Shack PSA: Original EverQuest $2.50 on Steam

I have fond memories of this game. I don't know if I've ever had as much fun in an MMO as I did in the first beta of Everquest starting with something like three zones and 200 players. I had just come from Ultima Online and the idea of a 3D MMO still blew me away. There was just something cool about doing a /who all and seeing about 30 people in the list and recognizing every name. Then the devs would announce a new zone was finished and we'd all rush to that area to explore. Of course the game was still fun after release.. but I guess I'm kind of a Beta Whore... I always have so much more fun in Betas. Not that this has much to do with this story except that it's hard to believe the game is still going. Nobody must go back to those original zones because they must look awful now by today's standards.

You experienced the world in Everquest in a different way than you do in modern MMOs. Once they started stripping out all the "time sinks", the worlds became linear and shallow backdrops to the grind.

I love all my low level memories, hunting in zones that were full of both my prey and dangerous wandering giants and griffins that would rip my eyes out. Coming back at a higher level and getting my revenge, while rescuing some of the lower level groups from the same fate.

If I wanted to reach a friend in a different city, I would have to cross through whatever angry beasts lived between here and there. Maybe I would have to contend with racist guards or wait for a boat. Maybe I would have to rely on the player driven travel economy and catch a port with a druid or wizard, or beg for a SoW buff from a nearby Shaman. The world didn't care how I got where I wanted to go, it challenged me to get through. It didn't care that I died, it challenged me to figure out how to get back to my gear, past the monsters that I obviously couldn't take while I had my armor, and I had to do this whole journey completely naked. Maybe I would have to ask that high level monk to drag my corpse out of that den for me.

It just felt like a living, breathing world. Nowadays its: fight at point A through 1-9, right click this bell to journey to 10-19, magically teleport to 20-29. Don't worry about dying, you'll just reappear back there a bit and get to try again! Think we should risk fighting that guy, or should we try to sneak around him? Who cares! We'll just be able to pop right back and try again!

I played for a while, but never got past the point where I couldn't loot an enemy player in PvP if my Necro pet got the killing blow.

My twin brother was one of the first guys to get banned, right at the beginning of the game. He stumbled on a dupe bug involving zoning and trading. OK, he didn't stumble. He realized it would probably work, and did. He and his buddy talked about it and reported it, fearing it would wreck the game at launch (EQ was a Big Deal at the time and it was a moment of magical altruism on his part). Next thing you know, his "buddy", Stonemann, has all kinds of special Phat Loot and my brother's banned.

Turned out that Stonemann cut his own deal and never put in the report that my bro was the guy that discovered the bug and wanted to turn it in Now my bro was the crook that Stonemann was reporting to the "feds" as a concerned citizen. Oh, how seriously we all took those games...

He actually talked to McQuaid on the phone, and Brad was a little unhinged about the whole thing. "You are the enemy!" kind of conversation.

Anyway, it was good for Lols. I kept playing, my brother went back to UO, true story.

Time to avoid Kithicor Forest at night once again :P

I loved playing, but I loved being a Server Gm more. (Pre outsourcing to India.)

Them was the days.

And in eleven years you'll get to post news about how Blizzard's ancient World of Warcraft is still running and raking in the dollars even though World of Warcraft 2, Starcraft Universe Online Deluxe and Everquest 3 is out!

drag point, drag knock, drag feather, drag shaft . press create

You have created 1 arrow! only 999 to go !

didnt play much but this is what I remember

I hate EQ because it killed my Tribes team :p

The game was great for it's time, I started playing EQ when it first came out, it was even more challenging then. People actually role played on non-RP servers. I even became a Guide in EQ for a couple years and it was great fun. But really, the EQ time has passed, I look back on it now and wonder how I could have spent so many hours camping in one spot, or spending an entire day waiting for the stupid Ancient Cyclops to spawn to fight other players to kill it and get my SoW boots! Oh, and how can I forget the hours and hours of prep to kill a world dragon. Log on, get buffed, log off into raid chat room while others get buffed so your buffs don't wear off. Then log back in for crazy lag dragon killing fun...and hope you don't get feared into a trap LOL

I will always have fond memories of EQ.