It really is mysterious to me why there are so, so many games seeking to recreate the vibe of the original EverQuest — the game that brought 3D MMOs to the masses and sparked an industry. Just recently, I wrote about Erenshor, a single-player MMO. Monsters & Memories, Pantheon and Embers Adrift try to bring the game to the modern day. And then there’s EverCraft Online.
A recreation of the original so exact, that they have a gnoll dungeon called… Blockburrow.
Blockburrow, because the conceit of the game is that it’s EverQuest, as if the game was recreated with MineCraft graphics. It isn’t MineCraft, though — there’s no punching trees or digging or making things, aside from through crafting stations.
Crafting stations that require gathered materials and purchased molds, because THIS GAME LOVES EVERQUEST!
Same character/class combinations, though the shorter races aren’t yet in game. Spells that match closely to the EQ spells — the names have changed, but the players just call them by their EQ names and everyone knows what they mean.
It’s a loving homage.
Starting out
Once your character is created from the fairly limited number of appearance selections (not too different from the original game), you’re usually dropped into ECO’s Qeynos analogue, Leont. Leont isn’t the only starting zone, though; Ogres start in the Ogre city of Osgul, which isn’t very much like Oggok, and nature-themed classes (beast-lords, rangers and druids) start in the Surefall Glade analog of Greenwood Cover.
ECO does offer a class I don’t remember in EverQuest — War-Wizard, a master of spell and blade, roughly analogous to the D&D warlock. As race and class are chosen, character creation shows a rating on how difficult the class might be for a new player, a player with some experience in ECO, and for one who wants a difficult experience.
I chose Dark Elf Shadowknight, in honor of my EverQuest SK, Nashuya N’Hamsha. This was rated “difficult”. Yeah, no kidding. I was dropped into Leont with a starting weapon and a note directing me to turn it in to my guild master… if I could find him. As in Qeynos, the evil guild halls are in the sewers, and as in Qeynos, you get there by going outside the city and coming in through a tunnel in the wall. I had to ask for help, and someone guided me there. There are no in-game maps. No /loc or /sense, either. East is the direction the sun rises. West, where it sets. And that’s about it.
Guards try to be helpful, but they don’t know anything about the evil guilds, so my first half hour was just searching the sewers for the guild, leveling up on the level 1 critters there (including — of course — a gelatinous cube). I found no indications on whether or not Aradune was still stinky, though.
The guild master set me on my path, giving me my first SK skill and a depressing look at the cost of my other abilities and spells. Yup, just like EQ.
After visiting with the mining trainer (getting a pick), the smithing trainer and the smelting trainer, I headed out to start my rise to glory.
After a couple hours, I was level 3 and closing in on level 4. Yup, slow — because I was a soloing. Like the original EQ, real experience comes from groups. I didn’t look for a group because I just wanted to explore, but from the chat, those in groups were leveling up quickly. Groups were camping bandit spawns just like… I’m going to stop comparing ECO to EverQuest.
Because it’s not. Sure, EQ is an inspiration, but the game picks and chooses what it takes. Leaving corpses and xp loss are there, but in crafting, you don’t fail. Enchanters can’t keep recharming mobs. As blocky as the graphics are, they are better than original EQ’s experience with blurry textures obscuring terrain just as blocky, if you saw them bare. You gain skills by using them — weapon skills improve by hitting things with them, defense increases by being hint, gathering by gathering etc. There are factions that raise and lower as you kill things. My SK is just barely tolerated in Leont — if a paladin sees me, it will come for me, and the guards will happily join in on the beatdown. This is all very familiar.
Who is this for? People who miss EQ but for some reason don’t want to play actual EverQuest. Just like all the other EQ nostalgia games. People who like the look of MineCraft but don’t want to build stuff. People who just want a fun world in which to adventure and find groups.
It comes down to: If Monsters & Memories, Pantheon, Embers Adrift, and EverCraft Online were suddenly released today, I’m not sure which I would choose. It just might be ECO.
By the time this is published, the 2+ hour raw footage of my time playing might appear below, or maybe not. I dunno.
This is entirely down my alley… signed up.
IKR? I don’t know why I hadn’t heard more about this before this alpha test…