Invisible characters due to purchasing expansion. >:-/

Okay, I finally bit the bullet and got Kunark Ascending (because it was half off, that's why). I went to log in afterwards and was a wee bit suspicious that there wasn't a new EULA screen for me to sign off on (it'd been so long since I'd bought any other expansion, I'd forgotten the procedure), but I gamely went in anyway. Didn't try selecting a character from the LaunchPad; figured it had enough on its plate. Got to Character Select: NOTHING. Well, it did list the names, stats, etc. for all my US Region toons, but not a single character figure showed up (well, there was a half a male Aerakyn, very briefly, from Stormhold, but after that, bupkis). Tried going into the game anyway: invisible toons in the landscape...all mine. I could see everyone else just fine.

See, this is one of the reasons why I usually don't bother buying expansions, because apparently I don't have the right computer (Win7) or peripherals (8 Gb RAM, when the recommended is 4) or hard drive space (over 200 GB remaining, thanks), etc., etc., etc. to be able to keep up with the constantly increasing art department demands, but I do meet even the recommended requirements, so WHERE. ARE. MY. CHARACTERS. >:-/

And DON'T tell me to uninstall/reinstall, 'cause that's 17+ GB now (with absolutely no guarantee it will even work, or enable me to reinstall), with the apparent mistake I made in buying KA. I want a better solution. I got out of game completely, came back in. Nope. Warm booted the computer. Nope. Shut down the computer completely, restarted it. Nope. Validated Game Assets. Nope. Tried workarounds with the .exe files. Nope. >:-/

I have testing to do, I have Days of Summer to complete, and most of all, I really, really would like to think I didn't just WASTE MY MONEY and made a mistake buying an expansion. I'll be /petitioning as well, but I'll have to go to the website directly to do so, apparently. >:-/

Uwk

Yeah, you might want to submit a support ticket.

I dont play anymore, but I do stalk these forums frequently because I used to play so much and used to enjoy the game...
I vaguely remember someone else posting about missing characters but I cant remember what they did to resolve it.

Some things you might be able to try:

Press the up or down key on the keyboard when on that screen and your character list should reappear. The same thing happened to me twice now.

Yeah I had this exact scare a while back and it turned out somehow my region had changed from US to EU - It says the version in the bottom left corner of launchpad and if you click it you can switch between various versions/languages and test server. Aas soon as I changed it back my toons came back.

Both suggestions from: https://www.reddit.com/r/EQ2/comments/3jq0qx/i_lost_all_my_characters/

But yeah, support ticket, or try putting a message on discord. Im 100% sure you didnt lose all your characters.

PS: Ascention and purchasable upgrades to spells were both terrible ideas.

LOL! Yeah, I didn't get it for the ascension etc. stuff; I'm a firm believer in the old "just raise the level cap again" bit.

As it happens, it seems great minds do think alike; I'd tried to get into the EU region through my second copy (I have US/Test on one copy, EU on the other, for Frostfell timing, mostly), and while it waded through like a half hour of many megs of files to download and replace, by the end of it, my EU toons were BACK!!! Your solution worked, at least for them, and now I'll try to get in to US again.

Thanks for the suggestion, and I'm sure you'd be even more gratified if I'd tried it after reading your post!

Uwk
holding off on the happy dance until I know for sure all three regions are back, but it's a start

Okay, tried US again, and now it's updating/replacing/patching/etc. 194 files, 1.868 Gb total. If the results are the same (my toons returned to visibility; the list was fine, the graphics weren't :-/), I'll be a much happier kitteh. ;->

Uwk

Finally finished, after over 2 hours later...NOTHING. All my US region characters are still invisible. >:-/

And, when I tried just selecting a character from the drop-down list in LaunchPad, it went all the way into the game (with the invisible character), and got to just about the point where the "Welcome to EQ2!! " window would pop up, and boom, back to Character Select, with the rogues' gallery of invisible characters. X-P

Better news: Test is fine!

Uwk

Hmm...okay, tried the up/down arrow key bit on the keyboard while in Character Select, and most of them are still completely invisible, but there's a male Free Blood character's HEAD (bald, albino without pink eyes) and neck that showed up in the list for the AB server; a bald female Free Blood character so white she glows and appears to be wearing a white bathing suit (bikini bottoms, strapless "bra" up top), AB server; everything of a "nude" female Aerakyn (either not really nude, or the "breasts" are just a non-functional nod to her mammalian ancestry) except her legs between the waist and lower legs from the shins down (on Stormhold); a completely nude male Aerakyn (again, his mammalian traits seem to be, ah, subsumed by his draconic ones ;->), also from Stormhold; and NO ONE else, from any of my other servers, or any of the rest from AB or Stormhold. Only four of them, not even seven. :-/

Uwk
wondering: could this have anything to do with the glitches in Stormhold transfers? Probably was the wrong time to get the "old" expansion...

stop taking the nip ....

