15th-anniversary
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Norrathian Notebook: Happy 15th anniversary, EverQuest!
This past Sunday marked the 15th anniversary of EverQuest. Any way you look at it, 15 years is a long time, and few are the games that can make this claim to fame. Such an achievement is certainly worth a hullabaloo! Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've witnessed a bit of this celebration; it's been touted across the entire franchise (not to mention the rest of SOE's portfolio!). Much has been said about the journey from day one until now, with folks sharing stories that span the entire life of EQ. Devs even offered an infographic highlighting how far the game has come since 1999. What a difference 15 years makes! But what about the difference just one year makes? Today's Norrathian Notebook is an anniversary retrospective that looks back at the last 12 months in the life of EverQuest. Join me for a jaunt down memory lane to see how Norrath has evolved this past year, then take advantage of the special deals and festivities commemorating this auspicious year.
Get an EverQuest heroic character for free
Players in EverQuest have a limited-time opportunity to snag a free heroic character if they create one between March 12th and March 26th, SOE announced on the official forums. Unlike other characters, heroic characters start at level 85. They also get a full set of gear, a unique mount, and alternative advancement abilities. Normally heroic characters will cost 3,500 Station Cash to purchase. EverQuest is also adding two new race and class combos to the game for its 15th anniversary. Starting March 12th, players will be able to roll a Wood Elf Beastlord or a Froglok Monk.
Raph Koster reminisces about Ultima Online 15 years later
Fifteen years of any MMO is a legitimate enough excuse to wax nostalgic, so we can't blame original Ultima Online developer Raph Koster for writing down a few thoughts about the game's 15th anniversary. His article is a collection of early behind-the-scenes vignettes, including how a player from one of his previous MUDs followed him to UO to sue the game, how the architecture presented challenges, and the pain of cutting unfinished content prior to launch. Koster is bluntly honest about the middling reception of the game at the time of its launch, although he said he reveled in the positive press: "The EA lawyers were very unhappy with me over a quote from that newspaper article in the pic. I ended by saying Ultima Online was 'a grand experiment.' They said, 'Don't you realize that's the sort of thing they will use in court against us?' But it was. Grand."
Ultima Online maps out remainder of 2012
If you don't mind being spoiled when it comes to your favorite isometric sandbox, then you might want to head over to Ultima Online's official site, where Producer Bonnie Armstrong has spilled the beans about the game's immediate and long-term future. Armstrong begins by laying a foundation for the game's updates, starting with Publish 78 any day now, Publish 79 around Christmas-time, and Publish 80 for early next year. She also revealed a lengthy list of features that the team is thinking about implementing for UO, including high-res art, a better UI, new sea creatures and encounters, and a battleground shard. Specifics about each publish's contents are still up in the air, although Armstrong says the team will post them soon enough. For Ultima Online's 15th anniversary, Armstrong says that Mythic is bringing back the Return to Britannia promotion for all of September. This means that any former UO subscribers will be welcome to come back and play free of charge. The team will be distributing anniversary rewards during the month as well.
Mythic: Help us convince execs to make Ultima Online 2
As Ultima Online turns the corner into its 15th anniversary next month, many fans have wondered why Mythic is focusing on its not-quite-an-MMO Ultima Forever instead of a proper sequel. Producer Jeff Skalski took to the podium to talk about Ultima's future and how fans might help the studio sell higher-ups on a return to the days of glory. Skalski says that it's important to realize that Ultima Forever and Ultima Online are being worked on by separate teams, so there's no draining of resources from one into the other. "We have a phrase here in the office that every generation deserves an Ultima game," he said. "It's been far too long." When the 15th anniversary hits, expect fun surprises, Skalski promised. He finished by making a plea for fans to support Ultima Forever, saying that it might lead to better things: "For those interested in seeing an UO2: No surprise announcements on that today, but what I will say by everyone continuing to support UO and Ultima Forever this is the kind of ammunition I need to convince the high level execs that the market is ready for more Ultima."
