Everquest II vs World of Warcraft
Back in November 2004 two massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) were released by two different companies that were both very similar to each other and would become rivals in the online gaming community. This essay will explore both games; it will divulge into their backgrounds, their graphics styles, their player bases and analyse both games before reaching a conclusion as to which game is best overall.
Sony Online Entertainment released Everquest II at the beginning of November 2004 which was to be the sequel to the already popular online game Everquest Online; developed by Sony Online Entertainment in March 1999.
Towards the end of November 2004 Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft online. Both games are based in high fantasy virtual worlds and offer the player freedom within these massive landscapes to roam freely and to let the player explore the many aspects of each game.
Towards the end of November 2004 Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft online. Both games are based in high fantasy virtual worlds and offer the player freedom within these massive landscapes to roam freely and to let the player explore the many aspects of each game. Each game offers its own unique class and race system which provides the player with the ability to create a character and enjoy the game in a different perspective every time they play. But with games this big and having all the enjoyment and freedom to explore with millions of people across the world, it comes at a cost. With both games building up a player base of over thousands at their release dates, each game has its own monthly fee which must be paid to keep on enjoying their virtual world and can range from anywhere to £10-30 per month.
As stated the player count of each game grows by the thousands each month. In order for this to be possible Sony and Blizzard needed to aim its target audience at all age groups to profit the ever growing online game market, and to stay ahead of any competition. For Sony online entertainment, Everquest II was not advertised as much as other game titles because it was a sequel to the already popular Everquest and has a heritage system between both games. Many of the players of Everquest II already played the prequel and were eagerly awaiting arrival of the new revamped version of the game. With the news of Everquest II, Sony Entertainment relied more on word of mouth from its existing players rather then marketing campaigns.
World of Warcraft was Blizzard Entertainment’s first MMORPG which was developed and based on their strategy game Warcraft. The Warcraft series of games are strategy role play games which allow the player to control groups of army units. Using the lore and background from the Warcraft series, Blizzard Entertainment developed World of Warcraft to have many features and aspects of Warcraft and also to let the player explore the Warcraft realm from a third person perspective. Blizzard Entrainment needed to advertise this new MMORPG as much as they could to stay ahead of any competition and decided in 2007 to use TV commercials to advertise their every growing online game. Blizzard did not just use standard game play footage from their game to advertise to the world, they also used old movie and music celebrities to promote the game. By using celebrity endorsements World of Warcraft try to imply and portray people such as Mr T and Ozzy Osborne play the game.
Both games offer a wide range of playable classes and features that are very much alike and give the player the ability to choose their own style of play. Everquest II offers nineteen different playable races and twenty four classes, each with its own racial and class skill system. World of Warcraft gives a lesser number of only twelve races and ten playable classes. Both of the games class and race systems play styles are very similar to one another. They involve races such as humans, trolls, dwarves and elves. A variety of different classes are then chosen from this selection including warriors, mages, paladins and priests. With each games character creation system alike, both games offer their players the freedom to roam high fantasy worlds, explore vast cities, group with other players, and battle across massive landscapes and enter dungeons with groups of twenty to thirty players at a time. As each games population of players grow every day, the main use of communication throughout each MMO is in a game chat window. The chat window allows the player to communicate with other players across the world in different channels which are normally listed as world, group, trade and level chat channels.Within each game one of the main goals is to progress your avatars level; to proceed to better abilities, equipment and weapons. Everquest II permits you to max out your level at a level cap of ninety. It has a range of quests and zones to help development throughout the levels which can be a very long progress and can be time consuming. Another feature of Everquest II is the Mentor
For the players that prefer to level quicker, they could be disadvantaged because unlike Everquest II there is no mentoring system in World of Warcraft which would make the character levelling progress more rapid, and would let new players join the higher players sooner.Looking at the graphics of both games, they are very different from each other in the way of style and give different impressions of how a high fantasy world would look. Everquest II gives a particular life like feel to its environments and characters with the mix of melee and magic fighting styles. The realms of Everquest II are vast; full of very detailed creatures and have remarkable land marks, some of which can be viewed from the sky above certain zones though out the game. World of Warcraft gives more of a cartoon animated high fantasy view of its realms and creatures. With a variety of brightly coloured graphics and unique environments World of Warcraft is more eye catching and has taken more of an artistic feel towards style of what a high fantasy world should look like.
