Everquest - Free to Play March 2012

If any of you have been gaming online and playing MMO's for as long as I have you remember things, like MUD's, Asheron's Call (let's try not to remember AC2), a game called Horizon's, Ultima Online and many others. But one game that everyone SHOULD remember is of course, Everquest.

EverQuest is probably one of the LONGEST most DRAWN OUT games even to this day, and it still has quite the following. With over 17 expansions PLUS the base game - it is one of the largest MMO's to date. Though I have some startling news for all of you in the MMO World. This March, EverQuest will become free to play and allow players access to the base game plus all 17 of the expansions!

Though there are some draw backs to playing the game in it's "free form". For starters you will not be able to use  a good couple of the chat commands and channel nor will you have complete access to the brokers in game. Your mail abilities are also diminished to only receive items but not send. There is of course a limit to how much plat your character can have also, what spells and tiers of them you can use, a limited level of Mercenary Ranks, the ability to join a guild only (not create), limited races (unless purchased), limited character classes (unless purchased), and limit character slot (guess what - you can purchase more of them!).

My opinion is of course - why play it for free when there are tons of limits on your account? Well for one, it may be a good way to have a "semi-unrestricted trial" of the game to actually see if you enjoy it and it is the game you thought it was or could have been. This in itself is a good thing for many gamers (like myself) who suffer from a condition known as MMORPG-ADD (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game Attention Deficit Disorder). If you suffer from this and are constantly in and out of every game around and on the market, but have never tried EQ, it may be a good way to get some time off from whatever other game you are playing and give this a whirl.

My only experience with this type of play came in the form of the "free to play" version of EverQuest 2 which had severely dumbed down graphics and models, limited character classes and progression, and limited races. The problem arose mainly when I went from a paid account, down to a "freebie" and certain characters of mine became unplayable and completely useless to have on my select screen (as I was not allowed to log into those specific races and classes).

I really am hoping SOE has made some changes with this system to give more players greater ease while they play - though the fact that anyone who does not have a full subscription to the game has limited Customer Service Support and just answers from the "knowledge base". Which for a base of knowledge in EQ2, was quite limited on certain answers and did not help very often.

So for everyone that wishes to play EverQuest, do it in March. Just be wary of some of the account limitations that abound unless you have a full paid subscription. I hope anyone who does decide to play enjoys the game (as EverQuest can be a very, VERY good game).

I'll leave a link down here for anyone who is interested in checking which account options have less limitations and abilities granted on them. For now - enjoy your day (or evening), continue rocking out your games, and take it easy! Hope to see you all soon in the online world!

Cheers All,

~SV

./save

./logoff



Online Source - http://www.everquest.com/free/

Rift and ToR - A Comparison of Worlds

Yes all it is me once again, and I know I haven't had much in the way of posts recently due to the fact of being completely sucked in with Star Wars The Old Republic. Recently though I had gotten quite "bored" with ToR and many of the systems that were in place for PvP Gear and such. Yes I know that they do have all intents to fixing and stream-lining this in the near future, but I needed a break from the grind fest that was taking place in game.

So - I left ToR and trotted on over to Rift. Mainly at first I was only going to sub for the "wedding" feature that a certain someone who will remain nameless wished for me to partake in. I went ahead and got the marriage and all that jazz done, which from an RP perspective (though I am not much of an RP'er) it was really cool and interesting to see how all this went about.

Now on the flip side (switching topics again), ToR has stated that the legacy system in 1.2 will allow you to "create a family tree" of sorts. Now my thought on the matter is this - does this mean that there will be certain RP aspects here as well, such as weddings between others in game or is the "family tree" merely another thing to get bogged down with and spend precious time doing (as there are many many time sinks in SWToR).

So, back to Rift now - I had started doing some PvP in game (mostly warzones) and saw that they had adjusted some of the mechanics in Whitefall for one (yes, I haven't played Rift in awhile), and to top it off you get double experience, favor, and prestige for the weekend. I enjoyed this very much as it made the "grind" somewhat easier then most games.

I am hoping that when 1.2 comes out for ToR, that some of these mechanics will be available in the game - like picking which warzone you want to do, giving some benefits to Ilum again (as it is now worthless for any melee character to go do), and possibly the ability to get "double rep" on certain days. This would make it less of a "grind-fest" so that players can focus on other things while they play.

Now - sure ToR has all the story elements and such that make the game great, but honestly comparing ToR's graphics to Rift's is almost a joke (and before you ask - I run everything on the highest settings in both games, I also can run both at the same time on two different monitors and not experience any lag what-so-ever). I know that me saying this next phrase will cause the "fanboi's" and "trolls" to spring forth from the nether, but, I really think ToR's graphics are a "better" version of World of Warcraft's graphics.

I mean, once you turn everything up on Rift (and I mean everything to max), ToR almost looks comical! Yeah sure the game looks nice, but, Rift has a feel of "realism" that many other games do not have (at least visually). And as I said, the story in ToR is what set's it apart from everything else - but once you take that out (all the voice overs) and put in a quest box that you "need to read", you basically get a WoW in Space sort of game.

Now I'm not saying that Rift is better then ToR or vice versa, as I enjoy both games equally. I love Star Wars and ToR, but I am also a die hard fantasy fan also (same with the sci-fi genre). So I can't really say one is better then the other, it is just that both games have different visuals and art styles that will adhere to many different audiences and make the game enjoyable.

I had just wanted to speak of a few items that I had seen that were quite different in both games. If you have any comments on the subject please respond down below and leave me your thoughts. Otherwise, have a great time doing what you do in your virtual worlds, and I hope to see you all in game soon!

Cheers All,

~SV

./save

./logoff