If it’s old news just disregard it, but it’s new to me and I thought you should know too…
Tuesday 9th April 2002
EVERQUEST BRINGS THE PARTY TO PS2
More massively multiplayer online gaming for Sony\'s console, providing Sony makes its machine online for the multiplayer massive
18:49 First Final Fantasy XI, now EverQuest. PS2 looks ready to go online bananas! And it could be that EverQuest pips Square\'s baby to the post outside of Japan.
Everquest is possibly the World\'s biggest massively multiplayer online RPG (although Ultima fans might argue the point), and now Sony Online Entertainment has announced a PS2-dedicated version of the game, heading to the US for Spring 2003 and called Everquest Online Adventures.
This all-new version of the game is a prequel to the popular PC version, set 500 years before the original game. The world of Norrath will be the same, spanning 360 square miles with a range of environments. The fully-customisable player characters can be constructed from nine races and 13 classes.
Most interestingly, Sony promises EverQuest Online Adventures will be load-time free, with no zones (areas you load up when you reach their boundary) and no lag time among players. All this while running with broadband or a 56k modem. The PS2\'s online add-on, the Network Adapter, is scheduled to hit America this August.
With EverQuest and Square\'s FFXI lined up for PS2, there\'s a big question over which game will be ready to debut with the machine\'s online facilities, although it looks likely EverQuest could be the game of choice and marketing in the US
Sony Europe are, unsurprisingly, a tad more vague. "With no announcement made about either the hard-drive or ethernet connection here, this is very much a US news story," explained a spokesperson. "When an official European announcement is made, we\'ll start talking about what\'s coming out for it." Hopefully it\'ll consider releasing the much-needed keyboard here too, otherwise EverQuest will be a distinctly un-chatty game.
So, Sony would like to teach the World to sword-swing in perfect harmony. All except Europe, who its keeping on tenter-hooks until we pop. Yeah? Well we\'ll just go play Phantasy Star Online on Gamecube instead. Or MSN Messenger.
Tom Guise
