In these days of the reign of World of WarCraft in the MMO space, while a mighty Barbarian comes under attack of not a small number of former fans (Age of Conan), and while Electronic Arts launches her attack on the king (Warhammer Online), let's not forget about the series that started it all.

Yes, we played Ultima Online and even Meridian 59 before that. But the game that really was the predecessor of most MMOs today was EverQuest, which came out some time after UO. (There are some bits about those two games in our interview with Richard Garriott, by the way.)

EverQuest 2 is not the genre defining game EQ was, but still offers a solid and diverse game experience (in a "high fantasy" setting, compared to the rather cartoonish setting and game world of WoW and WAR), and a dedicated group of players. Today, Sony Online Entertainment has released new material for the fifth EQ2 addon, The Shadow Odyssey. The add-on is scheduled for a November 18 release. For 20 Dollars, fans will get more than 20 new zones, including the legendary Dungeon Guk. You'll find a 52 MB video about the new zones here, and here are the new screenshots.