by Chris Noll on Apr 02, 2010
First, let's explore what made EverQuest
so popular that thousands of people have signed up to go back to 1999
to play it all over again.
EverQuest
came onto the scene very near the dawning of MMOGs. To say it was a
different time would be like saying Sean Connery played the best James
Bond--it's both obvious and quite true. Soloing was rarely an option,
death penalties were severe and unforgiving, reputations made the
player, and raids could last all weekend. The flavor of MMOGs has
changed dramatically over the past decade and today the average player
simply doesn't have the patience and/or time for the old-school MMOG.
So what was the hook? Why did so many people live and breathe
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest? I asked
that very question of John Smedley, President of Sony Online
Entertainment, and the creator of the original
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest.
"I think it was partly the time and the place," Smedley told me. "It
was most peoples first MMO. I would say it had a little bit of an
older crowd. Theres such a feeling of nostalgia for the first
experience. It was the first translation from when you played tabletop
D&D to an online game."
The nostalgia Smedley spoke of certainly rings true. In 2006 SOE opened
up what they dubbed Progression Servers, which allowed players to start
all over again from the beginning. As guilds and alliances defeated
specific content the next expansion would be unlocked. The result was a
certifiable success. Many players new and old jumped at the opportunity
and both progression servers filled to the brim on opening day.
So does SOE plan on opening more similar servers?
"I wouldnt say 'progression,' " said Smedley, "but we do have other
things planned like that. We did the 50/51 server recently. [
style="font-style: italic;">A server that allows players to
start new characters at level 50 with 51 Alternate Advancement points.
-ed] Were planning on more stuff like that that will keep
people interested and maybe offering them a slightly different way of
playing. We try to change things up a little."
50/51 or Progression, Live or Classic, the allure of
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest still
draws many players. Part of the attraction lies in the difficulty level
of the game, which simply isn't seen in many of today's MMOGs.
Cliff 'Nilbog' Gibson, founder of Project 1999 reminisced
fondly about the days of 1999 EverQuest.
Project 1999 is an emulated server that attempts to recreate
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest as it was
in 1999, before expansions and back when it was a very different game
from the MMOGs of today. The project is not supported by or affiliated
with Sony Online Entertainment, and playing it requires a breach of the
EQ EULA.
"I missed the difficulty of original
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest," he
explained. "The players of all games have always complained about the
death penalties, running naked to retrieve their corpses, and the
unforgiving nature of the game, but I think they desire the challenge."
The challenge of the game was certainly a common theme as I spoke to
more people. I approached two of the top raiding guilds involved in
Project 1999 and asked them what made
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest their
game of choice.
"There hasnt been a game like [EverQuest]
in difficulty and content matter," said Xzerion, guild leader
of Inglourious Basterds. "You have to be good at playing your class. In
World of Warcraft,
you were playing with a bunch of nine year old kids and all they had to
do was to show up, get some levels, and be somewhat useful on a raid.
Here, it is clearly evident if somebody is playing with you and is not
good and could deter whatever group or raid youre trying to take part
in."
"To be able to progress and meet your full potential as any kind of
class, you have to understand the game mechanics," added Otto, former
guild leader of Inglourious Basterds. "You need to understand the
layout of the zones; you need to understand how your class is
beneficial in group situations. Every other MMOG that Ive played is
just so easy that the journey to the final level in the game can be
accomplished within a few days, at most. Thats what I liked about
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest--it took
time and effort... I think that without the difficulty of the game, you
miss out on the fulfillment factor."
One of the guild's officers, Karsten, agreed, and offered a more
analytical perspective. "I would answer in a much more metaphysical and
psychological way," he began. "That question opens up a large variety
of ways in which you could answer it. The succinct way of answering it
is that I like playing EverQuest
in the same way that Im attracted to women who are hard to
get. Its a sad commentary on the psychology of what mankind
is attracted to. I really do think that one of the reasons why
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest was so
popular is that I think they [SOE] put together a game that
specifically plays on those parts of humankinds personalities. A lot
of us play EverQuest
because of our latent masochist tendencies... We like
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest because
its difficult.
"I remember that when I started playing
style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft,
I couldnt stop raving about the fact that it didnt try to punch me in
the face whenever I logged on and tried to XP, and that was refreshing
and nice, but its also the reason why I quit playing it."
Stanley Soulcat, guild leader of Transcendence, another top guild on
the server, had a slightly different thought on the classic
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest
experience.
"MMOGs were a lot less commercialized," he said. "Back in the old days,
there was UO [Ultima
Online], and then nothing until
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest came
around. And based upon my opinion, back in the day, people didnt enjoy
the PvP environment that UO offered, and
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest gave them
that PvE environment and allowed them to have a better time and not
constantly be trolled or attacked."
So what exactly is Project 1999 and does it fit the bill for what these
players are looking for?
In the words of Nilbog: "Project 1999 is an attempt to recreate the
original launch of EverQuest.
