History VideoGame / Everquest

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: Twenty-one in total (twenty if you count Kerrans and Vah Shir as the same race, which some do and some don't). High Elves, Halflings, Dwarves, Wood Elves, Frogloks, Humans, Barbarians, Half Elves, Gnomes, Erudites, Dark Elves, Ogres, Trolls, Iksar, Vah Shir, Drakkin. Have fun making those [[{{AltItis}} characters.]]
** Mind you, that's only the ''playable'' races. Just for fun, here's a list of some of the non-playable races. [[hottip:*:Aviak, Bixie, Brownie, Burynai, Centaur, Cyclops, Djinn, Gnoll, Goblin, Giant, Kobold, Lizardman, Muramite, Orc, Shadowed Man, Vampire]]

** MasterOfNone: Bards have abilities and skills that make them a mix of almost every other class in the game. They can wear plate mail and dual wield swords like a Warrior, have a run speed buff like druids and shaman, can heal, can restore mana, charm, and mesmerize NPCs like enchanters, do damage over time like necromancers, direct damage like wizards, have lockpicking skills like rogues, etc.

** MasterOfNone: Bards in the first game have abilities and skills that make them a mix of almost every other class in the game.

* DietyOfHumanOrigin: Zebuxoruk, the "Ungod" of Knowledge. It is said that he was born a Human, and he found the secret to obtaining godhood, but for some reason or another, sooner or later, will revert back into a mortal Human. He's reverted back and forth so many times that he's lost count. He was even imprisoned in the Plane of Time for the expressed purpose of making sure that his knowledge of how to obtain godhood would never be shared with mortals. The consequence would have catastrophic effects on the universe if ''everyone'' suddenly became a god themselves. When Mayong Mistmoore managed to become a god later on, he quickly proved to everyone exactly what they were all fearing.

* HelpingWouldBeKillstealing: [[MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame MMORPGs]] such as ''EverQuest'' and ''WorldOfWarcraft'' are the TropeNamer. In these games, killing monsters is a main source of personal growth for your character. If a monster attacks you and hurts you, you normally do NOT want someone to save you. If someone else attack the monster before you do, or if in saving you does more damage/gains more aggression from the monster, then that person has "stolen your kill" and the XP and loot that went with it.

* DidNotDoTheResearch: Exhibited by many of the fans who complain about the way the game changed when run by "Verant" or "SOE" (aka Sony). Verant was spun off from SOE, existed as its own company for a while, and then was re-bought and again became part of SOE. Even though the name on the box changed, the same team was in charge of the game the whole time.
** Subverted by SOE themselves. A lot of fans criticized the content of the ''Gates of Discord'' and ''Omens of War'' for "nonsense names". Actually, SOE had put quite a lot of work into giving the worlds a Sumerian feel and even partially based the names off what little is known of the Sumerian language. Maybe the complaining fans just hadn't heard of Sumeria.

* SomeCallMeTim: Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar. Players call him Bob.

** The most difficult was the Plane of Fear. Zoning in, you would very soon be attacked by a large group of enemies. Without a large strong force, you would die. So, if you died inside Plane of Fear, you would run back, enter the zone and die again. Guilds would die inside, attempt to retrieve their corpses (which had their gear on them, and without the gear you are far weaker than normal) and die repeatedly again. The most powerful guilds would often wind up assisting weaker guilds by "breaking" the zone for them (that is, kill off most of the NPCs near the zone in area so others could enter without quickly dying). And Plane of Fear was not the only zone with this.

* NintendoHard: Ahh, the old days. The next time someone in your [=WoW=] party complains when you wipe and have to run all the way back to the dungeon, try telling them that in original EQ, you did the same thing, but not as a ghost - nope, you were alive. And naked, because all your equipment stayed on your corpse until you retrieved it. From in the middle of all the nasty things that killed you the first time. No arrows or minimaps, so you'd better remember exactly where you were. If you were unlucky enough to forget to get somebody to cast a bind spell at the nearest city, you might be facing a run across a continent, too. It was not unusual to die several times trying to retrieve your corpse. Oh, by the way, every time you die, you lose experience points. Including de-leveling. At higher levels, the ratio of amount lost to how long it would take to get it back got more and more dire. At the high levels, things became insanely stressful. People had breakdowns.

