Everquest 2 review

I felt different about Everquest 2 than most new games. I looked forward to its release, but I felt trepidation instead of giddy excitement. I still love Everquest. I still want to play it. I don't want my friends to leave; I don't want my guild to fall apart. SOE doesn't want players switching games either, they prefer to drag in a whole new pack of angry wizards, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. While I knew I would buy EQ2 and I was pretty sure I'd play it for a long while, part of me didn't WANT to like it. So it was with this trepidation that I opened up the beautifully packaged EQ2 box and installed the two DVDs filled with Norrath's new world.

For the past two weeks, young Pavlen, my half-elf rogue, reached level 15. What I've seen impresses me a lot. So today I write a review of Everquest 2 from the eyes of a long-time Everquest player.

Character generation alone shows the depth of this game. What impressed me most was how different two characters of the same race can look. The variations between two half-elves were as extreme as the difference between high elf, half elf, and wood elf. The wide range of hairstyles, hair color, skin color, and even physical size helps create a truly unique character. The details of cheek height, chin size, eye slant, and mouth width probably went too far; few people will see your big goofy Bruce Campbell chin as you race around the city, but more detail is always better. (That's two pop-culture references so far, Moorgard.)

While graphics in a game like Everquest get people to ooh and ahh at magazines, demonstrations, and videos, they matter little when compared to game play. Massive online games have to pay close attention to steady yet limitless progression, class desirability, class interdependence, social connectivity, and encounter variance. Graphics are important but people pay less and less attention to them the longer they play. But yes, the graphics are stunningly beautiful.

EQ2 includes graphic settings so advanced that EQ2 will push machines to their limits five years from now. I had to set my machine, which screams through Doom 3's most advanced settings, to performance-level to achieve a reliable frame rate. It appears, however, that Everquest 2 graphics will scale well into the future. As hardware gets better, so will EQ2's appearance.

The quest journal is the core of Everquest 2. As I grew from a young adventurer on the Isle of Refuge to the seasoned hunter of Antonican Gnolls, I constantly added new quests into my quest journal. I didn't push to progress in levels or equipment. I pushed to find quests and complete them. The quests in Everquest 2 follow a very wide range of tasks including delivery, collection, slaughter, exploration, completing trade skills, and mini-zone clearing. Quests arrive from anywhere. Poke a wooden boat on the beach and find a strange rune inside that leads to a whole new quest. Get a brass key from a rat and discover a quest to unlock a room full of dark elf spies. Buy books in the library to learn of long lost treasures.

Quests follow every path of the game; whether you want to explore, hunt, trade skill, or travel around a city. Quests drive you to find new zones and new places. Each quest is a small story for you to follow. The game doesn't force you down any one path; you choose which of these quests you wish to pursue; but there is little reason to hunt without having a quest to drive you.

The low-level quests from level 5 to 7, especially the collection and delivery quests, help you learn the layout of the huge cities of Qeynos and Freeport. These delivery quests frustrate people at first but once finished, it is far easier to find one's way around.

Quests lead you through all forms of progression. I spend little time worrying about my equipment or level. Instead, I watch my quest journal. What quests can I accomplish fast? Which ones are too old? Are there quests that other people have? One great feature lets you peek into your group member's quest books. If they have a quest you don't, you can learn where this quest starts and get it yourself.

It's far too early to tell if this will continue throughout Everquest 2. Much of what I describe is also true for Everquest 1 at this level. I do not know if quests become far fewer and less rewarding at the higher levels, forcing us to go back to camping in one spot and grinding experience.

So far it appears that Everquest 2 embraced its title. We may very well quest forever. Now lets talk a little about the cities. After taking Pavlen up to level 15, I rolled up a dark elf enchanter and took him through level 7 in Freeport. The vast difference in atmosphere between Freeport and Qeynos astounded me. While Qeynos feels like Minis Tirith or Camelot, Freeport feels like H.P Lovecraft's version of planet Gidi Prime in Dune. Huge red tendrils of power hold a vast tower floating above the torn city. What horrors lie in that tower? What power could lift such a thing? Freeport is vast and scary. I love it.

