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News - 64bit discussion (scheduled 2-15-2022 for live server) (2 Viewers)

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Yea, I didn’t realize until sic’s post responding to me that MQ and RG are only loosely associated with each other. I thought RG = MQ = RG.
0_o

MQ has a whole separate discord and MQ2 had a whole separate set of forums (and Discord). RG has always been “downstream” just like Bugs. I’m surprised that this is news to anyone, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

RG’s community is built around helping each other and being good stewards in the community, which is why it’s the most popular of the MQ sites. So if RG is where you get MQ from then maybe RG is MQ to you~
 
Yea, I didn’t realize until sic’s post responding to me that MQ and RG are only loosely associated with each other. I thought RG = MQ = RG.

I also didn't realize this until several months into using RG — like half a year ago. 😉
Once you know, it's obvious. But I think a lot of everyday users probably don't know the distinction either.
Maybe we could add an "about" section to the site that explains the organizational structure for newcomers.
 
I think that's mainly due to 32bit limitations on RAM, could be wrong but that may change soon.
I believe it's simply because they still use a graphics engine (True 3D?) that is a dinosaur, from a time when video cards were basic so most of the rendering is done by the CPU instead of the GPU
 
Not everyone needs or wants to know the inner workings behind the plugins and macros we use.
Most of us just want their update on patchday.

To the critics saying 64bit client status is not communicated enough, i say:
Even tthose who barely read our guild discord seem to know that the 64bit MQ client is ready for the patching.
So the argued confusion doesnt seem to be as factual as some may think.

Well done RG!

Tough to argue with that airtight logic
 
No test version of VV yet. I doubt VV will ever work again. Been fun!
Would like to think it is because of Test being down for the last ~2 months, that has given Brain and the other devs the ability to have confidence in Live being ready to go.

Test will be back up at some point because it is due to Test giving the devs the additional time to iron everything out before going to the true masses on Live.
 
Test was patched to 64 bit on January 11th. So 2 months is using “ceil” instead of “round.” But that is when the work on 64 bit started.

Not from me personally, I haven’t actually contributed much this round, but dannuic and brainiac put a lot of effort into it.

It didn’t make sense to do that in beta because the beta client patches daily so there’s a lot of duplicate work and wasted time. Even Test patched twice since that patch I think.

So, as of the Test patch no real work had been done at all on it. Which is why no one could give an ETA on when that work would be complete. This is very much a “we don’t know what we don’t know” situation and just required time sorting it out.

Regardless, as brainiac said, you can build MQ for Test now if you’re so inclined. He’s already done a lot of work on plugins and my plan for today is to get all the plugin repos in order for tomorrow.
 
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I think it may be appropriate to share a little of of the history of Macroquest. Macroquest was the sole creation of Plazmic AKA Joe Buchanan who insisted MQ remain open source. Joe (Plazmic) passed away 15 years ago. Prior to his death several others teamed up with Plazmic, Lax (who runs the official MQ2 site) Amadeus, EQMule, Dont_know_at_all are a few names that come to my mind from that time era. EQMule has kept the source code updated on the official MQ2 site since Joe's passing. You have always been and still are able to d/l the updated source files for no charge from the official mq2 site as Plazmic wished and compile them. (Thankyou EQMule for keeping the source code up to date on the offical site, I'm sure Plazmic is beaming with pride that you have kept his legacy alive). Thankyou Brainiac for your work in updating the official source as well!

Joe (Plazmic) was 29 years old when he passed away from an aneurysm.
 
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I think it may be appropriate to share a little of of the history of Macroquest. Macroquest was the sole creation of Plazmic AKA Joe Buchanan who insisted MQ remain open source. Joe (Plazmic) passed away 15 years ago. Prior to his death several others teamed up with Plazmic, Lax (who runs the official MQ2 site) Amadeus, EQMule, Dont_know_at_all are a few names that come to my mind from that time era. EQMule has kept the source code updated on the official MQ2 site since Joe's passing. You have always been and still are able to d/l the updated source files for no charge from the official mq2 site as Plazmic wished and compile them. (Thankyou EQMule for keeping the source code up to date on the offical site, I'm sure Plazmic is beaming with pride that you have kept his legacy alive). Thankyou Brainiac for your work in updating the official source as well!

