[HN Gopher] EverQuest
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       EverQuest
        
       Author : dmazin
       Score  : 143 points
       Date   : 2025-07-04 16:10 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.filfre.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.filfre.net)
        
       | mike1o1 wrote:
       | I absolutely loved EverQuest and it's still probably holds some
       | of my fondest gaming memories. My favorite feeling about it is
       | that it felt like a real world first, gameplay second. It had a
       | real sense of danger and wonder that I think will be almost
       | impossible to recreate.
       | 
       | Going from Qeynos to Freeport, or crossing the ocean on a boat
       | felt absolutely epic and dangerous. It was wonderful, but not
       | something I would want to play today now that I have real life
       | obligations.
        
         | ModernMech wrote:
         | Totally, me and my friend used to share an EQ account in
         | school. His parents paid for it so he got to play during the
         | day, and I would play at night from midnight until 6am, then
         | I'd go to school. It was profoundly unhealthy, which is why
         | that game earned the name "Evercrack".
         | 
         | Last weekend I played a beta game called "Monsters and
         | Memories" that's trying to be an EQ clone, and it's very
         | faithful in that it's carried forward all the terrible parts of
         | EQ.
         | 
         | Just the amount of sitting around waiting that you have to do
         | in EQ that I had forgotten about is incredible. Managing your
         | water and food levels, having to go find your corpse when you
         | die and it taking 5 hours just to get there, pitch black nights
         | so you're forced to walk around with a lantern, camping a spawn
         | with 100 other people trying to get the same items as you to
         | complete the same inane quests, broken quests that you can't
         | even complete to progress the game forward...
         | 
         | And yeah, one weekend was enough. I got real shit to do, I have
         | time for nonsense, but not THAT kind of time.
        
           | daeken wrote:
           | There's a musician named Richie Truxillo who made so many
           | comedy songs about EQ back in the day, but your comment just
           | reminded me of "Has Anybody Seen My Corpse." I haven't
           | thought about corpse runs and dragging folks' corpses back to
           | them in ages!
        
             | Tokumei-no-hito wrote:
             | ohh if i had a million platinummmm
             | 
             | wow that's a memory i had lost for many years. thanks
        
           | michaelmrose wrote:
           | Your perception of time is profoundly different when you are
           | a kid with no job.
           | 
           | Painful death makes you try hard to avoid it ensuring real
           | stakes.
        
             | nkrisc wrote:
             | It makes it more realistic. At this age, it would mean I
             | just quit the game - like my character died for real!
        
         | thegrim33 wrote:
         | It was also at the perfect moment in time where you couldn't
         | just pull up the game's wiki on a second monitor and have fully
         | detailed maps and quest details on hand. You actually had to
         | learn things for yourself by exploration and trial and error.
         | You had to learn things from other people by talking to them in
         | game.
         | 
         | In my mind back then, I was in awe of people that even had the
         | knowledge of how to get across certain zones safely. You know
         | it took effort/skill for them to gain that knowledge. You
         | couldn't just look it up.
         | 
         | I've been thinking how you could possibly replicate a similar
         | thing nowadays, but unless the world constantly randomly
         | changes over time, rendering any created guides/maps/etc moot,
         | I think that window has closed.
        
           | dmbche wrote:
           | You should look at Noita!
        
           | hombre_fatal wrote:
           | Streaming also changed the landscape.
           | 
           | The game meta/knowledge spreads through realtime video and
           | incidental entertainment instead of through slow message
           | boards only frequented by power users who would do something
           | as lame as spend time on a 2005 message board.
           | 
           | It's amazing how deeply knowledgable everyone is about every
           | game because of it.
           | 
           | I guess it's not good or bad. It's nice that gaming is
           | mainstream instead of being a stereotypical loser activity it
           | was when I was in high school.
        
