[DekuDekuplex]

Introduction

Recently, I've become quite addicted to the original EverQuest® Macintosh Edition, a swords-and-sorcery style fantasy MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game), which I downloaded on this February 10, just about two weeks ago.

Sony® Online Entertainment recently simplified the trial process so that the title could be played without a registration key. Just out of curiosity, I tried it out, and was amazed!

The players I've met so far have all been very friendly and helpful, and I haven't yet encountered any rude players. The graphics were much better than I had thought (they have been greatly improved since the original release), and the startup theme and occasional music have been all epic and enjoyable. The gameplay itself is much better than I had thought. Although running the title with full options in full-screen mode on a PowerBook G4 1.0 GHz with 512 MB RAM is still slow, running it in windowed mode with the default settings and a few extra options on is completely playable and quite fun.

Outline

In this title, players explore a virtual planet called "Norrath" (see this map), which has several moons, one of which, called "Luclin," can even be explored. Norrath has five continents, each of which is divided into a number of areas, called "zones," which can be explored. Players can either journey alone or in groups within these zones, where they can explore cities, plains, mountains, dungeons, or other areas, parlay with other player characters or NPC's (Non-Player Characters), or fight monsters (known as "MOBs" [short for "Mobile OBjects"--see the definition at EverQuest/Glossary]). They can also join guilds, or even polish trade skills.

For reference, consult this EverQuest timeline.

There are a number of very useful guides for new players at EQmac.com.

For more information on EverQuest®, see the Wikipedia entry.

So far, I have already created several avatars, including a Gnome Magician, Wizard, and Enchanter, and have raised each one to at least Level 3. I have also joined the "alliance" in-game chat channel, where I regularly ask questions and receive quick responses (join by typing "/join alliance" in-game, and chat by typing "/1 <text>," where <text> is replaced by whatever one wishes to type [check the in-game help for a way to join this channel at every login session]). In fact, EverQuest® has quite taken over my free time ever since I started playing, and I have no plans to switch to World of Warcraft®.

Starting Out

My first experience in downloading, installing, and playing EverQuest® Macintosh Edition was as follows:

On February 10, I started downloading the trial version at shortly before 6:00 AM. The download was approximately 600 MB, and took about six hours; however, in hindsight, it was well worth the wait, since this title has been the most interesting title I have played so far!

I started playing as a Gnome Magician (a kind of summoner) in Ak'Anon, a Gnome cave city in the Steamfont Mountains in the southeastern part of Faydwer, a continent originally founded by the High Elves, home also to the Dwarves and Wood Elves. Upon starting, I found myself immediately outside the Library Mechanimagica, a training facilty for positively-aligned Wizards, Magicians, and Enchanters.

Finding myself befuddled, I consulted the EQmac.com post "EverQuest : A Guide For The New (and Confused). This article gave very useful advice on how to customize my user interface and equip my avatar.

I then started exploring the cave city of Ak'Anon. The city, built inside a mountain, had many intricate passageways and one huge cavern with a waterfall, all patrolled by clockwork guards, which looked like mechanical spiders, and sweepers, which looked like mechanical mice, as well as many merchants, which looked like mechanical people, all of which constantly made a tick-tock sound from their machinery. Thankfullly, there were also fellow gnomes in the city, both in the library and in the passageways and other facilities, who offered quests and sometimes gave interesting information.

However, to my puzzlement, I was unable to find any fellow players in Ak'Anon. (This experience continued until the next day, when I came across a portal to the Plane of Knowledge, where I found many other players gathered together.)

After a long walk, I found my way up and out of the city. Outside, it was dusk, and the clouds moved through the magenta sky. A pair of clockwork robots guarded the entrance. Still no sign of other players. After a while, the sky turned dark, and it started to rain. In addition, lightning lit the sky as thunder echoed into the cave. By this point, I was starting to feel confused and exhausted, and didn't feel sure about whether I wanted to continue playing--yet I could sense that there must be much else awaiting. I decided to persevere.

