In 2004, you can easily see why the EverQuest community might be split between the two games: the war for the top of the MMO crown would be hard fought. It had name recognition, not only because of the popular RTS franchise, WarCraft, but because of who it was being made by.īlizzard had been crushing the video-game market since the release of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness in 1995 and this would be followed by hit-after-hit: Diablo in 1997, StarCraft and its expansion Brood War in 1998, Diablo II in 2000, WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Frozen Throne, in 2002/2003.īlizzard was in its golden age and they could do no wrong. In the other corner you had World of WarCraft, a new franchise, but not a new world. November 2004 was one of the most fascinating months in MMO history in one corner you had EverQuest II, a spiritual successor to a beloved and iconic classic. This is purely speculation on my part, but I think Sony realized just how bad off their game was, how aged and broken EverQuest had become a total revamp would be out of the question, so why not push for something new using an IP that was beloved and recognised the world over? I think it was this train of thought that got Smedley thinking about striking gold again with another MMO. The eighth expansion - Omens of War - would fix a lot of the problems that popped up from Gates, but it was painfully clear to the community and to the world, it was time for EverQuest to abdicate. It was all stuff that they’d seen before and that Sony would push again and again. Fans just couldn’t deal with the massive issues caused by the game’s new graphics engine, broken raids and lackluster content.
See, EverQuest was the aged king, sitting on the throne of the entire MMO genre, but it couldn’t stay on top forever, the seventh expansion - Gates of Discord - dropped in February 2004 to lukewarm reception. Its fascinating listening to some of their responses, as they correctly identified a major issue right off the bat: EverQuest II would have to be different enough to cause players to switch over from the original, yet improve on a winning formula that made the original EverQuest so beloved. It’s difficult to pinpoint the inspiration for why EverQuest II was made, something even the game’s creators had a hard time answering in their own documentary.
If you want to know my sources, ask away and I'll link them.
Shadow of memories everquest free#
If you have any questions feel free to message me anytime. For those that don't really like the whole videos, hopefully you'll find my writing a bit more enjoyable. If you'd rather read it, you can of course do that below, as I'll be posting my entire script. I think I've somewhat managed to do that with what little there is to tell about EverQuest II's development history, hopefully.anyways, if you'd rather watch the history you can do that here: After my original EverQuest video I always toyed with the concept of making one for EverQuest II, but I could never quite dig up enough information to make a video viable. I'm Nickadimoose and I'm a bit of an amateur (very amateur) gaming historian who likes to make videos and text drops of gaming history.
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