EverQuest is 20 years old today

[Juryvicious]

My friend had the beta key and gave me his information one weekend to try it out, he was raving about the game, and so my addiction to Everquest had begun. I played on Bristlebane, and I had created a barbarian warrior named Flakster Firkraag. Playing through Everfrost Peaks was an incredible, eye opening experience, and if there is one word I would associate Everquest with, that word would be freedom. Seeing a "wolf" zip by, SOW my group, and then watch him kite Ice Giants was very cool. You could at the time agro ice giants, run them by an area where guards were posted and players could rest in relative safety, the guards would then fight the Ice giants, eventually die, and the players would scatter like mice, or be annihilated.

At the time dial up was king and cable was gaining SOME traction, and playing with people from around the world for a lot of us was new. Though Meridian 59 and Ultima OInline were the first MMORPG's, Everquest was even more popular and almost everyone's first MMO and that helped create, for me and for many, many others, a long lasting, sometimes frustrating, yet incredible one of a kind experience that I haven't been able to duplicate since. At that's ok, we only pop our cherry once.

After The Ruins of Kunark was released my group of friends and I decided to quit the server and transfer to Terris Thule. I had created an Iksar warrior named Jury Vicious (I was a fan of the NY Giants at the time) and for the next 4 years excelled at every level of the game, eventually joining Clan Ta'Veren and competed with Valon in the high end raiding scene.

Can't believe it's been 20 years, salute Everquest!

 

[low-G]

Console guy here.
Honest question: Why did WoW dethrone this game? I remember my brief time with this game in the early 2000s and I had to force myself to stop playing it because I could feel the addiction starting to creep in. I don't allow myself to get addicted to games, but the experience was like nothing I'd ever played to that point. I remember playing WoW a bit later, and I honestly never liked it. There was something about EQ's world that felt more like a world and less like zones to go through were you simply battle and farm stuff.

My PC days are long gone, but this is one of the few games that I still remember fondly. There was a moment that I recall never seeing again in a video game. I remember wanting to rest, and I remember going out of my way to find someplace beautiful to simply relax because EQ was the type of game that would just let you find a green pasture, calmed by the music, and go to sleep.

Also, I remember this awesome follow mechanic that allowed you to simply track a party member and auto-follow him/her which opened up the door for some amazing conversations. The social aspect of that game (and bright daylight colors) were really appealing and captured a world that I enjoyed being in. WoW was never like that.

This is one of those games that I'd consider playing today if it was on a platform that I owned. I just looked at the 20th anniversary trailer and it hit all the right notes.

Click to shrink...

While Everquest was akin to Dark Souls, punishing and demanding on the player in all sorts of skillsets, WoW was the opposite. It was extremely easy to understand, it held your hand all the time, and never punished the player harshly at all. The dungeon design was extremely simplified. Basically, it was dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. It's the same reason Wii sold well. Even the spec requirements were very low in WoW at the time. Everquest 2, on the other hand, required a quite high spec PC at the time to run well at all. Most people literally couldn't even run EQ2 on their PC (required pixel shader 2.0, if I recall correctly).

It really wasn't until around the time of Demon's Souls that any gamers started to reject dumbed down, lowest common denominator type gameplay.

 

[krae_man]

That game really, really had it's hooks in me. Scary how much looking back on it. I played on the PVP server(Rallos Zek?) and one day I had 1000pp on me to buy some kick ass jewelry and someone yellow to me looked at my gear decided "me wantee" and started attacking me. I tried to run because I had SOW on, but they did to so that failed. The whole time my health was draining I was freaking the fuck out. I managed to get both my DOTS on them and a couple of healing spells on myself and they bailed and sent me a message saying "No fair, DOTS are cheating". Now I'm hiding in a corner with like 10% health and no mana left hoping nobody sees the blood in the water.

I'm afraid of what I would have done if I had lost 1000pp and my best piece of gear that day.

 

[Aeana]

One of the other reasons WoW dethroned EQ was that they tried to launch EQ2 at literally the exact same time, so people were comparing those two, and at the time, EQ2 wasn't really that great by comparison.