One of the main problems when first starting many MMORPG is the ease of understanding of how to play the game. Most MMOs allow the new players to begin in very easy areas of the game to help them adapt to the game at their own pace. With World of Warcraft and Everquest II both offer starter guards which can be found on their websites for players who want a bit of knowledge before beginning the game. Also more information can be found throughout the sites about more in depth details in regards to the games, and from people who have shared there experiences whilst playing the game. Within the games themselves, both MMOs offer quick beginning areas with a series of short quests to help the understanding process and without the pressure of difficult creatures and foes attacking them as they begin the game. With the games having a vast population of players, becoming confused about a certain part of the in-game world can sometimes be resolved by simply asking a question in the one of the game chat channels. Although waiting for an appropriate answer can sometimes result in being more confused as some players tend to mock the lower rank players for being “newbie’s”. Both games also have an in game help menu system that can be used for basic information concerning the game and to gain a better understanding of how the mechanics work though out game play.
Once a basic understanding of how to play the game is found, you can then advance to more challenging areas of the game and also some areas that require groups of online players to get together and help one another. Another element that features in both World of Warcraft and Everquest II are the creation of guilds. Guilds are created from a number of online players that convene and form a faction based society whilst playing in game. There is an in game menu system in each game that lets players of the same guild see the number of members and statistics of the guild they are in. Everquest II released the feature of guild halls in October 2008 which allowed in game guilds to use an instanced zone as a place to meet up with fellow guild players and also offered the ability and freedom to customize each guild hall. World of Warcraft is yet to announce the feature of guild halls and still remains to use the standard guild menu system.One of the main struggles of any online game is the player’s commitment to the game as most players do not have time to play as much as they would like. With both World of Warcraft and Everquest II this time spent not playing the game has its advantages. Both MMOs offer a bonus to each players experience points (EXP) for the amount of time they have been away from the game. With these features in place it gives you a chance to try out other classes on the game and take regular breaks allowing your bonus on each character to build up and give you a quicker head start once you return to the game. With the time spent not playing these games, its hard to keep track on the progress of what is happening in game as you are away. This can be over come with the latest mobile phone technology that can allow you to check on the events that are happening in game while you are on the move. These features can also be used to check on the in game item brokers that allow you to buy and sell in game items to other players via your mobile. Everquest II has also introduced an application that allows you to chat with other players in game by the use of your mobile phone.
Looking back at all features of Everquest II and World of Warcraft each game offers many different aspects of play that can be found throughout many MMORPGs. But with each of theses games, the similarities are almost identical to one another. But World of Warcraft still out numbers Everquest II player base even though Everquest II has more features, World of Warcraft still remains to have the largest population of all MMORPG to this day.
Conclusively, both games have individual appeal to their audience, but Everquest II can be said to be the best, despite not having as large a player base, because it is more modern and includes more exciting features for the audience; which is vital for the success of any game.
Word count: 1,889
References
· Blizzard Entertainment; 2011; World of Warcraft Cataclysm; cited at: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/; date accessed 04/04/11
· GameOgre; 2003-2010; World of Warcraft vs. Everquest 2; cited at: http://www.gameogre.com/wowvseq2.htm; date accessed: 24/04/11
· Mason L; 2011; EzineArticles; History of World of Warcraft; cited at: http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-World-of-Warcraft&id=5081928 accessed 07/04/11
· IBM Research; Online gaming @ Watson; http://www.research.ibm.com/gaming/ accessed 24/04/11
· Play.tm; 2004; play.tm Decision 2004 (World of Warcraft vs Everquest 2); Ferragoi Ltd; cited at: http://www.play.tm/preview/4681/decision-2004-world-of-warcraft-vs-everquest-2/ accessed 04/04/11
· Howarth R; Feb 2009; Everquest II has 500,000 subscribers? ; Voodoo Extreme 3D; cited at: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/44480/EverQuest-II-Has-500-000-Subscribers; accessed 15/04/11
· Gamespot; 2011; Everquest; Gamespot GameFAQs cited at: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/145131-everquest/data accessed 15/04/11
· Yee N; September 2009; Volume 7-1; the dedalus project the psychology of mmorpgs WOW basic demographics; cited at: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001365.php; accessed 24/04/11
· GameUSD; 2005-2011; Mentoring and World of Warcraft; NPB-Tech Inc.; cited at: http://www.gameusd.com/threads/Mentoring-and-World-of-Warcraft.html; accessed 15/04/11
