10 ms·

EverQuest

281 points by dmazin 1y ago

mike1o1 1y ago
I absolutely loved EverQuest and it’s still probably holds some of my fondest gaming memories. My favorite feeling about it is that it felt like a real world first, gameplay second. It had a real sense of danger and wonder that I think will be almost impossible to recreate. Going from Qeynos to Freeport, or crossing the ocean on a boat felt absolutely epic and dangerous. It was wonderful, but not something I would want to play today now that I have real life obligations.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  Totally, me and my friend used to share an EQ account in school. His parents paid for it so he got to play during the day, and I would play at night from midnight until 6am, then I'd go to school. It was profoundly unhealthy, which is why that game earned the name "Evercrack". Last weekend I played a beta game called "Monsters and Memories" that's trying to be an EQ clone, and it's very faithful in that it's carried forward all the terrible parts of EQ. Just the amount of sitting around waiting that you have to do in EQ that I had forgotten about is incredible. Managing your water and food levels, having to go find your corpse when you die and it taking 5 hours just to get there, pitch black nights so you're forced to walk around with a lantern, camping a spawn with 100 other people trying to get the same items as you to complete the same inane quests, broken quests that you can't even complete to progress the game forward... And yeah, one weekend was enough. I got real shit to do, I have time for nonsense, but not THAT kind of time.
  - daeken 1y ago
    There's a musician named Richie Truxillo who made so many comedy songs about EQ back in the day, but your comment just reminded me of "Has Anybody Seen My Corpse." I haven't thought about corpse runs and dragging folks' corpses back to them in ages!
    - Tokumei-no-hito 1y ago
      ohh if i had a million platinummmm wow that's a memory i had lost for many years. thanks
  - michaelmrose 1y ago
    Your perception of time is profoundly different when you are a kid with no job. Painful death makes you try hard to avoid it ensuring real stakes.
    - nkrisc 1y ago
      It makes it more realistic. At this age, it would mean I just quit the game - like my character died for real!
  - djtango 1y ago
    For me it feels like it was the perfect storm of games like this releasing at a time when a generation of gamers' attentions weren't saturated. I didn't play EQ but on FFXI airships ran on a 15min schedule and if you missed it you would have to sit and wait, not dissimilar to real life. This kind of friction added a charm and immersion to the game but would never fly in a game today [pardon the pun]. Nowadays a lot of the enjoyment I seek out of games is mechanical difficulty and adrenaline because most the other aspects can be fulfilled away from the screen...
- thegrim33 1y ago
  It was also at the perfect moment in time where you couldn't just pull up the game's wiki on a second monitor and have fully detailed maps and quest details on hand. You actually had to learn things for yourself by exploration and trial and error. You had to learn things from other people by talking to them in game. In my mind back then, I was in awe of people that even had the knowledge of how to get across certain zones safely. You know it took effort/skill for them to gain that knowledge. You couldn't just look it up. I've been thinking how you could possibly replicate a similar thing nowadays, but unless the world constantly randomly changes over time, rendering any created guides/maps/etc moot, I think that window has closed.
  - dmbche 1y ago
    You should look at Noita!
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      Noita is the last thing that comment suggests he wants. Most of Noita's content can only be learned by consulting the wiki, which I assume is an intentional legacy of the designers' love of Nethack. And the world is the same every time.
      - duskwuff 1y ago
        > And the world is the same every time. The overall layout (e.g. the progression of zones) and some set pieces are fixed, but the details are randomized. Fun fact: the overall layout is configured by a PNG file, with the color of each pixel controlling which "biome" is used.
      - dmbche 1y ago
        I dont know it's the last thing he wants. I feel like the same "most" of the content which lives on the wiki is very secondary to the gameloop and that the designers did a wonderful job at not letting the player optimize the fun out of the game. The game teaches you nothing and is very cryptic, but the gameloop is simple (go down, don't die). You naturally learn how the sandbox interact (i'm on fire but I have a water flask, water clear up sludge) and the randomized (and shuffle) wands expose you to spell interactions. You can easily spend multi hundred hours just learning through the sandbox and trying to break the game. The cryptic stuff (34 orbs, impressing the gods, the messages) is also very cool and I think motivating to keep playing with the sandbox even after having "mastered" the mechanics of the game. (As in you never know what you could manage to find if you try to break the game) I don't think people play noita with a guide on a second monitor. Sorry if poorly worded, tired
- jghn 1y ago
  I hated EQ for me the reason was it was not UO nor was it even trying to recreate the vibrancy & real world that UO's designers had gone for. *BUT* I also recognized that EQ represented a game that was much more aligned to what a normal gamer would want, one could already see that path being forged in UO as time went on. And then of course WoW came along and perfected the art. I still lament how UO played out. It quickly became apparent that most players binned into one of two categories, and neither category really fit in with the original UO vision. And of course, one of those two categories drove away the customers in the second category. The rest is history.
  - CSMastermind 1y ago
    UO had such a huge influence on me. It was amazing.
    - whatwhaaaaat 1y ago
      Both of these games are still going. Atlantic has a huge player base. It’s not the cutthroat game it once was but it’s still very much exciting. You can still die and all your shit poof. Housing on Atlantic is still in demand and hard to get if that gives an idea how healthy it is. Eq has of course had some major server merges but your old account will still be on both UO and EQ. To me UO is a breath of fresh air after 20 years of trash games except for a stand out few. Seeing my old wood elf ranger with swift wind and lupine dagger still glowing was magical. Almost as magical as re-exploring kelethin.
      - jghn 1y ago
        Not only is it still going but it's possible to dust off your ancient account. An old guild mate reported that he had recovered his account originally closed ~2000. Sadly, of the two accounts I had back in the day the only one still recoverable was my alt/mule account. My original account was one of the, well, original accounts from opening day, so it's a shame it was lost. But still, it was fun to run around with one of my guys for a couple of hours. One thing I thought was cool was there had been some custom content involving my guild added near the bank where my guild hung out. It was still there, all these years later!
- blueblimp 1y ago
  The inter-city travel was my favorite part of EverQuest. (The rest of the game, I didn't find too interesting.) The level of challenge was about right: if you looked at maps and planned your route, you could generally get to where you wanted to go, but it was hazardous. I wonder if there's a game that focuses on that sort of travel experience.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    Depending on what you do and how you play, Eve Online has a harrowing navigation system.
    - smogcutter 1y ago
      And part of the joy of Eve Online is that if you want, you can be a reason travel is dangerous.
  - michaelbarton 1y ago
    Perhaps death stranding and its sequel might be the closest?
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    As another commenter pointed out, Death Stranding focuses on the travel experience, where you have to plan your route according to how much 'effort' and risk you want to take. Back when there was Morrowind, which didn't have map markers and whose in-game map had to slowly be uncovered. You get a description and that's it. The game did come with a paper map, which was stuck to my wall for years and frequently consulted. A modern one would be Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2; when you turn on hardcore mode (which was only added after release, but the game was designed with it in mind), you don't get your position on the map, compass, or map markers; every quest involving a location has the NPCs give you a description (and at least in normal mode, your character making a remark when you've reached a landmark). It's not so much about planning your route though.
- reactordev 1y ago
  My first memory of EverQuest was leaving the tutorial quest, running along a road at night, and being eaten by a lion. I had no idea what I was doing but I was hooked on figuring out.
  - kwk1 1y ago
    For me, I made a high elf, didn't know page up/page down were needed to control swimming, and died in the water by the bridge leaving Felwithe, I didn't even get beyond the city gate.
  - djtango 1y ago
    Based on my experiences playing FFXIV, there's an entire generation of gamers now that get completely despirited by experiences like that and give up on the first sign of a wipe, even though these days there's no penalty for even dying...
    - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
      IX is probably the most accessible "traditional" MMO there is, but it's still very intimidating because it throws a lot of information and a complex UI at you right away. If you've never played an MMO before, it's a lot.
    - reactordev 1y ago
      And then there’s Dark Souls and Elden Ring… I think you are generalizing on a stereotype. Gamers love experiences. If you give them enough to know there’s more beyond the wipe, they will keep wiping.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 1y ago