/pizza

 

[Deleted member 45957]

Console guy here.
Honest question: Why did WoW dethrone this game?

Click to shrink...

When WoW went out, EQ's peak was behind and it was everything that most Everquest players dreamt of : Highly polished game, strong licence and world building with ACTUAL quests, mostly similar PVE mechanics (a few guys at Blizzard being EQ veterans), all packed in a gorgeous game with an excellent art direction (which eventually drifted a lot...).
WoW Vanilla was somewhat a continuation of what EQ was. It became something very different after that, and the EQ model is somewhat lost now.

Edit : Poster above me is also correct : EQ2 was very disapointing.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

One of the other reasons WoW dethroned EQ was that they tried to launch EQ2 at literally the exact same time, so people were comparing those two, and at the time, EQ2 wasn't really that great by comparison.

/pizza

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I bet SOE would have done better keeping EQ subscribers if they just focused on it and didn't release EQ2 at all. EQ2 was a travesty of poor design decisions at launch. Not to mention that no one had the hardware to play it properly.

 

[aliencowz7]

I played on Fennin Ro server, I think what really ended up pushing me towards giving wow a shot eventually was just how demanding the alternate advancement system got, in order to keep up with cutting edge raiding it eventually just wore me down with the time requirements. Having to grind all day all week just to hole up in a raid for 8+ hour sessions became more then I could keep up with even though I loved the hardcore raiding itself a whole lot.

 

[low-G]

2 biggest problems with EQ2 at launch from my perspective:
1) high requirements (I would help out in the game chat room and constantly tell people, "no your video card is enough to even load the game") and
2) there was a lot of apparent downgrades in the scope of the world. Launching with 2 cities when EQ1 launched with how many? 8? And WoW had more too...

 

[Deleted member 9479]

Fennin Ro represent!

It was fantastic and truly awful all at the same time.

 

[Shola Akinnuso]

WoW was much more welcoming to new players. There was grind but not at the level of Everquest.

Click to shrink...

So weird because as a strictly console guy, I always just thought that on boarding stuff was part of the experience and forced you to have a real-life Sherpa to help you play. Maybe it was just the difference between online culture then and now, but I remembering so many people being more than willing to help and guide me around until i was strong enough to go off on my own.

In contrast, my WoW experience was to go into the game, find an NPC, kill 10 stupid things, rinse and repeat until I guess at some point you join a guild? Actually, I don't remember how I started talking to people, but the game certainly didn't incentivize it in a face forward way.

From a console guy's perspective, EQ tossed you into this bright and amazing but dangerous world and you absolutely needed social interaction in order to figure out which way was up. From what i remember, you couldn't even really pull a fight without two people as walking anywhere too far off from the main cities felt dangerous (but encouraged exploration). All of the unknown stuff was cool! Learning the mechanics, etc.

WoW? I guess it was easier to jump in and get playing, but new player experience was so isolating and boring and, frankly, feels like the prototype for what most RPGs are like today.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

Nice to see Fennin Ro peeps in here! So sad to hear the server name got changed a few years back :(.

 

[Sterling's Gold]

I played from around Kunark to Omens I think. No game has ever provided more memorable experiences than EQ1, good and bad. I loved this game.

As much as I kind of miss it though, I'm not sure I could ever really go back to spending hours walking everywhere, hours waiting for groups, hours camping specific spawns, hours doing corpse runs, etc. I get my MMO fix from FFXIV currently, which has almost nothing similar to EQ1, including the fact that it actually respects my time.

Every year I will log into P1999 for like a week, get my nostalgia fix, and move on. I love EQ1, but I think it's probably best left in my memories.

 

[aliencowz7]

Nice to see Fennin Ro peeps in here! So sad to hear the server name got changed a few years back :(.

Click to shrink...

Yeah they merged it into Cazic Thule back in 2010 I think, by that point the community wasnt really the same and the merge didnt help.

We actually have quite alot of fennin ro representation if the old gaf and era EQ threads are anything to go by.

