An EverQuest Postmortem

Is EverQuest dead? My character from 1999 is still accessible to me on a Daybreak server, but the answer is not so simple. A MMORPG is an evolving creature. While my character is still accessible, the game experience today is radically different than it was in 1999. That early experience is no longer available, and not in small part due to the technological and social landscapes today being so much different. But the gameplay of the modern EverQuest has changed drastically since 1999 – some would argue for the worse – and thus the need for emulated servers arose. The emulated servers are the closest thing to what the original game looked and felt like, but these servers still leave much to be desired for the true purist.

This document is a retrospective critique as written by somebody who has studied the game very carefully for over a decade in an attempt to recreate one of the game’s earlier eras. (for The Al’Kabor Project) I was never employed by or ever associated with Sony/VI/989/Daybreak in any capacity. Perhaps calling this a ‘postmortem’ is a little presumptuous given that I was not involved in the making of the game but it fits neatly in the navbar at the top.

The Hallmarks of Early EverQuest

What made EverQuest special? Why am I even bothering to write this? The list isn’t short, however I believe the three primary characteristics were: player interdependence (intentionally solo unfriendly design), a risk vs. reward design philosophy that punished bad play and highly rewarded exceptional play, and a focus on world immersion. Immersion elements would include features that are unrelated to the leveling treadmill such as weather, flavor NPCs that exist solely to make the world feel alive and not because they’re needed for a quest or other player task, many racial starting cities plus long distances between these cities, and “meaningful travel” in general with a sense of being far from home.

In the post-World of Warcraft moonscape of MMORPGs, these features are almost nonexistent. The entire leveling game in WoW is typically done solo. Third person camera wrecked immersion. Weather was added as an afterthought. The few starting cities are easily accessed at level one because keeping people apart is “bad” even though leveling became a solo journey. NPCs don’t chit chat unless it’s for a quest. Quests all have !s so there is no discovery and they’re mostly just for experience anyway. Equipment is handed to you on a platter just for completing a trivial quest you would have otherwise done for experience regardless that you didn’t have to look for, or you just buy gear at the auction house. Death only costs you a two minute ghost run so there is never any real risk. Faction only exists as a progress indicator for repeatable quests. The small world sizes mean no local economies. Leveling became a two week chore to complete before reaching the “real game” which is some instanced raid you do once a week.

“We made the game we ourselves wanted to play. We wanted a challenging game where players could get a real sense of accomplishment, where risk vs. reward really meant something. The more difficult games we’d played, both online and offline, were the ones we both enjoyed and fondly remembered.” – Brad McQuaid