I'll see what can be done.

HEAD SHOT
M-M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL
HOLY ****
RAMPAGE
FIRST BLOOD

Gimme 5 dnb artists/groups that's not Pendulum since that's not really dnb

Bad Company
Black Sun Empire
Ed Rush
Andy C
Paul B

Man the memories over the last 15yrs I have w/DnB and Jungle.

Ok - Give me 5 names of special moves from Street Fighter 2 (not SF3, 4, etc - lets reminisce a little with SF2)

 

 

Perhaps my anatomy is off... but this doesnt appear to be his head... a shame too since he is one of the better looking dragons....

 

He's hiding under his shell.

I can't thank you enough for the windows in Kelethan!!! I have always ended up moving my Kelethan characters to Qeynos because of the housing problems there   Kelethan has always been my favorite city.  If I may so boldly ask?  Please please please add a outdoor area/garden in the large Kelethan homes PLEEEEAAAASSE?

There's been a lot of posts requesting courtyards so I'm droppin' a line to give our 2c.

We're pretty much convinced we want to build them for y'all - it's just a matter of when. It's not a simple addition, particularly if we were to allow the camera to zoom fully out and have somewhat accurate views (there will likely be some compromise when it comes to wall height/view/camera issues if we can do them) but know that we're adding it to our want-to-do list.

In the short term, the room/item count upgrades are our priority and by comparison, are far far easier so we're starting there. We're knee deep in Expansion and other Live work so we'll see where we are a bit further down the road.

Since it was brought up as well - we haven't locked down a release date for the current additions we're still working on, but we're hoping to have it to y'all as soon as possible!

I just wanted to update this thread.

We have new binaries (DLLs and EQ2VoiceService.exe) from Vivox that we'll be hotfixing next week.  These new binaries resolve several EQ2VoiceService crashes that players were experiencing.  Also, there is a fix coming next week that should resolve some problems using USB headsets and other non-default devices.

I apologize for not being able to get the fixes out sooner.  Hopefully they will resolve the problems that you're reporting!

We have an updated voice API which fixes some issues with USB headsets as well as 5 or more different crash conditions. 

Unfortunately the earliest we can hotfix will be Tuesday.  As much as we hate going through the weekend with these voice problems, we cannot risk a hotfix without proper QA time.

Again, sorry for the problems.  We know you guys are being extremely patient.

Imago-Quem wrote:

Amana wrote:

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind answering them Imago. 

First one is how will HDR be enabled for machines using outdated drivers and/or low end graphics cards?  Still using a 256mb ATI 9800 pro card here.  Starting to see most games actually require my card as a bare minimum recommending a 512mb.

Dealing with multi-core technologies will we see HDR being computed on processors as well as graphics cards?  Also what about people who have crossfired/SLI enabled graphics cards? 

Finally with the upcomming windows 7 how well will HDR mesh with the new DirectX11 that will be pushed with it? 

Designing a new computer and hope to be running windows 7 ultimate with DX11 on it. 

I've seen HDR in effect on console games and it is a very interesting prospect for MMOs. 

Hi Amana,

    Since EQII hasn't decided when/if HDR will be developed for the game, I can't say much due to the lack of
research with HDR + EQII.  I'll do my best here for you: Most HDR requires 32-bit floating point buffer support. 
You'll need that, or maybe at least 16-bit floating point buffer support.  Time permitting and complexity non-gating,
I'm sure we'd love to split processing across multiple CPU's and GPU's.  At this moment I couldn't tell you how
feasible this would be in EQII.  EQII won't be adding any additional DX11 support anytime soon.  As far as having
DX11 support on your system and mixing in DX9 HDR, Microsoft has been pretty good at keeping things backwards
compatible.  I don't foresee any problems there.

    I hope we can make you very happy for a long while, Amana, while we continue to upgrade EverQuest II for you.

Interesting

I do have one last quick question here.  Dealing with your technologies will people who have their computers set to "high performance and low graphics *forget the name*" see better texturing? 

