It was the last Christmas of the 20th century and I bought my then-12-year-old son a copy of "Everquest" that year. I'd never heard of it. By new year's day he'd lost interest, so I asked him if I could create a character on his account out of curiosity. He happily agreed and I took over the account and within a week was addicted. I created a small set of characters 20 years ago and played them intensively, met friends, joined a guild, and kept at it until the guild started folding and I got burnt out at the end of 2003. I left with some others for other games. But the memory of your first MMO never leaves you and over the years the long-past adventures of my first characters took on the glow of personal legends. Of course I got nostalgic and many years later tried to resurrect that old Sony account. But no luck. I couldn't reliably remember the account name (my son had made it up and he couldn't remember it either.) Sony tried to help but without an account name or the credit card they couldn't do much. I resigned myself to the memories. I've created a number of characters in other games (and emulators) since and usually they were named the same and were of a similar class. But in my mind the old legends just grew more legendary. Yesterday I was doing an unrelated search on an old email account and lo, up turned a reference to some emails between me and Sony back in 2002 about an issue I'd long forgotten. But in those emails was the golden ticket: the name of the account! Excitedly I downloaded a copy of EQ and tried to log in, and after two password guesses BOOM! I was in. It only took a little while working down the current server list (originally I had started on Terris-Thule) and there they were. Just where I'd left them, with all their original, now-ancient gear. I can't explain what a profound feeling it was (and is) to be able to slip back into the digital shoes of these personal legends, the ancestors of so many digital progeny in so many other games. There was my very first, and main, a level 61 Mage; and /played gave me his birthday. He can legally drink alcohol now - he's 21! A big thank you to Verant/Sony/Daybreak is preserving those old accounts. I'll be playing around again. Learning the profound changes in the game. Eventually the newest generation of my favorites will be joining Pantheon; but for now, I'm enjoying their great-great-grandfathers in their original environment. Dhrystone, 61 Mage, formerly of Terris-Thule, now on The Rathe. Ellusion, 57 Druid, same.
Welcome back! The shock value was intense for me. When I found out I could log in without subscribing, I was stunned. I logged into my highest level char on what is now Xegony, and was in PoK. I immediately asked in OOC if I was KOS to anything in the zone, and a VERY helpful druid came to my rescue. After two years of being back, I STILL have some of that Kaladim Constitutional!
