Everquest Review (no fat)

Game Description

Sony Online Entertainment scored big points with the online community through their 1999 EverQuest release. The game addd a new flavor to the genre with its fantasy world of Norrath.

EverQuest – The World of Norrath

The story of EverQuest takes place in a land called Norrath. The lands of Norrath are split into three major continents: the small island of Odus, the main continent of Antonica, and the medium-sized island of Faydwer. The people of Odus are called High Men, or Erudites and they have natural arcane skills and are interested in magic only. Antonica, the largest of the three continents and is also home to the most urban settlements. Many races reside here, including humans, elves, ogres, half-elves, dark elves, trolls, barbarians and halflings. Each race has an important town in a different part of Antonica. Finally, Faydwer contains 4 cities and 5 races: dwarves, gnomes, wood elves, high elves and half-elves.

EverQuest Character Creation and In-game Management

EverQuest offers the possibility to play dozens of different race, classes. The character creation is downright addictive. You’ll find yourself combining the race, class and skills of your character over and over again just to try out new stuff. The 14 classes are quite diverse as well; you can choose to be a bard, cleric, druid, enchanter, monk, magician, necromancer, paladin, ranger, rogue, shadow knight, shaman, warrior or wizard. Each class will affect the character's development strategies and its fighting abilities (hand-to-hand, ranged and magic).

Also, you get to choose a Pytheon deity that your character will worship. While there is no specific laws regarding how you play a character with a certain religion, but the NPCs will react to your religion and be in turn helpful, or murderous, according to what the NPC thinks of your religion.

A downside is the fact that there are only 8 appearances per race to choose from. So, quite a few characters running around Norrsath will look the pretty much the same. The weapons and armor are the saving grace that show on the characters and help identify players when there is not much else to set them apart.

EverQuest - Player vs. Player

PvP is both hated and loved by MMO fans, so EverQuest’s development team found a smart way to avoid the troubles PvP brings. You can become a PKer only after giving a scroll to the Priest of Discord in-game, so that player vs. player is not possible at the beginning of the game. Also, an entire server is set up just for player vs. player combat, so player killing is really up to you. However, while you can play on any sever you choose, you can have a unique character on each server and not jump from one server to another with the same character

EverQuest Party Play

EQ encourages parties and clans that take on quests with the addictive multiplayer aspect in mind. A good organized clan is a safer traveling partner than anything else on offer in the game. Healers are always welcome in clans as they can cut down on resting times and help get the fighting units out of tough fights without dying.

However, EverQuest doesn’t take an anti-solo player stand of any kind. There are classes that suit solo questing better than other classes. So, although the game doesn’t become unplayable if you like to play solo, it does limit the experience.

EverQuest Monster AI

In EQ the fights are not just about troll bashing, rather, there are varying degrees of monster AI that will keep you on your toes during adventures. While some monsters and enemies will probably be as intelligent as a rock, others will dodge and attack you when you least expect it, or circle round you to come and attack from behind. Sill others might turn tail on you and run, only to come back with others of their kind to thrash you using some party play. All in all, the AI adds a nice realistic flavor to the game and make it more enjoyable at the same time.

EverQuest Interface

EverQuest can be a bit rough around the edges. The multitude of menus, the sticky windows, the hilariously bad textual errors in NPC dialogue and other similar problems hinder the playing experience. Of course, in a MMORPG all things are subject to improvement, so you can expect these to be rectified.

The interface can get annoying real fast for a newbie. But as you get the hang of things, the interface will give you lots of info and the game experience will be all the better because of it.

EverQuest – Death and Healing

You will die a lot in the beginning of the game. Period. There’s no cheating death here. A young character will most likely get beaten down constantly by ingenious critters, monsters or other players. However, as you move up on the experience bar, entering the teen levels will result in dying less, but caring more if you die. Simply because when you die you’ll loose hard earned experience points. Death also means you’ll have to go over to the place your corpse is, which is often a long, frustrating journey.

Healing can be done through potions, scrolls and spells, but it can also come naturally through resting. Resting is, like in any other MMORPG, boring and in this case quite long. However the spell-healing system makes up for that. You’ll often find healer-class players that come to you and heal you, without any reward claim most of the time. By practicing healing their healer skills will increase so the favor is mutual.

EverQuest Graphics

While graphically EverQuest is undoubtedly a step above most competitors, the 3D rendering of the world of Norrath looks a little jaggy. Of course, for 1999 standards it might look okay, but after you’ve played similar, newer games, the graphics will look very outdated.

EverQuest Sound

Sound plays a great role in creating the diverse atmosphere of the world of Norrath. Little touches like random thunder in storms, flowing rivers, whooshing winds or bug life sounds really create a ‘Wow! It’s alive!’ feel to things. The dynamic background music adds credit to this aspect of the game as well.

EverQuest – A Final Word

Although certainly not a perfect, EverQuest is an addictive game that held the most number of paying subscribers in a MMORPG for a long time.

EverQuest – Cost

EverQuest has three subscription fee plans: $14.99 per month, $41.97 for three months and $77.94 for six months. The game currently retails for $19.99. You can find some versions of the game that include multiple expansion packs to get you started off, as well.