Review: EverQuest for the Pocket PC (Episode 1)

[Mike]

Michael Walker put on his reviewer's cap and set off into the world of EverQuest for the Pocket PC (http://eqpocket.station.sony.com/). Would his adventure have a happy ending, or was this a mission always doomed to failure? Read the review, and all will be revealed...

[Konrad]

Death to Sony!!


:p sorry


Actually a very thoughtful review. One other review of the game cited repetition as a major drawback - lots of time spent traversing repetitive enviorments just to get from the city to the battle scene, and back once your health gets low. Does anyone who has played this game remember this as being a significant nuisance??

And happy MLK day, everyone :)

[corpsman]

Well, first i played the game through until i reached level 5 with the warrior. Then when i died, the game tells me that every other level i get to with my character, [level 7, level 9, level 11, etc. etc.] i will lose lots of gold. So when my character reaches level 11, i will lose half the gold i carry on myself. I quickly decided "to hell with that", and started over. When i am in another part of the game world and i have advanced very far and the amount of gold i carry goes from a couple hundred to a few thousand and what happaned to me was like a week ago, i dont want to STILL be reminded that i died 8 levels ago! I think that was a completly retarded descision on the developers part! They could have changed the way NPCs talk to you, so that they dont hint you as much, or maybe take away things from the game, or just punished you once really good. Like make it so your body lays there and you are robbed by bandits or something. Even maybe you lose all your gold and potions and one good item like your shield... SOMETHING! Instead it seems like they want to beat it into you over and over and over again, even further into the game. [dead horse gets another whack!] ***Now i am a level 8 Druid, in the Ruins of Nordok. :p
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Anyways, i will give my own quick rundown of the game.

1. Bought it through Handago, which ended up being a MAJOR pain in the ass, just like when i bought Mosby's Nursing Drug Guide for work.

2. Installed no problem. Some games have problems on my 3850 until the games are patched by the developers. This game has been solid with no crashes or errors. Good work!

3. Character selection is nothing to talk about, its simple and doesnt seem to effect as much as it probably could have. [they could have done SOOOO much more here] In most RPGs character selection is a core part of the game itself, it effects the entire game as a whole! It makes the game not only more immersive and more believable, but it adds a sense of self to the character and everyone has thier own personality. Humor and dialoge adds to the game as well. I mean come on! How much file space does it take to add text? They did give the character different weapons and spells to use, but not many. Also, noone wants them to go over the top and get crazy like Morrowind, but something should be there. Maybe have a few NPCs of each guild spread around the town and also around the game world. Then when you come across them they might like you and help you depending on your class. [giving you hints, spells, weapon, items]

***Say you are a warrior and you are walking along. You see 4 orcs fighting a member of the warriors guild. If you are a warrior, he will reward you with 300 gold for helping him defeat the ambushing bandits and your name would be known in the warriors guild and with all warriors around the world so you can trade better with them or something. Then my favorite idea is to be allowed access to thier tavern full of other warriors who have much to say and do with you. Or if you are a druid he might laugh at your spells and armor but still give you 30 gold in thanks. Or if you are a wizard and you help a young apprentice who got stuck fighting off skeletons on his way to his masters home. You can either let the young apprentice die at the hands of the skeletons and take some gold off him after he dies, or you can help him. And if you DO help him and the apprentice lives, he will tell you to meet him at his masters house, where his master will tell you the password to a secret side quest, or he will give you a key to a castle that only you can enter. [which could be appropriate depending on your character or class] I think they left out an extremly critical part :(

4. They give you an excellent screen that tells you the quests rundown. Which ones you have to go on, in what order, and which ones you have finished. So i always know whats next. But, sometimes i am supposed to find someone, or something, or a place and have no idea where to look. Again character selection could have been used here, or maybe we could have bribed a town goer to talk to us or something.....[thank god for the forums]

5. They included a very basic [or very small] amount of weapons

6. Spells seem alright. I have not played the wizard or the other magic user, so i cannot give an accurate account of thier spell system. However the Druid has a basic set of spells.