Joe (Plazmic) was 29 years old when he passed away from an aneurysm.

since 2017(?) eqmule has kept parts of the source code for mq2 private so that only privileged parties can build for live.
 
Lax, Amadeus, Don't Know at All (DKAA), Ieatacid kept the source code updated after Plazmic died. EQmule left the scene before Plazmic's death.
Lax wrote most of Macroquest 2 in 2003-04 as well but it had many contributors.
EQMule came back and started updating the source code after Ieatacid left around 2011 ish.

Fun Fact - DKAA can play the xylophone.
 
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since 2017(?) eqmule has kept parts of the source code for mq2 private so that only privileged parties can build for live.
How did Plazmic figure it out?

lol ok dude

I'm thankful the history was publicly posted. Frankly, you don't know if 64bit will be something "redguides" or anyone or someone else can host or not or even if you or I will have access to or not.
 
since 2017(?) eqmule has kept parts of the source code for mq2 private so that only privileged parties can build for live.
I believe this actually started in 2015, with parts of the code being moved into MQ2Ic. It was September of 2017 when it went full "off the rails" though. For anyone interested, you can see the history of published MQ sources here: http://www.macroquest2.com/downloads/zips.php which shows the last actual live zip on 2017-09-20. I didn't look to see how much of the source was still in it at that point, but there's one zip after that (I believe that's the unhinged zip) and then no Live zips from that point on.
How did Plazmic figure it out?
Trial and error and a lot of time, the process isn't really any different than now (other than we know a lot more now). But he was also pretty briliant.
I'm thankful the history was publicly posted. Frankly, you don't know if 64bit will be something "redguides" or anyone or someone else can host or not or even if you or I will have access to or not.
Actually, you do. Anyone distributing a binary is bound by the licensing terms and MacroQuest is licensed under the GPLv2. It is a copyright violation to distribute it without providing access to the source, so anyone distributing a binary is legally obligated by that copyright. Whether it's worth the fight or not is up to the parties involved, but the law is very clear on this matter. Now, if you were questioning whether MQ would even exist at all, that's a different question. But that one had already been answered a while ago.
 
Actually, you do. Anyone distributing a binary is bound by the licensing terms and MacroQuest is licensed under the GPLv2. It is a copyright violation to distribute it without providing access to the source, so anyone distributing a binary is legally obligated by that copyright. Whether it's worth the fight or not is up to the parties involved, but the law is very clear on this matter. Now, if you were questioning whether MQ would even exist at all, that's a different question. But that one had already been answered a while ago.

Who holds copy right? Just curious. What makes them distribute this? Someone have a gun to their head? Why not say screw this and not update the code? If the situation is what I think it is, eqmule literally has all the keys and if he wants vv will go away for a long long time in fact EQ may die before its back.
 
Who holds copy right? Just curious. What makes them distribute this? Someone have a gun to their head? Why not say screw this and not update the code? If the situation is what I think it is, eqmule literally has all the keys and if he wants vv will go away for a long long time in fact EQ may die before its back.
Mule has the keys to MQ2

From what I understand, MacroQuest/Next is RG's baby, reverse engineered, rebuilt and improved upon... and completely separate
 
I think it may be appropriate to share a little of of the history of Macroquest. Macroquest was the sole creation of Plazmic AKA Joe Buchanan who insisted MQ remain open source. Joe (Plazmic) passed away 15 years ago. Prior to his death several others teamed up with Plazmic, Lax (who runs the official MQ2 site) Amadeus, EQMule, Dont_know_at_all are a few names that come to my mind from that time era. EQMule has kept the source code updated on the official MQ2 site since Joe's passing. You have always been and still are able to d/l the updated source files for no charge from the official mq2 site as Plazmic wished and compile them. (Thankyou EQMule for keeping the source code up to date on the offical site, I'm sure Plazmic is beaming with pride that you have kept his legacy alive). Thankyou Brainiac for your work in updating the official source as well!

Joe (Plazmic) was 29 years old when he passed away from an aneurysm.

 
I had access to the source code for MQ2. I took it and with the help of a few others we improved it and re-released it open source. So Its still MQ2, just better. We wanted EQMule to help but he decided he didn't want to be a part of it at all.

