17 Years of EverQuest: What's YOUR Story?

Do you remember the first time you saw Firiona Vie? The way it felt when you first heard the opening bars of the theme song? The rush of adrenaline as you traversed unknown landscapes in search of your corpse?

EverQuest has been making a profound impact on gamers since it first launched on March 16, 1999. In honor of EQ’s SEVENTEENTH anniversary, we have three stories to share about what the EQ community means after all these years:

Laylaih, Communications Coordinator @ Daybreak Games:

EverQuest was the inspiration for my lifelong love of online gaming. It showed me how being a part of a passionate community can shape your entire experience, and I was completely immersed in the lore of Norrath from the get-go. Plus, it started a habit that continues to this day – my main will always be a mage!

Now that I’ve landed my dream job as a Communications Coordinator at Daybreak, the passion that EQ sparked so many years ago has become my career – and there’s nothing better than waking up every day and getting to do what I love!

Happy 17th, EverQuest! Here’s to many more.


Crystilla of Erollisi Marr:

The moment in EverQuest that has meant the most to me, was when the community on the Morell Thule server came together in a selfless act to help me finish my Cleric epic, Water Sprinkler of Nem Ankh.

At the time, one of the bosses needed to complete the Cleric epic quest was Ragefire. Ragefire spawned in Naggy’s Lair after Naggy died. Eventually the EQ team moved Ragefire to Skyfire (but still on a spawn cycle) to help reduce the fighting that spawning in Naggy’s lair brought forth. In January 2002, the EQ team added a way to trigger this Ragefire. With my guild help from my guild farming shards, I was lucky enough to be the SECOND Cleric on my server to spawn Ragefire in Skyfire. Unfortunately Ragefire was a stronger dragon than we anticipated, and he tore through my small family guild (Protectors of Kindred Souls) like a hot knife through butter.

Since I had bound in the zone and after our wipe I could immediately hear players shouting, "Why is Ragefire loose?"

Embarrassingly I explained to the zone that we wiped. While I expected to lose my chance to kill Ragefire that night, the next thing I knew folks from MANY different guilds, people that had never met me came into the zone to offer their help. They resurrected my guild, buffed us, and even stayed with us to defeat Ragefire.

This was a defining moment in the life of my Cleric, Crystilla, and for me outside of EverQuest. In 2014 I got Water Sprinkler of Nem Ankh as a tattoo on my wrist IRL, to remind myself of the generosity of people, and our community.

Happy 17th anniversary, EverQuest.


Realm of Insanity of Xegony:

There wouldn’t be enough room on the page if one were to describe what EverQuest has meant and the sentimental role that it has played since its birth in 1999. However, after a long and successful seventeen years, I think I can speak for a lot of players when I say that a sense of community, belonging, and friendship is what keeps us coming back for more year after year! These values not only keep us involved, but they are also some of the largest contributing factors to the success of the guild that I’ve called home for the past three years, Realm of Insanity.



While a lot can be said about each player’s devotion and skill that makes such a track record possible, a lot of it traces back to the sense of community inside our walls that breeds such standout players. Over short periods of time, many of our members get to know each other on levels far deeper than the characters you see on the computer screen. Between events like Fan Faire and planning several other local and regional get-togethers throughout the year, you almost begin to feel like a part of each other’s family. In many ways, EverQuest becomes nothing more than the “tool” that allows us to grow closer and closer. Over time, this close-knit sense of community allows us to become familiar with the way each other thinks, reacts, and performs when it comes time to do what we do best: raid!

When you foster such a community all under the same roof, it becomes impressive how each person wants to do well and “go the extra mile” not for themselves, but for the sake of each other. Without this unique sense of community, Realm of Insanity would not be the guild that it is today!



What does 17 years of EverQuest mean to you? Share your story in this thread!

I started playing in 2001 I think it was at the release of Trilogy. I was always a Halfling Druid but I skipped around servers a few times before finally landing on Veeshan way back when. EQ was the first MMORPG I had ever played and I remember spending weeks in Misty Thicket absolutely horrified to venture out towards commons (because of the big scary undead) and being totally clueless on where the Xorbb to Karanas would lead me. I stuck around Rivervale for a good 25 levels before I even ventured to the world beyond.

