Engineering EverQuest

by David Kushner IEEE Spectrum, July 2005 Up in the snow-covered hills, a guild of wizards and a group of blue-skinned dark elves close in on caves of ice. Inside lurk ominous frost spirits and who knows what other monsters in the shadows. The wizards summon their magic. The dark elves prepare for battle. It’s showdown time in Norrath. So let the data flow. After all, Norrath exists solely in the coded world of EverQuest, a best-selling computer game played over the Internet. As its often-fanatical devotees test their mettle in a rich fantasy world of fierce creatures, powerful servers and routers strive to keep up with them in humming computer rooms from California to South Korea. Read more