Quite curious to see if new advances are made that will allow for more crisp textures to be shown when people have their computer set to performance mode.  Was deffinately funny being in the RoK beta and putting my computer to Extreme quality in Teren's Grasp.  Took some great shots then BAM!! hit with that max memory 39million number thing. 

I don't know of any plans to replace the low-resolution textures used in the game, but 3.0 might make these look a
lot better.  Not sure yet what I'm going to do when settings are turned really low.  At the moment, for 3.0, I don't
let it get that low, still calculating directional lighting and normal-mapping.

This new feature is planned for GU53 and will grant the ability for players to essentially mentor themselves and experience the vast amount of older content within our game.

Several of our Fan Faire attendees (/high_five) asked if there were going to be any adjustments to some of the more potentially frustrating contested bosses and events--primarily ones with placeholders and a low chance of spawning--and I offered to create a thread for feedback on this.

If there are any specific older encounters that y'all feel are too rare, please post their name and zone here, and we will see how many we can look at to see if spawn-time improvements are in order.

A quick note: This thread is not for arguing about the difficulty of these encounters. Merely for feedback about the rarity, or lack thereof. Please just give us a list of the encounters you feel deserve a 2nd look rather than commenting on, or disagreeing with other players' lists.

Thanks!

I wonder, will the sky ever be accurate? cause I don't think around ice cap you'd have the sun right over head at any point of time - in fact should be night / day for weeks at a time >.>

Anyways, look forward to new shader changes! Coming soon to a PC near you. . . LLAMAS IN 3D!

We'll see.  When I start looking into the sky system I'll see if it's feasible to do this.

Flora just needs a complete makeover.  As it is now the Flora looks like weeds, it doesn't even look like grass, plants, flowers.  Imo it should be more concentrated oon the ground, and not spread apart 10 ft. away from eachother.  

Long grass, short grass, flowers, plants, wheat fields, finally some real corn fields?  Flora displacement should be the flora displacing in the wind and as you step through it or run by it.  It should have that feel to it...that's what I'm looking for.

Though I think Flora would be a bigger task to complete.

 

Sky, skyboxes, stars, atmosphere are all just blah (hideous).  As it is now EQ1 has better graphics in that department.

 

I'm sure that whatever you do with the list and however you do it and in what order - we will see the performance increase as well as a prettier game.

I'm sure when I get to the flora system it will be a completely new system, just like the shadows.

Imago-Quem wrote:

- better skyboxes

Do you mean the cloud layer? Right now it can look really aweful at times. It looks like a scrolling flat surface with a texture on it. It can sometimes be yellow and pink acid clouds, and looks very unrealistic. EQ1 has one up on it. A new cloud layer would be awesome.

Particularly, yes, the cloud layer.  There's not a lot of coding beyond that, besides the bloom and sunset colors.  But
more effects could be added in like a more vibrant sun or other effects visually that interact with the sky such as heat
shimmers, dilating effects, God rays, etc..

With so much information being posted in the EQII Official Forums at all times, it can be very hard to keep up with it and very easy to miss some real gems and opportunities to share. Have no fear though; the Treasure Chest is here to highlight interesting, unusual, and humorous posts, as well as opportunities to help your fellow player with a question or two!

Read more!

This list... and everything you've changed so far... is simply awesome.

One thing I'd still like to see though (unless it's included in the list somewhere)... Can you move particle effects to the GPU too? And give us some more options with regards to which particle effects to show / hide (especially for raids)?

 

D.

I'm passing this idea around the offices.  I'm still not sure how complex it would be to add this in.  Talked about it for a
while with one of our Senior Programmers and the Artists I've talked to like the idea.  It's definitely an option we'd
like to add in but will have to be prioritized with so many other upgrades we're trying to bring into the game right now.

