Eq automatically into window mode

I don't think anyone is saying that isn't a problem and that a fix for the issue that caused this change shouldn't be done. Yes it would be good if they can fix it so you always stay in full screen mode if that is what you want and so that your UI doesn't get messed up when switching from windowed to full screen or full screen to windowed.

The proper fix would have been to have some sort of "run once/run on first install" settings, since the problem was apparently only on new installs of EQ.

There was ZERO reason to change this and have it affect everyone when there was only a very specific (and known) group of players that were actually affected by whatever this issue is.

If it was that easy of a fix I am sure they would have done it instead of what they did.

Literally every other game developer in the industry is able to get this right.

How many other developers are dealing with a 23+ year old code base that is still running on directx 9?

DirectX 9 got this right. Even DirectX 7 got this right. We're all running a 64-bit client now. Don't you think it's odd that none of these first-time user install problems were being reported until >after< the 64-bit client rolled out? And to answer your question, there are still thousands of games being sold that use DX9. Just take a look through the Steam catalog someday.

My hunch is this has nothing to do with DX anything, it's something funky they've patched into the launcher as part of their new automated anti-cheat detection, which doesn't quite do what they want unless the client starts windowed.

I agree. If it means not being able to play EQ, then I would naturally find this fix acceptable.

I wish that Daybreak had been more transparent and fully explained the upcoming changes to the EQ community before the patch instead of players coming to the forums after the patch and looking for answers.

You are right, it is very possible that there is a fix for this but that doesn't mean that it would have been easy for them to do based on what they are doing. Why make the immediate leap to assuming the worst from the dev team?

I agree more communication on what was changed, why it was changed and what the plans are to fix the issue would have been a good move on their part.

I'm not assuming the worst, if I was, I would be sharply critical of this change. "Hey, anyone can do this." If my guess is correct, they will never say so, because the whole anti-cheat strategy is top secret.

I'm not a fan of this change by any stretch. But I will play devil's advocate. The black screen issue was an issue that affected new installs. The amount of people who would have left over it was far greater than the amount of people who would leave over the fix.

Seeing the All Access tag on the majority of posters complaining about this shows that since the change went into effect, the majority of people complaining, are willing to put up with the 'fix' and still pay. None of us (myself included) were stubborn or principled enough to stop paying until they reverted. So they have little reason not to.

Frequently when bug fixes and features are worked on, players have the assumption (at least subconciously) in these sorts of threads that its a list of check boxes that a dev clicks, something like:

• Fix Blackscreen with no impact
• Fix Blackscreen with impact
• Do not fix Blackscreen
• Break shtuff

But that isn't the case. They have to first figure out some reproduction steps to see what exactly is causing blackscreen. We can infer from the bandaid fix that they found the cause to be related to starting in fullscreen. Starting in fullscreen isn't the cause. Not directly. The issue is still there. But starting in window prevents the problem from manifesting.

So the question is why the issue is still there? There's two reasons. One being they haven't figured it out yet. This sucks if its true and I feel for any dev that is still trying to nail that down if that is the case. Sometimes it just takes time, a lot of time, to find a cause of an issue. I've personally have had issues that have taken me upwards of 18 months to figure out. When trying to weed out all culprits in can take a fantastic amount of time and effort and in some cases you simply need to get lucky.

The other reason and I hope this is the case, is they've located the issue but they need to formulate an actual real fix that is going to take time. If this is the case then the fix is an involved one that takes time to write out and implement. Its likely an issue that if not done well can result in the game not launching properly not for a subsection of our population, but a majority. That would be bad. Though I would hazard a guess that it is something that is getting Everquest, a 23 year old game, up to speed with modern OS window standards. Which is evident that EQ is NOT.

We can see this with gamma issues and how in fullscreen we can't have borderless fullscreen. If they get that fixed then we can play at fullscreen without titlebar and taskbar AND have overlays from parsers, gina, discord, and steam. This would be a welcome fix by just about everyone I'd imagine.

If that takes a bit of time, to make that a reality, it would be worth the wait.

There are a lot of people seeming to suggest it would have been so easy to fix the issue or that they should have let the people who couldn't launch the game find the solution on their own. Yes what they did sucks but there is a reason for what they did.

Problem - Installing the game sometimes causes a black screen. You can google black screen on patcher for eq install and you will see many many links about this problem. And 90% of them are fixed by switching between full screen and windowed mode

Solution - they did let the people who could not launch the game find a fix on their own - thru these forums etc

Conclusion - there were enough people having this issue that the Devs saw a need to fix it even though we the players were the ones helping people fix it. It did not seem it was that big of a problem to us but who knows how many reports the Devs really got?

Result - EVERY person who got the black screen due to the full screen bug is now able to install.
EVERY person who did not ever use windowed mode was not affected

These combined I am guessing are more than those using full screen or the devs would not have made a change that affected the larger base - they would have just let us in the forums keep telling new players how to fix the issue

So it seems this was more beneficial than not

Just like anything that changes there is a learning curve and most business understand this. It takes most adults about 2 months to accept new process's

On the other hand, this could be a partial change needed for bigger things to come in the future and all this supposition is just a time killer while the game is patching.

I would point out that I had this issue back when I started playing on Ragefire. So the 64-bit client wasn't the cause like some have suggested.

Everybody, including DPG, is making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

So far, they completed every step exactly correctly in this situation. The problem is, they have forgotten or never figured out the last necessary step to make everyone happy.

It's really simple. Leave the DEFAULT setting for isfullscreen set at "False" so that all new installs will start in windowed mode by default, including patching it to say "False" for everyone.

Then allow the application to read the ini file again and let anyone who wants to start in fullscreen go into the ini file and change it.

It really is that simple.

(My fee is 10kr per hour if you feel so inclined and we're now at 45 minutes for this post)

There have been a number of others suggesting the same "fix", but with lower Krono costs.

Seems like that is an idea they would have tried before making the change that they did.

Three months later and it still really sucks having to fix windows and restore xtarget settings for 5 characters every time I log back in.

Its not going away.

So your not really "fixing" windows because what they did was the fix for whatever the problem was.

All the full screen folks were using it broken to begin with

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