Everquest memories- EC IRL

What is reality? When I was attending philosophy classes at the UW we were taught to think of reality using our senses. Is it possible to be in one place and have it be as real as another even though it is artificial. What is an artificial environment compared to reality?

Back in the 1990s I would frequently visit a state park that was close to where I lived. I was in my early 20s, life was new, my friends and family had not yet moved on to the pages of history. I would walk for hours in this park. The portable cd player or cassette tape blasting my favorite music or audio book. I must have visited this park at least once a day.

The park had the feel of being magical. The strange layout, the strange hills, the place felt like it was straight out of the Terry Brooks audio books I was listing to. The feeling was especially special in fall. Around September or early October the weather was unreal. To this day nothing beats the feeling of sitting on one of the hills in the park, closing my eyes, and letting the crisp autumn air blow across my face. The feeling was spiritually magical. The entire park was a magical field embedded in my imagination.

Aztalan State park
 

Fast forward to 2001. The 90's were becoming a distant memory. Life had changed. I was way too busy with various responsibilities to visit the park everyday. The feeling of magic I had felt a decade earlier had been replaced by the responsibilities of life. Until that day I was gifted with a game called Everquest.

Taking my first steps into the EQ world was much like walking in my park. A zone called East Commonlands almost looked like it. A replica. Better then that, the feeling of magic was back and surrounding me. Now I was not only a spectator in the amazing stories of magic and adventure like in the Terry Brooks audio books, I was a participant.

East Commonlands



Fcseven (updated 3/30/23)**removed dead link to Youtube.