Everquest II: First Impressions
With the help of FilePlanet, I finally got EQII downloaded and installed. There was a nasty moment when the newly installed game put up the exact same 'updating...' message as I'd been looking at all through Saturday, but it only stayed for a few seconds, and I was in.
Everquest passes the 'just one more quest' test, and is the first MMO I've tried since WAR to manage that. I created a Kerra (feline humanoids) necromancer (pet and debuff/dot class - I think) to get the hang of things, and I'll probably create a few more alts as well to see which classes I like.
Character creation has an enormous breadth of choices; 19 races, something in excess of 20 classes, and even within a race, there seems to be a lot of customisation available - I hit the 'randomize' button about twelve times on the Kerra, and didn't see any two cats that really looked alike.
The game ran a little bit slowly at first, but I reckon Vista's strange approach to new programs is to blame there; it was fine afterward.
The starting area I arrived in (and I'm not 100% clear if I'm considered evil, neutral, or what, and what difference that makes) is on a tropical island, with the major opposition being the local birdmen. The initial quests are clear, and not all of the kill ten foozles variety, and there's as much tutorial as you might want, which is easy to avoid if you don't want it. The quest-giving NPCs all have actual voices, which is nice at first, and then annoying - I turned voices down to zero after the second or third one, largely since I could read about ten times faster than they could say their lines.
I haven't got killed yet, which is rather a new experience in an MMO, and I logged off last night - reluctantly - at level 7. During the evenings this week, I shall start contacting people in-game and looking for guild membership!
Posted by Drew Shiel at May 11, 2009 9:22 AM
