EverQuest II
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EverQuest II<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: 100%; text-align: center;"> | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Sony Online Entertainment
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)</th><td>Sony Online Entertainment (US), Ubisoft (EU), Square Enix (JP), Gamania (China & Taiwan)</td></tr> |
| Release date(s) | November 8, 2004 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)</th><td>Teen (T)</td></tr> |
| Platform(s) | Windows
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media</th><td>CD, DVD, Download</td></tr><tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Input</th><td>Keyboard, Mouse</td></tr> |
EverQuest II (commonly abbreviated as EQ2), based upon the popular EverQuest, is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and shipped on November 8, 2004. It features graphics and gameplay vastly updated from its predecessor as well as NPCs that use audio for speech.
Contents |
[edit] Story
500 years ago a great conflict raged across Norrath between the evil Rallosian Empire and the free peoples of Norrath. Qeynos, led by the Bayle family, and Freeport, led by the Shadowknight Lucan D'Lere, joined forces with many others in a great battle to end the impending Rallosian conquest. It is unclear exactly which side took the action, but a group of mages undertook to destroy the Ulteran Spire network of teleport stations which the Rallosians were using to quickly move troops. The destruction of the network, which was based on the moon of Luclin, released an enormous and, assumedly, unexpected shockwave of magical forces which resulted in the total destruction of Luclin. As tidal forces tore at Norrath and the pieces of Luclin began raining down upon Norrath, the end of civilization seemed unavoidable. The seas rose, entire continents were torn apart and the great cities of Norrath fell. All but two, that is. This was The Shattering and The Rending.
Today, the survivors of The Shattering have gathered into the last two surviving great cities: Qeynos to the West, under the benign Regency of Queen Antonia Bayle, and Freeport to the East, ruled with an iron fist by the practically undead Shadowknight, Lucan D'Lere. Gathering all survivors that can be found, each city seeks to prepare for the inevitable conflict they know is coming to these Shattered Lands.
And, far away in the Orcish Wastes of Zek and the green fury of The Feerrott, some dream of the resurrection of the Rallosians...
[edit] Gameplay
While the gameplay continues to focus greatly on killing creatures for experience points and treasure, there have been several significant changes from the original EverQuest. One of the greatest efforts has gone into developing tradeskills into a much more complex and viable character archetype.
Many gameplay choices were made in order to stop old, sometimes undesirable, tactics that emerged in EQ. The most bold addition is the concept of "locked encounters". When a player (or group) attacked a creature, the encounter became locked to that player. To stop kill stealing and powerleveling, other players could not assist in the encounter unless the player who locked it used a special "/yell" command for help, after which the encounter rewarded neither loot nor experience. The encounter locking feature became an optional toggle during Live Update 13 which coincided with the Desert Of Flames expansion. Players can now choose whether to risk giving up their claim to an encounter in exchange for outside help that might allow them to survive.
To stop kiting, players in combat lose all their movement speed enhancements except the special "sprint" ability, which costs a considerable amount of power to use, although some classes have speed debuffs that slow the enemy, thus making kiting a viable option. Likewise, many players have discovered another method of pseudo-kiting by running backwards and firing a missile weapon at the enemy. The enemy lands fewer attacks, but can take significant damage depending on the type of ammunition or missile weapon used, and the skill level of the user. Some have argued that this is not kiting at all, while others have referred to it as "pseudo-kiting".
Everquest II, like the original EverQuest, has guilds. Each guild exists only on its own server. Like players, guilds can gain experience and levels, partially from players completing Heritage quests, but primarily from guild-oriented quests and tasks called "writs". Higher guild levels open up special rewards unavailable to non-guilded characters, and cause certain other rewards to cost less. These rewards include housing options, mounts, house items, apparel, and special titles.
Like the original EQ, EverQuest II focuses on PvE (player versus environment) encounters. No player versus player combat was included at release; however Live Update 13 introduced closed arenas for consensual PvP and dueling. In February 2006, with the release of Kingdom of Sky and launch of Live Update 20, new servers were introduced specifically with a player versus player ruleset.
[edit] Setting
EverQuest II is set in Norrath like the original, but 500 years later in the "Age of Destiny". The game world has been drastically affected by several cataclysms (see Story, above) since the original EQ . The planes have closed, the gods have gone, and the moon Luclin has been pulverized (and partially rained onto the face of Norrath). Remnants of the familiar vistas from EQ's Norrath can be found in the Shattered Lands.
