EverQuest (Jewel Case)

Other products by Sony

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000059HVQ
• Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: April 8, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,506 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review
Taking the standard conventions of a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game--such as character creation, monster combat, special abilities, and spells--and combining them with a persistent and always changing online virtual world, Sony Interactive's EverQuest creates an experience like no single-player personal computer game. In fact, EverQuest features no solo or story-oriented game; EverQuest requires, and certainly encourages, interaction with the tens of thousands of other players online. (As an online-only game, EverQuest requires the use of your Internet connection.)

Players begin by creating their EverQuest alter ego. Elements such as race (12 in all, including Dwarf, Ogre, Troll, Halfling, Gnome, Barbarian, Dark Elf, Human) and class (14 in all, including Bard, Magician, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warrior, Wizard) determine your character's statistics and special abilities. For instance, the Warrior class of any race is inherently strong, though the Warriors of the Troll race are much stronger than, say, the Warriors of the Halfling race. Other races and classes favor intelligence or dexterity. Players can also customize their character's clothing, face, and name to further personalize their alter ego.

Vibrant graphics (particularly spell effects) and crisp monster and player models bring the EverQuest world to life. Game play consists primarily of combat against dozens of different creatures; defeating the varied beasts of EverQuest earns your character both coins (for the purchase of better equipment) and experience points (for improving skills, abilities, and power).

There's plenty of satisfaction in watching your virtual alter ego gain experience, power, and wealth. Though it takes an enormous amount of time to improve your character, EverQuest's addictive, easy-to-learn game play makes the effort worthwhile.

EverQuest's sense of community shines in the quests and battles you'll partake with other players. Taking on the more powerful monsters alone is suicide. But team up with a Troll player in Chicago and a Wizard player from Seattle, and you've got a monster-stomping gang sure to earn everyone fame, fortune, and friends. It's the sense of trust and teamwork that creates EverQuest's most endearing quality--and its most stressful: you never know if that Cleric you picked up in the local tavern is a talented healer or a worthless coward until you're mixing it up with a group of Minotaurs.

Most players find EverQuest's community atmosphere its best quality. Speaking with and questing alongside the thousands of players online provides good gaming, interesting conversation, and perhaps even real friendships. Verant Interactive listens to the community of gamers and constantly updates and changes the EverQuest world. Filled with monsters, dungeons, and fabulous treasure, and supported by an active developer and fan community, EverQuest is sure to live up to its name. Players will be adventuring in this rich online world for many years to come. --Doug Radcliffe

Pros:

• Sharp 3-D graphics
• Easy-to-learn game play
• Excellent sense of community
• Well-balanced and varied mix of race and class

Cons:

• Monthly fee (approximately $10 for unlimited use)
• Improving your character requires a serious time investment

EverQuest is a multiplayer online game you play via the Internet. A stable Internet connection is required to play. Sony Online Entertainment charges a small monthly fee for this game, separate from your Internet service provider access charges. The first month of this fee is included in the purchase price of this package. You must provide a valid credit card to register and play. After your first month, you can use your credit card to buy more time.

GameSpot Review
While its intent - to unite thousands of players simultaneously within a huge game world - is similar to other online role-playing games, EverQuest delivers on its promises much more assertively than the competition, though not always gracefully. Between its excellent graphics, its performance, its rich fantasy setting, and its propensity to force you to cooperate with, rather than hinder, your fellow players, EverQuest is the best game in its class. At the same time, it is loaded with problems. Most aren't serious, though many are glaring, but just as you're liable to notice its flaws, so will you be inclined to look beyond them once you see how much the game has to offer.

EverQuest looks so good that comparing its graphics to any other first-person RPG would be a disservice. Its colorful, 3D-accelerated visuals instead rank with first-person shooters in terms of quality and detail, although in all fairness, they don't rank very highly because the quality is inconsistent. Certain player classes, monsters, and areas of the world look spectacular - at its best, EverQuest is picturesque and realistic. Then again, other parts of the game look silly or downright bad. There also isn't a lot of variety in the way of customizing your character's appearance, and nighttime tends to be oppressively dark even if you have a good lantern. But you'll constantly be amazed at how huge the world seems, and since the game includes practically every type of landscape you can imagine, from mountain on down to dungeon, you'll soon find a setting that feels comfortable.

