EverQuest players compete in classic raids to ease the hurricane

The scene in front of me is hectic. There are hundreds of people huddled in a valley, gathered in a bottleneck that leads to a winter pass. They have been waiting there for hours, and they will be waiting for hours more, hoping for a chance to fight a big bad boss. These people are not united in that goal; in fact, it is a competition that requires an absurd amount of time, focus and dedication. But they is it so united in doing it for a worthy cause.

In an ongoing series of back-and-forth battles, hundreds of people have gathered on a private server in EverQuest to raise funds for a family devastated by Hurricane Ida. The family’s home suffered severe flood damage and the money will be used to “buy temporary housing,” according to their GoFundMe, created on September 17.

This game may seem like a dark choice, but the original EverQuest was World of warcraft before there was World of warcraft. Released in 1999, it was the original groundbreaking MMORPG with great success, though it never reached the same heights as Wow. It still persists to this day; players have set up private servers, blessed by EverQuest developer Daybreak, so they can overcome the original challenges of the game. And so far, the server members have donated over $ 10,000 for Murke Trahan and his family.

Image: Daybreak Games

To raise funds for a family in need, a player by the name of Pacatus reached out to other players on his private server. P99, a shortened version of Project 1999, is a legacy version made and managed by fans of EverQuest. This private server dates back to the original era of the MMO, forgoing changes made in later expansions, allowing players to take on the same challenges. The population gathers in private Discords, as well as P99 communities, and creates a social scene around the game. Players were able to organize and share fundraising links, as well as updates, through those channels.

EverQuest It is from an earlier era, and its mission and boss design is demanding. Players do not encounter an instanced raid, where it is one player against a series of bosses and minions. Instead, they have to interact with bosses in the open world. Back when the original EverQuest came out, this naturally fostered a competitive environment.

For this challenge, players participated in a race by FTE, that is, the first to participate. An alert pops up across the server: A boss is coming in and will be arriving sometime soon. Only one guild can tag and ultimately defeat the boss, who appears randomly at some point after the alert. Players gather to wait for the spawn, camping for up to twelve hours.

To defeat these bosses, players meet in guilds where they fight under the same banner. One guild, Kingdom, is a smaller guild that focuses on perfect execution. The seal team, on the other hand, prefers zerg to the boss with as many bodies as possible.

In 2021, P99 players have mastered these challenges and are competing against equally dedicated players to complete the most important MMORPG objectives of all: kill bosses using whatever tactic is necessary for loot and glory. Players know how the game works and today they can approach it from a whole new perspective: with a modern understanding of the code, as well as easy communication through platforms like Discord, they can simplify the process to a science. .

So while hundreds of raiders crouch in the valley, waiting for the boss to appear, most of them are on standby, minding their business. When Evanescence’s “Wake Me Up Inside” starts playing on Discord chat, the agreed-upon starting signal for the sudden spawn of the boss, everyone joins in on his character. Meanwhile, the guilds send runners to try to mark the boss.

The runner must damage the boss and bring him back to his guild without getting killed and without losing credit. Players then take down the boss by any means necessary. Don’t have enough players? Have everyone change their cleric so they can captivate the animals and build an army of NPCs in an attempt to burn down the boss.

It’s like a community speedrun, performed between players who share a love for the same game and want to re-experience a rare form of competition. Even though only one guild can win, the server came together to help the Trahan family reach their goal of $ 10,000 in just three days. And this is just one of the ways that games have played a role in raising funds for Hurricane Ida relief. Louisiana developers worked together earlier this month to launch a game bundle on itch.io with proceeds going to local charities and nonprofits. Through companies like this, EverQuest still lives on, including the sense of community that only an MMO can inspire.