sense
of dull sameness to every new player encounter.
Fortunately, there's a
pretty good variety in classes and abilities. There are five archetypes to begin
with. Each archetype has three basic professions and then each profession has
two separate subclasses. So, one can start as a Mage, level up and elect to become
a Summoner and then finally choose between Necromancer and Conjurer. The first
raises the dead while the other summons various elemental monsters. The more basic
archetypes each have their own place in combat, but some of the later classes
vary in usefulness. A necromancer can solo well, for example, but he offers less
to a group than a wizard or a warlock; the more specialized a profession is, the
more effective the character is in a group. So players opting for hybrid classes,
like variations of the Crusader (paladin) class, will often find that they usually
aren't as helpful as more focused characters, like fighters or priests. There
are a good number of options from which to choose, but the system makes it easy
to pick an enjoyable and effective class with just a little research.
The combat and menu systems are designed well, though they're a bit basic. There's
a bar along the bottom of the screen that attacks and spells can be assigned to,
and fighting is basically a matter of targeting monsters and then clicking those
icons or hitting a corresponding hotkey. The system is familiar enough to pick
up easily, but I was hoping for something a little more refined or innovative.
Worse, the controls haven't been designed with social interaction in mind. To
bring up the chat window, players have to hit enter twice, rather than simply
typing the text, ala Galaxies. This is especially annoying because hitting
enter twice too quickly can aggravate windows and knock players out of the game
screen. It's a chore to socialize in the game, and the option to use SWG's
chat tab system would certainly have been welcomed.
There are some interesting
design choices, though, that make up for some of its basic shortcomings. The first
one I noticed was the tutorial, which places players on a pirate ship bound for
the Isle of Refuge. New characters are tasked with little fetch quests to get
accustomed to the inventory and the rest of the game's systems, and eventually
get to test their mettle in combat and watch a dragon attack the pirates' treasure
chests that are on the ship's deck. The tutorial provides some instant gratification
and it's a fun way to teach new players the ropes. After disembarking from the
pirate ship, characters find themselves on the Isle of Refuge. Once there, players
declare their basic archetype and perform various odd jobs and explore a mini-dungeon
until they hit level 6.
I liked the Isle of Refuge, but it's also where
I hit my first snag: for those hoping to participate in the crafting system, you'll
find that the Isle of Refuge is way too critical. In the game, there are different
harvestable items scattered around the map, such as roots, stone, fish and animal
nests. Working with each raises a different harvesting skill: chopping wood improves
one's foresting skill, etc. Later on in the game, different zones have different
tiers of harvestable items. The hitch is that you need a certain skill level before
tackling tier 2 materials, so people who don't think to harvest every little thing
they came across on the initial Isle will find themselves in a world of hurt later
on. For people who didn't think to plunder every last bit - and there's no warning
that this is necessary - it takes days to make up for the lost harvesting experience.
Harvesting is an integral part of the crafting system, so those interested in
crafting for virtual profit are playing catch-up for at least a few days.
The gathering/crafting system is pretty fun overall though, save for the Isle
of Refuge annoyance. Basically, while out hunting in the Sprawl or the Commonlands,
players see a stone on the ground, approach it, click on it, and begin a 10 second
or so animation as they gather the resources. Each resource is able to be "mined"
3 times. While mining, other prospective prospectors can excavate from the same
stone and deplete its worth, adding a nice sense of competition and urgency. Once
enough resources have been gathered, the next step is finding a crafting house
in town - a specialized, instanced-zone - to facilitate the actual crafting and
pick up some nifty resource-gathering missions. These are great for earning money
at low levels, but for some reason the missions are given out based on combat
level, rather than harvesting or crafting levels. So really, people can only fully
utilize this system if they start using it from day one and harvest as often as
they fight. This simply shouldn't be expected of the player, as it can turn adventuring
into a tedious chore.
At the crafting houses, resources can be refined
and turned into more concrete items like metal bars, which are in turn used to
craft parts of armor and weapons. The most interesting element of the crafting
system is its interactivity. Unlike most other MMORPGs where the player combines
the items in a crafting kit and hopes for the best, EQ2 requires that
the crafter react and respond to certain issues that arise during the process.
For example, if a player is making a sword, the metal will rise to a heat which
is too hot and so he must then (in a timely fashion) counter the heat with his
cooling technique. Humorously, failure to craft properly leads to physical damage
and, in the case of weaker characters, even death. The crafting process here feels
like it's really part of the game, rather than some unconnected task based entirely
on numbers and chance.
Unlike the rather innovative approach to crafting,
the combat system is a pretty standard, run-of-the-mill system. It's all pretty
generic, save for the new "Heroic Opportunity" or "HO" feature. Basically, while
in a group, one player triggers the HO and his party members must complete the
moves listed in the HO Wheel in order and, if they're successful, an ultimate
attack will ensue. It requires coordination, communication, and good timing to
make the system work. A good group can pull them off nine out of ten times and
they're very satisfying to perform. It really adds more dimension to the "click,
attack, watch things play out" combat most MMORPGs utilize. The only drawback
to it is that a lot of players don't bother with it, so it can be hard to form
a group that works well enough together to pull them off. They also become inefficient
at around level 25, as parties that simply use individual attacks generate more
damage per second.
