Water refraction and reflection [bug]:

Discussion in 'Performance Support' started by ARCHIVED-Soniee, Jul 16, 2012.

  1. ARCHIVED-Soniee Guest

    Hello,
    what I am about to report is a nasty bug, that has been present in EQ2 for years now - and it still hasn't been fixed. I have reported it a over dozen times, others have done so too, and some don't even know this feature has been missing. I have had patience as well, since I have been wating soooo long for this bug to get fixed. Because graphics are important to me, because EQ2 still is one of the most beautiful looking MMOG to date, and because I love good water; I am hoping to get some attention with this post, because I think it might just be a small glitch in the games code. Also; I know the EQ2 team has been upgraded/growing lately, so I hope one of the new coders might be able to find out what is going on and what is causing this bug/glitch. On a side note: This is a bug that has been confirmed to me by every single person I have asked in the game, by myself, by my girlfriend, by my brother. Our systems are up to date - as always (drivers and OS). More system specs at the end of this post. This issue happens on AMD and Nvidia graphic cards.
    [#1 bug: Water refraction]
    Everquest 2 used to have some gorgeous water animation. When you would walk through water, the water would create ripples and waves, similair to the water we can see in Age of Conan or World of Warcraft. I don't know when this feature got buggy, it's been so long since I first noticed it and started bug-reporting it, but water refraction hasn't been working for so, so long (years)! Turning the feature on in the graphics options does not do anything - it just ignores whatever setting you choose. I have tried all sorts of graphical combinations - nothing seems to work.
    This is how it should look, this is how it looked like a few years ago (with water refraction activated): [IMG]
    Notice how the water actually moves around you, according to your movement? That's how it should be, but that's not the way it is anymore. Why?
    [#2 bug: Water reflection]
    When you look at the water in certain places and depending on your viewing angle (just zoom out and move the camera around a bit), the water can begin to flicker. It only happens in certain viewing angles - and can be reproduced every single time. On Nvidia gpu's you can just turn off water reflections - in order to get rid of this issue, but that will take away the sweet reflections. On AMD gpu's you can't do anything about it; it's always there. This bug has been around as long as the first one.
    My question:
    Please don't tell me to bug-report it, because I have done that so often, please don't tell me to downgrade my drivers (I need the newest drivers for other games), please be honest and tell me why this hasn't been dealt with yet and when can one expect it to be fixed? EQ2 has been getting many updates lately, the crew has gotten new members, the game is going to get SOEMote, SoE is investing in commercials and is unfolding a more aggressive marketing campaign. How can all of these updates be coming out, how can all of this be happening - but not a single thing has been done to fix one of the most wonderful things in EQ2: THE WATER?
    [System specs:]
    #1 My Desktop:
    Amd Athlon X2 250, 4GB DDR3 RAM, AMD 6570 1GB DDR3 VRAM, Windows 7 32bit - everything up to date.
    #2 My Laptop:
    Intel Core i7, 8GB DDR3 RAM, AMD 6970M 2GB GDDR5 VRAM, Windows 7 64bit - everything up to date.
    #3 My gf's Laptop:
    Intel Core i5, 8GB DDR RAM, Nvidia Geforce 525M 1GB DDR3 VRAM, Windows 7 64bit - everything up to date.
    #4 My brothers Desktop:
    AMD Phenom X4 Black Edition 955, 4GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia Geforce 9800GT 1GB DDR3 VRAM, Windows 7 64bit - everything up to date.
    Thank you for your time, thank you for understanding - and thank you if you read the entire post.
  2. ARCHIVED-TSR-AlexS Guest

    Soniee wrote:
    Hello Soniee! Thank you for the info my friend. I will make sure this is reported to the appropriate department. This type of feedback helps us maintain a visually appealing MMO. We greatly appreciate it!
  3. ARCHIVED-Soniee Guest

    Hey there, it's me again.
    Any new infos/updates on the subject? :)
    Soniee