MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh attended the recent SOE Fan Faire in Las Vegas. While there, she had a chance to catch up with the team from EQ to talk about their game, its tenth anniversary, and the next expansion.

Ten years is a long time for a game to exist. Graphics get outdated, technology moves on, visionaries move on to other games and the game itself changes and morphs into a different creature altogether. EverQuest, the granddaddy of 3-D MMORPGs has gone through many updates including an over-haul of its avatars and graphics engines, and a total of 15 expansions to date.

Artist Donato Giancarlo was chosen to create new EverQuest artwork for its 10th Anniversary, an oil painting that was unveiled in January at the CES, and all the paintings that SoE had acquired from Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore and Donato were on display at the Fan Faire in Las Vegas.

Read the Tenth Anniversary Update

I wish I could have the time/money to play this still. I basically only stopped because of RL problems and lack of people on the server I could play with. I don't know what the population is like now.

I was on the Tholuxe Paells server which merged with the Bertox server. My guild fell apart around the end of the year before EQ II came out, and it had been active since launch I think.

I still have a Lvl 65ish paladin unfinished with his 1.5 epic, stopped before the fight to kill Mujaki the Destroyer in the Plane of Nightmares.

Just had to be willing to move around servers a bit.  The game is still rocking on lots of people still playing.,

thank god i left for an oldschool oldworld+kunark emu server a year ago. this eq-live wow-clone belongs to kids who get everything on a silver platter

brad had it right, peace

A progression server is how people would have been able to experience all the level 50 content, not a 51/50 because people are just going to level up to the same stuff people are doing on regular servers anyway.  I was so hoping for a progression server with at least 3 month timer on expansion releases.  

The liklihood of me returning is 0 because there is no proper progression server.  I came back when they released a progression server and let two guilds ruin all the fun.

There's been a lot of praise pushed around for the SoD expansion, but it was that & the so-called "new direction" that the game took after Rashere left that made me decide to quit after a total  8 years of playing (I took a year off just prior to the release of SoL), though my change of jobs & the later collapse of my prior guild in EQ & it's restart in WAR played a big part in my decision too.

I would however be interested in taking a look at the Underfoot expansion, it depends on how I feel at the time though, I've since found other games that are enjoyable but which are not so demanding of time & time is something you need a lot of to fully appreciate & enjoy EverQuest.

Added to that a lot of the friends I made in EQ have since moved on to other things & my motivation to return is lessened, but still, EverQuest has a powerful hold, it earned the nickname "EverCrack" for good reasons, & the temptation to return is still there.

As usual they come up with a good thing and at same time made it impossible for new players or players who do not have tons of plat to throw around.  IMHO will not bother to reinstall and get the expansion due to the high costs of hiring merc's.

My fondest MMO memories all sprout from EQ, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. For that reason I will never go back, some memories are best left to just that, fond memories. I made the mistake of going back and watching the old GI Joe series because it was such a great childhood memory, I won't make that kistake again....*shudder*