Everquest, you see, is the newest, fanciest multiplayer real-time role-playing game (or "RPG") to hit the Web. Bursting with fancy graphics and mysterious creatures, Everquest hopes to steal the crown from Ultima Online, long the benchmark for massive, networked RPGs. Like most computerized RPGs, Everquest allows tens of thousands of players to simultaneously don swords and spells and roam fantasy lands in search of adventure and conquest, building trade skills and friendships along the way.

Unlike other RPGs, however, Everquest offers a gloriously rendered three-dimensional landscape and a richly complex variety of characters and affiliations. In the RPG community, it is quickly stealing Ultima's thunder, rising up the charts to become one of the top-selling computer games of recent months and spurring gleeful Everquest fans to (perhaps prematurely) predict Ultima Online's demise.

Everquest -- created by 989 Studios and published via Sony's Station Web site -- is built around a fantasy world called Norrath, formed (according to the game's mythology) by jealous gods and feuding warlords. The land of Norrath is populated by elves, trolls, barbarians, humans, gnomes and a host of other creatures that wouldn't surprise any Tolkien reader. Besides the 12 basic characters, which come in male or female versions, you can elect from among 14 classes of occupations (ranging from Bard to Rogue, Wizard to Druid) and 16 religions. The combination affords you special skills and affiliations with other characters -- and means that you can't expect the same behavior from every half-elf you meet. Simply pick a character -- you can create up to eight -- and set off into that rendered sunset for adventure and companionship!

If only it were that easy. For anyone who has spent hours in Ultima Online or played MUDs (multi-user domains) in the early days of the Net -- even those who grew up huddled over Dungeons & Dragons -- Everquest should be familiar territory, albeit more complex and fantastic than most. But computer RPG virgins like me quickly discover that this game is challenging and not for the easily frustrated. Regardless of your personal gaming history, learning Everquest is so time-consuming that you may need to quit your job and commit a few months -- just to figure the damn thing out.

Next page | I try to kill spiderlings and am torn apart by a kobold runt