The Golden Age of Computer Gaming

Chapter 11: The Age of Streaming

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When Gaming Connected

THE BIRTH OF VIRTUAL WORLDS

By the mid-1990s, something profound was happening in basements and dorm rooms across America. Players weren't just loading games from disks anymore - they were connecting to worlds that existed beyond their computers, places where thousands of other real people were living parallel digital lives.

The transformation didn't happen overnight. It began with crackling modems, dropped connections, and the patience of pioneers who understood they were witnessing the birth of something unprecedented. Before social media, before streaming, before the internet became ubiquitous, gamers were creating the first true online communities.

ULTIMA ONLINE: THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

In 1995, Richard Garriott faced a creative crossroads. He had spent over a decade perfecting single-player Ultima games, but something was calling him toward uncharted territory. What if thousands of players could inhabit Britannia simultaneously, making their own choices and dealing with the consequences? What if the story wasn't written by designers but emerged from the collective actions of real people?

The project that would become Ultima Online began with a $2.5 million development budget - enormous for the time. Richard Garriott assembled a team including producer Starr Long, designer Raph Koster (known in the community as Designer Dragon), and programmers Rick Delashmit and Scott Phillips. The team faced technical challenges that no one had solved before: How do you create a persistent world that continues to exist even when individual players log off? How do you prevent players from destroying the experience for others?

THE VIRTUAL SOCIETY

When Ultima Online launched on September 24, 1997, it immediately became something its creators hadn't fully anticipated: a social laboratory where human nature played out in ways both wonderful and terrible. The game featured unrestricted player-versus-player combat, meaning anyone could attack anyone else at any time. What emerged was a complex ecosystem of cooperation and conflict that reflected real-world social dynamics.

Players formed guilds not just for gameplay advantages but for protection and companionship. Elaborate hierarchies developed, with veteran players mentoring newcomers and establishing codes of conduct that existed entirely outside the game's programmed rules. Some players became dedicated craftsmen, others emerged as diplomats negotiating between rival factions, and still others carved out niches as information brokers or hired muscle.

The game's economy became genuinely sophisticated, with players cornering markets on essential resources, establishing trade routes between cities, and even creating player-run banking systems. When someone discovered a new way to make money, word would spread through the community, prices would shift, and the entire economic landscape would reorganize itself.

THE ASSASSINATION OF LORD BRITISH

The most famous incident in Ultima Online's beta occurred on August 9, 1997, during a stress test meant to showcase the game's capabilities. Richard Garriott appeared in-game as his alter ego Lord British to address the player community. Due to a server crash shortly before the event, Lord British's character lost its invulnerability status - something Garriott forgot to reset.

A player known as Rainz seized the opportunity and cast a 'fire field' spell, killing the supposedly immortal Lord British in front of hundreds of witnesses. Producer Starr Long later blamed the incident on human error, but the event became legendary in gaming folklore. Rainz was subsequently banned from the beta, not for the assassination itself but for a pattern of exploiting bugs rather than reporting them.

THE PROBLEMS OF PARADISE

Ultima Online's radical openness also created problems that the development team struggled to address. Player killers would hunt newcomers, not for any in-game reward but simply for the pleasure of ruining someone else's experience. Thieves could steal hours of work in seconds. Entire guilds would dedicate themselves to griefing other players, finding creative ways to exploit the game's systems for maximum disruption.

These issues weren't bugs to be fixed - they were fundamental aspects of human nature playing out in a consequence-free environment. The solution eventually came in the form of separate game worlds: Felucca for those who preferred the lawless frontier, and Trammel for those who wanted to explore and build without constant threat.

THE ECOLOGICAL DREAM

One of Ultima Online's most ambitious features never made it beyond beta testing. The developers had created an elaborate ecological system where animals would hunt each other, breed, migrate, and respond to environmental changes. As Richard Garriott later explained: 'We thought it was fantastic. We'd spent an enormous amount of time and effort on it. But what happened was all the players went in and just killed everything; so fast that the game couldn't spawn them fast enough to make the simulation even begin.'