In the early days I never leveled past 30 or so, I always hit a wall and stopped but EQ always brought me back. First time i came back I did a Beastlord and got to the 50s and the second time a SK and I made it to 75, which was the first time I ever hit max level at the time. I remember that feeling of "finally... I finally did it". It was such an accomplishment to reach max for me that I will always remember where I did it (CoD at the bubonian rats!)

One fond memory, or unfond I guess you can say is one time someone was taking me through Dread Lands, we were on our way to Chardok way way back then. I remember while we were running through DL something managed to agro my poor Druid and killed him. I had lost all of my gear and I had absolutely no idea where my body was. I ported back to Dreadlands (this was at the time it was a hangout spot for tons of people) and offered plat for someone to help me find my corpse. About 5 or 6 people banded together and helped me figure out where I died. I was extremely young at the time and I honestly didn't even have the plat I offered in the first place. I was extremely desperate to find my corpse. They didn't mind. They searched for at least an hour with me before finding the really obscure place I died (my corpse was like wedged in a tree along the northern wall). I didn't even remember dieing by a tree.

The reason I remember it so fondly is because I definitely was an annoying little brat when I played the game (I think I was 12 at the time) and despite that these people showed me kindness, didn't even care that I was freaking out about my lost items, reassured me it'd all be ok and helped me find my corpse. This, amongst other fond memories of how helpful people were in the early days of EQ is the primary reason I started covering EQ explicitly with AlmarsGuides. To give back to the community a little what was given to me while I was growing up. The kindness and magic is still out there, it's just harder to find these days which definitely is a shame but it's the nature of the Internet anymore.

Lots of good memories in this game and I am sure for more than just myself EQ has changed gaming for people out there forever. Every new MMORPG I can't latch onto like I have EQ. I feel as if they just don't have the staying power or the same challenge EQ does. I know people will argue EQ isn't that challenging but in comparison to games like Guild Wars 2, League of Legends, or Wildstar even World of Warcraft now adays it provides a far greater challenge. In those games you're limited to 8 - 12 abilities at once usually whereas in EQ you spend days, weeks maybe even months learning all that your class is capable of and there's still moments where someone tells you "oh yea did you know you can use this and this in conjunction to burn for 20k more?" and you're like no friggen way man... I woulda never thought.

Everquest is the second best game I have ever played (Sorry, something still needs to knock FF7 off of my pedestal) and definitely the best MMORPG on my list. I will be here and writing guides until the final days of the game, which hopefully are still another 17+ years away.

And thank you to the Devs too, who have continued supporting this game/continue to work on it bringing us content each year. Not enough people say thank you and would rather just complain about the bugs and broken things each year. We get yearly content updates, which is more than most other MMORPGs get and our X-pacs are on par with the size of WoWs X-pacs too, which they get every 2 or 3 years.

You dah real MVPs here.

Here are some of my Fippy Memories!











Here are some memories from the Easter event that year too!

I started pretty early in EQ. I know before PoP came out because I was beta testing it. But I remember being in a few guilds, before landing in a guild that was just below Legacy of Steel on the Nameless server at the time. When both guilds got together to do some things when the population of our server was decreasing, I always was saying hey to a Cleric twin of mine. We were both Erudite, and had almost the same exact outfits and everything. We had even got our epic shields at nearly the same time too. This guy went on to do further things for various companies. You may know him as Snerito.

Anyways that was one small memory. Another one was I met a GF of mine in game and we spent a few yrs. together in the same guild too. I remember taking over the lead cleric in my guild getting everyone together in a separate channel and teaching them exactly the /pause rotation which worked perfectly for us, and then giving the spot healing to the clerics with the highest regen and most mana.

And when I stayed up for about 23 hrs. cause I waited on the ragefire spawn. He had just spawned for someone else, and the person never said anything, just left when I asked. So I waited.... and waited.... and waited.

I can tell you when I first climbed Firiona Vie, the statue that is. Using a Pegasus Cloak, sow from a friendly druid and a lot of patience.

