EverQuest celebrates tenth anniversary News

EverQuest is ten. The Sony Online Entertainment MMO - the game that launched massively-multiplayer gaming into 3D, widely regarded as the template for Blizzard's World of Warcraft - was launched on 16th March 1999, and so celebrated its tenth anniversary of continuous operation yesterday.

To celebrate, SOE announced the dates of its next Fan Faire convention. The event will take place at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas on 25th to 29th June 2009. There will be a "big birthday bash" for EverQuest along with the usual community address from SOE boss John Smedley, announcements and previews, signings, tournaments, roundtables and so on.

There will also be a series of celebratory in-game events in EverQuest itself, free loot cards in the Legends of Norrath online card-trading game, and a collector's book of art and essays. SOE's home town of San Diego even declared yesterday an official Sony Online Entertainment Day. You can read more at the EverQuest 10th anniversary site.

SOE has also published a celebratory YouTube video featuring some amazing trivia about the MMO warhorse.

Over 12 million player characters have been created in EverQuest, the game has over 15,000 quests, 3000 items in the database have never been discovered by players - and best of all, "there are 11,221 rats in EverQuest. At an average weight of 300g, that would equal about 3.5 tons of rats".

Get online and punch them, then. You owe it to the legacy of this historic game.