  Oh my, that long journey is one of my fondest memories of the game as well. Absolutely terrifying as a low level with barely any information on how to pull it off, having to ask strangers for help. The fear of losing all of your stuff on the way and having to run all the way back. Magical. I was just a humble human paladin on the Mithaniel Marr server. I agree with everybody else commenting here, it was a truly unique experience that I would love to be able to re-live, but our expectations as players have moved on a long while back, you can no longer capture that magic because it's now all rote and routine. In 1999 it was the first time many of us had ever experienced anything like it, it flooded the senses and it felt like a world full of interesting people and epic adventures. It was the frontier at the time.
- mixxit 1y ago
  i remember doing the staff of the wheel quest as a newbie level 16 wizard who had barely seen any of the world i met so many people who helped me get into some really scary places (lguk at 16 is terrifying) as i wondered in all sorts of climates and places, what a fantastic place! looking back the world felt so different and huge and alive with life i will never get that experience again
- markbnj 1y ago
  > crossing the ocean on a boat felt absolutely epic and dangerous Given the way death was implemented ("LFG @ EC tunnel for a corpse run to Guk!") and the fact that you could fall off the ships in the middle of the ocean when the game lagged, it _was_ epic and dangerous. I remember the first time it happened to me and players in public chat coached me through a 20 or 30 minute swim to get my wizard and stuff to an island with a portal.
eatonphil 1y ago
I guess I'm a little younger. For me it was Runescape and Maplestory. Played heavily in the summers from 2007-2009.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  I played Runescape back when it was just Falador and Varrock, and it all started because I saw a kid at the public library playing it. And not long after that I was waking up at 2am to mine or grind some skill before I had to go to football practice at 5:30am. I wonder what kind of permanent damage that did.
dgfitz 1y ago
My only nit to pick with this article is their definition of PvE. They said it stands for “player vs enemy” where I’ve always heard it defined as “player vs environment” where environment explicitly means not-other-players.
- tzs 1y ago
  Player vs environment is indeed the normal definition of PvE [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_versus_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_versus_environment
daeken 1y ago
I can nearly single-handedly credit EverQuest with my career. I got my start in the ShowEQ and eqemu sphere, first building little PHP apps to manage servers and such, then reverse-engineering -- I learned x86 and then C++ all to get the lifts in Kelethin working. Hell, nearly 25 years later, any time I work on some new graphics API or game engine, I end up writing an EverQuest zone renderer. Not my favorite game of all time, but certainly the one with the biggest impact! Edit to add: also, huge props to that community for both humbling me and teaching me more than I could've imagined. Went from a dumbass 13 year old saying "ROT13? Isn't that some unbreakable encryption?" In the ShowEQ IRC channel because she couldn't imagine saying she didn't know something, to a competent reverse-engineer. I cannot imagine how insufferable I was haha.
- akerl_ 1y ago
  Likewise. My first introduction to scripting was automating EverQuest. I learned the basics of path resolution writing a script to grind misty thicket picnics. I wrote my own HUD-style UI overlay to replace most of the default windows. And I learned about pointers and disassembly and jumps disassembling hack plugins from shady sites.
- Bluecobra 1y ago
  I credit ShowEQ with learning Linux and getting everything to work correctly. I remember absolutely trashing my PC a few years earlier trying to install Debian from a Boot magazine CD. Glad I didn’t break my monitor with bad XFree86 settings.
- jcon321 1y ago
  Same, mq2 macros was my first programming language at 13
numinix 1y ago
> Gijsbert van der Wal’s famous 2014 photograph of Dutch teenagers ignoring a Rembrandt masterpiece in favor of staring at their phones has become for many psychologists, social theorists, and concerned ordinary folks a portrait of our current Age of Digital Addiction in a nutshell. While a great photo, to me it looks like the kids are just doing some kind of school / field trip assignment.
- aprilthird2021 1y ago
  It could be anything, but it resonates with people for a very good reason. Many people feel the negatives of technology and social media and miss the time before it. I know how sentiment will skew here, and I know it's easy to take for granted the advantages of having a fully capable pocket computer. But I also understand what we have given up for it.
  - dcminter 1y ago
    A similar example I've seen is a photo of a British railway carriage full of commuters staring glumly at their phones. It makes me laugh because we all just used to stare glumly at our newspapers! It's not like we were discussing philosophy or something...
    - aprilthird2021 1y ago
      Sure, again, there is a reason these things resonate with people. They aren't mad that people aren't communicating with each other. They are reflecting on their own smartphone consumption and feeling that it had substantial negative effects. Something virtually no people feel about newspapers
      - krageon 1y ago
        Every generation that had that big new thing had an enormous group claiming it was terrible and would destroy everything. Smartphones are worse because corporations are allowed to be more evil while receiving more praise (and in that axis everything is worse). Don't scapegoat the platform here. If all we had was newspapers today they'd fuck you in very similar ways. Some executive would make sure of it.
michaelmrose 1y ago
I've got fond memories of Rallos Zek where I spent way too many hours and met my wife.
rudimentary_phy 1y ago
I loved EverQuest. I still have some great memories of it. My friends and I still go back to playing it every once in a while. EverQuest also gave me some fantastic typing skills (from having to type in a significant amount of things for activating quests and for chatting) that have turned out to be well worth all the time I invested.
spacecadet 1y ago
Oh EverQuest... funny to see this even posted here. I still occasionally log into P99 for a few hours here and there to play around at the low levels. 1 to around 24-30 is peak MMOPRG before it slows down and turns into that raid grind...
- galangalalgol 1y ago
  Yeah, I never understood why that was necessary. I get diminishing rewards as an addiction mechanic, but they all switch gameplay dramatically from adventure and exploration (and combat) quest based character growth to raid fueled gear treadmills. Some people live for the latter it seems like? But there were never any that focused on character growth all the way. It wasn't like they weren't adding content continuously anyway. It would have been possible. Or turn it rogue alike with top levels earning benefits or unlocking other options for additional playthroughs. With the number of mmorpgs made one of them would have tried it if it would jave worked I guess?
  - peripitea 1y ago
    Eventually some of your players explore everything there is to be explored, and you need something more involved to keep them occupied.
- kwk1 1y ago
  Yeah, people should know that https://project1999.com/ https://project1999.com/ exists.
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    Doesn't hit the same when you're over 30.
    - kwk1 1y ago
      Sadly not. This EQ server in a box is more my speed these days, hah: https://github.com/Akkadius/akk-stack https://github.com/Akkadius/akk-stack
deleted 1y ago
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amelius 1y ago
I like how natural the woman in the opening picture looks. Kind of refreshing compared to all those literally overblown body parts in modern day game graphics.
lordnacho 1y ago
Everquest was my first warning about game addiction. Every teenage kid by the year 2000 had spent too much time in front of a game, of course. But not like this. I was sitting with a friend of mine at a computer café. This was more prevalent at the time, since a capable computer with all the modern games on it was still somewhat pricey. So my friend starts taking to our side guy, who is playing EQ. Nice fellow. "Hey guys, I gotta stop playing. Been here 24h straight. If I don't go to work they'll fire me." My friend and I leave for the night. My friend comes back to the café one night later. Our buddy is there, in the same seat. "Shit dude, they fired me. I haven't been able to get up and go to work. This game, man." "Sorry to hear it, what was your work?" "I'm an attendant at a computer café." "WTF, which one? Why didn't you just sit there and play?" "The one across the street. Because I couldn't stop."
- no_wizard 1y ago
  Game addiction hits the same part of the brain as gambling does. In fact, it’s my understanding that gambling addicts and video game addicts have nearly identical similarities in terms of how the addiction progresses and “sets in” as it where. As an aside, and really I am sorry for this tangent, and I have no issue believing any of this, but this comment somehow feels LLM (ChatGPT) generated to me and I can’t put my finger on it, as I like to default to being wrong about such things. I know it’s an aside but it has become such a big issue on many forums now. Sorry for the tangent!
  - lordnacho 1y ago
    Fully human generated, but thanks.
  - jimbob45 1y ago
    Game addiction isn’t the same anymore. Games used to be primarily about telling stories, establishing atmosphere, and fulfilling fantastic roles. The writers and designers of yesteryear had centuries of unexploited sci-fi to draw from. Designers today don’t have that mountain of material to pull from, not just because no one reads anymore.
- 1y ago
big_toast 1y ago
Is it a coincidence that this shows up as John Smedley launches a new MMO (yesterday)? As much as I loved EverQuest, it has informed my view that the world is full of addictive substances. And most people probably need a disinterested third party who loves them and helps them manage the addiction. Until they build their own defenses.
j_timberlake 1y ago
In this game, there was a city where I did so many quests for the guards that my reputation with the "corrupt guards" fell low enough that they would kill me on sight. Playing a good-guy character got me killed, and then I couldn't play anymore in the city where I'd spent most of my gametime. I would have been angry at the unfairness, but it was such a unique quirk to see in a game, and I've never seen it replicated anywhere.