From what I understand, MacroQuest/Next is RG's baby, reverse engineered, rebuilt and improved upon... and completely separate


I disagree. While we've gotten a lot of support at RG, it isn't RG's baby.
 
Mule has the keys to MQ2

From what I understand, MacroQuest/Next is RG's baby, reverse engineered, rebuilt and improved upon... and completely separate
We JUST talked about how MQ and RG are separate and RG is downstream from MQ. Like, a few posts up. The last post about that is actually on this same page in the forums... Just look up~

MQ2 is essentially dead. We forked for MacroQuest to make things open source again and tried to get eqmule to come along, but eqmule decided instead to fork for his own MQ64.

The only thing that was RE'd from MQ2 was MQ2Ic and that was only because of the purported information surrounding what Ic was actually doing. We pointed out some bugs and issues that could occur, and pointed out the slowness it was causing, and of course pointed out the privacy issues, but we didn't learn anything from it that we needed and didn't already know. MacroQuest.exe was brought up to date from some old source as well, but that's not really here nor there.
 
I had access to the source code for MQ2. I took it and with the help of a few others we improved it and re-released it open source. So Its still MQ2, just better. We wanted EQMule to help but he decided he didn't want to be a part of it at all.




I disagree. While we've gotten a lot of support at RG, it isn't RG's baby.
Wrong terminology on my part, apologies... Felt better to just say RG rather than list Devs names and miss someone out inadvertently.

Main point was Mule is nothing to do with Next
 
Cool story.
We JUST talked about how MQ and RG are separate and RG is downstream from MQ. Like, a few posts up. The last post about that is actually on this same page in the forums... Just look up

Gee, it’s like people didn’t automatically understand that there was separation, given how the powers that be here basically evangelized MQ during its development.
 
Gee, it’s like people didn’t automatically understand that there was separation, given how the powers that be here basically evangelized MQ during its development.
I'm not sure what you're saying here...that somehow RG's relationship with MQ prevents people from reading and comprehending forum posts in the thread they're posting in? That's a weird take on a forum.
 
I definitely know how it all works, just know I appreciate the people making it work. Whether that is RG as a website, the devs who independently code and offer it to RG for us, or whatever, you're all cool.

The only one I've really talked to mainly is Sic and some with CWTN. Which, I think they're mostly separate and independent as well? But are a part of the community? Any who, thanks to all and if it's ready patch day, then wow, good job!
 
I definitely know how it all works, just know I appreciate the people making it work. Whether that is RG as a website, the devs who independently code and offer it to RG for us, or whatever, you're all cool.

The only one I've really talked to mainly is Sic and some with CWTN. Which, I think they're mostly separate and independent as well? But are a part of the community? Any who, thanks to all and if it's ready patch day, then wow, good job!
Well for me personally my overlap goes in the opposite direction :p
 



Time to get caught up!


Greetings, Norrathians!

The time has come once again for my latest Producer's Letter. It's been an incredible year since we last touched base. You've gotten to know some of our new game designers and engineers, we've shared in the fun during a handful of annual events, we all saw the amazing success of the launches of Mischief and Thornblade—our Randomized Loot TLPs—and now we're venturing into uncharted waters with the pre-order and beta testing of our next expansion, Terror of Luclin.

If you're like many of us, your minds were blown when video game technology went from 8-bit to 16-bit. (Here's looking at you, speedy blue guy!) Personally, I'm very excited to finally and officially announce 64-bit clients and servers are coming for EverQuest! This was and continues to be a big endeavor and we plan to post an article about it soon. Just know that it's coming, and we're aiming for an early 2022 launch after the release of Terror of Luclin. (It will be coming to the beta server sooner than that, though.)

As many of you saw, we recently opened pre-orders for our 28th expansion, Terror of Luclin. All of us were proud of the new landing page our team members and partners helped create. If you haven't seen it, you can check it out here: https://www.everquest.com/terror-of-luclin. But what's most important to note is all of you. The response from you, our community, to Terror of Luclin has been nothing short of spectacular, and we sincerely appreciate all of the positive comments and feedback we've received.

