EXCLUSIVES

EverQuest
Words by Chris Ritchie
January 2004

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) understands Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), offering everything from swords and sorcery to space adventures for PC users. But now its flagship has come to the Mac: "EverQuest," which was among the first to garner attention from the world gaming community. Now, thousands of Mac users can simultaneously explore the lands of Norrath, its races, creatures, monsters and treasures in full 3D.

Game play

The goal of an MMORPG is to create a simulated world, complete with economics, politics, friendships and a fair amount of monster-killing.

The astonishing interactivity in a fantastic realm is the appeal of such games. There is no plot. But, while traditional narrative elements are missing, such as climax and resolution, there is conflict. You can become a dark elf, adept at raising the dead and casting attack spells, or if you'd prefer, a powerful ogre who spends his free time baking bread to sell to other players. Sony has provided the environment, and what happens there is largely up to the players.

The interface is the default format that most MMORPGs follow and takes a little getting used to, but that's part of the fun. As with most role-playing games, you start out at level one with nothing but some bread, milk, a starting weapon and a tattered note to your name. You gain experience by killing creatures, or completing tasks that Non-Player Characters [NPCs, or characters not played by a human -Ed.] give you. Money is earned by selling items you find on the corpses of creatures you have killed Ð the basic stuff of RPGs.

One of the more difficult parts of the interface is the lack of a map. The different starting cities are detailed and large enough that until you have walked around them for a while, you will almost certainly get lost (especially the labyrinthine starting city of the dark elves).

"EverQuest" is designed to allow players to make their own adventure but the programmers have also provided optional quests and adventures.

These quests are obtained by communicating with various NPCs and are a way to get powerful items, money and experience points. You must engage NPCs in a dialogue to find out whether they have a quest. During dialogue in the chat window, there are occasionally words enclosed by brackets denoting topics on which the NPC will elaborate. Conversation is a bit difficult Ð it is case sensitive and certain responses have not been implemented.

Character Creation

The heart and soul of this game is character creation. Choosing your race, class and deity, in large part, determine the outcome of your character, which will certainly be familiar to all RPG fans. The game is outfitted with a detailed political system and even racial tensions make for interesting encounters.

You can be a war-mongering barbarian, a burrowing gnome, a feline humanoid or a lizard-like warrior. The class you choose is also very important. If you want to be a sword-swinging melee man, you can choose from the beastlord, paladin, rogue, shadow night or warrior classes. If you want magic to be your trick, you can choose from the cleric, enchanter, magician, necromancer, shaman or wizard. And if you want to be a lover, not a fighter, you can be a bard, druid, monk or ranger (who can still swing a sword when the chips are down).

Now What?

There are more than just levels to be climbed in "EverQuest." You must also worry about transcending your own skill level and set. While performing a skill, such as swinging a sword or casting a spell, you gain experience and skill with the weapon and against the type of opponent.

You can also buy skill points at your guild-hall. Also, every time you gain a new level, you get five more points (levels) to distribute to the skills you want to improve. One of the best ways to gain experience is by finding a group. In "EverQuest," there is safety in numbers. The more people you have in your party, the tougher creatures you can kill and the more experience you'll get. Grouping is most useful in the mid-range levels. You still aren't powerful enough to single-handedly kill tough creatures but your level is high enough that taking on the weakest monsters by yourself gets you little or no experience.

Graphics

The graphics in "EverQuest" aren't bad, but they're a little dated. The game is a port from a relatively old PC game and it feels that way Ð but individual characters and monsters are acceptable and the world-rendering is by no means shoddy.

Sound

Creatures all have individual sounds that can make for some tense moments when you hear the cackling of a skeleton coming from behind. The best feature is music that swells up when you push the attack button, giving a kind of cinematic feel to the whole game.

Conclusion

As one of the first MMORPGs to hit the Mac platform, "EverQuest" is an important first step. Success with this title might convince Sony to expand their Macintosh offerings to include some of their newer and flashier MMORPGs such as "Planetside" or "Star Wars Galaxies."

Until then, Mac users get to start out the same way the PC users did, learning the tricks and trades of the MMORPG through "EverQuest." Fortunately, people have figured out how to do everything in the game at this point. If you are stuck or need help, there are numerous Web sites devoted to EverQuest and to helping new players find their way around.

Publisher: Sony Online
Genre: Adventure & RPG
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.1+
PowerPC G4 700 MHz, 256 MB RAM
CPU: G4 @ 700 MHz
RAM: 256 MB
Graphics: 640x480 @ 32-bit, 32 MB
Graphics Card
everquest.station.sony.com