Father Figure

One of the best aspects of this game that I have commented about in various locations across the last two years has been the community. For 99% of my interactions, they were some of the most helpful, friendly, and grateful individuals I've ever shared a computer screen with. The caveat here is that I never raided. I saw some of the drama that goes along with the high-tier raiding guilds as a member, and as an observer, but never as a participant. They call it the U.N., with a Discord server complete with a mocked-up logo similar to the actual U.N. in Geneva.

Man, can it get dramatic in there. That's where the Game Masters come in.

Before we jump into exactly who and what Game Masters (GMs) are, let's first take a look way, way back at the beginning of EverQuest for context. Verdant Interactive was the company that created EverQuest, and on their payroll were individuals who were Game Masters, or who would serve in that role along with other duties like Q&A testing, coding, community management, etc. They were responsible for handling in-game player troubles like glitches, lost items, disputes, or whatever else might be causing a person grief that they resorted to the "/petition" command for this. GMs would appear, seemingly out of nowhere, with the ability to modify limited in-game elements, issue bans, and teleport players when necessary. This was an important, time consuming, and I'm certain emotionally-consuming role. They were the closet thing to "gods" that the game had, with any "actual" in-game deities being either non-existant at the time outside of some character selection and armor choices, or just an NPC like the rest of the mobs found in the world.

In Project 1999, all of those responsibilities, abilities, and concerns are still present, but this emulator's GMs do it for free. They are all volunteers who either have a great passion for helping those in need or a passion for keeping a 25-year-old gaming time capsule running by being the person who raises their hand. They all have IRL jobs, families, and demands on top of settling arguments around "who gets what boss" during drafts, camp disputes, or griefing accusations.

Why don't they get paid? Simple, no on does. This entire emulator is run on donations. I have zero insight into the amount they raise, but it probably isn't cheap to keep something like this running for thousands of players. For some background, Daybreak Game Company are the current intellectual property owners of EverQuest. Since Project 1999 is using their assets and game elements for this, then they could be sued without proper permissions or agreements in place. Well, Daybreak gave those, and the two parties (fan-developers and Daybreak) hashed out a contract reflecting that relationship. While specifics are only known to the parties involved, one part that was made clear was that no money could be exchanged for access to the game. Since this was technically an unlicensed product, then it could not be used for financial gain.

Makes sense, and was a genuinely cool move on Daybreak's part not to kill this project. It was one of the first to be done like this and have the blessing of the IP holder.

So, back to this painting. This is one of the GMs that I had the pleasure of encountering for specifics I can't even remember. He was so helpful for such a small issue that I was dealing with that it blew me away, especially since I knew he was doing it for free. I asked if I could snag a few screengrabs as well as a few follow-up questions, and "voila," I made this to honor "Blistig, the Father of Lizards." I think that the fact I can't even remember what the issue was, but only how grateful I felt afterwards, speaks to a Maya Angelou quote that I really like. Yes, you are about to read a Maya Angelou quote in a painting retrospective of EverQuest.

"...people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."