Since when is patchme not an option?

Some people in my guild is having trouble accessing their accounts via eqgame patchme which they have to do or their everquest account screen flickers when in windowed mode. They contacted CS and said they cannot support it? Why? Its a well known option that has been available for numerous years. Can someone ask the ops guys to find out what is happening here?

I cannot access server-select either, but I am not using patchme. I figured the log-in server was down. I am getting the A connection to the server could not be reached error.

But go ahead and have your witch-hunt, I will observe.

~Terraa

Potentially helpful: I was able to access server-select by running patcher, receiving error, closing that client, and re-opening it via LaunchPad (without having previously closed it). I am currently in-game.

~Terraa

Currently have 3 of our 4 accounts can use the 'patchme' option and one cannot.
Been like this for a couple of weeks now.

Saying 'we don't support this' is NOT an option, it's not like this is some 3rd party software, it's a base part of EQ.
So, whatever was done to make it break for random accounts needs to be fixed.

Bump!

Any news on this? It is really getting aggreviating and indeed the 'we don't support' is not a professional reply. Any CS / dev please look into this and give us an update

Why isn't it professional?

a) It's their software that has broken. Would you also be happy if , for example, your copy of Microsoft Word suddenly stopped being able to open .txt files and you were told by the Microsoft CS dept 'we don't support that' ?

b) This is an account issue not a software issue. Something has been changed/corrupted on a random number of accounts and is preventing the 'patchme' option from working on those accounts. If it was simply that 'patchme' had been disabled then noone would be able to use it, instead of some people being able to use it and others not. And it is not a PC issue because for many people have multiple accounts, some of which can use 'patchme' and others now cannot.

So, it would be nice if these account related issues could be investigated and fixed.

Because:
- 1, the patchme workaround was pointed at players by CS or devs themselves for the past 10 years
- 2, the problem seems to come from the login screen wich not works on certain accounts. Those login screens are SoE. Lets say like last night during a raid the zone crashes, we get booted back to login (EQ does not crash completely) you use the login and there it not works. You will have to go back and go through launchpad again loosing even more time. Other example you go to the chat tab, from there you exit back to login screen again it will not work.
- 3, it is SoE's plateform that has a bug. I suppose there is something that got corrupted on SoE's side for some accounts. It will not accept the passwords and either give you timeout or wrong password messages.

This problem has nothing to do with the computer / software or EQ installation.
I have tested it on 3 different machines, asked a friend to test as well. 1 account works, other doesn't. Has nothing to do with 3rd party sofware like WinEQ since it does the same regardless how you get to the 'login' page.
I have done a clean reinstall of windows, EQ and everything on the machine as well.
I have tried to change password multiple times to force a sync.

Client side no one can do anything about it. SoE needs to fix something that happened on their side.

Personally I will not continue playing very long having to be in full screen. I have 2 accounts, I like to box, and native windowed mode from EQ is . I have used WinEQ since creation to emulate full screen and there is no reason I should not be able to use it on 1 of my accounts.

Update:
Just tried to replicate this problem on the test server and got the same results, so this definitely appears to be an account specific issue.
3 of our 4 accounts can login to the test server using the 'patchme' option while the 4th cannot.

Something has become corrupted on this account (and probably on the accounts of all the others having this same issue) and needs to be fixed.
Could this be somehow related to the problem that is apparently randomly banning accounts ?

Next year, that will happen, when Microsoft stops supporting office 2003.
XP will no longer be supported on April 8th, 2014 as well.

Shang has a point there. You can't support every software forever. That is a general thing though, I think it would be far better received if they were trying to help with this issue as indeed quite a few people use "patchme".

If Microsoft are still selling Office 2003 and XP then I would expect them to support them, if not then no.
SOE are still selling Everquest so I do expect them to support it.

Also, since some people can still use patchme while others cannot this is quite clearly an account issue and not a software issue.

/guildwar is no longer supported but EverQuest is.

and I'm guessing that noone can use /guildwar, and there was a message in a patch at some point saying that /guildwar was being removed.

A number of people are having a real problem with their accounts which is effecting how they play, they would like it fixed.
If it's not effecting you, or you don't care, just don't bother posting.

I'm not arguing that it should be fixed or not - I'm arguing that the reply given to is within the realm of professionalism.

Thought it was removed completely when the new Launcher was forced on us to stop hacking.

He's actually partially right, just phrasing it poorly.

Don't you have anything better to do than criticize? Patcher, Launchpad, Launcher, All Access, Station Pass. All those made-up copyrighted words are meaningless to people who learned real English. Shang understood me.

If I'm not mistaken, hasn't the -patchme command line argument (or a close enough facsimile) always primarily just been a workaround in case the patcher itself is behaving erroneously and preventing a login despite files being up-to-date?

Alternative pseudo-solutions don't always need to see indefinite, universal support. That said, while I can't say I love that Microsoft will (eventually) stop supporting Windows XP, I certainly do commend them for holding out so long. This is especially true when you compare that to something like Nintendo, where they tend to immediately abandon previous game consoles when they (are soon to) release a new one.

patchme is used to bypass the patcher, correct.
This thread is not about patchme no longer working, this thread is about whatever has been done to a random number of accounts that means that they no longer work correctly, while other accounts continue to work unchanged.

If I am logging in multiple accounts on the same PC it is completely pointless (and a waste of my bandwidth and SOEs) to run the patcher 4 times. It is much easier to run it once, on patch days and then bypass it at other times.

Something was done recently to one of my accounts, and apparently to a random number of other peoples accounts, that now prevent those specific accounts from being able to use the patchme option, while other accounts continue to work correctly.

So, this is not a "fix patchme" thread, this is a "please fix what you broke on our accounts" thread.

Hopefully this clears up the confusion.

I am sure that the bandwidth used when launching the patcher when a patch is not needed is so minimal it isn't really even noticeable.