Reviewed: October 31, 2003
Reviewed by: Aaron Daigle

Publisher
Sony Online Entertainment

Developer
Verant Interactive

Released: September 9, 2003
Genre: MMORPG
Players: Online
ESRB: Teen

9
8
7
9
8.5

System Requirements

The recently shipped EverQuest: Lost Dungeons of Norrath has taken the already popular gameplay formula that has made EverQuest a success in general, and added a classic RPG staple, the dungeon crawl. Along with taking players into the dank, foreboding, mob packed underbelly of Norrath, LDoN’s new content pushes the envelope for what the four year old game engine can produce in terms of visuals and gameplay dynamics.

The Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion is centered around the Wayfarers Brotherhood, a group of NPCs that have taken charge of the newly discovered dungeons. By accepting “adventures” from one of a few Wayfarers camps, your party is given a mission to complete in one of 48 dungeons scattered across the world. Accomplish your goals you will be handsomely rewarded in adventure points and as much primo loot as you can pack. Now, where’s my long sword?

Getting into the meat of the new expansion is pretty simple, go to your character’s home city and you receive a message in your chat window giving you the name and general location of a Wayfarers member in the city. Make contact with this NPC and after you finish talking to him he will give you the names of the Wayfarers that are running the camps in Everfrost, Northern and Southern Ro, Butcherblock, and the East Commons.

Now, in order to actually receive an adventure from one of the Wayfarers camps, you need to have at least a level 20 character but you can have lower level players in your raiding party. Raiding parties can be huge, up to 36 players. Perhaps one of the most pleasing aspects of this expansion is the fact that your party strength is gauged by the game and the adventure you are assigned and the monsters you encounter in the depths will be challenging, but conquerable within the two hour time limit that is placed on all LDoN adventures. If you are feeling a little self destructive you and your party can also opt to undertake a “hard” adventure - with the greater risk also of course come greater rewards. Of course losing people will hurt your chances for success, but if everyone is on their toes you may still be able to pull it off with a slightly depleted party.

Dungeon goals range from assassinating a boss-type NPC to rescuing individuals that are hidden in the depths to killing X-number of NPC mobs. One last note on the rigors of EQ dungeon crawling, all of the dungeons inhabitants only spawn a single time so no camping, the only way to “win” in LDoN is to cut yourself a swath of destruction (looting) and accomplish your goal within the allotted two hours.

Once you make it back to the Wayfarers camp, report in to receive your adventure points for a job well done, you can spend these points here to obtain some rather nifty items. Not to say that there aren’t nifty items in the dungeons themselves, LDoN introduces treasure containers to the world of EQ. They come in a variety of types, you know, barrels, chests, some are locked and trapped and will need to be unlocked and disarmed, others are free for you to bust open for the looting of assorted goodies. Now check out your loot. You may discover that during the fray you obtained some interesting jewels. By examining them you can get your first look at the new augmentation system.

Each of these new jewels is imbued with special properties that will boost your various abilities when they are fitted into the corresponding slots in your weapons and armor. This system is similar to stuff we’ve seen in other games, like the Diablo titles or even Final Fantasy 7 and is really a lot of fun to play with and tweak. I found that a lot, and I mean a lot, of the upper level players seem greatly offended that newbies won’t have to work quite as hard as they did to survive in harsh world of Norrath. I guess that I can sort of understand that, but the overall focus on short term gameplay teamwork and thus the improved accessibility to a greater gaming audience I feel more than compensate for a few slices of digital humble pie served to a select few.

As for the EQ community, like I said before I was pleasantly surprised by the character and generosity of the folks playing EverQuest in general. But boy, do I hate some of the elitist screw-heads I encountered while working on this review. My appraisal of the community in general is still that they are a good bunch, that really like this title and welcome newcomers, but bear in mind, there are a few uber-trash-talking worms in this apple.

The expansion still has all the normal EQ issues, the boggy fame rate when there are a lot of characters on screen, though the draw in problems aren’t super noticeable in the dungeons themselves, which is good because the dungeons are really uber. The layout and general feel of each one is certainly the best I’ve seen in an MMOG to this point.