* NinjaLooting: This was a big problem in EQ's early days, back when it was run by Verant Interactive. Nowadays you simply can't loot what you didn't kill.

''[=EverQuest=]'' has been around for so long that balance between new players and long term players is becoming a real problem. Most newbie characters (in the EQ lingo, "toons" or "chars") actually belong to veteran players who give them castoff gear from their level 85 mains, i.e. "twink". If you're below level 60 and actually new to the game, you're nothing besides useless to a group full of twinks.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: EQ's vampires are generally orlokian in design. In the hack and slash ''Champions of Norrath'', the powerful vampires tend to be like Dracula Classic, but most vampires are unintelligent orlokian types with spidery limbs.

** Brutally, BRUTALLY subverted back in the old days of [=EQ=], where the exp loss was 40% and if your corpse decayed before you could get to it (a fair possibility in the high level dungeons like Veeshan's Peak, or hard to reach places like Kedge Keep), all your stuff decayed with your corpse.

* CriticalHit: Warrior types, both player and monster, can hit critically. And if they're low on help they can do a critical critical.

''[=EverQuest=]'' (1999) is a highly popular MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame inspired by [[MultiUserDungeon DikuMUD]], a {{Dungeons and Dragons}} textual multiplayer game. It is famed for being highly addictive and having an excellent social environment. It's also one of two games that really put [=MMOs=] on the map, sharing the title with UltimaOnline, and the model it used for high-end play has been the model used in almost every other game since, even WorldOfWarcraft. It has also spawned many {{Expansion Pack}}s, a sequel game in ''[=EverQuest=] 2'', a novel series, and a film is in the works.

''[=EverQuest=]'' is a highly popular MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame inspired by [[MultiUserDungeon DikuMUD]], a {{Dungeons and Dragons}} textual multiplayer game. It is famed for being highly addictive and having an excellent social environment. It's also one of two games that really put [=MMOs=] on the map, sharing the title with UltimaOnline, and the model it used for high-end play has been the model used in almost every other game since, even WorldOfWarcraft. It has also spawned many {{Expansion Pack}}s, a sequel game in ''[=EverQuest=] 2'', a novel series, and a film is in the works.

By the way, everything relating to the sequel [=EverQuest II=] can now be found at {{Videogame/EverQuestII}}. The move is still in progress, so if you find any tropes or examples relating to the other page here, please move them. Not to be confused within the series of author-to-player interactive [=RPG=]s from TGChan.

** FragileSpeedster: Rogues, Rangers, and Monks in [=EQ1=]

* BigBad: Most every expansion pack came with its own. EQ originally had Vox and Nagafen. ''Kunark'' added Trakanon. ''Velious'' had Kerafyrm. ''Gates'' had Tunat` Muram Cuu Vauax. ''Omens'' had Mata Muram. And it just keeps on going.

* BreastPlate: Mainly averted. EQ is generally quite realistic about armor for female characters. The female half-elf model in leather armor, however, plays this one completely straight, as do many of the cloth armor sets. [=EQ1=] got its reputation for filling the BreastPlate trope because characters without armor quite literally run around in their underwear, and because most of the advertising of the game consists of the skimpily dressed Firiona Vie.

* CashCowFranchise: ''[=EverQuest=] 1'' was such a success that they took all the money from it and used that to create many new games ([=EQ 2=] was just one of them), rather than improve ''[=EverQuest=]''. They mostly all failed. It's pretty obvious that the management has no regard for the original ''[=EverQuest=]'' other than to milk it dry.
** Besides ''[=EverQuest=]'' and ''[=EverQuest=] 2'', there is the online card game ''Legends of Norrath'', ''Champions of Norrath'' (PS2 game), ''Champions: Return to Arms'' (PS2 game), ''EverQuest Online Adventures'' (PS2 game), ''EverQuest Hero's Call'' (Pocket PC), ''EverQuest Hero's Call 2'' (Pocket PC), ''Lords of EverQuest'' (PC real-time strategy game), ''EverQuest Role-Playing Game'' (a role-playing game produced in collaboration with White Wolf which uses the d20 system). Also a line of novels have been published in the world of [=EverQuest=] and there has been talk of a feature film for years.

* ChekhovsGunman: The Priest(s) of Discord. Around from the earliest days of [=EQ1=] as a method of opting into Player Vs. Player on non [=PvP=] servers, they suddenly became ''very'' important shortly before the ''Omens of War'' expansion was released.

* CriticalHit: In [=EQ1=], Warrior types, both player and monster, can hit critically.
* CollectionSidequest: Quite common in both games.
* ContinuingIsPainful: ''[=EverQuest=]'' 1 used to have one of the nastiest, if not ''the single nastiest'', continue penalties in all of gaming. However, ever since SOE took over from Verant, the penalty has gotten steadily less painful, with the exp loss reduced and corpse runs fully done away with. See DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist below.

* CultureChopSuey: The monk guilds in the human cities seem asian-influenced, in what is otherwise largely MedievalEuropeanFantasy.
** In the second game, while the city of Freeport maintains a largely medieval feel, the Freeport Militia have gained a distinctly [[AncientRome Roman]] aesthetic.

* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Death in [=EQ1=] results in actually losing XP. Not much anymore, though. And they did away with corpse runs.

* ExpansionPack: Many many of these. They churn them out so often. As of now, [=EQ1=] has 16 total.

* HotAmazon: Female barbarians. Humans and High Elves are right at breast height on female barbarians, whose tops consist of a leather strap with a massive CleavageWindow. Jokes about "retiring to Halas" abound.

* ItemCrafting: [=EQ1's=] version was not very player-friendly. Especially in the old days. There was a blacksmithing guide entitled ''Click Your Way to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.''

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: Twenty-one in total (twenty if you count Kerrans and Vah Shir as the same race, which some do and some don't). High Elves, Halflings, Dwarves, Wood Elves, Frogloks, Humans, Barbarians, Half Elves, Gnomes, Erudites, Dark Elves, Ogres, Trolls, Iksar (both games), Vah Shir, Drakkin ([=EQ1=] only), Ratonga, Kerran, Fae, Arasai, Sarnak ([=EQ2=] only). Have fun making those [[{{AltItis}} characters.]]
** Mind you, that's only the ''playable'' races. Just for fun, here's a list of some of the non-playable races (both games). [[hottip:*:Aviak, Bixie, Boarfiend, Brownie, Bugbear, Burynai, Centaur, Clockwork, Cyclops, Djinn, Drelock, Droag, Fungusman, Gnoll, Goblin, Giant, Gruengach, Kobold, Lizardman, Muramite, Orc, Ravasect, Roekillik, Shadowed Man, Tallonite, Vampire, Yah-lei.]]

* MythArc: Starting with [=EQ1's=] The Scars of Velious expansion, every expansion has had one.

* NinjaLooting: This was a big problem in [=EQ1's=] early days, back when it was run by Verant Interactive. Nowadays you simply can't loot what you didn't kill.

* NonMammalMammaries: Similarly to the BreastPlate trope, Everquest does a relatively good job averting this. EQ has three major reptilian races - Iksar, Froglok, and Sarnak. The female iksar have a slightly hourglass shaped figure for no apparent reason, but no actual breasts. Female frogloks just have slimmer heads and color schemes ranging more towards pastels

* OnlySixFaces: Literally in [=EQ1=]. Each race and gender had exactly 6 faces to choose from for character customization. It wasn't all that big an issue though.

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: ''[=EverQuest=]'''s dwarves are indeed the same, in both expansions.
* OurElvesAreBetter: Played completely straight in [=EQ1=] and almost as straight in [=EQ2=]. ''[=EverQuest=]'' has the superior High Elves, the woodsy Wood Elves, and the evil Dark Elves. And the Half Elves, who mostly fit in pretty well with the easy going Wood Elves.