           | normie3000 wrote:
           | > I've been thinking how you could possibly replicate a
           | similar thing nowadays, but unless the world constantly
           | randomly changes over time, rendering any created
           | guides/maps/etc moot, I think that window has closed.
           | 
           | How about a simple NDA to prevent players sharing this kind
           | of info?
        
             | hnlmorg wrote:
             | How would you enforce that?
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | The various tank games can't keep people from violating
             | military secrets laws to post tank diagrams. A game NDA
             | ain't gonna do shit.
        
           | MBlinow wrote:
           | I've made an effort in recent years to actively avoid
           | researching wikis and guides on games as I play them. I've
           | come to think that a lot of the joy in gaming is the
           | discovery and unraveling the systems that make the game tick.
           | Finding the optimal ways to level or complete some mission
           | through exploration and experimentation is always so much
           | more fulfilling than finding the first result the comes up in
           | google where the answer is already there for you.
           | 
           | Admittedly, it does take a degree of willpower and sometimes
           | I will still do some online research when a game gets
           | particularly frustrating. The biggest obstacle to my approach
           | of avoiding online information is that some games feel like
           | they're designed with that in mind and don't provide enough
           | information in the games for an isolated player to really
           | figure everything out.
        
             | rhines wrote:
             | 100% agreed with games being designed for online aids. Some
             | of the quests in Oldschool Runescape make me wonder if I'd
             | ever have completed them without guides - it's like they're
             | designed to be a challenge for the whole community upon
             | release, rather than for individual players.
        
           | beloch wrote:
           | I too formed memories by playing EQ in a way that was, in
           | retrospect, dumb, and learning from the experience.
           | 
           | e.g. I created an Erudite wizard (who could not see in the
           | dark) and insisted on leveling up in Toxxulia forest, the
           | default "newbie" zone for Erudites. It was dark there, even
           | during the day, and pitch black at night. I kept my monitor
           | at the calibrated brightness level because I didn't want to
           | "cheat". Monsters of an appropriate level were spread out and
           | often hard to find. A troll NPC roamed the forest and
           | randomly killed players. I spent many hours getting lost (and
           | killed) there before leaving the island, only to discover the
           | comparatively easy newbie zone that stood outside Qeynos, a
           | short, safe, free, ship voyage away.
           | 
           | The game was full of stuff like this. If you wanted to do
           | something, there was usually a very bad way to go about it
           | and other ways that were _much_ better. Finding those gave
           | you a sense of accomplishment that was far sweeter than mere
           | levels.
           | 
           | Modern games tend to be more balanced so you can be assured
           | that, however you're doing something, there probably isn't
           | another way to do it that is vastly easier unless you're
           | doing something really weird. This "wastes" less of your
           | time, but somehow feels less realistic. In real life,
           | different strategies for doing things are seldom equal.
        
           | h2zizzle wrote:
           | You have to make the world big and uncharted enough that it
           | can't be picked over quickly. I have some hope that Light No
           | Fire might pull it off.
           | 
           | Probably an uncommon experience, but I felt something similar
           | playing Final Fantasy XV. The semi-realistic scale and
           | emptiness of the world map that people complained about
           | actually contributed to the consistent feeling of being out
           | in the wilderness, stumbling on dungeons and whanot. Most
           | open-world games feel like theme parks, Eos felt like a
           | national park. I'm told RDR2 and Death Stranding carry
           | similar vibes.
           | 
           | I'd like devs to get a bit more bold about real-world scaling
           | environments. Let a long-ass walk between towns be a long-ass
           | walk between towns. And no mini-maps.
        
         | jghn wrote:
         | I hated EQ for me the reason was it was not UO nor was it even
         | trying to recreate the vibrancy & real world that UO's
         | designers had gone for. *BUT* I also recognized that EQ
         | represented a game that was much more aligned to what a normal
         | gamer would want, one could already see that path being forged
         | in UO as time went on. And then of course WoW came along and
         | perfected the art.
         | 
         | I still lament how UO played out. It quickly became apparent
         | that most players binned into one of two categories, and
         | neither category really fit in with the original UO vision. And
         | of course, one of those two categories drove away the customers
         | in the second category. The rest is history.
        
