Last month at Fan Faire, the EverQuest team announced that they've been hard at work on the 16th expansion simply titled "Underfoot". Curiosity got the best of us and we got some answers.

Last month at the Sony Online Entertainment Fan Faire, the EverQuest team announced that they've been hard at work on the 16th expansion simply titled "Underfoot". Curiosity got the best of us, so we sat down with our old friend Ryan Barker from the EverQuest development team to find out what we can expect in the next expansion.

ZAM: Hey Ryan, it's great to talk with you again. Are you ready to talk about the Underfoot?

Ryan Barker:  Sure thing, ready if you are!

ZAM: First of all, it's hard not notice that this is the first EverQuest expansion with a singular name, making it nearly impossible for players to create an acronym. Is this intended or is the EverQuest team running out of ideas?

Ryan: Well, the acronym issue was definitely brought up, but we just came to the conclusion that it didn't really need a multipart name.  The Underfoot title makes it pretty clear what the premise for the expansion is, and it's always been referenced that way in lore up to this point.  It was definitely a conscious decision.

ZAM: What made the team decide to dedicate an entire expansion to Brell Serillis and the Underfoot? Is there really that much depth? HA!

Ryan: Brell's one of the most prolific gods, in terms of his creations on Norrath, so yes there's a whole lot to draw from.  For example, he made the gnomes, the dwarves, and the gnolls, among others.  Just with those three you've got a lot of historical ammo to work with, and that's not even counting all of the creations that never made it out of the Underfoot.

ZAM: Can you go into some of the lore from this expansion? Also, how does the lore continue from the events in Seeds of Destruction?

Ryan: I don't want to give too much away just yet, but, as usual, there's trouble in the new lands!  Brell's world is a place where everything has its function and place and it works well that way.  Unfortunately a few of the creations have decided they don't like doing what they're supposed to do and have started causing all kinds of havoc.  The players are going to need to track down the source of this new movement and put a stop to it.

ZAM: Let's talk about the new achievement tracking system. Can you give us a rundown about how this will work?

Ryan: It's fairly similar to the achievement systems that you've seen in other games and other platforms like Steam and Xbox Live.  It'll have a list of the things you've done as a player as well as a list of things that you could do to complete later.  It can really cover any number of things that you do in game, killing monsters, tradeskill creations, quest completions, etc.  We think it's a great way to revitalize old content as well as direct people through the new content.  We're going to structure the achievements in such a way so as you always have a set of suggested achievements that you could be working on.  So you'll never wonder what to do next.

ZAM: Will the achievement system function retroactively with any older content?

Ryan: It will in some cases, but not others.  Much of the old content didn't have any sort of tracking mechanism attached to it, so we won't have any way to track its completion.  We're hoping to track as much as possible though.

ZAM: During the Fan Faire address it was mentioned that Underfoot will have twice as many weapons than any other expansion to date.  Are these mostly rusty pick axes or will players see a lot of variety?

Ryan: It's a wide variety.  The dwarves and gnomes have always been very proficient creators, so there will be lots of weapons based on their designs, as well as a few of the other races in the Underfoot.

ZAM: What about class specific weapons; is it safe to assume we'll be seeing a lot of weapons similar to epic weapons?

Ryan: Well, I don't want to draw too much of a parallel to epic weapons, but we do have some class specific weapons planned for the expansion.  I believe we're planning on having them being evolving weapons right now, but that may change.

ZAM: We've been told that there are going to be over 15 zones in this expansion. Will these all exist underground or will we see a lot of variety? Can you give us any examples?

Ryan: They're all underground, but they're definitely not all just caverns.  The underworld has its own unique ecosystems, so you'll see lots of "outdoor" like areas as well as interiors and cities.  The fungal forest is a good example of a zone that's thematically underground, but will play very much like an outdoor zone.

ZAM: How does the Plane of the Underfoot compare to other Planes? If you had to compare it to an existing Plane, which would you choose?

Ryan: I don't think I could draw any parallels to other planes, the underfoot isn't similar to anything we've done so far.

ZAM: One of the last things on my list is the new targeting system. Can you give us the rundown as to how this system will function and how it will affect the game overall?

Ryan: The target window is a window that players can predefine to show a number of targets that will remain in that window for easy swapping between.  You can predefine the targets that go in that window based on group and raid roles as well, so if you always want the main tank to be on top of the window, you can do that.  You'll also be able to set hotkeys to quickly switch to those targets.  You can also just set it to a specific target you've chosen as well that doesn't necessarily have a role attached to it.

ZAM: With the expansions tentatively launching in November, is it safe to assume the closed beta will begin in September?

Ryan: Should be very close to that yes.

ZAM: Thanks for digging into the Underfoot with us. Hahaha the underground jokes continue...

Ryan:  You definitely had to dig for that joke.  Sure thing, see you in Norrath.

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
ZAM.com