EverQuest

The Good
When I first entered Norrath(the name of the land you are in), I was overwhelmed by its scope and immersiveness. The game was awe-inspiring. Being in a world with hundreds of other people is like no other experience. You actually build friendships and make enemies.

The spell system seems enormous at first, but after awhile you will realize that most spells are just upgrades to old ones, with a name change.

The graphics, while not top of the line, are very good. They were down-scaled to make the game play better since it is an online game. The intro theme song will be running through your head for months, but other than that, there isn't a lot of in-game music.

There is also a "naming" filter built into the game. It will only allow "roleplaying" type names. I thought this was a god send. Nothing ruined my Ultima Online experience, or Diablo II experience more than to have "L33tMasta'PimpDaddy" the warrior enter the game and help me slay a fantasy dragon.

As a game, I do not think it is a very good one, but as a "gaming experience" it is the best out there, in my opinion. I was in a guild for most of the entire year I played the game, and I made friends that I actually care about, and some that I have met, and that I now talk to on the phone. People from California, to Canada, to New York, to Australia. It is truly amazing in that aspect. This game has set the current standard for the massive-multiplayer-persistant world, and I believe that it only scratched the surface of what is to come.

The Bad
I found that while the game seemed huge at first, it really wasn't as large as it seemed. With the recent release of the expansion pack "Ruins of Kunark" the game world has gotten bigger.

After your character reaches level 20 or so, you will find that you spend more time doing nothing but sitting and resting, than actually playing a game. You will fight one or two creatures, than sit for 3-5 minutes to regain health and mana to do it again. It gets extremely repetitive. In fact, I found I had time to read a book, or even play another game on a second computer, while waiting to get back to full health, or waiting for the monster I had just killed to "respawn" so I could kill him again.

Obviously in a massive, persistent game world, you do not want permanent character death, as I have known people with over 100 DAYS of online time invested in a single character. To make up for this, you will lose experience everytime you die. This is the penalty for death, and it truly serves its purpose, as you will do anything not to die, as you can lose 6-8 hours of "progress" in a single death. This can be brutal and very discouraging.

One nickname for EverQuest, is "EverCamp." It is rightfully named. Due to the difficulty of monsters swarming you in dungeons, I found that it is nearly impossible to do a traditional "dungeon spelunk" in EQ. You tend to pick a single spot in a dungeon and kill the monsters, then await their return to do it again. In this manner, you get the most "experience gain" with the least risk of death, and sometimes you can get a "rare" magic of some sort if you go at it long enough. While some monsters would show up every 20 minutes or so, and have a magic item once every 1 or 2 hours, there were some monsters that would only show once or twice a week(yes I said a week) and even then, they didn't always have that rare item you were after.

I also feel the "Quest" in "EverQuest" was never fulfilled. Many of the in-game quests we not working for the majority of my life in Norrath, while others are still not working. Many quests just do not reward you with anything of value once you are actually strong enough to do them, while the ones that do, require the efforts of sometimes 10-20 players working together to get one player that quest item they were after. This just isn't something that is feasable for the casual gamer. To enjoy EQ, you have to really "live" it.

The Bottom Line
If you do not want to keep that "significant other" in your life, buy them this game. It can totally ruin your life. I had several friends I met in game who were in college when they started...and aren't any longer. Friends who were married, who aren't any longer. Not that it is the games fault, but it can do that to some people. It is truely immersive, if you do not mind a slow-paced, repetitive game. Think of it as a "Yahoo Chat-room" with eye-candy and something to do.

The Good
In 1999 the concept of an MMO was still brand new. This was the first widely released game that incorporated the "ability" to play with thousands of other players in a huge gaming world. The "potential" for player to player interaction in this game was immense. In addition, for the day, the graphics were unbelievable, considering the scope of the game.

The Bad
Instead of leading the gaming industry into a new renaissance, this game literally destroyed the entire industry.

Why? It's complicated, but I will try to break it down.