           | CSMastermind wrote:
           | UO had such a huge influence on me. It was amazing.
        
         | blueblimp wrote:
         | The inter-city travel was my favorite part of EverQuest. (The
         | rest of the game, I didn't find too interesting.) The level of
         | challenge was about right: if you looked at maps and planned
         | your route, you could generally get to where you wanted to go,
         | but it was hazardous.
         | 
         | I wonder if there's a game that focuses on that sort of travel
         | experience.
        
           | aspenmayer wrote:
           | Depending on what you do and how you play, Eve Online has a
           | harrowing navigation system.
        
             | smogcutter wrote:
             | And part of the joy of Eve Online is that if you want, you
             | can _be_ a reason travel is dangerous.
        
         | reactordev wrote:
         | My first memory of EverQuest was leaving the tutorial quest,
         | running along a road at night, and being eaten by a lion.
         | 
         | I had no idea what I was doing but I was hooked on figuring
         | out.
        
           | kwk1 wrote:
           | For me, I made a high elf, didn't know page up/page down were
           | needed to control swimming, and died in the water by the
           | bridge leaving Felwithe, I didn't even get beyond the city
           | gate.
        
         | 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
         | Oh my, that long journey is one of my fondest memories of the
         | game as well. Absolutely terrifying as a low level with barely
         | any information on how to pull it off, having to ask strangers
         | for help. The fear of losing all of your stuff on the way and
         | having to run all the way back. Magical. I was just a humble
         | human paladin on the Mithaniel Marr server.
         | 
         | I agree with everybody else commenting here, it was a truly
         | unique experience that I would love to be able to re-live, but
         | our expectations as players have moved on a long while back,
         | you can no longer capture that magic because it's now all rote
         | and routine. In 1999 it was the first time many of us had ever
         | experienced anything like it, it flooded the senses and it felt
         | like a world full of interesting people and epic adventures. It
         | was the frontier at the time.
        
         | mixxit wrote:
         | i remember doing the staff of the wheel quest as a newbie level
         | 16 wizard who had barely seen any of the world
         | 
         | i met so many people who helped me get into some really scary
         | places (lguk at 16 is terrifying) as i wondered in all sorts of
         | climates and places, what a fantastic place!
         | 
         | looking back the world felt so different and huge and alive
         | with life
         | 
         | i will never get that experience again
        
       | eatonphil wrote:
       | I guess I'm a little younger. For me it was Runescape and
       | Maplestory. Played heavily in the summers from 2007-2009.
        
         | hombre_fatal wrote:
         | I played Runescape back when it was just Falador and Varrock,
         | and it all started because I saw a kid at the public library
         | playing it.
         | 
         | And not long after that I was waking up at 2am to mine or grind
         | some skill before I had to go to football practice at 5:30am.
         | 
         | I wonder what kind of permanent damage that did.
        
       | dgfitz wrote:
       | My only nit to pick with this article is their definition of PvE.
       | They said it stands for "player vs enemy" where I've always heard
       | it defined as "player vs environment" where environment
       | explicitly means not-other-players.
        
         | tzs wrote:
         | Player vs environment is indeed the normal definition of PvE
         | [1].
         | 
         | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_versus_environment
        
       | daeken wrote:
       | I can nearly single-handedly credit EverQuest with my career. I
       | got my start in the ShowEQ and eqemu sphere, first building
       | little PHP apps to manage servers and such, then reverse-
       | engineering -- I learned x86 and then C++ all to get the lifts in
       | Kelethin working. Hell, nearly 25 years later, any time I work on
       | some new graphics API or game engine, I end up writing an
       | EverQuest zone renderer.
       | 
       | Not my favorite game of all time, but certainly the one with the
       | biggest impact!
       | 
       | Edit to add: also, huge props to that community for both humbling
       | me and teaching me more than I could've imagined. Went from a
       | dumbass 13 year old saying "ROT13? Isn't that some unbreakable
       | encryption?" In the ShowEQ IRC channel because she couldn't
       | imagine saying she didn't know something, to a competent reverse-
       | engineer. I cannot imagine how insufferable I was haha.
        