- davedx 1y ago
  World of Warcraft had this in Booty Bay. There was a hilarious achievement where you first got your reputation to max with the Booty Bay guards by killing the nearby pirates, then the other half was to kill the guards until the Bloodsail Buccaneers faction exalted you; a 2.5x reputation grind that took weeks. And when you were done you couldn’t enter Booty Bay anymore because the guards killed you on sight. The things we do…
  - jmyeet 1y ago
    Insane in the membrane [1]. Nowadays it probably takes 20 hours if you really grind. Repairing rep on the pirates was soul-destroying but so was getting all those lockboxes for Ravenholdt rep. [1]: https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2336/insane-in-the-membrane https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2336/insane-in-the-membr...
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    This randomly reminded me of when I grinded dwarf reputation in World of Warcraft so that at level 40, I was the only human riding a goat/ram (dwarf mount) instead of the horse. I remember killing endless crocodiles in STV so I could turn in their heavy leather I think during the event where the realm works together to open the AQ gate. I'll see a 13yo gardener here in Mexico and wish he could be doing that instead of working. :(
  - LeonenTheDK 1y ago
    I haven't played retail in the last few years so I'm not sure if that rep has changed, but on my main I never bothered to regain the Booty Bay rep and was still KOS to them. Hilarious.
azretd 1y ago
Early EverQuest required groups to progress because trash mobs were hard, the environment was vast, dungeons had traps, there was no auction house and players hung out in tunnels shouting their wares. 26 years later, the nostalgia hits me every so often and I spin up Project Quarm or Project 1999 where it still plays the same, and it’s fun for awhile but I’m not enjoying it as much as I enjoyed the memories. I enjoy the luxuries afforded by modern games, with three kids and a busy job, I wonder how anyone found the time to play as long as EverQuest required.
- bpicolo 1y ago
  > players hung out in tunnels shouting their wares. The Luclin bazaar from EQ is still one of the coolest/most unique game features I have ever seen. Park your character to open up a shop with selected items from your inventory. Browse everybody's wares by walking around and clicking them to see their shops!
  - Foobar8568 1y ago
    It was still great, pointless city but within the main hub. Lineage2 would allow players to sit in any towns in a similar way.
- Bluecobra 1y ago
  Oh man those tunnels. I remember a tunnel scam where a seller would close the trade window and quickly reopen it with a lesser item that used the same icon. Not sure if the GMs did anything about it but I always made sure to carefully inspect the item I was buying.
cubefox 1y ago
The box art by Keith Parkinson is a classic: https://www.keithparkinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EQ.jpg https://www.keithparkinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EQ... This seems to be entirely hand drawn (acrylic painting?) with a lot of skill. A Google Image search for "Keith Parkinson" shows more of his great paintings. Unfortunately he died in 2005.
socalgal2 1y ago
I never played because I saw my friends get addicted. I'm not judging that as "bad". People are free to spend their lives however they want. But, ... just to pass on... My friends had a company. Then they got into EverQuest. I don't know what percent of "work time" they spent playing. Maybe zero. But, they would stay at the office after work to play. I visited one day and saw playtime in the corner of the screen of one friend at ~36 days. My first thought was "what could they have done with over 5 months of "work time". If you work 40 hours a week then 36 days of game time = 846hrs = 21.6 weeks = ~5 months or work. Note: I use tons of time in my own life in ways that others would not (like spending time on HN) so again, not judging, just obsverving, though I often wish I did more productive things that would / would have lead to more future freedom. In any case, one of those friends encouraged me to give it a try saying it reminded them of when we used to play D&D in high-school. That friend had also spent time becoming a fletcher (maker of arrows). If I understand correctly, the ability to make bows and arrows from materials was a skill. You gathered the materials, then picked "make" and you had a random and relatively low chance of succeeding. If you did succeed though, your "skill" at making bows and arrows increased. Once you passed some threshold you could always succeed. This made you a "fletcher" and people who needed bows and arrows would seek you out to buy them from you. I thought it was amazing that my friend effectively had a 2nd job. I'm guessing that's common a game mechanic in games since then? Another of those friends also played at home on top of at the office even though they had a spouse and 3 kids under 10. After a while, their spouse demanded they stop. They visibly deleted their character but then made a new one back at work and of course all the "overtime" for the last several months had actually been "game time". 3 months later the spouse found out and said "quit or I'm leaving". My friend quit. When World of Warcraft came out and blew past EverQuest in its reach that friend told me if I wanted to check it out be sure not to make any friends or join any guilds. They said it's the social obligation that's the addiction. Like joining a sports team, if you're not there your group can't achieve their goals so you feel obligated to participate and that's the addiction. I've never tried WoW either, having seen people spend so much time in it. Also another random thing, another aquaintaince moved to Thailand and setup an EverQuest farm for a year or two which at the time was a new thing, making a living selling stuff in game. In which games is that common now?
- matwood 1y ago
nzeid 1y ago
Hehe, a little upsetting that I only see one former UO player in these comments right now. I loved the anarchy and never stopped missing it through FFXI, WoW, and other MMO's. There was a rivalry between EQ and UO and no one I knew including myself had the time to play both.
- jdwithit 1y ago
  I was a freshman in high school when UO came out. I distinctly remember getting accepted into the beta test and frantically checking the mailbox every day until the CD finally showed up. I had played Gemstone III (a text MUD on AOL) and Sierra's The Realm so I wasn't totally new to the concept, but the vision and scale of UO had my excited out of my mind. I did have fun with it but ultimately I think I was too young and innocent to appreciate the game. Every time I felt like I was getting my feet under me, someone would murder me and steal all my shit. I think at one point I even got my own house... until someone murdered me and stole the key, leaving me penniless. It was a very griefer friendly game, and if you weren't one of the griefers, look out. Eventually I got involved in the UO emulation scene and became the maintainer of a popular emulator for a year or two, and ran a private server with some Canadian tech bro (not that we had that term in the 90s) who had a bunch of money and hardware to spare. That was some of the most fun I've ever had in gaming.
  - guitarsteve 1y ago
    The Realm consumed a lot of my life as a child.
dev1ycan 1y ago
As a younger people who didn't live those days, I wish there was a modern game that felt at least close if not as good as classic world of warcraft but that was as in-depth as everquest...
cloudking 1y ago
Still holds the most hours spent in a single game for me, and it was 100% worth it. Met a ton of cool people, improved my communication and learned useful skills leading a guild, that I later applied in my career.
rcurry 1y ago
I worked for a very successful “dot com” back in the day. EverQuest was like the crack pipe for the tech crowd, people actually got divorced over addictions to it.
- jdwithit 1y ago
  My (girlfriend at the time, later wife) gave me a "it's me or WoW" ultimatum at the peak of my raiding obsession. I picked her. We had moved across the country for grad school and had no friends and I was using the game as a crutch rather than like, actually meeting people. I joined a softball team with some people from her program and made a bunch of lifelong friends. More power to everyone who can play MMO's in a way that doesn't resemble a crippling drug addiction. I've learned that I cannot, lol. And my point isn't to disparage gaming friendships or relationships, it just was not ultimately for me.
  - 83457 1y ago
    A coworker years ago told me she was a WoW Widow.
    - bigstrat2003 1y ago
      I knew a WoW widow in college. Her boyfriend got completely hooked on the game, even to the point that he didn't want to have sex with her any more! She desperately tried to get his attention back but couldn't do it, and ultimately broke up with him. She was (understandably) very bitter about the game after that and wouldn't remotely consider dating someone else who played. Thankfully as far as I'm aware the dude eventually got control of himself again and is living a pleasant family life these days. But the addiction is real for some people.
mrugge 1y ago
Project Lazarus (lazaruseq.com) and Project 1999 for the win. One of the best gaming communities out there still alive and kicking today. And one of the best gaming experiences.
zingababba 1y ago
I liked the game before Luclin and the bazaar the most. It started to lose its organic appeal for me after that. Stuff like everyone just choosing to hawk goods in the commonlands was so charming.
grubbs 1y ago
One random story I have...I remember there was a legit riot on the Prexus EQ forums I was on because SOE decided to drop Windows 95 support for Everquest. I believe it was because Win95 wouldn't support DirectX 6 or something. I was good to go though...I had Win 98 and a Geforce MX 240 I purchased at Best Buy.
- anthk 1y ago
  I think W95 supported up to DirectX 7-8a.
don_neufeld 1y ago