**Id like to make a comment about weapons and spells here. Weapons seem to be only in 1 of 2 catagories. Either bashing/blunt or slashing weapons. So thats it... You get no crossbows, no bow and arrows, no spears, stars, throwing axes or anything like that. Kinda plain to say the least. And as a druid running through the game, every creature seems to be vulnerable to either cold or heat spells, or blunt or slashing weapons.
***Also [what personally made me upset about the game the most] no matter what items you carry, no matter what weapon you are equiped with, no matter what you are wearing, no matter WHAT, your character always looks the same, and attacks always look the exact same. *snore* Again, very basic! I want to feel like a badass walking around the world. I want NPCs to comment me on my class choice or the fact that i have defeated many enemies and now wear thier leaders helmet proudly as my own. It would also be very nice to be able to equip the ball and chain and watch my character bash an orcs helmet, or smash the bones of a skeleton. Or when i use a sword, i should be able to see my guy slice open a gator or something! Nothing super full blown, but the animations are sooooooo boring. After a while you just watch the numbers.... no cool fighting scenes at all.

7. You really dont seem to run into many other travelers. They could have added MANY more NPCs into the game, and even the ones you can talk to, dont seem to say much at all. [2 or 3 different lines] I would expect them to give you conversation, or maybe be able to bribe them to give you details, or maybe hint you a little about quests or something. I wouldnt force it on the player, but alot of RPG fans love to talk to NPCs! It seems like they could have said alot more and they only say enough to keep the story going. *yawn* So instead of talking to them for the humor or for information, i only talk to them when i absolutly have to and i find myself only talking to the NPCs that sell me items and such. [boring] How much does it take to add a NPC sprite and some text dialoge?? I would gladly install an 8 meg file vs. a 6 meg game file, if it meant lots of animations, combat/town music and more talking!

8. Maps seem to be well created except for one thing, the doors. OK, the map background is a tan color and the doors are yellow..... I have an idea, how about making the doors blue, or red, or green, or black!? [duh] Sometimes i am squinting my eyes to find doors on the maps. [and yes, you will be looking when you need to find a room and think that you have been everywhere] Besides that, maps are perfect.

9. I play a druid so i only use 3 of the "quick selection slots" for spells and use the fourth for either health or mana. Not a big deal for the druid and probably less for the warrior. However i can see how this would be a pain for the other two classes. The game allows you to pause in the middle of almost anything, even combat, to change weapons or do anything, so its kinda forgiving. But if i was using 25 spells, i can see where this would be a big pain in the ass. :eek:

***My idea would be this. On the far right you have this gigantic action window which tells you the amount of HPs taken off of the enemy during combat. [its the one that has tiny headshots with -7 or +14 next to them] It will scroll up with each new event. However at the same time during the game, you can already see health and mana bars on yourself and the enemy you are fighting, plus on the actual gameplay screen, damage done is shown with numbers flying off of the characters during combat, so now they have created 3 different ways to tell you about hitpoints..... What they should do is shorten the text scrolling window and move other "things" already visible under or over it. Then, they can create alot more space to equip spells or items by 2X! Bam! Now you have 8 slots instead of 4, and if someone needs more than 8 slots, i think they need to stop and think things through :p [yes, even the wizard]

10. You are able to purchase "town portal" scrolls. However they are only one way portals. So when you have traveled far and you become held down by the equipment you have collected, or you run out of potions and need to buy more, you use the scroll to get back to town. Then after you buy everything you need, you have to walk ALL the way back to where you were. And if you are where i am now, its a big pain in the ass! This wouldnt bother me as much, if when you traveled you came across side quests and other NPCs or something. But it is nothing more than walking through the same damn open fields running into the same creatures you have already beaten 400 times. If i were walking through the woods and every time i did so i ran into a different set of bandits or a different traveler or NPC or side quest, then i would want to do it! MAKE ME WANT TO TRAVEL! But alas, not so.... And they could have made the portals more expensive, but be 2 way so after you use it you can walk throught it again to the ruins or wherever you are. [there and back] Just make a simple animation on the ground like a glowing circle with some strange letters inside it or something, so when we are ready to get back to our adventure, we walk over the "circle".

