EverQuest II Review

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(More customer reviews)Okay, I can almost hear all of you asking me: "WHY? are you NUTS?"

Firstly, my computer is just under the minimum recommended spec required for this game: AMD Duron 950 (100MHz FSB), 1GB 133MHz SDRAM (yes the old stuff), Radeon 9800Pro 128MB (Running at 4X AGP) - You get the idea. I have the game on low settings, except for the main texture quality, that is set to HIGH. This game is *just* about playable for me (although some of you may disagree) I get anywhere between 5 - 10 FPS in the cities, and higher indoors. But it lags, and quite serious lag sometimes.

But I'm still playing. And I'm not planning on quitting. And SOE are welcome to the monthly fee that I will pay - gladly.

What's in.... THE BOX!?

The collector's edition of this game comes beautifully presented in a shiny metal box. Opening the box you find: a velvet pouch with collectors coin, a cloth map of the world, a glossy poster map of the main cities, a glossy poster of Antonia Bayle - signed by Heather Graham - and a pic of Lucan D'Lere - signed by none other than Christopher Lee (otherwise known as Saruman in LoTR), a thick glossy book full of game artwork, a glossy manual and a hardback gatefold CD case containing both game DVD's, a music CD and a Bonus DVD (4 discs in all).

It's quite a package, and strangely, I found myself cackling with glee as I was rummaging through its contents. After installing (4.5GB!) and getting into the game, I typed in /claim, and found to my surprise that the collector's edition of this game also includes in-game items as follows: A choice of paintings (to be put in your Inn room after leaving the Isle of Refuge), A statue of Lucan or Antonia to put in your Inn room(and they talk when you click on them), and a baby dragon pet in your choice of colours (it also does tricks). What can I say? Pretty cool stuff - but you're paying for it, don't forget!

The Game

Now, I want you to ask yourself if you like clear purpose in an RPG. Think about all those great single player RPG's of the past that included great storylines and quests. Let me tell you that if you like quests, then you will love Everquest 2's excellent quest system. The game designers have put a lot of thought, effort and time into the stories, quests and reward system, and it's all brought to life by the outstanding voice-overs of the NPC's. It didn't take long for the LAG I was telling you about before, to become... how shall I say? ... more unnoticed. In fact, I was already planning my next PC upgrade.

The game really comes to life when you leave the Isle of Refuge and partake in the well thought-out initial quests to get you used to the city, your Inn room and the places to hunt. The NPC's chatter away as you go about your business - e.g. I saw one of the Ratonga rat men weilding a hatchet and chasing a cat through the streets of Freeport with a comical voice over of "Here kitty kitty!". Moments later the cat was chasing him instead, hissing and yowling, while the Ratonga was shouting "Helllp!.. I'm being chased by dinner!"

The game is full of these comical moments, and it draws you in, gives the world life. This game is very immersive - even more so than the original Everquest. Dangerously immersive. Hmmm... this game could be a real life stealer - but I'm not sure yet if this is a Pro or a Con.

Everquest2 is all about adventure - more so than any other MMORPG that I have played to date (and I've been playing them since the early MUD's). It has the same fun level that I experienced with single-player games like Baldurs Gate and BGII. And even though I have played the original Everquest, EQ2 is completely new to me, has that element of exploration and adventure... and good clear sense of progress right from the start.

But this game requires a COMMITTMENT.

If committment scares you, or if you don't have the time to truely sink yourself into this game - then I wouldn't recommend it for you! I'm going to take time off from real life, and become what I call "a computer hermit" for a month or so. I won't shave or wash much, I won't see the light of day for a while. Grocery shopping will be done online, or from a phone.

You get the idea. If you want a "casual" gaming experience, try WoW out for style. But if you're hardcore, like me. You know what to do..... (bwhahahahaahahaaaaa!)

