EverQuest

183 - EverQuest

Year: 1999
Platform(s): PC
Designer(s): Steve Clover, Brad McQuaid & William Trost
Developer: Verant Interactive
Publisher: Sony Online

"The sheer scale of EverQuest was just something else--the fact that you could (and often would) find yourself simply exploring for hours and hours on end helped create a convincing sense that you really were in a different world. The thing about EverQuest was that it was a hardcore game. The world became very, very dangerous the farther away you got from civilization, and yet the allure of growing powerful enough to see every last square inch was very profound. Players really needed to band together--both inside and outside the game--to unravel all of EverQuest's secrets. These days, massively multiplayer online role-playing games are much more transparent than EverQuest was when it shipped. Now it tends to be very clear how best to grow and develop your character, and the games tend to take new players gingerly by the hand in the early stages. By contrast, EverQuest was extremely punishing--there was nothing like the experience of having your character suddenly get ambushed and killed out in the wilderness, losing a level, and having to run for hours in a desperate attempt to retrieve your corpse and all your belongings. . . It was and still is a completely unique gaming experience, and it's one of the greatest games of all time." - Greg Kasavin, GameSpot

  

182  |  184