11. Graphics im happy with. Its not so "high res" that it kills my system and it definitly could have included more animations, but it doesnt look like it was ported from the Plam either. I think they did a pretty good job of the graphics.
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Theres alot more but these things are what i see as the major "good and bad" with the game, plus i have not finished it yet, so i cannot comment further. All in all, i agree with pretty much everything the origional reviewer said and so far it has been worth the money i have paid. If i end up beating it soon, and find it too short, then thats one thing, however depending on price, the expansions could definitly be worth it ;)

[corpsman]

Heres a picture, a friend of mine helped me create. There are 3 numbers. Number 1 and 2 both show hitpoints as does number 3. So i do not see this big need to have a gigantic text menu there, when you could use the space for more slots, or for something else. I see this as a better layout than the current one. During combat you can still go into your inventory to switch spells and slots, so i dont see them only having 4 spell slots as a way to limit you. If they wanted to do that, they wouldnt allow you to go into the inv/map/character menu during combat at all. I dont know why they did it that way.... Heres some pictures i created to show you what i was talking about, also in my origional post:

EQ pics (http://www.geocities.com/shmedlydoowop)

Yes, i know geosities sucks... but they are free. hehe

[power_overwhelming]

corpsman beautiful, beautiful comments and suggestions to add to the next episode. You took the words out of my mouth. I wanted to post the same thing on the PEQ forums for a long time but just too lazy to type that much :-) Also I would like to add:

+++They NEED more sound effects and possibly in game music.

+++Need more people to talk to.

+++Need NEED NEED to balance the classes more. The mage/sorcerer is H*** of weak. If you are going to make him that ad in combat give him like 500mana to start with. I quit playing 1/2 thro the game with the mage because it was just to dam hard on the hard setting. Started with the girl that summens stuff and it was MUCH easier.

+++Need to adjust the battle system. Right now battles are a yawn and not interactive at all.

+++Absolutely need more magic items for the two non fighting classes. All the items I found where for the fighting classes. NEED MORE ITEMS. A LOT MORE.


The expansion is a step in the right way but I hope that episode 2 will be a lot better then 1. Also can someone post this in the PEQ forums? Thanks.

[andyclap]

I got bored and stopped playing it after a couple of days. Although it was fun at first, IMHO It gets *very* repetetive. There's not enough variety of weopons/spells/quests, and everything is just too far apart for a single player game. Fighting involves no skill, it's just an automated 'keep on hacking' event, and on later levels, with the duff weopons, you can wait 3 or so minutes for your adversary to expire: boring :(

[EmodivGuy]

Wow, some amazing comments. We here at Emodiv really appreciate the time everyone has taken to post them.

Corpsman, I liked the UI mockup you did and will take it into consideration. We would have to reduce the font size on the numbers to make it work, though. Sometimes 3 and 4 digit numbers have to be displayed there.

A clarification: I'm not sure what you mean in your point about the penalty for death. Dying once does not mean that you will lose gold every time you reach levels 7, 9, 11, etc. What it should have told you is that once you reach levels 7 and up, the penalty for dying increases. But it is only applied EACH time you die. So, if you die at levels 1 through 5 there is no gold/experience penalty -- ever.

I'd like to say that we really take your suggestions and criticisms very seriously here. We strived to make a game that was reminiscent of the EverQuest experience on a PC. That entailed a certain kind of gameplay that we tried to emulate.

Another major design goal was to create a game that could be played for vastly different lengths of time at any given sitting. We wanted people to be able to quickly load it up any time they have 5-10 minutes to spare and save the game at any time. Because of this mobile nature, we tried to simplify the interface and basic game design as much as possible so that the game would be a welcome distraction, not something that required great amounts of concentration to play.

We also were committed to making sure the ENTIRE game was less than 7 MB and to offer the game at $19.99 rather than $29.99. Hard choices had to be made about what features could and could not be included. The end result is a game that we are proud of and that people have enjoyed enough to write such detailed suggestions for improvement.

