Overview
EverQuest is a US based MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) and was one of the first to develop the market now populated by games such as World of Warcraft and Guildwars.
When you first enter the game you have to create a character who will be your persona in the game world. This character can be one of 16 races and 16 classes (though not all races can be all classes) and each race has a limited set of options for customisation, from eye color and hair style to furr (Vah Shir) and horn patterns (Iksar). Your class determines the abilities you will gain and the skills you will learn (and to what level you may progress with them); a cleric obtains spells to heal themselves and others while warriors learn how to handle different melee weapons and absorb damage from others and so on.
Once you have created your character (and assuming you choose not to take the tutorial) you will begin play in the home city of your race with a few supplies and a weapon, along with a note for a computer controlled guild master who will be located nearby. This note gives you entry into the appropriate guild of your class (i.e. The Temple of Life for a Human Cleric) and will be the source of your first quest and a new piece of equipment (usually a tunic of some kind).
As you complete tasks (usually collect this item or kill that monster) you will gain experience and may receive rewards (such as a new weapon). When you have done enough quests and killed enough monsters you will reach the total experience required to increase your level (referred to as a Ding). At this point you will be able to scribe (add to your spell book) spells and learn any skills available for your new level. In addition your character will be able to advance a little further in their skills and be awarded extra hit points (hit points are temporarily lost when you are hit by a monster and you die if they reach zero).
There are a total of 75 levels to advance through with an additional method of advancement known as AAs ("Alternate Advancement"). As previously mentioned any quests you do and monsters you kill result in experience points and when you reach the 51st level a percentage of these experience points can be allocated towards Alternate Advancement. In AAs as with levels, once you reach a pre-determined total number of experience points you will Ding and gain one AA (Alternate Advancement point). These AAs can then be spent on special abilities and enhancements for your character, the specifics of which are determined by your class.
It is possible for all classes to reach the highest level alone but EverQuest is an online game that places you in a world with hundreds of other players and is designed from the ground-up to support co-operative play. You can team up with others players to help them complete quests and defeat monsters, some of which may require more than a single party (a party is a group of 6 characters). Experience points gained from defeating monsters while in a party is shared between the party members and while in a raid (multiple parties) will be shared between all the raiders.
After some period of time getting familiar with the game many players will seek to join a player run organisation known as a guild, through this players will meet up to play together in groups and raids and complete quests that require more than one player. The aim of a player run guild can be as simple as providing the facility for like-minded people to chat and play together or to progress through certain stages of the game to further their characters advancement and obtain more powerful items.