Pros: Graphics, Sound, Quests, Animation, Community, Can Solo (all the way with the new solo monsters that SOE have added), Player Housing, Guild system, Group System, Combat, Item system, Voice Acting, The way that swarms of bats fly in caves, The way that flocks of birds realistically fly outdoors, Fish (and fishing), Tradeskills, Mining, Gathering/Harvesting and the whole lack of... boredom.

Cons: Price, Monthly fee, REQUIRES High-End system (works good after messing with the game settings on my friend's 3200 AMD barton, 1GB DDR RAM, Radeon 9800Pro), REQUIRES time to play - but if you're patient I suppose you could "casual" this for a time, It's by Sony - so cust support might be sketchy, Expansions to the game are PAY, Game special features are PAY, Overall the game is EXPENSIVE, your real life sanity (and/or relationship with girlfriend/boyfriend) may be at RISK.

And that's all I can think of. Hope you find the info above ^^ useful.

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Product Description:
The EverQuest II Collector's Edition opens up a new world of epic deds and amazing damgers, where players will encounter hundreds of creatures and unlimited adventure. Breathtaking graphics and an epic storyline immerse you in this world, as you become a legendary hero or villain. This special Collector's Edition includes a "Spell Book" DVD holder, bonus DVD with video assets, art book, cloth map and a collectible coin ina small velvet pouch.Players can now own real estate, such as apartments, homes, and guild houses Incredible graphics bring over 160 creature types to life -from orcs and goblins to menacing dragons and colossal Living StatuesFeatures voices for almost every NPC in the game

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Everquest I: The Anniversary Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been playing Everquest off and on now for 7 years now and I can say, without a moment's hesitation, it is the best one out there.I know that some will argue with this, but as far as a really good online game for adults, you cannot top this one.I've tried DAoC, EQII, WoW, Vanguard and numerous others only to always come back to EQ.Like someone said earlier, the music will take you back several years just like a good tune on the radio will and remind you of something funny that happened in game, or that special event or person.This is an awesome game and unlike others that are full of kids, this game is too advanced and too technical in many respects for kids to even be able to understand.The average age is late 30's - 40's with quite a few older players as well, which I love to see.
The quests are like no others I've ever seen in a game.When a 9 year old can play WoW, I don't feel you can really say you've accomplished much when you get a high level character there; whereas, with EQ, when you hit the highests level, you KNOW you've accomplished a lot and so do all of those around you.Does it have the best interface, no.Does it have the best map system, absolutely not.Are the graphics the best, no to this as well but the game content is way beyond anything I've ever seen before and you submerge yourself into a virtual reality game that will keep you entertained for years to come.
And, no, you won't jump off of a building, drop out of school or quit your job unless you were looking for an excuse to in the first place.

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Product Description:
The EverQuest Anniversary Edition compiles every add-on for the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). It brings together every expansion pack for the legendary EverQuest games, plus a brand new one - The Buried Sea. This collection also treats gamers to new in-game content, including dozens of Luclin Fabled NPCs, a new scavenger hunt for players of all levels, and the return of the Fabled fiends of years past. Choose from 16 unique races and 16 distinct classes, including the new dragon-bred Drakkins. With more than 375 zones to explore and more than 50,000 items to earn and collect both magical and mundane, including artifacts of great power, characters can shape the universe in EverQuest.
EverQuest: The Buried Sea features:Energeian Items -Gain a new inventory slot for an Energeian power source and armor that can tap into the energy within

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Everquest 2: Kingdom of Sky Expansion Pack Review

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(More customer reviews)Kingdom of Sky is the second expansion for Everquest 2, and while it's not perfect, and many of the changes take getting used to, I like it.While some other games will possible release a near-perfect expansion in the future, how long will it take for them to release it?In the meantime, we have more content, an increased level cap, and some needed changes.

The Good:
1. More content.The new content is stellar.I love the views from the sky, and while I haven't been able to get into a lot of the content, what I've seen so far has been top notch, expanding the mythos of Everquest 2 plausibly.