The next day, while walking outside around the mountain, I came across a strange-looking book-on-a-pedestal. When I touched the object, I was transported to a place with many buildings and, to my relief, other players (!)--a place that I later came to know as the Plane of Knowledge (see this map). Scattered about the rim of this plane was a series of stones, each labelled with a different location. Touching a stone transported me to the labelled location.

At the Plane of Knowledge, I met many fellow players and discovered many more facilities and merchants, including a massive library known as the Great Library. This four-story facility had separate sections for each class, and in each section stood several researchers who sold spellbooks for the available spells for that class. In addition, some other researchers even sold other related items or lent books that discussed the history of Norrath.

In addition, later I came across a helpful player who, in addition to offering other assistance, suggested that I join a channel called "alliance." After typing "/join alliance," I was able to join this channel, and discovered that many players asked questions and discussed aspects of Norrath life on this channel. (Players posted by typing "/1 <text>," where "<text>" represents the text to be replaced.) Later, I found a an easy way to join this channel automatically at each session by consulting the in-game help manual.)

One of the fellow players I met led me to Qeynos, a city on the western coast of Antonica (see this map), a large Human city and trade hub, ruled by Antonius Bayle and her descendants. Just outside the gate of North Qeynos, I discovered a field populated by many low-level MOB's: large rats, grass snakes, gopher snakes, gnoll pups, brown myotis bats, whiskered bats, fire beetles, decayed skeletons, etc. This location proved an ideal hunting ground for me to gather much-needed experience points and dropped items to sell for money, with which to purchase spellbooks, armor, weapons, food, drink, and other much-needed equipment.

While playing, I discovered that my avatar needed food and drink to survive. Food and drink were consumed at the rate of one unit each per day of game-time. I discovered that alcoholic items, such as beer, did not count as drink (although they did refresh and intoxicate my avatar). Fortunately, I discovered a vendor in the Plane of Knowledge, just outside the Great Library, who sold, among other items, Fresh Vegetables and Water Flasks. I purchased ten units each of these.

In addition, somebody suggested that I purchase large boxes here, which could be used to carry up to eight items each (with control-click used to open/close them in the inventory menu), so I purchased three of these, as well. These later proved to be very useful in gathering dropped items from MOB's to sell later.

Races

Players may choose from among any of the following Races:

• Barbarian
• Dark Elf
• Dwarf
• Erudite
• Gnome
• Half Elf
• Halfling
• High Elf
• Human
• Iksar
• Ogre
• Troll
• Vah Shir
• Wood Elf

Classes

In addition, players may choose from among any of the following Classes (not all Classes are available to all Races):

• Bard
• Beastlord
• Cleric
• Druid
• Enchanter
• Magician
• Monk
• Necromancer
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Shadow Knight
• Shaman
• Warrior
• Wizard

System Requirements

The minimum and recommended system requirements, which are quite lenient by contemporary standards, are as follows:

Minimum Requirements:

• G4 700 MHz
• OSX 10.2.4 or later
• 256 MB RAM [Personal note: In my opinion, this should be at least 512 MB RAM.]
• 32 MB Geforce 2MX Open GL compatible card
• 56k [Internet connection]
• 2.5+ Gigs of free space [on the HD]

Recommended Requirements:

• G4 800 MHz
• OSX 10.2.6
• 512 MB RAM [Personal note: In my opinion, this should be at least 1 GB RAM.]
• 64 MB ATI or Geforce Open GL compatible card
• Broadband [Internet connection]
• 3.0+ Gigs of free space [on the HD]

Conclusion

EverQuest® Macintosh Edition, far from being outdated, is well-worth the download time and viable as a worthy alternative to World of Warcraft®. The moving clouds, realistic graphics, epic music, immersive environment, and extensive race/class system all provide for a deep and fascinating experience. In addition, the environment of friendly and helpful fellow players provides an enjoyable community.