         | akerl_ wrote:
         | Likewise. My first introduction to scripting was automating
         | EverQuest. I learned the basics of path resolution writing a
         | script to grind misty thicket picnics. I wrote my own HUD-style
         | UI overlay to replace most of the default windows. And I
         | learned about pointers and disassembly and jumps disassembling
         | hack plugins from shady sites.
        
       | numinix wrote:
       | > Gijsbert van der Wal's famous 2014 photograph of Dutch
       | teenagers ignoring a Rembrandt masterpiece in favor of staring at
       | their phones has become for many psychologists, social theorists,
       | and concerned ordinary folks a portrait of our current Age of
       | Digital Addiction in a nutshell.
       | 
       | While a great photo, to me it looks like the kids are just doing
       | some kind of school / field trip assignment.
        
         | aprilthird2021 wrote:
         | It could be anything, but it resonates with people for a very
         | good reason. Many people feel the negatives of technology and
         | social media and miss the time before it. I know how sentiment
         | will skew here, and I know it's easy to take for granted the
         | advantages of having a fully capable pocket computer. But I
         | also understand what we have given up for it.
        
           | dcminter wrote:
           | A similar example I've seen is a photo of a British railway
           | carriage full of commuters staring glumly at their phones.
           | 
           | It makes me laugh because we all just used to stare glumly at
           | our newspapers! It's not like we were discussing philosophy
           | or something...
        
       | michaelmrose wrote:
       | I've got fond memories of Rallos Zek where I spent way too many
       | hours and met my wife.
        
       | rudimentary_phy wrote:
       | I loved EverQuest. I still have some great memories of it. My
       | friends and I still go back to playing it every once in a while.
       | EverQuest also gave me some fantastic typing skills (from having
       | to type in a significant amount of things for activating quests
       | and for chatting) that have turned out to be well worth all the
       | time I invested.
        
       | spacecadet wrote:
       | Oh EverQuest... funny to see this even posted here. I still
       | occasionally log into P99 for a few hours here and there to play
       | around at the low levels. 1 to around 24-30 is peak MMOPRG before
       | it slows down and turns into that raid grind...
        
         | galangalalgol wrote:
         | Yeah, I never understood why that was necessary. I get
         | diminishing rewards as an addiction mechanic, but they all
         | switch gameplay dramatically from adventure and exploration
         | (and combat) quest based character growth to raid fueled gear
         | treadmills. Some people live for the latter it seems like? But
         | there were never any that focused on character growth all the
         | way. It wasn't like they weren't adding content continuously
         | anyway. It would have been possible. Or turn it rogue alike
         | with top levels earning benefits or unlocking other options for
         | additional playthroughs. With the number of mmorpgs made one of
         | them would have tried it if it would jave worked I guess?
        
         | kwk1 wrote:
         | Yeah, people should know that https://project1999.com/ exists.
        
           | hombre_fatal wrote:
           | Doesn't hit the same when you're over 30.
        
             | kwk1 wrote:
             | Sadly not. This EQ server in a box is more my speed these
             | days, hah:
             | 
             | https://github.com/Akkadius/akk-stack
        
               | spacecadet wrote:
               | Thanks for sharing this.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | I like how natural the woman in the opening picture looks.
       | 
       | Kind of refreshing compared to all those literally overblown body
       | parts in modern day game graphics.
        