2. The Tradeskill Changes.I definitely like the fact that even at lower levels you can craft useable items without going through iterations of making the smallest part for an item- they still have those too, but the other items give a good balance to make tradeskilling seem less tedious, and it appears that the use of skills against progress in tradeskill has been made more uniform- I see less of the endless periods of -50s with no chance to counter them on items that match your level.

3. The Harvesting Changes.I love the fact that you can actually tell with almost a certainty what you will get from a harvest point, instead of it being totally random.Imagine- you get coffee beans from a coffee bean bush!Who would have thought?

4. The New Class System.I liked the idea behind the branching class trees, but given that your city allegiance indicated in most cases what you were by 10th level, the implementation left a lot to be desired.If they were not going to change this, then a unique experience for each character was highly more desireable than the generic approach that levels 1-10 had become.

The OK:

1. Alternate Adventure XPs.They approximate talents in WoW, and I like the fact that they exist, and like the fact that you don't automatically get AA XPs.I like the abilities themselves, but I like the implementation of the trees in WoW better- these appear too static and linear for my tastes.

The Bad:

1. The Server merges: There are too many people on servers waiting for the same instanced monster to spawn.I've experienced very little lag, but waiting for monsters to spawn really sucks.

2. Broken Brokers: I was preparing one of my alts for Betrayal, and couldn't buy anything.My crafter couldn't sell anything.And there was no communication from SOE on the exact problem, except one little posting by an apparently insignificant member of SOE.Thank you for that little information.I hope SOE can learn from your skills at communication.

3. PvP servers full.I could already tell from their proposed 'plan' that this was going to happen.One Station Exchange and one normal server?For all of North America?Right.Can anyone say short-sighted?

The Ugly:
1. Broken quests because of changes.Test your existing quests before rolling out changes.Please!In the just annoying case, I completed an element of my profession quest only to find out that the quest giver would not speak to me, and I can't finish it.In the worst case, you had my level 17+ doing a betrayal quest and sending him to talk to not one, not two, but three NPCs in places guarded by level 25+ guards that were still aggro to him.If I had to sneak in and grab something, that's fine.But it ruins immersion to have to talk to people from across the room so that guards don't immediately attack you.Please!

In conclusion, I agree that this expansion is not perfect.But I can say that at least SOE is releasing something rather than just promises of an expansion- I'd rather have something solid that needs a few tweaks than waiting for perfect software.

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Product Description:
EverQuest II: Kingdom Of Sky chronicles the battles Norrath's warrior will face against the Overrealm, a previously-unknown mystical territory, made up of islands floating high above the land. Discover strange new creatures, powerful new objects and items, and a world filled with unseen wonders. Travel to the Overrealm and battle the creatures who intend to enslave and conquer Norrath. Four new arena champions and two new arenasAll new Heritage Quests allow players to gain amazingly powerful items, personal status, adventure experience and much more Signature Quests reward large experience bonuses, entirely new items, and advance the lore of EverQuest II Over 30 new Collections expand on one of the most popular features exclusive to EverQuest II Challenging new zones, both below ground and high above it Brand new pieces of armor, such as Profession Hats, Helmets and Pauldrons, will make your character look more distinct Over 30 new items to put in your player house

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Everquest II The Shadow Odyssey Review

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(More customer reviews)For everyone who loves online fantasy games. There is something for anyone. From beautiful adventuring zones to house decorating. This expansion is an all in one pack, so if you buy this you get the original game plus all expansions. You get a nice bear mount which levels with you. There is both an exciting adventure part to the game, a very well developed tradeskill part, there is thousand of quests and very customizeable house decorating part from little inn rooms to giant guild halls. Creating your character also gives you a lot of posibilities with so many different races and classes to choose between. When you have chosen your race and class then there is almost endless possibilities for customizing their looks. This game is fun and challenging for both teenagers and adults. The only downside to the game is the high requirements for your computer which must be up to date with lots of ram for being able to run the game smoothly and enjoy the fantastic graphics.