It should also be mentioned that the game's look - from the come-hither high elf on the box to the overly endowed female characters within - seems aimed at a male audience, which is unfortunate considering online RPGs needn't confine themselves to specific types of gamers. At least EverQuest sounds all right, with a nice but forgettable fantasy soundtrack and an interesting set of sound effects for all the different monsters. But all of it's repetitive, so you'll be turning down the volume before long.

While its graphics set it apart right away, EverQuest is going to last, not because it's pretty, but because it plays well. On the technical side, gameplay is smooth and mostly lag-free even over a 56K modem. Lag is rarely problematic even when it happens (you'll find yourself complaining about the long loading times between regions instead), though the occasional "lag death" has been witnessed. Otherwise, EverQuest offers dozens of different race and class combinations, which is perhaps the most enticing feature in the game. You can play a comparatively mundane fantasy character - a dwarf warrior or a human cleric, for instance - or you can choose something more exotic, like a dark elf necromancer or a troll shadowknight. The race you choose will critically affect your experience of the game, since most every race has a unique hometown, which you'll have to stick close to for the first several weeks of play. The class you choose is just as important, and all of them play differently, and most of them are fun. You'll want to try several combinations before you commit to one, but you can't realistically cultivate more than one or two characters.

That's because EverQuest isn't for casual game players, as it demands a huge time commitment. Building up your character to around the tenth level, at which point he can traverse the land without too much interference from its indigenous life, demands dozens of hours of combat. And while combat isn't particularly interesting - indeed, as a warrior character, you do little more than watch your enemy's hit points dwindle, hoping they do so more quickly than your own - there are plenty of monsters lurking around. Thus, EverQuest weaves the illusion that it's action packed. In fact, gaining experience is a terrifically boring process, but fortunately your character becomes noticeably stronger with every level. Even after many months of play, you'll keep learning new abilities and powerful new spells, or if not, you'll be purchasing far superior equipment. Safe to say that if you're looking to spend a great deal of time with a game, you'll be hard-pressed to find a worthier suitor than EverQuest.

Then again, if you're picky about details, EverQuest may not be for you. There's no denying that the game is very rough around the edges, and you'll know it from the moment you start the game and must sift through its lackluster menus. The actual interface isn't much better, the manual is even worse, the game is loaded with hilariously bad textual errors, and all in all, it's guaranteed to frustrate you regularly. If nothing else, you should expect to get killed a lot, at which point you must make the arduous journey to retrieve your belongings from your corpse. As you grow more powerful, you'll die less frequently, but you'll lose experience when you do, and reclaiming your pricey equipment will be much more critical. It'll also take a lot longer to heal all your hit points between fights, since you'll have more of them, yet your healing rate remains constant.

Luckily, EverQuest offers a one-step solution to almost everything wrong with it: You need but find yourself a good group of friends to make your problems go away. Fighting alongside someone makes combat much more interesting. Chatting with that person passes the time while you recuperate, and working together, you're much less liable to perish. EverQuest is loaded with features that promote, even demand, collaboration among players. For instance, spells increase in potency from continuous use, so clerics are encouraged to heal any injured players they come across. Once you get to be around level seven, you'll have a much more difficult time fighting creatures on your own; healers must back up the fighters, fighters must back up the magic users, and the magic users can keep the healers safe from harm. It sounds crude, but the balance is more delicate than overbearing.

Likewise, you need not worry about other players robbing you or stabbing you in the back, because they simply can't unless you play on a server designated just for that. EverQuest also includes features that automatically split loot and experience among party members, and parties must be composed of similarly powerful characters, so you can't just ride on a stronger player's coattails. Meanwhile, most of EverQuest's trade skills, such as fishing and tailoring, represent viable alternatives to fighting for money, and you'll find that money is nearly as important in EverQuest as it is in the real world. The game's economy altogether feels realistic and versatile. You can buy things from shopkeepers, but again, your best chance is to try to get a good deal from one of your friends.

