Everquest is the most addictive game ever made
Everquest is a multi massive online role playing game (MMORPG). Basically you create a character and then enter an enormous world that is flowing with things to do and people to meet. Everquest is one of the first MMORPG's ever made and it is easily one of the best games because of the addictivness of it.
When you create a character though, you have just over a dozen character classes and races to choose from to make your character. Each class has it's up's and down's. For instance, the warrior class is the tank of your group and takes the damage, while the cleric will have to heal the group to keep them alive. The cleric's are very weak in combat and the warrior class can't really heal at all. Another interesting thing is the races you get. You can choose which race you want, but depending on the class you wil be limited. The gnome race can be a magician, wizard, and such because gnomes are smart, but the ogre race can only be such classes like a warrior and a shadow knight since well, they aren't smart. Depending on the class, certain races are way better because the stats the races have is higher than others. If you want to be a warrior, being an ogre would be the smartest because there the strongest. The gnome race wouldn't be because they have low strength and stamina.
Some races have special abilities such as the Troll that can regenerate his health, or the Dark elf race that gets better night vision because they are used to the dark. It's special things like this that makes Everquest such a great game.
Once you get selecting your character and the name of it, you then start playing. The core game is nothing but leveling up, while killing monsters with a group of up to 6 players. All of these other players are real people to live all over the world, so you can play with people anywhere you want. This is fantastic and really brings out the fun of this game. As you level up, each level takes longer and longer to go through until finially each level is insanely hard and takes half a dozen hours or more to get through it.
This is the funnest part of the game and is extremely addicting to get new spells and armor for your class. As you go, you will need to get new items to keep up with your current level so you won't die. The really fun part though, is buying new gear which takes money. The 4 types of money are platinum, gold, silver, and copper. Platinum is the biggest and is the only one that you really need to worry about. The armor that you need can be tough to get if you don't have enough money, which is why you can go and pick up items to either use or sell. Some items, weapons, spells, and armor can only be used by certain classes and some armor is for smaller size such as gnomes or dwarves while other armor can only be used by large characters such as barbarians, orgres, or trolls. It all depends on the armor, but it all works making this an outstanding way to keep you playing.
The world of Everquest takes place in Norrath. It consists of 3 continents that have tons of zones to explore. Some zones contain tougher monsters while others are lower level monsters that are easy to take out. Depending on the zone, you can find a group within your level range and then take on monsters. Everquest is always open and never closes although sometimes there is a patch that will bring the game down. At the start of it's launch it had tons of problems, but quite a few of them have been fixed. Everquest also has a very easy to navigate interface that shows everything you need: spells, chat section, your health, and certain key items such as standing and sitting. The chat section is very well done, especially in how every different type of talk is in different text color. The red means your taking damage or shouting for help, the light green is where the entire zone can hear what your saying, and the purple lets you see any tells other players might be sending you.
Speaking of zones, each of the 3 continents has about a dozen or more zones in them that take quite a bit of loading times, but are fairly managable. Norrath is a very vibrant world and each of the races has it's own city that is unique. The human city, Freeport is very normal looking while other cities such as Neriak, home to the dark elves, is very dark and damp, since the dark elves are used to this type of terrain and have excellent night vision. The zones are all different looking and some such as Ocean of Tears is nothing but water with a few islands. Others such as High hold keep is a prison full of goblins that you can camp.
Camps are very interesting. It's basically spawns of enemies that you kill with a group or soloing (being by yourself, which isn't very smart at higher levels) and then killing them as they come. It's a lot of fun and since Everquest is so popular, be ready to find lots of enemies being camped, so you might have to settle on something else.
Of course, the biggest and coolest part about Everquest is the actual quest part. You can partake in many quests that are of epic proportion, or just really small ones. They help you get certain items for your class only or for other classes in general. It all works and is the funnest and most rewarding part of the game.
Everquest is a pretty hard group, no really. Without a full group with at least a tank to take damage, a healer to heal the group, and someone like an enchanter or a shaman to slow the mobs (enemies) so they don't do as much damage, it's a really tough game, especially in the later levels.
Dying is handled pretty harshly, it will happen and takes quite a while to get your experience back that you lost. As you progress, you could lose almost 5 hours worth of play just because you died. You can get resurrected by a cleric or a paladin if you can find one, and this will literally bring back all of the experience you lost, so it's not all bad. You usually died because the mobs grouped together and overpowered you someone trained you. Training is a bad thing for sure and is basically someone taking lots of mobs and then all of them following the person that pulled them and if he runs past your group, you can expect the mobs to join forces with the ones your fighting making your group, or just you, dead. This is a serious problem and becomes frustrating, especially when your near a zone, since zoning will automatically make you safe, since enemies can't go through zones, so if you camp near a zone, be ready to get trained.
The game can be in either first person or third person. It really works, and the interface as I said earlier, is really easy to use. The combat isn't to interesting, since you just slash your sword, but nothing really happens other than the enemy will just grunt or such. The sound in the game is very disappointing and you will mostly have your music on or TV on while playing. All you hear is your footsteps, the casting of spells, and the really weak grunts when you slash your sword. Don't expect any good music or anything.
Some classes, such as hybrids are a mix of other classes. Paladins for instance, are a mix of a warrior and a cleric, so they get some cleric spells while they get quite a few warrior skills. Only so many classes can dual wield, and the skills that classes learn all depends on what class you are, but there's no class that can do everything.
Some classes are really wanted more than others. Quite a few classes can be tanks, but only 1 or 2 can be healers, making them one of the more needed classes. The bad part is you can't always find a healer, so you have to settle for a Paladin or such to be the main healer.
Since all of the characters you group with in this game are humans, some players have to leave for real life events and of course it brings lots of online dialogue. Be ready for sayings such as: AFK (Away from keyboard) or LoL(Laughing out loud). If you don't get this kind of talk, be ready to be called a newbie. You can make friend and of course make enemies by adding people to your friends list or your enemies list. You can almost make better friends with a guy living on the other side of the world than you can with a guy living right down the street, same goes with enemies, which is why this game is so unique.
The graphics in the game are pretty good looking but not great. The environments are all detailed, but textures qre quite bland and character models are blocky and there are some serious glitches. Still this is a great looking game because of the level of detail in every zone of the game.
As you progress through the game you might get invited to a raid. Raids are basically lots of groups all going together to one big mob that has a key item someone need. Guilds is another cool thing and the guild works together to help eachother level up, talking, or just raiding. Guilds come in many types, including: raiding, family, or just social guilds. Raiding guilds are the best because they just raid for good items, but famliy guilds are friendly and can become popular. Some guilds require you to have certain items to join and some guilds have to many of one class, so you can't join their guild until you get certain gear/spells dpending on your class and/or level.
Everquest is the most addictive and most fun game you will ever play. It is easily one of my favorite games of all time and it seems that Gamespot agrees because it got dubbed in the Greatest games of all time and even Game of the year. If you have even a scent for video games and are willing to lost sleep at night for this highly addictive and evolving game, then by all means check out the wonderful world of Everquest or codename: Evercrack.