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Product Description:
EverQuest II The Shadow Odyssey is the latest EverQuest II expansion pack from Sony Online Entertainment, and follows the award-winning Rise of Kunark expansion. New and veteran players will marvel at the massive expanse of the new journey through an unknown realm. With new quests, stories, deities, and more, The Shadow Odyssey will provide hours of fresh gameplay.


Explore Ether and its 20 new zones, including the overland zone of Innothule. View larger. Special Pewter Bear Figurine Included in Box
A special pewter dire bear figurine is an included bonus with this set. The bear is a new addition to the game, either a pet or mount depending what level you are, and gains experience and levels with you. This collectible pewter replica will look great on your desk as a reminder of your digital friend.
New Worlds and Nostalgic Places to Explore
At the heart of The Shadow Odyssey is a new realm called the Ether, with 20 new zones including a new overland zone, Innothule. Players will enjoy the added pieces of nostalgia with familiar dungeon themes from EverQuest such as Najena, Mistmoore, and The Sebilisian Empire. There are also five new Heritage Quests, and more than 18 goal-based dungeons such as Befallen and Ruins of Guk.
The story unfolds along with the hundreds of new quests and dozens of new creatures. As you fight, you learn a little more about this new world and the challenges that must be overcome in it.
New Mounts, New Deities
Players will now be able to ride new mounts such as a bear and a unicorn. Two new deities have also been introduced into Norrath: Rodcet Nife and Anashti Sul. Players can also now ride airships to travel between distant lands.
A New Group of Erudites Offer New Loot
Along with the new realm and new enemies are new equipment, weapons, armor, and other loot. Players can get them by bartering the void shards earned during your encounters with a mysterious group of Erudites who have powerful new armor and equipment.
Legends of Norrath Online Card Trading Game Included
Legends of Norrath, a strategic online trading card game, is included in The Shadow Odyssey expansion. The card game tells the story thousands of years before the events in The Shadow Odyssey, giving players a chance to learn the realm's history. Players can gain new loot cards for EverQuest II, including rare items, new mounts, cloaks, consumables, and baubles.
All-In-One Compilation Pack Includes Previous Releases
The Shadow Odyssey is an All-In-One expansion pack that includes all previous expansion and adventure packs for EverQuest II. This means that you'll have access to the entire EverQuest II world and have a chance to catch up on any adventures you might have missed.

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Everquest II: Echoes of Faydwer Review

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(More customer reviews)When Everquest 2 (EQ2) was released two years ago in conjunction with Blizzard's World of Warcraft (WoW), it was suppose to be the battle of two heavyweight giants in the game industry.However, EQ2 was far from being a complete game and it suffered as WoW has gone on to court well over 5 million subscribers since then.

Flash forward to present day and EQ2 has released it's third expansion - Echoes of Faydwer (EoF) - and it's easy to see how much improvement this game has made over it's two year journey.The game has gone through numerous changes - both from the combat mechanics down to the tradeskill subset - to where EQ2 not only makes a strong run against WoW for best MMORPG on the market but the most casual player friendly game on the market right now.

EoF provides players with a new race - the Fae - and a new staring city, Kelethin, to start on the continent of Faydwer.Race selection is not just limited to the Fae as you can also start as a Dwarf, Gnome, Wood Elf, or High Elf as well.Kelethin is considered to be a haven of good in this game so only classes that fall within the alignment of Qeynos can chosen for play.

The continent returns famous landmarks that many original EQ players will recognize off the bat: Steamfront Mountains, Butcherblock Mountains, Castle Mistmoore, The Butcherblock Chessboard, etc. to name a few.Old enemies return such as the Crushbone orcs, Mayong Mistmoore as well as new challenges such as The Pumpkin Headed Horseman in the Loping Planes.

New raid zones including Emerald Halls, The Freethinkers Hideout and Mistmoore's Inner Sanctum await guilds that desire to raid high end content and offer great rewards for those skilled enough to make it through the zones (more on that in a minute).New armor sets await including set bonuses along with the abilities to adorn current armor sets with bonuses.New tradeskills include tinkering and transmuting to add greater variety to the game and help improve characters over the course of their journeys.Finally, Alternate Achievement (AA) points can now be earned starting at level 10 and are split 50/50 between two trees; the first tree goes to your character's class archetype; the second tree is specific to your character's class.