The ambitious ecosystem was eventually removed from the game, but it represented the kind of bold experimentation that defined early online gaming. Developers were willing to attempt features that might not work, driven by the vision of creating truly living virtual worlds.

EVERQUEST: THE ADDICTION ENGINE

While Ultima Online was proving that virtual societies could function, a small team at Sony's 989 Studios was working on something different. EverQuest wouldn't be about player freedom or emergent societies - it would be about creating the most compelling virtual world possible, a place so engaging that players would struggle to leave.

The project began in 1996 when John Smedley, an executive at Sony Interactive Studios America, secured funding for a 3D game inspired by text-based MUDs following the successful launch of Meridian 59. He recruited two programmers who had been working on a single-player RPG called WarWizard: Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover.

THE VISIONARY'S DOCUMENT

Brad McQuaid's original design document for EverQuest was remarkably brief - only 10-15 pages - but it contained a clear vision that would remain consistent throughout development. As John Smedley later recalled: 'Almost everything in that original design doc made its way into the game. It was very impressive. I'm almost 30 years into this business and I haven't seen that another time, ever.'

Unlike Ultima Online's focus on player agency and social dynamics, EverQuest would emphasize structured cooperation, with players forced to work together to overcome challenges that were impossible to solo. The team drew inspiration from DikuMUD and other text-based multiplayer games, but McQuaid's vision was to translate that experience into a fully 3D world.

THE CORPORATE SHUFFLE

EverQuest's development occurred during a period of corporate reorganization at Sony. Initially part of 989 Studios, the project was spun off to a new division called RedEye Interactive, later renamed Verant Interactive. The transition wasn't smooth - Smedley later revealed that EverQuest was nearly cancelled five or six times during development, though he kept this information from the development team to maintain morale.

Other key team members included Bill Trost, who created the history, lore, and major characters of Norrath (including the protagonist Firiona Vie), Geoffrey 'GZ' Zatkin, who implemented the spell system, and artist Milo D. Cooper, who handled the original character modeling.

THE REVOLUTIONARY LAUNCH

EverQuest launched on March 16, 1999, with modest expectations from Sony executives. The game required significantly more powerful hardware than Ultima Online - a Pentium processor, 3D acceleration, and substantial memory. Many industry observers wondered if enough players would have the necessary equipment to make the game viable.

They needn't have worried. EverQuest sold 10,000 copies on its first day, crashing servers and overwhelming San Diego's internet infrastructure. The unexpected demand was so intense that the game used more bandwidth than the entire city of San Diego's internet infrastructure could initially support. By the end of 1999, EverQuest had surpassed Ultima Online in subscriber numbers.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF OBSESSION

EverQuest's design created natural dependency loops that kept players engaged far longer than traditional games. Characters were specialized to the point where no one could survive alone. Warriors needed healers to stay alive, healers needed protection to survive, and damage dealers needed both to be effective. This forced interdependence created social bonds that extended far beyond the game itself.

The game's death penalty system reinforced these social bonds through shared adversity. When characters died, they lost experience points and had to retrieve their corpses from dangerous locations. This often required friends to risk their own characters helping with corpse recovery, creating cycles of mutual obligation that strengthened group cohesion.

THE CULTURAL PHENOMENON

Raid encounters might require forty players to coordinate their schedules, spending hours in careful preparation before attempting content that could end in failure after minutes of combat. These weren't just gaming sessions - they were social events that required the kind of commitment usually reserved for jobs or relationships. Players would call in sick to work for particularly important raids, plan vacations around guild schedules, and maintain friendships that existed primarily in the context of Norrath.

Brad McQuaid became a celebrity in the gaming community through his in-game avatar Aradune, and PC Gamer called him one of the 'Next Game Gods' in November 2000. The game's influence was profound - Blizzard Entertainment President J. Allen Brack would later admit that 'World of Warcraft took a lot of great ideas from EverQuest' and that 'EverQuest is the big foundation for WoW.'

THE CORPORATE EVOLUTION

Sony, quickly realizing EverQuest's unexpected success, reorganized Verant Interactive into Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) in 2000, with Smedley retaining control. Many of the original EverQuest team, including Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover, would leave SOE by 2002 to pursue new projects.

