Resurrection: EverQuest

Ever addictive…

Resurrection: EverQuest

Resurrection is a regular feature in which we reminisce about a game from way back when. This week, Jennifer Allen desperately tries not to re-subscribe to EVERQUEST.

AS IS often the case with addictive substances, I was introduced to EverQuest by a friend. It was the summer of the year 2001 and, having just finished my GCSEs, I had plenty of free time. This meant it was an innocent enough fraternisation at first. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

EverQuest was a harsh mistress, you see. Unlike the relative ease of modern MMOs like World of Warcraft, EverQuest made you suffer. Yet it would always give you a reason to keep going. Levelling was frequently a slow and arduous task. My friend had given me a number of items to help me along the way with the promise that, when I reached level 15, I could join his guild. These days you could get to level 15 in an MMO within a couple of days, but in EverQuest, the same task took several weeks.

It didn’t help that it was never clearly obvious as to the best route to level up. There were very few quests scattered around the starting area, the Innothule Swamps. Instead, the game forced you to grind. Basically, that meant killing frogloks, humanoid frog-based creatures with weapons.

From a very early stage, I realised that this game was evil. It’d take a long time to gain just one single yellow bubble of experience out of the five you needed to level up, and if you were killed, you’d lose a significant chunk of hard-earned experience. So not only did I have very little idea of where I needed to go, but I was also being heavily punished if I made a mistake and died. Many would likely find this offputting. But it encouraged me to try even harder. Even if those bastard frogloks did keep ganging up on me.

Safety in numbers

Eventually, I’d gained enough experience and levels to be able to explore other zones, namely Southern Ro and then the Oasis. These areas were much brighter and less foreboding than the dark swamps, but no less dangerous. While there were plenty of enemies that were easy enough to defeat – mostly wolves and orcs – there were also the fearsome sand giants. These could wipe you out within a couple of stomps, and were not to be messed with until hitting at least level 30 – a very distant thought for me at the time.

I spent a long time in Oasis. There was a sense of community to the place. It was located between the Troll, Ogre and Dark Elf starting zones, meaning everyone inevitably ended up there before their eventual advancement to the next area. Joining together in groups didn’t just make the game more enjoyable, it was near essential to progress. Safety in numbers was paramount, otherwise you’d quickly die and – oh look! – there goes a huge chunk of experience.

Worst of all, this was a player versus player server, and the nearby humans were enemies. It wasn’t long before I appreciated how infuriating it was to have to fight against an AI-controlled enemy at the same time as an enemy player. Far too frequently did I lose experience because of an irritating griefer, someone who would lure enemies into my path just to get me killed. EverQuest was not kind to the soloist.

Continues…

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