As if that was not enough, old EQ players who may not have taken to EQ2 due to the lack of no interaction with the pantheon of Norrath can rejoice as the gods have begun to return to Norrath again.Currently, there are nine gods that players can worship.The catch, however, is that the gods are now have alignments and depending on your character's alignment will dictate which gods you have access to worship.The gods are as follows:

Good Alignment - Mithaniel Marr, Tunare, and Quellious
Neutrals - Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis
Evil Alignment - Rallos Zek, Cazic Thule, and Innoruuk

Worship of each god provide players with abilities in the forms of blessings and miracles.Players have to provide offerings to their gods in order to gain the points necessary to use blessings and miracles for their characters.It should also be noted that each god's avatar appears in the game as a contested raid mob.This will prove to be interesting how this plays out in game since it has been suggested that players worshiping a god who kills their god's avatar will be perma-flagged as hated by that god.This is probably done due to how players acted in EQ's Planes of Power (PoP) expansion in order to make the consequences of such decisions long lasting.

With all the good that this expansion has been for EQ2, there are some glaring problems right now.The first problem being that a lot of the Old World content, Desert of Flames (DoF) content, and Kingdom of Sky (KoS) content did not get re-adjusted with the combat update that removed the hard stat caps in favor of a system of diminishing returns.The main problem with the re-adjusted combat system is that raid and heroic mobs in the game seemed to miss the re-alignment.Currently, raid mobs in familiar KoS zones (Labs of Lord Vyemm, Lyceum of Abhorrence, Halls of Seeing, Deathtoll) and content in the Fallen Dynasty adventure pack (Chel'Drak, The Direvine Matron, the city of Nizara)is currently out of balance with the mobs one-shotting players right and left.This problem does not exist with the mobs in Fayder zones it seems save for the more upper level raid/instance zones (Castle Mistmoore, Obelisk of Blight).While this will be beneficial for players starting out, for more players who have been around for a while it makes running the current quest series hard until more tweaking of the combat system is done.

The second complaint that I have with this expansion as a whole - and this is a personal gripe - is the lack of support Freeport characters have in the game.The Fae are a new good-based race while Freeport characters are still limited to the evil-neutral race based classes that have been around since the game started.The new quests in Faydwer also have substantially higher coin and gear rewards versus their Freeport counterparts.In rolling a new Fae Mystic toon recently and taking her to level 10, she sat close to 2g from quest rewards and loot drops versus THREE Freeport toons I also rolled at the same time that have yet to break over that amount from quest rewards and loot drops (but they make more money based on their tradeskills alone).

These two items knock this down from being a completely perfect expansion but minor issues aside, EQ2 has come a LONG WAY from where it was two years ago and deserves a second look at.While WoW may have held the crown for this long, this expansion has shown that the EQ2 development team has truly come to the level - and in many cases even surpassed - Blizzard when it comes to crafting a MMORPG that players of all types can enjoy and get lost in for a few hours.

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Product Description:
This expansion introduces a new playable race, The Fae, an enchanted race of winged creatures.The Fae dwell on the continent of Faydwer, in the arboreal city of Kelethin, the new starting city being added to new chapter in the EQII saga. Echoes of Faydwer includes over 350 new quests, a new selection of profession hats, cloaks, armor, and new horse mounts available to players of all levels. EQII players will encounter over 40 new types of creatures to face, more than 20 new zones and adventure areas, and will be able to compete against other players for new PvP (Player vs. Player) rewards, plus all-new items, equipment, spells and tradeskill recipes. The Achievement system introduced in the Kingdom of Sky expansion has been enhanced to include additional sub-class abilities, allowing players to further customize their characters' abilities.All-new Profession Hats and Armor Over 20 new adventure zones - lush forests, vampire-infested castles and arboreal cities Over 40 new types of creaturesNew rewards for PvP (Player vs. Player) combat New player housing, items, equipment, spells and tradeskill recipes Levels for Guilds raised from 50 to 60An MMO RPG that requires online play at a monthly subscription fee

