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EverQuest Online Adventures By: Rory M. on December 16, 2002 It has been about a month since the first preview and I squeezed in a lot of EverQuest Online Adventures in that time. In that time, I have pretty much fallen in love with the game. I have played most of the races by now and done a lot of fighting. The one great thing about Online Adventures is that the world is so huge. I know I mentioned it before, but it has merit to mention again. In essence it is an infinite world only instead of lifeless hills, such as in other games where the land goes on infinitely, after traveling for about a half an hour of just running, you will get to the next town where you can rest you feet, heal up, maybe gather a few friends of different races, and go hunting. Once you get to that town you can talk to the local coachman so you can go back and forth instantaneously between certain towns. The gameplay also gets deeper as you realize all the races and classes have much different attacks. If you are a wizard, send a fire bolt, or ice storm; if you are a warrior you can use your weapon and then kick for an extra attack. As for the non-attack spells, those have probably been seen in many other games such as healing spells and protection spells, but there are also invisibility spells and sprint spells used to help you travel and survive. There is also a Return Home spell to get you home if you are lost or just need to get there quickly. Once you get used to the pace of the game and the amount of time it requires, you will notice that two hours will be about the average time you will need to spend each time you log on in order to get anything done. Another thing you will notice is this is not like a normal RPG -- you will usually need to be in a group to get any good amount of experience or to get a quest done. And you will probably need a keyboard to get anything done too. That's all for now, I will keep you updated occasionally. November 15, 2002 Update Now to let you know, since this is only my first impressions, I will focus much more on the positive and very little on the negative. Anyway, EverQuest Online Adventures will be one of the first MMORPGs to appear on PlayStation 2. Some news regarding it are the fact that it will not require the Hard Drive add-on as originally stated and that it will be a pay-to-play title in which you need to pay monthly to play the game. I am one of the lucky few to be involved in the Public Beta testing and so far it is living up to my expectations. Although, my expectations were not high, that is still saying a lot. The game plays just fine and those of you familiar with the PC version will instantly notice the similarities. The graphics have received a substantial boost, but nothing to boast about. The gameplay is very easy to learn and the in-game tutoring helps a lot. Another thing that helps are the other people themselves. You can communicate via keyboard and the higher level people will help explain quests and where to find stuff. The game changes depending on which character you choose and when you log on you are taken to the place where all of your kind meet. From there you do missions and carry out tasks as you would in a normal RPG. You can do this alone or in a group, but when attacking I suggest you attack in groups. The missions are usually simple -- go kill this, go pick up that, etc. There are 10 races with 14 classes and a total of 65 combinations for characters are possible. There are different quests for each race and many spells and abilities to be learned by all. Overall, EverQuest Online Adventures is actually turning out better than I expected, but I am still worried that the general public will not accept it too well because it is kind of slow paced. I know Sony will fix most of the problems before it is released and I have recommended that they allow faster running to help get from point to point more quickly so that the pace of the game isn't as slow. I am looking forward to how this game turns out.
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