       | lordnacho wrote:
       | Everquest was my first warning about game addiction. Every
       | teenage kid by the year 2000 had spent too much time in front of
       | a game, of course.
       | 
       | But not like this.
       | 
       | I was sitting with a friend of mine at a computer cafe. This was
       | more prevalent at the time, since a capable computer with all the
       | modern games on it was still somewhat pricey.
       | 
       | So my friend starts taking to our side guy, who is playing EQ.
       | Nice fellow.
       | 
       | "Hey guys, I gotta stop playing. Been here 24h straight. If I
       | don't go to work they'll fire me."
       | 
       | My friend and I leave for the night.
       | 
       | My friend comes back to the cafe one night later. Our buddy is
       | there, in the same seat.
       | 
       | "Shit dude, they fired me. I haven't been able to get up and go
       | to work. This game, man."
       | 
       | "Sorry to hear it, what was your work?"
       | 
       | "I'm an attendant at a computer cafe."
       | 
       | "WTF, which one? Why didn't you just sit there and play?"
       | 
       | "The one across the street. Because I couldn't stop."
        
         | no_wizard wrote:
         | Game addiction hits the same part of the brain as gambling
         | does. In fact, it's my understanding that gambling addicts and
         | video game addicts have nearly identical similarities in terms
         | of how the addiction progresses and "sets in" as it where.
         | 
         | As an aside, and really I am sorry for this tangent, and I have
         | no issue believing any of this, but this comment somehow feels
         | LLM (ChatGPT) generated to me and I can't put my finger on it,
         | as I like to default to being wrong about such things.
         | 
         | I know it's an aside but it has become such a big issue on many
         | forums now.
         | 
         | Sorry for the tangent!
        
           | lordnacho wrote:
           | Fully human generated, but thanks.
        
           | jimbob45 wrote:
           | Game addiction isn't the same anymore. Games used to be
           | primarily about telling stories, establishing atmosphere, and
           | fulfilling fantastic roles. The writers and designers of
           | yesteryear had centuries of unexploited sci-fi to draw from.
           | Designers today don't have that mountain of material to pull
           | from, not just because no one reads anymore.
        
         | gnramires wrote:
         | Reflecting a bit, I really see not plausible justification why
         | say one account should be let to be logged in for more than 3
         | hours/day (say specially during workweek). Even if you really
         | have no job, at that point I don't think it's adding to your
         | wellbeing.
         | 
         | I myself really enjoyed a game (Tibia, very popular here in
         | Brazil) during my childhood, and, living in a large metropolis
         | (and at the time quite violent too) and with limited
         | opportunities for play, it was a saving grace in some ways. It
         | really served as a playground analogue to the real world, where
         | I could talk to people from other cultures all over the world,
         | practice a foreign language (english), practice commerce,
         | planning, and lots of really nice things I think it's fair to
         | say. I think excesses of gaming were already in common
         | consciousness at the time, and the occasional warning from my
         | parents (in no way prohibitive) was a great reminder -- me and
         | my older brother did check whether we were getting something
         | good out of the experience. Specially as the dial-up internet
         | cost was very large! (later replaced by broadband to the relief
         | of my father). I'm also glad it didn't overwhelm my childhood.
         | 
         | That game has since added soft limits (already in 2006
         | according to the wiki), which I think are better than nothing,
         | but probably there should be some hard limits as well (even if
         | you're really conservative about limits... surely at least
         | something like 8 hours a day could be universally agreed upon).
         | 
         | There are valid objections to those kinds of limits because
         | there are all sorts of exceptions: bedridden people that need
         | an activity, people that just use the game as a chatroom (quite
         | common) to keep in touch with friends, etc.. I think those
         | people can find other activities and other media to fill their
         | time and chat.
         | 
         | It's also probably unlikely that those limits are going to be
         | voluntarily enforced by all companies. I think regulation in
         | this area is important -- in a way, those limits are actually
         | good for the medium: they allow a minimally healthy baseline to
         | exist and the market not be dominated by the worst, most
         | damaging grindfests. But also probably just regulation has
         | limits, and it's important for individual/collective
         | conscience, education and cultural awareness to exist, so
         | people pay attention that each activity is adding, to their
         | lives, being meaningful (this includes social media usage, all
         | sorts of games, etc. -- but could apply to doing anything too
         | much like watching TV or talking to friends even). Boredom is
         | the instinctive response that encourages taking other
         | activities, but unfortunately adversarial design and dark
         | patterns (and even just too captivating activities) have found
         | ways to override this response simply to generate profit.
         | 
         | Moreover, as a game designer, we should be really be thinking
         | about bringing worthwhile experiences into this world, things
         | that teach (in all sorts of ways), move, challenge, captivate,
         | inspire and connect us. Here's a heuristic I like: take your
         | favorite memories and feelings and try to replicate, extend and
         | generalize them in various ways for others.
        
