EverQuest Celebrates 15-Year Annniversary

Sony Online Entertainment’s mega-successful and now free-to-play MMORPG EverQuest has officially been online for over fifteen years, and the company is celebrating with a new “nostalgia” video (that invokes just that) and a letter to the community written by senior producer Thom Terrazas. We start with the video:

And then move on to a little something from the letter:

Fifteen years ago, a game launched that set the gaming world on fire. On March 16th, 2014, EverQuest celebrates its 15th birthday. Actually, I should say that WE ALL celebrate its 15th birthday because EverQuest is as much about our players as it is about the rich stories within Norrath.

I can remember 1999. I was a game test that had just moved over to become a Game Master for the launch of this new game, EverQuest. Game Master? Me? I soon realized I was no master of a game that had so many different facets to learn. But I learned quickly. EverQuest launched and I was helping players in the tech support chat rooms all day and all night long. The toughest thing about working on EverQuest back then was how much I wanted to be playing! When my shift was done I was playing from my desk at work for hours before going home (just like everyone that worked with me). Oh boy, how that got me in trouble so many nights. I think I made a macro back then that said: (I have to leave the group guys and get home before the wife thinks I have a girlfriend.)

I remember when I got my very own EverQuest game. I opened it up, excited to read everything that came in the box. I read through the storylines of the Gods: how the Veeshan carved up Norrath, how we were in the Age of Scale. and then I came across the system requirements. I soon realized that my computer at home wouldn’t run EverQuest very well. So I started volunteering for more overtime shifts to save money.

When I finally logged into game for the first time from home, I pondered for a long time about which character I wanted to create. I wanted to be powerful. I wanted everyone to know my character as the baddest dude on the server so I created. an ogre warrior!!! He was strong and full of pride. He didn’t care about anyone else ‘˜cause he would smash anything that got in his way. Man, he was awesome! I zoned into Feerrott and started looking for things to kill. I was smashing this and that and walked a little further and then. I DIED. And I couldn’t find my corpse! 🙁

I would see other ogres running by, one after another. I would ask: (Cud you help me find meh corpse?) But no one offered to help. Everyone was too excited, too busy discovering the world or looking for their own corpse.

Nobody at home was up that late at night so I logged out while I figured out how to correct this. I went to the refrigerator and got a snack and the largest Coke I could find. I just knew I was going to be in Norrath for a while. I took a deep breath. Then I logged back into EverQuest and created a human paladin. And the rest is history.