So we all remember Evercrack, right? If you don’t remember the days of Everquest being the end-all be-all of MMOs then you are too young to be reading most of the shit on this site. Go cuss someone out on Xbox Live and call them something homophobic or incredibly racist, like the rest of 12 year old America. Sorry cool 12 year olds, that was uncalled for and really only directed at the kid who whipped my ass in Madden last. The little fucker.
I digress.
Original players remember the name Verant Interactive well. It was the original studio name in which EQ was released under. Sony Online acquired 989 studios and its spin off Verant, even though Sony funded the start of both…no idea how that all worked… in 1999. Many of the original guys from Verant (Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Geoffrey Zatkin) jumped the SOE team in 2002. Around this time period and every year since, players have been asking to have “classic EQ” back because of all the new changes. Most of these changes make the game less immersive and more like… well, a game. This direction in some ways was forced by bad publicity coming from suicides and general life degradation due to addiction of playing this game. No showers and switching shifts between coffee or Mountain Dew and beer is common place in old EQ world. I remember it well…
So let’s jump to 2008. Every couple of years or so the little itch comes back. World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer are all out now and for the most part widely popular, AOC clearly at the bottom of the totem pole. They some how in my years of playing don’t quiet scratch the itch. EQ has a new expansion coming out called “Seeds of Destruction”. Sony has done a decent job publicizing the expansion considering the declining Eqlive population. They also have “Return to Norrath”, a 10 level free trial, out now if you want to relive the old days. So I decided I would pick EQ back up for a little while, at least a month or two and see what’s new around the old stomping grounds. I mean its 2008 and they have shut down over half of the servers and the player base is declining, so it’s got to be like 6 bucks or 7 bucks a month. Right?
FUCK ME. 15 bucks a month just like any brand new MMO. Sony will have to suck my ass and hope their money is in there, because that’s the only way I will pay 15 bucks a month, 180 bucks a year, for a decade old game. At this point I know you have server costs, but cmon! I say have a 9 dollar a month subscription fee or a $200 life time fee. There are tons of very loyal fans that would by it for life time. Oh well…
So dicking around on the internet (“dicking” is a technical term), I came across this site http://shardsofdalaya.com. SOD is legit EQ pirate server. No monthly fee, and legit. Can I say legit again? The Shards of Dalaya is an EQ “like” experience. What the fellas have done is take the EQ environment you know and love and mix it all up. The zones connect differently, monsters and NPCs are totally repopulated in different ways, the quests are all custom, and the story is unique. So can you run the same old dwarf belt turn in quests to ding level 6, 7, and 8? No.
Can you build any number of your old favorite character and classes from the ground up? Yes.
I was very surprised to see that every time I log in (EST) the population is about 270 to 300 players online. I thought with this type of server you are stuck playing by yourself for 60 levels. While it’s not easy to hop on and just group up at level 6, it is also not impossible. The player base is very gracious and very helpful to new players. Each new player is automatically part of a newbie guild that encourages you to ask all the dumb questions in the world. This keeps a lot of crap out of the OOC channel. (This idea should be stolen for any new MMO) The site also has a great knowledge base or Wiki. In here you can find the new zone connections, quests, and any other information about SOD. Even helpful documents that layout what to expect if you are coming over from EQlive.
So far it’s a fun guilt free (no money wasted) experience. My ranger Greyen, and my cleric Scen, plan to be roaming around Dalaya for some time. Remember it does take money to run these servers so if you are playing for a while and want to not feed Sony 15 bucks a month (Can you fuckin believe they still charge 15 a month?) then toss a few bucks at the guys making this possible.