       | big_toast wrote:
       | Is it a coincidence that this shows up as John Smedley launches a
       | new MMO (yesterday)?
       | 
       | As much as I loved EverQuest, it has informed my view that the
       | world is full of addictive substances. And most people probably
       | need a disinterested third party who loves them and helps them
       | manage the addiction. Until they build their own defenses.
        
       | j_timberlake wrote:
       | In this game, there was a city where I did so many quests for the
       | guards that my reputation with the "corrupt guards" fell low
       | enough that they would kill me on sight. Playing a good-guy
       | character got me killed, and then I couldn't play anymore in the
       | city where I'd spent most of my gametime.
       | 
       | I would have been angry at the unfairness, but it was such a
       | unique quirk to see in a game, and I've never seen it replicated
       | anywhere.
        
         | davedx wrote:
         | World of Warcraft had this in Booty Bay. There was a hilarious
         | achievement where you first got your reputation to max with the
         | Booty Bay guards by killing the nearby pirates, then the other
         | half was to kill the guards until the Bloodsail Buccaneers
         | faction exalted you; a 2.5x reputation grind that took weeks.
         | And when you were done you couldn't enter Booty Bay anymore
         | because the guards killed you on sight.
         | 
         | The things we do...
        
           | jmyeet wrote:
           | Insane in the membrane [1].
           | 
           | Nowadays it probably takes 20 hours if you really grind.
           | Repairing rep on the pirates was soul-destroying but so was
           | getting all those lockboxes for Ravenholdt rep.
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2336/insane-in-the-
           | membr...
        
           | hombre_fatal wrote:
           | This randomly reminded me of when I grinded dwarf reputation
           | in World of Warcraft so that at level 40, I was the only
           | human riding a goat/ram (dwarf mount) instead of the horse.
           | 
           | I remember killing endless crocodiles in STV so I could turn
           | in their heavy leather I think during the event where the
           | realm works together to open the AQ gate.
           | 
           | I'll see a 13yo gardener here in Mexico and wish he could be
           | doing that instead of working. :(
        
       | azretd wrote:
       | Early EverQuest required groups to progress because trash mobs
       | were hard, the environment was vast, dungeons had traps, there
       | was no auction house and players hung out in tunnels shouting
       | their wares.
       | 
       | 26 years later, the nostalgia hits me every so often and I spin
       | up Project Quarm or Project 1999 where it still plays the same,
       | and it's fun for awhile but I'm not enjoying it as much as I
       | enjoyed the memories.
       | 
       | I enjoy the luxuries afforded by modern games, with three kids
       | and a busy job, I wonder how anyone found the time to play as
       | long as EverQuest required.
        
         | bpicolo wrote:
         | > players hung out in tunnels shouting their wares.
         | 
         | The Luclin bazaar from EQ is still one of the coolest/most
         | unique game features I have ever seen. Park your character to
         | open up a shop with selected items from your inventory. Browse
         | everybody's wares by walking around and clicking them to see
         | their shops!
        
       | cubefox wrote:
       | The box art by Keith Parkinson is a classic:
       | 
       | https://www.keithparkinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EQ...
       | 
       | This seems to be entirely hand drawn (acrylic painting?) with a
       | lot of skill.
       | 
       | A Google Image search for "Keith Parkinson" shows more of his
       | great paintings. Unfortunately he died in 2005.
        
