A Decade of Norrath: Our memories of EverQuest

You've heard from the original EverQuest developers, you've seen some nostalgic artwork (with all expansion artwork in our gallery today!) to keep those memories alive, and now we're ready to bring you some thoughts from our own staff here at Massively, as well as our sister site, WoW Insider. It's probably safe to say that most of us have been influenced by EverQuest in some way or another, so who better to give us their fondest memories than those of us who write about MMOs for a living? Follow along below the cut for some memories of EQ from WoW Insider's Lisa Poisso and Daniel Whitcomb, plus one from our very own Brooke Pilley.

For Monday's finale celebrations, we're holding a giveaway where three lucky winners will have the chance to win a 90-day SOE game card to be used towards EverQuest, EverQuest 2, PlanetSide, EverQuest Online Adventures, Star Wars Galaxies or The Matrix Online. This giveaway will incorporate a special screenshot for you to adorn with your wittiest or funniest caption. The hardest part? Trying to be funny on a Monday. Full instructions and restrictions can be found here, and will be posted again on Monday's post.%Gallery-46192%

Brooke Pilley - Contributing Editor: Massively
I only played EQ briefly, around the time of Ruins of Kunark. I was quite excited to give it a shot because I had been playing MUDs since 1996 and this was my first chance to play a 3D graphical MUD. I rolled a gnome necromancer and began my journey. Three things I remember most about EQ1 were how huge the world was, how long it took to level in, and what little direction you were given. It seems the fantasy MMORPG has changed a lot in the past decade (for better or worse), and no-one can deny how much the genre owes to EQ. As for me only playing briefly part, I just found it too time consuming to keep up with my friends.

Lisa Poisso - Contributing Editor: WoW Insider
There'll never be a time like EQ when the world was a huge, mysterious place that you discovered by networking with players you met in the game. You didn't research things on the internet. You could look up new gear finds on Allakhazam, but actual game info? Not back then. Finding a cool XP spot was a big secret. You worked it frantically while listed as Anonymous, so people couldn't tell what zone you were in. Then when you had eked out every last bit of green XP, you ceremoniously handed down the spot to friends who were lower level than you. I was one of only a handful of early players on my server to move through the Ocean of Tears. (I finally caught a friend with his Anon tag off – I KNEW he was up to something juicy! -- and raced out to track down what he was doing.) We made mad money off Gargoyle eyes, XPed more off the Isle Goblins, came back to work Gornit (single-spawn camping, anyone?) and the rest of the Cyclops (watch out for Quag!), and brought friends back later to terrorize the Allizewsaur.

Oddly enough for someone who writes for a gaming site, I sometimes dream about playing a new game on a server where the players have agreed to a no-website policy – everything would have to be discovered and shared in game. It's such a let-down to me to see players being told to watch videos of boss encounters to prepare for their first forays into new territory. I'll never forget discovering the world of EverQuest with my server-mates, and the sense of wonder and joy of exploration that we all shared.

Daniel Whitcomb - Contributing Editor: WoW Insider
I joined EverQuest at the release of the Ruins of Kunark as a Half-Elf Bard, and promptly began an epic half hour corpse run after I fell off Kelethin. I recovered from that quite nicely, and after some basic leveling, was invited to a Crushbone group with a bunch of friends from an internet message board we all posted on. We spent most of our formative levels in Crushbone, camping the Shiny Brass Shield, fighting and sometimes even defeating epic Crush and Dvinn trains, and so on and so forth.

Then it was time to venture off to that other big weird continent we'd heard about, so we took the boat at Butcherblock.

I proceeded to fall off the boat, and spend the next 2 hours headed to Freeport, at which time everyone had gone to bed.

Still, it was some amazing fun, and I still sometimes miss that sense of discovery and exploration, where boarding a boat to the other continent was a massive undertaking worthy of song and heraldry and fraught with danger.

I could go on for hours about the Oasis and Hill Giants and my first Plane of Hate run and so on and so forth, but I know you said one small paragraph, so I'll cut it off here. 10 years already? Now I feel old.