Up to 1998 my framework of experience with video games was limited to small corners of the NES catalogue, several big titles of PC gaming in the early 90s, Nintendo 64, and then some of the later 90s PC gaming titles. Everything I played was linear, level-based, or not very expansive and immersive as if being in a real virtual world. I mean, Doom could have large levels, but it was all a claustrophobic corridor experience and single-player. Goldeneye might have multiplayer splitscreen but I was stuck in tiny deathmatch arenas. Diablo was a bit larger in scope and I got a taste of a dynamic multiplayer experience here, but still it was very "gamey"--randomized dungeons with the small town of Tristram as a hub and not much in the way of an open-world atmosphere. Later on I would of course learn about what I missed with games like Elder Scrolls Daggerfall and Ultima Online that were already pioneers of the open-world and MMORPG model.

Imagine, though, being 12 and only knowing video games as being in the arcade mold of the 90s: sidescrollers, first-person shooters, maybe some RTS games and isometric RPGs with larger worlds, but nothing like a fully immersive 3D virtual world. The idea of even an online multiplayer experience was joining a game on Battlnet with 2-3 other players and it would be transient and fleeting. So when my neighborhood friends, Justin Graham and his two brothers Zack and Jake told me about an upcoming game called EverQuest, a MMORPG where you could move about in first-person perspective in a gigantic world and you could meet and encounter thousands of players as if this were like a simulation, I was the most excited and in awe of my life. I really cannot remember anything else approximating the same feeling of wonder and exhilaration. The anticipation for Elden Ring in 2022 had a similar resonance, but still not close enough to compare. It's simply impossible for anything to produce the same feeling. You had to be a kid in the 90s living through the infancy of video games to feel the same amazement at the very *idea* of what EverQuest promised to be.

Imagining myself roaming through a kind of virtual reality of a utopian fantasy world inspired by DnD was so inspiring and wonderful to contemplate. In short order I became obsessed with EverQuest's (EQ) development. I would spend hours just looking at the old official website, gazing at screenshots and imagining the endless and fantastical worlds that lie beyond. I'd see myself just exploring the terrain and locales and, like a virtual reality experience, loved the idea of just standing in place in a game and soaking it in; standing beside a dragon's skeletal remains and waiting for other players to venture by. There was something about the fact that the horizons in these screenshots had a limited range; you could only see so much ahead of you. It created a sense of mystery and wonder about what I'd find out there. Nowadays, you can stand at the highest peak of an open world (Elden Ring, Skyrim, Zelda's Breath of the Wild) and see everything. I get the cool factor of that, but it removes mystery as well.

I would watch the early EQ trailers, read about all the races, classes, factions, and other lore, and most compellingly I'd listen to the music soundtracks played on the website or in the trailers. The music is so moving and glorious that to hear it today I feel pangs of yearning. With the innocent ardor of an excited kid, I'd talk about it with my friends and plan everything I would do in the game. The release date was March 16, 1999 and this was the first time I ever felt the dramatic urgency of a "day-one purchase" feeling before that phrase was ever coined. In a melodramatic mise-en-scene, I rehearsed exactly what I would say to my mom in making the proposal that she buy me this game *and* pay the ongoing subscription price of $10 a month. Paying a monthly fee for a game? Unheard of at that time, but it felt like such a transformative type of gaming experience that I pleaded for it.

We got EQ on the evening of March 16, 1999 from an Electronic Boutique store. My first character was a Troll shaman named Vasgarth on the Xegony server. When I spawned into the game world for the first time, I accidentally hit the key to print the screen and I remember being irritated that I did that. Yet to this day, I still have the screenshot printout. I kept it all these years in a plastic sleeve. It's funny how in that moment I was miffed at the inconvenience and disruption--not to mention lag--as my computer slowly printed out a color screenshot of the game. 25 years later I almost tear up seeing the printout...

