Top Five Reasons to Play Everquest

Hot Dogs and Cartwheels: Random observations from the online world.

Top Five Reasons to Play Everquest.

Oddly enough, Tribes (1) launched my online gaming career. There was a certain sense of accomplishment to having a blast-radius disc gun, a jet pack, and the 'shazbot' emote . . . but far more satisfying was being one of the first cable modem subscribers . . . my sense of self-worth was far above the dial-up noobs.

My RL friends discovered my gaming addiction shortly after I left Tribes for Everquest. Things got dirty. The normal late-night session became eight-hour corpse runs. I didn't talk in RL; my in-game corpse took precedent over RL matters. You just smiled if you ever played EQ.

But in the end, my first MMO accomplishment was an amazing feat . . . it forced me to lie in RL and in-game . . . blaming a girlfriend for missing a raid, while blaming a raid for postponing movie night. Where was I? Who knew. Long story short, I (we all) gave up (sex) for Everquest.

I did Everquest. On a few occasions, I looked at the screen, then looked straight-faced at my girlfriend, and said, "I'm gaming tonight."

Now that we're on the same page, here's the top five reasons to check out Everquest again (and reasons for me not getting laid):

1. You can play as a frog. Close your eyes and think about a frog doing a backflip.

2. Mercenaries. Can't find a healer? A tank? No problem!

3. Massive World. I didn't do any research for this post, besides thinking about how many times I didn't get laid, but Everquest has a shit-ton of content.

4. $40. When's the last time you got small fries, a chicken sandwich, a double cheeseburger, McNuggets, a shake, a snack wrap, a cherry pie, a happy meal . . . and ask the manager out only to have her say no as you walk out with your $15 order, alone . . . where am I . . . anyway, you get all 15 expansions for $40.

5. Detached and Cyfon on Bristlebane. Thirty years of bailing on women for video games.