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Preface: there has been a significant amount of controversy surrounding this review. We here at the Corp stand behind Mr. Poppinfresh's opinion of EQ: Ruins of Kunark. If you have genuine concerns about any points he addresses, feel free to discuss it in the forum, email the editor, or email Mr. Poppinfresh himself.
Introduction
| Game Homepage |
| station.sony.com/everquest |
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| System Requirements: |
Windows 95/98
Pentium 100
32MB RAM
5MB HD Space
DirectX Video Card
DirectX Sound Card
2X CD-ROM
Two Eyes
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| Reviewed Using: |
Windows 98
Pentium III 550
TnT2 32MB Ultra
Sound Blaster LIVE! Platinum
48X CD-ROM
Two Eyes (Upgraded with Contacts)
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Some of our longer-time fans will know my opinion of Everquest, which is that it’s the most marvelously well-packaged cat turd in the history of mankind. If you’re not too discerning, the pretty red bow and happy-clown wrapping paper will distract you from the rank smell. All I see, though, is the lack of depth and horrid customer service.
That’s not to say Everquest is without fans- as Verant’s customer-service goons are anxious to tell you, they have 200,000 or so active subscribers. That’s, you know, a lot of people. Lots of people who have spent more time than I on the subject can explain the myriad of reasons for this better than I, but it can be basically summed up thusly: Everquest is like crack, nobody who plays it likes Verant (except for the few mutant ass-kissers), and as soon as the next MMORPG comes out they’ll flee it like rats off a sinking cat turd.
I actually had some hope for Ruins of Kunark, as some of it’s promised features would alleviate a few of Everquest’s biggest problems- spawn camping (the act of waiting for a particular monster to appear at his known location so you can thwack him) and the boredom of all-too-familiar zones being two of the larger problems. Being a former EQ player, I almost wanted to like the game again. I had enjoyed it before I noticed the smell coming from inside the pretty box, and was hoping Ruins would be a kind of air freshener.
The massacre started before the game even came out. Verant screwed up shipping in a way that mere words cannot describe, and many people who had pre-ordered the game ended up not having it when the zones went live, which was actually when you could get it from the stores. To this day their online store is still down, which begs the question ‘why’? My personal theory is that you can charge more for both Everquest and Ruins of Kunark in one box, thus forcing your fans to buy Everquest again- my review copy was that type of box, which retails in stores for around $34.99. Ruins was pre-orderable alone from the online store (the only place you can get it alone, of course) for $19.99. Now you can only get it from the stores for nearly twice as much. Funny how that works out, no?
The new continent, Kunark, adds "30% more play area", with 20 new zones. There is a new playable race, called Iksar (lizardmen). Players can now go beyond level 50, to level 60 (though they don’t tell you it maxes at 60 on the box). There are also some new monster types, which of course are as diverse as the ones in the old world (lol). Whoopee.
Here's a crash-course in Everquest, for those who are unfamiliar: It's a MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that stresses grouping with other characters to take on ridiculously powerful monsters for ridiculously hard to aquire gear. This gear is absolutely vital to your survival while taking on other, even harder, monsters (usually exact duplicates of the one you just wasted, only tougher. And they only appear every 18 hours). Any creative strategy that minimizes the threat to your life is considered an exploit and will get you banned. Any effort to draw the dev team's attention to glaring class-balance issues is dismissed as whining. The stats melee classes use don't make any difference at all to their performance. The list goes on, but that's the general gist of it. Maybe George Scotto (read our interview with him) will change this. Probably not.
Next page: Tell me why it sucks, oh great one!
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