Customer Reviews

EverQuest: Planes of Power

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

How can these people call this a review of planes of power when all they are doing is complaning about fixes that are made to balance the game? And what does customer srvice have to do with this product?

Ok here is the low down. Planes of Power introduces a new method of travelling for all the players of EverQuest. Now you can get to any city in the game without having to pay for a port or wander around in huge zones looking to get to the nexus. With Planes of Power comes teh Plane of Knowledge and the ability to get ported right to the city of your choice. THis plane is neutral so no you will not get killed by going there. Also in this expansion are new spells for ALL LEVELS of classes that use magic. Also, there is the new 75 person RAID XP, so that when you and your guild (you are in a guild right?) go on a raid, everyone gets XP and in the latest patch they increased the amount you get (as of 11/19/02)

Planes of Power offers alot to the whole community, and its an EQ expansion. So why play without the full game.

Do not listen to a bunch of angry monks that finally got toned down to teh level they were supposed to be when this game started. Base the review off level headed players. And the customer service does not [stink]. .... I ahve played EQ for 3 years and never had to ask for help more than 4 times, at which time each response was answered promptly.

Planes of Power is a great expansion that adds even more to do to the endless universe that is EQ.

i would say this is the best expansion, specially for the melee type classes who cant port themselves, or gate, or bind. This expansion allows you to port yourself to just about every city saving lots of time, and EQ money, called platinum. The graveyard idea in these zones is superb, saving what could be hours of singing "wheres my corpse", or paying others to get it for you.Other than that it ends there for the casual gamer as it requires a LOT of time to get to the 2nd tier planes in this expansion, i spent 2 weeks trying to get there, playing 2hours or less a day. Getting this task done allows you to see 2 more places. From here on, its just about as far as the casual gamer will see, for a while, or unless they have luck getting invited to a raid that allows them to see the other zones. But pretty much the other guilds are strict and only wish to do themselves good, specially the better guilds (ones who play, a LOT). Fortunately there are casual gamers out there who know each other and can do what other guilds take hours to do in a much shorter time because they are friends with each other. Unfortunately, there are not many of this type of players, from what Ive seen anyway. I have heard however, that for those who dont play hours on end everyday, that there are quests which require you to obtain rare items from places that you can get to, and combine them to allow you to hold some key to let you in to the other places. Basically, this expansion is for you if you are in a big guild/uber guild. But it can be for casual gamers if you are not in a race to get to the other newer better zones, as there is a way to get there, but takes longer for you since you dont play as much. However there is a limit to casual gamers as the much better places WILL require you to play much more than your 2hrs or less a day, if you even have that.

THumbs up for fixing the classes which needed fixed, ie mages being a mod rod ... for raids/groups; wizards killing dragons with just a group force; leather wearing monks that took hits better than plate wearing classes...
Thumbs up for graphics, new monsters, sound, over all interface.
Thumbs down for taking so long to finally fix monks.
Thumbs down for saying that it would cut down on huge timesink quests, but not really doing it.

Okay, well, a lot of people have been whining about PoP, especially druids and wizzies, who feel that this expansion has killed their porting business. Got news for ya... this expansion does not make druids and wizzies expendable. Pop lets you port to CITIES. Druids can still port to places that PoK can't get you to directly (Emerald Jungle and Cobalt Scar, for example,amongst others). Plus, in a group, druids and wizzies are still essential for evac if the situation gets ugly. Druids are still needed to buff, and Wizzies are still awesome nukers. So I don't know what the whining is about. For your info, my main is a druid.

Besides the ease to get around Norrath, PoP adds spells, great quests, and higher-level hunting. This is a GREAT expansion, no matter what class you play.

Looks like it could be an okay expansion. You can fight the "gods," so time will tell. Still, some notes. The box screenshots show Luclin graphics -- if you play the game straight out of the box you'll get old graphics. Not a big deal, but buyers should be told and they're not. Also, you can't go beyond the first zone in Planes if you're not high level. Nowhere on the box is this mentioned. Transportion issues should have been settled via a patch rather than an expansion.

EverQuest is called "EverCrack" by many for its incredibly addictive gameplay. It's a fully immersive role playing game where you take on the personae of an elf, dwarf, barbarian, human, ogre, troll or many other types of characters. You can then choose what type of profession you want, from magician, paladin, ranger, warrior, and more. You can be another person, and live in another world. Isn't this something we've all dreamed of from childhood?

You can customize your gender, your face, hair style, hair color and eyes too, although the choices are few and the click-cycling gets annoying. A few more brief choices and you're in your starting town, ready to explore, learn, and kill some wildlife.

The graphics are rather nice, with each creature type having its own body shape and size. Look at a tall ogre standing next to a little halfling and the two really are quite different! Head out to attack small spiders and larger polar bears, or do some fishing and tailoring if that's more your speed. You can concentrate on combat, or magic, or making things, or just hanging out and talking. The world has it all.