I was a ranger named Roawtman and I had a Cleric named Chiro, bounced around guilds for a while before doing alot of raiding in talons of fire / talons of ferocity.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

Yeah they merged it into Cazic Thule back in 2010 I think, by that point the community wasnt really the same and the merge didnt help.

We actually have quite alot of fennin ro representation if the old gaf and era EQ threads are anything to go by.

I was a ranger named Roawtman and I had a Cleric named Chiro, bounced around guilds for a while before doing alot of raiding in talons of fire / talons of ferocity.

Click to shrink...

I certainly remember the Chiro name!

 

[whiteninja]

Loved playing this back around 2003 or so then quit until last year. Came back and discovered several expansions worth of content to explore. I now got a shadow knight lvl 110 on bristlbane server still having fun. Shadow knight always been my faveorite class.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

Still the best MMO IMO. Thank God for Project 1999.

Game changed my life.

Logging into P1999 once in awhile is like going home.

Fact: Never maxed out a character. Mainly because I had an alt for like every class.

Fuck I miss having the time and the will to play EQ like I did back at the beginning.

Never forget when it was all new. Amazing amazing time.

 

[djplaeskool]

Ah yes.
Between this and PSO, I almost didn't make it out of college. lol

 

[Erevador]

Remember when there used to be moral panics about people getting addicted to Everquest, or "Evercrack"?

An elegant MMO, for a more civilized age.

 

[Alavard]

"I will deliver mail to kelethin"

So many memories.

"TRAIN TO ZONE, TRAIN TO ZONE!!!"

 

[Hippopuncher12]

What a game. Still have vivid as hell memories from everything back then. I ended up playing WoW for far far longer but nothing will ever compare to those years playing EQ, shit was amazing. Started during Kunark and played until I think Lost Dungeons. I still keep it installed and sometimes load up my character and walk around Qeynos or Blackburrow. Played on Brell Serilis myself.

Shit I might actually check out the 20 year stuff going on in the game, although it's so hard to play these days if you aren't used to the UI.

 

[Qwark]

I wish Everquest Next (or whatever it was called) didn't completely fall apart. I was always interested in playing EQ, but didn't have decent internet to play it at the time.

 

[vermadas]

Have a few posts in EQ nostalgia threads at the old place. I spent far too many hours in that game.

Played a cleric on Fennin Ro vanilla through early Velious.
Played a shadow knight on Zebuxoruk/Xegony Planes of Power through Dragons of Norrath.

Also, count me as another EQ vet who loves the Souls series.

 

[bounchfx]

But I played on Rallos Zek, the open PVP server, and being a PK provided some of the best thrills you can get from a game. The PVP mechanics themselves weren't all that great, but the stakes involved really elevated it - you could loot one piece of equipment from a victim, or vice versa if you got killed.

Click to shrink...

Also played on RZ. Despite playing EQ, it's actually rather hard to relate to anyone who played on a bluebie server since the experience was so different. Felt like a different game really. Absolutely loved it and probably my greatest gaming experience.

 

[Paganmoon]

"TRAIN TO ZONE, TRAIN TO ZONE!!!"

Click to shrink...

ahh, such memories :D

Also, video of us (Ancient Dawn) killing Rathe Council on Vallon Zek, can't recall if it was server first or second (Defiant might have gotten server first on this one), must've been 3 hours long fight in total:

 

[Pilgrimzero]

It's sad to go to EQ Live and see all the old stomping grounds abandoned.

Fave expansion: Veliois. Look amazing and Coldain Dwarves still hold a special place in my heart. Their city was amazing.

The best thing though back then was the community. You were forced to be social. And it even extended onto the Internet because you would look up player made maps! And guides to do quests.

 

[Iadien]

So weird because as a strictly console guy, I always just thought that on boarding stuff was part of the experience and forced you to have a real-life Sherpa to help you play. Maybe it was just the difference between online culture then and now, but I remembering so many people being more than willing to help and guide me around until i was strong enough to go off on my own.

In contrast, my WoW experience was to go into the game, find an NPC, kill 10 stupid things, rinse and repeat until I guess at some point you join a guild? Actually, I don't remember how I started talking to people, but the game certainly didn't incentivize it in a face forward way.

