I love the quality of life improvements I have with DarqUi as well. And I have mobility issues up the wazoo so this will be a huge inconvenience for me and will probably result in pain in places I have not experienced it from in quite some time, since I started using DarqUI in 2017, but I would rather do that than take the chance that we have to do without them for a longer time period. I can sympathize with people that need the larger icons and such, I truly can, I have optic nerve damage myself. I am not cold-hearted as such, but those without physical impediments that will make it nearly impossible to play because they cannot see the screen or something is a totally different story as to someone saying I am not going to play because I don't want to do anything if I cannot have spell monitors. Personally, I don't believe it is the third party UIs either, but you start with the easiest things to rule out and move up the line. My belief is if they would find a way to either cut down on all the particle effects or a way to condense them so that you don't have all those effects going off for everybodies shiny weapons, armor, mounts, familiars, spells, etc, that might cut down on lag significantly. I also think that if we could get armor depots, weapon depots, furniture depots, tinkering depots, building block depots, tile depots, etc, depots for all of the other things that decorators currently store in their banks, vaults, backpacks, and dungeons, that would also cut down on lag. Its not just the decorators causing lag and its not just the raiders causing lag. Its a combination of everything that has been added over the course of 15 years with no way of trimming it down without either getting rid of it in the case of the decorators or turning it off in the case of the raiders (by turning the particles to minimum). But those are just my thoughts on the matter, and only two of my thoughts at the top of my list. But all of us that can help, should, except those that have some physical impairment that makes it impossible for them to play. If we all help, they can sort this out as quickly as possible and bring the third party UIs back on for everybody and those that could not play because of a physical impairment can begin to enjoy the game again as well.
I get it, that it doesn’t matter what incentivises are put forward, that players will most probably not be lured to come and test on the TEST “server”; I get it, that even if you did manage to lure players to come on TEST to do these tests, it will not yield the same results, as the LIVE and TEST “servers” most probably don’t use the same server nodes/farms; I get it, that to lure players all these bonusses are now currently active and running, to mitigate the potential loss of players logging on during these tests; If these test needs to be done on the LIVE “server”, then suppose it must be done, if it means a win for us all and as a bonus it means those who uses custom UI’s get to keep them …. however …. Please consider that those who have always used the default UI will have an advantage over those who have never used the default UI. The players who have been using only custom UI’s only have seen the default UI on fresh installs before loading their preferred custom UI, or when they make customisations to their custom UI and it bombs out, before reverting their changes and reloading their custom UI. Some players even need time to climatize to changes like this. Took me more than a week to get everything somehow playable, playable meaning something that works comfortable for me, switching from Profit to Darq upon return for my hiatus. For the others that also fall in this type of category, they will be losing playtime just sorting out the UI. Yes, the argument may be that a week heads up should be enough to make the change and get settled in with the default UI before the tests start, however bottom line is playtime will be lost no matter when you changed. Furthermore, people generally will hold on to something which is comfortable to them for as long as they can. Heck if you told me today that EQ2 was shutting down next week, I will probably be playing until the switch was flipped, instead of stopping the moment I heard the news So now the point or request… you need to use the LIVE “server” to run these tests, it’s all good. But please, if doing so during (live) events, please extend such events for the same period that these tests needed to be done, postpone starting dates for events/releases that follow such particular event being influenced (as I’m sure they can’t be active simultaneously)? And for all those default UI using players that now thinks or wants to write ~ ‘ugh please don’t extend this event any further or postpone my future events/releases’ ~ if this was the other way around, whereby you were even temporarily requested to switch to a custom UI, putting you probably at a bigger disadvantage, I for one would have supported a request like this, if you have made such request. Peace be with you all
I admit I don't know how all this works, but why would checking if a spell was still active affect the server? The client should already have that info unless something is very poorly coded (if so there's your answer!). I agree that custom UIs may be able to allow folks to hit the servers with a lot of macros etc (something the default one probably can do but not as easily maybe?) but I have a strong feeling that the DarqUI issue was only affecting the client side if someone was using it. If the issue is a server side one it could be caused by a number of things such as: Memory allocated per zone, how much data needs to be downloaded for any graphics/texture changes that happen during the fight, calculation speed of all of the data for damage/spells that are being sent down to the server and have to be dealt with, controlling the fight logistics of the mobs.