One other important milestone for us is partnering up again with Extra Life to help raise funds for Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. They really do make a difference in so many children's lives and on a personal note, they hold a special place in my heart for what they've done for my family. When we did this last year, we hoped it would go well, and all of you far exceeded our expectations. We're back at it again this year, and we'd love it if you got involved again. Give a donation or help spread the word—we just want you to be part of this again. You can join our Darkpaw Games team by clicking here. Fundraising will continue through the rest of 2021 but mark your calendar for November 6. That is Extra Life's official day to stream EverQuest and EverQuest II to help raise awareness.

Calling all artists! We're looking to hire some new talent in the coming weeks and months. We've got a lot of ambitious plans, and we're going to need some extra help in reaching our goals. If you're interested or know someone who might be, bookmark and keep an eye on our Careers page for updates.

Also rounding out the rest of 2021 will be the return of the Raid, Raid, Raid! event, a Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale, Frostfell, and to get you ready for the holidays, a Winter Holiday Sale. Lots of fun still left to be enjoyed before some even more exciting things start to roll out in 2022.

Finally, server merges. While we're not prepared to officially announce specific server mergers because we are still gathering data on our end, just know that we're being diligent about them and will let you know any updates as soon as possible. Look for messaging around this in the first half of 2022.

From all of us here at Darkpaw Games, we deeply appreciate the years you've spent with us and we can't thank you enough for being a valued member of our community. You fuel us every single day with your passion. We know you have your choices, so thank you for spending your time with us as we get closer to 23 years strong.


Wait . . . there is a golden feather on the floor,

—Jenn Chan
Head of Studio
Ok, everyone....

Just remember the story about chicken little....or how the world was gonna go dark in Y2K. This is nothing more than everyone worried MQ2 will be down, and not come back up for days (or in one post in this thread....months). I have full faith, trust and confidence that the MQ2 developers (or whatever they are) have their shit together and it will be just another semi-seamless transition to bigger and better things.

Quit panicking, put your big girl panties on, and start planning on what you will be doing when the servers come back up. For Rallos' sake! Have a little faith :)
 
Lol,

Suido on topic, because it does relate toe 64bit. Will the CWTN plugins work as soon as the VV patch for 64 works, or is there separate work to be done on those?
well it is an absolute massive change for literally everything. and stuff has a ripple effect - if something isn't working in main, could break something in the plugins -> if something isn't right in the plugins, well then they'd be broken =p.

the MQ dev team has made all efforts to make this as painless as possible for us all as users, and us as developers. I spent yesterday going through our cwtn stuff, as well as testing out and reporting any weirdness I could find with the build.
 
well it is an absolute massive change for literally everything. and stuff has a ripple effect - if something isn't working in main, could break something in the plugins -> if something isn't right in the plugins, well then they'd be broken =p.

the MQ dev team has made all efforts to make this as painless as possible for us all as users, and us as developers. I spent yesterday going through our cwtn stuff, as well as testing out and reporting any weirdness I could find with the build.

Much appreciated!
 
There will likely be bugs, so it's not going to fully be "business as usual." But just make sure we know about them and we'll get them fixed. As Sic said, it's a pretty massive undertaking, so it's easy to miss little things.
 
I think it may be appropriate to share a little of of the history of Macroquest. Macroquest was the sole creation of Plazmic AKA Joe Buchanan who insisted MQ remain open source. Joe (Plazmic) passed away 15 years ago. Prior to his death several others teamed up with Plazmic, Lax (who runs the official MQ2 site) Amadeus, EQMule, Dont_know_at_all are a few names that come to my mind from that time era. EQMule has kept the source code updated on the official MQ2 site since Joe's passing. You have always been and still are able to d/l the updated source files for no charge from the official mq2 site as Plazmic wished and compile them. (Thankyou EQMule for keeping the source code up to date on the offical site, I'm sure Plazmic is beaming with pride that you have kept his legacy alive). Thankyou Brainiac for your work in updating the official source as well!

Joe (Plazmic) was 29 years old when he passed away from an aneurysm.
Thanks for sharing this. Super interesting and cool.
 
So do the new bits allow the bard plugin to be created?

giphy-downsized-large.gif
 
News - 64bit discussion (scheduled 2-15-2022 for live server)
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