Review

EverQuest’s design was influenced by online text based games (MUDs) and single player RPGs, the most obvious of which are Arena and Daggerfall (The Elder Scrolls 1 and 2).

When you first enter the game you have to create a character. This character can be one of 15 races and 16 classes, each race has limited customization options ranging from eye color and hair cuts to fur style (Vah Shir) and horn patterns (Iksar). Your class determines the abilities you will gain and the skills you will learn. A Cleric can obtain spells that heal themselves and others, Warriors learn how to handle different types of weapons and so on.

When you have created your character (if you don't choose to take the tutorial) they will begin play in their races home city with a few basic supplies and a weapon. You will also have a note that can be given to a computer controlled guild master who will be located nearby. This gives you entry into the appropriate guild of your class (i.e. The Temple of Life for a Human Cleric); this will be the source of your first quest (a task given to you) and your first new piece of equipment (usually a tunic of some kind).

As you complete tasks you will gain experience and may receive rewards (such as a new weapon). When you have done enough quests and killed enough monsters you will reach the total experience required to increase your level. At this point you will be able to scribe (add to your spell book) spells and learn any skills available for your new level. In addition your character will be able to advance a little further in their skills and be awarded extra hit points. (Hit points are temporarily lost when you are hit by a monster, if your total hits zero you die)

There are a total of 70 levels to advance through with an additional method of advancement known as Alternate Advancement. As previously mentioned any quests you do and monsters you kill result in experience points, when you reach the 51st level a percentage of these experience points can be used for Alternate Advancement. As with levels when you reach a pre-determined total number of experience points you will Ding and gain one AA (Alternate Advancement point). These AAs can then be spent on special abilities and enhancements for your character, the specifics of which are determined by your class.

It is possible for many classes to reach level 51 alone but EverQuest is an online game that places you in a world with thousands of other players. You can team up with these players and help them to complete quests and defeat monsters, some of which will require more than a single party (a party is a group of 6 characters). Experience points gained from defeating monsters while in a party is shared between the party members and while in a raid (can be multiple parties) will be shared between all the raiders.

When you reach level 51 a party is the only efficient way to gain experience, as monsters get tougher than an individual character can defeat. This is the point your characters effectiveness becomes very item dependant. EverQuest has a great number of items available for each class, many of which can only be obtained from very tough creatures and difficult quests. To complete these quests only by forming groups of players you have met can be time consuming and frustrating, this is one of the reasons EverQuest supports an even bigger group than raids known as Guilds.

These guilds are different to the class guild you join at the start of the game. They are run by players (not computer controlled characters) and experience points are not shared between members unless you are in a party or raid together. You can only join one guild per character and a chat channel is provided for the entire guild to use (accessed by the /guild or /gu command). This channel is often used to form a party or a raid and many players join a guild for this reason; guild members will usually become frequent companions and learn to work well together.

So with thousands of groups and raids, made up of individuals and members of player run guilds, all ready to kill monsters and go on quests, there needs to be plenty of targets and tasks to keep everyone occupied. EverQuests game world (Norrath) is split into areas (called zones) that are designed to support a limited number of players, some zones support as few as 15 while some are designed for 100 players and up. Each zone has many creatures (both to be killed and get information or tasks from) and these creatures are usually spread among 'camps' where they will respawn when killed.

These camps can range from supporting a single player to an entire raid and many have a 'boss' monster that will spawn either at a pre-set interval or at random. These 'bosses' sometimes have special items and are often much tougher to defeat than normal spawns in that area. Players may target a particular creature and meet up purely to hunt it, for experience and/or items; in some cases venturing into further zones is difficult without certain items and at later levels players are expected to have a reasonable standard of equipment to remain effective.

A characters goal will change during play; complete a challenging quest, achieve a certain level, obtain a powerful item, defeat an ancient dragon, build a successful guild or maybe to just explore and find new zones. Other characters they encounter may have similar goals or be working on something very different, becoming a better smith, traveling to a new land or simply talking among friends. EverQuest provides the world and the structure, the player has to decide what they want to make of it and why they want to play it.