The Planes of Power CD is good for those just starting, because it has everything you need to get going. It's also a nice expansion for experienced users, because it lets the higher leveled characters enter new, interesting worlds. The planes also let you easily move between towns, something that was a bit difficult before.

EverQuest, being an online RPG, requires a monthly fee to keep playing. This gets you your own server with special weapons, armor, events and dynamic maps. With over 50 servers to choose from for regular gameplay, there are thousands of people on line at all times to interact with and work on quests with.

EverQuest has been played for so long by such a huge volume of gamers that just about every part of the system has been finely tuned. The animations for spells are gorgeous, as is the clothing for characters. You can customize just about any key you want, customize the music playing in the background, customize the background of the various status boxes, move them around the screen, fade them out when they're not in use. It's really a treat to play this if you've only played some of the older RPGs.

If you're a RPG fan, EverQuest is definitely a game to give a try to, either by buying the CD and doing the free-month, or playing it at a friend's house. Most regular games you buy on CD give you less than a month's gameplay anyway, and if you DO enjoy the game a lot, for only another each month you get another full month's enjoyment. You can't say that for a lot of regular games you shell out your cash for!

Lots of people regard this expansion as only for high level characters. I am not one of them, however this expansion is not for those new to EQ. You CAN install this stand-alone, but you should start off with the original version (can be downloaded free from Sony), learn gameplay, and then consider this expansion. For those familiar with the game this expansion adds some very useful things indeed. The pedestals you have seen appear in the zones lead to the Plane of Knowledge. This leads to almost every city or zone in the game. No more begging Wizzies or Druids for a port :) There is also a Soulbinder and a bank in PoK. Getting the idea here? I bind my characters here to make corpse looting safer and quicker. If you're capable of binding yourself this is trivial, but to those of us that can't bind, it's pretty nice. All the other Planes in this expansion require your character to be level 46+, but the PoK makes it nice for lower levels, and is one of the best additions to the game.

Whoever said that you can't go into POK before 50, is lying. Flat out lying. You can get into pok at level 1. Plane of tranquility is at level 46, and as of a month ago, Plane of nightmare, innovation, disease, justice, can be accesed at 46. Valor, Storms, Decay, Torment can be accesed at 55. HoH and bastion of thunder are accesed at 62. If you don't have a level 46 plus character, buy this expansion solely for the ease of travel. No more taking the boat from butcherblock to freeport !

I just bought it for the box art but i like the game too, super fun, kinda behind on expansions

First off, my ratings are based on EQ as a whole. The greatest game ever created as far as I'm concerned. Once POP came out it made travelling too easy. I enjoyed the game when it was a vast, mysterious land, and I'm just talking about ther original continents. The books ruined it for the team servers. Back in the olden days it would require great effort for someone to make a toon to pk with and travel up to Qeynos and wreak havok in the outlying areas. Once the books came out it ruined the team servers as far as I'm concerned. I still have had more fun playing EQ over any other game. Hopefully EQ2 will bring back some of the challenges of the early game.

PoP is crucial if you want to participate in any raids (events that have more than six people for which everyone participating in the raid gets raid experience based on the difficulty of beasties killed) -AND- it gives you more playing zones if you are over level 55. I just made level 50, but hear in our guild chats all the time about raids the upper level guild members are going on & I can't wait until I can join them. Lots of nifty NO DROP items can be found on the various planes.

In addition to PoP's raid capabilities & additional zones for those higher level players, the easier transport to different locations (opposed to waiting for the nexus spires to activate or having to pay a druid for a port) saves you a lot of time, giving you more energy & time to get experience. Regardless of what another reviewer stated, you can't use Planes of Power (PoP) to get to ALL the cities in EverQuest. There are only a select number of stones for you to click that can take you numerous places within the game, making your run that much faster (again if you don't want to pay for a port, if you aren't a druid, etc.)

I have all the expansion packs for EverQuest, including the just "released" (2/24/2003) Legacy of Yeshiva (or however you spell it). If you're worried about money you might want to make your purchases piecemeal. I'd recommend purchasing the packs in the following order: EQ Trilogy (save $$ this way over purchasing EQ Classic + Kunark + Velious separately), then Shadows of Luclin (gives you access to nexus & bazzar & some other zones), then LoY, and then PoP. If you can afford it, then get all of them at one time. <grin> (Note: I do not work for SOE nor have any stock in any of their holdings)

IMHO SOE has a TON of work to do on their support, but the game is entertaining & addictive. It's a great way to make new friends. I'd recommend this game easily & I've only been playing since 30-Nov-2002. I do hope that the stmt from another reviewer is true & that's for the game to be less addicting over time (tho I do plan to stay in touch w/the friends I've made)