From a console guy's perspective, EQ tossed you into this bright and amazing but dangerous world and you absolutely needed social interaction in order to figure out which way was up. From what i remember, you couldn't even really pull a fight without two people as walking anywhere too far off from the main cities felt dangerous (but encouraged exploration). All of the unknown stuff was cool! Learning the mechanics, etc.

WoW? I guess it was easier to jump in and get playing, but new player experience was so isolating and boring and, frankly, feels like the prototype for what most RPGs are like today.

Click to shrink...

The socializing aspect was a huge part of what made EQ memorable for myself and I would assume most people that played it. EQ pushed players toward interacting in a number of ways such as class design and all the different spells and skills, mob difficulty, nearly every piece of loot being tradeable/crafting, no auction house, non instanced dungeons, trains, corpse runs, meaningful faction system, etc. Most of these things have been removed or dumbed down from MMOs since WoW launched.

 

[Avitus]

Miss this game dearly. WoW had the much slicker presentation but there was something about EQ that really sucked me in. The cities felt unique and you had to actually travel from place to place. The number of races and classes was also great.

Nothing quite like walking around Freeport.

 

[gilko79]

EQ was my first MMO experience back in college. I played it off and on for a few years (the same with EQ2). It was a good experience and really catapulted my obsession with the genre.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

After The Ruins of Kunark was released my group of friends and I decided to quit the server and transfer to Terris Thule. I had created an Iksar warrior named Jury Vicious (I was a fan of the NY Giants at the time) and for the next 4 years excelled at every level of the game, eventually joining Clan Ta'Veren and competed with Valon in the high end raiding scene.

Can't believe it's been 20 years, salute Everquest!

Click to shrink...

I don't really post here anymore, but I had to reply to this one. I was an awkward, worthless, overstressed rogue named Sharpie on Terris about 18 years ago. Loved the game more than sleeping, and I tended to be a real asshole unfortunately because of it. I remember seeing you around for years, and one of my RL friends ended up in CTV near the launch of WoW. I lingered in Dawntreaders for a while myself, but we basically only existed for people to join us, get a couple pieces of gear, and then apply to ya'll or Valon. It's pretty amazing to come across a familiar name after all these years. It sure is a small world sometimes.

 

[CurseVox]

I'll never forget those epic gnoll trains. lol. Great game back in the day.

 

[bear force one]

I put yes is tried it but I didn't stay very long because my PC was utter crap back then and it was a slideshow.

It killed me not playing it but I jumped in hard when aworld of Warcraft hit.

 

[Deleted member 18400]

One of the most magical gaming experiences I've ever had. This game blew my middle school mind out the back of my head. The login music still haunts my dreams to this day lol.

Also, no game has ever inspired the fear in me, that the words "TRAIN TO ZONE" did while hanging out in Karnors Castle. Sheer panic.

 

[Einbroch]

Makes me cry every time.

 

[Var]

Played for a couple years, quit, and then came back when the Sleeper/Combine servers launched. I ended up playing nonstop until the Underfoot expansion. Awesome game.

 

[Damaniel]

I blame at the loss of at least 0.5 of my GPA points in college from playing EQ near full-time when it first came out.

I don't regret a minute of it, and no MMO since (and I've played a lot of them) has ever captured the feeling of playing EQ for the first time.

 

[Romir]

I remember being in Greater Faydark when news of Columbine reached the zone chat.

 

[Zeshae]

Aw memories! So many memories! I went down a rabbit hole yesterday thinking of all the old mmo games I used to play.

Was part of a RP guild on Fennin Ro! So fun!

 

[MDSVeritas]

It's a truly legendary game. Played it less than 2 weeks ago and it's still a blast.

 

[Einbroch]

Pantheon is coming along surprisingly well.

It had an incredibly rocky start, but every update shows more and more that it may be the true successor to EverQuest.

 

[Vilam]

This game had a ridiculous impact on my life. Friends, opportunities...

So many fond memories. Definitely my all time #1 favorite game. It's impossible to ever experience something like your first time in EQ back in 1999 again.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

I've never played it, but what I do know is that the iconic art was done by a guy called Keith Parkinson, a terrific fantasy artist with a really old school style. He sadly passed away from Leukemia in 2005.

