EverQuest
From KnowledgePit
| EverQuest | |
|---|---|
 | |
| System: | Windows |
| Release Date: | March 16, 1999 |
| Developer: | Verant Interactive |
| Publisher: | Sony Online Entertainment |
| Genre(s): | MMORPG |
| Number of Players: | ∞ |
| EverQuest has its own KnowledgePit node, which can be found at eq:Main Page |
Contents |
[edit] General Information
EverQuest (or EQ for short) is a 3D fantasy-themed MMORPG that was released on March 16, 1999. The original design is credited to wp:Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost. It was developed by Verant Interactive (which had recently parted ways with 989 Studios) and published by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). SOE currently runs and distributes EverQuest. EverQuest was, from 2000 until 2004, the most popular extant MMORPG. EverQuest earned many awards, including GameSpot's Game of the Year Award for 1999. The game's sequel, EverQuest II, was released in late 2004.
The game's business model is based on the sale of an initial software package that is installed on the player's computer which allows a player with an active membership to connect to the game content and other players on the game servers of SOE. Fees are charged to players to maintain an active membership. On numerous occasions, SOE has made available expansions, software which offers additional game content to those members who purchase the expansion software. Over time, some of the content from earlier expansions is incorporated into the initial EQ software package.
[edit] Gameplay
Many of the elements from EverQuest have been drawn from text-based MUD (multi-user dungeon) games, which in turn were inspired by traditional role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons.
In EverQuest, players create a character (also known as an avatar, or colloquially as char or toon) by selecting one of 14 "races" in the game, which range from elves, dwarves and ogres of fantasy, to humans, to cat people (Vah Shir) and lizard people (Iksar). Players also select their characters' adventuring occupation (such as a wizard, ranger, or cleric—called a class—see below for particulars).
Players use their character to explore the fantasy world of Norrath, fight monsters and enemies for treasure and experience points, and master tradeskills. As they progress, players advance in level, gaining power, prestige, spells, and abilities through actions such as looting the remains of defeated enemies and doing quests (tasks and adventures given by non-player characters (NPCs) in which a reward is given upon success).
EverQuest also allows players to interact with other players through roleplay, joining player guilds, and dueling other players (in restricted situations—EQ only allows Player versus Player (PVP) combat on the Zek server).
The geography of the game universe consists of nearly 400 zones. Multiple instances of the world exist on various servers, each one hosting as many as several thousand simultaneous players online during peak times.
[edit] Classes
The fourteen classes of the original 1999 version of EverQuest were later expanded to include the Beastlord and Berserker classes with the Shadows of Luclin (2001) and Gates of Discord (2004) expansions, respectively.
The classes can be grouped into those that share similar characteristics that allow them to play certain types of roles within the game when grouped with others. One way of grouping classes is described below.
[edit] Tank classes
"Tank" classes are those that have high numbers of "health points" for their level and can wear heavy armor. They also have the ability to taunt enemies into focusing on them, rather than other party members who may be more susceptible to damage and death.
- Warrior: the prototypical tank class, able to avoid and mitigate more damage than any other class.
- Shadow Knight: a durable tank class; this Warrior/Necromancer hybrid has vampiric and damage-over-time spells. Shadow Knights also have the unique ability to Harm Touch (do direct damage) every 72, the power of which increases in absolute terms but decreases relative to enemies' hit points as a player levels up. At higher levels, Shadow Knights are able to summon a weak pet, summon players' corpses who are in the same zone as them, and are able to feign death. The feign death ability allows the Shadow Knight to function as a "puller" for a group.
- Paladin: the "good" counterpart to the Shadow Knight, a Paladin is a hybrid Warrior-Cleric. They are able to Lay on Hands once every 72 minutes. At higher levels, paladins also receive some resurrection spells. Paladins are tough in melee, with some healing and protective spells. At higher levels, they have a pacify line of spells that allows them to function as a "puller" for a group.
[edit] Damage dealers
The following classes are able to produce large quantities of damage to the enemy in a short period of time. Within the game, these classes are often referred to as eq:DPS, which stands for Damage Per Second.
The melee damage dealers have a medium number of hit points per level, but cannot wear the heaviest armors and are less likely than a "tank" class to be able to survive direct attacks for a sustained period of time.