At its height in 2004, EverQuest had sold over 3 million copies and released eight expansions, with another seventeen following in subsequent decades. The game earned numerous awards, including 1999 GameSpot Game of the Year and a 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Award.

THE MMORPG DEFINITION

In 1997, Richard Garriott coined the term 'massively multiplayer online role-playing game' (MMORPG) to distinguish Ultima Online from the text-based MUDs that preceded it. This new category of gaming would define an entire industry, creating business models, social structures, and cultural phenomena that continue to influence entertainment today.

THE HUMAN COST

These early online games didn't just change how games were played - they changed who played them and why. Traditional gaming had been primarily a solitary activity or local social experience. Online worlds created the first global communities organized around shared virtual experiences rather than geographic proximity or cultural background.

The human cost of these innovations was substantial. EverQuest created the first generation of players who struggled with what would later be recognized as gaming addiction. The game's design encouraged behavior patterns that resembled substance dependency: tolerance requiring ever-increasing time investment, withdrawal symptoms when unable to play, and social isolation as virtual relationships replaced real-world ones.

THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS

Players began spending real money on virtual items, creating secondary markets that existed entirely outside the games' official economies. When items and even entire accounts began selling for thousands of dollars on eBay, it signaled the emergence of virtual property as a genuine economic category.

THE TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT

Both games represented massive technical achievements. Ultima Online's persistent world technology had to handle thousands of simultaneous players while maintaining complex economic and social systems. EverQuest's 3D engine had to render detailed environments for hundreds of players while managing complex combat calculations and spell effects in real-time.

The networking challenges were unprecedented. Both games required server architectures that could handle massive concurrent user loads, real-time data synchronization, and complex database operations. The infrastructure developed for these games would influence online gaming for decades to come.

THE COMMUNITY LEGACY

Perhaps most importantly, these games proved that virtual worlds could support genuine human communities. The friendships formed in early Britannia and Norrath would last for decades, surviving the games themselves. Players who met online would attend each other's weddings, support each other through real-world crises, and maintain connections that transcended their original digital context.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Richard Garriott left Origin Systems in 2000 after Electronic Arts decided to focus exclusively on online games, canceling projects including Ultima Online 2. He founded Destination Games with his brother Robert and former Ultima Online producer Starr Long, eventually partnering with NCSoft to create Tabula Rasa.

Brad McQuaid left Sony Online Entertainment in 2002 to found Sigil Games Online, taking many of the original EverQuest developers with him. He would spend the rest of his career trying to recapture the magic of those early years, working on projects including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen until his death in 2019.

THE LASTING IMPACT

By 2000, online gaming had evolved from a niche hobby requiring technical expertise to a mainstream entertainment medium accessible to millions. The infrastructure challenges had been largely solved, the social conventions had been established, and the business models had been proven. What had begun as experiments in digital communication had become permanent fixtures in popular culture.

The golden age of online gaming wasn't defined by the technology - dial-up modems and primitive 3D graphics would seem laughably obsolete within a few years. It was defined by the sense of discovery that accompanied each new development. Every successful connection felt like a small miracle. Every virtual achievement carried weight because it required genuine social cooperation. Every friendship formed online was proof that human connections could transcend physical space.

THE REVOLUTIONARY TRUTH

These early online worlds succeeded because they understood something that much of modern gaming has forgotten: players don't just want better graphics or more content. They want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want their actions to matter, their relationships to have meaning, and their investments of time and emotion to be respected by both developers and fellow players.

The technical limitations that seemed so frustrating at the time - the dropped connections, the long loading times, the complex social negotiations required for simple activities - actually enhanced the sense of achievement when things worked properly. Every successful raid, every profitable trade, every new friendship felt earned in ways that modern gaming's convenience and accessibility sometimes struggle to match.

As the internet became faster and more reliable, as graphics became more sophisticated and gameplay became more streamlined, something of that original magic was inevitably lost. But the foundations these pioneers laid would support an industry that would eventually reach billions of players worldwide. They had proven that virtual worlds could be more than entertainment - they could be platforms for human connection, economic innovation, and social experimentation that would influence culture far beyond gaming itself.