Well, I can think of no other thought than to thank Sony Online Entertainment. Not for their Original incarnation , but for their PS2 one, of Ever Quest. As it stands, Ever Quest Online Adventures last night was pulled from its 9 year run for ...semi obvious reasons... but doesn't make me any less sad about being taken down. I mean, sure, there were probably only roughly 100 people still playing the game at the time of the end but that surely wont take anything away from what I remember of when I played.
I honestly remember it like it was yesterday. I had gone over to a friends for normal BSing and banter when apparently that day he had received a copy of a peculiar game. Being that I didn't get into computers till relatively late in my mid teens this game and its concepts seemed a bit odd to me, a game that was only played online with thousands of people in a fantasy setting seemed intriguing. This is ignoring at the time that it was $10 to play the game, which looking back it was rather cheap even compared to its PC counter part at the time, but that just happens to be an addendum.
I recall a lot of the first things that happened, even if it was just watching the game being played. This game was the epitome of "adventure", with there not even being a map to use to precisely venture to where you wanted to go. Some people now a days with the need to get loot might call it severely inefficient use of time (..in a matter of speaking. Not the literal) but I honestly think that was half the fun of the game and it's a feeling that has never been reproduced in a game since EQOA , at least for me. I mean, the adventure felt real deep as you might wonder off to some fire planes where bats made of pure hate could kill you just by staring at you, In a desert where undead could ambush you at any given point and even Crock island where some moderately level experienced players got bamboozled. This whole atmospheric feeling was especially interesting considering the graphical limitations of the game , the mood usually actually felt pretty right.
For never hitting end game, which has and most likely (for the lamest reasons) haunt me for the rest of my gaming life, I can honestly say that I have about as many cherished experiences as I've had in FFXI or WoW. Okay, maybe not AS many, but the emotions provoked from the mention of the game give the strength of many. I fully remember talking with my guild at the time and doing the level 17ish Dark Elf racial quest which required escorting a small group of mercenary ogres to the aforementioned Crock Island and taking down a con artist. What nothing in the quest ever told you was that the Ogres could attack anyone not aligned with them if they got in the way. So...imagine being an Elf Paladin tanking for a group when all of a sudden "RAWRZOMGIHATEYEU" comes echoing from the coast line and you get camped by what you think is just a max level secret NPC. The entire island was over run even after I....failed the quest through all the confusion =3=.... and people were even calling in to report "whoever was responsible" for the mess. Hell, I logged on to an alt character who was in Freeport at the time and was hearing the chatter about it all there for a good 10 minutes. No one though found out it was me and I did the quest later that evening when the populations would be either out or sleeping.
I even remember on a few occasions , while there was no PKing in EQOA , you could still kill guards at specific locations. During server down time on other servers, people would come flooding to Marrs' Fist to troll kill guards, and I would head up to Telethin (Kelethin in the PC versions) to help kill Elves. This didn't happen often but I remember people being "da fuck, how'd you get here so fast" (I was a Dark Elf Cleric).
Can even recall about 4-5 levels off of supposing to be able to, doing the minotaur camps with some associates from another guild and generally being payed constant compliments to being able to heal extremely well which....was a rare time, because frankly, ever since EQOA I've never had much of a taste for healing.
I could probably keep this post going on and on about tons of things I've experienced in EQOA. I've probably had one of my best friendships that goes on today stem from it, had a ton of fun watching and playing with another friend and seeing what chapter of each others adventures would happen next. Even as far as remembering sending journal entries to Chi when my questing for the day had expired, which somehow I think was something that was also lost among the years with the advent of maps in games and the feeling of immersion.
It seems awfully silly to honestly be upset that the plans they had for a PS3 equivalent game has seemingly died with the memories of its Ps2 predecessor , but with EQOA gone I can't help but feel a big part of the happy days when I grew up are slowly slipping away like any other place that might have changed drastically in time. I think that is an under rated thought about mmos in particular that it isn't like other games where you can just pop in and restart or pick them back up where you left off...when the games time is over, its generally over. Though it seems cheesy , this game has meant alot to me as a gamer. It's built friendships and it helped to open my eyes to other genres of games, and I will seriously never forget those times. Thank you Ever Quest Online Adventures , from one former grateful Dark Elf Diviner.
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