If you're going to take away our downloaded UI's then, your DEV's should at least update your 15 year old default UI. Give us something that we can use!! No one wants to use something that's not up to date for the game!! Your EQ2 UI is an antique!!
Good for you? Like, seriously...Jesus has nothing to do with it. You can certainly do better if all you want to do is stir up folks and try to insult them...on a scale of 1-10 you only score a 3
I think this takes a toll on everybody people who never used a custom UI will not miss it , I have been using those maps though , I must say I will miss them , but yes I will survive. I's really funny how anything starts such fierce discussions , people want to vent their frustration Holly said in her interview that there is not any good information coming out of forums , I think she might not be able to find the precious view covered up in all this venom .
I will say this you will not get an accurate test, because a lot of folks will go do other things. The default ui is just bad, why do you think so many of us use modified UI.
Probably because the forums are ignored, and anything they consider "Bad information" ie stuff they don't like, gets you banned from Discord. There is often a lot of good info on this forum, but over the years everyone knows it's been ignored and now people don't bother.
While I can understand the need to troubleshoot this issue, isn't this akin to fixing the car while your driving it. Wouldn't the more prudent solution be to have entice a group to play with no custom UIs on a test server and then reset and have them play with their custom UIs. This would at least identify if UI is the issue. More likely it is configuration of the graphical drivers as many have suggested, it seems they are driven largely by CPU versus GPU. Passing the overhead to games machines instead of having the servers try to drive all the events and artifacts on the screen will likely increase the speed of the game and reduce lag. I mean of all the games on my system EQ2 is still the only one that GeForce will not see and preset the settings for. Why? Maybe because the games isn't capable of working closely with the new video drivers.
Much as I hate it, the test needs to be the actual servers in use under as full a load as can be managed, hence the enticements to play through this period. As a retired IT professional, I can state with absolute authority that no matter how hard you try to make your test server identical to a live server, they're somehow never exactly identical. Minor variations in hardware can exist, and the longer they run, the further differences you get in software, from the operating system up. And load testing really has to carry the kind of load you expect, whether it's on the test or live server. Working for a branch of the guvmint, we could throw a bunch of essentially bots at the test server, but, being the guvmint, we had essentially unlimited financial resources. DBG has to do it live, alas.
They don't ignore the forums. However, the DBG business-related decisions aren't a popularity contest. They already KNOW the playerbase hates this idea, hence the many enticements to keep people playing during the test. And they need to have as big a server load as they can manage in order to replicate the conditions in which lag occurs. As for Discord, rudeness and poor tone get you banned. In judging whether a Discord ban was justified, you have to consider how you would feel if the same comments were directed at you personally criticizing their work, abilities as programmers, etc. Personally, if someone is not signing my monthly paycheck, they don't get to criticize MY work, so I dunno why anyone else should not feel the same. There is in fact a way to appeal a Discord ban:
Despite being an extreme and habitual contrarian, I have yet to be banned from the discord. Makes you wonder...
Yes - EQ2maps is a custom UI. I have been using the Standard UI for a few days (and still do not like it). And it is still taking a long time to zone into places.
What I remember was said at the time they removed first-time pristine XP: Different classes were moving up faster than others due to the disparity in the number of spells each tradeskill got. Because there was a lot of unhappiness over this they introduced Writ Givers who gave the same XP to all classes at the same time they removed first-time XP.
They're doing it during triple-coins and they're handing out some kind of raid reset baubles of dubious usefulness.
No it's true. Mostly people were complaining that Sages had an unfair advantage as they had so many more recipes than others and Domino removed the pristine bonus to stop the whining.
