This Saturday, hundreds of classic EverQuest players plan on flooding one of the game’s servers in protest of the lack of a vintage PvP server. The 21-year-old MMO still has a pretty thriving community, including several servers running older versions, but the game currently has just one official PvP server and it’s on modern EverQuest. This means anyone who wants a classic PvP experience needs to use private community-run servers. But these players have had enough, they want their old PvP back, and they’re rising up as ogres to get the developers’ attention. I spoke to one of the ringleaders ahead of the protest.

(more…)

Twenty years of EverQuest, blimey! I’d have been four years old when that came out, too young to experience the harsh and clunky fantasy world that made World of Warcraft a shocking breeze when it hit. A fresh-faced baby, free from worrying about losing all my boar teeth and experience points on death.

EverQuest is still kicking about, two decades of updates and expansions on. But like any game with a lifespan that long, there are always folks who want to take a step back to the rose-tinted good old days. Unofficially, Project 1999 is about to give them just that.

(more…)

EverQuest came out in 1999. It invited thousands of adventurers to the fantasy realm of Norrath to kill monsters and loot dungeons. Twenty years later, it is still alive. To understand why thousands of people sill log in to this antiquated MMO every day after two decades, I spoke to some of its veteran developers and a longtime fan that’s been playing since the turn of the millennium.

(more…)

Daybreak Game Company, the H1Z1 and PlanetSide 2 mob formerly known as Sony Online Entertainment, have laid off an unconfirmed number of staff. It’s the second wave of layoffs at Daybreak this year, and a real tough time to be laid off. It’s the usual “optimising our structure” sort of reason. Daybreak say they’ll continue to run their current and are working on new games too.

(more…)