Considering that they are a source of constant grief, they're probably better off just doing away with that gimmick altogether.
Age of Discovery(GU62) - We have reforge, or whats left of it. Beastlords and apprentices are filling grps and broker with food respectively and have done that for a cpl of months allrdy. Anyone who wants it have a Kenny - Frostfell is a month in the past allrdy. 20 AAs is the only thing that havnt been released yet Skyshrine is GU63 Where both DoV and AoD was updated. AoD had elite mercs and apprentice with additional recipes and more warders for BLs added. The rest was DoV, AoD did not grant acces to Withered Lands and Skyshrine, the 2 new levels and prestige tabs. This was for owners of DoV only. Plz correct me if im wrong - - I even stop posting about it
Hello there again, been reading through all the comments and I just noticed that some ppl here like the idea of reaching out to more ppl via Linux and Mac. I thought I might add to that by posting my thoughts on this. A few years ago, you would have seen me asking for a native Linux or Mac port, but nowadays, with software such as Proton / Crossover / Wine / Lutris etc., I believe the development time and cash for a native Linux EQ2 port would be too much effort and "wasted" resources that could be used to fix or improve other areas of the game instead. We all know EQ2 could use some bug and glitch hunting. That being said, I do agree with the other comments on the part that it would be better to just continue to "unofficially" support the game via Proton for Linux users with the goal of "officially" supporting it via Proton somewhere down the line and in the near future. And by officially supporting it, I mean actually making sure that all current and future EQ2 updates work with Proton, by creating a Linux section here in the forum, by adding FAQ to the website, by adding it to the list of officially supported systems etc. I mean, playing EQ2 on Linux is a matter of two or three clicks when using Proton, since it's built right into Steam for Linux users, and that's it. It's a great out of the box experience, if all you want to do is download and play. In fact, EQ2 runs much better for me via Proton due to the DXVK (DirectX9 to Vulkan) transition layer, which has resulted in an increase to performance and stability versus the vanilla Windows client. For Mac users the situation is a bit different though. On Mac you have a few alternatives, minus Proton, and some of them include emulating the entirety of Windows via emulation software such as VMWare, Parallels, Virtualbox or even Bootcamp, the latter letting Windows run on real hardware. Someone mentioned this a couple of posts ago. But all of these solutions don't perform nearly as good as a native app or as something running via Wine and one of its forks or it might require you to install, manage and reboot into Windows. Rebooting or using Windows on Mac kinda defeats the entire purpose of buying a Mac, if you actually bought the device for Mac OS. Thus I recommend to try out Crossover, see the link here. I used to be an advocate for the EQ2 crosstie on Crossover back in the old days before Proton came along, and a few of the screenshots you see there are from me. According to the current rating breakdown, and the users that rated their experience with Crossover 20 / 21 and the EQ2 crosstie, EQ2 should run great on Mac - including M1 devices. The only downside to this is that you have to pay for Crossover, but I believe the price they're asking for is fair. Ideally Mac users will benefit from Proton one day, but: Codeweavers and Valve partnered together in order to create Proton for Linux, which as of this writing isn't available for Mac yet (correct me if I am wrong). Codeweavers is also a huge contributor when it comes to vanilla Wine, which is why I would recommend to partner directly with Codeweavers in order to create an EQ2 port for Mac users instead, if there is enough interest. It has been done a couple of times before and I believe this would be the most cost effective, speedy and yet performant way to create a Mac "port" without having to start from scratch and without having to invest a tremendous amount of manpower and cash. A Mac port powered by Crossover would behave like a "real" Mac app and the enduser would just install it like every other Mac app. No reboots, no major performance issues, plug and play. This way you could add Mac support to the list of officially supported systems and offer Mac users a Mac optimised build that they can download and run on their OS. Hope this info helps your friends join your mystical adventures in Norrath @Ronoc. Let them give the Crossover trial a go and let us know how it goes.