Episode 2, which we are finishing up now, will incorporate some, but not all, of these suggestions. I hope you will enjoy it.

Jon Wiesman
Emodiv, Inc.

[corpsman]

Originally posted by EmodivGuy
Corpsman, I liked the UI mockup you did and will take it into consideration. We would have to reduce the font size on the numbers to make it work, though. Sometimes 3 and 4 digit numbers have to be displayed there.

You might still be able to move things around. But i am only assuming that everyone else is like me and doesnt pay attention to the text window that much, if ever. Maybe instead of having every hitpoint taken scrolled in the window, you would only "post" everything else inside it and make it shorter from top to bottom instead of from left to right. You can already watch hitpoints the first 2 ways i showed in my picture and by remaining full width, you could still see 2 full lines of text showing everything else such as dying, leveling up, etc. etc. [probably gaining a tiny bit of speed, plus keep the font size you use] Maybe move the inventory, nearest enemy, all enemies buttons under the text window, or over it since i never watch it *shrug* Just an idea. I think it would fix everyones problem with the limited number of slots, as long as they liked where everything was moved to....

A clarification: I'm not sure what you mean in your point about the penalty for death. Dying once does not mean that you will lose gold every time you reach levels 7, 9, 11, etc. What it should have told you is that once you reach levels 7 and up, the penalty for dying increases. But it is only applied EACH time you die. So, if you die at levels 1 through 5 there is no gold/experience penalty -- ever.

I apologize then. I did not understand what it said. Im the retard :p [good idea as well with the taking of gold]

I'd like to say that we really take your suggestions and criticisms very seriously here. We strived to make a game that was reminiscent of the EverQuest experience on a PC. That entailed a certain kind of gameplay that we tried to emulate.

Another major design goal was to create a game that could be played for vastly different lengths of time at any given sitting. We wanted people to be able to quickly load it up any time they have 5-10 minutes to spare and save the game at any time. Because of this mobile nature, we tried to simplify the interface and basic game design as much as possible so that the game would be a welcome distraction, not something that required great amounts of concentration to play.

We also were committed to making sure the ENTIRE game was less than 7 MB and to offer the game at $19.99 rather than $29.99. Hard choices had to be made about what features could and could not be included. The end result is a game that we are proud of and that people have enjoyed enough to write such detailed suggestions for improvement.

Episode 2, which we are finishing up now, will incorporate some, but not all, of these suggestions. I hope you will enjoy it.

Jon Wiesman
Emodiv, Inc.

I am NOT trying to speak for anyone else except myself when i say i dont mind file size *that* much. As long as its not 40 megabytes, its ok. Adding a couple of more megs to create better sounds and better animations, or more dialoge is definitly worth it in my book. Your only adding that much more to the game itself. I realize not everyone else has the 2 fat CF cards that i do. However even with the pocket PC itself, another couple of megs wont kill anyone. :p

As far as quests go, you could integrate other side quests as player options. Such as, NPCs talking to you offering you quests. You could say yes or no, or possibly they would tell you where to start looking, [adding more world oriented dialoge] then the player can decide if they want to further the side quest or just "move on" towards the main one. Making "download addons" is ok for people who want to play more quests, but i prefer putting it into the game itself. I think its better by using NPCs, or by finding a map on 3 orc guards around a camp fire, or maybe taking a ring off a dead wizards body.... Its so much more believable and the player can still decide for themselves if they want to go on the side quest and use the ring they find to unlock a door through a stone wall, or they can just wear the ring for its +5 mana, or sell it for money if they really need it. We can follow the map we find, or sell it to another adventure seeking NPC. You DID create a good quest journal. Again im just shootin ideas around.