It is very difficult to stop playing after starting, and the overall experience provides for a virtual universe in which one can spend most of one's free life. Until playing this title, I had felt somewhat disappointed with the overall quality of gaming on the Mac; this single MMORPG has overturned that perspective. Personally, I plan to continue playing for the forseeable future. Catch me online as Magician DekuDekuplex (or one of my alternative avatars) sometime!

-- DekuDekuplex

[Millennium]

If I recall correctly, EverQuest/Mac is basically crippleware: you can't play with Windows users. I sincerely hope that the situation has changed, but I remember there being an uproar about this when it was first released. Did they fix this problem?

[baw]

No, you still cannot play with windows players. So you still have to group with the other 9 people on the server.

[Chuckit]

Sometimes I wonder if Blizzard is the only company on the planet with a brain.

[DekuDekuplex]

Originally Posted by Millennium

If I recall correctly, EverQuest/Mac is basically crippleware: you can't play with Windows users. I sincerely hope that the situation has changed, but I remember there being an uproar about this when it was first released. Did they fix this problem?

While this problem hasn't been fixed, there are actually certain advantages to this situation.

Specifically, according to some of the posts at EQmac.com, the current players on the PC servers tend to be more snobbish than those on the Mac server.

In addition, the EQ Mac community is much more closely knit--on the Windows edition, it is reportedly "broken." I can vouch for at least the first half of this statement, because I have actually played this title and encountered many other players who have given me free platinum coins, taken me to newbie training grounds, showed me how to use a portal, and even cast buffs on me after meeting me for the first time.

This is a far cry from my experience with most other MMORPG's. I used to play Vendetta™ Online, a real-time space action MMORPG, and eventually stopped playing mainly because the other players were too mean, nasty, and rude. To give an example, there were pirates on that game who went out of their way to be nasty, both in-game and on the forums--they would camp out at wormholes on trading routes, sneak up suddenly on trading ships, and make statements to other players similar to "I R teh phear! U R teh sux! I pwned U! n00b! LOL ROFLMAO!!!!!11!!1!" When I replied that the problem was that it doesn't make sense to call somebody a "newbie" just because that player wasn't interested in PvP, they replied that other players who weren't good at PvP deserved to be called "n00b's." For some reason, the official forum moderators tolerated their attitude, and the developers even encouraged it by slowing down the trading ships and making it more difficult for traders to avoid PvP. In short, PvP there was non-consensual, and practically enforced. Because I didn't like non-consensual PvP, I eventually quit.

Thereafter, between late last August and this February 10, I started playing Dofus, a tactical fantasy Flash-based MMORPG. The gameplay was more fun, and while many of the people there were also rude, I did eventually discover a guild where I felt comfortable. Also, because the PvP was consensual, I didn't have any major qualms about the overall experience. Yet, the monotonousness of raising my character's level past 40, and the lack of a 3D environment, eventually made me feel bored. I wanted something more immersive and exciting. Somehow, moving cute anime-like characters about on a strategic 2D board to fight the same enemies hundreds of times over and over in the same location just to raise my level enough to get a decent attack spell tried my patience.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to investigate EverQuest® Macintosh Edition again. Previously, I had heard horror stories about the game being impractically slow with the sound on, or about new players being required to send e-mail to Sony for a registration key just to play the trial edition, or about there not being enough players around to form a group. However, then I read that this registration key process had been eliminated. When I actually tried EQ Mac out, it ran fine in windows mode with the sound on. I encountered players online, and they were all helpful. PvP was consensual. Many players were gathered together at the Plane of Knowledge. The EQmac.com forums included a section where guilds invited new members to group together. I also found dozens and dozens of sites with all kinds of information in detail about every aspect of the game--from starting out to earning money to comparing the relative advantages and disadvantages of every Race, Class, and Deity, to everything else that I could think of.