I was there. My first pay stub had Verant on it, I joined shortly before the SOE transition. One thing maybe not well known outside of the company was that the MMO subscription revenue enabled a hotbed of experimentation. There was an MMO RTS which never shipped, and several other takes on “can we make genre X an MMO?” that I can’t remember. And then SWG, obviously. EQ2 had all kinds of interesting people on it as a result - Ken Perlin did the lip sync work (driving facial animations from dialog), Brian Hook worked on the rendered for a while. I’m sure there were others. Then there’s all the things we didn’t do. I read the complete Harry Potter series specifically because we were in talks with JK Rowling to do a HP MMO, but negotiations failed. Crazy times. [addendum] Several of the people in the article are no longer with us (Brad McQuaid, and Kelly Flock at least) The office park that SOE was located in on Terman Court was also demolished years ago. I remember standing at the door to my office on my last day, looking out the window at the eucalyptus trees and thinking I was never going to see the place again. I was right.
- virtue3 1y ago
  Thanks for the work you did on that! EQ really got me into gaming and "what we could make tech do". It was definitely transformative at the time!
  - don_neufeld 1y ago
    “What we could make tech do” is so true! Working on MMOs definitely pushed the boundaries of what was possible, and continues to inform what I expect from the machine. What did you end up doing?
- herodoturtle 1y ago
  Comments like this is why I love HN. Thanks for sharing. And RIP to your former colleagues.
  - don_neufeld 1y ago
    Thanks, but trust me - they were no saints. Kelly Flock threw the project I was leading under the bus with Sony Pictures on his way out the door when they fired him. I barely saved it. Brad McQuaid, as CEO of Sigil famously didn’t even show up for the meeting where the whole Vanguard team was told the company had failed and they had no jobs, and no severance. The games industry definitely has its heroes, but they ain’t it.
peripitea 1y ago
EverQuest was my first real brush with agency. I was still a teenager but I loved researching strategies and game mechanics to figure out how my guild and I could play more effectively, and it paid off. We were never world first, but we got closer than we should have for the small server we were on. The feeling that the work I was doing was contributing to the success of an entire organization of people, and that this group of adults was happy to defer to me as long as my work ethic and ideas were good, was so much more powerful and motivating than anything I'd experienced in school. I don't think I felt that empowered again for another ~decade, well into my "real" career.
avikonduru 1y ago
Wow, incredible read!
to-too-two 1y ago
I was 9 when I first played EverQuest - I'm now 35. That game taught me how to type on a keyboard. Probably the game that influenced my life the most. RIP Brad, and shout out to the team.
jccalhoun 1y ago
It is interesting that Everquest 1 and 2 are still around. Apparently enough people are still paying for these and other MMOs to keep the company in business https://www.daybreakgames.com/home https://www.daybreakgames.com/home
michaelcampbell 1y ago
The "goblin butt" looks more like a WoW screenshot - can anyone confirm? There WERE goblin butts in EQ; I think the models that frequented the "other side of the wall" in the Halfling starting zone, at least. But that one looks like WoW. EQ's were like this: https://zam.zamimg.com/images/i/d/id6571.png https://zam.zamimg.com/images/i/d/id6571.png
- peripitea 1y ago
  Yes I thought the same.
zeras 1y ago
I remember playing Ultima Online and really enjoying that game when I heard about a new first-person MMORPG in development called EverQuest. I ran a couple of popular game sites back then and had industry connections so I got early beta test access to try out EverQuest. Unfortunately, I made a bad choice when I chose to make a Human character, which was night-blind. On top of that, it seemed like every time I logged in it was night time and the game was nearly unplayable away from lights, fires and torches for that character. To make matters worse, I started in Freeport which had several invisible zone walls so on top of not being able to see, I constantly kept zoning which constantly interrupted the game. As you can imagine, I lost interest rather quickly and went back to UO. I gave my beta account to a gamer friend of mine, who had a much better experience than I had during beta. When EverQuest eventually launched, several friends of mine bought it so I decided to buy it as well. By then I had learned to make elven characters because they had infravision/ultravision that allowed them to see at night. It was fun for a little while, but then bad game design concepts led to another problem. They arbitrarily decided to assign some of the classes with experience penalties, including the one I played which had a 40% experience reduction, which was ridiculous. The problem was that at that time, that information was not well known so I all I noticed was all of my friends were outleveling me because none of their classes had penalties. Eventually by around level 12 (which took a while back then), I was too low to group with them, despite playing the same amount of time they did, and I could no longer gain experience in their groups. Since EverQuest was heavily group-focused, I decided to go back to Ultimate Online. A few months later, I decided to give it another try and made a bard. Suddenly, everyone was inviting me to group and that made the game a lot more fun and led to a lot of great memories. A few years ago I tried to go back and play it but, either due to age or having less free time, it was just too slow and difficult to play after all of these years. While I don't play it any more, I am really glad that it is still online and even if it shuts down, there is another player-run (and licensed) rogue server available. I met so many good friends in that game, including one of my best friends to this day, so I will always have fond memories of it.
phendrenad2 1y ago
Never played EQ, but spent my fair share of time in WoW. And then, many many other MMOs. What was aleays great is jumping into a random new game and not knowing what to do or where to go - just figuring it out on the fly. A few times in recent history I've tried to jump into the latest MMOs only to find that they hold your hand every step of the way, forcing you to walk through lengthy tutorials. If I wanted to play a game I'd just load up Doom. I want a WORLD to explore! Until MMOs learn to provide a rich and compelling world again, the genre is dead in my eyes.
- pests 1y ago
  So many games, not only MMOs, lose my interest in the intro/tutorial due to this. Let me play the game, or at least a way to skip / a shortcut. I can’t remember what game it was, but almost an hour in and I’m still locked in the tutorial house and I just put it down forever.
tmountain 1y ago
I was an EQ “junkie” as a teenager and played it pretty obsessively for a few years. It was a potent drug. I had an friend at the university, and she discovered the game, and stopped going to class. Basically, sacrificing her university education because of an mmo addiction.
- Loughla 1y ago
  I played WoW when it first came out. When I transferred colleges and started to take my studies seriously, I deleted my account and sold my PC so I wouldn't be tempted. It really was like crack for teenage minds. MMO addiction is real.
thom 1y ago
Can’t have an EverQuest thread without mentioning its greatest hero: https://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm https://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm
- p3rls 1y ago
  I was in this guild on Sullon Zek!@ We were horribly outnumbered, had no gear, <Black Prophecy>, the one capable good aligned guild never helped us and we got rolled daily by giant hordes of well-geared evils and neuts... but we were able to kill their alts afterwards in Kurn's Tower, and that's what counts. edit: BTW, perhaps not as famous as fansy, but just as deserving the OG was skater gnome: https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/Skater_Gnome_Stories https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/Skater_Gnome_Stories
0points 1y ago
* IMPORTANT * Daybreak is currently suing [1] successful everquest emu server The Heroes Journey, who lately has become more popular than Daybreak's own TLP servers by offering a new and unique form of EverQuest [2]. From the operators of the server: "Good afternoon, Heroes! Many folks have become aware that Daybreak has filed suit against two of our Founders. Please know that, while we cannot comment on any specifics, we want you all to know that we are doing everything in our power to see this through to a positive outcome for our community and all involved parties. We have excellent counsel, the benefit of the facts on our side, and an abiding faith that reasonable people will see us as fans and not foes." 1: https://reason.com/volokh/2025/06/20/court-rejects-sealing-and-tro-in-everquest-lawsuit/ https://reason.com/volokh/2025/06/20/court-rejects-sealing-a... 2: https://heroesjourneyemu.com/faq/ https://heroesjourneyemu.com/faq/
wtf242 1y ago
I failed out of college my senior year because I discovered EQ. So many fond memories. I created a guild on a new server and it ended up one of the most famous and best guilds on any of the servers. The amount of planning and management it took to lead a large guild was just ridiculous. It was a full time job. I even created one of the first "loot" web apps in php 3 and mysql just to keep track of player participation and make loot more fair. Most of the team who created World of Warcraft were members in the guild. some of my fondest memories: - getting pretty far in the Plane of Air, which was an incomplete end game zone with almost impossible to beat bosses. - defeating the Avatar of War, which was not supposed to be killable. We figured out we could charm his guards by having a huge number of enchanters and use the guards to tank him. We managed to beat him and they patched/fixed the guards and made them uncharmable shortly afterwards The death penalty in the end game zones was originally very tough to work around. You needed a key to reach the zone, but if you died the key required to get into the zone was on your corpse inside the zone. So if everyone wiped/died getting everyone's corpse back was a multi hour event.
NooneAtAll3 1y ago
"So you want us to beat an MMO? ** you! When was the last time you've heard of someone beating EverQuest?" "Well when was the last time you've heard of someone PLAYING EverQuest?" "...That's fair"
ericflo 1y ago
EverQuest taught me so many life skills, no joke. Was on the Morell-Thule server as a teen.
deleted 1y ago
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281 points by dmazin 1y ago

