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The Game Archaeologist reminisces with EQMac vets
I can hear you right now: "What, another week on EverQuest Mac? There's, like, six people who play that! Move on to Neocron already!" Oh, be patient my lovelies. I know that the whole EQMac termination/salvation thing is so yesterday's news, particularly with SOE embroiled in a completely different community fiasco last week, but I had one last thing to share with you. You see, a month ago when I heard that EQMac was going to be shut down, I put out some feelers for any players who might want to share their side of the story. Apparently, this small community is downright fanatical about this game and deluged my inbox with stories and pleas. While it seems like the crisis has passed for these players, I still want to share some of these testimonies with you because that's what this column is about. So indulge me with one last week of EQMac discussion before we shift our attention elsewhere. If you're curious why players in 2012 would deliberately choose to game on an archaic server with extremely old-school rules, then the answer awaits you after the jump. And if you'd like to try out this completely free version of EverQuest, then head over to the EQMac.com forums for step-by-step instructions.
The Game Archaeologist mourns the end of EQMac
In 2003, Sony Online Entertainment tried an experiment to reach out to the (then) small-but-growing community of Mac users. The company released EverQuest Macintosh Edition -- quickly abbreviated to EQMac -- which incorporated the core game and the first four expansions of EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, The Scars of Velious, The Shadows of Luclin, and The Planes of Power. Because EQMac was a separate version of the game, SOE segregated Apple players on their own server called Al'Kabor and then, for all intents and purposes, abandoned them as the "real" EverQuest continued to expand and advance. While the population didn't exactly explode, especially as the progression of time rendered EQMac stuck in a type of video game amber, a singular community of dedicated, helpful players formed, and they became proud of their hardcore home. According to many of them, EQMac was the way EverQuest was always meant to be played, frozen in time at the release of one of the game's best expansions. It was a mark of pride to say that you played on Al'Kabor, especially now as massive AAA MMOs dwarf the original EQ -- to say nothing of this odd EQ spinoff. Yet, as SOE posted, "all good things must end," and with the news that EverQuest is being prepped for free-to-play, EQMac players learned that they would not be joining the rest. Unless higher powers intervene, on March 29th, Al'Kabor will be turned off for good. As such, I felt this was a good time to look briefly at the history of this unique title and the testimonies of its passionate fans.
EverQuest Mac fans fight for survival; SOE responds
While many players are celebrating the announcement of EverQuest's upcoming free-to-play transition, there is one EQ community that was crushed by the news. The small but dedicated fanbase of EverQuest: Macintosh Edition found out that with F2P, EQMac and its one server would be sunsetted on the same date. EQMac fans have begun to stage a campaign to save their favorite game, but it looks like there will be no budging SOE's mind on the matter. SOE President John Smedley took to the forums today to answer specific questions about the shutdown. "It breaks my heart to have to do this," he laments, before admitting that it's a done deal. Smedley cites the fact that the codebase is so ancient that only one SOE programmer knows how to work it, the player population is too small, and SOE was never that "proud" of the version. However, Smedley promised that he will run a poll to see if there's enough interest in a Mac port of the current version of EverQuest. If the response is big enough, he says, the company will consider doing it. Meanwhile, the game will be available for current players free of charge until the March 29th shutdown. SOE has a celebration planned for its final hurrah. EQMac came out in 2003 and was unique for remaining "frozen in time" in the years since, receiving no further active development or expansions. We will be covering this game and its shutdown more in-depth in a future Game Archaeologist column, so stay tuned.
