EverQuest II

by Sony

Product Features

• Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
• New online universe that exists parallel to previous Everquest game
• Non-playing characters now speak in the game--more than 130 hours of recorded dialog
• Thousands of new items, hundreds of new spells, and ultra-fine customization of characters
• Note: This game requires an Internet connection and charges a monthly fee payable by credit card or pre-paid game card (sold separately)

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000067A3M
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 1.8 inches ; 1.3 pounds
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: November 8, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (130 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #20,048 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Edition: Standard

Amazon.com Product Description

Scheduled to launch in winter 2004, EverQuest II adds significant improvements over the original massively multiplayer online role-playing game. EverQuest II uses a completely new, cutting-edge 3-D engine developed in-house with a host of technological features allowing the development team to generate an unparalleled, visually stunning 3-D world. Other features include the ability to own real estate, ride horses, command ships, and experience all-new enhanced spells, quests, and events. EverQuest II takes place in the culturally diverse world of Norrath in the future of the original EverQuest, with a greater size and better graphical detail than ever seen before.

Larger in scope than its predecessor, EverQuest II will be able to host hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users from all over the world. And, due to increased localization features including real-time translation in English, French, German, Japanese, and Korean, as well as localized servers in select countries, players from every corner of the earth will be able to explore familiar areas and new, undiscovered territories of Norrath. With innovative in-game creatures, weapons, and items, EverQuest II promises something new for all online adventurers.

EverQuest II 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 subscription 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 continue your subscription.

Product Description

EverQuest II takes you into a new adventure, in this parallel to the EverQuest online games. With breathtaking 3D graphics and a wider world to explore, you'll unlock dungeons, battle monsters and engage in life as one of Norrath's great champions and leaders In-Game Journals let players record information about their adventures Players can now own real estate - buy your character an apartment, home, or guild house Advanced chat, guilds and grouping systems - create your own faction within the game, and lead them to triumph New user-friendly game mechanics with reduced learning curve, for new and seasoned players System Requirements - Windows 98/2000/ME/XP, 1GHz or greater Intel Pentium or AMD processor, 512MB of RAM or greater, DirectX 9 compatible, Pixel shader, and vertex shader compatible hardware video card with 64 MB of video memory, DirectSound compatible sound card

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

188 of 236 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars EverQuest II Preview, January 2, 2004

By	Alex H. (Bellevue) - See all my reviews

This review is from: EverQuest 2 (CD-ROM)

This peview is intended for an audience of some experience in online gaming, though inexperienced readers may find some good stuff in it as well.

The original EverQuest was a phenomenon. A game for the ages, quite literally. It's lasted for years, and for some people, it's never been boring. Has another online game ever come close to receiving the same acclaim as the original EverQuest? No way!

I had my hopes up for Star Wars Galaxies, and I gave into much of the hype. Unfortunately, for me it turned out a bust. The second I entered the SWG world I was awed by the graphics and the incredible detail. And I even became entranced for a time . . . well, more precisely, a week. The problem with Galaxies (and the success of EverQuest) is game play. SWG has no loot off dead creatures, no experience hook (it didn't take much time to reach master of any one profession). It was eye candy with no core. EverQuest has the "hook". It has the content. This old game has yet to meet its match.

So what about the sequel, EverQuest 2? Will it take the crown from its predecessor? Question marks arise, but I will provide some answers. Reading the developer comments on various forums, I can reveal some interesting details.

- There will be zones, just like in the original EQ

- There will be a "consider" option (con) that shows possible experience gains and follows the original EQ color scheme

- Luclin, Kunark, Velious, Odus and Fadywer will be absent from the original game. Antonica will have split into continents of it's own. The game takes place an age after the original EverQuest

- There will be no kill-stealing or power-leveling, enforced by a "lock" rule. Kiting will be absent

- There will be no twinking, and buffing "newbies" will not be allowed

- There will be item decay on death

- There will be 50 levels to attain originally, with a game engine that supposedly allows up to 200 if the developers choose to have expansions

- There will be standard groups of 6, and raid-groups of 24

- There will be solo-content and group-content

- There will be 47 classes, designed in a "tree' fashion. Everyone will start as a Commoner until level 5, and then choose a basic profession. At level 10, a new sub-profession will become available, and so on.

- There will only be 2 starting cities, Freeport and Queynos (rumored to be 17 zones each!)

