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San Francisco party celebrates most successful launch in MMO history
SOE throws a shindig for EverQuest II
There was a time when anticipated Hollywood blockbusters would be heralded with giant searchlights sending beams upward into the night of the premiere. The bright lights generated into the night Thursday in San Francisco were not from searchlights, but rather Sony executives gleaming at the launch news about EverQuest II.
During a launch party at the Ruby Skye nightclub in San Francisco, it was proclaimed that EverQuest II, Sony Online Entertainment’s newest release into the massively multiplayer online gaming market, was the biggest and most successful launch in the history of the genre.
What would make SOE officials make that statement? Well, try 130,000 registered code keys in the first 72 hours of launch. The number of servers jumped within a day from the nine the game opened with to 18 to handle the load. Following the flurry of new registrations, the game is up to 22 servers with more on order.
So, for one night, Ruby Skye was decorated in a Norrath motif, columns and trees, darkpaw tents and, of course, walls aglow with gameplay from EQ II. There was a weaponsmith company on hand to sell swords (yes, real swords) and put on a choreographed display. And there were machines on the floor below and in the VIP area on the second floor to afford the 700 or so the opportunity to try the game.
Representations of Lucan D’Lere and Antonia Bayle wandered through the crowd, poising for pictures, the club pulsated with dance music, but the event was all about the game – and rarely were the machines on the main floor vacant for long. As one person would get up, another would take his or her place.
The evening was a qualified success, but really pales in comparison to the launch of the game it was celebrating.
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