EverQuest

EverQuest
EverQuest is a 3-D, massively multiplayer, fantasy role-playing game. An enormous virtual environment, it offers an entire world with its own diverse species, economic systems, alliances, and politics. Choose from a variety of races and classes, and begin your quest in any number of cities or villages throughout several continents. From there, equip yourself for adventure, seek allies and knowledge, and head out into a rich world of dungeons, towers, crypts, and evil abbeys. Learn skills, earn experience, acquire treasure and equipment, meet friends, and encounter enemies. A multitude of quests and adventures await; where you choose your role, you define your destiny. The trilogy gives players five enormous continents, 13 races, and more than 400 supporting characters, allowing for unlimited hours of gameplay.

I couldn't start a review site without putting up a review of EverQuest. After all no other activity has dominated my leisure time more then EverQuest. EverQuest is currently the best game that has ever been created. Players enter a virtual world that exists 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The goal of the game is to accumulate wealth and items, while fighting monsters, animals, aliens, evil characters (unless you are evil then you can fight good characters) and just about anything else that moves.

The game is made up of a breath-taking world of computer graphics that are just incredible. It is easy to get lost in the immense world. In real time if you were to run from one side of the world to the other, pausing only to ride the various boats to take you to the next continent, it would take you approximately 4-5 hours to do so.

Speaking of time, it is a big time sink. One can easily play for 8-10 hours and not even realize it. One the other end of the stick if you can't play for more then an hour sometimes it isn't even worth logging on.

Another interesting phenomenon that has come from EverQuest, and other Massive Multiplayer Online games, is the buying and selling of accounts, characters and items within the game. Online website like playerauctions cater to these people where they will sell their characters for thousands of dollars. This of course came after Ebay wouldn't allow the selling of EQ items on their site.

On the downside, EverQuest costs an initial fee of ~$30 to buy the game, then an additional monthly fee of $12.95 a month (discounts for multiple month purchases are available). It can also cost much more as it has been identified as being very addictive. Some refer to it as EverCrack and players that don't have good self control have been known to lose schooling, jobs and even family because of the addiction.

The popularity, the entertainment value and the controversy with this game are overwhelming. I will end with a link to the Norathian Scrolls which is a research project that an individual did while studying for his MBA that offers some very interesting insight into the inner mind and lives of those who love this game.

Posted by Mutato at June 22, 2002 08:59 AM