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EverQuest: The Scars of Velious

EverQuest: The Scars of Velious

List Price: $19.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great expansion to one of the best online games ever
Review: Everquest began in 1999 with a world named Norrath, there were 3 continents, Odus, Antonica, and Faydwer, which were filled with creatures such as humans, trolls, and elves. In Early 2000 the Ruins of Kunark was released, this added a new race, the Iksar, a lizard type creature and the continent of Kunark was discovered south of Faydwer. And then in December 2000, the Scars of Velious was released, which completed Norrath with Velious, the icy island in which the life energy of Norrath was deposited by the crystalline dragon Veeshan.

This expansion adds much to the game, although there is no new playable race, there are new quests and hunting grounds for levels 30+, players choose from many different races and many different classes such as warriors, wizards, rogues, etc., but if you are just beginning on Everquest, I recommend you get a character into the high 20s before grabbing this, you can get the weapons and armor from Velious without it. The game only has a few setbacks, such as the $10 per month fee (It's worth the cash though), and the recently developed problem of server overcrowding, some of which are now populated with close to 3000 people. But if you're looking for adventure and a great online game, pick up Everquest.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: REPETITION WITH MARGINAL GAIN
Review: Overall, I enjoy the game (thus the three out of five rating).

SoV has added some new adventure and reward to the game and is a pretty decent value if you are already immersed in the game and have the basic game (required) and Kunark expansion (optional). SoV is easy to get to in the game and has a relatively short boat ride. I especially like the availability of experience hunting for outdoor targets in the 30-40 range that it offers as soon as you get off the boat, for those that don't like to fight in dungeons. There are numerous indoor and outdoor zones in the expansion and the level 30-45 plus adventurer will find a target rich environment appropriate for his or her level on the frozen continent.

Why not give the SoV expansion five stars? Everquest in general is a bit of a disappointment as you increase in level. You must invest an ever increasing amount of time (larger number of quests and kills) to gain a level, yet gaining the level adds only minimally to your ability to survive. Some classes cannot survive solo battle with monsters even two, three and four levels below their supposed equal, while others seem to plow through the competition (I have level 30-40 characters in the warrior/monk and druid/mage classes I am referring to here and understand the differences especially when combined in groups).

I have developed a large circle of friends online and have friends and coworkers to compare notes with offline. The game is addictive and continues to keep my interest, yet my level of frustration was rapidly increasing with similar detractors as mentioned in the previous reviews....

I am optimistic that this expansion will erase some the recent frustration and open the door to countless hours of interactive online entertainment. I really like the loot I have gotten in SoV, and hope some of the earlier zones will not be quite so crowded as the EQ universe has again expanded.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EQ: Scars of Velious: An unequalled high point
Review: Note: This review is ONLY about the "Scars of Velious" add-on to Everquest, and not the game itself.

"Scars of Velious" (referred to as SoV or simply "Velious") is an Everquest expansion for levels 27-65. Unlike other expansions, it does not introduce a new race, a new class, raise the level cap or introduce a lot of special new abilities (although it does introduce a few for melees). Instead, its focus was on content.

Specifically, it covers the frozen lost continent of Velious, home to a race of shipwrecked dwarves from Faydwer (in the original Everquest), trying to survive when faced by hostile giants and ancient dragons. The struggle between these three forces defines the expansion -- if you spend more than an hour here, you're more or less forced to choose sides, and who you fight determines how the other sides view you, which in turn closes off some content and opens up other content, as you become part of the battle for the future of this continent.

The epitome of this struggle are two parallel quests for melees and spellcasters given out by the Coldain dwarves. Each is a multistage quest, and involves you proving your loyalty to the Coldain in their war against the giants. At first, the tasks they assign you are mundane -- deliver this axe to be sharpened, keep my nephew the "great hunter" out of trouble, go deliver some food to the captain of the guard -- but they culminate in skirmishes and even a full fledged war that totally redoes one zone for several hours in a pitched battle (lead by the players) between the giants and dwarves.

Even for players not interested in this content (the ring war in the Great Divide is a high level raid), the expansion offers the best dungeons in EverQuest, amazing new cities, two new planes, high level spells, and a greater concentration of dragons than any other expansion in the game.

While much of EverQuest can, at times, feel like a fantasy version of Quake, Velious lives up to the promise of an online roleplaying game that immerses players in another place and time. Featuring landscapes so chilly, you find yourself putting on a sweater, terrifying enemies, and great acts of heroism, "Scars of Velious" is the peak of the EverQuest experience.

