EverQuest Producer's Letter Fall 2021

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Accendo, Nov 2, 2021.

  1. Accendo Guest

    [IMG]
    Time to get caught up!

    Greetings, Norrathians!

    The time has come once again for my latest Producer's Letter. It's been an incredible year since we last touched base. You've gotten to know some of our new game designers and engineers, we've shared in the fun during a handful of annual events, we all saw the amazing success of the launches of Mischief and Thornblade—our Randomized Loot TLPs—and now we're venturing into uncharted waters with the pre-order and beta testing of our next expansion, Terror of Luclin.

    If you're like many of us, your minds were blown when video game technology went from 8-bit to 16-bit. (Here's looking at you, speedy blue guy!) Personally, I'm very excited to finally and officially announce 64-bit clients and servers are coming for EverQuest! This was and continues to be a big endeavor and we plan to post an article about it soon. Just know that it's coming, and we're aiming for an early 2022 launch after the release of Terror of Luclin. (It will be coming to the beta server sooner than that, though.)

    As many of you saw, we recently opened pre-orders for our 28th expansion, Terror of Luclin. All of us were proud of the new landing page our team members and partners helped create. If you haven't seen it, you can check it out here: https://www.everquest.com/terror-of-luclin. But what's most important to note is all of you. The response from you, our community, to Terror of Luclin has been nothing short of spectacular, and we sincerely appreciate all of the positive comments and feedback we've received.

    One other important milestone for us is partnering up again with Extra Life to help raise funds for Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. They really do make a difference in so many children's lives and on a personal note, they hold a special place in my heart for what they've done for my family. When we did this last year, we hoped it would go well, and all of you far exceeded our expectations. We're back at it again this year, and we'd love it if you got involved again. Give a donation or help spread the word—we just want you to be part of this again. You can join our Darkpaw Games team by clicking here. Fundraising will continue through the rest of 2021 but mark your calendar for November 6. That is Extra Life's official day to stream EverQuest and EverQuest II to help raise awareness.

    Calling all artists! We're looking to hire some new talent in the coming weeks and months. We've got a lot of ambitious plans, and we're going to need some extra help in reaching our goals. If you're interested or know someone who might be, bookmark and keep an eye on our Careers page for updates.

    Also rounding out the rest of 2021 will be the return of the Raid, Raid, Raid! event, a Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale, Frostfell, and to get you ready for the holidays, a Winter Holiday Sale. Lots of fun still left to be enjoyed before some even more exciting things start to roll out in 2022.

    Finally, server merges. While we're not prepared to officially announce specific server mergers because we are still gathering data on our end, just know that we're being diligent about them and will let you know any updates as soon as possible. Look for messaging around this in the first half of 2022.

    From all of us here at Darkpaw Games, we deeply appreciate the years you've spent with us and we can't thank you enough for being a valued member of our community. You fuel us every single day with your passion. We know you have your choices, so thank you for spending your time with us as we get closer to 23 years strong.


    Wait . . . there is a golden feather on the floor,

    —Jenn Chan
    Head of Studio
  2. Fenthen aka Rath

    i thought she forgot about us. =(
    Duder likes this.
  3. Gromkagh New Member

    Awesome!
  4. Duder Augur

    Will a 64-bit client address the lag issues we see? Specifically raid lag? Will anything be done to address this in the coming year?
    Nerple, Shindius, Ssdar and 3 others like this.
  5. Ozon Augur

    As someone who understands 64bit is a big step, what will be the practical benefits for the playerbase?

    Thanks!
  6. Rexa Ask someone else for buffs

    Probably to demoralize the hacky-crowd from using third party programs? I take it, it might prove a bit more difficult to reverse-engineer the code on 64-bit. Not saying it will entirely eliminate any type of hacking, but just make it harder.
  7. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    I am glad to hear JChan is future-proofing EQ with 64-bit. Barring any unforeseen circumstance (economy), EQ is here to stay.

