I was just looking around Steam when I saw that Everquest has went Free-to-play. I haven't really done that much research to see what they mean by free to play but it seems that you will be able to play a big portion of the game for free. I have never played Everquest myself so I am wondering, is it worth downloading the game and playing it now? Does the free-to-play version provide enough content to give me a good taste of the game? And, is it worth getting into Everquest this late?

I couldn't play this game in 2001 when I tried to getting into it because the graphics were so bad, I can hardly imagine trying it now. From my MMO experience (too much WoW and SWG) you have to put a lot of time into these types of games to get anything out of them, and I don't think free is a valid reason on it's own to invest any amount of time in a MMO. The only MMOs worth considering at this point are World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria , Rift and EVE Online, anything else is nothing more than a novelty.

Well, I just checked in on it after @Marino's EQ blogs got me hungry for EverQuest. You get access to four races (Barbarian, Human, Erudite, and...didn't look at the last), and a minority of the classes available to each race. Everything else requires a payment.

I didn't go past the character creation screen because I just kept yelling "Wow! Really?" at the screen, but as a whole I think the time for the game has passed. Even if I really love everything outside of the actual gameplay still, it's a grind for the most part.

When that song popped up on the loading screen, though, memories just came flooding back. So, eh.

There's a breakdown here: http://everquest.station.sony.com/free

It looks like they're not going the micro-transaction route, which is nice. If nothing else you will have satisfied your curiosity. There are plenty of other free MMOs, though, including EQII.

@Kidavenger: Anything else is a novelty? What? Guild Wars 2 deserves to be mentioned with WoW, EVE, and Rift.

As far as EQ goes, I'm downloading it right now and I am really excited. I played the game a lot about eleven years ago, so I've got tons of nostalgia for it. If you don't have the nostalgia, I'm pretty sure you'll find the experience to be a shitty one. Me, I just can't wait to be in Kelethin again, listening to that music, going to Orc Hill and Crushbone... damn, this is gonna be sweet.

@Kidavenger said:

The only MMOs worth considering at this point are World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria , Rift and EVE Online, anything else is nothing more than a novelty.

What about TERA? I heard good things about the combat and the graphics.

@aquamarin said:

@Kidavenger said:

The only MMOs worth considering at this point are World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria , Rift and EVE Online, anything else is nothing more than a novelty.

What about TERA? I heard good things about the combat and the graphics.

The problem with most of these MMOs is there's so much rinse and repeat you're done after a week. Ultima and eventually WoW were the only two to keep me hooked for any reasonable period of time.

EDITl: I will say, I played rift for a brief period of time and it seems like a really solid MMO.

Well, I think I might give it a go. We will see how long I last! Yeah the graphics and visuals may not look good to me now but hopefully that won't be too much of a distraction...