The Norrath team has pulled together some stats into an infographic on their site to commemorate twenty-five years of EverQuest. I thought I would post those on their own, though I am going to break up the infographic into three parts to make it more legible on my site.
So lets start with the top that brings up some big numbers for the past 25 years.
The top of the 25 year infographic
It has been a long time since EQ launched, but the play time over the last 25 years has added up to a significant number. 5,144 centuries laid end to end and projected back in time would put over half a million years in the past, where we might run into the occasional members of the neanderthal and the immediate predecessors to early modern humans. Basically, that is a lot of time spent.
And Kiith, who has 8,331 days played… I bet you can, or at least could, find them in the bazaar on the Xegony server. A side effect of needing to be online to sell for much of the timeline of the game is a lot of characters sitting in there idle.
The character count, 9.32 million, seems a little low, but they have also had to have a few purges of low level, in active characters over the years.
In the middle there is a little section about races and classes.
The middle of the 25 year infographic
Human warriors I guess. I am not sure I even have one of those. Gnomes, dwarves, and half-elves not making the top five seems a bit odd… so many elf lovers out there I guess… but to be surpassed by the upright lizards that are the Iksar… inconceivable!
It is all old school classes though.
The bottom of the 25 year infographic
Lots of stuff going on in Norrath. When I talk about a heroic boost making a character unplayable, it is the huge number of uniquely names spells that figure high on my list of obstacles. If WoW got one thing right, it was giving spells upgrades through ranks rather than having to come up with a new name for the new variation.
Likewise alternate advancement options, which has both too many options and a poor UI… though the spell UI is fairly heinous itself.
Some of these numbers have a plus at the end, which seems to indicate that there are at least that many, but probably more. The zone count though, that is a solid 880. That is a lot of places to visit.
That there are only 84 character created on launch day still active is a bit sad. Alas, mine is not among them. Selvin the half-elf ranger was not loved and when I gave my initial account to a co-worker, back when we had a new house with spotty internet and a new baby to mind, I was not surprised when he was cleared away to make room for a crafting alt. I’m a little sore about my ghoulbane wielding dwarf paladin being gone, but he wasn’t a day one character.
Finally, I had to look up Breezeboot’s Frigid Gnasher, appropriately over at Allakhazam. They are a no longer available drop that are outside of my scope of knowledge, but you had to be level 60 to get them, so not original EQ in any case I guess.
Anyway, some more Norrath trivia to store away for a future date. The full infographic looked like this, if you need it in original form.
Too tall to size and be legible here
I will have some more to say about the anniversary tomorrow, but I thought I would add this in on what I have today.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 