As many video games I've played since 1999, and even with all the cumulative experiences with EQ as I played it every day--often all day--for 3 years, I still cannot shake that inimitable feeling of wandering out into certain areas of the game for the first time, and *feeling* scared or curious or amazed at what I was seeing and what might exist beyond the horizon. Going out into Innothule Swamp for the first time to fight some level 1 skeletons and frogloks, I remember being very anxious about going too far out, as if I might get lost, or something out there would get me. Having someone escort me for the first time out of the swamp to other areas was somehow more profound than any real-life traveling adventure could be. The sounds of the environment, as wolves and frogs howled and croaked in the foggy night, or I'd hear crows in the distance around Butcherblock Mountains when I played my Dwarf cleric Grishnak--there's a sense of wonder and the most engrossing immersion I've ever had. First hearing the music of Kelethin as I made my way to Crushbone and ventured through these great dark woods is a memory in time that will stay with me forever.

This game had high stakes, too: if you died, a ghost of your corpse would remain behind with all your belongings. There were no Dark Souls suicide runs in EQ: if you died, you better hope to god you could find and get to your corpse without dying again. A year later I remember spending half an afternoon just trying to get back to my corpse because my respawn point was two continents away! In other words, I died two continents over and had to retrace my steps all the way back through multiple zones, taking a ship across an ocean, etc. This was early days before many druids and wizards offered teleporation services or would cast Spirit of the Wind (haste) to make you move faster. Players would moan and gripe about such an inconvenience today, but without going too far into permadeath roguelike hardcore experience, there was a weighty consequence to death. Your corpse would rot over time and so if you didn't get to it, all your belongings would disappear. Note that these belongings might take you a year or more to acquire. At high levels some of the loot was rare drops from farming or guild raids. To any WarCraft player it'll all sound familiar and pedestrian. But back then it was new and harrowing and I loved it.

This freshness and bedazzled immersion would last for a good year of playing until over time the game zones became so familiar and the gameplay loop was rote that I didn't feel the same awe. Eventually I became more focused on leveling up, maximizing my loot farming, and participating in higher level dungeon farms and guild activities. Yet my sentimental attachment to the familiar gameworld--its graphics, aesthetics, and look--would ultimately be the cause of my emotional break with the game in 2002. By then I had grown accustomed to the game's first expansion, Ruins of Kunark, which added a new continent with improved creature models and graphics, but it wasn't so advanced that it broke cohesion with the rest of the game. When the next expansion came out, Scars of Velious, the thrill of the EQ experience was fading and I found myself feeling for the first time in my life, a resistance to change. This expansion dramatically upscaled the graphics, textures, and creature models so that the continent of Velious looked fine if it were another game, but it didn't *feel* like EverQuest to me. I found myself alienated by it, preferring to stay on the old continents and not participating in exploring Velious.

Seeing the direction EQ was taking, and it was about to go further afield by updating all character models, I realized the living, breathing game world of EQ was fundamentally changing and I didn't like that. I like infinite variation within a permanent framework: new experiences, new people, different situations, additional content if it looks cohesive with the old, but the world itself remains largely the same, even static. This sensibility would later dominate my own personality as I grew older, unable to cope with rapid change when it alters the entire look and culture of the world. This was happening in EQ: the game culture was more about min-maxing, high level raids, exploits, and the naivety and innocence of the early days was gone.

EQ in 1999 and early 2000 was so absorbing and awe-inspiring that it gave me a sense of purpose and belonging. I met so many nice and interesting players. Gamers back then weren't so coarse, cynical, or numerous as they are today. A lot of these folks playing this game were either nerdy teenagers or 30 and 40-something adults who had a much more mature outlook than you find in the gaming communities today. There's always been assholes, but I don't remember encountering very many in EQ. The community early on was mostly well-adjusted adults. I really matured early by being around such people; I even married in-game a 40-something woman with kids in real life. Being a member of the guild "Arcane Order" I met some great people that felt like family. I've forgotten most of them today. I recall Salin or something close to that--a high elf who was the guildmaster for "Arcane Order". Others include Kbel, Meagey (gnome magician and real-life friend of Zack Graham). A close companion was the dark elf necromancer Syndor. He would be a central influence on me, my best friend, and he later became my roommate in real life, traveling all the way from Oklahoma to live with me in Ocean City, MD.

