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| All about .:YoUnGLinKiE:. |
Viewing profile :: .:YoUnGLinKiE:.
Joined: 861 Days
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Location: BitFood.Com
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Review: Everquest 2
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Everquest 2 had some tough boots to fill when it launched - the original Everquest was a ground-breaking game, and it's still going strong today, with a healthy player base, and numerous expansions adding content to the game.
Everquest 2 had a strong launch, and it's had a few expansion packs already, adding new races, new starting areas, and plenty of content for both new and old players.
I played Everquest 2 briefly at launch, and was quite impressed with it. Since then, the game has changed quite a bit - the original system for choosing your character's class has been changed, so instead of starting off as a commoner, choosing a class (such as Mage, Rogue Priest, or Fighter), then a sub-class later on, you can choose to start as an Inquisitor, Ranger, or Druid, or whatever, straight away.
You start the game on a newbie island, where you learn the basics - there are a series of quests that will show you how to gather, use your skills, use the bank, etc, and you even learn about collection quests – where you are rewarded for gathering things such as feathers from different birds, or bones from different animals.
Some of the quests are typical 'kill X monster', or 'take this letter to this person', but there are other quests that tie together to make a nice story, with plenty of mystery and intrigue.
Once you complete the quests on the newbie island, you have to earn your citizenship - depending on whether you are good or evil you will go to either Qeynos or Freeport. You don't have to live there forever - you can betray the city to open up more options - the betrayer quests are quite interesting to do.
The levelling curve in Everquest 2 is quite steep, but if you can get together with a friend or some guild mates then things go a little more quickly. Finding a guild is easy because the social interface in the game is very good - guilds can place advertisements saying what members they are looking for, and what kind of playstyle the guild has – so if you are looking for a chatty guild, but with a hardcore raiding policy, and family friendly chat, then just scan for those icons on the guild page.
The game is well established now, and many guilds will not take lower level characters, but there are lots of newbie friendly guilds too, and many people level up in a more casual guild, and move on to a raiding guild once they have a more established character, and know a bit more about the game.
For the purposes of the review we experimented with solo play, as well as trying some content as a duo, and in bigger groups. All the classes we tried were able to solo to some extent - even the priest archetypes. Some of the rogues appeared to have a slightly harder time, but everyone is able to get through the game if they pick the right enemies and pick and choose quests carefully. As for duos, most classes work well together - our favourite pairing was an Inquisitor and a Nercomancer, because that suited our play styles - I'm sure there are more powerful combinations out there.
Crafting in Everquest 2 is quite involved - it isn't as good as crafting in the old style Star Wars Galaxies, but it is certainly better than the 'tappy bird' style crafting of some MMOs. The resource gathering system has you doing a lot of exploring to gather the things you need - much like in World of Warcraft. The crafting itself involves a combining mini game with a lot more interaction than regular crafting - the mini game involves selecting the right actions to ensure that the item crafting succeeds - it's mostly common sense, but things can randomly occur to make you fail anway, which is a little frustrating.
The focus in Everquest 2 is very much on high-end raiding and PVE. Encounters require a large number of people, and there are lots of very situational skills to use. Players have a limited mana pool, and a limited pool for buffs that they can apply, meaning that people have to choose their buffs carefully, and can't just spam damage or heals. Encounters require though and co-ordination, and there is a system called 'Heroic Opportunities', that adds flavour to the encounters. Heroic Opportunities require two or more people to pull off - one player starts the opportunity, and then each player can cast a spell to complete it - when an opportunity is pulled off it has a beneficial effect, such as increasing the power of the groups heals or damage spells.
Your key skills are learned as you level up, but you can buy new skills, or better versions of skills, from NPCs in towns. You can also loot skill books while on your travels. You don't have to buy every skill for your class, although it is fun to try to collect as many as you can.
Everquest 2 has been out a few years now, but the graphics still look very good. The game can easily run on a mid range system, and if you turn the graphics settings up you can get a very nice looking game that runs at a nice frame rate. There are lots of nice touches in terms of detail on the NPCs and the environment in general, and the voices in the game still make me smile. It does get a little repetitive - some of the phrases are repeated by monsters from area to area, but there is enough variety that it shouldn't annoy you unless you put in some very long play sessions with the sound turned up.
Player housing is instanced, and you can get a house quite early on in your gaming career - at first it's a tiny little thing (and very drab, see the picture below) - a bit like the MMO equivalent of a bedsit, but as you get bigger and earn some money you can climb the property ladder and upgrade your house. Rent is very expensive on the better houses, charging both a monetary fee and a status points – you can get a discount on the status points part by decorating your home with certain items that offer a Rent Status Reduction.
Everquest 2 integrates quite well with the Legends of Norrath card game - a free to play computer based trading card game that you can buy extra cards for, or, loot booster packs for inside Everquest 2 itself. You can challenge other players to a card game by clicking on their avatar within Everquest 2. The best bit is the loot cards that you can find in the booster packs – they give you items that you can use in Everquest 2 - these items range from clothing to decorative items for your house, bonus experience potions, and shape shifting buff items.
The above screenshot is of one of my smaller characters who has shape-shifted into a clockwork robot - one of the early Legends of Norrath awards. The shape-shift isn't just cosmetic - it also gives you a buff that does damage to anything that attacks you in melee.
If you are a fan of PVP combat then Everquest 2 is not the game for you. If you enjoy PVE with a point - with detailed quests, role play, and a rich setting behind it, then there are very few games that could compete with the solid foundation of the Everquest world and lore. The game is stable, with lots of content, a strong player base, and a relatively modern looking graphics engine that doesn't require a supercomputer to run it. Even PVP players shouldn't dismiss Everquest 2 - the PVE in many games is just a time sink - something to do when you can't find a fair fight, or to keep you playing a while before you start with the 'end game'. In Everquest 2, the PVE is the game, and as such, it is so much more polished and interesting.
There are so many quests to do, especially at the lower to mid range levels, that some people turn off experience gain so that they can enjoy all of the content that each level has to offer. As someone who loves to see a number go up, I haven't tried that - instead I just create several characters and try a different path through the levels with each one.
If you play any other SOE games - such as Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, or Planetside, then don't forget that Everquest 2 is available on Station Pass - that gets you most of the SOE games for one fee, and is a big saving if you play more than one game. I'm a strong fan of games with PVP in them, but I do sometimes pick up a Station Pass so that I can hop over to a different game when there's too much guild drama, or I just need a break - I think it's a great system.
To conclude, Everquest 2 is a very polished game - it has matured a lot since release - solo content is more friendly, but there's still a lot of high end group content too. It still looks as good as ever visually, and the depth of content and quests available will ensure that you'll always have plenty to explore.
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