EverQuest is a very solid game, with a loyal fan base and over 500,000+ people have once held accounts since it started March 16th, 1999. For all the expansions, EverQuest runs for about 40$ off their website ( https://store.station.sony.com/game_index.jsp?gamecode=EQ ). Although it has a steep subscription price at $12.95 per month, ordering for longer amounts of time (3, 6 or 24 month) lowers the price per month by a few dollars.
Once you log into EverQuest you are surrounded by Tolkien-inspired characters such as the halflings. EQ offers many class/race combinations with 15 races and 16 classes. I chose to be a Halfling Warrior. As I first logged in I was surrounded by a slightly confusing and cluttered User Interface. After a few minutes of figuring out where buttons were at, I learned that EQ has a very interesting newbie help system, where all local merchants and other Non-Player Characters can be located by simply clicking on their name from a list. This is very helpful for new players to navigate. After equiping my newbie weapon and shirt (Yes they give you free food and backpack in the beginning too!), I departed from Rivervale and ventured out into Misty Thicket, the local newbie zone, full of bats, rats, goblins, orcs and other assorted monsters for fighting. I noticed relativly high frame rates throughout the zone and decent graphics. One interesting feature not seen in many MMORPG’s is the ability to highly detail the facial features of your character down to the eye color. The sounds of EverQuest make you feel as if you are actually there, from the energetic tones of Rivervale to the intense sounds of the combat theme. Combat took very few seconds to grasp as I mastered the kick, bash, and taunt. I soon learned that when you died below level 10 you lost no experience and you did not have to retrieve your items from your body, but as you progressed you would. The players are very helpful and relativly mature. Within an hour of playing I was met by a young Halfling Druid who soon became my partner. We were in a group in which I was the “tank” and he was the healer. I personally thought the spell graphics were incredible looking. EverQuest is an always evolving game with many features that continue to pop up! Join a guild and raid Vox the Dragon or take a journey and master the art of smithing.
Graphics: 8 A little weak in some areas, but with Luclin Expansion the characters are nice looking.
Sound: 10 Hundreds of songs for each zone, however some get stuck in your head after a while!
Gameplay:9 Once you get the hang of it you become addicted, when Sony says “Your in our world now” they really mean it!
Overall: 9/10 Well worth dropping 50$ for, get the first 3 expansions for free and try it out for yourself.
System Specs Used For Testing
AMD 2600 2.133 GHZ
1024 MB DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 PRO 256MB
Cable Internet (3MBPS)