He also did this piece for Diablo 2

 

[Phediuk]

Feels older tbqh.

This is the only gaming anniversary I'v seen lately that's made me think, "wait, that's it?" rather than "holy fuck I'm old".

 

[TrashHeap64]

Probably the most nostalgic game for me. I didn't even play it properly. My brother and I would just run around and explore the world but I still remember so much.
I still go on Project99 every now and then just to run around to feel nostalgic. Shame that they went and remade a bunch of zones in the retail game.

 

[Finaj]

They're still making content for this thing! The most recent expansion was released in December 2018.

 

[Aeana]

They're still making content for this thing! The most recent expansion was released in December 2018.

Click to shrink...

It's really daunting trying to go back. I stopped playing after Kunark and returning today makes me feel extremely lost. I don't even know where to start.

 

[jakeh111]

The reason why WoW dethroned almost every MMO in that era: it offered, for that time, man QoL features and streamlined the MMO experience and was highly polished, especially for new players; they offered a better learning curve. The user interface was the best of its kind back then. I remember the Dark Age of Camelot times when there weren't any damage numbers popping up over the enemy's head and you had to read them in a text/chat box (I'm not sure, but I think WoW also was the first offering different kind of markers for different kind of quests, golden and silver exclamation marks; I could be wrong here, though.) But there was definitely no such thing in Neocron, for example, which eventually died because of WoW). There was also no death penalty until lvl 10 IIRC, while in other MMOs you would loose your gear or a shitload of experience. Also, there was a lot of solo content. Than of course there was the already established Warcraft universe with lots of fans and the name Blizzard behind the game.

I wasn't particularly fond of this game and I'm still not, but I recognise and respect the effort behind the game and the impact it had (and still has to some point) on the MMO genre.

Click to shrink...

Screw EQ and WoW let's talk about Neocron. I fucking loved that game and don't find many people talking about it.

 

[djplaeskool]

I'll never forget those epic gnoll trains. lol. Great game back in the day.

Click to shrink...

It's the GNOOOOOOOOOOOLL TRAAAAAIN

Ah, good ol' Blackburrow.

 

[Effect]

First started playing after Ruins of Kunark came out after being talked into it by some friends in high school and that was my dive into mmorpgs. I played for a long time off and one until around Gates of Discord released. Then I switched over to Everquest 2 completely while playing Dark Age of Camelot. I had a LOT of fun in this game, a lot great memories. I'm not in contact with anyone from any guilds I was apart of unfortunately. My original characters are long since gone as well which is disappointing. I was originally on Fennin Ro and due to server merges, maybe my account was hacked (I'm not sure) but I was never able to get them back. I've tried playing again off and on in recent years but it wasn't the same.

I have reinstalled the game recently just because I want to see the world again in case the game finally ends sooner rather then later. I still hate Holly Windstalker.

 

[Sanctuary]

I played it from Jan 2001 - Sept 2004, but then of course WoW came out. Ended up playing that from Nov 2004 - Aug 2010. I had a love/hate relationship with both games too. They showed me that bad luck is very much a real thing. I literally spent over 60 hours in Hand Camp (non consecutive) before the Pawbuster spawned, and was told that I was "doing it wrong", but that wasn't the case. I would also consistently roll second highest for hours upon hours in random groups and would continually see people winning items I needed who had only been there for an hour, sometimes much less. It was even worse in WoW. Sometimes I went multiple weeks in a row on bosses we had on farm without seeing any upgrades, while many other guilds who were only on their first or second kills were seeing multiple copies.

Had good times in both, but I can't see myself investing such so much time in an MMORPG again, especially after my last WoW guild. Played with many of the same people across five years, and I didn't feel like starting over at ground zero again. Too much effort, and I don't have a high tolerance for bad leadership either, so there was only one option for me since I couldn't just casually play it.

 

[ShiftyRat]

So it turns out I still have some of my old screenshots saved.

I also still have the OG strategy guide. I used to take it to school every day and re-read the lore in between classes.