Although the very first day was very difficult because of the lack of an in-game tutorial, lack of any on-line game masters, and lack of any fellow players in the starting zone, everything changed as soon as I discovered the portal to the Plane of Knowledge. That's where I found most of the other players, and where one player introduced me to the in-game "alliance" chat channel. I discovered groups of players congregated together near the Soulbinder and near the merchant shops. When I asked detailed questions about gameplay on the alliance channel, I usually received quick and informative responses. Nobody I encountered used leet-speak or bragged about "owning" other players. I had finally found a decent community!

Originally Posted by baw

No, you still cannot play with windows players. So you still have to group with the other 9 people on the server.

Reportedly there aren't just "9 people" on the server, but more like 5000 accounts. While miniscule compared to WoW, that's actually not so bad for playing on a tightly-knit universe where most players help other players.

Most of the players on the EQmac.com forums report that what really counts about an MMORPG is having fun, and claim that they are having fun. Some of them are even opposed to increasing the user base, and want to keep EQ Mac a "secret"--presumably out of concern that introducing many more users will corrupt the quality of the community.

Nevertheless, having more users would also increase the likelihood that the publisher, Sony® Online Entertainment, would migrate more expansions to the Mac edition, and that EverQuest® II would eventually be ported to the Macintosh.

I firmly believe that the Macintosh community desperately needs more high-quality MMORPG's similar to EverQuest II and Final Fantasy XI Online. In fact, I've been actively campaigning for this cause ever since publishing my article, "Why Apple Can't Afford to Ignore the Gaming Industry," in the May/June 2004 issue of MetroMac EXPRESS. Helping to introduce more players to EQ Mac is one step toward making game publishers such as SOE® and Square Enix® realize that alienating Macintosh users means losing potential profits--profits which will only grow with the increasing proliferation of Mac OS X.

-- DekuDekuplex

[Horsepoo!!!]

LOL, marketing.

My conclusion is that EverQuest is 5 years old, crusty, and boring.

May it die a gruesome death...especially the Mac version.

PS...I hate Sony.

[jamil5454]

Either this guy has these responses written beforehand, or he has amazing English comprehension skills and a huge attention span.

[baw]

Or paid by Sony to place ads in forums.

[DekuDekuplex]

Originally Posted by jamil5454

Either this guy has these responses written beforehand, or he has amazing English comprehension skills and a huge attention span.

Ha ha ha! Wow, what a compliment!

If you don't believe that I wrote these responses on-the-spot, go read my lengthy game reviews in the MetroMac Alliance Games Discussion Forum that I moderate, or my Epinions.com review of my 17-inch PowerBook G4, not to mention my aforementioned article in MetroMac EXPRESS.

Writing is just something that I like to do. I was selected as moderator for the the above forum because of my writing skills. I want to become a professional game reviewer some day, but don't know how to enter the field. It's difficult to find a game magazine that actually pays cash for contributions of this nature, as opposed to simply giving out free games. I want to earn cash so that I can purchase a MacBook Pro.

-- DekuDekuplex

[DekuDekuplex]

Originally Posted by baw

Or paid by Sony to place ads in forums.

Gee, I wish. Unfortunately, Sony® doesn't seem to care about gaming on the Mac platform in general, or about EverQuest® Macintosh Edition in particular. If you had read my thread Ars Technica steps on EverQuest® Macintosh Edition! on EQMac.com, you would know that we EQ Mac users are having a terribly difficult time in convincing Sony® to give any additional support to the Mac platform.

Sony® neglected to provide Macintosh support for EverQuest® II. Neither does it even list the Mac server in its official list of servers for EverQuest®. Square Enix® continues to neglect to provide Mac support for Final Fantasy® XI Online. Frankly, I'm not interested in World of Warcraft®--it's just not my type of MMORPG. (To be honest, for my taste, its graphics are too cartoonish, its interface is not polished enough, its player base is too rude and immature, it doesn't have a well-enough developed crafting system, and it is too easy to reach Level 60. No offense to those of you who enjoy it--by all means, please continue with it! It helps the overall Mac gaming cause. However, it just doesn't suit my taste.) I want to see something similar to EQ II or FF XI Online released for the Mac, and soon.