One of my other best buddies was a dark elf cleric named Vaelelil, also a member of "Arcane Order." Then there was the charming guy named Kibano, who added "itooo" to every name and various words. People in the guild affectionately adopted his mannerism and called him Kibanoritooo. My main character from roughly late 2000 on was a dark elf necromancer named Volmort. (Wasn't a fan of Harry Potter, but I liked the name Voldemort so I truncated it for a cool alternate character name). My second main character was a halfling rogue named Tacky Ticky. Then there was my dark elf warrior named Deadfall. In trying to dig up traces of this 1999-2002 era on the Xegony server, I found a few threads on the Project 1999 EQ forums, but not much to go on. My memory has eroded so much and naturally a single server might have 1000-1500 active players, all at different levels and across many guilds. Someone named Tass Underfoot loaded hundreds of screenshots from the year 2000. Sadly, as I scroll through I don't remember any of these people, just fleeting recognitions of guilds and perhaps people I did cross paths with: the guilds Havenlight and Inner Circle were famous. I wish I could recall more names of folks who 25 years ago were dearest to me as my best real-life friends. But--Kibano, my old friend, was captured in a few of these screenshots. Yet I seem to remember his race was troll or perhaps he used illusion items to change his appearance. I've forgotten much of the game's mechanics. Still, it's him alright. Just seeing his name is like finding an old photo of a buddy I haven't seen in decades.

Early on during the beta test for EQ, I would actively search for random people who played it on ICQ, the instant chat messenger, and I made a ton of penpals this way. When the game came out, social networking with ICQ gave way to in-game networking: joining random groups in EQ led to some longterm friendships and eventual joining of guilds. I made my own guild which had several members; I've since forgotten its name--Guardians of H'roth-something? It might have been a Magic the Gathering reference. Many of my character names were drawn from MTG lore in the 90s: Talruum, my barbarian shaman, for example. I wanted to name my first character Volrath. I remember some days of signing in and sending dozens of PMs or "tells" to my roster of friends. For a shut-in like myself who was basically homeschooled in high school, friends weren't a common thing. When I found them in EQ, I didn't take them for granted.

EverQuest was an addiction. I played every day and usually all day if I could. Since I was internet schooled, I usually frontloaded my homework and assignment submissions early in the week and then played EQ for the rest of the week. No matter where I went I had to be playing. At my dad's house during the summer and right before we moved to Ocean City MD in 1999 we had a computer set up for me to do my schoolwork. Since school was self-paced, I didn't really have to finish anything and could pretend I was busy while in reality I was playing EQ all day and into the night. When I went to visit my old childhood friends, the Grahams, back in early 2000 (after moving to Ocean City), I played EQ on their computer the whole visit. The night before I was supposed to start real-life 9th grade at a new public school in Ocean City, I was playing EQ and vividly remember scaling the Aviak City in Southern Karana. If I missed a day of playing, it was intolerable. It feels like I witnessed so many events and met so many different people in EQ even though it was just 3 years. But this was my life. At least 10 hours a day and thousands of hours spent.

Norrath was a simulacrum for living in a world that offered adventure, friendships, discovery, and belonging. Sounds sad, I know. I've since gone on to have a fulfilling and grounded life in the real world with a career and real relationships. But I haven't forgotten these years between 1999-2002 when EverQuest dominated my entire life and gave me such warmth and purpose. In hindsight and with some objectivity, EverQuest (EQ) was not as huge, open, or exactly like the simulated fantasy world I remember envisioning back in late 1998 or early 99 when I eagerly awaited its release. But it was damn close and close enough. Certainly for the first year of playing, it was the most sublime and numinous experience I've ever had. It gave me a chance to live in a fantasy world with awe-inspiring discoveries, fun experiences, sharing laughs with friends, and it felt like home.