I absolutely loved EverQuest and it’s still probably holds some of my fondest gaming memories. My favorite feeling about it is that it felt like a real world first, gameplay second. It had a real sense of danger and wonder that I think will be almost impossible to recreate. Going from Qeynos to Freeport, or crossing the ocean on a boat felt absolutely epic and dangerous. It was wonderful, but not something I would want to play today now that I have real life obligations.

ModernMech 1y ago
Totally, me and my friend used to share an EQ account in school. His parents paid for it so he got to play during the day, and I would play at night from midnight until 6am, then I'd go to school. It was profoundly unhealthy, which is why that game earned the name "Evercrack". Last weekend I played a beta game called "Monsters and Memories" that's trying to be an EQ clone, and it's very faithful in that it's carried forward all the terrible parts of EQ. Just the amount of sitting around waiting that you have to do in EQ that I had forgotten about is incredible. Managing your water and food levels, having to go find your corpse when you die and it taking 5 hours just to get there, pitch black nights so you're forced to walk around with a lantern, camping a spawn with 100 other people trying to get the same items as you to complete the same inane quests, broken quests that you can't even complete to progress the game forward... And yeah, one weekend was enough. I got real shit to do, I have time for nonsense, but not THAT kind of time.
- daeken 1y ago
  There's a musician named Richie Truxillo who made so many comedy songs about EQ back in the day, but your comment just reminded me of "Has Anybody Seen My Corpse." I haven't thought about corpse runs and dragging folks' corpses back to them in ages!
  - Tokumei-no-hito 1y ago
    ohh if i had a million platinummmm wow that's a memory i had lost for many years. thanks
- michaelmrose 1y ago
  Your perception of time is profoundly different when you are a kid with no job. Painful death makes you try hard to avoid it ensuring real stakes.
  - nkrisc 1y ago
    It makes it more realistic. At this age, it would mean I just quit the game - like my character died for real!
- djtango 1y ago
  For me it feels like it was the perfect storm of games like this releasing at a time when a generation of gamers' attentions weren't saturated. I didn't play EQ but on FFXI airships ran on a 15min schedule and if you missed it you would have to sit and wait, not dissimilar to real life. This kind of friction added a charm and immersion to the game but would never fly in a game today [pardon the pun]. Nowadays a lot of the enjoyment I seek out of games is mechanical difficulty and adrenaline because most the other aspects can be fulfilled away from the screen...
thegrim33 1y ago
It was also at the perfect moment in time where you couldn't just pull up the game's wiki on a second monitor and have fully detailed maps and quest details on hand. You actually had to learn things for yourself by exploration and trial and error. You had to learn things from other people by talking to them in game. In my mind back then, I was in awe of people that even had the knowledge of how to get across certain zones safely. You know it took effort/skill for them to gain that knowledge. You couldn't just look it up. I've been thinking how you could possibly replicate a similar thing nowadays, but unless the world constantly randomly changes over time, rendering any created guides/maps/etc moot, I think that window has closed.
- dmbche 1y ago
  You should look at Noita!
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    Noita is the last thing that comment suggests he wants. Most of Noita's content can only be learned by consulting the wiki, which I assume is an intentional legacy of the designers' love of Nethack. And the world is the same every time.
    - duskwuff 1y ago
      > And the world is the same every time. The overall layout (e.g. the progression of zones) and some set pieces are fixed, but the details are randomized. Fun fact: the overall layout is configured by a PNG file, with the color of each pixel controlling which "biome" is used.
    - dmbche 1y ago
      I dont know it's the last thing he wants. I feel like the same "most" of the content which lives on the wiki is very secondary to the gameloop and that the designers did a wonderful job at not letting the player optimize the fun out of the game. The game teaches you nothing and is very cryptic, but the gameloop is simple (go down, don't die). You naturally learn how the sandbox interact (i'm on fire but I have a water flask, water clear up sludge) and the randomized (and shuffle) wands expose you to spell interactions. You can easily spend multi hundred hours just learning through the sandbox and trying to break the game. The cryptic stuff (34 orbs, impressing the gods, the messages) is also very cool and I think motivating to keep playing with the sandbox even after having "mastered" the mechanics of the game. (As in you never know what you could manage to find if you try to break the game) I don't think people play noita with a guide on a second monitor. Sorry if poorly worded, tired
jghn 1y ago
I hated EQ for me the reason was it was not UO nor was it even trying to recreate the vibrancy & real world that UO's designers had gone for. *BUT* I also recognized that EQ represented a game that was much more aligned to what a normal gamer would want, one could already see that path being forged in UO as time went on. And then of course WoW came along and perfected the art. I still lament how UO played out. It quickly became apparent that most players binned into one of two categories, and neither category really fit in with the original UO vision. And of course, one of those two categories drove away the customers in the second category. The rest is history.
- CSMastermind 1y ago
  UO had such a huge influence on me. It was amazing.
  - whatwhaaaaat 1y ago
    Both of these games are still going. Atlantic has a huge player base. It’s not the cutthroat game it once was but it’s still very much exciting. You can still die and all your shit poof. Housing on Atlantic is still in demand and hard to get if that gives an idea how healthy it is. Eq has of course had some major server merges but your old account will still be on both UO and EQ. To me UO is a breath of fresh air after 20 years of trash games except for a stand out few. Seeing my old wood elf ranger with swift wind and lupine dagger still glowing was magical. Almost as magical as re-exploring kelethin.
    - jghn 1y ago
      Not only is it still going but it's possible to dust off your ancient account. An old guild mate reported that he had recovered his account originally closed ~2000. Sadly, of the two accounts I had back in the day the only one still recoverable was my alt/mule account. My original account was one of the, well, original accounts from opening day, so it's a shame it was lost. But still, it was fun to run around with one of my guys for a couple of hours. One thing I thought was cool was there had been some custom content involving my guild added near the bank where my guild hung out. It was still there, all these years later!
blueblimp 1y ago
The inter-city travel was my favorite part of EverQuest. (The rest of the game, I didn't find too interesting.) The level of challenge was about right: if you looked at maps and planned your route, you could generally get to where you wanted to go, but it was hazardous. I wonder if there's a game that focuses on that sort of travel experience.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  Depending on what you do and how you play, Eve Online has a harrowing navigation system.
  - smogcutter 1y ago
    And part of the joy of Eve Online is that if you want, you can be a reason travel is dangerous.
- michaelbarton 1y ago
  Perhaps death stranding and its sequel might be the closest?
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  As another commenter pointed out, Death Stranding focuses on the travel experience, where you have to plan your route according to how much 'effort' and risk you want to take. Back when there was Morrowind, which didn't have map markers and whose in-game map had to slowly be uncovered. You get a description and that's it. The game did come with a paper map, which was stuck to my wall for years and frequently consulted. A modern one would be Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2; when you turn on hardcore mode (which was only added after release, but the game was designed with it in mind), you don't get your position on the map, compass, or map markers; every quest involving a location has the NPCs give you a description (and at least in normal mode, your character making a remark when you've reached a landmark). It's not so much about planning your route though.
reactordev 1y ago
My first memory of EverQuest was leaving the tutorial quest, running along a road at night, and being eaten by a lion. I had no idea what I was doing but I was hooked on figuring out.
- kwk1 1y ago
  For me, I made a high elf, didn't know page up/page down were needed to control swimming, and died in the water by the bridge leaving Felwithe, I didn't even get beyond the city gate.
- djtango 1y ago
  Based on my experiences playing FFXIV, there's an entire generation of gamers now that get completely despirited by experiences like that and give up on the first sign of a wipe, even though these days there's no penalty for even dying...
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    IX is probably the most accessible "traditional" MMO there is, but it's still very intimidating because it throws a lot of information and a complex UI at you right away. If you've never played an MMO before, it's a lot.
  - reactordev 1y ago
    And then there’s Dark Souls and Elden Ring… I think you are generalizing on a stereotype. Gamers love experiences. If you give them enough to know there’s more beyond the wipe, they will keep wiping.
8f2ab37a-ed6c 1y ago
Oh my, that long journey is one of my fondest memories of the game as well. Absolutely terrifying as a low level with barely any information on how to pull it off, having to ask strangers for help. The fear of losing all of your stuff on the way and having to run all the way back. Magical. I was just a humble human paladin on the Mithaniel Marr server. I agree with everybody else commenting here, it was a truly unique experience that I would love to be able to re-live, but our expectations as players have moved on a long while back, you can no longer capture that magic because it's now all rote and routine. In 1999 it was the first time many of us had ever experienced anything like it, it flooded the senses and it felt like a world full of interesting people and epic adventures. It was the frontier at the time.
mixxit 1y ago
i remember doing the staff of the wheel quest as a newbie level 16 wizard who had barely seen any of the world i met so many people who helped me get into some really scary places (lguk at 16 is terrifying) as i wondered in all sorts of climates and places, what a fantastic place! looking back the world felt so different and huge and alive with life i will never get that experience again
markbnj 1y ago
> crossing the ocean on a boat felt absolutely epic and dangerous Given the way death was implemented ("LFG @ EC tunnel for a corpse run to Guk!") and the fact that you could fall off the ships in the middle of the ocean when the game lagged, it _was_ epic and dangerous. I remember the first time it happened to me and players in public chat coached me through a 20 or 30 minute swim to get my wizard and stuff to an island with a portal.

