Really interesting as a corollary to the multiple internets discussion, as well as our on-going conversation about “web realms” (which I’ll be writing more about):

EverQuest, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, is set in the fantasy world of Norrath which is divided into more than 400 zones. Zones are playable areas of the EverQuest universe that can be accessed by players. They are connected to other zones by “zone lines”; crossing over to another zone is called “zoning”. Zoning can take anywhere from several seconds to several minutes, depending on the player’s computer. Zones are, in essence, the smallest unit of seamless playable area in the game, and are stored on the player’s hard drive. An area such as a city might be comprised of two or three smaller zones (a la Freeport), while a large zone might contain an entire small city and a vast forest (a la Greater Faydark). Zones represent a wide variety of geographical features that can be found in EverQuest, including plains, oceans, cities, deserts, and alternate planes of existence.

With the many expansions for EverQuest released over the years, there is a noticeable difference in the appearance of older zones and newer zones. Newer zones tend to have more advanced graphics and some advanced features such as interactive objects or scripted events with non-player characters. One feature introduced in Lost Dungeons of Norrath is “instanced zones” where a group of players can have an “instance” of the zone all to themselves, and a large number of instances can exist simultaneously.