Around 2000, Jake and Tanya Basile met in the online RPG EverQuest. While Jake was working up to telling Tanya how he felt, he took her to the in-game 'temple of dragons.'
When Tanya couldn't recall the name of the place, Jake told her it was the Temple of Veeshan.
The two of them walked among the dragons in the temple and climbed all the way to the top to talk. In a 2020 interview with WIRED, Tanya looked back on that time as a beautiful memory.
A place inside a game stayed with them as long as any real-world date spot would.
✦ Temple of Veeshan, Home of the Dragons
Where Jake and Tanya's walk took place
The Temple of Veeshan is a high-difficulty raid zone in the expansion The Scars of Velious. Velious, the setting of that expansion, is a continent buried in snow and ice, and within it the temple is portrayed as the holy ground of the dragon race.
The Scars of Velious was the second expansion after the original game, and it added new zones across Velious, this one included. A powerful dragon guards each zone, so several players have to come prepared to take it on.
But what stayed with the two of them wasn't boss loot or raid records. It was the time they spent walking among the dragons together. It shows that a huge game world isn't only remembered for fights and items.
When Even Finding a Party Was an Adventure
EverQuest is a fantasy MMORPG released on March 16, 1999. It's set in a world called Norrath, where players pick a class like warrior, priest or mage, fight monsters, and grow by earning experience and gear.
Early on, the game didn't do much to tell you where to go next. The party system was rough too, so you'd shout "LFG" (Looking for Group) in chat to round people up, then travel to far-off hunting grounds yourself.
Finding people to play with was part of the gameplay.
✦ Who Does What in a Dangerous Zone
Roles in a party
In dangerous hunting grounds, splitting up roles mattered. A tank pulled the enemy's attacks onto themselves while the damage dealers did the damage, and the healer kept an eye on everyone's health.
✦ How a Corpse Run Goes
Step by step
Sometimes, when your character died, you had to go back to where you fell and recover your body and gear. Today we call this system a 'corpse run,' and it's often mentioned as a hallmark of early EverQuest.
The way back to your body was often dangerous, so a friend who knew the route, or another player who came to rescue you, made a huge difference. Ultima Online, an MMORPG that was popular around the same time, had corpse runs like this too.
Put a system like this in a modern MMORPG and players would complain it's far too inconvenient, and the developer would be in big trouble. But back then, that enormous hassle built tension, and getting help to recover your body was a memory in itself.
✦ Two Kinds of Guilds
Not just one culture
Guild culture wasn't just one thing either. There were social guilds where everyone chatted and hunted on their own, and raid-focused guilds where dozens of players gathered at set times to take down a giant enemy.
A reporter at Ars Technica wrote that in 2019, the raid they belonged to had more than 50 players gathered, taking orders over voice chat.
They also recalled that before World of Warcraft came out, some guilds ran raids five days a week, five to six hours a day (that's practically a full-time job).
A Guild Made Only of Healers Existed
Ars Technica's 2019 coverage of EverQuest's 20th anniversary featured a unique guild called 'Healers United.' To join, you had to be able to heal other people. There were no warriors, monks, rogues or classes that mainly use attack magic.
✦ Healers United at a Glance
A guild built around helping others
Michelle Shea, who played a shaman, was the person who led this guild. The nickname in game was 'Juror.'
The guild members Michelle led would set up healing posts in dangerous zones where it's easy to end up alone, like The Estate of Unrest, and help players who were in trouble.
It wasn't a guild that fought together to get gear. It was an unusual community focused on supporting players who needed help. That's a kind of play you rarely see in today's MMORPGs, where everyone's too busy competing over rankings.
✦ Two Couples Who Met in EverQuest
Where they met and what came next
Michelle married Mike Shea (who went by Loral), a fellow guildmate, in 2006. They kept playing EverQuest after the wedding, but as raiding demanded more time and effort, the two left the game about a year later and played other games together.
Another couple, Greg and Melissa Holcomb, got to know each other on EverQuest's Xegony server.
In real life, Melissa lived in Denver in the United States and Greg lived in Rochester, New York. When a back injury meant Melissa couldn't travel to see Greg, Greg drove more than 1,500 miles (over 2,400 kilometers) to meet Melissa.
In 2019, when Ars Technica interviewed them, the two were still enjoying raids together in a guild called 'Iratus Lepus.' The guild's name means 'angry rabbit' in Latin.
Greg said the game gives the two of them a shared interest, and Melissa joked that the two of them squabble while group hunting.
Is It Okay to Start Now?
EverQuest is still running today. An official update went up on October 21, 2026, and you can start for free on Steam. Keep in mind that you need a separate Daybreak account on top of your Steam account, and the only language listed on Steam is English.
The old interface and the English-only support are clearly a barrier for new players, including those in Korea.
If you're starting fresh, it's better to look for a guild that takes in beginners first. The game is old, so the in-game guidance isn't exactly friendly, and being able to ask experienced players all sorts of questions makes playing a lot easier.
✦ Two Ways to Start
Live server or progression server
Besides the regular live servers, there are progression servers that unlock expansions one after another in chronological order (World of Warcraft has similar servers too, you know).
Each server has its own start point and rules, and you need a paid All Access membership to get on a progression server.
So for now, start on a free live server and get used to the basic controls and the world.
If you end up liking the game, and if you enjoy the nostalgia and the romance that come with the inconvenience of an old game, you might just get pulled into the world of EverQuest.
That's all for this post. See you next time.
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🌐 Korean version: 용들이 사는 신전에서 데이트한 두 사람, 《에버퀘스트》 게임에서 시작된 인연
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