Everquest and I have a history. It was my
first, you know, MMO. The game came out around 13 years ago. I was young and
inexperienced and Everquest was this new exciting thing. It swept me off my
feet. I would play hour after hour, knowing in my heart that online gaming could
never, ever get better than this.
How naïve I was.
I don’t remember exactly why I left Norrath,
but I did and I never went back. That is until recently, since it’s now free to
play. Nostalgia for the old days has been rather strong as of late. I’ve been
thinking longingly of Kelethin and the Butcher Block Mountains. I wanted to
revisit Freeport and I want my spells to fizzle and fail. Most of all, I wanted to go to
Crushbone and start a ‘train to zone,’ (get every enemy in an area chasing me).
When SOE decided to make this tween-aged game finally free, I knew what I had
to do.
After signing up for a new account and
downloading the game I was finally able to start making a character. I wanted
to play a dwarf, just like the old days, but no, dwarves aren’t one of the four
free to play races. You have to pay extra for that. I had to choose between gnomes,
erodites, humans and barbarians. I chose a human. I wanted to play a Paladin,
but no, that wasn’t one of the four free starting classes. I could only be a
warrior, a wizard, a rogue or a cleric. I chose cleric. While I was interested
in recreating my past, I wasn’t about to pay for it.
Before I finished character creation I was
given one final choice, I got to pick a deity. This was something I forgot
about, and I haven’t seen it in an MMORPG since EQ really. World of Warcraft
doesn’t mention worship; nor did either of the Star Wars MMOs or City ofHeroes or any other game. This is something I think we’ve lost, a simple way to
customize a character. Yes, it doesn’t change the way an avatar looks, but it
does change how it feels. Do you follow an evil god, a god of commerce or compassion
or are you unaligned? This simple choice does all the work of a more
complicated morality system, like the one in SWTOR.
After
I choose a god, I entered the tutorial area; a place called Gloomingdeep mines.
The moment I set foot in this place I immediately regretted it. It just didn’t
fit my memories of EQ. It was trying to be something else, trying to be WoW. There
was something of a story here, why I was there and so on and so forth, but
after playing newer games, the story fell short. I had to talk to NPCs and even
do quests, which weren’t a part of the EQ I played. Everything felt forced. The
quests barely had a story and the reason for completing one was never more
compelling than getting experience at the end. I spent 8 levels fighting my way
out of that dungeon; but once free I quickly learned that this was not the
Norrath I once knew.
The tutorial was long and frankly not very
helpful. The first thing I did when I got out of the Gloomingdeep mines was try
to find my way to Kelethin and Crushbone; my old stomping grounds. To my
dismay, it was on another continent. But I wasn’t about to let the tyranny of
distance stop me, so I did what I used to do to get around in EQ, I tried to
run there. And just like in the old days, I died in transit. A lot.
I was stuck far from what I was now
considering my ancestral homeland. I knew I had to get there. I needed to play the
game I once loved, but how? It turns out they’ve added something call the Plane
of Knowledge since I left, which is part quick travel system, part city. It
sort of felt like cheating, like I was playing a different game, but I was
finally able to make it to Kelethin and Crushbone.
The wood elf city of Kelethin was exactly as I remember
it, sitting high above the forest floor, suspended in the treetops. It was huge
and confusing and falling from it would still kill you. Just like the old days.
There was only one major difference. It was empty. I was the only player there.
The story was the same in Crushbone. I was alone. I tried to do the things I
used to do there, I killed some orcs, started a train to zone. But it was
harder to do than I remember it. The Crushbone orcs used attack at the drop of
a hat. They would chase as far as you could run, as far as the zone line, where
you would load the next area, where NPCs couldn’t follow.
I never planned to play EQ again, at least
not seriously. I was just trying to take a day trip to my past, so to speak. In
the end, I enjoyed revisiting Norrath but I could never commit to Everquest
again. Too much has changed and I’ve changed. The game is in many ways, purer
than new MMOs. It feels more like a table top RPG, a player has more freedom
but the game is far more complex. You have to level everything from your spell
casting to eating and drinking. The system is more complicated than with WoW or
SWTOR but that just means there are more possibilities.
In the end, Everquest feels like the old
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons system while new MMOs feel more like Monopoly; games are more accessible now.
Norrath has a lot to offer but you have to earn every second of fun you have,
and for me, it just feels like too much work.
Worth: Free
Actual cost: Free to play
No comments:
Post a Comment