1) The development team of this game released an absurdly unfinished product. Yet people played it anyway. I tried it in April of 1999, and dropped it by May 1999 because of how bad it was. Unfortunately I was in the vast minority.

This gave developers the green light to release games that were essentially still in BETA and have players actually fund their development. This problem still persists today!

2) While this game gave players the "ability" to play with other people, it was designed to be played by SINGLE player. Thus it was one of the first SINGLE PLAYER ONLINE GAMES. Why on earth would you pay a monthly fee for a game, when comparative single player games exist that do not require a monthly fee? Developers noticed how players didn't seem to care! Quite frankly it goes to show you just how stupid many of us are. :(

This gave developers the green light to build massive SINGLE player games, and yet charge a monthly fee for them.

3) The game itself is utterly dull and vapid. Even in 1999 people lamented that in Everquest all you could do was kill brown rats, to move onto white rats, to move onto black rats. After black rats you moved onto big brown spiders, then big red spiders, and then the cycle repeats.

I knew people who played this game while watching TV. One of my friends actually would watch TV, eat food, and play ANOTHER GAME, yet still play Everquest because it was so simple!

Not only that, but people would play these games for 12+ hours a day! Why would you do that to yourself?!

The game developers noticed how quite a few people responded to this completely boring design and thus started making every other MMO in exactly the same manner. Innovation was scrapped for blatant copying of an older boring design.

4) Everquest made huge amounts of money, and that is the single element of this game that killed the gaming industry as a whole. Previous to the release of Everquest MMO type games had existed (IE UO did well, just not this well). But this is the first one to REALLY cash in. At its peak this game was bringing in tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars a month, in addition to the CD sales! Compared to most games that relied entirely off of someone just buying a CD.

In the years previous to 1999 a new gaming genre was released just about every 3-4 years. These new genres were almost always a breath of fresh air. Just to name a few: side scrollers, 4x strategy, real time strategy, first person shooter, online first person shooter, clicking role playing games, etc, etc, etc...

But after 1999 there hasn't been a major new genre created. Realize the impact of that statement! In almost 13 years we haven't seen a new video game genre. That would be as if in 1999 we were all still playing ONLY side scrollers like Super Mario Bros!

Why did this game kill innovation in the gaming industry? Because everyone saw how much more money the subscription based online games were making and everyone in the industry dropped what they were doing to make them. So many flooded the market that the asking price for a subscription dropped to ZERO. Countless studios shutdown simply due to their greed and inability to manage programs of this scope. And countless more shutdown because they released "cookie cutter" MMOs that bored the tears out of the people who played them.

Instead of innovating, these companies simply copied a very expensive genre and it killed the entire industry.

Most of the companies left in the gaming industry do not make new games, they simply re-create games made AT LEAST 13 years ago.

The Bottom Line
Everquest was a blatant slot machine game that was easiest played by yourself. Players would kill red creatures until they leveled, then they would kill black creatures, then white, then purple. Once completed they would kill another creature in the red color and start the cycle all over again. This pattern would repeat for possibly 300-400 hours (or more in some cases). Some of us hated this type of game, but millions apparently loved this style of game.

This game made so much money that it killed the video gaming industry in the later 90's and early 2000's. Just about everyone in the industry dropped their innovative projects (because of greed) and tried to copy it's design. The vast majority failed miserably. And because of it we haven't seen a new gaming genre released in almost 13 years.

Welcome to the Dark Ages of gaming.

The Good
I liked the good graphics and the mediocre spell casting. I also liked the fact that the CD makes a very nice coaster.

The Bad
I hated the downtime. THere was no such thing as logging on for just an hour..you had to log on, walk a great distance to fight a monster, spend more time gaining levels, and then there is the added fact that you are likely to die while fighting. When you die, you start off where you last binded your self too..and you have a limited amount of time to recover your things before they become lootable by all..so all in all, you are looking at spending about 2 hours on doing something that is very simple.

The Bottom Line
If you want to impress friends at a party, bring a bunch of EQ CDs and use them as coasters..that is about the most fun you will have with this game