We use the EverQuest
Titanium client with the open source work of the EQEmulator community,
and players will be able to relive their original experience." And
that's exactly what they've done. This is Classic
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest, without
any expansions, with all of the old systems and mechanics in place. For
all intents and purposes, this is EverQuest
as it was in 1999.
The plan is to follow the same timeline as the original title,
chronologically activating expansions around the same time they were
originally released. Nilbog says they intend to unlock two
expansions--The Ruins of Kunark, and the Scars of Velious, matching the
timeline as closely as they can, opening the expansions roughly a year
apart. There are no current plans to release any further expansions on
the emulated server.
The experiences between EverQuest
of 1999 and Project 1999 are very nearly identical. The old textures
and models are all in place and the classic quests are active. The
crafting and spell casting systems are reminiscent of the era; the
zones and monsters are all classic, as is the lengthy combat and the
somewhat brutal death penalty. Certain fans have even stepped up to
contribute to the project, offering "classic" interface skins.
The project started in the fall of 2008. Nilbog started the
project solo for a couple of months and then realized he was going to
need some help.
"[I] started recruiting long-lost comrades. The open beta testing
lasted around a year and weve had about five developers at a time."
"We have a few devs that are kind of enjoying themselves playing right
now," added Sean 'Rogean' Norton, co-manager, "so they havent been as
active recently on the developer side of things. As people go, we find
new people to step in and help out. Its an ongoing process."
Rogean is the current owner of EQEmulator. Once he saw Nilbog's project
he became immediately enthralled.
"I actually joined a little after launch," Rogean told me. "I noticed
one night while working on the main EQEmulator website that there was
this new Project 1999 server showing up on the server list that had
over a hundred people online. I was like, 'what is this?' I logged in
and I noticed how laggy it was because they were trying to run it from
a cable connection. So, I was like, 'alright, this has gotta change.' I
happened to have a server standing by, so I had them jump on that
server and I moved everything over for them and then it kind of took
off from there."
And take off it did. The population of the server continues to grow on
a daily basis and thousands of accounts have logged in.
"We have almost 27,000 characters, and 14,000 accounts. Our population
at prime time has surpassed the 600 player mark," stated Rogean.
"Primetime for us are the big internet nights," he continued, "which
are Thursday and Sunday nights. What we also have to keep in mind is
that we dont allow boxing on our server. You cant have two characters
from the same IP Address online at once unless you apply for an IP
exemption for two or more real people in the same house, and this is
enforced by the server staff. That means all those players are real
people, which is a huge accomplishment. The other server that comes
close to us in population on the same login server is Project EQ, and
roughly half of their characters are boxes. To have over 600 people
online at one time is a huge accomplishment for us and its steadily
increasing. We hope it keeps doing that."
With the amount of people playing the game, concerns pop up about the
server stability. How many players can the server support? Rogean
promptly answered.
"Currently, the amount of players a single zone can handle is around
140. The server itself has no global population limit, and any zone
that approaches those numbers may start having problems, but it won't
affect other zones. I constantly look for ways to increase the code
efficiency to raise this limit. Bandwidth-wise, we actually have two
servers, and theyre both on hundred megabit connections in big data
centers, so I dont see bandwidth being a huge problem. We can always
add another server or two if we need to down the road as we get more
players, and I dont think that well be hitting that upper limit too
often on the players in the zones." In addition, a new server has just
been ordered for the project, and will be placed in a new facility with
an even more powerful connection.
Apart from server stability, development takes up its resources. Things
like quests, NPCs, zones, spells and crafting all need to be carefully
tuned by volunteer staff. The players themselves play a pivotal role in
the recreation of the experience. "Every day we recreate the quests and
NPCs as they are found missing," Nilbog said. Rogean expanded.
"As we get more and more players, our bug forums are filling up, and I
have to say that Nilbog has been doing a fantastic job of going through
all the bugs, adding stuff thats missing, and weve got it pretty
close to how it was in Classic. Typically, nowadays, youll be hard
pressed to find anything thats missing, and if you did that rare quest
back in the day that nobody else ever actually did and it happens to
not be working, make a post and well fix it."
When he says "fix it," he means by hand. There was no code from the
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest client
that recorded the placement or pathing of NPCs. "There were some
original show EQ packet logs," Nilbog mentioned."Its not fully
comprehensive, but it helped."
So what keeps the team motivated?
"The happiness that people seem to get from it," Nilbog replied. "Its
great. I enjoy classic EverQuest
and this is great."
"And you get your name out there a bit too," Rogean added. "People look
up to you a little bit, they respect you, and they realize the work
youve done. You get a lot of thanks-tells and a lot of praise on the
forums, so its a good feeling.
"We have our bumps and everything here and there, and been through a
few rough things. Obviously, when the server first started, we had to
move. When Nilbog first started, he didnt anticipate the rush of
players, and thats why we were so laggy on the opening day, and thats
when I stepped in and helped him out."
