Now that the latest EverQuest expansion, "Seeds of Destruction", is available for all; we'd like  to shine the light on an artist that's done so much to make Norrath so fun to look at. His name is Kevin Lydy and he's a Senior Artist at Sony Online Entertainment. Having worked on many of EverQuest's expansions (as far back as Omens of War), he has a profound understanding of the living, breathing world that we love to much. Below is a brief Q&A with Kevin; check it out!

When did you join the SOE family?
Technically I joined SOE sometime around 2000.  But I’d worked at SISA/SCEA for a number of years prior to that.  A couple of years before that I was working freelance and, along with my good friend Dok Whitson, created the original EverQuest logo.

Last week we brought you a sneak peak at the upcoming EverQuest expansion, Seeds of Destruction. Today I'm happy to bring you 5 more exclusive screenshots! Expect to see exclusive Seeds of Destruction content here at Allakhazam every week leading up to the launch on October 21st.

In this weeks batch of screenshots we explore one of the timelines in SoD that we can't go into detail about just yet. That said; SoD zones are huge and this one in particular is unique to the rest of the game -- to say the least. We're looking forward to the time when we can go into specific information about the expansion, but for now you'll have to settle for exclusive screenshots!

Make sure to check out all five exclusive screenshots in our image gallery. Enjoy!

The EverQuest team have given Allakhazam the opportunity to show five exclusive screenshots from the 15th expansion titled "Seeds of Destruction". In a few of these screenshots you'll get the opportunity to meet a God that at one point Sony Online Entertainment told the players we would never see. Veeshan. Unfortunately, in these screenshots Veeshan, the Mother of all -- is dead. Everyone is dead. Save one individual we know all to well, Zebuxoruk.

Events that have taken place has created an opening in the rift of time and Zebuxoruk, who was imprisioned outside the realm of time -- is the only one who can help restore the balance. EverQuest will always hold a special place in my heart. It's a game that I've been playing since 2000 and I can honestly say that I haven't been this excited about an expansion since Planes of Power. Seeds of Destruction patches the cracks that exist in much of the EverQuest lore that has transpired over nearly 10 years. Who's excited?

Make sure to check out all five exclusive screenshots in our image gallery . Enjoy!

Panels are one of the things about Fan Faire that often concerns me because it's always a challenge to wade through the biased pool of opinions and quite frankly the pointless questions that are asked to get to the meat of anything really useful. Don't get me wrong, panels have great purpose and are actually priceless when it comes to developers hearing feedback about changes needing to be addressed that may be completely new to the development team due to their sometime inside the box look at their project.

I think the best way to get my point across is with the use of a metaphor. Think of a panel as a telephone; on one end you have the community and on the other you have the development team. Some of the community is giving valid information, or asking important questions that are of great benefit to one side or the other. However, an even larger group of the community is seemingly acting as static that interrupts the communication process and breaks down the bridge between the player base and the people who can make us happy. Static like, "Why is my class lame? " or "Can you break wizards again so they're all mini gods? " also "Any chance of buffing this item I have from three expansions ago so it's as good as the stuff dropping now? " Now I'm not one to attack my fellow players but quite frankly, I don't think many understand how much less improvement we see because of the static.

Having said my honest opinion as a gamer -- I'd love to share with you all the great things that came out of the EverQuest panels during Fan Faire! My favorite panel out of them all was the expansion highlights. I don't want to get into specifics in this article but some of the assets we were shown made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In this article I will be sharing with you some of the highlights that came out of the General and Mechanics panels.

For as long as I've been attending Fan Faire, there has been the EverQuest Best of the Best, which was held this year on Friday in good ole Las Vegas. Over the course of the day 10 groups of players attempt to individually qualify for the final round by winning one of the 10 preliminaries. Rounds typically take 15-20 minutes to finish and usually require the spawning of Tigers, Lord Nagafen and sometimes even the Avatar of War to help speed things along. This year was no exception, with players doing anything needed to survive certain doom; within the rules of course!

The final round started like the 10 others before it. Players selected their character which consisted of a slew of pre-made level 50's. After everyone logged in, contestants waited for Alan "Brenlo" Crosby, who is always the master of ceremonies at this event, to shout "GO!!", which is essentially code for ‘kill or be killed'!

Alan, who constantly taunts the challengers, does a fantastic job of giving everyone enthusiastic play-by-play announcer style updates throughout the fight. Unfortunately for the players, being taunted over the big speakers for all to hear isn't the only challenge that they face. The battle is waged in a huge Arena that sometimes makes it hard to find someone to kill. Personally this is one of the things I've never liked about the process. Sure, it usually makes it so that the battles are 1v1 duel style; but it also makes it very easy for friends who may have both made it to the finals to gang up on individuals - not much skill in that. Additionally, as much fun as it may be to watch tigers, dragons and giants run after players, the Best of the Best should be a test of skill, not a game of chance; that's just my opinion however.