17 | March | 2024 | The Ancient Gaming Noob

The EverQuest 25th anniversary hit yesterday, and I had a post all queued up for that. (And then banged out another about the 25th anniversary infographic.) But it is time to turn around and see what it going on in the game for this huge milestone.

EverQuest is 25 years old

Daybreak has a rolling anniversary page for the game at this point… same URL, new content every year… so they just change the number and put up what the current year’s benefits are. (That also means past year’s stuff disappears from the site, but I guess we have the Internet Archive for that.)

So what is on the table this year? Every character that logs in gets the following:

50% bonus to experience gains!
(Bonus ends on April 1, 2024, at 1:00 a.m. PDT.)
A Royal Silver Crown for all your characters.
(One per character; available until April 20, 2024, at 11:00 p.m. PDT.)

And xp boost and a shiny cosmetic item. A bit run of the mill, but not nothing.

If, however, you are a Daybreak All Access subscriber, you also get the following:

A Darkpaw Torch Ornament for all your characters.
(One per character; available until April 20, 2024, at 11:00 p.m. PDT.)
A Level 100 Heroic Character
(One per account; available until April 20, 2024, at 11:00 p.m. PDT)
A Goblet of Adventure II
(One per account; available until April 20, 2024, at 11:00 p.m. PDT.)

That doubles your cosmetic items. Those appear on your cursor the second your character logs in, a mechanic I dislike because it means you have to immediately dig into your inventory to find space, which is always cumbersome for me at least as my inventory is generally pretty full and I have to remember how to do things like open a bag and then the bag will open behind another window so I will think I’ve done it wrong… yes, that is all a ME problem, but I’m writing this, so you have to put up with it to a certain extent.

The crown and torch displayed

The Goblet of Adventure you have to go into game to collect via the /claim command, which brings up all the things the game has sent your way via that channel over the years.

The Goblet of Adventure II

Just one of those seems a bit chintzy, but I also dislike timed buffs because I’ll never use them unless I absolutely know I will be playing the whole time it is running… and when am I ever going to be playing for EQ for eight hours straight? Probably never. (Also, look at all that unclaimed stuff. I like that a lot of it is labeled things like “Facebook Promotion” and such.)

Finally, there is the level 100 heroic character… which is essentially a level boost. That is actually an item of value, at least if you have to buy it. It sells in-game for 4,000 Daybreak Cash, which is about a penny per, so it could be seen as a $40 value.

But everything in the cash shop is 10% off for subscribers… and as with so many of the items in the shop, I don’t know why you would spend money on that if you were committed enough to subscribe… which brings it down to 3,600 Daybreak Cash.

What you get with a level 100 Heroic character

I am going to actually use this, though I need to consider which character should get it.

On the one hand, it is nice to have a high level character around when you want to go tour Norrath for nostalgia. On the other, for me at least, the level boost pretty much wrecks the character for anything save touring because you suddenly have to deal with a lot of spells and abilities and AA points for which there are few guides around these days.

I have boosted a few characters in the past. I have a level 85 Paladin and a level 90 Cleric, the latter was a level 85 boost with additional xp earned playing Overseer, the game within the game that rewards tiny bits of xp.

I think this time I will find a druid to boost. I have always wanted a high level druid, and I seem to recall they have travel spells.

To access the boost you need to click on the Heroic Character selector on the character select page. It will show that you have zero level 85 boosts and one level 100 boost.

Your level 100 boost

Those are just the give away items. Once in game on the Plane of Knowledge, the flags have been unfurled to celebrate another anniversary.

They used to put the number on them…

The anniversary vendors and quest givers have set up their tents for the celebration.

There is a whole anniversary ecosystem in play

There is a long established tradition of there being some new quests and other activities, as well as the return of previous anniversary events, so there is plenty to keep players busy on that front.

New Quests
- Alta the Frightened has seen things that simply shouldn’t be. They offer the quest Chasing What’s Not Real in Crescent Reach. Ghrald McMannus in Katta Castellum has a vested interest in figuring it out, offering Chasing Madness.
New Mission
- Continuing Ghrald McMannus’ investigations leads adventurers into Reflections of You, starting from Katta Castellum.
New Raid
- Speak with Ghrald McMannus to force the end to the madness in the event Inner Turmoil.
Past Heritage Crates Unvaulted – on the Marketplace from now until April 1, 2024, 1:00 a.m. PDT
And returning events from last year!

And all of that is in addition to the whole 2024 “Year of Darkpaw” events that are going on all year around and which are centered at the tower in the Desert of Ro, something I covered previously along with the full 2024 roadmap. and then there is Fippy Fest coming up in June.

The anniversary tower

So there is a lot going on if you are into the game. It is hard to gauge how accessible EQ is now to new players 25 years down the road. Certainly when there is a 25% xp buff isn’t a bad time to start. But beware the overwhelming nature of heroic upgrades. Being hit with 25 years of design baggage can be a heavy blow.

Meanwhile, out in the world, other sites are covering the 25th anniversary, though not as many as I might have expected… or maybe not as many who jumped in on the 20th anniversary bandwagon. The team may have diluted the effect of the anniversary a bit by declaring the whole year a celebration back in January, so big sites like PC Gamer covered that and called it a day while Eurogamer didn’t have time to cover the anniversary after posting the daily Wordle answer I guess. (Also, what self-respecting site posts the effing daily Wordle answer?)

Did EQ cease to be newsworthy after 20 years? Did the Daybreak PR team fail? Do big sites not do such stories on the weekend? Are my expectations way too high? Whatever.

There are still a few headlines out there beyond just the usual suspects. See below: