Game Update Coming in June

From the EverQuest Producer’s Letter – May 2010:

Coming up in June, we will be releasing our next Game Update: Rage of the Mercenaries! Rage of the Mercenaries fills that special need that has been missing for some of you. A Healer or Tank Mercenary has been the standard but if you don’t need help in those categories, a DPS Mercenary may just do the trick. Thus, the DPS Mercenary will be unveiled in two distinct flavors: A melee damage dealer and a caster damage dealer. Both of these mercenaries bring extra damage output to any party they are in. The melee damage mercenary will do consistent damage, while the caster mercenary will do its damage in shorter bursts, needing more rest. Both mercenaries will have a standard balanced mode where they do damage, but try not to get too much of the target’s attention. Both mercenaries also have a burn mode where they will not conserve mana or endurance, and pay no attention to hate generation, but will deal as much damage as possible, as fast as possible. This may cause them to gain the attention of the target. Finally, the caster damage mercenary will have a mode where it attempts to preserve mana. This mode will do less damage, but will allow it to last longer.

These mercenaries will initially be available at all of the standard mercenary merchants, in all of the standard races. It will also be spread into the already available special mercenaries obtainable through Legends of Norrath and special rewards.

These Mercenaries are on the Test Server now, so check ‘em out now and feel free to give us your feedback before they go live!

* Also releasing in Rage of the Mercenaries, we will have new Hot Zones created for levels 20 through 75 with new quests/rewards and the current Hot Zones will go back to normal (what they were before they were made into Hot Zones).

* The Welcome Screen is getting a great new look to give you more game relevant information and better functionality that you have requested. A Calendar has been added that will contain pre-populate events and dates to keep you better informed of future events. Uncompleted Achievements will now be visible on the Welcome Screen to see challenges that you should accomplish. Thirteen additional pieces of flair will be released at the same time with a few more coming very soon afterwards to fit in line with some future features we have in store for you.

* The Marketplace will be getting some additional features that will help you find what you’re looking for (categorization, searching, etc…). We think you’ll also like the new Item Preview feature that allows you to see what the item looks like in game before you purchase it.

You can read more about this on SOE's official Rage of the Mercenaries page.
.