Everquest

The MMO that sparked my love for the genre.

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First Steps

I first played Everquest when I was maybe 12 years old. My much older cousin had played it since its inception and bought me the Base Game + Ruins of Kunark bundle after I showed interest. He played on a server called Karana, so I did as well. I assumed he would give me items and help me, so it was a no-brainer. My first day after school, I logged on and started making my first character. For my race, I chose a human, not realizing that they couldn’t see at night. For my class, I chose a necromancer, not knowing they had a bad reputation and could be KOS more often than others. None of this stopped me from brute-forcing my way through the levels slowly and surely the way only a kid can do, through 1000’s of failures and not giving up. Seeing the amount of people and knowing it was other players all over the world kept me hooked. My competitive urge to get any gear I saw someone run past with showing off kept me hooked.

The Magic of “Particle Effects”

The loading screens of Everquest made no mistake. Night skies full of floating blue spell particles filled my young mind with thoughts of “What spell is that?” “Who could have cast that?” The progression system was not just 1 number that went up either. Being level 4 casting a humble minor shielding spell, conjuring a measly amount of particles that almost felt embarrassing. As I climbed the level ladder, my spells began to spam the air with colorful greens and blues of my ultimate power!

Descent into the Dark Side

The longer I played, the more I began to forego the LFG (Looking for Group) shouting in the chat channels and abusing my power of the dead to solo my way to max level. I would still partake in grouping when it fell in my lap, but the majority of my time became griefing groups with trains and taking over their camps. An act I would definitely not do now but at the time was hilarious to me. Necromancers had an almost unique ability only shared with the Monk class that could “Feign Death”. For those unaware, Necromancers were able to run around getting aggro of mobs (The attention of monsters) so that they would follow. Upon collecting more monsters than a small Asian child’s Pokédex, you would then be able to run to an unlucky group and use this Feign Death ability right at their feet, causing the monsters to attack the closest “Living” thing, which is no longer the necromancer. Truly a shitter.

Behold, The Shitter Himself.

South Park had just came out with the naggers episode. My previous last name was “Ceptfaqs” which stood for “Frequently Asked Questions” and made sense as a webmaster. The GMs did not side with me though so it had to be changed. Oddly enough, they had no issue with CeptNaggers. Nophobias CeptNaggers remains a character in Everquest to this day.

End of the Road

I remember people chatting on Everquest about the upcoming World of Warcraft. Guilds making plans to move or stay, friends doing the same. Some thought it would be the end of EQ while some thought it was overhyped and couldn’t compare with the invested player base EQ already had. I was undecided but leaning toward thinking there’s no way the majority of EQ players would abandon characters they spent 100’s of hours on. I was very very wrong. The population tanked very quickly. Chats filled with ex-EQ players coming back and saying Hi and saying they’ve been playing WoW. It was obvious then that the majority of EQ players preferred the WoW gameplay despite popular belief at the time. None of the comments of “It’s EQ for kids” and “It holds your hand” mattered. Everquest fell into the Shadows of Luclin.

The Future

I’ve logged on to fan projects like Project 1999 and Project Quarm, reaching level 12 on the former and 24 on the latter. It’s fun to see virtual locations I haven’t seen since my teenage years. It gives similar feelings as if returning to somewhere you grew up but it doesn’t capture the wonder and amazement of seeing such a large scale populated game as when it first came out. With the current direction of cheaper to run online gaming with 32 player servers or 4 player self-hosted Co-Op “MMO” lites, I don’t see something on the horizon to give the current generation the same feeling. There is yet still some small hope with catered to now us ancient elders from indie development. A great little project called “Monsters & Memories” that aims to be a spiritual successor to Everquest. I’ve played some open tests of it and it seems to be true to its word with some QoL improvements.