Firiona Vie’s Quinceañera – Happy Anniversary EverQuest

Fifteen years of EverQuest.

This is usually the day every year when I drag out the nostalgia, along with a few appropriate pictures, and reflect on my history with the game and whether it remains relevant to me or not. So why should this year be any different?

Some EverQuest Stuff

SOE as well has seen fit to mark the anniversary of the launch of EverQuest at various times.  They have saved some key things for the anniversary.  Back on its 13th birthday the game became an annoying free to play teen (and continues to pop up “Have you gone gold yet?” alerts all the time).  Last year they used the anniversary to announce that they were removing some of the paid unlocks from the game on things like the quest journal.  This year we got free insta-85 characters and a couple other things mentioned in Thom Terrazas’ Happy Birthday Producer’s Letter.

And a 15 years later info-graphic.

How much has changes in 15 years?

Though they have done the info graphic thing a couple of time in the past.  At least one I linked to in past days has disappeared though, as SOE finally decided to delete the Station Blog at WordPress.com, destroying some more history in the process.

You can find bits of it at the Internet Archive, but you can’t really navigate it because all the links resolve to the site not the backup.  And ironic thing to happen during a celebration of history.

The EQ Dev blog, untouched since 2010, remains for the moment, so I was able to grab that Secrets of Faydwer timeline that then producer Clint Worley posted for the EverQuest Nine Year Anniversary.  (Expect that link to die as soon as SOE notices I guess.)

A Nine Year Timeline for EQ

As for my reflections, I am still fond of the game in a happy memory sort of way.  I am still interested in seeing how it progresses as time moves on.  And I wonder at this point if it will make it to 20 years.  SOE, or its representatives, have spoken about keeping games going for small core audiences even after the age of expansions or frequent updates has passed.  But given more recent events, it is clear even SOE has a limit.

But for now, the world continues to turn and the fires in Norrath still burn.