The technical features of EQII and the game system itself are designed to tingle every sense of imagination and it’s difficult if not impossible today to compare the scope and magnitude of this game to any other. SOE has really pushed the development envelope and created a game that is masterfully crafted and takes advantage of all the cutting edge technology that’s out there today.

There is no doubt that EverQuest II will meet gamer’s expectations head-on with a graphically stunning world, 3D sound, full voice-overs for all NPC characters, a robust MMORPG interactive game system and so much more. The game simply gives and gives and gives. Players are really going to be excited and have a great time playing EQII.

Starting Out: Character Creation
Let’s take a look at a few aspects of the game first hand and see just how much fun playing EverQuest II is. First off, we’ll look at character creation. Right off the bat it’s impressive to see the amount of flexibility that we have in designing a character and that’s a good thing because having a truly unique character is one of the most fundamental aspects of an MMORPG. The days of every character looking alike or having to choose from only a few basic character models are long gone.

You’ll want to take your time and tweak your character with a look that suits you best since this is your online avatar, which is a representation of yourself in the game. There are literally millions of possible combinations to choose from to make your avatar look totally unique from the color of skin, lips, ears, hair, tattoos, piercings, and many other things.

After your character is created, getting started is easy. There’s a starting area that everyone has access to where you’ll select your initial character class or archetype (mage, fighter, priest or scout). The starting area, called the Isle of Refuge, is filled with quests that can take your character up to level 6 and it also allows you to get outfitted with some useful items such as armor and weapons. Beyond the starting area, you can continue to adventure from and around your home base city. Once you reach level 10, you can select an archetype profession to customize your character further and then at level 20, you will be able to select your final profession specialization to complete your characters archetype development.

Getting Into the Game: The Interface
Navigating around the world and interfacing with things such as objects, NPC’s and creatures is easier done than explained. It’s similar to first person shooter navigation where you move around using the WASD keys and click on the objects that you want to interact with.

The mouse wheel scrolls in and out of first or third person view to suit your play style, or you might want to change your view depending on whether you are in a dungeon or outside. Third person view allows you to view a fair distance behind you so you can see some of your surroundings. The middle mouse button allows you to rotate the camera view around your character so you can look around yourself without actually turning around.

What’s nice is the level of customization that you have within the interface itself. All of the status windows can be re-arranged on the screen and multiple chat windows can be created and configured to display the chat text that you want to see. The options menu is very extensive and allows all of the keys to be remapped and it lets you configure just about every other aspect of the game such as chat colors, video options and a whole lot more.

More of What You Want: Graphics and Sound
Setting itself apart from other games, EQII is designed to really push the envelope with robust graphics and vivid sound. The graphics take advantage of the latest features in video cards for extremely detailed textures, bump mapping, shadows, reflections, and realistic water. One of the most fascinating things about the game is watching the creatures and players come to life as you play. Character movements have been realistically generated using motion capture, which further enhances the smoothness and realism of each movement. You’ll see the grass blowing with the wind, butterflies zipping around trees and nighttime turning into day just as if it was real. In this fantasy world, seeing is believing.

Fast paced dramatic songs put players on their tiptoes in dungeons while smooth upbeat tunes make for a nice stroll through the villages. During combat, the music energetically ramps up to incite an adrenaline rush in the players and then fades away into a sweet melody when victory is attained. What really puts the game over the top is that every NPC character, including monsters, have their own voice-overs. What you’ll find is that the level of interaction is incredible because just hearing the voice of a beautiful maiden or a scruffy pirate can set the tone and feeling within the game. I personally like the voice-overs of the monsters saying things to you during combat, which adds that much more to each encounter. SOE is also supporting multiple languages for English, French and German in both text and voice-over, which is again nothing short of amazing for this type of game.

As your character advances into the mid-teen levels, the quests become increasingly harder. While solo content is available, most of the fun places to explore are designed for group exploration and many of the quests will require a group to complete. A group can consist of up to six players and special group spells called ‘heroic opportunities’ allow group members to work together to cast additional bonus spells during combat. Progressing into the higher levels, the need to create raid parties consisting of up to four groups (24 players) to take on some of the bigger encounters is an important part of this online community gaming experience.

There are many different aspects and areas of development that allow each individual character to have strengths and weaknesses that differ from other characters of the same profession. Through facing different kinds of challenges, you’ll be able to add to your character’s fortune, skills and glory. Characters will typically gain new skills and spells every level or two that they gain so there is always some reward to look forward to and it usually doesn’t take long to reach a reward point. Casual players will find that they can log in for a couple hours a day and gain some character advancement every time they log in.

Aside from adventuring solo, with groups or in a guild, players can also develop artisan skills such as tailoring, smithing, woodworking, alchemy, chemistry and other crafts. Tradeskills allow characters to create items such as furniture, spell scrolls, armor, weapons and other items, which can be used, sold or traded.

You can easily spend as much time working on tradeskills as you can in quests and the system is quite extensive and fun to use. The rewards for being a master tradeskill artisan are great and allow the creation of some very nice items indeed, but it is difficult to achieve this status and will take some dedication. Even at low levels, it’s easy to craft basic spells and seems to save some money as it is less expensive to craft some things than buying them from other players.