By Todd RussellThose of us gamers, maybe one of you reading, may fondly remember the very first time they played MMORPG Everquest in 1999. It was a surreal and, literally, game-changing experience. It was like playing Dungeons and Dragons with your mind, but on a computer – at least for this author for the first time. What I remember most maybe is how difficult it was and the sense of risk that if you died in a difficult area, you had to try and figure out how to get back there, usually with the help of other human players, to get the items from your corpse. That sort of death risk doesn’t happen in most (all?) MMORPG in 2023.
Some might call that progression. Others, like the groups of fans behind historical game preservation feel otherwise. They want to preserve those historical game moments and offer them up forever, without some corporate interest deciding that microtransactions should be inseerted. Does this sound like gaming utopia or nonsense? That’s up to you, friendly gamer reader, to decide. Just happy we have the option to choose, which is what the following referenced article is about: Why the original, 1999 version of EverQuest is still one of the best MMOs to play today:
The code for Project Quarm is taken from the Al’Kabor Project, a longstanding (and painstaking) effort to reverse engineer all the content from classic through Planes of Power as it existed back then. It’s also open source, which is really important to Secrets. They not only want to preserve EverQuest as it was, they want to make sure Project Quarm will remain a place to enjoy it, come what may. “Let’s say I was to get hit by a bus,” Secrets mused to me in an interview. “I want to make sure that in the future we all have access to this. It’s a preservation effort. I’d like for someone’s grandkids who played EverQuest to be able to play the same game they did to understand how games used to be.”
Reference links from the article:
Project Quarm – https://projectquarm.com/ – “Quarm strives to present the game as it existed back in the first couple years of the game’s life”
Al’Kabor Project – https://www.takproject.net/
Fascinating, yes/no? Let’s get the current 2023 version out of the way. Daybreak (https://www.daybreakgames.com/home) currently owns Everquest, and you can still very much play the 2023 version of Everquest if you like. It’s available on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/205710/EverQuest/
My problem with all of this is how much time does it take to setup and run the original Everquest on the server mentioned below? Thought about doing this in preparation and for reporting on this article, but honestly, I’m more fascinated that it can be done versus actually trying it out for myself. If anybody reading has tried doing this and would like to report back their findings, we’d like to hear how it went for you? How easy was it to setup? How was the gameplay experience?
I remember back in the day playing Everquest for hours until late in the night every day. That game was so fun and addicting. Thanks for bringing back some great old memories.
Hi Outlaw!
Have you played Everquest on this new 1999 private version if it? I’d love your thoughts on it!!