Lords of Everquest Demo
I cringed when I first heard Sony was making an RTS set in their Everquest world (380MB). EQ is not the most original or eloquently constructed fantasy IP on which to hang more games, especially those from another genre. Star Wars may have spawned a plethora of bad games, but it is at least a compelling universe. Norrath is an uneven conglomerate of borrowed and plagiarised fantasy ideas, lacking any charm of originality. I smelled a marketing decision based on Sony IP, which had nothing to do with games and everything to do with money.
And I was right. However, Lords Of Everquest is still a pretty good looking game.
Warcraft 3 players are going to cry “rip off” as soon as Lords boots up. The game focuses on heros, has troops that level up and increase in power and ability as they do so, and has a look and feel obviously modelled on WC3. They should actually be crying “rip off” in honour of Warlords which was robbed blind by WC3 without so much as a tip of the hat, but no matter. True to form Sony Online Entertainment has taken all the good ideas from other games and smoothed them into their own.
But what it lacks in integrity, LOE almost makes up for in quality. The demo at least is a solid, classy piece of work. The artwork and effects are both top notch, and the interface is smooth and intuitive. Everquest players will also get a kick out of recognising not only the troop and enemy types, but also how they work, and how the conflict sits into EQ lore. The Iksar necromancer in the tutorial looks and sounds just like one from EQ, and even gets to summon a skelly pet. Disturbingly, the water in LOE looks infinitely better than the water in EQ which still looks like ass despite the MMORPGs recently DirectX 9 overhaul.
I’m not an RTS player as a rule, and I haven’t seen so much of WC3 that the aggravation from all the big and little plagiarisms in LOE force me to delete it in disgust (as some of my workmates have). I don’t like the premise for the game, I don’t like the transparent grab for IP power it obviously is, and I sure don’t like SOE moving into other genres (best to keep the nastiness confined I’m thinking). But on a cursory view at least it’s hard to fault it. Lords of Everquest may be a much stronger contender in the glutted RTS genre than many expected.
posted by monty · at 3:31 pm · filed under Reviews
Lords of Everquest definately borrows heavily from Warcraft 3, more then it does from the EQ IP. It is however an extremely cutdown version. LoE can only be played as two races, that each seem to have exactly the same units with different models. Varying only in what heros are available, and what spell the casters cast. WC3 races on the other hand are a mixture of units divided losely into tiers with vastly different abilities, but somehow managing an overall balance.
It feel alot more like C&C once you get into the combat. You can attack move in, and setup your units before hand so the heaviest take the brunt, but soon as they clash, it’s over and you either overpower, or rebuild. I didn’t actually lose any units myself, so the demo might have just trivialise that aspect of the game (what I think is the most important) to show off the eye candy..
There is no question that the graphics of LoE is impressive when compared to EQ. Despite how far ahead of EQ it is graphically, WC3 is further. The interface I found bulky, getting in the way a little too much. The characters and landscapes look good however, but once in combat it’s hard to see what’s going on .. not that it matters since it’s over so fast.
I can’t see it being a major compeditor to Warcraft 3 however, atleast not in the multiplayer aspect. It’s like comparing Checkers to Chess, and lets face it, blizzard has Battle.net. Single player might be a completely different story however, and it probably stands to sell alot of copies to existing WC3 players, and EQ players alike, just for the curiousity value.
Doesn’t it seem like a little bit of an IP war though. Blizzard moves in on SoE in the MMORPG market, where EQ is clearly dominating. In return SoE moves in on the RTS market. The difference seems to be quality of product. If your a MMORPG addict like myself, then you’ve probably already been infected with the World of Warcraft hype. I’d wager SoE is especting WoW release to be the silver bullet that brings down it’s near immortal EQ. They might be banking a little too much on EQ2 being a success too. Don’t know how most people feel, but I’m not even interested enough to read about it ;)