can do that 6 people can't.

Thom: And the rewards will be carved down to what we feel is appropriate for a 6-man group versus a 54-man group.

Adam: But also the challenge gets carved down. For example, with the Pillars of Alra, during that raid you're expected to split your raid into 4 different groups and do something at the same time, and you only have a set amount of time to do all of that. The mission version lets you choose one of those at a time and do it in a series, because splitting 6 people up into 4 groups just doesn't work.

Ron: Well, it's obvious that a lot of love and a lot of attention went into Veil of Alaris. How long did it take to come up with and create this new expansion?

Thom: Well, we started it around August of 2010. There was a couple of months of lead-up time before we finished House of Thule where we started discussions on, you know, "Hey, I know that we're all rushed on getting House of Thule done, but we should probably really nail down what we want to do next year!" So there were discussions and the pitch process began...so it was probably around August.

Ron: Are there any little secrets, tidbits, easter eggs, or any sort of nifty references or things buried within Veil of Alaris that the average player will get a kick out of? And if so, can you share any with us?

Adam: I'm sure individual designers put some in there, but I'm not actually aware of many of them.

Ron: Awww.

Adam: We always tend to put a little something in there. Usually it's a pop culture reference...but I'm actually not aware of any.

Thom: Didn't we do the Lindsay Lohan reference?

Adam: I think so -- oh! The Spellbenders! The Spellbenders are based off of a British car show, and that's about all I'll say on it.

Ron: Really?

Adam: Yeah. There's a secret office of benders that are all together in one zone, and they're based off of Top Gear.

Ron: Oh! Good show. But moving right along, is there an approximate time count to Veil of Alaris? In other hours, can you give us an estimate as to how many hours of gameplay were added with Veil?

Adam: That depends on how much of a completionist you are. If you're an absolute completionist, you'll get about 500 hours [of gameplay]. If you're to breezing through, doing the absolute minimum possible to get to each individual raid and you complete all the raids, we're probably talking 200 hours.

Even being a competionist, 500 might not be enough, because rares can be fickle, and we have a lot of extra story hidden in there -- if you try to catch all of that, there's more -- and some of the achievements are very hard, so you might have to do missions 4 or 5 times just to get the achievement. So that multiplies the time. So it all depends on what you're trying to do.