- Beastlord: The Beastlord is a unique class which combines some powers from the Monk and Shaman classes with a powerful pet. Beastlords can imbue their pets with powers, combat enemies with hand-to-hand skills or with weapons. They can also "de-buff" enemies with spells, and possess modest healing abilities. The wide range of skills allows Beastlords to be effective solo adventurers at many game levels.
- Berserker: A specialist form of the melee type, the Berserker is primarily a medium-armored, high-damage dealer who can hurl axes and other thrown objects.
- Monk: As masters of martial arts, Monks are the hand-to-hand fighting experts and are a powerful melee damage-dealer. Monks have the ability to feign death with a high degree of reliability and other skills that enable them to be a strong "pulling" class.
- Ranger: A versatile hybrid class combining some of a Warrior's ability with a Druid's spells, Rangers are able to deal large amounts of damage both from a ranged distance and in melee. Their most unique ability is to track unseen NPCs, for which they can be used as "pullers" in outdoor zones. Rangers also have the ability to "taunt" and in casual play can sometimes play the role of "tank".
- Rogue: With their backstab ability, Rogues are able to sustain the highest rate of damage of any of the classes, if they are in a party that can keep the opponent facing away from the Rogue. Rogues also have the ability to make poisons, pick pockets, and pick locks. Their abilities to sneak and hide allow them to walk past both a living and undead mobs without being seen. Rogues do not make effective solo class.
The "caster" classes have the lowest hit points per level and can only utilize the lightest of armors.
- Magician: Usually referred to as Mages, Magicians are similar to the Wizard class but with somewhat less power. They are able to summon strong elemental pets, pet armor and weapons, food, drink, and mod rods, which allow players to convert their health into mana. Magicians can also summon party members to different parts of a zone with the Call of the Hero spell, which can be helpful in raid zones.
- Necromancer: These masters of death are able to summon powerful undead pets and use a large variety of poison and disease-based damage-over-time spells. Necromancers are able to feign death, snare enemies, and summon players' corpses in zone. They have a combination of skills and abilities that allows them to function as an effective solo class.
- Wizard: The primary nuking class; these casters able to deal catastrophic damage to enemies over a very short time, particularly with their Manaburn skill. Wizards also have transportation spells that facilitate group travel to particular locations.
[edit] Crowd control / utility
These classes share the ability to restrain multiple enemies from attacking the party and also have the ability to increase party members' ability to regenerate mana at a faster rate.
- Enchanter: A "caster" class that has few hit points per level and can wear only the lightest forms of armor, Enchanters are "crowd control" experts and are the most capable class at charming, stunning, and mesmerizing enemies. Enchanters also have a wide range of utility spells, including the Clarity line of mana regeneration spells. In addition to being able to both increase players' rate of attack (with haste), and slowing that of enemies. Enchanters can cast illusions on themselves and others, which may have no real benefit other than having a new look, or it may confer real benefits like underwater breathing, flight, or a vampiric touch. Lastly, Enchanters possess the unique Rune line of spells, which act as a protective buffer against all forms of damage until a fixed amount of damage is reached.
- Bard: a jack-of-all-trades class with fair melee ability, and the ability to play songs that benefit all nearby comrades, such as "crowd control" effects and mana regeneration. Bards possess a lesser version of many of the special abilities of other classes. They are known for their ability to increase the speed of their party faster than any mount or movement buff. Bards can weave the effects of up to four songs at once to confer the greatest advantage to their group. Bards themselves often do not receive the full benefit of their songs, but they can still be an effective solo class at many levels.
[edit] Healers
The "priest" classes have medium level of hit points per level and have access to healing and "buff" spells.
- Cleric: The most powerful healer in the game, and for the first few years of EverQuest, the only class capable of resurrection and the powerful spell Complete Heal. Clerics can wear the heavy "plate-mail" type armors.
- Druid: A priest class that can cast healing spells, teleport, snare (slow down) enemies, and cast moderately powerful nuking and damage-over-time spells. The range of abilities allows druids to play multiple roles in a group or to solo effectively. Druids may only wear "leather class" armors.
- Shaman: As a priest class, they have access to healing and many lines of "buff" spells. Shaman possess strong damage-over-time spells, and are able to slow an enemy's rate of attack. Shamans, or "Shammies" may cannibalize their health to restore mana and may wear "chain mail" levels of armor. Because of the range of Shaman's spells, they are sometimes considered a "utility" class.
