When the admin of your online community dies

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:57:05 +0000

In 2000 or 2001 I started playing EverQuest. I was relatively late to the game, joining after the 3rd expansion (Luclin) was already out. I played it for a few years, at one point obsessively. In truth, I was never really that good, but I was in a guild that I loved and for the most part we all had fun. Like in other MMOs, when you start playing EverQuest you need to choose which server to play on. Basically I picked a random one to create my character on: Tarew Marr (most servers in EQ were named after the deities in the game). For anyone unfamiliar with MMO games (as I was at the time), your server choice affects almost every aspect of your gameplay experience. Each game server is essentially a parallel universe with the same buildings, NPCs (characters), quests, and items, but completely different sets of actual human beings inhabiting them. Servers develop their own personalities as a result of the players inhabiting them. Like any community, there are nice people, morons, trolls, elite players, people who totally sucked at the game, grownups, children, racists and any other variety of person you can imagine. This, of course, is exactly the appeal of any MMO. You can play a single-player game in complete safety, but when you add 2000 random strangers in to the mix things get pretty interesting. There was plenty of drama, and Tarew Marr was actually one of the crazier servers.

Everquest on Evan Hoffman

When the admin of your online community dies