- Roughly half of the original EverQuests zones will be remade and included in the sequel

- There will be player housing, and guild housing, but only in the cities

- The minimum requirements will be:

Operating System: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP
Processor: 1GHz
RAM: 512 MB
Video Card: DirectX 9 compatible. Pixel shader and vertex shader compatible hardware with 64 MB of texture memory
Sound Card: DirectSound compatible audio hardware

- The recommended requirements will be:

Operating System: Windows XP
Processor: 2 GHz or greater
RAM: 1 GB
CD-ROM: 16x CD-ROM or DVD-ROM
Video Card: DirectX 9 compatible. Pixel shader and Vertex shader compatible hardware with 128mb of texture memory or greater
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Audigy

Some problems that may arise with EverQuest 2 are graphics and solo-play, and cities.

Grouping is practically enforced in some cases (in dungeons), and soloing may be time-limited in some cases (ridiculous). There will be solo-content, specifically designed by the developers, but they want to suggest grouping most of all. Make no mistake; this will be a "group-oriented" game.

Graphics are an online game's "One Ring" (referring to Lord of the Rings) concerning the development team. Games that get carried away with graphics tend to lack in other areas. I hope that this is not the case with EverQuest 2.

I've read numerous articles where the developers are bragging and taking great pride in their graphics system, completely unaware that most people couldn't care less. If it's not a fun game, people will not play it, period. This was the case in SWG, which has lost a large quantity of its subscribers.

What the EQ 2 development team should do is concentrate on balance between their 47 classes (wow), balance between their variety of species and (of course) bug testing. They should concentrate on improving the game from the original (game mechanics), which they have done marvelously so far, and most importantly, game content and depth.

Cities may also be a problem in the new EQ. There are only 2 cities (albeit massive ones according to the dev team). What does this mean? Elves, dwarves, humans, frogloks, ogres and trolls all living in the same city. I find it ridiculous, and a complete step back from one of the thing's that made the original EQ great: cultural differences.

Cities may also be problematic for those who remember the original Freeport and Queynos. The developers were bragging about making the cities ten times bigger than the originals. My God! I couldn't find my way through Freeport in the first EverQuest, how the heck am I going to do it now? In addition, Freeport in the original EverQuest was devoid of players, completely, unless you were at the bank or the zone entrance. Keep this in mind. These new cities will be empty ghost towns, and far too big to navigate without an overlay map of some kind (which brings you out of the game).

EverQuest 2 is slated to come out in June, but Beta hasn't even started yet. It will NOT come out in June, which I'm sorry to say. With experience, I can tell you to expect the release around fall or winter of 2004.

28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Never again, January 19, 2005

By	Realist - See all my reviews

Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: EverQuest 2 (CD-ROM)

I was excited, no, make that obsessed, before EQ2 came out. I visited the fan pages, found all the latest info and news, kept ahead of the curve on all aspects of the game. I knew it back and forth before ever stepping a virtual foot inside the game. I even purchased a new computer system especially for the game with lots of horsepower for the needs of the game. With that in mind, please take a few minutes to read this review if you so choose.

Once I started EQ2, I was floored by the reality of the graphics. They were outstanding. They weren't "realistic" but fantastic none-the-less. The fluidity of the movement was unparralled in a game of its size. This was not only in the players' movements, but in the animal or monster movements, the flags waving, the torches on the walls, the water in the streams. It was all better than I had hoped.

And the talking characters were great. They would tell you what to do, even though you were reading it before they spoke it in most cases. They would even motion for you to come to them if they had a quest for you AND the quest was automatically written in your journal. No more pen and paper notebook hunts wondering why you have a letter in your pack.

With all that said, I was happy to play for a while. More than happy, I was finding myself playing well into the night! It was addicting. That is until level 20 or so...

At about level 20 to 25:

1) You start to realize that all the "new" monsters look the same, or exactly like the "old" monsters only with different titles. The fluidity and graphics aside, if you have to see the same old monster over and over, its going to get boring.

2) You realize that the quests are all but identical, especially those for access: Talk to someone, kill something (or lots of something), talk to someone again, kill more things, talk to someone yet again, find another person (usually in a zone 15 minutes away), and then come back to kill more stuff and be rewarded with access to another zone in which the monsters all begin to look alike. There are several quests that give rewards such as armor or money, but they all involve delivery, viewing a certain place, killing a certain number of monsters, or a combonation of those aspects. And they all have the same bland quality to them. Once you do 25, you're ready to just go out and kill things.

3) You realize that you must group at all times or be rewarded with 1/3 or so of the same experience point total that you would have received in a group for the same amount of time / effort / number of kills. This is quite frustrating since it will then take you 3 times longer than your friend who groups to level up.

4) You realize that gear, especially good gear, is next to impossible to come by. Let's face it, you are in the game to get stuff since the quests have become an exercise in boredom and the kills all begin to look the same. But when that is taken away, you start to ask yourself why you are even bothering to play. Some would say that questing provides good gear but to them I would say that the rewards aren't worth the time and effort and to make a note of items 2) and 3) above.

