Why the original, 1999 version of EverQuest is still one of the best MMOs to play today

EverQuest released all the way back in 1999, but despite that it’s still one of my favorite MMOs to play today. I’m not really talking about the live game though, which incredibly is about to receive its 30th expansion, Laurion’s Song, in December. I’m talking about classic EverQuest, where meditating for mana took forever, a lull resist could wipe your whole group, and there was no such thing as a microtransaction. 

Thanks to fan projects, it’s still possible to play EverQuest as it used to be. The latest fan-run classic EverQuest server, Project Quarm, launched on October 1. Like other unofficial fan servers the Al’Kabor Project and Project 1999 before it, Quarm strives to present the game as it existed back in the first couple years of the game’s life—warts and all. Unlike Project 99, however, this server will progress through the classic era all the way through the 2002 Planes of Power expansion, seen by many to be the peak of the EQ experience.

Its developer and lead administrator, Secrets, has been working on this for a long time. They had the same experience I did in 2001 when the Shadows of Luclin expansion came out. Even though the expansion was great, it featured a graphics overhaul with new character models that a lot of us thought were a substantial downgrade—mushy potato figures that all kinda looked the same and lacked some of the unique flavor from the originals (why weren’t the trolls scratching their butts any more?!?). We wanted to go back, and we couldn’t. It was my first brush with thinking about game preservation.