This expansion receives my strongest possible recommendation to all EverQuest players with characters level 27 and up.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A role-player's dream come true
Review: EverQuest is a hugely popular multi-user online role playing game, where players buy the base software and then pay a monthly fee to connect to the server. The server holds the worlds that the players explore 24 hours a day - a world populated by computer-controlled people (NPCs, or non-player characters), by monsters, and by many, many other gamers. It is in many way a role-player's dream come true.

Where Ultima Online uses a top-down, isometric view a la Baldur's Gate, EverQuest goes for the in-your-face style of Doom or Thief. You can rotate through to other views, but the character-point-of-view seems to work best, truly immersing yourself in your world. You begin by choosing a server to play on - each server hosts a set of characters, quests, and NPCs. A given CD can allow up to 8 characters on each server. If you don't like a character, you can immediately delete it and make a new one - a nice feature compared to some of the other gaming systems that make you wait a week or more. On the downside, your new character only starts with a weapon and some food. The other gaming systems start you with a good amount of cash, which is why they don't let you simply cycle through characters in an attempt to build up wealth.

With the characters being polygon-based, they have done a nice job of allowing different facial features on the characters. You can choose from a wide variety of races. The traditional human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, etc. are here, but they throw in a lizard race, ogres, trolls, and intelligent black "erudites". On the downside, only the erudite is of color - everyone else is a "tan" with fixed hair and body. With Ultima Online, you can fully customize your hair color, length, and style, and skin color.

Classes (or professions) are done in the D&D-2 style instead of the new edition. This means that choosing a certain race limits which classes are available to you. The typical classes of paladin, warrior, wizard, ranger, etc. are available. You can choose from being an axe-wielding dwarf, a elven bowman, a human wizard, or many other combinations. You then customize your various statistics - strenght, charisma, intelligence, etc. to finalize your character.

There can only be one character of a given name in each world, which cuts down greatly on confusion between characters. Where some other gaming systems might have ten "Bilbos" running around, some good and some bad, in EverQuest you are the only character of your name in your server.

You start out in a city that promotes your race and profession. You can talk to the guild leader there, get some initial training for free, and maybe hear about a quest or two. You can start talking to other characters that roam the city, finding where the best lairs of monsters are, or perhaps of other interesting goings-on. Once you practice moving about in the city, it's time to head out into the Real World.

The world of EverQuest is *huge*, and as in most of these on line servers, it can literally take hours to walk across the continents. With the frontal view of EverQuest, you walk amongst the trees, past the shrubs, and see the monsters fly and wander right past you, scaled appropriately to size. The small snakes slither underfoot, while bats fly past your head and larger beasts tower over you. This is one area where EverQuest clearly shines - the immersive quality of exploration is fantastic. You have to learn 'sense heading' as you go. Each time you use any skill, be it swimming, fishing, clothes making, direction finding or fighting, you gain experience and knowledge in that skill.

After killing a few of the vermin of the forest, you gain items and money, which you can trade in for better weapons, armors or spells, and on you go. The beauty of the system is that it is open-ended, and that there are always players to interact with, no matter what your schedule is. If you work third shift or are an early riser, there are players there. If you're a night owl or have a few hours free in the afternoon, there those players are. You can leave your character when you're done, and when you return, your character will be exactly as you left it. The world around you, however, will NOT be - it has been growing and changing in the hours you were away! It's an incredibly dynamic system, constantly changing, with real life people interacting with it.

The ability to learn trade skills (like fishing, or cooking, or clothes making) greatly helps you become 'self supportive' and even create things for other characters. The inventory system has its good and bad points. The graphics are great, letting you see large, 3-dimensional images of the swords, backpacks, spell books, and other items. They are easy to keep track of and use, compared to other on line systems. On the downside, you can only carry 8 types of objects other than what you are wearing. If you get a backpack or sack you can increase this amount, but that is a bit limiting in the beginning.

Highly recommended because of the large number of roleplayers that help populate this world, and because of the high quality first-person graphics. Downsides include the integrated player-vs-player combat, where other systems keep pvp in its own 'area' so those who do not wish to fight players do not have to. Another downside is lack of detailed customization of a character's appearance.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: ...
Review: i been playing everquest for a long time and sov is no better then the first or lulcin verant will still never allow you to make a dime spawns still never drop anything, it used to be fun when they would allow people to make a living but now nothing drops anymore ,or its all no drop you have to go [somewhere else] just to be able to get armor cause verant refeuses to let anybody make any plat or loot and when you do camp something youre sitting there for 10 hours in a group with 6 people and have to roll for it it would be a great game if they would just allow people to actually get armor and gear but they wont and the techinal staff [is bad] but thats just my oppinion of the game

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Love it or hate it, it's still EQ
Review: I happen to like EQ. I've played since August, 1999 and averaged probably 10-15 hours of play a week. I enjoy the social interaction and grouping, as well as soloing.