eatonphil 1y ago

I guess I'm a little younger. For me it was Runescape and Maplestory. Played heavily in the summers from 2007-2009.

hombre_fatal 1y ago
I played Runescape back when it was just Falador and Varrock, and it all started because I saw a kid at the public library playing it. And not long after that I was waking up at 2am to mine or grind some skill before I had to go to football practice at 5:30am. I wonder what kind of permanent damage that did.

dgfitz 1y ago

My only nit to pick with this article is their definition of PvE. They said it stands for “player vs enemy” where I’ve always heard it defined as “player vs environment” where environment explicitly means not-other-players.

tzs 1y ago
Player vs environment is indeed the normal definition of PvE [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_versus_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_versus_environment

daeken 1y ago

I can nearly single-handedly credit EverQuest with my career. I got my start in the ShowEQ and eqemu sphere, first building little PHP apps to manage servers and such, then reverse-engineering -- I learned x86 and then C++ all to get the lifts in Kelethin working. Hell, nearly 25 years later, any time I work on some new graphics API or game engine, I end up writing an EverQuest zone renderer. Not my favorite game of all time, but certainly the one with the biggest impact! Edit to add: also, huge props to that community for both humbling me and teaching me more than I could've imagined. Went from a dumbass 13 year old saying "ROT13? Isn't that some unbreakable encryption?" In the ShowEQ IRC channel because she couldn't imagine saying she didn't know something, to a competent reverse-engineer. I cannot imagine how insufferable I was haha.

akerl_ 1y ago
Likewise. My first introduction to scripting was automating EverQuest. I learned the basics of path resolution writing a script to grind misty thicket picnics. I wrote my own HUD-style UI overlay to replace most of the default windows. And I learned about pointers and disassembly and jumps disassembling hack plugins from shady sites.
Bluecobra 1y ago
I credit ShowEQ with learning Linux and getting everything to work correctly. I remember absolutely trashing my PC a few years earlier trying to install Debian from a Boot magazine CD. Glad I didn’t break my monitor with bad XFree86 settings.
jcon321 1y ago
Same, mq2 macros was my first programming language at 13

numinix 1y ago

> Gijsbert van der Wal’s famous 2014 photograph of Dutch teenagers ignoring a Rembrandt masterpiece in favor of staring at their phones has become for many psychologists, social theorists, and concerned ordinary folks a portrait of our current Age of Digital Addiction in a nutshell. While a great photo, to me it looks like the kids are just doing some kind of school / field trip assignment.

aprilthird2021 1y ago
It could be anything, but it resonates with people for a very good reason. Many people feel the negatives of technology and social media and miss the time before it. I know how sentiment will skew here, and I know it's easy to take for granted the advantages of having a fully capable pocket computer. But I also understand what we have given up for it.
- dcminter 1y ago
  A similar example I've seen is a photo of a British railway carriage full of commuters staring glumly at their phones. It makes me laugh because we all just used to stare glumly at our newspapers! It's not like we were discussing philosophy or something...
  - aprilthird2021 1y ago
    Sure, again, there is a reason these things resonate with people. They aren't mad that people aren't communicating with each other. They are reflecting on their own smartphone consumption and feeling that it had substantial negative effects. Something virtually no people feel about newspapers
    - krageon 1y ago
      Every generation that had that big new thing had an enormous group claiming it was terrible and would destroy everything. Smartphones are worse because corporations are allowed to be more evil while receiving more praise (and in that axis everything is worse). Don't scapegoat the platform here. If all we had was newspapers today they'd fuck you in very similar ways. Some executive would make sure of it.

michaelmrose 1y ago

I've got fond memories of Rallos Zek where I spent way too many hours and met my wife.

rudimentary_phy 1y ago

I loved EverQuest. I still have some great memories of it. My friends and I still go back to playing it every once in a while. EverQuest also gave me some fantastic typing skills (from having to type in a significant amount of things for activating quests and for chatting) that have turned out to be well worth all the time I invested.

spacecadet 1y ago

Oh EverQuest... funny to see this even posted here. I still occasionally log into P99 for a few hours here and there to play around at the low levels. 1 to around 24-30 is peak MMOPRG before it slows down and turns into that raid grind...

galangalalgol 1y ago
Yeah, I never understood why that was necessary. I get diminishing rewards as an addiction mechanic, but they all switch gameplay dramatically from adventure and exploration (and combat) quest based character growth to raid fueled gear treadmills. Some people live for the latter it seems like? But there were never any that focused on character growth all the way. It wasn't like they weren't adding content continuously anyway. It would have been possible. Or turn it rogue alike with top levels earning benefits or unlocking other options for additional playthroughs. With the number of mmorpgs made one of them would have tried it if it would jave worked I guess?
- peripitea 1y ago
  Eventually some of your players explore everything there is to be explored, and you need something more involved to keep them occupied.
kwk1 1y ago
Yeah, people should know that https://project1999.com/ https://project1999.com/ exists.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  Doesn't hit the same when you're over 30.
  - kwk1 1y ago
    Sadly not. This EQ server in a box is more my speed these days, hah: https://github.com/Akkadius/akk-stack https://github.com/Akkadius/akk-stack

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

amelius 1y ago

I like how natural the woman in the opening picture looks. Kind of refreshing compared to all those literally overblown body parts in modern day game graphics.

lordnacho 1y ago

Everquest was my first warning about game addiction. Every teenage kid by the year 2000 had spent too much time in front of a game, of course. But not like this. I was sitting with a friend of mine at a computer café. This was more prevalent at the time, since a capable computer with all the modern games on it was still somewhat pricey. So my friend starts taking to our side guy, who is playing EQ. Nice fellow. "Hey guys, I gotta stop playing. Been here 24h straight. If I don't go to work they'll fire me." My friend and I leave for the night. My friend comes back to the café one night later. Our buddy is there, in the same seat. "Shit dude, they fired me. I haven't been able to get up and go to work. This game, man." "Sorry to hear it, what was your work?" "I'm an attendant at a computer café." "WTF, which one? Why didn't you just sit there and play?" "The one across the street. Because I couldn't stop."

no_wizard 1y ago
Game addiction hits the same part of the brain as gambling does. In fact, it’s my understanding that gambling addicts and video game addicts have nearly identical similarities in terms of how the addiction progresses and “sets in” as it where. As an aside, and really I am sorry for this tangent, and I have no issue believing any of this, but this comment somehow feels LLM (ChatGPT) generated to me and I can’t put my finger on it, as I like to default to being wrong about such things. I know it’s an aside but it has become such a big issue on many forums now. Sorry for the tangent!
- lordnacho 1y ago
  Fully human generated, but thanks.
- jimbob45 1y ago
  Game addiction isn’t the same anymore. Games used to be primarily about telling stories, establishing atmosphere, and fulfilling fantastic roles. The writers and designers of yesteryear had centuries of unexploited sci-fi to draw from. Designers today don’t have that mountain of material to pull from, not just because no one reads anymore.
1y ago

big_toast 1y ago

Is it a coincidence that this shows up as John Smedley launches a new MMO (yesterday)? As much as I loved EverQuest, it has informed my view that the world is full of addictive substances. And most people probably need a disinterested third party who loves them and helps them manage the addiction. Until they build their own defenses.

j_timberlake 1y ago

In this game, there was a city where I did so many quests for the guards that my reputation with the "corrupt guards" fell low enough that they would kill me on sight. Playing a good-guy character got me killed, and then I couldn't play anymore in the city where I'd spent most of my gametime. I would have been angry at the unfairness, but it was such a unique quirk to see in a game, and I've never seen it replicated anywhere.

