not explore Norrath, several massive
corporations had their networking
operations accidentally sabotaged.
“Once you go over the limit, it
basically boots everyone off the
network,” Sites explains.
Days ticked by as Smedley and
crew desperately tried to assuage the
growing frustrations of their players
and negotiate for better internet
access, but UUnet would have to
physically lay more cable between
San Diego and Los Angeles first. That
would take weeks. Meanwhile, a
rotating team of three parka-wearing
employees took eight-hour shifts
rebooting crashed servers for days on
end. Fortunately, UUnet was able to
reroute traffic and free up bandwidth
as an interim solution while they
expanded their physical pipeline, and
players were finally reliably able to
explore Norrath for the first time.
Despite how painful that initial
week was, people quickly forgot.
EverQuest was revolutionary. By
April, it had sold 60,000 copies. Six
months later—225,000 copies,
doubling Ultima Online’s record-
breaking numbers in half the time.
EverQuest’s blend of whimsical
fantasy, grueling adventure, and
gorgeous graphics encouraged
players to bond and form online
relationships that became more
engaging than its tedious grind. “We
created this vehicle for people to
come together,” Rappaport says. “But
the community really created the
game themselves. They are the ones
that made it what it was.”“I think part of it is just being in
the right place at the right time,
but I also think that Brad really
tapped into such a pure
Dungeons and Dragons-style
experience that it really
resonated,” Smedley says.
Overnight, McQuaid and his team
became celebrities not just to their
fans, but in the gaming industry at
large. At its height in 2004 EverQuest
had sold over 3 million copies and
had released a eight expansions (17
would follow in the decades after).
Blizzard Entertainment President J.Allen Brack later admitted, “[World of
Warcraft] took a lot of great ideas
from EverQuest” and that “EverQuest
is the big foundation for WoW”. And
even today’s MMOs still follow the
blueprints of class and world design
that EverQuest canonized.
Sony, quickly realizing EverQuest
wasn’t doomed, re-acquired Verant
Interactive and merged it with Sony
Online Entertainment, forming a new
PC games division under Smedley’s
rule. It was a triumphant moment for
the “Ghouls and Goblins Guys” but
there are no hard feelings about it. “I
have to give Sony credit,” McQuaid
says. “They never really threw us to
the kerb. They paid for half the
funding of the game, even if they
were always hedging their bet. It was
definitely vindicating, but when I
think back, if it wasn’t for Sony and
the different executives there at the
time, and John running interference
and protecting the game, then there
wouldn’t have been an EverQuest.”
But back then, no one was really
thinking about it. Sure, they had
achieved what seemed impossible,
but Bill Trost and the other
developers had pages of notes of new
continents and stories that didn’t
make it into the initial launch to
think about. There was always more
work to do. “We didn’t take a lot of
time to dwell on it,” Trost laughs.
“We just divvied up resources and
started working on the expansion.”EVERQUEST SOLD 10,000
ON ITS FIRST DAY. NO
ONE WAS PREPARED
EverQuest’s visual
style has changes
significantly over its
20 years.