Review: Ever Quest II
by Marinda Darnell
My account with SOE/Verant is extremely old by most standards. I remember when Ever Quest first came out, the server crashes, and the 4 minute wait to zone into Crushbone because my machine only had 128 MB of RAM. Then upgrading to 512 MB of RAM, it only took 30 seconds to zone. The cries of "Train to zone!!" and people running, screaming from Orcs and begging for a resurrection or help finding their corpse.
Then as the servers started getting more populated, problems began cropping up with little ways to fix them. Certain areas would be camped, and those areas were jealously guarded. Players knew the exact time and location for certain loot drops, and they would always be there for those specific drops. Kill stealing became very popular, and extremely frustrating. Character customization was limited to race and gender.
Ever Quest II has attempted to correct some of these problems. First I will address the
pros and cons of character creation. Fifteen races are available for play, with the
possibility of a sixteenth after finding the quests to unlock the Froglok race. Dwarf,
Halfling, High Elf, Wood Elf, Barbarian, Erudite, Gnome, Half Elf, Human, Kerra, Dark
Elf, Iksar, Ogre, Ratonga, and Troll are the races available to everyone, along with gender
selection. Hair, veils, accessories, height, eye color, fur pattern and color, and various
other characteristics can be customized.
What cannot be customized is the overall
body shape. All female characters will have large breasts and a well rounded derrière giving
a "Barbie doll" type appearance. Male characters will have a large muscled chest, no
matter what profession is chosen. The characters are extremely cartoonish in appearance.
While I know that a large majority of gamers are male, there is a large portion of female
EQ2 players. Some customization in these regards would be nice. My question to SOE is
when do the mages and clerics have a lot of time to build up "Arnold"-like muscles and
still master their professions? While I love the fact I can do a lot of customization with
skin tones, jewelry, clothes, and facial expressions, I do not like the fact all bodies
are cookie-cutter except in height. If they can give us almost complete character
customization in Star Wars Galaxies, then why not in EQ2? Over all, character creation is very
nicely done, with only a few parts left out.After your character was created (I personally have four characters on four different servers, including the RP server), depending on your alignment, your starting city is chosen. All evil aligned character start near Freeport, and good aligned characters begin in Qeynos. All characters begin on different instances of the Isle of Refuge or on a ship if you choose not to skip the tutorial. (After running through the tutorial with my first character, I skipped it with the next three). All zones are instanced in EQ2. So far I have seen up to seven instances of an individual zone, in order to keep population and lag under control. When zoning, each player is given an option as to which instance to enter. Immediately upon arriving on the island, you are hailed by an NPC that allows you to choose your archetype, and gives some starting weapons and items.
He also sends you on your first
mission. After your first mission (which is extremely easy), you will level up to level
three. Yes, that is right; levels one and two are pretty much skipped. Welcome to level
three within 10 minutes of starting to play. From this point, what missions you take are
based upon what archetype was chosen at the beginning of this zone. There are also other
missions that can be found that grant stated items and experience as rewards. Once you
reach level five (very quickly), you have the option to talk the ambassador and continue
onto Freeport or Qeynos, depending on your alignment. Also introduced on this starting
island is crafting. Crafting involves harvesting resources and making different items.
The beginning crafting quests are very simple and introduce the different components needed
when crafting. I would highly recommend all starting characters perform these easy quests.
All characters can have their main profession and be a crafter as well. Experience is
gained through separate missions for each profession, and specializations are available at
higher levels. One word of advice: maximize your character's harvesting skills prior to
leaving the beginning island.Professions have changed greatly. No longer do characters start as a level one druid or ranger. Instead an archetype is chosen on the Isle of Refuge, for instance fighter, mage, priest, and scout. Each archetype then has three classes under them, which can be trained in once a character reaches level ten, and has completed the appropriate hallmark quests. Each class then has a sub-class, which can be trained in once the character reaches level twenty, and has finished the hallmark quests. For instances, Darkwind starts out on the Isle of Refuge as a Priest. Upon reaching Qeynos, Darkwind decides to continue his learning and seeks out Hierophant Aldalad in North Qeynos. Aldalad proceeds to instruct Darkwind through a series of quests and missions which highlight what each class that a priest can become involves. Upon finishing these quests, Darkwind decides to follow the path of a druid. Once Aldalad assures himself that Darkwind is ready for the druid trials, Darkwind is teleported to a remote tower where he must destroy different evil NPCs. After achieving level ten, Darkwind can then train to become a druid, and follow that path to become a Warden or Fury. The class system specialization is wonderful. This allows for different choices to be made based upon experiences and desires in the game. Each character is going to meet different characters to shape her personality, the class system allows for this shaping to be more apparent.
The Isle of Refuge introduced many different quests to receive experience and gain rewards,
both monetary and equipment. This quest-heavy theme continues once reaching Freeport or
Qeynos. All characters are given a room in an inn to call their own, and to place certain
items such as books, paintings, and furniture. In order to travel into the city proper
though, citizenship quests must be performed. Prior to choosing a sub-class, each
character does have the opportunity to betray their home city and defect, changing their
alignment. So don't be too surprised at seeing a Paladin Troll wandering around Qeynos,
stranger things have happened during these trying times. In order to achieve classes and
sub-classes, quests must be completed. This forces the player (which isn't a bad thing)
to interact with NPCs and immerse themselves into the story line. SOE has outdone
themselves with the quality and vast number of quests available. Kill stealing has virtually been eliminated with the implementation of locked combat. Unless you are grouped with the character who is attacking a creature (as shown by a small padlock symbol next to the names of the creature and the character), you cannot attack or cast any spells that would harm or help the creature or character attacking it. So you want to go after that level twenty NPC, but you're tired of someone coming in when you have his health down by 49% and one-shot killing him for the other 51%, getting the experience and loot rights to the corpse? This is the tool for you! The major drawback is the fact that no one can heal your character if they are not grouped with you while you are in combat. The lock can be broken by calling for help, but then there are no loot rights nor is experience granted to any party. So word of warning, do not attack a mob if you think someone will take pity on you and heal you while you kill the mob. It doesn't happen anymore. I think the benefit of this far outweighs the negative.
One major sticking point about EQ2 I have found so far is server load. There are more then 20 servers available for play; however none of them have below a medium load. On the Antonia Bayle server (RP, and my main server), I have often been disconnected due to server load issues. I am running 2 gig of RAM, have an outstanding video card, and a very fast processor with a reliable cable connection. I should be experiencing no lag or server dropping. Do not expect a pleasant experience when on dial-up. It's already time for server splits to start happening, and even more servers to be introduced for the growing population to expand on. Currently there are only two RP preferred servers, and no pvp (plaver-vs-player) preferred server. Admittedly there is no pvp currently in EQ2, but given more time for the game to develop, pvp is supposed to be added.
Overall, I would rate Ever Quest II very high. The class system is fabulous, the story is wonderful, quest outstanding, character creation ok, and the server issues awful. My original Ever Quest account will be forever closed from this point forward.