Heh! If I thought it'd be that easy to fix, I'd take the pledge right now.

Uwk

Have you tried deleting the cache folders? I don't know if it will help, but I know that with some games I play, I have to delete the cache files before I start the games each time, or the games do weird things.

That's what I was going to suggest.

I have to tell you, I've never had any such problem as yours when buying expansions. Usually it's just log out> buy expansion> log back into the launchpad >play and deal with launch day bugs. But most invisible characters issues seem to be fixed by deleting that cache.

Yep, deleted anything with "cache" in the name that I could find.

Nothing.

Sent in my petition at the main website, got an automated "we received your petition; we will have someone working on it. Beep." sort of email. Nowadays, you have to do at least one Search now before you're allowed to submit a petition for help, which is kind of useless, because you have no idea whether or not your Search actually worked. If you type in the Search field and hit Enter, apparently nothing happens. If you're lucky, you might be able to see something that vaguely (but usually not really) resembles what your initial Search was for, down in the bowels of the various game categories near the bottom of the page. :-/

But, I dutifully read a couple of articles (including one about deleting the cache(s)), and I guess that made me eligible for submitting a help request. We'll see what they say. ;->

And yeah, I don't remember such hassles in the past with expansions. It could be related to whatever mess is going on with housing and the Marketplace not showing up on Test, but my Test toons are just fine. /shrug :-/

Uwk
who would really, really like to get this solved before the end of the Days of Summer event, and before I have to try to transfer my toons off Stormhold somewhere...

One thing I'd try that's easy is toggle Alternate Appearance (i.e., if you use normal appearances, turn on alternate appearances. If you use alternate appearances, turn them off. There have long been instances where mobs and raid members couldn't be seen, and toggling appearances fixes that. Just swap it back to your preferred setting afterwards.

I'd also try Validating your files from the Advanced Tool button on the Launcher.

Yep, I thought about that Alternate Appearance stuff, too (but it's one thing I didn't tell the reps about in my petition...), and Validating. Nothing. :-/

Uwk
getting discouraged and concerned

Check for updates to your graphics card?

Is it better yet?

%)#&**%^&)(*# they were fine right before I got the stupid expansion... :-/

Everyone was displaying just dandy before (the Test and EU ones are fine), and now even the CS reps are confused. They can see all three regions just fine (US-Test-EU), even my US ones, and can't reproduce it on their end. :-/

I tried everything they suggested, short of uninstalling/reinstalling, including kicking my graphics all the way down to Extreme Performance, nothing. My graphics card is fine, even for the Recommended levels, and if it were that, why would I get the Test and EU folks back? I is confuzzled. :-/

Uwk

Nope.

Uwk

Aww!

It is very odd; I went in with my one full-bodied dude (naked as a jaybird, but he had some animations available [no Emotes, though]) into New Halas, where I'd logged out. He could see his Illusionist pet, but not his mount at the time (the butt-kicker thing we got from Fallen Gate; basically, since it's practically clothes, I wasn't surprised when it didn't show [he swapped it out for his Ykeshan Bear mount at one point; the bear didn't move its legs, but my standing-on-its-back character did...looked like he was walking in its saddle]), and none of the NPCs (though they reacted to him verbally) except for some->most of the Coldain dwarves. Many of the dwarves had their legs disappear once he got close to them (the guards had everything but their heads and necks disappear), but from a distance, you could see them in all their bathing-suited glory. ;->

Some enemy NPCs were visible (orcs, mostly; some whirlstorm things), but some were only names (got killed by an orange basilisk name that my pet could target, but I couldn't; later on killed a blue ice lion name that I could target, once it attacked me), and the blizzard grizzlies didn't show at all (neither did the shadowy lion jerks [Stormhold server], so at least I could've finished that quest ;->). My other Stormhold toon, a female, had nothing show between her waist and her lower shins and feet, but she had as many animations as the male did (both Aerakyn). On other servers, with other only partially-visible characters, they didn't even have the walking animations. They moved along as stiffly as the bear did, and I saw no other PCs at all, even around Yun Zi (though at least one player bowed before an AB toon of mine, who'd only shown on my end as a disembodied bald head and neck). :-/

Uwk

Hmm, thought...maybe I could transfer over one of my Stormhold toons to Thurgadin, like I was planning, and see if he or she would show up there, properly...hmm. :-/

EDIT: Woot! I can see his armor again (not that he was bad-looking naked... ;->), and I also see I have another slot available on Thurgadin for his female toon companion to join him there!

But wow, is it gonna be crowded there now... :-/

Uwk