I cant say I completely understand whats happening other than it seems like RedGuides is ending. I wish I was more tech savvy like most of you but to be honest I don't even completely understand what an emu-server is. I'm a pretty old man been playing EQ since the beginning and I really didn't even know anything about MQ till about 2020. But I do know this, this has to have been an extraordinary amount of work and it made the game playable again for me. And if this is truly the end I will cancel all my accounts and walk away for good. My sincere thanks to everyone who worked on RedGuides and MQ you are appreciated. I'll be watching to see what the future holds. THanks again,
Hi Shonk, you very likely have nothing to worry about, but no one can tell you with certainty just yet what is happening.
RedGuides makes the VV (VeryVanillla) version of MQ. They do not make MacroQuest though, so they are reliant on the MQ team. The MQ team that did it for a few years needed to step down, making a patch work every month, every time EQ patched, is very real life time consuming for them. They are not paid employees they are just some guys who volunteer their time so MQ can continue (they did accept donations, but they have a real job, MQ is just a personal hobby). They will be working on EMU and no longer Live.
A new MQ team has started work on making MQ for Live to continue to work. This is not an easy task, and some time is required for them to figure out things and find what can be done. If unsuccessful or they give up, it would mean no more MQ for Live, which means RG cannot make thier version nor support it as there is no MQ to build all the plugins and luas for. MQ for EMU would continue, for some its good, others don't care. If the new team is successful, all will continue as is, or at least we hope so. It would mean RG will continue to work on Live and all plugins and such continue to be useful. The RG team, and all RG creators have no say or work on MQ, they are reliant on its work. Some people are upset because they just bought plugins or got the RG yearly sub, and are upset they wasted their money...but the simple fact we don;t know anything is doomed. Simply everyone, ALL of us, have to wait a bit to know what is going to happen. It may take a few days, it could take a month. Anyone jumping the gun is just impatient, we will likely be fine. Just takes time, its not an easy task for new people to take over and start things they have never worked on, plus its an ever changing code to 'break' when DBG patches the game.
As for EMU, its an Emulated version of Everquest. Anyone can download it and run EQ on your home computer, for yourself only or for others. EMU is a 'hacked' version of the game put together by players using that last install files we could easily get before the whole game was installed by full download through the DBG Loader. Due to that EMU is limited to versions like Original, Kunark, Velious, or even up to Dragons of Norrath. Finding the download is easy enough online, but not something RG will show the way there, nor link to. What you would look for is something like the RoF2 files (Reign of Fear2). Once you have that, you can go to Eqemulator.org and follow the install instructions, they have a helpful Discord as well. They have lists of servers that users run (free) and each has its own rules and its own world form, various versions of EQ, with some having custom items that are built by the server operators. Some support MQ, some do not.
You can also choose to not join a multiplayer server and simply install the EMU for ONLY you. Your private EQ where you play MQ as much as you want. On mine, I never have to log off, I play as I want, never worrying about anything at all. If having expansion limits like ONLY to Omens or DoN is an issue..maybe you would not enjoy EMU EQ. I did not like it until I tried it, I absolutely love it now. It was a difficult adjustment as I wanted some newer things to exist in EMU... but I got over it as I had so much fun. This brings us back to the old MQ team is committing their work to EMU. Also being new work, we cannot know yet what they will be able to achieve, but things we hope is bringing EMU version to a 64 bit client, newer expansions, easier EMU install with greater options. I am not a dev, nor on the team, but what I have seen so far..is of great anticipation and I foresee a massive update in EMU side bringing us even closer to Live.
Hopefully this helps you and anyone who may not understand a few things, to help see things.
