Old Magazine Article About Everquest From 1999

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Atomos, Jul 28, 2021.

  1. Atomos Augur

    samenye, Aneia, Fallfyres and 3 others like this.
  2. taliefer Augur

    for the kids out there, a "Magazine Article" is like a youtube video, that you read.
    jeskola, Aneia, Fallfyres and 4 others like this.
  3. Atomos Augur

    I was waiting for someone else to bring it up, but I'll just spill the beans:
    On the 5th (2nd from last) page, on the right side, where it says EQ Legends. It says:

    REVENGE BY TRAIN
    If there is a character in the land of EQ who you really don't like, or if you are just mean, then we've got a trick for you. If you have the invisibility spell, run around some nasty parts, gathering up a train of dangerous creatures. Now run to someone you really don't like and cast invisibility on yourself. The train will now devour the poor helpless soul. It's really mean, but creative.

    also:

    DELAYED DUELS
    Piss off a character until he challenges you to a duel. But don't accept the duel. Instead, follow him around until he is in the middle of a big battle and low on health. Now press "accept," strike him down, and take all his worldly possessions. It's mean, but he did challenge you do a duel, right?

    Considering that Brad McQuaid also submitted some information to the article, I'm assuming he had to know about everything that was being written in it. It gives you a little bit of context about things that were originally intended, but didn't work out and were changed early on.

    It's just funny seeing media telling players to literally be toxic and kill each other. And here's a step by step GUIDE on how to do it!
  4. Stymie Pendragon

    Now that's funny!

    Revenge by Train is what the OG devs expected us to do to settle our disputes. Now people can get permanently banned for doing just that. It just goes to show how much has changed on the internet and society in general over the last couple of decades.
  5. Atomos Augur

    Yep, I find it quite interesting.

    Game vision changes with time, and sometimes the original vision doesn't work out and needs to be adjusted.
  6. Triconix Augur

    I certainly don't miss the original UI. Imagine trying to play with a single chat window these days? Only thing I miss is the window that shows a front view of your char.
  7. Accipiter Old Timer

    [

    I didn't read the article but is there some indication it was written by EQ devs? Otherwise it might as well be written by Mabbu.
  8. Atomos Augur

    Nah, there wasn't a whole piece in there written by Brad McQuaid at all. /facepalm
  9. Accipiter Old Timer


    My, you are certainly an unlikeable fellow. A) I wasn't talking to you and B) I said I didn't read it. Why you always want to be a ?
  10. Atomos Augur

    I'm not the one getting involved in a thread I didn't read. That's no one's fault but yours.

    There is no "talking to," when all the dialogue here is public, anyone can engage in it.
  11. Accipiter Old Timer


    You make civil responses difficult. I read the thread, I just didn't read the article you posted. This is the last time I engage with you, ever.
    Stymie likes this.
  12. Atomos Augur


    And another forum troll down.
  13. Triconix Augur

    I mean... if the one common denominator in all your forum troubles is yourself, maybe some self reflect is in order? While Accipiter and I don't agree all the time, we do agree with certain things, and I wouldn't go as far to call him a troll whatsoever.
    Stymie likes this.
  14. Atomos Augur

    He is absolutely one of the biggest trolls on this forum. If the regular daily trolls think they are going to hurt my feelings because they don't read what I say - in other words, can't handle someone being honest and reasonable with them, two of which have told me they've put me on ignore so far - they're mistaken. I'm more than glad for that list to increase.
  15. Stymie Pendragon

    I guess I associated the highlights to the right with the Brad McQuaid interview at the end of the article. Looks like I was wrong, and it's just a journalist fluffing up for the readers. It does bring up some fond memories though. Seems like just yesterday in some ways, but it's also like hearing a song on the radio and remembering it came out before I had grey hair lol.
    Accipiter likes this.
  16. Candystore Augur

    Joystick, January 1999. A monthly French gaming magazine focused on PC games.

    This is a few months before the official release of Everquest. I never played in beta, but this article is about "beta phase 3", developed by "Sony 989 studios".

    The article says beta phase 3 has been going on for a few months. The author mentions how hard it was to be able to participate in Everquest betas, especially as a player from France. Only 1300 players were allowed on he writes. But many of them have been playing for months now, and have moved beyond level 30.

    The author laments the fact that rangers and paladins gain less experience than other classes, as they are prone to fall behind on XP.

    He praises the game's graphics due to the support of "3D accelerators", allowing players to play at 800x600 or 1024x768.


    cover:
    [IMG]

    article:

    It says "Réseau" at the top. Réseau means "network". The magazine had a dedicated "network" section near the end of the pages, online games were still somewhat rare but especially MMO.

    Title:
    "Les plus jolies gonzesses en 3D se trouvent dans Everquest. Et ce n'est pas la seule raison de s'intéresser à ce jeu de rôle online développé par Sony 989 Studios."

    "The prettiest 3D girls are found in Everquest. And it's not the only reason to be interested in this online role-playing game developed by Sony 989 Studios."

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    [IMG]


    Several months prior, they already posted "previews" of the game.

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    Below was the earliest mention I could find of the game. The magazine's edition appeared on December 1997. That is one and a half years before the launch of the game and a year before "beta 3". The characters look weird but kinda cute.

    The article mentions that Sony's goal is 1,000 players per server. The supported resolution would be 640x480 with support for Direct3D. (this explains why the author was so impressed being able to play in 1024x768 in "beta 3" a year later, Sony "overdelivered")

    The characters would also be able to support "pantomime", it refers to characters being able to mime gestures, /wave, /thank, etc. 3D Player characters being able to gesture was apparently pretty impressive at the time.

    The release date would be "mid-1998", which never happened of course, the game would be delayed 1 year, and came out in mid-1999 instead.

    [IMG]
    Skuz likes this.
  17. Candystore Augur

    In Joystick number 116, on June 2000, the Ruins of Kunark was reviewed.

    It scored very highly.

    strong points:
    +lavish Kunark setting
    +gigantic universe and community
    +great variety in monsters
    +many available skills
    weak points:
    -AZERTY keyboard is not supported (in France people use Azerty instead of Qwerty, and since those letters match the movement keys for running in games, this could be a nightmare to play some games that didn't allow you to remap keys. This is much less an issue in today's games, as most developers appreciate the use of different keyboards around the world).
    -confusing interface in the beginning
    -main screen in 640x480

    A weak point is also the fact you needed a "powerful PC". The author used a Pentium III 500 with 128MB of RAM and an Nvidia TNT2 GPU and it was playable, but slightly less fluid than most games at the time.

    The subscription fee at the time was $10 a month.

    cover:
    [IMG]

    article:
    [IMG]
    [IMG]
    [IMG]
    [IMG]
    Skuz likes this.
  18. Candystore Augur

    The fact France and some other countries use Azerty is something which US and Japanese developers simply did not understand at the time (including Everquest). Specifically, they did not understand that not supporting Azerty, meant you could not properly move your characters around in some games and were forced to use the arrow keys. Remapping keys was simply impossible in many games.

    This did not only result in problems moving your character around, it could also severely affect the score games got in Europe.

    At some point it was that bad that you really just wanted to phone up your favorite game developer in the US and tell them to make sure to support Azerty, because you knew they were blissfully unaware that their game could have gotten a 90% instead of an 80% if only they properly supported the keyboard.

    After a few years, most big international developers got the hint.

    [IMG]
  19. Accipiter Old Timer


    Huh. I'd never heard of this before. Interesting. I imagine Azerty countries get the shaft all the time.