EverQuest turns 9, give grandpa a visit
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Mar 13th 2008 at 11:45AM }
The online game will hold various events throughout the year to celebrate being one year away from an actual milestone. Beginning March 16, there'll be a scavenger hunt and a month-long event tied to the divinities and servants of the Planes of Power. SOE states that EverQuest, after fourteen expansions, still has a flourishing community and will "stay active into the foreseeable future." There is more information about the anniversary events and special downloadable items (like an EverQuest timeline poster) at Station.com.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nigeria @ Mar 13th 2008 11:58AM
Is she smiling, at me?
Erwos @ Mar 13th 2008 12:08PM
I think grandpa would have a heart attack if _she_ came to visit!
Lars @ Mar 13th 2008 3:49PM
"Once Brad McQuaid left it was all down hill. Too bad his follow up project did not seem to go anywhere."
So true. Old EQ was so awesome. It really went to shit after a while though. I play WoW now, it's just OK, nothing compared to old EQ.
Lars @ Mar 13th 2008 3:50PM
Ooops, that was supposed to be under the comment by Stefan below.
Stefan Hayden @ Mar 13th 2008 12:05PM
In the early days the game was great. "The Vision" was a good one for hardcore gamers.
I only wish I had enough hours of the day to live up to The Vision.
Once Brad McQuaid left it was all down hill. Too bad his follow up project did not seem to go anywhere.
I don't think the market has a lot of room for hardcore MMOs. You really need to appeal to a broader base.
chris @ Mar 13th 2008 12:21PM
This game destoryed my soul for approximately 2 years. Thank God I never played WoW.
ChooChooCharlie @ Mar 13th 2008 12:23PM
BREASTS
There I said it.
jakie_chon @ Mar 13th 2008 1:04PM
too small for today's (VG) standards
Dracula Jones @ Mar 13th 2008 12:56PM
I'm all sorts of nostalgic for old school EQ... I'd love to just log in for a couple hours and run my bard (Selo's Accelerando!) from Ak'Anon to Erudin, with a stop in Riverdale to hug a halfling.
MasterInsan0 @ Mar 13th 2008 1:01PM
Everquest is the hardest of the hardcore MMOs, which is good because not many people have time for a second job.
You think I'm kidding, but no. Everquest is a second job (or a first if you're a 12-year-old). If you hated the grind in games like World of Warcraft, multiply it by like 1000 and you'll have EQ.
As an example, I played the game for two years (somewhat seriously) and made it to level 23. That was back when the level cap was 50. I'm sure I wasn't playing the game optimally, since it was 1999 and I was 12, but seriously, TWO YEARS.
Compare this to World of Warcraft where I played for a month and made level 62 (before quitting after realizing how much of my time was being wasted).
seefresh @ Mar 13th 2008 1:15PM
I played for years and never got one character maxed out. I got level 58 when 60 was the max.
mietha CAG @ Mar 13th 2008 1:52PM
NO, Anarchy Online is the hardest of hardcore. I had to create spreadsheets and databases just to cross-reference what everything did. That said, WoW is for pussies. Sorry, that's just the case. People maxed out multiple characters in BETA. Not going to happen in EQ. I played EQ for 5 years and have SERIOUSLY been considering starting up again. EQ is the best MMO and just might be the best game ever created period. EQ provides an experience that nothing else has ever come close to.
TwistedBishop @ Mar 13th 2008 2:12PM
You didn't play for 2 years when the level cap was 50. The Ruins of Kunark expansion raised it to 60 a year after the game launched.
Other than that, I agree; it was a seriously life-sucking experience. I played for almost three years, most of that time in a hardcore raiding guild. My schedule was to log in at 4pm and play until 6am. Every single day. Oh except the weekends, when raids would start around noon.
It was also a punishing game to the point of cruelty: trying to retrieve your corpse without any gear; losing a week's experience if you couldn't find a res; hours just to travel from one spot to another; waiting lines for groups in the few end-game dungeons; racing other guilds to bosses that only spawned once a week for the entire server; key quests to enter dungeons where you farmed yet MORE keys to access the boss who would give you ONE PART OF YET ANOTHER KEY QUEST to enter a raid dungeon.
Oddly, even though it almost killed me, I still remember it fondly. I have never been that immersed in a game world, but I've also never felt as good as when I quit. It was like waking up from a coma.
Lars @ Mar 13th 2008 3:54PM
"WoW is for pussies."
Haha, so true! Made me laugh.
