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EverQuest (EQ) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in March 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost. 989 Studios funded development and initially published the game, before Verant Interactive took management. Sony Online Entertainment later purchased Verant, and SOE runs and distributes EverQuest currently. To play, one must initially pay for the game software and then pay a recurring monthly fee; a free trial is also available for those who wish to experience the game before paying.
Overview
In the game, players explore a Tolkienesque fantasy world of sword and sorcery, fighting monsters and enemies for treasure and experience points and interacting with other players. As they progress, players advance in level, gaining power, prestige and abilities. Players can also procure powerful items for their characters in a variety of ways: through slaying monsters (and then "looting" whatever items they were carrying), doing "quests" (tasks and adventures given by other characters in which a reward is given upon success), or by gathering raw materials and then fashioning them, via numerous trade skills such as tailoring or blacksmithing, into useful (or not-so-useful, but nevertheless fun) items. In structure and rules, the game is a direct descendant of the famed Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Many of the elements from EverQuest have also been drawn from text-based MUD (multi-user dungeon) games, especially DikuMUD.
The game features a rich 3D environment set in the fictional world of Norrath, its moon Luclin and alternate planes of reality. The geography of the EverQuest universe is vast—few have visited all of the 230 zones. Multiple instances of the world exist on various servers, each one hosting between 1000 and 3000 simultaneous players online during peak times. After selecting a server, a player can create multiple characters by choosing from a variety of classes and races (e.g., humans, gnomes, trolls, halflings, elves, etc.). The main aspect of gameplay involves grouping with fellow players to kill monsters for experience points. Beyond that, a player can explore the large world, socialize, role-play, join player guilds, master trade skills, and duel other players (in restricted situations — EQ does not allow player-versus-player (PvP) combat, except on special PvP-specific servers).
While some parts of EverQuest can be experienced alone, without the help of other players, EQ generally remains a very group-centric game. A single character will be unable to complete many of the encounters in EverQuest. Most parts of the game can be completed with small groups of up to six or so people, but the most challenging (and rewarding) encounters require the cooperation of many players, sometimes even several guilds, totalling more than 100 players.
EverQuest launched with some technical difficulties on March 16, 1999 but quickly became successful. By the end of the year, it had surpassed the leading competitor, Ultima Online in number of subscriptions. Numbers continued rising at a steady rate until mid-2001 when growth slowed. As of 2004, Sony reports subscription numbers close to 450,000. It is now the most popular MMORPG in North America and Europe, but is far behind the global leader Lineage, which counts millions of subscribers, most of them in South Korea.
Controversies and social issues
EverQuest has lived through its share of controversy, much of it shared by the entire MMORPG genre. One example involves the sale of in-game objects for real currency (often through eBay). The developers of EQ have always forbidden the practice and in January 2001 asked eBay to stop listing such auctions, although such auctions still persist. The game has always had problems with exploiting, cheating, and hacking. Patches have stopped the most serious cheats, but controversy also lies in Verant and SOE's policies when seen by players as heavy-handed or subjective. Changes in management have caused changes in company-to-costumer representatives who defend or promote said policies. Gordon Wrinn ("Abashi") was the spokesperson of Verant, followed by Alan VanCouvering ("Absor") for SOE; a team now presents plans to the players. Critics of EQ's gameplay deride it as "simplistic", and a satirical hoax 'game' called Progress Quest has appeared on the Internet. Some gamers have nicknamed it "LevelQuest", implying that the purpose of the game is to only acquire levels. Monotonous in-game-activities are refered to as timesinks.
The game is renowned and berated (by some psychologists specializing in computer addiction) for its addictive qualities. Many refer to it half-jokingly as "NeverRest" and "EverCrack" (a reference to crack cocaine, an addictive recreational drug). EQ is very time-consuming for many people, and there have been several well-publicized suicides of EverQuest users. Relationships broken because of obsessive playing resulted in the creation of an online support group called EverQuest Widows (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EverQuest-Widows/). The capacity of the game to absorb time and money, and to distract players from a possibly-dull life on the other side of the screen, are appealing features to its users. However, the same could be said for any other addictive and obsessive activity. Sony has tried to combat cash trading and cheating, but continues to advertise the game's addictive nature. An infamous rant titled EQ: What You Really Get From An Online Game (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/27/1748252&mode=flat&tid=127) appeared on Slashdot in 2002, and brought this issue of EverQuest addiction to the forefront of many message boards across the Internet.
The sociological aspects of EverQuest (and other MMORPGs) are further explored in a series of online studies (http://www.nickyee.com/hub/home.html) on a site known as "the HUB". The studies make use of data gathered from player surveys and discuss topics like virtual relationships, player personalities, gender issues, and more.
EverQuest products
There have been several expansions to the original game since release. Expansions are purchased separately and add significant content to the game (for example, new races, classes, and continents). Additionally, the game is updated regularly through downloadable patches. The EQ expansions to date:
- The Ruins of Kunark (March 2000)
- The Scars of Velious (December 2000)
- The Shadows of Luclin (December 2001)
- The Planes of Power (October 2002)
- The Legacy of Ykesha (March 2003)
- Lost Dungeons of Norrath (September 2003)
- Gates of Discord (February 2004)
- Omens of War (September 2004)
There are many spin-off products from EverQuest. Several servers have been introduced with alternate rule-sets, including ones which allow player killing, another that has stricter role-playing guidelines, and a premium Legends server (for a premium price). EverQuest Online Adventures, released in February 2003, is an MMORPG for the PlayStation 2 console. EverQuest II on the PC is also in development for 2004. Other video games, a D20 pen-and-paper role-playing game, several books, and player gatherings (Fan Faires) have also been spawned from EverQuest.
Fans have created an open source server emulator [1] (http://www.eqemulator.net/), allowing users to run their own servers with custom rules. Running such an emulator is a violation of EQ's end user license agreement and could result in a player being banned from Sony's EverQuest servers if caught doing so. It has not yet gained the same popularity of server emulators for Ultima Online.
Gameplay jargon
EverQuest carries an internal language and culture of its own, including a plethora of arcane abbreviations aiding communication between players. For example, SoW (which stands for Spirit of Wolf, a popular spell which accelerates players' movement), and vernacular usages such as 'crack' which within the context of EQ refer to mana regeneration spells such as Clarity or KEI (an abbreviation for Koadic's Endless Intellect). In-game chatting can practically be a foreign language to anyone who has not played it extensively.
A number of terms used in-game have been coined by role players from a wide variety of other MMORPGs or players of EverQuest specifically. One is the habit of calling monsters MOBs which is a contraction of Mobile Objects and stems from old text-based MUDs.
Some players also use leet, which is infrequently referred to as "dewd" speak, and Internet slang is quite common among users of the game.
External links
- EverQuest (http://www.everquest.com/) - official site
- Allakhazam's Magical Realm (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/) - popular EQ spoiler site (quest help, item database); fee for detailed information
- EverQuest Caster's Realm (http://eq.crgaming.com/) - EverQuest news and information site
- EverQuest Online (http://www.everquest-online.com/) - Provides large item and spell databases.
- Norrathian (http://www.norrathian.net/) - Satirical humor based on EverQuest.
- EQTraders (http://www.eqtraders.com/) - Excellent spoiler site dedicated to tradeskilling
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