Players arrive on one of two tutorial areas (The Queen's Colony or The Outpost of the Overlord) and then move to either of two cities, Qeynos (the 'good' city) or Freeport (the 'evil' city). All the other cities in the world were destroyed or rendered inaccessible in The Shattering. Qeynos and Freeport are much larger than they were in the original EQ and they play an important role in the player's experience regardless of what level they are. The playable races each have their own special section (Village) of the cities. Players from one city are not welcome in the other city unless they choose to betray their city via the Betrayal Questline. Originally, the Betrayal quests were limited to characters lvl 17 and below. A new set of quests was introduced with Live Update 24 that allows Betrayal at any level.
The game world is as varied as the original, featuring wide geographical and ecological variety. In EQ2, players can ride trained griffons on predetermined routes over the Shattered Lands, or acquire a horse or flying carpet so that they can travel more swiftly throughout much of the game world. With the exit of the gods from the world and the destruction of the Ulteran Spire network, the druid rings and wizard spires ceased functioning and thus there are no teleportation spells (with the exception of the ability to return to one's hometown). However, "Mariner's Bells" are scattered across the land allowing instant transportation across various areas of the world. With the inception of the Kingdom of Sky expasion, the Ulteran wizard spires teleport you up into Kingdom of Sky, with spires in different zones taking you to different areas of the expansion.
EverQuest II also includes instanced zones—copies of some zones are spawned in order to better handle player crowding. Instanced zones were introduced to EverQuest in the 2003 expansion Lost Dungeons of Norrath.
[edit] Races and classes
[edit] Character Races
All of the familiar races from EQ are playable except the cat-like Vah Shir (their home, Luclin, was destroyed), but SOE added the Kerra as a replacement. The new race is the Ratonga, a rat-like people of mysterious origin. The Froglok race was originally locked until a special server-wide quest was completed to make them playable. Some races are restricted to either Qeynos or Freeport, based on their alignment, but can turn traitor and move to the opposing city.
| Races by Starting City (Alignment) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Qeynos (Good) | Kelethin (Good) |
Freeport (Evil) | |
| Barbarian Dwarf Erudite Froglok Gnome Half Elf Halfling High Elf Human Kerra Wood Elf |
Dwarf Fae1 Gnome Half Elf High Elf Wood Elf |
Barbarian Dark Elf Erudite Gnome Half Elf Human Iksar Kerra Ogre Ratonga Troll |
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1 Available with Echoes of Faydwer.
[edit] Adventurer Classes
There are four classes—called "archetypes"—in EQ2 - Fighter, Scout, Priest and Mage. At launch, a player chose his or her archetype when he or she created a character and then chose a class at level 10 and a sub-class at level 20. This system was changed in Live Update 19 in January 2006 so that a character's final class is chosen at creation. While this system is no longer explicitly defined in the live game, it still lies beneath driving balance decisions and defining the roles of classes. Broadly, in a group situation, any priest can be a healer, any fighter can be a suitable tank, any mage or scout can deal damage, with the mage classes typically being able to deal more damage than a scout class, but being more fragile. Some classes are only available in either Freeport or Qeynos. Ivory background means the class is available in either city, light blue background means Qeynos ONLY, reddish background means Freeport ONLY.
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[edit] Artisan Classes
A character can also undertake a tradeskill profession, completely separate from his/her adventuring profession. The tradeskill professions branch at levels 10 and 20, just as adventuring classes used to.
Echoes of Faydwer introduced two secondary tradeskills. These go alongside the primary tradeskills, and a character can switch to the other secondary tradeskill at any time (starting from scratch). Characters do not gain separate experience points for these tradeskills; maximum skill level rises with the primary tradeskill.
| Tradeskill Class Tree | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Archetype | Class | Subclass | Products |
| Artisan | Craftsman | Carpenter | furniture, strongboxes, and repair kits |
| Provisioner | food and drink | ||
| Woodworker | bows, arrows, throwing weapons, wooden shields, staves, totems, and musical instruments | ||
| Outfitter | Weaponsmith | metal weapons | |
| Armorsmith | chainmail and platemail armor, metal shields | ||
| Tailor | cloth and leather armor, backpacks, thrown-weapon bags, hex dolls | ||
| Scholar | Alchemist | potions, poisons, and fighter skill upgrades | |
| Jeweler | jewelry and scout skill upgrades | ||
| Sage | priest and mage spell upgrades | ||
| Secondary | Tinkerer | Tinkered contraptions, such as water walking machines, mounts, and water-breathing devices. | |
| Transmuter | Breaks certain valuable equipment down into in magical components which can be used to create adornments and tinkered items. | ||
[edit] Voices
One of the most interesting additions to the game is the use of actual voices for NPCs. The actors used for these parts included well-known Hollywood stars such as Heather Graham (as Queen Antonia Bayle) and Christopher Lee (Overlord Lucan D'Lere). Actor/gamer Wil Wheaton and Actor/mathematician Danica McKellar are also part of the cast. According to SOE in October 2004, EverQuest II featured 130 hours of spoken dialog recorded by 1,700 voice actors. More dialog has been added since release as part of regular game updates as recently as July 2006. Everquest 2 introduced Player Voice Emotes with the launch of EverQuest II: Desert Of Flames in September 2005.
