Although Ultima Online should rightly be credited with popularising the massively multiplayer online role-playing genre, it is EverQuest that defined it. Sony Online Entertainment seem to have a knack for refining existing concepts; for pushing them beyond what seemed possible, for polishing them to an insane degree of quality and accessibility.

EverQuest II is no exception, and yet it's remarkable that such an old idea can still excite such anticipation, decades after IT students first experimented on university mainframes. After all, it's down to the players to create the story in such games, isn't it? Well, no. Sony are going further than ever to populate and enrich their world to the extent that the game does not rely on the players to fill in the gaps.