EverQuest

The Good
(I should point out that I haven't played Everquest in over a year now, and since then there've been a few expansions and a much needed graphics overhaul. So some parts of my review might be slightly off)

Once upon a time elves were nothing more than E's on a screen cluttered with ASCII, and dragons would be four D's, indicating how very large they were. The E's and the H's and the D's would team together and combine their powers to take down the evil dragon and save their little world.

We've taken many steps forward in the evolution of computer games, and Everquest is a landmark on the online RPG timeline. Ten years from now you won't be able to read about the latest online RPG without seeing references to Everquest. But does being a landmark mean the game is good? Not necesarilly. In fact, Everquest being a landmark may be the only reason it's bringing in new business, because people want to know what all the fuss is about.

People flock to Everquest because of its popularity. After all, if something is popular it's good, right? We're shelling out ten bucks a month to play with other people, so the more people, the better, right? Yes and no. I'll point out the reasons why not in the "The Bad" section.

But first, "The Good".

Everquest combines many elements into one glorious package. From the classic dungeon crawler to the Internet chatroom, Everquest covers its bases very well. Join with a pack of adventuerers and charge into the dungeon with swords swinging and spells flying. Collect your loot and head back to town to sell it, or auction it off to people willing to buy. And while you're in town, talk to a woman and get a quest to go on. To say this game has "replay value" is misleading, since the game is in a constant state of change, there is no replaying since the game will always be new when you next log on.

The entire game world is large enough to keep you occupied for quite a while. Certain areas will be off limits to you (you'll be killed on sight) depending on your race. Not all races are welcome in all towns, and a dark elf wandering into a human town will be seen as a threat and disposed of quickly. Need something in the town? Gain enough levels and take down the guards yourself, or try and sneak in. If you use your brain, many things are possible in the game.

Most cities are quite vast and appropriate for the racial population. The elves live high up in the tree tops, the ogres come from primitive rock buildings, the trolls from murky swamps. They really give a feel for where you are in the game.

If you die, you lose everything you have. You can get it all back by getting to your corpse, of course, but if you died somewhere out in the middle of the desert, an area surrounded by ugly sand creatures, and all you have is a set of boxers and a stick...well, either you find someone to help you out or you'll just have to start all over. This element makes for some very strategic thinking. You also have to keep yourself fed and watered.

The Bad
That's about all I can find good about the game. Looking at the game at a generalistic point of view, the game is quite good. If I were able to play the game without having to pay ten dollars a month and log on to the 'net with my wimpy 56k modem, I think this game would be all that much better.

My biggest problem with the game is the people who play it. It's hard to say that a game is bad because of the people who play it, but it is an MMORPG. The people who play it basically make up the game. Granted, the last time I played was over a year ago, but I doubt the people have grown up much since then. But I'll get to the people later.

Everquest looks like the type of game you can really immerse yourself in. To be that adventurer who battles the odds, to wander from place to place in search of more adventure. The hero, who goes home with a giant back of gold over his shoulder. Everquest looks like that type of game. But it isn't. At all.

Unlike Asheron's Call (once upon a time it was Everquest's lead competitor), Everquest's landscapes aren't vast at all. In fact, they're all very flat and dull, save for the dungeons or canyons. Throughout the game, you'll get this feeling of being "boxed in", since you're not playing in a giant world. You're playing in a single zone, that may have one or two exits to other zones. The zones aren't particularly large, either. And monsters can't follow you into zones, so a particular "strategy" that was quite common was to pick a fight with a beast near a zone, so that in case you feel you're losing the battle, you can take a few steps back and viola! be free of him. The entire Everquest game world isn't that large. Compared to Asheron's Call, anyway. In Asheron's Call, to run from one side of the island to the other would take an entire day. In Everquest, you might do it in a few hours, provided you aren't attacked along the way.

The dungeons in Everquest are fairly unique, and they may have little quests for you to do. Just hope there isn't a line. Everquest is so overpopulated that to do just about any quest that involves a spawning monster, you'll have to wait your turn, and even then someone will probably cut in line.

Everquest is set up so that you CANNOT fight the game alone. Somewhere along level 20, you are REQUIRED to join with a group of people to fight monsters, since any type of monster you can fight solo will no longer give you experience, and any monster that will give you experience is going to kick your ass. This is Everquest's worst feature. I wanted to play with people if I wanted to, I didn't want to be forced into joining a bunch of people I probably don't particularly like anyway.