davedx 1y ago
World of Warcraft had this in Booty Bay. There was a hilarious achievement where you first got your reputation to max with the Booty Bay guards by killing the nearby pirates, then the other half was to kill the guards until the Bloodsail Buccaneers faction exalted you; a 2.5x reputation grind that took weeks. And when you were done you couldn’t enter Booty Bay anymore because the guards killed you on sight. The things we do…
- jmyeet 1y ago
  Insane in the membrane [1]. Nowadays it probably takes 20 hours if you really grind. Repairing rep on the pirates was soul-destroying but so was getting all those lockboxes for Ravenholdt rep. [1]: https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2336/insane-in-the-membrane https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2336/insane-in-the-membr...
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  This randomly reminded me of when I grinded dwarf reputation in World of Warcraft so that at level 40, I was the only human riding a goat/ram (dwarf mount) instead of the horse. I remember killing endless crocodiles in STV so I could turn in their heavy leather I think during the event where the realm works together to open the AQ gate. I'll see a 13yo gardener here in Mexico and wish he could be doing that instead of working. :(
- LeonenTheDK 1y ago
  I haven't played retail in the last few years so I'm not sure if that rep has changed, but on my main I never bothered to regain the Booty Bay rep and was still KOS to them. Hilarious.

azretd 1y ago

Early EverQuest required groups to progress because trash mobs were hard, the environment was vast, dungeons had traps, there was no auction house and players hung out in tunnels shouting their wares. 26 years later, the nostalgia hits me every so often and I spin up Project Quarm or Project 1999 where it still plays the same, and it’s fun for awhile but I’m not enjoying it as much as I enjoyed the memories. I enjoy the luxuries afforded by modern games, with three kids and a busy job, I wonder how anyone found the time to play as long as EverQuest required.

bpicolo 1y ago
> players hung out in tunnels shouting their wares. The Luclin bazaar from EQ is still one of the coolest/most unique game features I have ever seen. Park your character to open up a shop with selected items from your inventory. Browse everybody's wares by walking around and clicking them to see their shops!
- Foobar8568 1y ago
  It was still great, pointless city but within the main hub. Lineage2 would allow players to sit in any towns in a similar way.
Bluecobra 1y ago
Oh man those tunnels. I remember a tunnel scam where a seller would close the trade window and quickly reopen it with a lesser item that used the same icon. Not sure if the GMs did anything about it but I always made sure to carefully inspect the item I was buying.

cubefox 1y ago

The box art by Keith Parkinson is a classic: https://www.keithparkinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EQ.jpg https://www.keithparkinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EQ... This seems to be entirely hand drawn (acrylic painting?) with a lot of skill. A Google Image search for "Keith Parkinson" shows more of his great paintings. Unfortunately he died in 2005.

socalgal2 1y ago

I never played because I saw my friends get addicted. I'm not judging that as "bad". People are free to spend their lives however they want. But, ... just to pass on... My friends had a company. Then they got into EverQuest. I don't know what percent of "work time" they spent playing. Maybe zero. But, they would stay at the office after work to play. I visited one day and saw playtime in the corner of the screen of one friend at ~36 days. My first thought was "what could they have done with over 5 months of "work time". If you work 40 hours a week then 36 days of game time = 846hrs = 21.6 weeks = ~5 months or work. Note: I use tons of time in my own life in ways that others would not (like spending time on HN) so again, not judging, just obsverving, though I often wish I did more productive things that would / would have lead to more future freedom. In any case, one of those friends encouraged me to give it a try saying it reminded them of when we used to play D&D in high-school. That friend had also spent time becoming a fletcher (maker of arrows). If I understand correctly, the ability to make bows and arrows from materials was a skill. You gathered the materials, then picked "make" and you had a random and relatively low chance of succeeding. If you did succeed though, your "skill" at making bows and arrows increased. Once you passed some threshold you could always succeed. This made you a "fletcher" and people who needed bows and arrows would seek you out to buy them from you. I thought it was amazing that my friend effectively had a 2nd job. I'm guessing that's common a game mechanic in games since then? Another of those friends also played at home on top of at the office even though they had a spouse and 3 kids under 10. After a while, their spouse demanded they stop. They visibly deleted their character but then made a new one back at work and of course all the "overtime" for the last several months had actually been "game time". 3 months later the spouse found out and said "quit or I'm leaving". My friend quit. When World of Warcraft came out and blew past EverQuest in its reach that friend told me if I wanted to check it out be sure not to make any friends or join any guilds. They said it's the social obligation that's the addiction. Like joining a sports team, if you're not there your group can't achieve their goals so you feel obligated to participate and that's the addiction. I've never tried WoW either, having seen people spend so much time in it. Also another random thing, another aquaintaince moved to Thailand and setup an EverQuest farm for a year or two which at the time was a new thing, making a living selling stuff in game. In which games is that common now?

matwood 1y ago

nzeid 1y ago

Hehe, a little upsetting that I only see one former UO player in these comments right now. I loved the anarchy and never stopped missing it through FFXI, WoW, and other MMO's. There was a rivalry between EQ and UO and no one I knew including myself had the time to play both.

jdwithit 1y ago
I was a freshman in high school when UO came out. I distinctly remember getting accepted into the beta test and frantically checking the mailbox every day until the CD finally showed up. I had played Gemstone III (a text MUD on AOL) and Sierra's The Realm so I wasn't totally new to the concept, but the vision and scale of UO had my excited out of my mind. I did have fun with it but ultimately I think I was too young and innocent to appreciate the game. Every time I felt like I was getting my feet under me, someone would murder me and steal all my shit. I think at one point I even got my own house... until someone murdered me and stole the key, leaving me penniless. It was a very griefer friendly game, and if you weren't one of the griefers, look out. Eventually I got involved in the UO emulation scene and became the maintainer of a popular emulator for a year or two, and ran a private server with some Canadian tech bro (not that we had that term in the 90s) who had a bunch of money and hardware to spare. That was some of the most fun I've ever had in gaming.
- guitarsteve 1y ago
  The Realm consumed a lot of my life as a child.

dev1ycan 1y ago

As a younger people who didn't live those days, I wish there was a modern game that felt at least close if not as good as classic world of warcraft but that was as in-depth as everquest...

cloudking 1y ago

Still holds the most hours spent in a single game for me, and it was 100% worth it. Met a ton of cool people, improved my communication and learned useful skills leading a guild, that I later applied in my career.

rcurry 1y ago

I worked for a very successful “dot com” back in the day. EverQuest was like the crack pipe for the tech crowd, people actually got divorced over addictions to it.

jdwithit 1y ago
My (girlfriend at the time, later wife) gave me a "it's me or WoW" ultimatum at the peak of my raiding obsession. I picked her. We had moved across the country for grad school and had no friends and I was using the game as a crutch rather than like, actually meeting people. I joined a softball team with some people from her program and made a bunch of lifelong friends. More power to everyone who can play MMO's in a way that doesn't resemble a crippling drug addiction. I've learned that I cannot, lol. And my point isn't to disparage gaming friendships or relationships, it just was not ultimately for me.
- 83457 1y ago
  A coworker years ago told me she was a WoW Widow.
  - bigstrat2003 1y ago
    I knew a WoW widow in college. Her boyfriend got completely hooked on the game, even to the point that he didn't want to have sex with her any more! She desperately tried to get his attention back but couldn't do it, and ultimately broke up with him. She was (understandably) very bitter about the game after that and wouldn't remotely consider dating someone else who played. Thankfully as far as I'm aware the dude eventually got control of himself again and is living a pleasant family life these days. But the addiction is real for some people.

mrugge 1y ago

Project Lazarus (lazaruseq.com) and Project 1999 for the win. One of the best gaming communities out there still alive and kicking today. And one of the best gaming experiences.

zingababba 1y ago

I liked the game before Luclin and the bazaar the most. It started to lose its organic appeal for me after that. Stuff like everyone just choosing to hawk goods in the commonlands was so charming.

grubbs 1y ago

One random story I have...I remember there was a legit riot on the Prexus EQ forums I was on because SOE decided to drop Windows 95 support for Everquest. I believe it was because Win95 wouldn't support DirectX 6 or something. I was good to go though...I had Win 98 and a Geforce MX 240 I purchased at Best Buy.

anthk 1y ago
I think W95 supported up to DirectX 7-8a.

