MMORPG fans will remember that back in June, we learned that Daybreak was pursuing one of the many EverQuest emulators in court. In brief: Daybreak has authorized at least one emulator in the past, Project 1999, and has allowed dozens of others to continue unimpended for many long years, but it took copyright action against The Heroes Journey, owing to what we assume is its large playerbase and financing.
When the lawsuit hit THJ, however, other servers pre-emptively closed rather than become a fresh target. One of those, Project Quarm, clarified that unlike THJ, it did not collect player funding and had not received a takedown but would nevertheless pause production while engaging in discussions with Daybreak. Those discussions were apparently productive, as Quarm is coming back online – with a fresh agreement to operate.
“This agreement formally recognizes Project Quarm as a personal, non-commercial, not-for-profit fan-based private server and establishes the guidelines that we as a project must follow,” operator Secrets says. “This agreement will allow us to continue to update the game without risk of legal repercussions.”
There are a few, uh, provisos, a couple of quid pro quos. First, Quarm is now capped at 1200 players by request of Daybreak, with a queue beyond that. It’s got permission to implement offline bazaar trading, and it’ll tick forward to the Luclin expansion when it’s back. Daybreak also required Quarm to remove some, though not all, of its custom content – the modifications “determined to be a step too far for a personal, non-commercial fan-based private server.” We see four zones, four raids, one raid encounter, the Terror of Sul expansion, and multiple quests and racial unlocks, all on the chopping block. In exchange, Quarm will now operate similarly to Project 1999 and is no longer a rogue server but a legitimate server.
Naturally, complaints over the deal are coming in from lots of people who were never in a position to be sued without it. Ahem.
The Heroes Journey folks, note, haven’t said much about the ongoing lawsuit in Discord over the past few weeks, but there was a memo on Monday that suggested players should continue donating to the project, this time to help the founders defend themselves in court.