Hi there Uwk, technically it should be possible to run Proton without Steam, at least on Linux that is. Not sure if you could then actually use it to run EQ2 without getting your hands a bit dirty though. Also, just to let you know, I haven't used a Mac in a few years and ever since I became a father I haven't had the time to fully check what has been worked on the last two years or so. Take what I am about to write with a huge grain of salt Linux: You could probably just download the source from Valve and compile it yourself or use other community editions of Proton, such as ProtonGE, ProtonTKG or instead use one of the bundled versions of Proton via Lutris, PlayOnLinux etc. In addition, you could also use plain old vanilla Wine with DXVK or Crossover on any Linux distribution and manually install EQ2 without Steam. There are a few alternative options out there: Reddit Gentoo forums More Reddit Even more Reddit Steam forums QA, plans for Mac support But I wouldn't recommend any of this for a mainstream user just wanting to play EQ2 easy and painless. Proton is meant to be used with Steam and the user experience is best when using it the way it was designed. What do you have in mind? Anything specific? If you're talking about Mac OS, to be completely honest, I really recommend just using Crossover for EQ2. Everything else might or might not work and seems a bit complicated for a normal user: Tomshardware WineHQ More WineHQ PlayOnMac ^ Seems like even WineHQ recommends using Crossover on Mac. I know that Codeweavers put in the extra effort in order to make sure that Crossover continues to support the newest developments coming from Apple, see here and here. Btw, if you're asking because you want to reap some of the benefits coming from DXVK by using it on Windows, that might be possible too, see here: DXVK on Windows user feedback Tuto DXVK on Windows Some ppl are reporting a substantional performance jump with legacy apps that are still running an older version of DirectX (EQ2 = DirectX9). All this being said, if you would like to give Linux a try with EQ2 and Steam / Proton, I'll gladly guide you through it. I might take a while to respond though, helping my wife with our two sons rn. Using a modern day distro like Ubuntu, you'd be up and running in no time. Steam can be downloaded directly within Ubuntu via its software center and activating Proton is a matter of a few clicks. I updated my experience with the newest Proton release on Linux a couple of days ago, see here (Sturmlocke). A friend of mine used his old laptop for this last year and has been happily gaming on Linux ever since.
Ah, thanks! To relieve any concerns, nope, I'm not on a Mac/Apple (/ptui >ting<), but I am on an old, creaky Win7, that's either freaking out and Blue Screening due to software glitches or hardware glitches or both, but I detest Win10 (and even with Windows' propensity to have halfway decent odd-numbered releases and sucky even-numbered releases, I'm not sure 11 would be any better). So ideally, if I have to get new hardware, I'd prefer to just put on some sort of Linux with a good either Windows-ish emulation, or a good flexible GUI. And, of course, something that could run EQ2 with it fully downloaded, not on Steam. Uwk who definitely will save this page, if not this entire thread ;->
No problemo I completely understand the issue with Win 10 and 11. Well, I would reeeeally recommend Steam, if you're willing to dip your toes into Linux, but you can also do without it by using vanilla Wine, Crossover, Lutris and more. Send me a PM with your hardware specs and I'll check if it makes sense to switch to Linux in your case and what you can expect from it. The beauty about Linux is that you can pretty much decide what kind of desktop environment you want to use. KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXDE and many more, just to name a few. The one that resembles Windows the most would be KDE and you could start by using Kubuntu, for example. The nice thing about Ubuntu and it's flavors is that it's extremly user friendly and Ubuntu even ships with Gamemode enabled by default - a feature that maximizes performance when gaming on PC. The easiest way to make use of Gamemode is to use Steam and add it to the launch options of a game btw. Anyway, I prefer Gnome, which is the default desktop environment of the "original" Ubuntu, but that's just my personal taste. I'm on my Dell Optiplex 3040 SFF PC right now, which is running on openSUSE Tumbleweed and Gnome 41, but my "big" gaming rig is running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I recommend you stick to the LTS releases of Ubuntu for improved stability and extended support. Here is a nice tuto, coming directly from Ubuntu, featuring a beginners guide on how to start gaming on Ubuntu + Steam + Proton. Needless to say that it might be a good time to try Linux and Steam, because Valve is going all in on Linux in 2022.
