I saw this on Kickstarter and figured others might find this book interesting as well. It's called The WoW Diary by John Staats, a former level designer for World of Warcraft. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whenitsready/the-world-of-warcraft-diary-0 I've personally only ever played the free trial of WoW many years ago, but I've always had an interest in game design and the company culture within game companies, so it grabbed my attention. Some of the quotes the author has shared from the book mention EverQuest as well, so I hope there's more to see on that end. I only happened across it while browsing Kickstarter, otherwise I wouldn't have seen it. So, I figured I'd share in case anyone else that doesn't frequent the WoW circles might be interested. It would be neat if one of EverQuest designers wrote something similar to provide a more inside look into the development of the game and what happens behind the scenes. Of course, a lot of information has been generously shared over the years. I think the closest we've gotten is the EverQuest: The 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition book? There have been quite a few strategy guides, novels, and D&D-related books that I know of.
There are several beta stories, one of my favorite aspects of beta was actually speaking personally with some of the development staff. It was funny when Prathun went as Pratpratprat which was a hallfing rogue girl, and I made a character named Prathun in beta. Specifically Prathun Izahotelfwench wood elf ranger and parked her near PoK stone.I got very interesting tells, mostly nice ones, though. It was hilarious when he took note of the character. Few other ones like Tharkis the Pretty Kitty Princess.