Everquest to me has always been about exploring and gaining new experiences and meeting interesting people along the way.

not gonna write a big story but 17 years of EQ which was fun, got to meet alot of people and make friends from all over the world. But was sad when they annouced that EQ Next was being canceled was hoping for 17 more years of ground breaking experiences with EQ, sadly that flame has been extinguished

I met my best friend in Oasis and 2 years later we were married.
That was 12 years ago!

Long Time . I've met a lot people . I use to own a Computer shop and I had a Customer walk in one day (Early 2000) wanting me to build a gaming machine . She talk about EQ which I never heard of. The rest is history 16 later. After a year of playing 50 percent of my customer base had bought new custom machines playing EQ LOL.
Join my first guild at lvl 20 (Unholy Brotherhood) Role playing guild on Drinal . We had some really bad and Evil leadership LOL. My next guild was a lot better experience with (Sentinels of Faith) on Drinal yes that use to be a guild name not just an Xpac name on EQ2. Good memories . Good Times. Still having good times on TLP server. My hats off to Day Break for keeping it going as long as they have. There are just to many story's to tell. They are the kind of story's that you would have to been there kind of stories.

I suffer from PTSD and EQ gave me a place to go to escape my real life I played everyday as much as 18 hours a day after the plant that i worked closed its doors in 2001 it went to 18 plus hours a day 7 days a week I ran out of money around 2005 and was forced to stop for almost 3 years I got a new PC and loaded EQ logged in and cried like a baby I had missed it so much it was as if a loved one was returned to life. For days I just roamed norrath remembering the good times i had all the people I had played with had left the game and i felt so lost in my favorite world that i went on to other games I still go back and play for awhile about once a year

I bought EQ from a shelf at Electronics Boutique in 1999. I was single. Just had my 15th wedding anniversary. My oldest daughter is 10 my youngest is 5. Too many stories to fit here!

Years ago I was in a gaming store, the clerk was on a game and I had asked him the name of it and he said Everquest. I bought the game, went to the Everfrost server, made a Shaman, and the first thing I did was fall off the ferry boat and drown! Finally got zoned out and was trying to kill spiders, skellies bears, had corpses all over the place when, some kind soul sent me a tell and said ok look, let's group and I will help you get the basics down. That person helped me over 6 hours worth! My main was Karani and had a druid named Nadini. Had so many truly fun experiences, like the time our toons fell into the lava and we couldn't find the corpses. We need a GM to help us please!! The first time we killed the giants in Velious was intense. Slipping and sliding around the ice ramps in that dungeon area still haunts me hahaha! My first time in Kunark was amazing! It was the sounds that got to me, off in the background is a sound that can never really be explained but it is THAT that sound made it seem so real and life like! The boat trips hahaha, someone always fell off it seemed. Eventually, real life took over and I had to give up the game, so years later when I downloaded it, I went to Tunare. So much had changed, no one was in the tunnels auctioning, no one was camping orcs, no one was yelling TRAIN!!! Commonlands was now just a ghost town, all I heard running thru there was the wind, never passed another player. It was heart breaking to me.
So then a friend told me about Phinigel and it was like I never left! The tunnels are alive again!!TRAIN TO ZONE is now seen!! The hill giants are running like crazy trying to kill us!! I made another toon, Maeling, she is a Mage and quite fun. This server has brought back SO many memories and a lot of the people gaming on it are fantastic!
Thank you EQ for all the years of memories and the thank you for all the great, and not so great, good times! And here is hoping, for many more years of joy!!

Back in the fall of 2000, I was in the Oasis at level 14 with my Barbarian Shaman. A Druid friend cast a combat buff on me that turned me into a wolf. Soon afterward another PC came up and asked for a Spirit of the Wolf buff. In public tell I told the female character that I had been cursed by an evil witch and only the kiss of a virgin could cure me. She 'kissed' me and after a few seconds I said 'Well I guess your not a virgin'. Other characters overheard this and soon I had a line of people wanting to 'kiss' the wolf. After 40 minutes and having easily 80-100 characters kiss the wolf to cure it, the icon for the buff started flashing, telling me it would soon wear off. Another PC came up and 'kissed' me. I said "Wait, I feel something". Then as the spell wore off I shouted to the zone that I had been cured and that 'X' (the PC that last kissed me) was a virgin. Lots of loll's and rofl's came from all around me. It was a great time just roleplaying and having fun.

