Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

I was introduced to EverQuest for the first time in the fall of 2000 by co-workers at a former company, who were huge fans of the game and played it pretty regularly outside of work, even having started their own guild. Getting into my first monthly-subscription-fee game was difficult in those days as my wife and I had a one-year-old to take care of, and money was kind of tight. Fortunately, one of my co-workers was good enough to lend me his sign-on key to try the game out for awhile. He neglected to warn me not to use the main character for the ‘test-drive’, however.

That evening I tried out his main character, a female half-elf ranger, and had a ball running around hunting things and catching pick-up groups. However, guild chat soon turned ugly as one of the guildies began telling a stream of misogynistic jokes and taunting all the characters with female names. I felt compelled to remain quiet, since it wasn’t my account, but after awhile I felt I could repress the anger any longer, and told the guy to knock it off with the girl-hate, it wasn’t becoming and no one wanted to hear it. After awhile the guildmaster shows up, kicks the offender out of the guild, and after asking around, decided to promote me to guild officer. I also began getting messages from other guildies, saying how great it was that a girl had finally gotten promoted to guild officer, and how much better they felt knowing ‘one of them’ was looking out for them. I was honored and flattered, and as everyone was congratulating me I kind of failed to disabuse anyone of the notions that a) it wasn’t my account, and b) I wasn’t really a girl. I logged off, feeling like a bit of a hero.

The next week at work was kind of a pain, having my co-worker upset with me for getting his main appointed to a guild officer position under the pretense that he is actually female, and with a bunch of admirers proud of him for things he didn’t actually say or do. But, though he was let go from our company a few weeks later, the power of EverQuest was rushing through my veins, and I was hopelessly hooked, finally with my own copy of the game.

John Boomershine, Game Designer