Normally, content unlocks every twelve weeks on Phinigel. However, it's important for us to do Planes of Power instancing the RIGHT way on this server and build it correctly, not just for Phinigel, but for any future server that will use the same systems. Unfortunately, after scoping this out with the team, it's become clear to us that doing this on our current schedule would negatively impact our timeline for our 2016 expansion and other updates the EverQuest team is working on this year.
To give the team more time to build proper Planes of Power instancing, we'll be adding time to the unlock schedule for The Shadows of Luclin and Planes of Power/Legacy of Ykesha. The period of time for each of these unlocks will be six weeks longer.
With these changes, the updated schedule of content unlocks on Phinigel after Velious now looks like:
Shadows of Luclin is scheduled to unlock on Wednesday, September 28, 2016.
Planes of Power & Legacy of Ykesha are scheduled to unlock on Wednesday, February 1, 2017.
Planes of Power, Legacy of Ykesha, and Lost Dungeons of Norrath Unlocks
Once it's time for Planes of Power to unlock on your server, Legacy of Ykesha content will unlock with it at the same time.
On Ragefire and Lockjaw, three months after Planes of Power & Legacy of Ykesha unlocks, we'll open up Lost Dungeons of Norrath automatically (no voting required).
On Phinigel, twelve weeks after Planes of Power & Legacy of Ykesha unlocks, Lost Dungeons of Norrath will open to players. Gates of Discord and Omens of War will be twelve weeks after Lost Dungeons of Norrath.
Gates of Discord and Omens of War Unlocks
Gates of Discord is, charitably, a difficult expansion at level 65. To make this launch smoother, we're mitigating the difficulty jump by opening Omens of War at the same time Gates of Discord unlocks on your server. By both increasing the level cap and opening more areas for players to spread out, our goal is to provide a better player experience in that era of content.
Expansions after Omens of War
We've been having discussions internally regarding the length of time players spend at various level caps. For example, if Dragons of Norrath, Depths of Darkhollow, and Prophecy of Ro unlock on their current schedule, players would spend a considerable period of time without a level cap increase. At the same time, we don't want to confuse players by making too many changes to unlock dates for expansion content.
