EverQuest: Difference between revisions

By the way, everything relating to the sequel EverQuest II can now be found at [[Ever Quest II (Video Game)|Ever Quest II]]. 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 RPGs from [[TG Chan]].

 

* [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]

* [[Aliens Speaking English]]: Despite never having had contact with Norrath prior to the expansion opening, the inhabitants of Kuua (Omens of War) speak and understand the Norrathian Common Tongue.

* [[Back Stab]]: Rogues

* [[Big Bad]]: Most every expansion pack came with its own. The original game 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.

* [[Big Creepy Crawlies]]: It's an ongoing joke how most of the natural wildlife (wolves, panthers, snakes, etc...) are normally sized, but the bugs are all monstrous.

* [[Black and White Morality]]: Qeynos Guard vs Bloodsabers, Order of Marr vs Freeport Militia

** As the updates go on, the difficulty spike kicks in at a higher level.

* [[Down the Drain]]: Kedge Keep is entirely underwater. Siren's Grotto in Velious also has large sections under water. Some zones, such as the Qeynos Sewers in have significant underwater areas.

* [[Easter Egg]]: Tons and tons of them, too many to list them all. But we'll hit a few of the bigger ones...

** In the Qeynos Sewers, some graffiti say "Aradune is Stinky". Aradune was the character of the original game's creator Brad McQuaid.

* [[Loads and Loads of Races]]: 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. <ref>Aviak, Bixie, Brownie, Burynai, Centaur, Cyclops, Djinn, Gnoll, Goblin, Giant, Kobold, Lizardman, Muramite, Orc, Shadowed Man, Vampire</ref>

* [[Munchkin]]: Munchkinism fairly quickly became the standard way to play the game. It's hard to remember back in the days when roleplaying was actively encouraged in the instruction manuals and in the game itself, and "twinking" (higher level characters giving lower level ones gear and weapons better than anything they could get for themselves) was extremely discouraged.

** Lampshaded: One NPC has the following response when you ask him about his quest: "Well I haven't figured out that part yet. I guess I'll slay a dragon, maybe save a princess or two. You know the normal stuff. I don't want to get too crazy heheh, you know like calculate which weapon is the most efficient and debate over it in public forums to no end."

* [[Myth Arc]]: Starting with The Scars of Velious expansion, every expansion has had one.

* [[Neglectful Precursors]]: The Combine Empire was seen as this for a long time. The truth was a little more complicated

** Played a second time in the very next expansion, ''Depths of Darkhollow''. Killing Mayong Mistmoore, the expansion's [[Big Bad]], propelled him to [[A God Am I|godhood]], whereafter he proceeded to wreak havoc upon Norrath's pantheon of deities until being put down for good in ''The Buried Sea''.

* [[Ninja Looting]]: 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.

* [[Nintendo Hard]]: 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.

* [[Nostalgia Filter]]: A lot of people have this for early EQ. Sometimes, it's genuine "it was better when it sucked" sentiment. Sometimes, it's a desire to return to a time when ''their'' class was part of the Holy Trinity and groups could not twitch without them.

* [[Not So Harmless]]: Guess who one of the major end bosses of the Underfoot expansion is? {{spoiler|Fippy Darkpaw}}.

* [[Our Trolls Are Different]]: Again, ''EverQuest'' based their trolls off the Dungeons and Dragons version of them. Tall, green, weak against fire, and the least intelligent of all the playable races.

* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: 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.

* [[Punny Name]]: Oh so many of them. There are whole web pages which list them.

** One example is the zone "Estate of Unrest" (State of unrest).

* [[Rainbow Pimp Gear]]: Averted. Initially present, the game introduced armor dye so you could change the color of armor you didn't like.

* [[Serious Business]]: Hardcore raiding players and guilds can be... to put in the most positive term possible, "intense".

* [[Stripperiffic]]: Firiona Vie - the character, not the zone. Any female character without armor equipped. And for the first dozen or so expansions, any female character on the box art.

** Especially silly in the case of barbarians. The typical barbarian male wears nothing but boots and a kilt, while the average female is dressed the same but also wearing a laced together piece of leather over her chest, and they live in the middle of a region of icy, frozen tundra. Handwaved by making it a part of barbarian culture to defy the cold and prove one's mettle by... refusing to wear a shirt? Silly barbarians.