Should the unthinkable happen, and Nilbog, Rogean and the rest of the
crew need to free up time in their schedules for other things, they're
pretty confident the server would continue onward.
"I think if something happened to one of the primary people, me or
Rogean, I dont think it would come to an end," assured Nilbog. "I
think that theres enough interest in the project that it could be
maintained indefinitely from volunteer work. I dont foresee leaving,
but I think it could be maintained from just the interest in the game."
Rogean agreed. "Nilbog and I are both very rooted in what we do as far
as maintaining the server goes. If one of us just decides one day to up
and leave and become unresponsive, then there might be a problem, but I
dont see that happening for either of us. We know weve created
something special, so were not going to let it go to waste. If we did
come to a situation where we didnt have enough time to commit to the
project any more, wed make sure that somebody else would fill in our
spot."
And how do players play their part?
"Continue to file bug reports," Rogean answered, "but when filing bug
reports, be as accurate as possible providing as much detailed
information as possible as that just makes our lives easier. We do what
we can to fix all the bugs, but with the amount of things we have to
do, it just makes our lives so much easier if we have a detailed post
that we dont have to look up all the facts or look up all these extra
things that could be posted by the person."
"Research is the best thing possible," added Nilbog.
"If youre posting something that needs a change, its best to cite a
reference. Those references could be huge for us," continued Rogean.
"We do have Guides; we have a Guide application forum. We ask that any
Guides who apply be knowledgeable with EQ itself, classic content, and
also have somewhat of a knowledge with computers in general and,
obviously, with EQ and the client on the emulator, and emulator
experience as in being a GM on any of the other servers in the past."
"So the player's right to use the client software is tied to a valid EQ
account," Monahan annotated. "Accounts (even free-to-play accounts) on
a non-Sony server will not be authorized. It also prohibits
the creation, and arguably use, of server emulators:
"Based on these provisions," he continued, "SOE could challenge the
emulator project as vicarious copyright infringement under a WoWGlider
theory. Put simply, anyone playing on the server would be
violating the license grant in the client EULA and therefore infringe
SOE's copyrights. Since 100% of the use of that emulator is
infringement, SOE could sue to enjoin the emulator much like the record
labels were able to enjoin Napster and Grokster. Indeed, EULA
violations established the direct infringement that got the WoWGlider
makers into trouble."
While Monahan may have painted a somewhat bleak picture, the team at
Project 1999 was a bit more optimistic.
"The EULA states that you cannot emulate an
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest server,"
acknowledged Rogean. "This is not a legal issue; this is more of a
contract for your play accounts. If they wanted to, they could ban your
EQ Live account as youre violating your user agreement, but that
doesnt make it illegal.
"Since we wrote the code, everything we wrote is what weve done and
its all by hand for us, so we are not running any of their code.
People have to find their own ways of getting the client or buying [
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest]
Titanium. Were not distributing copyrighted files, which helps us a
lot legally since the biggest argument for emulator servers nowadays is
that you have to have a certain client to play on them.
"The other thing is that you cant make any money or profit off of
these types of things. If we started charging people to play on our
server, then it becomes a legal issue, and then they would have a legal
argument. People can donate for server costs and what-not, which goes
back into providing what theyre playing on for free, but thats
completely up to them. We do not require it."
Whether or not Sony creates a Classic server or missed their chance,
they're still very much committed to
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest and its
players. Recent rumors have cropped up that
style="font-style: italic;">Underfoot would be
the last expansion of the game's 11-year running. Smedley confirmed
that this was indeed just a rumor.
"I came out of a meeting two weeks ago where we were focusing on an
expansion that will be coming out later this year," he told me at GDC
in early March.
I also asked him about the future of
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest and "
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest 'Next' "
which was leaked out in the game's Anniversary book last year. What is "
style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest 'Next'?"
"Its what it sounds like," Smedley said. "Were not going to stand
still with the EverQuest
franchise. Were working with it now and were going to take it to the
next level. We intend for it to be the game of the century you watch."
For over a decade now EverQuest
has enthralled thousands of gamers around the world. Nostalgia has
played a large role in reserving the game a special spot in player's
lives. There's something markedly powerful about a title that can
retain such popularity long past its expiry date in terms of
advancement in the technology of today. Such potency to power
motivation for players to not only rebuild the experience by hand, but
be joined by thousands of others with the same sentimental affinity to
play the game is not only rare, but impinging monumental.
Whether it be the difficulty of the game, the social implications, or
just the fondness of yesteryear that brings players back one thing is
amply clear: The impression that EverQuest
made in 1999 is still very much recognizable today.
If the enticement to play the game as it was over a decade ago pulls
you strongly, Project 1999 has made a lot of people happy but at the cost of breaching the EULA with SOE. Maybe one day
we will see the teams from Sony and Project 1999 come together and find
a solution. When that day comes, bring a sleeping bag, because it will
be one hell of a lineup to get in game.