I'm thinking of starting to play Everquest and I'm a huge lore and story buff. I also love to quest. I've heard mixed things about Everquest and how questing wasn't the best (but maybe that was early on?) Also are there main storylines in the game or is each area/zone just kind of got it's own thing going on with people telling you to kill or gather x amount of this or that? Also are there any areas or expansions that would be suggested to go through that tailor more to what I'm looking for? (perhaps if the story and questing improved throughout the years) I am kind of a completionist by nature though so would likely want to run old zones too.
go to the forum labelled Lore discussion, Beimeith posted a really nice explanation of such thigns and yes tehre are sotries of all levels, individual npcs, zones, expansions, continents, entire game timeline, all the differnet gods and how they came to be etc etc etc questing is not boring unless all you do are killtasks, those are meant to be boring and repeatable. main questarcs tell chunks of the story as you do them
The questing system is as easy or tough as you want to make it. It's easy if you find a strange item and check the internet to see what it's for. It's tough and infinitely more rewarding if you try to find out for yourself! Here's an example: You're deep in a dungeon and you kill a nasty Dark Elf female. On her body is a torn parchment written in Gnomish. It says: "When you wake and you read, You will also look to the ground. Bare toes is what you'll see, During the night I took them with no sound. I did so with ease and lacking of fear. In my great skills I have utter faith. Now I run faster than the wind, which howls in the mountains of Rathe. Hasten Bootstrutter Rogue Supreme" Identifying the note reveals that it is called "Journeyman's Boots note". So now you know what the note is called, who wrote it and you have an interesting location, called Rathe. Checking your map, you see that it's a long trip through Ogre country. When you get there, as luck would have it, you spot the note's author zipping through the hills. After a breathless chase, you catch him and ask about the "Journeyman's Boots". His response: "Three things I call for and journeyman boots are yours. A [shadowed rapier], [ring of the ancients] and gold... 3250 gold coins I call for !! This trade I call." Asking him about the "ring of the ancients" gets him to say: "Ancient cyclopes do march the land. Long have they lived and crafted the rings of the ancients. I must have one and you shall go and fetch one for me. Seek the lands of the oldest cyclops clans. Seek the plains, seek the island in tears and search the dunes for there is one who is last. His clan was blown from the sands." So now you know you have to get a ring from an ancient cyclops. But where do they live? The island in tears? Well, your map shows a place called "Ocean of Tears". Maybe he lives there. His clan was blown from the sands? The deserts of Ro near Freeport are the only deserts you've heard of. It's worth a look... And so on and so forth. The questing system can seem clunky at times, but if you're a puzzle-solver you will adore it, especially old world quests. It beats staring at yellow exclamation points all day.
When people say that EQ questing isn't good, what they mean is that there is no integrated help/guidance system, so you have to figure it all out for yourself (or use online guides). They probably also mean that EQ levelling is based around grinding exp, which is largely gained through killing, rather than quests. At higher levels, quest experience is more useful.
Great post, Everwake. The lore is there if you want it, but you do have to work for it. If you don't want it, the much more common path (which, to be honest, I ended up taking most of the time) was to just look up where to go online. As an aside, and I hope this doesn't violate any forum policy but if it does feel free to delete this, The Secret World has a very similar system. Great puzzles, and there's an option to turn off the waypoints and guides so that you can figure out where to go yourself from the text and clues.
If you're a lore junkie, EQ is the game for you. I don't think you'll find any other MMO with a lore as detailed and complex as this game has.