IBM celebrates the 15th anniversary of Deep Blue beating Garry Kasparov (video)
It's been 15 years since IBM's Deep Blue recorded its famous May 11th 1997 victory over world champion chess player Garry Kasparov -- a landmark in artificial intelligence. Designed by Big Blue as a way of understanding high-power parallel processing, the "brute force" system could examine 200 million chess positions every second, beating the grandmaster 3.5-2.5 after losing 4-2 the previous year. It went on to help develop drug treatments, analyze risk and aid data miners before being replaced with Blue Gene and, more recently, Watson -- which recorded a famous series of victories on Jeopardy! in 2011. If you'd like to know more, we've got a video with one of the computer's fathers: Dr. Murray Campbell and a comparison on how the three supercomputers stack up after the break. As for Garry Kasparov? The loss didn't ruin his career, he went on to win every single Chess trophy conceived, retired, wrote some books and went into politics. As you do.
Remember Diablo with new 15 year anniversary website
In celebration of fifteen years of Diablo -– the original came out all the way back in 1996 (!) -– Blizzard has launched a special anniversary website. The site has all kinds of Diablo-related content, from a timeline of the entire series, cutscenes from Diablo 2, video interviews and a lengthy video retrospective. Of particular interest is an interview with Diablo 3 director Jay Wilson, who states, "We're almost done with Diablo 3 and that's a fitting celebration of the 15 year anniversary." He adds, "We'll get it to you as soon as we can." In related news, 2014 is going to be one hell of a year.
Tomb Raider celebrates 15th anniversary with a Lara Croft art gallery
The Tomb Raider franchise celebrated its 15th anniversary (which is crystal, by the way -- get your mom, girlfriend, wife, sister or sister-wives something from Swarovski, cheapskate) with an artistic tribute to Lara Croft, featuring digital renditions from eight legacy artists and newcomers. Artists include the current senior art director for Tomb Raider, Brian Horton; Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, art director for Deus Ex: Human Revolution; and the final artist, Toby Card, who designed the original Lara Croft back in 1995. Check out the gallery here, but don't check it out too hard -- Lara is only 15, after all.
Capcom taking over Japanese shooting gallery for Resident Evil anniversary
You know that trip you were going to take to Japan this summer? Well, you'll be able to do more than sample the local cuisine and take in the sights -- you're desperately needed to help quell the zombie threat. Well, the paper zombie threat, at least. Capcom, in collaboration with the EA Shooting Bar (an airsoft gun shooting range not affiliated with the rival publisher), will redecorate the inside of the range to look like the S.T.A.R.S. offices from May 20 through June 19, Andriasang reports. It's all to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Resident Evil. After a full day of shooting paper zombie targets, patrons will be able to enjoy themed food and drinks, watch a 15th anniversary special video and purchase Resident Evil items. The bar is located in the Musashino area of Tokyo.
What's taking the Battlecry mosaic so long?
When the World of Warcraft Anniversary mini-site was unveiled last November, one of its features was a photo-mosaic dubbed the Battlecry which would unlock little art goodies each time a certain milestone was reached. The Battlecry mosaic called for player submissions to submit their pictures with a logo of their favored faction, with a modest goal of 20,000 player-submitted pictures in order to reveal the final artwork created specially for the event. It's come along rather smoothly, and some really cool player pictures have been submitted, with the seeming abundance of Horde-aligned pictures prompting us to ask where the Alliance pride was. But what really surprises me is how long the whole project is taking. When the site was launched, one of the first questions that actually ran through my head was how long it would take to fill up the whole mosaic. With over ten million active players, you'd think getting to 20,000 would be easy. Out of ten million, that's like a drop in a bucket. But after almost two months of the site being active, we're still only at 32% of the goal. Why?
Sony's PlayStation marks 15th anniversary
1994. A good year for many reasons, but for gamers it's best remembered as the year Sony shook things up in a big way with its original PlayStation game console (on this day in Japan, at least -- the rest of us had to wait 'til the fall of 1995). While Sega got a slight head start with its Saturn, the Sony PlayStation's lower price and strong launch line-up of games quickly vaulted it to the top of the pack, and helped bring in the slightly older audience that 3D0 and others tried and failed to capture. Of course, the original PlayStation was also just the beginning for Sony, and the company has taken this opportunity to reminisce a bit about the entire history of the PlayStation brand on a special 15th anniversary website (linked below). Feel free to share some thoughts of your own in the comments.