Another way Everquest isn't immersive is the fact that while you're in a zone, you're subject to "yells", "out of characters" and "auctions" being broadcasted by anyone in the zone. It really gives the feeling that you're playing in a 3D chatroom, not an RPG. There is an option to mute it, but then you'd be muting ALL incoming texts. (Note: this feature has most likely been updated since I played) And then where would you be? Your options are to either fight alone (which as I pointed out you can't do for long) or to play in a chat room.

The people who play Everquest are...well, to say the least, they're immature juvenile idiots. Of course I can't say they ALL are. I myself came across a few who were very good people, but that was quite rare. Throughout your journey in Everquest, you'll be hearing Everquesters calling each other "gay" every other line. "This is gay." "You're so gay." "That town is gay." "Elves are gay." and the like. Of course, they don't spell it as well. It's insulting, and it's annoying.

There is an option to set your status to "role playing", which a lot of people thought was neat, except role playing seems to be illegal in Everquest. I once dueled a man in a fair battle and proceeded to sell his belongings after I'd won. Because I'd done this (note: he was a human paladin, and me being a dark elf shadow knight - we were quite opposite and destined to be enemies anyway), and though we were both set to "roleplay", I was ORDERED by the Everquest cops to get back his items or be banned for a day. And since I'd already sold his belongings, I'd been banned. I was banned because this kid whined to the Everquest cops after I'd beaten him.

It seemed that I was the only one in the Everquest world who actually earned what I was fighting with. It's quite popular to just get hand-me-downs from higher level characters. Though it seemed that once upon a time this was considered unpopular, since those who do it are called "twinks". I doubt the people who call them that know what a "twink" is, since themselves have done no different. People in Everquest got a kick out of mocking me for not having an unearned level 30 weapon at level 2. It was gay.

The Bottom Line
So. You're not allowed to roleplay. You're not allowed to fight by yourself. You'll be mocked for earning your items. Your entire game world consists of tiny flat zones that link together in an unconvincing manner.

This game is potentially good. If the Everquest cops would stop listening to the whiny kids who lose their "hard earned" items and instead police them for being boneheads, the game would be a lot better.

The game itself isn't too bad. There are improvements that could be made, of course. But do something about the people who play it. Make it more enjoyable for the people who've passed the sixth grade.

The Good
"EverQuest" is quite an experience. A standard sword-and-sorcery hackfest, it delivers 3D mages-and-maces goodness over a huge, twice-expanded world. Exploration of the entire Everquest universe would take weeks; the selection of monsters, spells, weapons, armor and magical items is immense.

EverQuest is also a well-balanced game, offering relatively steady progression through various levels of nasty monsters, and is extremely player-friendly; no cherry-picking PKers will ruin your game here (unless you want them to.) An imaginative and very effective addition is the EQ "party" system whereby players are encouraged, and derive significant benefits from, acting as a team. Parties are easily set up and disbanded as needs dictate, and the resulting cooperation enhances the game experience and play balance a hundredfold.

The Bad
It's soooooooo slooooooooooowww.

Progression through each level, assuming you play more or less by the rules, takes hours, hours, hours and more hours. This is especially frustrating because the game lacks a substantial number of really interesting quests for characters under level 20. So if you want to advance to the point where you'll be doing really cool things, you're looking at literally days of gameplay fighting the same monsters over and over again.

Like it or not, most EQ gameplay is essentially a math contest; you engage a monster in combat and if your (average damage inflicted per minute/monster HP) is higher than (average damage taken/your HP) you will win; if not, you'll lose. Defeating a superior monster is essentially impossible, and tricks that allow it to be done are usually removed from the game by its makers. Consequently, the monsters you can fight at any given time are limited; anything more than 2-3 levels higher will kill you with ease, and anything 2-3 levels below will give no experience. Since any level advancement after the first few levels requires you kill SCORES of monsters, you'll find much of your gaming experience consists of fighting a predictable battle, resting, fighting the same battle, resting, ad nauseum. Group play allows for killing slightly higher-level monsters but doesn't change the overall pattern of play.

In short; if you want to get something out of EQ, you need a lot of time.

The Bottom Line
The best online RPG out there, but awfully time-intensive and not as deep as some would like.

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.