I have the feeling that just to be on the safe side, if I go the Linux route, we'll probably end up getting all new hardware guts for the tower as well, so I don't know what we'll be getting yet. Sadly, our one computer repair/build-a-beast shop locally here closed down, even before the pandemic (they were open ONLY M-F, 9-5, and only people working in offices whose computer went down would've been able to really patronize them on a regular basis. Ironically, what with folks working from home, COVID might've done them a good turn, but they were gone by then); not sure where we'll be going to get a scratch build, and getting an all in one system ("We've got everything included! Mouse [don't need it]! Keyboard [ditto]! Printer [same]! And, of course, Windows 10 or 11! [don't want it. Sigh]") is just more peripherals than needed. :-/ Sigh; time to hunt down another decent shop... ;-> Uwk
Sounds like a good plan *thumbsup* I bought my wife a second hand Dell Optiplex 7050 the other day, because she desperately needed an upgrade in order to play EQ2 at maximum details. The machine is equipped with a Core i5 6500, 8 GB DDR4 RAM and everything else needed (case, motherboard, 240W proprietary power supply etc.) and I got it for 25 Euros from Ebay It's in great condition too. The Core i5 features an integrated Intel HD 530 graphics unit. Sure, you won't be getting crazy high framerates from that Intel HD, but it is capable of playing EQ2 at tweaked high settings, 1080p with 40-60 fps most of the time (on Linux with Proton and Vulkan ofc). Then I realised that I still had an old 60-70 Watts RX 560 with 4 GB of VRAM in my treasure box, that I bought for 30 Euros, before the inflation of gpu prices, and that allows her to run the game stable at 60 fps ¹ and extreme details (vsync on, without gpu shadows). And best of all, the machine sits around approx 70-100 Watts when playing EQ2 and Gamemode enabled (energy prices are skyrocketing over here). If you want to save some cash and aren't in the mood for building a PC yourself, go for a prebuilt second hand Dell or Lenovo computer. They're really cheap, because they're mostly used for office work, but you can easily upgrade them for gaming. I also highly recommend sticking with either Intel or AMD graphic cards for your new Linux system, as both brands offer the best out-of-the-box experience by using preinstalled open source drivers that are enhanced / optimized for gaming on Linux. Nvidia is good too, performance wise, but their proprietary driver can be a pita sometimes. What specs does the machine you're on right now have? ¹: Now that I think of it, ProtonGE makes AMD Fidelity FX easily accessible for a bunch of games. Might try that and see how much it improves performance on her system. Not all games are compatible though and I wonder if EQ2 works with it. I've used it in other games and performance (framerate) more than doubled in many cases.
Love it and Hate it this idea! My favorite Holiday Event (a main reason why I continue to play) will be updated this year and then next year it will be SOL (and I don't mean shards of love... than again maybe the shards will work nicely to throw in frustration over this) for big updates. all I can say right now is WTH or maybe WTF are you thinking. Did lazy hit everyone at Covid and it continues. I was able to keep working and still do every day. I get to play in short spurts during the week and week ends vary. But I play for the holiday events updates because I look forward to them and now I'm being told that updates will be less then what they were... what for? the big raids for those poor folks who rush through the current content? For the decorators who get very little and pray each year at each event that what they asked for and wanted actually gets added? and now this. disappointed in many ways. Yet excited because I want to see the new stuff too. *Sigh*
Which event? I've read through the initial post several times and may have totally missed it, but I don't see anything about an event being updated this year and then never again.
They're making assumptions. Live events will almost certainly continue to be updated every year, they aren't going to update them just this year and then ignore them in the future.
Not entirely - if you go have a look on eq2traders, mum talks about what was said with a bit more detail (it's part of her Erollisi info). Specifically, yes all of the holiday live events will continue to get updates every year. However, starting with this years cycle they will be focusing on a few holidays and others will get less. Next year, the ones that get more vs less will change. So, what Test Taffies said is essentially correct that people who primarily play for the live events during holidays, decorating & that part of the game, it can easily be considered another snub by DBG, at least in my opinion. As always, those who focus on high level, current expac Heroic and Raid content won't care about this change one little bit. It's nothing new, it's not a trend - it's a full-blown trajectory of EQ2 the devs started years ago. From here: https://eq2.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=q849&menustr=080000000000 "First, An Announcement about Events in 2022 Before we get into the eye-candy, I want to explain the new plan for live events this year, as it wasn't well-explained in the Roadmap article. We have a LOT of live events, and many of them have been running for quite a long time now. It takes a considerable amount of development and artist time each year to update all of these events. This year, instead of trying to do a new quest and a chunk of content for each and every event and having some of it have to be very rushed, something a bit different is being done. Four live events will get much larger content updates (new dungeons, a new event currency (Jubilation Medals), new items, etc.) The rest of the events will get a smaller amount of items this year. This year's four big events will be Chroronporals, Tinkerfest, Scorched Sky and Oceansfull. Next year, other events will be featured, and so on."
Thanks a bunch for linking that here. It really should be cc'd and stickied here on the official forums, too-- maybe on the Test forums as that's where the new additions will hit first?
Unfortunate for people who like events, but Kaitheel is the main person who works on them (at least as far as the non-art stuff goes), and he's also the main person doing quests for the adventure timeline each year. Hopefully this allows him more time to flesh out the annual expansion's quests a little more. I imagine it's also challenging to keep coming up with new stuff for the events each year, especially when they're practically back-to-back-to-back. I know I'd get burnt out from that!
