First off, the introduction. Who are you and what do you currently do?
The introduction eh? No one cares about that! They want to know about the game, so I'll make this brief. Yo me llamo Tim Heydelaar and I'm the Environment Lead for Everquest 2. I'm currently working on Rise of Kunark, the latest expansion for EQ2 – but as cool as I am, I'm not doing it alone so I'll proudly mention my Team who's been kicking major arse to make sure Kunark is filled with loads of awesomeness.
Can you describe to us the environment in Kunark?
The easiest way to describe the worlds in Kunark is huge. Basically, we're taking several zones and fusing them together to get a more seamless and progressive feel. Less zoning, more playing, and even more exploring, being one of the goals. Within each zone, you'll find several distinct areas – for example, the Fens of Nathsar has remnants of areas such as the Field of Bone, Swamp of No Hope, Ruins of Cabilis and more.
Can you describe to us what goes from conception to completion? And approximately, how long does it take you to finish working on a zone?
Generally, our Design team comes up with the overall concept for a zone. We work with them on ideas, scope, look and feel, and how we'll approach getting all that they want in the time frame we have. From there, we begin a sketch of the world – basically a very simple interpretation of the zone that we can all run around in to gauge size, topology, flow and potential performance issues – if it feels good, we move forward. It only gets harder to tweak these things as we get further into production so you want to have your foundation in place. During this time, we're also concepting out the various areas forms and style, palette ideas, plus we're roughing out many of the points of interest within (i.e. Danak) keeping Lore in mind when appropriate. After that, the party begins and doesn't stop for about a year!
'Timorous Deep' is the new zone that was uncovered during E3 and GenCon. Will it be a newbie zone and not accessible to all level of players?
Timorous Deep is a newbie zone for levels 1-20. Anyone can visit Timorous Deep, just as anyone could visit Greater Faydark or the Darklight woods but content is geared for early leveling - though getting higher level players to experience the lower level zones in perhaps a different capacity is something we're always thinking about. It's definitely a zone I'd love for all players to visit at the very least. Spiroc decimation is always fun.
What is the biggest challenge the art team has faced working on RoK and how did they overcome it?
The biggest challenge has definitely been to keep some of the feel from the original Kunark while making sure there's a sense of something new about everything. For those that didn't play Kunark originally, this isn't really an issue – but for those that did, we definitely wanted to have that nostalgic feeling, along with a new visual on many areas and a fresh sense of exploration. I think we've found a perfect balance that players new and old will love. There are definitely some areas that will make people WTF a little, but a lot sure can happen in 500 years!
In closing, is there anything else that you would like gamers to know about Rise of Kunark?
Kunark is beloved by many, many people and we've definitely taken that to heart during Rise of Kunarks production. EQ2 has grown in so many ways and we're thrilled to be able to get a chance to revisit and re-envision Kunark. I hope we can continue to create worlds that people will want to explore, live, play, socialize and be immersed in!
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