Opening the Marketplace UI is causing the game to crash

After checking the above mentioned link, you are correct Jamiss I can buy DB cash, membership, krono, etc...but not in-game items. No point buying DB cash if I can't buy the items for sale that I want.

FIFY

Since the Marketplace was introduced, and in ALL promotional material released since then, INCLUDING the Black Friday announcement, it has been recommended to use the company website to purchase Station Cash/Daybreak Cash. Purchasing it in-game has always been a secondary means of doing so.

I would strongly recommend that you spend some of that "several hundreds of dollars" upgrading at least your OS, if not your entire system. There will come a day when even the most motivated of devs will no longer be able to fix game issues that arise from the use of unsupported and highly insecure operating systems.

Hmm...I just wonder how many Win98 folks can get into the Marketplace, or even if they can still play the game at all (I blame the Art Department for that).

I'd also be curious as to how many people still have Vista/XP; I think the numbers might surprise both you lot and the Powers, when a considerable number of their remaining customers leave because they can't access a major customer service any more.

Uwk
who'd still be on XP, if hardware circumstances hadn't conspired against the home computer system...

i'm on xp and i can get into the marketplace and mostly play the game.

- neriak used to be very laggy but since i came back in the fall, i crash there almost every time i zone in.
- east freeport has gotten way laggier and i crash there occasionally.
- qeynos doesn't really seem that laggy but i do crash if i spend a lot of time running back and forth between city zones.
- halas : no problems

I had similar issues awhile back, where the "newer" cities like Gorowyn and New Halas, even Kelethin and Neriak, worked pretty well, but the 2 main cities, forget it. :-/

Uwk

I too am using Vista 32 bit, i just want to activate the reforging i bought the DBC for please. That and sometimes a few broker tokens, I certainly wont be upgrading my entire OS just for that. Easier to just stop playing - sadder to say bye to all the friends I've made in game

Is there going to be a fix Thursday? I would think excluding Vista and XP users from making in-game purchases wouldn't be a good thing.

Well, yeah; I do think there's quite a few still out there. :-/

Uwk

@Schlumpo, this isn't intended as a personal attack on you, just that you post gave me the opportunity to vent.

In my personal view Vista and XP users should be excluded from playing the game until they have updated at least there operating system. However I do understand why DBG won't do this.

To explain, both XP and Vista are no longer supported, they are now high risk pieces of software with all sorts of vulnerabilities that will never be fixed by Microsoft. These are pieces of software that are the brains of the PC and have more control over what happens to that PC than it's human user(s) do.

Every XP and Vista user - not just those playing EQ2 - is at risk of malware, virus, trojan and botting software infestation. This means, every time they connect their PC to the internet they invite every blackhat hacker out there to take a shot. Those hackers can do this via e-mail, links and clickies on social media sites, spoofed web sites, chat rooms/forums and various other backdoor methods.

Once a PC is infected every time it connects to the internet it puts every other user at risk of infection. This could be a simple as passing on the malware on an infected pc to another PC, and another and another and so on, and each newly infected PC will then replicate its malware package(s), unknowingly for the most part, to users

Those Trojans will open a door on an infected system and advise other hackers with a "hey got another one open for business" message, those bots can and are used to generate denial of service attacks, exactly like the recent attacks on DBG, earlier this year.

I do understand that upgrading can be expensive, especially if you need to upgrade your hardware, but the longer it's left the worse it gets and the more expensive it becomes.

On a purely EQ2 note, a dev is now having make code changes to support users with obsolete versions of windows, just to enable those impacted players to continue to play EQ2. Wouldn't his/her time be better used elsewhere ?

There will come a time when even this becomes impossible and DBG will be forced to tell those players, "sorry, but we can do no more". I can guarantee that this day will kick up all kinds of furore on the forums, but you know what, ultimately this is not DBG's problem, it's problem for those players who - for whatever reason - refuse to upgrade.

I realise this vent will anger many, but DBG should be managing their limited resources looking forward, not retrofitting code. I make no apologies for posting it.

Just for the record, I am a Win7 user and I frequently crash to desktop when using the Marketplace. I don't know if it's the same issue as it is for those using Vista and XP, but the end result is the same: interference with a source of Daybreak's revenue (not to mention frustration for the player). This crashing has been going on for a good many weeks (months?) now. I don't crash every time I use the Marketplace -- just most times -- and I usually can get what I am trying to get if I don't take too long to make my purchase, but if I spend much time just browsing, I am very likely to crash. To me browsing is an integral part of the purchasing process: it lets me know that you have what I want (and more to the point, it lets me find it so I can buy it); more importantly for Daybreak, it often lets me know that you have something I want that I hadn't thought of yet, thus motivating me to give you more money. It's also fun -- that is, when it's not making me crash.

I had been wondering if others were having this trouble, too, and now I see that they are. I think it's important for Daybreak to realize that whatever the problem is, it is also affecting at least one person on a (hopefully) still-supported OS.

You nailed it on the head. They cannot support everything forever. These people just need to off their butts and get updated.

Like my Chief used to say in the Navy... The dumb must pay...

Perhaps. The poor might not be able to.

Uwk

@Flameweaver

Nice post. I agree with you that it's time for an upgraded system. I have no argument with that at all.

If had been made aware of these changes (vista/xp marketplace lockout) ahead of time I may have had time to prepare by upgrading my system. What makes me frustrated is that there was no "heads-up". Couple that with an extremely rare, discounted station cash event, followed by a discounted in-game items event while I'm locked out.

[emphasis mine]
Yeah, exactly. :-/

I think what happened was it may have surprised the Powers as much as us when the expac went live, and they've been scrambling about ever since? Hard to say, but I hope so. If they'd known about this way before, that's--not recommended, marketing-wise. :-/

Uwk

Well, DBG does say that Windows 7 is the minimum system: https://www.everquest2.com/faq#Q29

My parent's system is still on XP and will stay on that. The Hardware won't support Windows 7.. 1 Gig of RAM etc. One of these years I'll get the a new PC. Probably when it completely fries.

Technically Vista is still supported by Microsoft: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle until April 2017.

Ah, excellent!

And yeah, I upgraded to 7 (Home, which was a mistake; if you can find 7 still being put on computers, go the extra mile and get Pro, if you want anything other than this game to work on it, just about :-/) when my system fried...well, "just" the motherboard, but we got new cards, etc. :-/

Uwk

Still running vista home premium 64. Marketplace now fully available. So thank you for the fix, devs

Hope it's also working for the remaining vista people out there

Woot! Grats!

Uwk

yay, working again now, thanks for the fix : )