Everyone on the Dungeons and Encounters team remembers fondly the dungeon crawls in DAoC and UO – the face-offs, the race, the thrill of the tension when deciding whether or not to kill the monster that drops the loot first and then the enemy player, or vice versa. We’ve wanted to work on an RvR-enabled dungeon for some time. The go-ahead in September shortly after launch was music to our ears. I quickly started drafting up the high-level designs.

The Necropolis desert is a massive non-instanced zone with several different remote, hidden areas. New types of Public Quests and Lairs can be found throughout, each of which have wholly different game-play mechanic and feel, very much like different stages in an action RPG. And worry not, these Public Quests don’t ever boot the solo player out. They are always solo-friendly (that is until the other realm invades), but that’s not to say there aren’t heroes and lords throughout for warband groups to enjoy. Every monster throughout the Necropolis desert has a chance to drop tokens, with which there is a lot of new phat gear and crafting materials to purchase.

The Tomb of the Vulture Lord is a large instanced dungeon with several boss fights that are a mix of console-style and MMO elitist, if you will. Action-RPG elements are throughout the dungeon with traps, puzzles, and boss fight mechanics. Including a surprise genre first ‘encore’ encounter, but that’s all I’m going to say about that, for now.

We are all super excited about the Land of the Dead, and cannot wait until everyone plays this summer, including us! Be sure to check out the April Newsletter for more info!