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.