don_neufeld 1y ago

I was there. My first pay stub had Verant on it, I joined shortly before the SOE transition. One thing maybe not well known outside of the company was that the MMO subscription revenue enabled a hotbed of experimentation. There was an MMO RTS which never shipped, and several other takes on “can we make genre X an MMO?” that I can’t remember. And then SWG, obviously. EQ2 had all kinds of interesting people on it as a result - Ken Perlin did the lip sync work (driving facial animations from dialog), Brian Hook worked on the rendered for a while. I’m sure there were others. Then there’s all the things we didn’t do. I read the complete Harry Potter series specifically because we were in talks with JK Rowling to do a HP MMO, but negotiations failed. Crazy times. [addendum] Several of the people in the article are no longer with us (Brad McQuaid, and Kelly Flock at least) The office park that SOE was located in on Terman Court was also demolished years ago. I remember standing at the door to my office on my last day, looking out the window at the eucalyptus trees and thinking I was never going to see the place again. I was right.

virtue3 1y ago
Thanks for the work you did on that! EQ really got me into gaming and "what we could make tech do". It was definitely transformative at the time!
- don_neufeld 1y ago
  “What we could make tech do” is so true! Working on MMOs definitely pushed the boundaries of what was possible, and continues to inform what I expect from the machine. What did you end up doing?
herodoturtle 1y ago
Comments like this is why I love HN. Thanks for sharing. And RIP to your former colleagues.
- don_neufeld 1y ago
  Thanks, but trust me - they were no saints. Kelly Flock threw the project I was leading under the bus with Sony Pictures on his way out the door when they fired him. I barely saved it. Brad McQuaid, as CEO of Sigil famously didn’t even show up for the meeting where the whole Vanguard team was told the company had failed and they had no jobs, and no severance. The games industry definitely has its heroes, but they ain’t it.

peripitea 1y ago

EverQuest was my first real brush with agency. I was still a teenager but I loved researching strategies and game mechanics to figure out how my guild and I could play more effectively, and it paid off. We were never world first, but we got closer than we should have for the small server we were on. The feeling that the work I was doing was contributing to the success of an entire organization of people, and that this group of adults was happy to defer to me as long as my work ethic and ideas were good, was so much more powerful and motivating than anything I'd experienced in school. I don't think I felt that empowered again for another ~decade, well into my "real" career.

avikonduru 1y ago

Wow, incredible read!

to-too-two 1y ago

I was 9 when I first played EverQuest - I'm now 35. That game taught me how to type on a keyboard. Probably the game that influenced my life the most. RIP Brad, and shout out to the team.

jccalhoun 1y ago

It is interesting that Everquest 1 and 2 are still around. Apparently enough people are still paying for these and other MMOs to keep the company in business https://www.daybreakgames.com/home https://www.daybreakgames.com/home

michaelcampbell 1y ago

The "goblin butt" looks more like a WoW screenshot - can anyone confirm? There WERE goblin butts in EQ; I think the models that frequented the "other side of the wall" in the Halfling starting zone, at least. But that one looks like WoW. EQ's were like this: https://zam.zamimg.com/images/i/d/id6571.png https://zam.zamimg.com/images/i/d/id6571.png

peripitea 1y ago
Yes I thought the same.

zeras 1y ago

I remember playing Ultima Online and really enjoying that game when I heard about a new first-person MMORPG in development called EverQuest. I ran a couple of popular game sites back then and had industry connections so I got early beta test access to try out EverQuest. Unfortunately, I made a bad choice when I chose to make a Human character, which was night-blind. On top of that, it seemed like every time I logged in it was night time and the game was nearly unplayable away from lights, fires and torches for that character. To make matters worse, I started in Freeport which had several invisible zone walls so on top of not being able to see, I constantly kept zoning which constantly interrupted the game. As you can imagine, I lost interest rather quickly and went back to UO. I gave my beta account to a gamer friend of mine, who had a much better experience than I had during beta. When EverQuest eventually launched, several friends of mine bought it so I decided to buy it as well. By then I had learned to make elven characters because they had infravision/ultravision that allowed them to see at night. It was fun for a little while, but then bad game design concepts led to another problem. They arbitrarily decided to assign some of the classes with experience penalties, including the one I played which had a 40% experience reduction, which was ridiculous. The problem was that at that time, that information was not well known so I all I noticed was all of my friends were outleveling me because none of their classes had penalties. Eventually by around level 12 (which took a while back then), I was too low to group with them, despite playing the same amount of time they did, and I could no longer gain experience in their groups. Since EverQuest was heavily group-focused, I decided to go back to Ultimate Online. A few months later, I decided to give it another try and made a bard. Suddenly, everyone was inviting me to group and that made the game a lot more fun and led to a lot of great memories. A few years ago I tried to go back and play it but, either due to age or having less free time, it was just too slow and difficult to play after all of these years. While I don't play it any more, I am really glad that it is still online and even if it shuts down, there is another player-run (and licensed) rogue server available. I met so many good friends in that game, including one of my best friends to this day, so I will always have fond memories of it.

phendrenad2 1y ago

Never played EQ, but spent my fair share of time in WoW. And then, many many other MMOs. What was aleays great is jumping into a random new game and not knowing what to do or where to go - just figuring it out on the fly. A few times in recent history I've tried to jump into the latest MMOs only to find that they hold your hand every step of the way, forcing you to walk through lengthy tutorials. If I wanted to play a game I'd just load up Doom. I want a WORLD to explore! Until MMOs learn to provide a rich and compelling world again, the genre is dead in my eyes.

pests 1y ago
So many games, not only MMOs, lose my interest in the intro/tutorial due to this. Let me play the game, or at least a way to skip / a shortcut. I can’t remember what game it was, but almost an hour in and I’m still locked in the tutorial house and I just put it down forever.

tmountain 1y ago

I was an EQ “junkie” as a teenager and played it pretty obsessively for a few years. It was a potent drug. I had an friend at the university, and she discovered the game, and stopped going to class. Basically, sacrificing her university education because of an mmo addiction.

Loughla 1y ago
I played WoW when it first came out. When I transferred colleges and started to take my studies seriously, I deleted my account and sold my PC so I wouldn't be tempted. It really was like crack for teenage minds. MMO addiction is real.

thom 1y ago

Can’t have an EverQuest thread without mentioning its greatest hero: https://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm https://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm

p3rls 1y ago
I was in this guild on Sullon Zek!@ We were horribly outnumbered, had no gear, <Black Prophecy>, the one capable good aligned guild never helped us and we got rolled daily by giant hordes of well-geared evils and neuts... but we were able to kill their alts afterwards in Kurn's Tower, and that's what counts. edit: BTW, perhaps not as famous as fansy, but just as deserving the OG was skater gnome: https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/Skater_Gnome_Stories https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/Skater_Gnome_Stories

0points 1y ago

* IMPORTANT * Daybreak is currently suing [1] successful everquest emu server The Heroes Journey, who lately has become more popular than Daybreak's own TLP servers by offering a new and unique form of EverQuest [2]. From the operators of the server: "Good afternoon, Heroes! Many folks have become aware that Daybreak has filed suit against two of our Founders. Please know that, while we cannot comment on any specifics, we want you all to know that we are doing everything in our power to see this through to a positive outcome for our community and all involved parties. We have excellent counsel, the benefit of the facts on our side, and an abiding faith that reasonable people will see us as fans and not foes." 1: https://reason.com/volokh/2025/06/20/court-rejects-sealing-and-tro-in-everquest-lawsuit/ https://reason.com/volokh/2025/06/20/court-rejects-sealing-a... 2: https://heroesjourneyemu.com/faq/ https://heroesjourneyemu.com/faq/

wtf242 1y ago

I failed out of college my senior year because I discovered EQ. So many fond memories. I created a guild on a new server and it ended up one of the most famous and best guilds on any of the servers. The amount of planning and management it took to lead a large guild was just ridiculous. It was a full time job. I even created one of the first "loot" web apps in php 3 and mysql just to keep track of player participation and make loot more fair. Most of the team who created World of Warcraft were members in the guild. some of my fondest memories: - getting pretty far in the Plane of Air, which was an incomplete end game zone with almost impossible to beat bosses. - defeating the Avatar of War, which was not supposed to be killable. We figured out we could charm his guards by having a huge number of enchanters and use the guards to tank him. We managed to beat him and they patched/fixed the guards and made them uncharmable shortly afterwards The death penalty in the end game zones was originally very tough to work around. You needed a key to reach the zone, but if you died the key required to get into the zone was on your corpse inside the zone. So if everyone wiped/died getting everyone's corpse back was a multi hour event.

NooneAtAll3 1y ago

"So you want us to beat an MMO? ** you! When was the last time you've heard of someone beating EverQuest?" "Well when was the last time you've heard of someone PLAYING EverQuest?" "...That's fair"

ericflo 1y ago

EverQuest taught me so many life skills, no joke. Was on the Morell-Thule server as a teen.

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