It shouldn't surprise you that EverQuest promotes cooperation. Like any online RPG, at its core, EverQuest is an interface for interaction between players, and in this respect it's excellent. Sure, the combat may be a little boring, the manual may be horrible, the quest system half-baked, and the game not without its small share of miscellaneous bugs. But all you need is to find a like-minded adventurer or two, and all of a sudden EverQuest stands to become one of the most memorable gaming experiences you've ever had. Exploring the land, hunting monsters, fleeing from certain death - all these things are incredible fun in EverQuest so long as someone else is along for the ride. Although it might have been better in almost every respect, it is, like any good online RPG, a work in progress. And there's no question that it's the best game of its kind. --Greg Kasavin
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome, extremely addictive multiplayer online RPG, July 15, 2001

By	Tom (Naperville, IL) - See all my reviews

I cannot believe that someone out there does not believe this game deserves 5 stars. I would give it more but that is the highest it would go. EverQuest immerses the player into a massively multiplayer online world known as Norrath, where the player can create a character, having the authority to chose the sex, class (each having its advantages and disadvantages), race, face, and distribute ability points into the main statistics: Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Stamina, Wisdom, Intellegence, and Charisma. After you create your character, you start in one of the many different cities, depending on what race you pick. You can choose to start in the marble city of Felwithe, home to the High and Half Elves, or even the corrupted port city of Freeport, home of the humans and half elves. There are many other cities not mentioned. There are over 2,000 players on each server, enableing trade, and many other added resources. Players go out and kill beasts to acquire experience, and after acquiring a certain amount of experience, they raise a level. One way to get levels is to group with one or more other people that are trying to accomplish the same goal, and you still gain experience after splitting some with your group. For some classes this is an easier way to level. However other classes such as the Necromancer and druid, excell at hunting by themselves or solo. That doesn't mean they can't group though. EverQuest is constantly changing, and since the original has come out, 2 expansion packs have been released out to the market, including 2 more continents and another race. These expansions are called EverQuest:Ruins of Kunark, and EverQuest:Scars of Velious. The third expansion, EverQuest:Shadows of Luclin is on its way. EverQuest is an awesome, online game. I highly recommend this game to ANYONE!! If you ever find yourself needing help, send me a tell.. I'm Talise 19 Ranger on the Tribunal Server and I would love to help.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "You're in our world now", November 6, 2001

By	"georgiaeeyore" (Americus, GA) - See all my reviews

**note - if I were you, I would buy the EQ trilogy version **

And chances are excellent that you will be. I remember reading the manual (gosh, over two years ago) and at the end there's a bit about how to camp (log out of the game) that talks about realizing you haven't slept or eaten in what seems like days. There are honestly people out there who spent all their free time, if not their whole life, playing this game. I'm not "a gamer" but like most people who still play, I've gone through my stages of being completely addicted to the game.

EQ lets you chose any number of characters... tons of combinations, between picking a race, a class, a deity, and then concentrating points in one attribute (like intelligence of strength) or another. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses, but pick whatever strikes your fancy. Chances are excellent that you'll get a ways into playing your character and you'll wish you had done _something_ differently, but you can always start another character (up to 8 per server).

For me, the best part of this game has always been the people. If you've ever been playing a classic video or computer game and wished someone could pop in and help you with a little extra firepower, this is it. Fighting alongside characters with actual brains behind them is a lot more interesting... even if they don't always do the "right" thing. And several in-game chat options (player-to-player, group, guild, zone-wide shouting, and normal talking) make this a great game for a group of real life friends to play if local-area-network games aren't a possibility for you.

If you're looking for a cheap, fun game, go ahead and buy this version, but chances are excellent that if you get sucked in you will very much regret not having the expansions. You can buy the Trilogy (EQ, Ruins of Kunark and Scars of Velious) now. RoK means you have the option of an additional race when starting your character in addition to extra zones to explore. SoV is mainly more zones for the mid-high level characters. Of course you always have the options of adding expansions later. A third expansion, Shadows of Luclin, is due to be released in December and includes yet another race and a new class for the first time since the original, in addition to even more zones and nifty new graphics.

The first few levels _can_ get to be a bit tedious before you're a high enough level to travel safely, but after that there's more than enough variety in locations and things to hunt to keep people entertained and challenged without a whole lot of repetition. (...).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars YOu will love this game, May 23, 2001

By	Greg D (Boca Raton, FL) - See all my reviews

Hands down this is one of the best games out there. It can be very addictive and you will want to buy all the expansions very soon after you purchase this starter package. Don't get frustrated with being new to the game, everyone is at some point. Once you have played for a while and get your character past lvl 5 or so you will really begin to enjoy your adventures. Start a player you don't like? Well try another one!! There are to many choices to pigeon hole yourself. Its a great game play it the way that is fun for you!!! )