5) You realize that the "spells" are nothing more than wastes of time and money. EQ2 forces players to upgrade spells, not only spell casting classes but fighting classes, as well. And if you can't find a rare item that is necessary for a spell, you will either have to find someone who can produce that spell for you at a very high price or be a sub-standard player in your class. This is, again, very frustrating since you are often times unable to find anything other than "artisan" spells when you are soloing or grouping.

6) You realize that the game is setup entirely to waste time in getting things accomplished. Another reviewer asks why the cities are layed out in such a winding fashion. The simple answer is so that you will waste more time in finding things and getting from point A to point B. Travel, while quickened by a few means within the game, is an obvious "time sink" that is intentionally there so that you will have to waste more and more time to get things accomplished, even within one part of one city. And the fact that one MUST travel back into his / her hometown is also a waste of time. Even at level 20, you can easily spend 10 minutes venturing from zone to zone to zone just getting back to a particular place that you must go. And if you spend 10 minutes traveling to, you will spend 10 minutes traveling back; and this is not counting the time spent within the city trying to find that which you are looking for. And this is just one example of the time wastes within the game. There are several others such as spawn times, spawn place holders, quest giver locations, monster locations, locations on the map, item decay and the placement of menders (required if you don't want your items to be unusable), and several others.

I may come off as sounding harsh or biased or like I am not trying hard enough to find the good but to that I would say this. I started a new character after reaching 25 since I became bored with the game to determine if my boredom was just due to the character. I was able to level him to 8 within a couple of hours and then onto 11 on the next session. But then I thought about the road ahead; the questing, the same monsters over and over, the tediousness of it all, and the repetativeness of it and just logged out. I decided that its not worth my time and its ultimately not fun. And I am not alone in that line of thinking.

I have spoken with several players who were almost as excited about EQ2 as I was before it began. We wanted to play it and get to the highest level quickly and begin the fun. But then we were told about the highest level and the lack of fun. Then we took a short look at the "fun" we were having getting there. The reward, the fun, just wasn't there. And so, I have quit as have numerous others.

So, to sum it all up, EQ2 is revolutionary in its design, packaging, and overall look and feel. The graphics and world look are second to none. The motions and AI is outstanding (for an MMORPG). It is, however, boring, tedious, and repetative to the point of numbing. I would say its a good game for the most part until you reach the higher level teens and lower level 20s. From then on, its only for those with nothing better to do or those that love the teamwork aspect of it or the relationships they have built with others. It is not for those that want gear, like to solo, those that like to see and do new things, or have less than 20 hours a week to devote to the game.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good game, lame customer support, April 23, 2005

By	Lephem - See all my reviews

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: EverQuest 2 (CD-ROM)

I've had a lot fun playing this game. The game is full of lore and the questing doesn't seem mechanical and boring like some other online games i've played. There is a variety of quests types to do from heritage quests that require a lot time and puzzle solving that give good rewards to simple quests that require killing a few monsters for some coin. Gameplay is mostly group oriented because some of the mobs require a group to kill, particularly the heritage quests, but being in a good group is a lot of fun. It is possible to complete harder quests solo at a higher level but by that time the rewards are much less useful to you. The latest patch changed some of the group mobs to solo because very few teams would bother with them because the reward wasn't worth it.
Being in a guild is very helpful. You get cheaper prices for mounts and apartments when your guild reaches certain levels, not to mention the comradery that comes with being in a guild. Part of the enjoyment of the game is hanging with your mates.
The game is full of bugs and sometimes a patch that fixes one bug introduces another. Those usually get fixed quickly. The graphics and spell animation are incredible at higher quality settings which require at least a $400 graphics card. Be prepared to buy a computer that costs more than a thousand dollars or be stuck with horrible lag, game crashing, and bland graphics. One of the biggest mistakes made with the game is not freeing up memory when you zone. After a while of playing the game lags so bad in certain zones you can barely move because you don't have enough memory and your comps uses the pagefile even with antivirus programs and other stuff turned off. Other games such as WoW have little zoning and no lag problems at all. Expect to reboot often.
The worst part of the game is the customer support. You submit a GM (Game Master) ticket and only get a response that sounds automated and like it's told to everybody. Then you have to wait sometimes for a few days to get the GM to help. Waiting this long is sad. On one server the GM's are actively taking the time to instigate other players to harass some person because they don't like him in real life. It's funny because everytime you log on you have to agree to not do those things. Time to instigate harassment but not time to help. How can you trust customer support like that?
Overall I would only recommend this game to someone with a good computer and plenty of time to play but it's definately enjoyable.

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