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There are 5 parts to this review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next" at the bottom of each section to continue
By: Holly M.
Introduction
When I began playing Everquest (or EQ as I'll generally refer to it here), I was coming from the fast paced shooter background of games like Quake. At first, I found it slow and irritating. What was the purpose of playing a game which had no final end? Wasn't there an objective? Didn't Verant Interactive and Sony Entertainment at least give you a free toaster or a nice set of Ginzu knives if you reached level 50 (currently 60 with the release of the second expansion)? Why the $9.95 a month alone should've paid for that! The purpose, I'd been told, was to get to the next level, which naturally led me to the question of "then what?".
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A Spectre attacks!
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The technical objective is to obtain the next level and eventually work yourself to the highest level possible. However, it isn't necessary to be level 60 to enjoy the game by any means. To gain a level you must kill creatures of or within a select number of levels around your level. For example, if you're level 10 you can for the most part obtain experience by killing anything approximately level 7 or above and receive experience. The more experience you get, the closer you get to the next level. The higher you move in levels, the more bittersweet the game becomes. You fight bigger and badder creatures which typically drop the best items and are to be found in the more exciting parts of the world. On the other hand the rate at which you gain experience slows. This means an increase in the amount of time you have to spend hunting, and is partially to blame for all of your EQ buddies locking themselves away for days.
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Treants of South Karana
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Some strive to obtain the highest level possible in order to receive that status of power and wealth associated with having a high level character. Others primarily play for the social aspects and the friendships easily developed in game. My point in this is that each person seems to have a slightly different reason for why they love to play EQ. Like anything else, you can get as much or as little as you want out of it and when you're paying a monthly fee I'd suggest trying to get at least something.
A brief overview
This particular section of the review will most likely be redundant to current EQ players, feel free to skip or skim if you choose. To begin it's proper to say the size of this game and the amount of information available about it is immense. One could write a whole book on the strategies of the classes alone.
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| Faerie Courtier-there are many kinds of faeries,you'll most likely hear them coming before you see them |
There are some sixty plus lands and four continents to explore complete with nearly every kind of terrain and environment imagineable. The continents include Antonica, the original lands of Norrath, Kunark, Velious and Luclin, all of which have their own section in this review. Portions of each land are separated by "zones", similar to states or countries on a map but invisible to the eye. Zones separate one land from another in the sense that when you zone, or cross the line between one land to another, your computer loads the newest land into memory and dumps the old.
This eliminates the burden on your machine of having some 2000 people's activities loaded. It's also helpful when you have a creature on your tail as the moment you zone from that land into another you're immediately wiped from that creature's "hate list". They are no longer interested in you unless you head back over and irritate their aggression again.
For the lesser mortals in order to convert PSD to CSS converting Psd to html is something that requires the help of designers and programmers
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To attempt to walk from one side of Norrath, the world of EQ, to another would literally take hours and most likely a couple of dreary boat rides between the continents.Thankfully, there are several tools to help an unfamiliar adventurer find their way around. One example is Sense Heading, a skill which can be developed by your character that give the direction you're heading using a simple compass system. There is also the Location option which uses the Cartesian Coordinate system. Let's say someone in the same zone as you gives you their exact location coordinates. You can find them by typing /loc in your chat window (although I'd recommend making a hotkey for this) as you move along until your numbers match up with theirs. For those of you who, like myself, were lousy with this system in school, fear not! You'd be surprised at how quickly this method can become easy and comfortable to use. Not to mention it's almost a necessity when trying to follow maps or distinct locations.
When first making a character you have several options in races and classes to choose from. Each of these you have the ability to change the facial features of, and each of which offers male and female models, respectively. The races consist of:
(Click a race below to see pic)
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| Gnome tinkerers created this Clockwork rat |
Each race has a specific set of classes available to them that they can choose from. The classes consist of Wizards, Enchanters, Necromancers, Magicians, Warriors, Rogues, Shamans, Clerics, Paladins, Beast Lords (with the release of the fourth expansion), Monks, Bards, Druids, Rangers and Shadow Knights. These classes are specific to the races in that, for example, an Ogre would have a great deal of natural strength and many hit points (the measure of the number of hits they can take in battle).
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Neriak: Home of the Dark Elves
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However, they typically aren't rated the most intelligent of the races. Therefore, they are more suitable for being Warriors than say, Wizards. The option for a Wizard isn't available to them because of this. There are good methods and bad to how you play your class whichever you may choose and there's a great deal of information on the Net about proper player strategies for each. Some classes are excellent for soloing, some are designed for grouping. Regardless, if you haven't played EQ before and are consideringng an account I highly recommend doing a little research first. I've found that Castersrealm is a very good resource to start with.
When Verant uses the catch phrase "You're in our world now" for EQ, they're not kidding. There are politics and factions, merchants and a fully functional economy. You can get drunk and married and in that order if you choose. Though a Vegas Chapel and Elvis impersonator are not included.
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Felwithe: Home of the High Elves
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EQ was released in the spring of 1999. During this time subscribers were offered one continent to travel on, Antonica. This continent consisted of everything necessary for the players to obtain the level 50 limit. It came complete with lower level "newbie" zones based around the home cities to high level only zones such as dragon dungeons (see the "EQ Extras" section at the end of this review for a gallery of Dragons) and three of the illustrious Planes.
Unfortunately, over time problems began to arise. EQ had such an overwhelming response from it's subscribers that the servers had become overcrowded. People were beginning to lose interest as they grew in levels for they'd seen all there was to see and done all there was to do. The wait for obtaining a camp for certain creatures could result in days or having to use a calender system to communicate with an entire server of anywhere from 1500-2000 people.
So what do you do when you have overcrowded servers and angry customers? Enter... Kunark.
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