This is a personal campaign to try to get more players for the MMORPG's that I find interesting on the Mac. It is not connected with Sony®, nor with any other company. If you don't believe me, go read my previous MetroMac Alliance Forums post for Dofus. Dofus (no trademark symbol necessary here, because it isn't listed on their game Web site) is made by Ankama Studio (again, no trademark symbol required, because it isn't listed on their company Web site, either), which has nothing to do with Sony®, yet I wrote a similarly long article campaigning for them when I wanted to see more players for that MMORPG, too.

If you still don't believe me, go read some of my other posts on the MetroMac Alliance Games Discussion Forum that I moderate.

The only bona fide Macintosh MMORPGs that I refuse to campaign for are Vendetta™ Online and WoW, because I personally don't like either title. The company doesn't matter. What matters is whether the MMORPG is fun and whether it runs on my PowerBook.

-- DekuDekuplex

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by DekuDekuplex

Gee, I wish. Unfortunately, Sony® doesn't seem to care about gaming on the Mac platform in general, or about EverQuest® Macintosh Edition in particular. If you had read my thread Ars Technica steps on EverQuest® Macintosh Edition! on EQMac.com, you would know that we EQ Mac users are having a terribly difficult time in convincing Sony® to give any additional support to the Mac platform.

But ArsTechnica is a shitty website anyways. So nobody should feel threatened by the poor souls on that site.

As for fun, nothing really beats WoW...sorry. I had to rip myself from the computer and give away my WoW copy to stop playing...even the ridiculous amounts of bugs in WoW (and I'm not talking about the Silithids) couldn't get me to stop playing it.

EverQuest 1 has nothing that WoW doesn't have. And WoW has much more than EverQuest 1 ever did.

[DekuDekuplex]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

But ArsTechnica is a shitty website anyways. So nobody should feel threatened by the poor souls on that site.

As for fun, nothing really beats WoW...sorry. I had to rip myself from the computer and give away my WoW copy to stop playing...even the ridiculous amounts of bugs in WoW (and I'm not talking about the Silithids) couldn't get me to stop playing it.

EverQuest 1 has nothing that WoW doesn't have. And WoW has much more than EverQuest 1 ever did.

Specifically, what makes Ars OpenForum 3.0b "shitty?" All I noticed was that their posts were not interesting, their moderators didn't know how to moderate, and that their Managing Editor didn't know how to manage....

What bugs? I'd like to know....

Does WoW have moving clouds or a mature, polite, friendly player base?

-- DekuDekuplex

[jamil5454]

It might be different there in Tokyo, but here in the US EverQuest pretty much holds the lowest status among all popular MMORPGs.

I mean, it basically boils down to who plays it. Lots of "cool" and "popular" people play WoW, while the pale-skinned uber-geeks play EverQuest. Of course there are exceptions, but this is the general idea that's held among Americans.

At least where I grew up.

[DekuDekuplex]

Originally Posted by jamil5454

It might be different there in Tokyo, but here in the US EverQuest pretty much holds the lowest status among all popular MMORPGs.

I mean, it basically boils down to who plays it. Lots of "cool" and "popular" people play WoW, while the pale-skinned uber-geeks play EverQuest. Of course there are exceptions, but this is the general idea that's held among Americans.

At least where I grew up.

Neither MMORPG is very popular here, in fact. The most popular MMORPG's here are Lineage® II, Lineage™, and Final Fantasy® XI Online and . World of Warcraft® isn't even sold in local stores, and can only be purchased for about the equivalent of $70 through Amazon.co.jp. Almost nobody plays it here because it's not sold locally.

In general, WoW tends to be much more popular in North America and Europe, while Lineage™ and Lineage® II tend to be much more popular in Asia.

