EverQuest (EQ)

A fantasy world of sword and sorcery, fighting monsters and enemies for treasure and experience points and interacting with other players.

Serious Information

EverQuest is a 3D fantasy MMORPG released on March 16, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost. It was developed by Verant Interactive and published by Sony Online Entertainment . SOE currently runs and distributes EverQuest. The game's sequel, EverQuest II, was released in 2004.

To play, one must initially pay for the game software and then pay a recurring monthly fee; a free trial is also available for those who wish to experience the game before paying. EverQuest was, for a time, the most popular MMORPG in the industry.

EverQuest has lived through its share of controversy, much of it shared by the entire MMORPG genre. One example involves the sale of in-game objects for real currency (often through eBay). The developers of EQ have always forbidden the practice and in January 2001 asked eBay to stop listing such auctions. For a time, such auctions were immediately removed, which created market conditions that allowed a number of upstart auction sites to specialize in this new virtual economy. The game has had problems with exploiting, cheating, and hacking, though patches have stopped the most serious of them.

Zones are somewhat difficult to categorize because of the nature of EverQuest. The game is constantly being updated by downloadable patches and has seen as many as nine expansions.

Zones of EverQuest:

The Old World comprises three continents: Antonica, Faydwer and Odus. Most, but not all of the zones were present in the original EverQuest as released in March 1999. The Old World, Antonica, Faydwer, Odus, Planes, Kunark, Velious, Luclin, Planes of Power, Ykesha, Lost Dungeons of Norrath, Gates of Discord, Omens of War, Dragons of Norrath, Depths of Darkhollow, Prophecy of Ro

A MMORPG is an online computer role-playing game (RPG) in which many players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (traditionally in a fantasy setting) and take control over most of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game. MMORPGs, as we define them today, have existed since the early 1990s. However, they have a history that extends back into the late 1970s. Some of the best-established independent projects are AWplanet, Crossfire, Daimonin, RuneScape, Endless Online, Star Wars Combine, Dream Blue Online and Planeshift.

EverQuest has many in game items hard to produce or find, can be traded among players via the game's currency (platinum pieces). Because the items are also sold on eBay, an actual exchange rate between platinum pieces and real life dollars can be calculated. This led some economists, among them Edward Castronova, to study the economics of EverQuest and other MMORPGs. The researchers discovered, that EQ's money was in fact more valuable than the Yen (although this is no longer the case; there are now about 2900 platinum to a USA dollar which is worth about 113 Yen), and its GDP per capita is higher than China and India.

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/index.vm

Expansions of game

The Ruins of Kunark (March 2000)
The Scars of Velious (December 2000)
The Shadows of Luclin (December 2001)
The Planes of Power (October 2002)
The Legacy of Ykesha (March 2003)
Lost Dungeons of Norrath (September 2003)
Gates of Discord (February 2004)
Omens of War (September 2004)
Dragons of Norrath (February 2005)
Depths of Darkhollow (September 2005)
Prophecy of Ro (February 2006)

EverQuest carries a language, including a plethora of arcane abbreviations aiding communication between players.

SoW (which stands for Spirit of Wolf, a popular spell which accelerates players' movement),

'crack' or 'mind candy' which within the context of EQ refer to mana regeneration spells such as Clarity or KEI (an acronym for Koadic's Endless Intellect).

KEI is known on some servers as C3 (it is the third version of Clarity).

nerf, which is probably just a reference to Nerf-brand swords being harmless, and has been around since the days of MUDs. Some have proposed that it means "New Enhancement Reduces Fun."

A number of terms used in-game have been coined by players from a wide variety of other MMORPGs or players of EverQuest specifically.

In 2002 the BBC reported that "Inflation threatens EverQuest economy"

"Real life and online fantasy worlds have at least one thing in common: economics.
The company behind the online fantasy game EverQuest has started punishing players who have found a way to bend the game's rules and almost literally make money. The crackdown has happened because the huge amounts of virtual cash that people were pumping into the game world were threatening to bring the EverQuest economy to its knees. If left unchecked the influx of cash could have prompted hyperinflation and made it impossible for beginning players to get on in the game world. Typically the time needed by a player to substantially improve the professional expertise of their EverQuest character and to make these powerful items is so great, that it causes little problem in the markets of the game world. But some people have discovered a very easy way to carry out these time-consuming tasks, and in the process, unbalance the EverQuest economy. But some EverQuest players found a combination of profession, skill level and macro that turns small cash piles into slightly larger ones. By running the macro countless times they found it was possible to generate large amounts of money. Some people even set up computers that did nothing but run the macro time and time again. Once a player created a large pile of cash they then sold it for real money on the many auction boards and marketplaces, such as PlayerAuctions, that have sprung up. Recent estimates put the amount of platinum pieces available to buy on just one EverQuest server at more than 3million. The exchange rate of game money to real money is not very good, 100,000 platinum pieces sells for about $350, but it was enough to tempt many people to try it. Now Verant, the company behind EverQuest, has started cracking down on people that use the money-making macro and is suspending accounts and confiscating items from people it catches exploiting the loophole".

In 2005 Game giant Sony is opened its own market where players will be able to buy and sell virtual goods. The Sony Station Exchange was to open in late June 2005 and will let EverQuest players buy and sell in-game cash, magical items and characters. The move is a surprise because for the last six years Sony has battled to stop the trade in game items and characters. Sony said it was taking the move to help stamp out fraudulent sales of game gear. Initially the online marketplace will only be for players of EverQuest II which was released in late 2004. It is the sequel to the hugely popular EverQuest game which gives people the chance to control a character in the online fantasy world of Norrath. These characters gain experience and become more adept at their trade, be it warrior, priest or magician, by completing quests. The game has its own internal currency and magical items are used by characters to boost their powers. Currently cash, artefacts and characters are regularly traded on Ebay as well as many specialist sites. Sony has tried to get many of these sales stopped and has sued some item trading sites. Powerful characters and items can change hands for hundreds of pounds. Some estimates have put an $800m (£418m) price tag on the global market in game items and cash. The trade in EverQuest goods makes up about 20% of this total. The marketplace will let people trade items from the game
Many novice players are keen to buy items and characters so they can bypass the drudgery of spending hours turning weak characters into strong ones. In a statement issued to EverQuest players John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, said it was setting up the marketplace to stop people being ripped off when they buy game goods online. "Dealing with fraudulent transactions of one type or another takes up roughly 40% of our customer service people's time," he said in the statement. "We believe that by taking this course, we will free up a great number of resources to deal with other things for our players," wrote Mr Smedley.

In 2004 it was suggested that Gaming has economic value too, even if it is virtual. Analysis of how long people spend in the games and what they do there has shown that game-playing has a significant economic value too. According to the analysis this gaming activity has a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the Southern African nation of Namibia.

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