MasterInsan0 @ Mar 13th 2008 11:50PM
You know, Bishop, you're right. I forgot that Kunark raised the cap. Which makes it even worse. I made it through just over a third of the level grind in two years. Ouch.
That said, I definitely do remember EQ being extremely immersive, especially back when the graphics weren't entirely horrible-looking. Running from place to place sucked, but I played a Shaman so I always had SoW. =P
It probably says something (positive or negative, I dunno) about the game when I could go back and still find my way around the world.
Dirt @ Mar 13th 2008 1:25PM
I played for maybe five years or more. The first three were spent between characters getting to level 30 and getting bored. Finally played a Necro and fell in love, got him to 60 and still had a blast, joined one of the largest guilds and got to play the "stay up all night, call in sick for work the next day" raid game with Vex Thall and then the Planes. Killing Rallos Zek was probably the last big accomplishment I ever did before I just ran out of time to play and the guild slowly fell apart as WoW was released.
Good times, but in a way, I think WoW saved a lot of people. So long as they weren't interested in WoW, I guess.
vannyx @ Mar 13th 2008 1:51PM
I played 3 years, it was another life another family. I still remembered how excited i was when i first stepped foot in fironia vie, i thought kunark was so cool. i made it to a level 60 warrior druid when the cap was 60 and luclin was the new hotness. I logged in 3 weeks ago my character and all his gear was still there, ( after 4 years of not playing) but the magic was gone.
Sam @ Mar 13th 2008 2:53PM
I played EQ for only a few months before I realized that I wasn't having fun and swore off the whole genre. I don't know how many of you guys know this, but a lot of the programmers/designers for wow were hardcore EQ players, so at least something good did come out of it (if you like wow).
ugg.tryptophan @ Mar 13th 2008 4:51PM
i think its going a bit too far when the cleavage stares back at you
JB87 @ Mar 13th 2008 10:19PM
Played for ~6 years, made a lot of friends through it. Quit this January, but still keeping in touch with them..
And to those commenting on Firiona Vie's cleavage... look at some of the new art, she seems to have progressively lost clothing and gained bust size over the years.
ZeroCorpse @ Mar 14th 2008 12:19AM
I disagree-- The hardest of the hardcore was Star Wars Galaxies. I playtested, and played for a while, and the biggest problem with that game was that it was an unfinished pile of crap that kept changing the rules in the middle of your level progression and skill development. The market system was a total mess. The quests were often impossible or just plain pointless, and some of the classes were able to grind their way to high levels using macros over and over, while others were utterly gimped and had to do brain-numbing quests just to raise a little bit.
And then, just when you thought you had the hang of it, they changed EVERYTHING to lure in new players to the game. They also made Jedi into totally common characters, and threw every ounce of reverence to the storyline out the window.
After playing that, Anarchy Online seemed like a walk in the park... Granted, it was a very DULL walk in the park, but still...
WoW is a chat room and little else.
Jouten @ Mar 14th 2008 2:36AM
Been playing this game since right before Luclin was released. I am still playing but I am seriously thinking of getting out. I hardly play anymore and when I do, it's kinda boring. I never got into WoW either. It seems that this gen of gaming consoles won me over and I have so much fun playing my 360 and PS3 now over any MMO out there.
Maybe they will come out with a feasible and awesome MMO for the PS3 or 360 to change all that though. FF sux so it never had a chance of pulling me in.
DZeroStar @ Mar 14th 2008 12:59PM
I played EQ for a couple years in college and never managed to hit level 50, let alone 60. I did, however, run a high elf wizard who managed to max out the blacksmithing skill just before they "adjusted" blacksmithing to make it MUCH harder to max out! Running around in bright green magical elven chainmail as a wizard, who were usually restricted to robes, was totally awesome! This was on a PvP server, too, so I often confused opponents who didn't realize I was a wizard until they got nuked!
But really, the level grid was just awful and generally I felt that the game discouraged, rather than encouraged, exploration due to the insanely harsh death penalties. Sometimes, I'd try to log in for half an hour to get something trivial accomplished, then end up stuck in-game for hours on an unanticipated corpse run!
JJ @ May 1st 2008 12:30PM
I've been contemplating playing EQ1 again but am afraid leveling would be impossible if everyone has hit the cap- I would have no one to play with! Starting on a new server would probably circumvent this problem. Does anyone know when the newest server was created? I've checked many online sources but have not had any luck. I also heard there was a server created dedicated to old-school EQ (which would be right down my ally) but if it were even 6 months old my chances of finding groups would be greatly depleted. Any ideas?
Thanks!