The game's best moments are during specific missions,
rather than in general play. For example, once players hit level 10 they get to
go through an instanced quest to upgrade their archetype's class, and at 20 they
get to go on the cold forged armor quests. I liked the latter in particular. With
that one, players talk to a local NPC crafter that asks them to enter the "Fallen
Gate" dungeon and recover pieces of a special item off of some nasty creatures.
Now, to simply enter Fallen Gate players have to go on a separate quest and battle
six, fifty-foot tall Stone Giants. After accomplishing that Herculean task, it's
off to the Gate, where players group with one another and work cooperatively out
of necessity to find all the monsters that need killin'. The quest is just immensely
fun: it was challenging, the hunting was exciting, and the area had great atmosphere.
All the while I was gaining solid rewards that strengthened my character in meaningful
ways. Better still, these quests facilitate interdependence and friendships, and
I was able to meet people that I could play the next 20 levels of the game with.
The Fallen Gate armor quest is really what I would define as the quintessential
EverQuest 2 experience. It's some of the most fun I've had with the genre
in years, and it's a far cry better than the tedious camping exercises in the
original.
The rest of the game doesn't quite measure up to the experience
of Fallen Gate quest, but it's still good. For one, the game world isn't that
big - there are a few dungeons and fields to play around in - but it's not massive.
What is there is pretty well done, though. And, as Norrath isn't overwhelmingly
large and there are Griffin towers and warp methods to allow speedy travel, the
tedious on-foot trekking that plagues so many MMO games is almost non-existent.
The game world is divided up into good and evil regions and characters of one
alignment can't enter the capital cities of the opposing faction (Qeynos is for
the good folk, Freeport for the bad). This creates an interesting economy - something
of a faux black market, actually. Basically, since different items drop in different
regions, players have to check the black market to get certain items, meaning
a resourceful entrepreneur can make a killing by providing the right goods in
the right areas.
The new economy is interesting, but I was a little disappointed
by the housing system. Instead of having lots to place houses on, there are inns
spread around town. The inns rent rooms for item storage and that sort of thing.
To find where a friend is staying, you have to click on the inn door and find
his name to automatically enter his room. The inns cut down on some hassles and
frees up some virtual real estate, but it's not as fun as owning your own place.
To make matters worse, it's mandatory for players to be in their houses when they
sell items, which are purchased through brokers. So if you want to sell that great
weapon you just looted, you may have to sit in your inn room for a few hours until
a buyer sees your item on a broker's list somewhere.
I'm also a little
disappointed with the graphics in EverQuest 2. It's not an ugly game by
any stretch, but it's not as attractive as similar games released years ago, like
Galaxies. On top of that, it taxes your computer immensely, even more so
than Star Wars. Without a top-of-the-line video card and a gig of RAM,
players might not have consistently fluid visuals. Out of the five personal friends
I play the game with, four had to upgrade their machine to play the game smoothly.
There are a lot of options to configure the game for slower systems, but as they
eliminate certain animations and effects, it's not really recommended to try the
game on lower settings. The game is also too dark most of the time, for my tastes.
You can purchase torches and light stones if you please, but they only help so
much. It's not really atmospheric if I can't see anything at all. There is a day
and night cycle in the game, which is a fine idea, but to be near complete darkness
for half the cycle is annoying. I found myself messing with my contrast and brightness
for specific zones, which is irritating.
The creature design, however,
is great. Many of the beasties are based on familiar animals and it's fun to beat
up elephants, bears, armadillos and that sort of thing, but for those with a taste
for the more fantastic, there are also shamans, orc legions, large-breasted centaur
women, and humongous giants to fight. Causing the earth to shake by knocking down
a giant never gets old - and a lot of the other creatures are just as fun to battle.
The audio fares a bit better than the visuals. Through an Audigy 2 with
6.1 speakers, the game's a treat for the ears. The ambient sound is really good
and, as has been well-publicized, the NPCs actually talk. Most of the voice acting
is solid and intentionally humorous. A lot of the "ye olde/valiant chivalry" speak
is tongue-in-cheek, so it doesn't grate, and players have the option of only hearing
an NPC's speech once, if they so desire. The combat sounds are great as well;
there is something particularly cool about hearing the different spells' sound
effects as they are cast. The combat and spell audio really makes some similar
spells seem completely unique -the game's sound library is vast and engaging.
As one last advisory, the game suffers from some lag - both graphical
and conventional - that can lead to some unfair deaths. That's almost expected
of the genre, but it can get pretty bad in certain caves and other busy areas.
Overall: 7.5/10
Under the
right circumstances, EverQuest 2 can be a pretty fun experience. Like every
MMORPG, the people you meet and play with make the gaming experience. For prospective
players looking to invest for the long haul, the game has loads of low level content
at the moment, but not so much for the higher-ups. There are still some things
to do at high levels, like guild-building, but the further one progresses in the
game, the less there is to do. It's a solid experience overall, but whether or
not the game works in the long term will depend on how Sony decides to expand
the content. [
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