EverQuest celebrates 15th anniversary with a video tribute to its players

EverQuest celebrates the 15th anniversary of its launch tomorrow and, to commemorate the occasion, Sony Online Entertainment released a video looking back at the game's beginnings, and the memories it has made since.

EverQuest launched on March 16, 1999 and though it was not the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game, its success made it among the most visible ones in the early days of the genre. Since then, the game has seen 20 expansions and, in 2012, added a free-to-play option. The game was enshrined in the GDC Video Game Hall of Fame in 2011.

Sony also put out an infographic comparing the changes in the game, and in culture, from 1999 to 2014. A timeline notes major developments in the game's history—including the addition of the /pizza command in Everquest II. It also points out that Everquest's NPC population grew from 13,000 in 1999 to 400,000 in present day, a population comparable to that of Oakland, Calif.