EverQuest

Before online worlds became commonplace, Norrath felt enormous.

Released in 1999, EverQuest brought players into a 3D fantasy world populated by other people. Earlier online RPGs had established many foundations, but EverQuest turned that idea into a breakthrough hit.

Progress demanded cooperation. Travel was slow and dangerous. Death could strand your equipment on a corpse far from safety, and specialized classes made other players valuable. Finding a group was often part of surviving.

At higher levels, guilds organized large raids against powerful enemies. EverQuest helped make this kind of cooperative persistent progression a defining model for Western MMORPGs.

Its influence reached directly into World of Warcraft, whose developers included dedicated EverQuest players and whose early raids drew from it. For years, Norrath was the world other online RPGs had to measure themselves against.