SOE... Please don't mess this up. I, and many like me, hold Velious as a fond MMO memory from EQ days. I retired from EQ to play EQ2 and have been pretty disappointed with the last 2 expansions (although RoK was great for me).
Do yourselves a favor and poll the EQ players about what they loved about Velious and check that against what you are doing now. I see a push for things like flying mounts and zone quantity, but that in no way lines up with my expectations as a person who played and raided through that expansion in EQ1.
Velious in EQ1 was the first truely great expansion. Although RoK was good, Velious brought on truely epic quests, raids and content. Zones were absoluetly huge in comparison to previous content. Quests like the Coldain Shaw and Coldain Rings were so epic they are still referred to today. TBH, I've yet to see any event in any game as impressive as the 10th ring war of the Coldain Ring quests. The whole server would converge just to watch back in the day and there is nothing like that in game now... and that's a shame.
Beyond the paragraphs I could go into about this paticular content, I'll make two points about expansions in general:
1 - I hope this is a FEB release because you guys plan to have itemization (including graphics) done BEFORE release. Getting a disco on loot that looks like the last tier junk loot is beyond disappointing and unforgivable. If it isn't done, don't release it.
2 - Keep in mind some guilds will blow through this content almost immediately, especially if easymode is available on dungeons. Everyone will push through EM first for progression updates, then go back for HardMode. So the message? Don't introduce a bottleneck mob that can't be killed because the last tier stuff isn't finished with testing. Have the contect done on release or don't release it.