EverQuest

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Review: EverQuest

Welcome to Norrath, an enormous fantasy world spanning three continents, and full of warriors, wizards, walking corpses, bards, thieves, elves, necromancers, trolls, and the occasional dragon. Players choose from 14 classes and 12 races, then tweak their D&D-style statistics (Strength, Wisdom, Charisma, etc).Who (or what) you choose to be determines your home town in the game, as well as your skills. Join a guild, go out on quests with friends, buy and sell with NPC merchants, learn the land, build skills from fighting to fishing, and basically have fun--all on your own schedule.

A graphical online RPG that runs 24-7? The comparisons to Ultima Online are inevitable and justified. (Funny, nobody's saying much about 3DO's Meridian 59.) EverQuest has learned from UO's mistakes, though, and quickly compensates players for tech hassles.

Where EQ tops the competition is in its true 3D polygonal world--rolling hills, pools of water, physical staircases, explorable castles, night and day, the works. Full 3D accelerator support and multiple, adjustable camera views make Norrath both believable and comfortable. (Pop-up, however, is a recurring problem.) The customizable point-and-click interface keeps interaction streamlined, logical, and flexible. Most areas have their own lush MIDI soundtracks (plus the battle theme, which kicks in when you attack), and the spatial sound effects add atmosphere. As for busy servers and lag, well, they'll never go away, but the game can be played comfortably on a lowly 33.6K modem. 989's even nailed the player-killing issue with a simple solution--those who wish to PK can't target those who don't.

As with any RPG, the first few levels are a repetitive chore: you kill small things for experience, run away from large things for survival. Upon death, you're respawned near the start of the zone, which may be literally miles away from where your corpse--and all of your belongings--lie prone. The documentation is particularly lousy, too; online fan sites will serve new players better.

And there's one colossal tech problem: Each user can create multiple characters, but those characters cannot leave the server on which they're created. So if you set up a ranger on Server A and want to party with your shaman buddy on Server B, you're out of luck. It's an amazingly dumb design flaw (and one that wasn't an issue in the single-server beta test). If you plan to play with friends, coordinate your character creation before logging on.

EverQuest is easily the prettiest time-sink of the year--there's so much to see and do that boredom doesn't ever seem like an option. 989 and Verant have definitely learned from EQ's predecessors: they've built an amazing world and created the first true online killer app. Huzzah!-- Dan Amrich / GamePro