The consensus among many experienced FF XI Online players on one forum, Final Fantasy XI OGaming Forum, some of whom who had played WoW for one month after completing FF XI Online only to quit WoW and return, was that WoW was simply too shallow. They didn't view it as a serious MMORPG, because it was too easy to level up and there wasn't enough depth in the crafting system. It takes about two years for many players to go to top level in FF XI Online; in WoW, by contrast, it usually takes about six months. Further, in FF XI Online, it is possible to create an avatar who lives a very interesting life almost never fighting, and simply practicing crafting skills; by contrast, the primary emphasis in WoW seems to be on just combat. Also, FF XI Online is reportedly more polished in many ways, and is said to have a much more mature and polite player base.

FF XI Online was originally based on EverQuest®. While the FF XI Online players regularly make fun of WoW, they don't refer to EverQuest® in the same way. Instead, many actually claim that there was more to do in EverQuest® than in FF XI Online, even though the graphics were inferior and the interface was less polished.

When I visit FF XI Online player forums, I usually find a lot of posts devoted to trading, crafting, and role-playing, in addition to just discussing strategy or where to find quest items, with the general tone being cooperative, rather than competitive; by contrast, it seems that every time I visit a WoW forum, 99% of the posts are either about some aspect of fighting or about ways to obtain quest items, with the general tone being more competitive than cooperative, and many players boasting about how they are better than other players. Frankly, I'm not very interested in reading just posts about battle; I'd rather read about crafting strategies or role-play. It just seems that the overall style of gameplay in WoW is too combat-focused and competitive for my taste. I'd rather focus on role–play and exploration.

Since my ultimate goal is to play either FF XI Online or EverQuest® II--on the PS2® if necessary, but preferably not on Windows®--I use those MMORPG's (especially the former) as a point of reference. Since FF XI Online is much closer in style and gameplay mechanics to EverQuest® than to WoW, I find the style of gameplay more comfortable. WoW, by contrast, strikes me more as a power-levelling-fest free-for-all played 99% by immature leet-speakers (which, whether it is justified or not, seems to be the general consensus among most experienced FF XI Online players).

-- DekuDekuplex

[CIA]

As both a mac user and a die hard FFXI player, (as well as a beta tester for EQ: Mac and EQ for PS2), back in the day) I can add this to the comments:

EQ killed me on both the mac and PS2 when I beta tested them. Graphics were horrible, and the interfaces killed me. They both turned me off to MMO's for a few years. Which stunk as I love the MMO concept, and get into RPGs usually.

I've been a fan of the FF series, and was psyched to get FFXI when it shipped for PS2, expensive hard drive and all. The game has a stiff learning curve, but I found it to be quite enjoyable and the players online were really helpfull. Granted I joined during a rush of "noobs" as all the other PS2 people were starting out. The veterns were a little hard on us from time to time, but overall it was a great experience. I still have not capped out my character nearly 3 years later (I decided to level three jobs at once, and took 9 months off for personal reasons) If anyone cares I'm a level 61 Black Mage, Red mage and White mage on the Gilgamesh server. Anyway, be aware that FFXI is extremly addictive. The story line is great, and yes, you can play and be very content with minimal leveling involved. There were death cries when WoW shipped, but as described above, players left FFXI only to return several months later. I now have a G5 Quad with a 7800 ultra, so I'm temped to try WoW, but after putting over 100 days of play time (actual 24 hour days) into FFXI.... It's hard to think about giving all that up. I know one day my PS2 will die, and I've already thought about building a PC just to play the game. Thankfully it's kinda an older graphics engine (still fine as far as I'm concerned) so you don't need hardcore hardware to run it. WoW may be pretty, but I need more then graphics to carry me along.
I don't think FFXI will ever see light with a mac version. The Xbox 360 version that ships in April is giving us hope that it gets ported to PS3. Xbox version is upgraded to nice 720p visuals. Everyone is kinda excited for another rush of Xbox noobs tho. Fresh blood is always good for this type of game.

By the way Allakhazam is the best resouce for info on most MMO's. With FFXI Alla the FFXI area. Links at the top go the different games.