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Everquest II: Rise Of Kunark Review

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(More customer reviews)I first played EQ2 at release, almost three years ago now.The game was beautiful, no doubt, but lacked the fun factor that kept me involved in the original EQ for over two years.I gave up on the game after three months, and only stayed with it that long due to some friends I had made in the game and didn't want to just walk away from.At that time, the crafting was horrible, the questing overly drawn out (I recall gathering 100 each of wood and metal for a very early stage in a very long questline), and grouping was absolutely necessary to advance.

After a recent free-trial weekend, I decided to buy RoK and give EQ2 another shot.I found a much improved questing path in the new area (the Sarnak).There's nothing earthshattering in the mechanics - go there, kill that, come back for your reward that is the staple of rpg's - but the implementation shows a lot of effort was put into increasing the action and reducing the running from place to place that plagued the game at release.I have not gone back and levelled a character in the original game areas, so I will not speak to any improvements that may (or may not) have been made there, but I would hope there has been improvement in the "old" areas as well.

The crafting system was also, in my opinion, greatly improved.At release, the crafting system was in-depth and engrossing, but also incredibly frustrating.Originally, you crafted preliminary components from harvested materials, then turned the preliminary components into final products.Those final products frequently (at higher levels) required the crafter to acquire preliminary components that the crafter would need to rely on other crafters in other skill trees to provide.Finding the items you needed to advance required turning to brokers, either slowing the process, or making it hopelessly expensive to advance your crafting skills.Now, the crafter is able to harvest all of the necessary components to create a final product.The "action/reaction" part of the crafting is still in place.Crafting failures are still a possibility, but no longer are you destroying carefully crafted components in the process (only raw materials), and they occur far less frequently (greatly reducing the frustration level).

The most noticable difference is the ability to advance.It took me three months to level a character to 30 at release, and a few weeks in the current expansion.It is now possible to go out and accomplish a quest solo, and likely to do a great deal of levelling that way.This was just not possible at launch.It happens occassionally that I don't have time to form a group to go questing, but I still want to accomplish something in a limited amount of time.Being able to do so is a welcome addition to the game.

The one potential drawback has to do with grouping.At this point, the majority of players are max level, and a lot of the newbie areas are less populated.It may be tough to find a group to do the quests that require a full group.However, it's usually fairly easy to find one or two people to group with, and most of the content can easily be managed by two or three players.

It's clear to see the impact that other mmorpg's have had on EQ2 by the changes made since launch.EQ2 has clearly made strides to broaden its appeal, and from what I've seen of it there's quite a bit to appeal to both the casual solo player or the hard-core, raid-oriented player.

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Product Description:
The fourth expansion pack for EverQuest II Rise of Kunark features hundreds of new quests promising exciting adventures and encounters including class Epic Weapon quests for all classes. Rise of Kunark introduces a new playable race the Sarnak. This dragon-like humanoid inhabits the jungle islands of Timorous Deep a new starting location for adventurers. Timorous Deep presents a wealth of new content for levels 1-20 and is one of the many new zones being developed for this expansion. Many of these zones are based on favorite gameplay areas from the original EverQuest such as Karnor's Castle the Lake of Ill Omen Sebilis and Veeshan's Peak. Guilds adventurers and artisans can expect to benefit from a raised level cap as all level caps are raised to 80 in addition to new solo group and raid content for levels 65-80. Players will also be able to explore this new world astride a new mount -- the rampaging Kunarkian Rhino. Dozens of new NPCs as well as a host of new weapons and armor await players as they explore and unravel the mysteries surrounding the beautiful yet dangerous continent of Kunark.Note: This expansion pack requires the full version of EverQuest II to play.Format: WIN 2000XP Genre:ENTERTAINMENT Rating:T UPC:814582412225 Manufacturer No:41222

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