Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
EverQuest II
Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment
Developer: Sony Online Entertainment
Read our preview from E3 2004 >>
While we had previously seen several impressive new features unveiled for EverQuest II, such as its powerful graphics engine and its full audio speech, at E3 2004 we saw EverQuest II really start coming together as a playable game with a great range of content. Yes, it will be like other massively multiplayer online games in that you'll create a single character, then go off to hunt monsters and solve quests with thousands of other players in search of fame and fortune. But it will also take place in huge and varied environments full of details, large and small, that will make EverQuest II seem less like a game and more like a living, breathing world, if what we saw at E3 is any indication.
For instance, one area we visited was a simple town square, where computer-controlled characters wandered about (based on time of day and other conditions), striking up random conversations with other characters. This may seem like a trivial detail, but if this feature works as planned, it will make even the peaceful towns of EverQuest II seem like parts of an actual world where characters go about their daily lives. The same can be said of EverQuest II's other impressive environments, which are not only being built with the same attention to detail, but are also being populated by geographically specific monsters and creatures that are appropriate to that area.
While it was pretty much standard in previous online RPGs to see a prerendered moon surrounded by prerendered clouds crawling across a skybox, you can expect to look up in the sky in EverQuest II to see a small winged figure turning and wheeling about, gradually growing larger until it appears before you as a huge and angry dragon that will land right in front of you and challenge you to a fight. It does remain to be seen whether the rest of the game can be as consistently exciting and detailed as these examples, but there's no denying that EverQuest II made an impressive showing at this year's E3.
The other Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game finalists:
Auto Assault (PC)
Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed (PC)
The Matrix Online (PC)
Tabula Rasa (PC)
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