SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTSCan you handle it?
MINIMUM- Windows 95/98
- Pentium 166+
- 32MB RAM
- Direct3D or Glide compliant accelerator
card w/ 4MB RAM - 500MBHarddrivespace
- 28.8k+ internet connection
- Windows compatible sound card
- Microsoft compatible mouse
- 6x CD Rom drive
RECOMMENDED- Pentium 200+
- 64MB RAM
TOP: When you’ve
run out of expansion
ideas, there’s always
the moon.
ABOVE: Xanamech
Nezmirthafen is
tough to both fight
and spell.the gist is that the former is slow but
stable and will send packets of
information with delivery
confirmation notices. If a packet goes
missing, TCP/IP will send a new one.
UDP is much faster but couldn’t care
less if packets arrived at their
destination. “Vince, who is a brilliant
programmer, came in and wrote what
we ended up calling Reliable UDP,”
McQuaid says.
It was a protocol that let
EverQuest determine when to send
reliable or unreliable data. “When
you’re running around and you’re
updating the server with your
character’s location,” McQuaid
explains, “that was usually sent
unreliably because if there was a lost
packet it was no big deal. Those
packets were being sent out often
because everyone is constantly
running around. But if it was
something like trading an item, we
sent that reliably. That was a critical
piece of technology that most people
aren’t even aware of. And Vince is an
unsung hero because he was down
there in the trenches working on
this network code.”
NO FAITH
All throughout its development,
Smedley was working to keep
EverQuest a secret. “It was exactly
the right incubator,” Smedley says.
“There was a lack of attention
focused on us, but that same lack of
attention gave us room to breathe life
into what would become EverQuest.
There was not a shred of interest
from one executive period. Not one
of them looked at it a single time.”
Over two years passed while
EverQuest’s team of roughly two
dozen developers worked day and
night to make their dream come true.
When Trost says that people were
sleeping under their desks at night, I
mistake it for hyperbole. But then
Rappaport says the same thing. “That
was the hardest that I’ve worked on
any game,” she admits. “There was a
ton of overtime, and we were just