* OurOgresAreHungrier: [=EQ1=] ogres are big an' stoopid, thanks to a curse. When Rallos Zek tried to invade all the planes at the same time, the other Gods banded together and cursed all the races he created. The Ogres were his favorites.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: [=EQ1's=] vampires are generally orlokian in design. [=EQ2=]'s vampires seem to be rather similar to dark elves, and there are groups of vampires living openly in the dark elf city of Neriak. In the hack and slash ''Champions of Norrath'', the powerful vampires tend to be like Dracula Classic, but most vampires are unintelligent orlokian types with spidery limbs.

* TheReveal:

*** Amazingly, Firiona Vie managed to get ''more'' Stripperiffic as time went on.

* {{Vaporware}}: [=EQ1=] has quite a few areas labeled on [[http://www.green-council.com/images/screenshots/EQ1_WorldMap_0001.jpg the map]] that were never turned into in-game zones. Some, such as Jaggedpine Forest and The Barren Coast, were eventually released. A few, such as the Unkempt Woods, Ranthok's Ridge and the Grand Plateau, have yet to be made into zones. The Barren Coast deserves special mention, as in the old (pre-Luclin) days of [=EQ1=], players wanted SOE to turn it into a zone so evil players could access Odus without paying a wizard for a port.

* YouCantGetYeFlask: Quests are triggered by certain words. Usually the relevant [words] are enclosed in [brackets] so you know which ones to use, but sometimes the word has to be used in a certain format. It can get quite confusing. Sometimes an NPC gives you a [key word or phrase] as part of a quest reward and if you didn't memorize it right on the first try, you're stuck unless you can find the correct line in an FAQ.
* YouShouldntKnowThisAlready: Sometimes if you say the [phrase] that is supposed to get an NPC to work with you on a [quest] before you're either high enough level to work on the quest or on the appropriate step, that NPC will ask you if you don't have any gnoll pups to go slay.

By the way, everything relating to the sequel [=EverQuest II=] can now be found at {{Videogame/EverQuestII}}. The move is still in progress, so if you find any tropes or examples relating to the other page here, please move them.

* PragmaticVillainy: The Sarnak in [=EQ2=]. They decided it would be much more profitable to make Gorowyn accessible to good-aligned adventurers as a waypoint between their lands and Kunark than to follow the standard Evil practice of killing them for the evulz.

* HotAmazon: Female barbarians. Humans and High Elves are right at breast height on female barbarians, who's tops consist of a leather strap with a massive CleavageWindow. Jokes about "retiring to Halas" abound.

* PlayfulOtter: The Othmir, who play a pretty fair role in Velious.

* GoddamnOrks: The gnolls. Gnolls aren't much of a serious threat, but they are always, always, always making a nuisance of themselves.

* {{Vaporware}}: Well, more like vaporzone.
** [=EQ1=] has quite a few areas labeled on [[http://www.green-council.com/images/screenshots/EQ1_WorldMap_0001.jpg the map]] that were never turned into in-game zones. Some, such as Jaggedpine Forest and The Barren Coast, were eventually released. A few, such as the Unkempt Woods, Ranthok's Ridge and the Grand Plateau, have yet to be made into zones. The Barren Coast deserves special mention, as in the old (pre-Luclin) days of [=EQ1=], players wanted SOE to turn it into a zone so evil players could access Odus without paying a wizard for a port.
* YouCantGetYeFlask: Quests are triggered by certain words. Usually the relevant [words] are enclosed in [brackets] so you know which ones to use, but sometimes the word has to be used in a certain format. It can get quite confusing. Sometimes an NPC gives you a [key word or phrase] as part of a quest reward and if you didn't memorize it right on the first try, you're stuck unless you can find the correct line in an FAQ.

* [[{{ptitlei9fyz80ocg6y}} You Can't Get Ye Flask]]: Quests are triggered by certain words. Usually the relevant [words] are enclosed in [brackets] so you know which ones to use, but sometimes the word has to be used in a certain format. It can get quite confusing. Sometimes an NPC gives you a [key word or phrase] as part of a quest reward and if you didn't memorize it right on the first try, you're stuck unless you can find the correct line in an FAQ.

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