       | socalgal2 wrote:
       | I never played because I saw my friends get addicted. I'm not
       | judging that as "bad". People are free to spend their lives
       | however they want. But, ... just to pass on...
       | 
       | My friends had a company. Then they got into EverQuest. I don't
       | know what percent of "work time" they spent playing. Maybe zero.
       | But, they would stay at the office after work to play. I visited
       | one day and saw playtime in the corner of the screen of one
       | friend at ~36 days. My first thought was "what could they have
       | done with over 5 months of "work time". If you work 40 hours a
       | week then 36 days of game time = 846hrs = 21.6 weeks = ~5 months
       | or work. Note: I use tons of time in my own life in ways that
       | others would not (like spending time on HN) so again, not
       | judging, just obsverving, though I often wish I did more
       | productive things that would / would have lead to more future
       | freedom.
       | 
       | In any case, one of those friends encouraged me to give it a try
       | saying it reminded them of when we used to play D&D in high-
       | school. That friend had also spent time becoming a fletcher
       | (maker of arrows). If I understand correctly, the ability to make
       | bows and arrows from materials was a skill. You gathered the
       | materials, then picked "make" and you had a random and relatively
       | low chance of succeeding. If you did succeed though, your "skill"
       | at making bows and arrows increased. Once you passed some
       | threshold you could always succeed. This made you a "fletcher"
       | and people who needed bows and arrows would seek you out to buy
       | them from you. I thought it was amazing that my friend
       | effectively had a 2nd job. I'm guessing that's common a game
       | mechanic in games since then?
       | 
       | Another of those friends also played at home on top of at the
       | office even though they had a spouse and 3 kids under 10. After a
       | while, their spouse demanded they stop. They visibly deleted
       | their character but then made a new one back at work and of
       | course all the "overtime" for the last several months had
       | actually been "game time". 3 months later the spouse found out
       | and said "quit or I'm leaving". My friend quit.
       | 
       | When World of Warcraft came out and blew past EverQuest in its
       | reach that friend told me if I wanted to check it out be sure not
       | to make any friends or join any guilds. They said it's the social
       | obligation that's the addiction. Like joining a sports team, if
       | you're not there your group can't achieve their goals so you feel
       | obligated to participate and that's the addiction. I've never
       | tried WoW either, having seen people spend so much time in it.
       | 
       | Also another random thing, another aquaintaince moved to Thailand
       | and setup an EverQuest farm for a year or two which at the time
       | was a new thing, making a living selling stuff in game. In which
       | games is that common now?
        
       | nzeid wrote:
       | Hehe, a little upsetting that I only see one former UO player in
       | these comments right now. I loved the anarchy and never stopped
       | missing it through FFXI, WoW, and other MMO's.
       | 
       | There was a rivalry between EQ and UO and no one I knew including
       | myself had the time to play both.
        
       | dev1ycan wrote:
       | As a younger people who didn't live those days, I wish there was
       | a modern game that felt at least close if not as good as classic
       | world of warcraft but that was as in-depth as everquest...
        
       | cloudking wrote:
       | Still holds the most hours spent in a single game for me, and it
       | was 100% worth it. Met a ton of cool people, improved my
       | communication and learned useful skills leading a guild, that I
       | later applied in my career.
        
       | rcurry wrote:
       | I worked for a very successful "dot com" back in the day.
       | EverQuest was like the crack pipe for the tech crowd, people
       | actually got divorced over addictions to it.
        
       | mrugge wrote:
       | Project Lazarus (lazaruseq.com) and Project 1999 for the win. One
       | of the best gaming communities out there still alive and kicking
       | today. And one of the best gaming experiences.
        
       | zingababba wrote:
       | I liked the game before Luclin and the bazaar the most. It
       | started to lose its organic appeal for me after that. Stuff like
       | everyone just choosing to hawk goods in the commonlands was so
       | charming.
        
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