[Mr. Wizzz]

Twas review was good! But i'm wondering who's was longers? Michael's or Corpsman's?!?! :confused:

[Mike]

I think that Corpsman's was the longest post I've ever seen that wasn't written by me! :D

[andyclap]

Thanks for getting back to us Jon, it's good to know you're listening and that some of the issues are being addressed in episode 2 .
I'm ambivalent about most of the cosmetic enhancements to do with sound/graphics, however when you mentioned that you wanted to create a game that could be picked up and enjoyed for 5-10 minutes, alarm bells rang! As I mentioned this really is not possible in later stages of the current game: It takes around five minutes just to walk to the next stage in your quest, and then another five or so minutes to kill a single monster. This led to my abanodoning of the game as I really didn't fancy another two-hour hackathon to progress to the next stage of the quest.
This playability problem could easily be rectified in the next episode by a few judicious extra-strong weapons and spells (possibly as subquest rewards?), and by a more readily available portal system. Perhaps the playtesting of the original game wasn't as thorough as it could have been, initially the game is great fun, it just palls as you progress further due to longwinded battles, and distant destinations.
Anyway, good luck with episode two, here's hoping it recaptures the playability of the initial few hours of episode one.

[Michael Walker]

Yeah, I think a better portal system is in order. Possibly either something like Diablo IIs, or maybe even just a simple spell that takes you home. I also think that you should include some way of picking what spells you learn, instead of just starting with some and picking what way to level them up

[Unregistered]

Jon,

any hints as to some of the changes and improvements in the episode 2?

[corpsman]

Using a 2 way portal system would make people much happier and they could balance it however they see fit. [more expensive or whatever] Im not a big fan of walking either. Either that or create some sort of traveling service. Keep the scrolls as one way so we can get back to where the scrolls take us, but create a traveling service like a horse pulled cart, or get exotic and make it a guy who lets the adventurer ride on the back of his "pet". They would charge us for the trip, but it would at least save us the "boring" part of the trip and get us to the entrance to where we were. Then we would have to venture back "into the cave" or "back through the castle". Different places could have different traveling "people". It gives those of us who like to adventure the choice and those of us who just want to get somewhere fast at that point in the game, *that* choice as well. Perfect remedy. [ god i miss playing morrowind :cry: ]

I do not see the same problem with the battle system taking too long. Once you get up a few levels, you become stronger than those creatures who take you 5 minutes to kill. Then when you reach levels higher up, you have more items, spells and weapons in your arsenal to fight the ones who are the same level as you. [and higher] Other RPG games have battles which last alot damn longer than these, believe that! And i have to say, if you only play the first couple hours of ANY game on any platform, then you havent seen anything. No developer is going to throw everything at you right away. Especially, not with an adventure game. You have to learn about the game first and then you have to adventure out to find everything. If they showed me everything right away id be bored too.

I kinda like walkers idea. Either that, or we would start out with a predetermined set of basic spells, then when we adventure, we would find scrolls which we could learn. Or perhaps we could join the guild, where we could pay to be trained to use new spells, or maybe completing quests would allow us to have access to the more powerfull spells... I think that by having every spell right away its kinda boring. By picking spells or learning them, its much better character development, instead of just having the character handed to us. [pre-made from the factory]

[Silverstarr]

being a more than 4yr player as well as beta tester for original Everquest and i rather like the game i went from start to finish then downloaded the expansion. I guess the only real complaints i have is having the choice to be female or male as warrior,druid etc. also more quest Can't wait for more but what can i say im addicted to Everquest

[Unregistered]

What I would like, is perhaps a two-stage install - a minimum install for those with little memory, and a full-install for those of us with 256MB cards to play with.

[poopy eater]

I lick sour cream out of your moms hairy bum bum hole ^.^

[Blitz]

Does anyone have a walkthrough? Seems simple enough, but I cant find a griffon feather.... Also, the Queens Chambers are locked and I cant get em open (two doors actually -- one the queens chambers and the other one down the hall from there to the right...)

Thanks!

[superdavit]

I just started this game, and now it tells me to goto the sewers and speak with someone named Roland Blackstone? I can't find this guy anywhere - even in the sewers. Where the heck is he. This is the 2nd mission of the game. Thanks.

[JongJungBu]

He's down there. It's been a while, but there's a room in there that has some furniture in it that he is in, beyond a very large room I believe it's on the far eastern corner of the sewer map. But don't quote me on that.

JJB

[superdavit]

I didn't realize you could go through the stupid door. Jesus. Thanks.

D