Last week, Daybreak’s Holly Longdale stunned players of EverQuest and EverQuest II when she announced she’d be leaving the Daybreak team she’s headed up for almost the last five years – and the substudio she’d just taken over, Darkpaw Games. But as we noted yesterday, we weren’t in much of a panic over it, as the capable-sounding Jennifer Chan was taking the reins. (Hey, I instinctively trust compulsive list-makers. They are my people.)
Chan has already penned a producer letter for fans of both games, which we’d like to think is a good sign of her communication intentions going forward. As previously noted, she was a programmer on the games for five years and technical director for the last six, making her a longtime veteran not just of SOE/Daybreak but the MMORPG genre itself.
“I want to reassure you that the change of guard does not mean change of plans in EverQuest II,” she says. “We are moving full steam ahead on our road map for the year with lots of new and additional fun content in store. EverQuest is about to celebrate its 21st birthday and it’s an honor to be blessed by the love and dedication that you all have for the franchise, and with EverQuest’s 21st, that means Chronoportal is coming, and we’ll have more info on that in the next few days.”
“The team is planning on bringing some major changes to Overseer with the upcoming Game Update in April, including a leveling component and a new season, which will add some new layers to Overseer. The GU will also include some class balance changes that have been talked about in the past and is sure to be a rootin’ tootin’ good time! We’ve pushed several changes over the past few months (and more today with the current update) to help with overall server performance and stability, with more planned for the future. With the new patching schedule and those performance fixes we hope to see marked changes during your play experience. Finally, the team has already started the planning for expansion 17, and some of the ideas they’ve been cooking up in there are seriously fun and I’m excited to talk about them as we get closer to the release.”
Notably, she does tease “plans for a fan gathering this summer,” so it sounds like that is still happening, at least for now.
It's our very first community letter from our new Head of Studio at Darkpaw Games Jennifer Chan!https://t.co/J9iBUYwYTQ pic.twitter.com/UNmG6qDihs
— EverQuest II (@everquestii) March 11, 2020
