[EQ2]Major bug list and annoyances

[U***@hotmail.com]

(Also posted on the SOE tech forum)

Major gamestopping bugs in EQ2:

1)Game freezes at "entering world as ..." - unrecoverable crash,NEEDS
NEW INSTALL to fix.
2)Patcher disconnecting my PC several times from the internet while
analyzing files.
3)Downloading game files after NEW INSTALL (see above) takes 10
hours,average speed is 50 kb/s instead of
the possible 500 kb/s of my internet connection.
4)Ingame disconnects - EQ2 seems to loose sync,I can move but nothing
else,spell icons wont refresh,chat
is dead,etc.,going to camp seems to fix it for a short while.
5)Out of memory bug - Cant enter several zones longer than 2 minutes
before this occurs.
6)Random,not specific crashes,freezes,or EQ2 simply vanishing quite
often.

Annoyances:

1)Takes about 10 to 20 seconds until a quest NPCs appear,other
graphics and NPCs draw normal.
2)Griffon Tamer more often than not not visible or clickable,needs
restart from char select screen.
3)The small selection box which appears if you choose an item in the
inventory takes ages to load,
mind you this thingy is about 80*80 pixels.
4)Localization - atmosphere killing quality,give us an option to
choose English on a foreign language
server,I also suspect point 4 in 1st paragraph has something to do
with this as this only occurs on
a german server but not on Runnyeye.
5)Playing on 2 different language servers needs 2 FULL installs of EQ2
- I save me any comment.

Note this is on a fairly fresh OS install and EQ2 is the only
application running,also I dont use
a hardware router,unnecessary background processes are
disabled,settings in EQ2 are all lowest possible.
Other games running fine on my PC,also browsing the tech forums shows
other users have this issues too.

[steve.kaye]

Post by U***@hotmail.com
(Also posted on the SOE tech forum)

I played EQ2 when it first came out. I enjoyed it and liked the tree
structure of development where you chose Healer, Fighter, Mage, Scout
and then specialised at later levels. It also had a good, easy to
follow tutorial. I only left because of two issues - the need for
grouping (and not being able to get said groups with my assassin) and
the game needed a more powerful machine than I had. I convinced a
friend of mine to have a go of the trial version so we could play
together.

Things have changed. When you roll you have about 20 classes to
choose from. It's very confusing for a new player. Also, in the
trial, you can only choose one race (you can actually choose 2 but the
evil version requires more content to be downloaded). This race is a
stupid looking fairy thing. It isn't a good first impression. This
race starts in an area right next to a quest giver so you talk to her
first and go questing. There is no (obvious) introduction into the
game mechanics such as combat and vendors that you used to have. Its
just go west and kill stuff. My friend played it and went off in the
wrong direction, or missed the mobs and went too far and died
repeatedly to the first mobs he found.

I had a go and being familier with the game did a lot better than he
did. I found the teachers that were missing later on, but too late -
after I had already done combat I found the combat teacher. I played
for a few levels and decided to re-roll an alt. I don't know what
triggered it but I could now choose any race so I chose Erudite. This
race started on the old tutorial island from release. You log on and
you have a yellow trail to follow - this leads you through a number of
simple tutorial exercises that introduce you to combat and vendors
etc. I think that they really need to add this simple follow trail to
the fairy starting area. It must be hurting their sales to have the
trial be so confusing to truly new players.

Also, the performance of the game was appalling. Motion was jerky and
framerates low. It even looked awful too. I remember it looking much
better when I first played it but I had to turn down the options to
make it playable on my old machine. It looked like it had defaulted
to those low settings and still had awful performance. My friend
complained about the looks and performance too and he had a much
higher spec gaming machine than I did.

steve.kaye