EQ2's combat system is another big change from Everquest. Efficient combat requires a lot of interaction. Combinations of moves, a wide range of skills, and situational requirements require that a player constantly pay attention to the battle and press the right attack at the right time. As a 15 rogue, nearly all of my damage comes from my variety of bending and twisting stabs and slashes. If I were to set on auto-attack and go get a pop-tart, my efficiency in group would drop to less than 10%. I have to pay attention. Heroic opportunities, a mix of fighting-game style combinations and the most graphically advanced version of Simon Says, offer a collaborative dimension to combat. Some groups seem to ignore them completely, but when they work they're very exciting.

Everquest 2 based class dependence around archetypes. Each player decides on an archetype in two steps before picking a particular class. Each class has the basic abilities of the archetype. All scouts can improve run speed, track creatures, and hide in shadows. All priests can heal and resurrect. This breakout of four archetypes should help keep each class useful in any group. We cannot yet tell how this will work out at the higher levels, but it seems to work fine at the low.

Everquest 2 focuses on trying to give people more content at each level. Leveling too quickly robs the player of a lot of opportunities. Some players will always drive as high as they can go as far as they can go, like Icarus trying to reach the sun, but the best way to play this game is to enjoy it at your own pace and let leveling and gear come as they come.

Everquest 2 built in a lot of tools to improve social interaction. Players can invite other players into a group anywhere in a zone. Players can directly invite others from the "Looking for Group" tool. Players can target other players in a group and see their name highlighted across the zone no matter how far away. There are world-wide channels for new players, classes, and cities.

SOE streamlined the actions of getting into a group, finding your group, following your group, hunting in your group, and leaving your group. Every class, upon achieving citizenship in the citizenship quest, receives a daily gate to your home city helping players leave the game quickly when real life rears its ugly head and demands a sacrifice.

It is too early to poke big holes in a game this big but a couple of things stick out as potential problems. While raiding doesn't require more than 24 people, a limit that may radically change the forming of the dreaded uberguild, a level system for guilds promising a new path for content could alienate guilds of lower power or lower membership. This may not be a problem as long as it doesn't become the only form of progression available. EQ1 seemed to drive players into uberguilds once they reached a certain level. At the high levels joining a raiding guild became the only way to increase one's power. Still, a guild-based level system seems to stretch outside of simple social interaction and into the realm of cliques and elitism; something I detest in massive online games.

Everquest 2's biggest problem is time. I don't plan on quitting Everquest 1. I already filled my day with work, writing, the dreaded Tivo, and my nightly hunts in Everquest. I have yet to successfully play two massive online games at the same time. Whichever game I happen to be in, I feel like I'm missing something going on in the other.

Everquest 1's numbers certainly dropped in the last two weeks. However, I hear other guild leaders say that Halo 2, Half Life 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andraes, and the holidays in general take more players away from EQ than World of Warcraft or Everquest 2. While it looks like EQ numbers dropped in the last couple of weeks, we won't know its real impact until the worlds settle and we see where everyone ends up. I wouldn't count anything as fact until early next year.

It is easy to look at the release of Everqust 2 as an earth-shaking event. We play in a community where the decisions of a sword or a bow bring hundreds of angry rangers to the doors of SOE. From some of the passion we read on the EQ forums and even on the comments on previous Mobhunter articles, it would seem we traveled far outside the realm of a simple game.

But Everquest and Everquest 2 are games. We buy them, we install them, we play them, and we talk about them. Sure, these aren't like any other games before them. No couple ever met and got married over Ratchet and Clank. Everquest 2 is one of the best games I have ever seen. If my dollar is my vote, I bought two copies of the game, one as a gift, and signed up for a year-long subscription including all of the web features. The total price was over $200 but I expect a high entertainment reward for my investment. Everquest 2 is an amazing game and I look forward to watching young Pavlen progress through this vast world.

Written by: Loral Ciriclight for www.mobhunter.com
22 November 2004