History VideoGame / EverQuestII

** [[ImpliedTrope implied]] with the [[FishPeople Yha-Lei.]] When you kill them they often say "I can feel the warm waters welcoming me", which is usually taken to mean their idea of the afterlife.

* TheChangedItNowItSucks: Played with. Freeport's overhaul was due to the Overlord's hovering residence having crashed; Qeynos, however, had less need to replace it's castle with one taller that it's district is wide... or with darker-looking stone.

* TheyFixedItNowItSucks: Played with. Freeport's overhaul was due to the Overlord's hovering residence having crashed; Qeynos, however, had no practical need to make it's castle bigger... or with darker-looking stone.

* CommissarCap: You can buy one for real money at the in-game marketplace. However, it doesn't fit in with the setting and it clashes with pretty much every other item of clothing or armor you can obtain. And if you wear it your hair disappears.

* {{Freemium}}: ''[=EverQuest=]'' 2 opened up to a Free To Play model in 2011, initially allowing players to play the entire game for free, but at severe restrictions. The model underwent some redesigns, especially when Sony Online Entertainment sold the game to Daybreak Studios. As of 2018, free to play players have access to four character slots; can only use certain designated chat channels (an anti-spambot countermeasure); have alternate advancement points set at 50% and have no control over where those points are allocated; can only level to 20 levels lower than the adventure cap; have some restrictions on spell and gear quality; cannot trade certain items; have fully access to every expansion up unto the last 5 releases; and cannot access special event servers like Time-Locked Expansion servers or the PVP servers. The Freeblood and Aerakyn races, and the Channeler and Beastlord classes are still locked behind a freemium paywall, even for All Access subscribers (which is mitigated by the 500 Daybreak Cash given each per month.) As of 2023, all Free-To-Play accounts have access up to everything up to 2017's Planes of Prophecy expansion, which raises their max level to level 110.

* AllegedlyFreeGame: ''[=EverQuest=]'' 2 opened up to a Free To Play model in 2011, initially allowing players to play the entire game for free, but at severe restrictions. The model underwent some redesigns, especially when Sony Online Entertainment sold the game to Daybreak Studios. As of 2018, free to play players have access to four character slots; can only use certain designated chat channels (an anti-spambot countermeasure); have alternate advancement points set at 50% and have no control over where those points are allocated; can only level to 20 levels lower than the adventure cap; have some restrictions on spell and gear quality; cannot trade certain items; have fully access to every expansion up unto the last 5 releases; and cannot access special event servers like Time-Locked Expansion servers or the PVP servers. The Freeblood and Aerakyn races, and the Channeler and Beastlord classes are still locked behind a freemium paywall, even for All Access subscribers (which is mitigated by the 500 Daybreak Cash given each per month.)
** The initial Free to Play business model had some hangups which upset and frustrated returning veteran players with the fact that their fully Mythical-geared level 90 Sarnak Bruiser now had to be unlocked by buying the right to play as both the Sarnak race and the Bruiser class first, as well as paying $10 per character slot past the most recent 2 you used, as well as $0.30 ''per mythical item'' to use said gear. This was ''very'' quickly patched with a formal apology and a refund of any such packs that were purchased, as grandfathered characters no longer have to buy the packs -- but still have to pay for the item unlocks. (''New'' characters, however, require the unlocks.) The gold subscription is still a valid option to avoid having to worry about all these, as the (very frequent) popups are quick to remind you.

* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[ImpliedTrope implied]] with the [[FishFolk Yha-Lei.]] When you kill them they often say "I can feel the warm waters welcoming me", which is usually taken to mean their idea of the afterlife.
** Also with undead mobs, like any Skeleton that says "Final death comes at last."

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: In general, evil overlords tend to be found at the end of dungeons behind a gauntlet of their generals and other elite soldiers. Said evil overlords are usually the toughest fight in the dungeon. The exceptions usually have the overlord unleash some kind of even stronger monster, e.g. Perah'Celsis teleporting away and freeing Waansu when he does.

* TheArchmage: Bellengere the Three, the master of the Qeynos Mage's Guild and a member of the Circle of Ten (Qeynos' governing body opposite the Queen). He's so named because he is said to have mastered all three of the Mage Classes available to Good aligned individuals - that is, Wizard, Illusionist, and Conjuror. However, having mastered those three disciplines, he's becoming very interested in the dark side of conjuration - Necromancy. [[spoiler:He's part of the Qeynosian faction that tries to overthrow Antonia Bayle in the events of [=LU64=], and he's the only one of them that manages to [[KarmaHoudini get away with it]].]]

* AlternateTimeline: Everquests 1 and 2 are alternate timelines of each other, diverging from essentially the place that [=EQ1's=] storyline was when [=EQ2=] was first released. So for example, although in [=EQ1's=] timeline the Frogloks only held the city of Grobb (Gukta) for a few years, since [=EQ2=] came out while they did, in its timeline the Frogloks never lost Gukta. [[spoiler: In the [=EQ2=] ''Chains of Eternity'' expansion, [=EQ1's=] Cazic-Thule tries to invade the plane of Ethernere.]]

* Really700YearsOld: Lucan D'lere is 500, due to having removed his soul 500 years before the game.

** Some Burynai enemies can fire a [[VideoGame/StreetFighter Hadouken]].

* {{Valkyrie}}: They exist as monsters, mainly live in [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Everfrost]], and usually worship [[AnIcePerson E'ci, the goddess of winter.]] Despite looking like [[AngelicBeauty angelic beauties]] they are far from friendly - they start out at the very bottom of 'threatening' faction, where one single killed valkyrie makes all of them kill-on-sight. At launch, 1) there was no way to raise valkyrie faction, 2) you couldn't complete the then-mandatory Everfrost access quest without killing valkyries, ensuring that you'd be 'scowls' (the [=KoS=] faction standing) with them. The revamp of Everfrost added a small questline for raising valkyrie faction, but only to 'dubious.' Plus if you kill one and get into 'scowls', they won't let you do the questline, and there's no way to grind the faction up.

* InterServiceRivalry: Official looking NPCs in Qeynos and Freeport have been known to mock other factions within their respective cities.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: A very downplayed example, but Lord Nagafen in the first game was just an evil monster who couldn't be reasoned with and tried to kill everyone he met on sight. Here he is a quest giver and not immediately hostile. While he's still a pretty big {{Jerkass}}, he comes across more as a WellIntentionedExtremist who is trying to stop Darathar (the game's orignal BigBad,) and seems [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely distraught]] over Lady Vox being killed by Darathar's forces.

** Queen Antonia used to have this until around LU64, when she, and Lucan D'lere, were revamped so that she wears a gown of the same color. There is a statue of the old version of her in western Qeynos, however.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: With the initial game, most {{Non Player Character}}s actually had voice acting for their lines of dialogue. The longer the game ran, the more infrequent spoken lines became. At this point it's a little disconcerting to speak to some of the older [=NPCs=] and have them actually answer you - especially unimportant 'ecology' [=NPCs=].

* NamesTheSame: In-universe. In the early days before SOE had an expansive name filter, one of the easiest ways for them to prevent a player from having a particular name was to make sure an NPC had that same name. So there are merchants in Qeynos named [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Aeris]] and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI Celes]], and there used to be an NPC in Freeport named Beren.

* ArbitraryMinimumRange: The game has a minimum range (usually 10 meters, just outside of melee combat for most monsters) required before anyone can use a ranged weapon such as a bow or throwing knives and shurikens.