Zones of EverQuest

The Zones of EverQuest are fictional areas within the fantasy EverQuest universe, the setting of the video game EverQuest, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. This setting includes the fictional world of Norrath and its associated locations which are divided into more than 400 "zones". Zones are areas that can be accessed by players, and are connected by "zone lines"; crossing a zone line is called "zoning" (a mechanic that was reduced in the sequel game, EverQuest II) ) and can take anywhere from several seconds to several minutes, depending on the player's computer and connection. Zones are the smallest unit of seamless playable area in the game, and are stored on the player's hard drive. An area such as a city might be comprised of two or three smaller zones (a la Freeport), while a large zone might contain an entire small city and a vast forest (a la Greater Faydark). Zones represent a wide variety of geographical features that can be found in EverQuest, including plains, oceans, cities, deserts, and alternate planes of existence.

To quote IEEE Spectrum author, David Kushner:


 * "Once your character is complete, it's time to venture off into one of EverQuest's dozens of elaborately detailed virtual worlds, which contain whole continents to explore. Within the worlds, there are "burgs" to suit every kind of player—from hack-and-slash arenas where players take on other players to communal hubs for swashbuckling guilds."

With the many expansions for EverQuest released over the years, there is a noticeable difference in the appearance of older zones and newer zones. Newer zones tend to have more advanced graphics and some advanced features such as interactive objects or scripted events with non-player characters. One feature introduced in Lost Dungeons of Norrath is "instanced zones" where a group of players can have an "instance" of the zone all to themselves, and a large number of instances can exist simultaneously.


 * Because EverQuest is constantly being updated by downloadable patches and has currently seen fourteen expansions, categorizations of zones are likely to be out of date or incomplete.

Terminology
'The Old World' is a term used to describe the three original continents of EverQuest from March, 1999; Antonica, Faydwer and Odus. Additional zones have been added to these continents as part of various expansions.

Other zones

 * Monster Graveyard
 * Not truly a zone, the term Monster Graveyard is one used by popular fansites, such as Allakhazam, to list mobs that have been removed from the game.


 * Marauder's Mire
 * A zone that was only available on the now defunct Legends server.


 * Mines of Gloomingdeep (1-10)
 * A zone from the EverQuest tutorial.
 * With the patch from June 29, 2005 the (revamped) tutorial now supports players up to lvl 10 (used to be lvl 5 prior to the patch), although it is technically possible to remain in Gloomingdeep until level 15.


 * Shadowrest
 * A graveyard zone designed to house decayed corpses once they vanish from the zones they died in. After 7 days, players may visit Shadowrest to retrieve them. The zone can be accessed by talking to one of the appropriate NPCs who will transport the player there.


 * Sunset Home (CSHome)
 * The 'new' home zone for EverQuest Customer Service representatives (Guides and GMs), created especially for this purpose after their old home area (the Plane of Sky quest room underneath the first island) was turned into a public space and opened to players. This zone contains many vendors that supply items and equipment needed by GMs and Guides in the course of their work, as well as a number of NPC former Guide/GM Avatars honoring the memory of their former owners who are deceased in real life. This zone is not accessible to players since it has no zone lines (it can only be accessed by teleportation) and the zone data files are not part of the normal EQ installation but must be manually added.