[edit] Music
The music for the game, over ninety minutes' worth, was composed by Emmy-award winning composer Laura Karpman and recorded by the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague under her baton. Karpman has said of the music in the game: "Every place has a theme, its own separate, unique feeling - from a quasi-African savanna to a Babylonian fascist city. Every cue in EQ2, with the exception of the attack cues, is like a main title of a movie. A more cinematic experience for the player was one of our goals." [1]. Purchasers of the EverQuest II Collector's Edition received a soundtrack CD as part of the package.
[edit] Business
SOE is marketing EverQuest II not as a direct sequel, but as a "parallel universe" to the original EverQuest. It is set in an alternate future of the original game's setting, having diverged at the conclusion of the Planes of Power expansion. This allows both development teams to pursue whatever direction they want to take without impacting the other, and allows players of the original EverQuest to continue receiving updates without forcing players down a specific path. In that sense, they are two completely separate games bound together by name only. Players of the old EQ will find many familiar places and characters, as well as "heritage items" that are similar in name and function to items known from EQ and can be gained via heritage quests.
Like the original and other commercial MMORPGs, EQ2 requires a monthly fee of US$ 14.99 to play the game. 30 days of free play are included with the purchase price of the game. Subscribers can opt to pay an additional monthly fee for extended services, such as an online item database or hosting of guild websites. Players can also download the free trial, Trial of the Isle, which allows players to experience the beginning steps of the game for free before dedicating themselves to a monthly subscription fee. [2]
In Europe it is published by Ubisoft at a monthly fee of EUR 13,49.
In February 2005, EverQuest II began allowing players to place an order for pizza delivery from within the game. [3] This promotion has since ended, but generated significant press for the game.
In June 2005, SOE introduced Station Exchange to EverQuest II. Station Exchange is an official auction system—only on designated servers—allowing real money to be transferred for in-game money, items or characters.
In March 2006, SOE announced that it is to end its Chinese/Korean operations for EverQuest II, which was being supported in the region by Gamania. The beta period for the game in China/Korea ended on March 29, and on March 30, all Chinese/Korean accounts will be moved to the US servers of the game.
[edit] Expansions and Adventure Packs
| Title | Type | Released Date |
|---|---|---|
| The Bloodline Chronicles | Adventure Pack | March 21, 2005 |
| The Splitpaw Saga | Adventure Pack | June 28, 2005 |
| Desert of Flames | Expansion | September 13, 2005 |
| Kingdom of Sky | Expansion | February 21, 2006 |
| The Fallen Dynasty | Adventure Pack | June 14, 2006 |
| Echoes of Faydwer | Expansion | November 14, 2006 |
With Everquest 2 Sony Online Entertainment introduced the concept of Adventure Packs. Adventure Packs are meant to be smaller "mini-expansions" to the game, adding a plot line with several zones, new creatures and items to the game via digital download. These smaller Adventure Packs come with a smaller fee ranging from $5.99 to $7.99.
Expansion Packs usually cost in the range of $29.99 to $39.99 and are shipped in boxes to stores, but can also be downloaded through their digital download service. Expansion Packs generally introduce many new zones with many plot lines, new features, many new creatures and items, new cities, and often come with a boost in the level cap or a new player race.
[edit] Alternate versions
- EverQuest II: East was created for the East Asian market (China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan) but it was terminated as a separate edition on 29 March 2006. EQE players were moved to standard servers. The special character models created for EQE had already been included in the standard edition as a client-side option since 2005.
[edit] External links
[edit] SOE Websites
[edit] Wikis
[edit] News & Community Websites
- EverQuest 2 - MMO DB - Everquest 2 Database
- EverQuest 2 Vault
- EQ2-Daily.com Everquest 2 Daily News Site
- Norrath Living - EQ2 & Community News Site
- Everquest 2 Master Spell ScreenShot Guide