One positive note.. those pics show it well. The atmospheric 'bloom' (note the blooming around the freeport floating tower) and distance fade in the EQ2 pic is fantastic and please dont change it too much as its one really good aspect of the games look!

Don't worry, I'm not subtracting anything from the game.

Imago-Quem wrote:

 

- Hair/Fur
- HDR Lighting
- Fast and expansive grass / flora
- new water
- new oceans
- better skyboxes
- atmospheric haze
- volumetric fog
- God rays
- point light shadow maps

That's what I've got scratched down here.  There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.

 

 

 

 

holy crap lol now thats a list hope it all gets implemented eventually.

My order of most importance in that list would be:

1. Fast and expansive grass / flora

2. Better skyboxes

The above 2 items are the most common looked at 2 items in the game, the ground and the sky.

I dont mind the sky, and sometimes things like sunsets in majdhul can look awesome, but sometimes the clouds can look a bit old especially in freeport.

The worst thing in eq2 imo are the ground textures like dirt/rocks and grass, they look horrible in some places, and so does the flora. You just have to run around Zek/Commonlands or Moors of Yakesha to see what i mean.

Take a look at games like Tiger woods, and Oblivion, hehe i know they are single player games, but there are ways to draw grass/flora without it being expensive.

Flora in EQ2 is really really poor, do you use Geometry instancing for flora ? if not you should

Geometry Instancing:

http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GP..._chapter03.html

 

Look at the below ground textures, i mean i could always link pictures to crysis, but that would be over the top heh, but what would the cost be to render the below terrain/flora

 

Below is an old pic of eq2 running on my old pc, you can cleary see the ground textures are pretty poor compared to new games.

 

Why does the top pictures terrain/flora look alot more vibrant ? is it shaders ? or is it something else ? comparing the 2 side by side it looks like eq2 is running on 16 bit color heh.

Take a look at this guys grass shader, not sure how he did it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwxg59rdxeE

Ya, there's a huge difference between single player and multi-player.  The single player experience is "much" more
controlled, as well as lacking in continuous in-game server updates.  MMO's usually display a ton more characters
on screen, moving objects, etc. as well.  Even just the number of possible armor sets displayed at once, each with
their own shader and texturing, causes a huge drop in framerates.  A lot of sets will even have multiple textures
and shaders used for a single set.  In any case, I'm always looking for ways to optimize what we've got.

Imago-Quem wrote:

Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:

Imago-Quem wrote:

Adding it to the list...

So...what's on the list..? 

Well, let's see...

- Hair/Fur
- HDR Lighting
- Fast and expansive grass / flora
- new water
- new oceans
- better skyboxes
- atmospheric haze
- volumetric fog
- God rays
- point light shadow maps

That's what I've got scratched down here.  There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.

Can you take a look at the lack of any kind of weather in 95% of zones?

Ah, yes.  That was another one.

Nice idea to have a Legend or Bragboard that others can see, but I don't think there should be any rewards involved. I also hope it doesn't get trivialised into showing things like hugging goblins or hailing merchants but rather be restricted to things like titles earned, major questlines completed, number of quests completed, number of combines crafted, etc. There should also be an option for it not to be public, without having to flag Anonymous.

Oh, there will definitely be some goblin hugging, so be ready for it.  You gotta remember you're playing an MMO with lots of other people and something thats not necessarily fun for you might still be fun for lots of other people. 

How do you feel about cliff diving? 

shaunfletcher wrote:

Thats never really been a big effect, anyone who played continuously and got expansions on release capped their AA in KoS and EoF and only maybe started to get some grind in Kunark.. but by then experience had started to speed up and new characters in fact have a hard time with AA not long termers.

Well I have been playing continously since 12/04 continously and gotten every expansion unfortunately and have 9 level 80s.  None of which are even close to the AA cap and never have been mainly due to this very thing.  Since most were level capped when AAs were introduced.

New leveling speed hurting AA is a different discussion.

Yes it is, so lets leave that discussion out of this thread please.