I played my dad's toons (driving his ranger around gfay in 2001-2002 every now and then) until in April or May of 2003 when he finally let me make my own toon. Thus Brackleck Cajunlegs, Froglok Paladin and bugcatcher extraordinairre was born on the Nameless. EverQuest is how my dad and I bonded through most of my childhood, on the weekends when I was at his house we'd play almost all day during the winter, and quite a few hours at night during the summer. He wouldn't let me log on from my mom's until I had my homework done and we'd go kill some stuff then too.
After a break from '08-'11, I returned to EQ and made an SK to refamiliarize with the game, and convinced my padre to return to the game as well. By this time, with the help of FaceBook, most of our friends and guildies were personal friends as well. At the moment I main a Necro, and most of my old friends don't play anymore but I'm always running into people from the Nameless that were part of guilds who's raids we attended, grouped with, and spoke to regularly.
Now that I'm a bit older, I see more facets of the game and am still intrigued by it and always have the warm fuzzy nostalgia whenever I visit old world zones.
Also, today is my necro's tenth birthday, although I didn't main him until 2013. My toons are like beloved family pets, they'll only die when EverQuest shuts down. Don't kill my gosh darn pets, ever.

I have played on and off over the years and always come back. I have had so many special moments and met so many people through the years to narrow it down to one particular time in the game.
I always just loved to log in over the years and enjoyed the hunt.
I started on Prexus years ago...........
I have enjoyed this game so much and am happy to see it reach this milestone.

Originally I played EQ to have a common ground with my new stepson. I started a vah shir bst on the nameless server. We had a friendly competition to see who could level higher faster. I won the race and continued playing for well over 12 years. Over those 12 years I started many different characters but eventually settled on a wood elf ranger. I would have to say the most memorable moment I've ever had playing was the first time I received an invitation for my bst to join the top guild on the nameless server around the time the serpents spine expansion was released. I declined the invite only because I didn't have the time to dedicate to the raid schedule they had. But it was an honor to have the invitation. Over the years they continued to try to recruit me but each time I had to decline.

The other most memorable time was when i was grouping in the dreadlands with a warrior, monk, 2 druids and a shaman. It was such a successful group that everyone gained 4 or 5 levels. I just wish I could remember those players names... Oh and this was during the summer of 2003 following the release of PoP.

Beyond those times I shared many good times playing with the many friends I made.

I started playing EQ in the original beta during P3 and have been playing ever since. Over the years life has thrown some curves and EQ helped me in a therapeutic way. I was in a serious car accident about a year after EQ was first released. Playing EQ allowed me to dream that I was still able to run, climb, walk and be normal. I loved exploring and running through the land. Something I will never be able to do again IRL. EQ helped me in this way, and still does.

Through the years I have met many wonderful people, and we have shared our stories, and our tragedies. The bonds we formed made us more like a family than anything else. I have many wonderful memories of adventures shared with friends who have passed away IRL. Some due to cancer, some to other ailments.

I wouldn't trade my memories and the laughter we shared for all the gold in the real world. Thank you for creating EQ.

the highlight for me, has to be back when epics still needed a raid to gain one, i managed to do my monks epic without being in a guild, just friends id met in eq. Getting that epic was the happiest thing i had ever done, as all parts of it was a challenge, ie i couldnt really solo the raster camp in guk, so needed friends to come down and help and that took days and days, and the final battle and the one in the lava was also a challenge ie set a time for final fight, everyone arrived and the npc was mia, had get everyone again. Had lot of other happy times but thats got be the best.

