EverQuest

The Good
D'oh it's Everquest! There are only two reviews and not that much stuff on it on Moby Games because everyone who has it is playing it right now! It is the hugest online game ever created. More than 600, 000 people play it and there are limitless possibilities from creating a character type to making a dent in the world! I would like to go into more detail, but it would take a loong time to explain it all. The Basics are: You make a character, and depending what race you are, you start off in a different city. There is no real point; you do what you want; sell stuff on message boards, chat, adventure or make a name for yourself. Just don't fight around a city, or you'll be killed witout haste by a guard, and you don't want to fight them. So, stock up on the caffeine (either Coke or Coffee) and get ready to put in at least 10 hours a week. Note that there ARE quests you can accomplish, however.

The Bad
You have to pay $5-$10 a month, and when you get killed you'll have to find your body to get your items back, which no one but you can take.

The Bottom Line
HUGE RPG where you do whatever you want, all over the internet, all for a small price.

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
The social interaction between players is one of the biggest draws of the game. Everquest was designed from the ground up to be a cooperative game which, in almost all cases, requires you to cooperate with other players in order to advance in levels (and, therefore, in power and ability). And this forced cooperation leads to online friendships, which gives you a reason to return to the land of Norrath again and again. I know many people for whom the game itself is secondary to the social aspects of simply hanging out with their friends and chatting.

The Bad
The thing that I disliked most about Everquest was the incessant whining and groaning and pissing and moaning that occurred in the online message forums and newsgroups. If you read the posts made in these groups and on these websites, you'd come away with the impression that people were being forced to play Everquest at gunpoint. Some people simply never seemed to grasp the concept that the game wasn't obligated to be all things to all people. Whenever Verant would adjust the game parameters to counter cheezy tactics or exploits, the cries of "NERF!" would begin, and whiners would come out in droves. It was demoralizing.

However, to be fair, it is also true that Everquest's biggest problem is Verant themselves. Somewhere in the development of Everquest, the design team got it into their heads that (A) the game should have "mystery," and (B) players were morons. This attitude continues largely unchanged to the present day, over two years after the original commercial release of Everquest. There have been many instances over the two years of Everquest's existence where the players themselves discovered bugs or game imbalances, but which would not be acknowledged (much less fixed) by Verant. Verant simply took the attitude of "You're wrong, and there's no way you could know nearly as much about the game as we do, so shut up about it already." On many occasions, however, it turned out that Verant was wrong and the players were right. Sometimes this would be fixed with a nod to the players. Most of the time it would be fixed quietly, without explanation, and Verant would claim that there had never been a problem in the first place. Occasionally, they'd fix it and claim that they discovered the problem independently of the players, and really, they'd never heard anything about it at all from the players (despite countless messages into the newsgroups and web-based message boards).

The Bottom Line
Everquest is a highly addictive experience for those who prefer to socialize via the Internet. It's also a powergamer's dream. But don't bother reading the message boards or the newsgroups. You'll just drive yourself mad and ruin the game for yourself.