If you like EQ, you'll love SoV. Once you get past 30th level in EQ, the areas that you can play start getting fewer and fewer, with more and more people contending for them. Kunark added quite a bit of content to the upper level game and that made things better.

SoV adds an enormous amount of content for the 30-60 level player. I happen to like it better than Kunark, but that's just preference. In addition, the quests have become more immersive and require more reliance on trade skills and such to complete. I happen to think that's a good thing, others may disagree.

I've noticed people complaining about the amount of time required to get a character to 30th level. It requires a commitment, to be sure. My 31st level necromancer has 6 days of playing time logged (6x24=144 hours) and that's reasonably fast. However, this is not out of line with other RPG games that I've played -- Baldur's Gate required about 200 hours from me to complete, for example.

It took me 3 months of casual playing to raise that necromancer to 31st level, so I don't think SoV is out of reach at all.

To be succinct: if you like EQ, you'll like SoV. If you hate EQ, then you'll probably hate SoV as well. 30th+ level is not unreachable at all for the casual gamer, and if you're level 30 or more, then SoV is worth buying.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EQ , the land of Norrath!
Review: Let me first of all, tell you how i started playing EverQuest. A good friend of mine played it all the time and i HATED it and was so bored to sit there and watch him play all the time. One day i started a character and that is when i became addicted, and have been playing for almost a year now! You start out at level 1 , you have a huge choice of different classes and races to pick from.Trading items with players and merchants and killing MOBS and gaining levels is so much fun! There is no blood or gore. I enjoyed EQ and its many continents running around to new lands.. err ( zones) and meeting people online from across the world! There is always patches to better the game and it does get better every week! I suggest this game to ANYONE! I was NEVER the gaming type.. i was just a girl who liked TV and boys and make up.. hehehe .. now i play EQ and am so much happier now taht i have found a REAL hobby! As for the Scars of Velious addition to EQ.. BRAVO Verant and Sony! This new continent is for lvls 35 and up! ( although i took my cleric there at lvl 31). It is really..icy there but new creatures and litems to loot and a much better experience.. it isnt as crowded as the other continents and the loot is good and the experience is good! This game i give it a 5 stars for the fact that i hated the game, then tried and completly changed my mind and for its monsters or ( mobs) and for its graphics ( when Shadows of Luclin comes out will be EVEN better)! For everything! It has made me many new friends across the world and brings me to a special place,, EQ is the best!!!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EQ: Scars of Velious: An unequalled high point
Review: Note: This review is ONLY about the "Scars of Velious" add-on to Everquest, and not the game itself.

"Scars of Velious" (referred to as SoV or simply "Velious") is an Everquest expansion for levels 27-65. Unlike other expansions, it does not introduce a new race, a new class, raise the level cap or introduce a lot of special new abilities (although it does introduce a few for melees). Instead, its focus was on content.

Specifically, it covers the frozen lost continent of Velious, home to a race of shipwrecked dwarves from Faydwer (in the original Everquest), trying to survive when faced by hostile giants and ancient dragons. The struggle between these three forces defines the expansion -- if you spend more than an hour here, you're more or less forced to choose sides, and who you fight determines how the other sides view you, which in turn closes off some content and opens up other content, as you become part of the battle for the future of this continent.

The epitome of this struggle are two parallel quests for melees and spellcasters given out by the Coldain dwarves. Each is a multistage quest, and involves you proving your loyalty to the Coldain in their war against the giants. At first, the tasks they assign you are mundane -- deliver this axe to be sharpened, keep my nephew the "great hunter" out of trouble, go deliver some food to the captain of the guard -- but they culminate in skirmishes and even a full fledged war that totally redoes one zone for several hours in a pitched battle (lead by the players) between the giants and dwarves.

Even for players not interested in this content (the ring war in the Great Divide is a high level raid), the expansion offers the best dungeons in EverQuest, amazing new cities, two new planes, high level spells, and a greater concentration of dragons than any other expansion in the game.

While much of EverQuest can, at times, feel like a fantasy version of Quake, Velious lives up to the promise of an online roleplaying game that immerses players in another place and time. Featuring landscapes so chilly, you find yourself putting on a sweater, terrifying enemies, and great acts of heroism, "Scars of Velious" is the peak of the EverQuest experience.

This expansion receives my strongest possible recommendation to all EverQuest players with characters level 27 and up.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Exp
Review: For everyone who has played everquest before, this place is cold! from dragons to dwarfs... icely! I played on sullon zek, and neutral owns it, its peaceful!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the best
Review: EQ is the most fun you can have with a computer game. Patience and social skills required.

Each expansion has proved to be pretty darn cool.


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