The developer Geoffrey “GZ” Zatkin was involved in the development of the original MMORPG Everquest 25 years ago. Reflecting on the year 2000, he tells how different times were back then compared to today and how he once sparked a shitstorm that led to a call from his boss.
Who is Geoffrey Zetkin?
- Zatkin is one of the original developers of the legendary MMORPG Everquest, which became a small team in 1997. There was no template for the game, nothing to guide you, it was experimental. Later, Blizzard used Everquest as a template to develop WoW.
- Zatkin worked for 6 years at Sony Online Entertainment and was then a “Level Designer and Game Designer” – he was responsible for the magic system of Everquest, with over 850 spells (via LinkedIn).
- After his time at Everquest, he pursued a variety of projects, many of which involved MMOs and games.
With the new MMORPG Monsters & Memories , some developers from Everquest want to create an MMORPG “like before”:
There was little information about spells – only an Australian website
This is what he says about his work: Anyone familiar with MMORPGs today knows that everything is styled and monitored. Developers of MMORPGs like New World, WoW, or ESO are constantly analyzing data: players are transparent. Additionally, there are websites that list every post from developers, analyze every line of code, and present all information clearly.
In the days of Everquest, it was different, as Zatkin explains in a conversation with PC Gamer:
- If the developer wanted to know how people truly played his MMORPG, he had to log in with his GM account, cast a “Super-Invisibility” spell, and then watch players in the game while they played.
- There was practically no information about how spells worked in Everquest itself. People simply had to buy them and try them out.
- The main source of information about Everquest was an Australian website called “Caster’s Realm”, which maintained a detailed list of spells in the game: They apparently got their information by reading the patch notes from the test server. However, Zatkin apparently did not appreciate that at all.
All important spells of the classes nerfed on the test server – except one
This is what the developer says: Zatkin stated that he had some fun with the fans and the operators of the site who were peeking at patch notes:
One year, around April 1st, I put a patch into beta where I nerfed every popular spell of every single class, except for the most important spell of one single class. I buffed that one.
The designer says he simply put the patch online without any further explanation. It was meant as a friendly reminder that the beta was there for testing.
The forums are on fire – What have you DONE?
The reaction when the new changes were extracted from Caster’s Realm in beta and then spread can probably be imagined by anyone who has ever played an MMORPG:
That was the only time I was ever called by my boss at 1 a.m.: Brad called me and said: The forums are on fire, what have you DONE?
Everquest has many fantastic stories, especially because the online role-playing game was so different and much “rawer” than the MMORPGs we know and play today.
We reported on MeinMMO in May 2022 about a special dragon:
Guild awakens 22-year-old dragon in an MMORPG – Turns the entire server against them