    With a 64-bit client, will we be able to receive additional classes, races, new currency (convert platinum), and raise Bazaar price limits?
  8. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    I would say new classes/races are unlikely do to the amount of work involved with it. (And with class balancing as it is do we really want new classes?). But I would think that a 64 bit client could fix the other issues though not sure if a new currency is needed.
    Shindius, Wdor and Keella like this.
  9. Soulbanshee Augur

    64-bit program on 64-bit OS runs better/more efficiently than 32-bit program on 64-bit OS (its kind of like a type of virtualization).

    32-bit programs have a hard limit of addressable memory about ~2 GB (I may be forgetting about some kind of extended memory tables) no matter how much RAM your system has. Memory leaks are still bad, but out of memory crashes become less frequent (if at all). More assets can be simultaneously loaded into global memory without having to dump and recycle used memory space.

    The parts of the client where we are hitting the limit to displayed/usable values assignable to integer (like the plat limit) can now display/use higher values.
    Shindius, Wdor, klanderso and 3 others like this.
  10. Soulbanshee Augur

    The class/race combo is an internal limit of the static array size used to hold the combos, where the original designers didn't imagine as many available as there are today. This is not related to integer limits. But because the class/race system is so embedded into the core of the system they would have to hunt down the hundreds (thousands?) of places that array size is referenced. Also the amount of design work to create spells/AAs/armor/etc and balance it against the existing class/races is enormous.

    Currency, potentially if all the references where currency can be stored/passed in code can be found to raise to a 64-bit int.

    Baz, another system so embedded that it would be a huge task and potentially breaking to the bazaar, but sure.
    Benito, Shindius, Wdor and 1 other person like this.
  11. Cragzop Cranky Wizard

    Not a single statement/mention of lag.

    The rest of the message is pure fluff, although actually mentioning upcoming sales is a first in a long, long while.

    Perhaps the 64 client upcoming article will address the lag somehow (not holding my breath).
    Shindius, Yinla and Nennius like this.
  12. Soulbanshee Augur

    Wouldn't fix lag from high network utilization. Wouldn't fix lag from server processor over-utilization. Efficiency of running 64-bit processes natively on a 64-bit OS instead of 32-bit processes, yeah.
    Shindius, Keella and MasterMagnus like this.
  13. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    Jchan was, as the old song goes, "Sittin' on a Lilly pad wonderin' which way to jump."

    In the end, having the nerve to make a choice, is better than sinking where you sit.

    Lag could be too open ended to complete in a plannable time frame. As we've already seen.

    64 bit wasn't an easy or fast process. But in the end it is a little more straight forward and they had done back-end groundwork on it.

    The choice makes sense in that light I suppose.

    There are always unforeseen bugs. And the possibility that allowing more things to be stored in global memory and larger data sets in general can lead to worse performance issues.

    But we shall see.

    And there is one of my predictions you can count wrong.
    Keella likes this.
  14. Numiko Augur

    Wonder if they are going back to revamping old zones with the call for more artists! . Freeport 3.0! :p
    Coagagin, Jumbur, Wdor and 1 other person like this.
  15. Tucoh Augur

    Nobody will be able to tell you the answer to this. Even the developers will only be able to state what they hope to achieve, not what they will realize.

    I'll be interested to read the article they publish on what benefits will be conferred from moving to 64bit, but I doubt it will have much of a positive and immediate impact.
    Shindius likes this.
  16. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Great question! Also, if a person (not me thankfully) is still using a 32 bit system, will this leave them out in the cold?
  17. Mossaa Augur

    No, they just have to upgrade.
    Coagagin likes this.
  18. Igorath-Bertox Elder

    More bugs, more people forced out due to compatibility issues, lower (than it is now) player base. Been there done that.
  19. Igorath-Bertox Elder

    Yes it will. They will have to shell out $$$, which in the current hardware climate is going to be obscene, or stop playing a 22 year old game with outdated graphics and broken quest. Not much of a choice but you keep on the poor okay?
  20. Slasher Augur


    No they wont have to shell out a lot of $. Any CPU bought in like the last 15+ years would support 64bit OS rest of your hardware does not matter.

    First thing is no one should be using a 32bit OS at this point. What % of the EQ playerbase do you think actually uses 32bit windows ?
    Stymie, Kaenneth, Qelil and 8 others like this.