I was introduced to EQ by a friend at the time when Kunark was fresh off the press and since then i have played on and off since then. I ran Vox raids back when you needed 20 solid people just to kill her and get over her nasty complete heal. I still remember one particular raid where everything ran perfect and everything went well and i finally got my scale for my bard epic, it was a proud moment in my gaming career. To me EQ is more then a game, its also a very social game like any MMO, but unlike other MMOs it seems to attract top notch and mature players, not a multitude of 12 year old noobs, lol. It could also be very frustrating though to coordinate large raids, people could be mad if they didnt get a drop they felt they should have, but there is no game like EQ that I know of. I play this game with my brother in another state and there is no funner way for us to communicate online than this game. Despite graphics that now seem quaint, it is still the best MMO out there period. Also fresh and wonderful new graphics have been built in and fresh content keeps on coming. It truly is wonderful and ill continue to play until im 90(i wish). So thanks for a great gaming experience and I hope daybreak will keep this great gaming tradition alive, cheers!

I first entered the magical world of EQ in Sept. 1999 on Tunare server. Rowansbane the half elf druid has had many an adventure but the best was meeting an SK named Baeltor. After a year of getting to know him in and out of EQ we were married and have been together 16 years now gaming side by side as well as raising 3 kids that have also played.
Our guild Talisman is our second family and there are just too many memories ( waking the sleeper) and people (Cypie, Gendal, Kaitlynn, Buns) to list. You all know who you are (HUGS) and those who have passed from this mortal coil are still so missed. Litknight & Grunties you will remain in all of our memories and we will see you both again one day I am sure. Thank you Absor and friends for creating this magical realm that has brought so many people together to make so many wonderful memories. From your imaginations have sprung a true reality.
Here's to the adventure never ending!

As an avid AD&D Player since early 1980's I had always been looking for a good game to get immersed into. Having played Ultima, Britainia, and several other RPG games, when I discovered EQ I finallg found the game to take up my spare time.

I was born on December 12, 2000 on The Rathe as Kelvin, Half-elf Ranger of GFay after watching one of my employees taking the raft to the Overthere as he repositioned himself for a guild raid that evening (going to Chardok). Thus my love for the game began. Over the years I have started and stopped various characters, but my core group of Anhari Earendyl, Arilious D`Marcos, Mistaken, and Kelvin Half-Elvan have remained my favorites.

One of the first fond memories I have occurred on my new Cleric Anhari. I was fighting decaying skeletons in Greater Faydark using a club that I had looted off one of them when a wood elf came up to me and inspected me. He then opened a trade window, and put a Fine Steel Mace in the trade window and told me "Take it, I have better now. Only condition is you pass it on when you don't need it any longer." This showed me that EQ had a great community. A complete stranger helping out instead of griefing you like had happened so many times in Sierra Online. I was now stuck on this game.

I opened the Firiona Vie server, moving Kelvin there as my only toon at that time on the server. Arilious was born on Morell-Thule, the unofficial role-playing server where I met my mentor of the Same name (or close to it) the GL for Ultimate Guardians. He gave me a challenge. Get to lvl 45 then apply to become a member and he would see to it that I would see grand things. Over the next couple of moths, I worked on leveling him, and kept tabs on the guild. When I dinged 45 (what a feeling!), I was invited to a raid on Venral Satir, my first High-Level (at that time) fight. it was epic, and was the first time I every watched a master Monk split mobs, eventually bringing VS into the chamber, where he proceeded to kick our . (Anyone got a REZ?).

It was about that time that the Legends server was announced, and Stormhammer was born. I moved my toons there (Anhari, Arilious, Kelven) and helped form the guild Alpha Storm. I also helped maintain the website Stormhammer.org (I owned the domain name at the time). I tried to fit into this sever, but it became very obvious that a casual player just couldn't compete. I had fun with many of the RP sessions, many more than there were on the Live servers, but eventually petered out and lost interest.
Over the years, I started and stopped playing the game eventually moving most of my toons to Firiona Vie when they opened it to more than 1 toon/account, and have played there and on Test off and on.

I guess that I could say that I am a hopeless noob-addict since I seen to have toons spread throughout the servers, but currently am concentrating on my first Iksar character on the Phinigel server.

My life in EQ began when i was a subscriber to PC gamer magazine. One issue had this weird cd in it called Everquest.

I loaded it and started to play..........and boy, was i impressed. I was immersed in a D&D type with real players from all over the world playing at the same time.

Even though i left for quite a while.......just hearing the opening music brings back happy memories of running about in EQ, making friends and dying in embarassing ( and in a few instances, highly amusing) ways.