[edit] Deities
There are several deities in EverQuest who each have a certain area of responsibility and play a role in the "backstory" of the game setting.
[edit] Zones
The EverQuest universe is divided into nearly 400 zones. These zones represent a wide variety of geographical features, including plains, oceans, cities, deserts, and other planes of existence. One of the most popular zones in the game is the Plane of Knowledge, one of the few zones in which all races and classes can coexist harmoniously without interference. The Plane of Knowledge is also home to portals to many other zones, including portals to other planes and to the outskirts of nearly every starting city.
[edit] Social dynamics
Generally speaking, gameplay in EverQuest can be divided up into three spheres: adventuring (i.e. gaining experience and loot), trading with other players, and social interaction with other players.
Adventuring can be done either alone (soloing), with a group (up to six players), or a raid (with as many as a zone could support, between 50–200, although mechanically, raids will only allow 72 or fewer official participants). At low levels, all classes have the capacity to solo, although the game has been designed to encourage group play; and at higher levels only certain classes can efficiently gain experience by this method. While some parts of EverQuest can be experienced without the help of other players, much of EQ has been designed to encourage group-oriented gaming. A single character, unless exceptionally well-prepared (either by means of twinking equipment or with spell enhancements, referred to in-game as buffs), will be unable to complete many of the encounters in EverQuest.
A effective group (or "party") will often consist of a "tank", a "healer", one or more "damage dealers", someone to do "crowd control" and someone to bring the mobs to where the group is set up. The last role is called "pulling" and in indoor zones is frequently held by a Monk, Shadow Knight or Paladin; outdoors, a Ranger using the tracking ability is sometimes used. Other groupings can also be effective, such as a group of Wizards in an indoor zone or Duoing with the Shaman-Monk and Cleric-Warrior tandems being highly successful.
While most parts of the game can be completed with the standard grouping of up to six players, some of the most challenging (and rewarding, in terms of loot) encounters require players to coordinate efforts in a raid. Normally the number of players in a raid range from 36 to 72, limiting factors being the maximum number of people allowed in a "raid window" and the maximum number of people allowed in certain instanced zones in more recent expansions. The design of encounters in expansions have changed resulting in raid tactics that have become more and more involved. Some of the most complex "modern" raid events can take a very experienced guild dozens of attempts before they succeed. Less skilled guilds may take as many as a hundred tries to beat the same event, if they are able to accomplish it at all, due to the level of strategy and teamwork required to defeat modern EverQuest encounters.
While "groups" and "raids" are temporary gatherings of players, guilds are associations that last beyond a single play session. Guilds are initially formed via an application process to SOE. Guilds may have widely varying goals; in some instances they are little more than a loose configuration of friends who wish to be able to stay in touch more easily. At the other end of the spectrum are Guilds that concentrate on tackling challenging raid dungeons and boss monsters. Such "raid guilds" may require members to commit up to five to eight hours per day to the game, up to seven days a week. For gameplay, guild membership allows all members of the guild to communicate with all other members via a special communications channel; and a player's guild affiliation appears alongside his or her character when viewed in game.
[edit] 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" or "mind candy" which within the context of EQ refer to mana regeneration spells such as Clarity or KEI (an acronym for Koadic's Endless Intellect). While mostly consistent, there are also some differences in jargon between servers, and between the Asian, European and American gaming communities. For example, KEI is known on some servers as C3 (it is the third version of Clarity). In-game chatting can practically be a foreign language to anyone who has not played it extensively.
Players utilized the term nerf (a reference to Nerf-brand swords and guns being harmless) to refer to a skill, spell, or piece of equipment that had its game-play utility reduced dramatically by the designers when insufficient play testing had been done before release. The term was backronymed to mean "New Enhancement Reduces Fun", "Not Even Remotely Fair", or "Never Ending Reduction of Functionality".
A number of terms used in-game have been popularized by players of EverQuest and passed one to use in a variety of other MMORPGs. One is the habit of calling monsters MOBs or mobs which is a contraction of "Mobile OBjects" and stems from old text-based MUDs' use of the term rather than from the normal English definition (a disorderly crowd). Other terms, while coined in EverQuest, have also migrated to other MMORPGs. Other terms have made their way into EQ from other games, such as the term Zerging from the computer game StarCraft—used when a raid's main strategy is to overwhelm an enemy by sheer force of numbers.
