Buy Seeds of Destruction NOW!

[trevius]

BUY Seeds of Destruction NOW!!!


We have started work on getting the Everquest: Seeds of Destruction expansion from Steam to be compatible with EQEmu. It was on sale for $2.50, but has returned to it's normal price of $19.99 for now:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24130/

The client currently can't even log into the EQEmu Login Server yet, but Rogean is working on that and should hopefully have it working any day now. The SoD client is already almost caught up with SoF, and is already very playable and ready for player testing as soon as the Login Server can allow it to log in. From what I can tell so far, it looks like the SoD client is much more stable than the SoF client is, and maybe even better than Titanium is since they added multi-core CPU support among other great performance and stability features.

Since it is a digital download, that means you will be able to get it instantly instead of having to wait for it to come in the mail. I highly recommend making a copy of the install folder somewhere on your harddrive (or burn it to a DVD) so you will have a backup in case you mess the client up or need to install it fresh again at some point.

I am excited to get this new client going with EQEmu. I think it has the potential to not only add access to new content including 20 new zones, 40 new NPC races, and dozens of new weapon models among other game features, but also has the potential to be the most stable and bug-free client that EQEmu has ever seen. Only time will tell for sure, but my hopes are high at this point from what I have seen so far. Stay tuned for more news on this new client version!

If you are interested in the status of the Development for the SoD client, see the following thread where we are tracking it:

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30867

See you in SoD soon!

EDIT: Got in game and here is the first screenshot:

http://stormhavenserver.com/downloads/pics/first_sod_ss_small.jpg

EDIT2: Even more progress being made with the SoD client. Now almost all core systems are functioning (Items, Spells, Spawns, Attack, Looting, AAs, etc etc). I think we have all of the opcodes now and just need to adjust a few more structs for things like grouping, and more spawn struct clean-up and such. Not bad for a couple of days worth of work. Huge thanks for Derision and KLS as well as a few others that have helped make it this far so quickly :D

Here is another screenshot to show some more progress:

http://stormhavenserver.com/downloads/pics/second_sod_ss.jpg

EDIT3: The client has nearly all bugs worked out now and is ready for player testing as soon as the Login Server will let players log in while using SoD.

Hopefully Rogean will have time to try to get the public LS working with the SoD client soon.

EDIT4: The amazing sale price is now over and it has returned to it's previous price of $19.99. Updated this post to reflect that.

[pfyon]

Just got it for my steam account. I should note, I got secrets of faydwer for free at the same time apparently (at least, I didn't have it before and now it is also in my games list).

[KLS]

Yeah I got SoF for free too.

[pfyon]

So that's a good deal anyway for someone who doesn't have SoF. $2.50 US and it includes SoF for free, no shipping.

[GeorgeS]

Wow excellent deal! Just got my copy as well, and recommend others to do as well. Thank to Trevius for this info.
The new zones and content will keep me busy updating the tools for some time, but worth it in the end

GeorgeS

[trevius]

Oh, I was wondering where that SoF purchase came from lol. Well, that's cool. Even if SoD doesn't wind up working with EQEmu for some reason (I am pretty sure it will work), it wouldn't be hard to make sure the steam SoF that comes with the purchase will work with it. So, making the SoD purchase now should at least get you a working SoF client if nothing else. If the Steam SoF client is a bit newer than the retail one (probably is), then it might even work better than the retail SoF we have now, anyway. And it would just mean a few opcode updates to get it working. I may download the free SoF from steam (that came with SoD) tonight and see what is up with it.

[trevius]

Actually, Rogean/KLS/Cavedude, do you guys have a problem with me moving this thread into the news section so it updates the front page for the few days that the sale is going on? Then I can move it back out again after the sale or whatever. Just trying to spread the news as much as possible before the sale ends.

[steve]

Are you sure this is downloading a time frozen copy?

I'm downloading it now through Steam and it just downloaded brellsrest.zon - which is a part of Underfoot. The content Steam says it is downloading is SoD.

[trevius]

All I know is that the eqgame.exe is from Dec 21 2008, which was shortly after SoD came out. If it has extra zones and such, that shouldn't really matter. We will know more once we can get in game.

[Taurinus]

Grabbed mine as well (with SoF...already had it but cool stuff).

Thanks for the heads up.

[cavedude]

Actually, Rogean/KLS/Cavedude, do you guys have a problem with me moving this thread into the news section so it updates the front page for the few days that the sale is going on? Then I can move it back out again after the sale or whatever. Just trying to spread the news as much as possible before the sale ends.

There you go.

[Irreverent]

My concern was patch level too. I have many games, as well as several SoE games, through steam that DO distribute the latest patch version of the game.

So if you buy your SoD now, someone a month from now may have a different patch level.

Could this potentially cause a problem?

[Secrets]

My concern was patch level too. I have many games, as well as several SoE games, through steam that DO distribute the latest patch version of the game.

So if you buy your SoD now, someone a month from now may have a different patch level.

Could this potentially cause a problem?

It's been the same .exe on there for at least 2 years now. I don't think they'll change it, but you never know. Best to get it now.

[Eva Aisling]

I can't order anything online. Does this mean I'm going to miss out on any potential new content for EQ Emu because it will require the Steam version of the expansion?

[cavedude]

I can't order anything online. Does this mean I'm going to miss out on any potential new content for EQ Emu because it will require the Steam version of the expansion?

Yes, but blame Sony. They have said there will be no more DVD releases, leaving us with no other choice.

[Eva Aisling]

I didn't mean to place blame on anyone. I'll just have to try and pester a friend to order it for me then. Thanks!

[TheTrilobyte]

2 pounds in English money. Not bad at all.

I think the distro is likely to remain the same since EQ relies on the patcher. I'm betting SoE was just saving money on bandwidth by chucking all the underfoot zones into the package.

Well, I hope so anyway! I did a lot of creative maths to leave enough money in my account to buy it.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

1 question - what is the total size of the download?

[Secrets]

1 question - what is the total size of the download?

7 gigabytes.

[cavedude]

Yeah, it's a big boy. But it didn't take very long for me to grab. A few hours or so.

[WkimWes]

Purchased my copy and now downloading.

[WkimWes]

OH and thanks for the hard work by all of you!

[Kaenos]

Steam has extended the sale until Sunday,

FYI

[trevius]

Steam has extended the sale until Sunday,

FYI

From the Steam page, it still says it ends Mar 26th. If that is PST, then it should be ending in a few minutes. Do you have a link to confirm that it was extended until Sunday? If so, I will update the news to reflect that so people know.

[blackdragonsdg]

Deleted, wrong topic. Sorry

[Kaenos]

From the Steam page, it still says it ends Mar 26th. If that is PST, then it should be ending in a few minutes. Do you have a link to confirm that it was extended until Sunday? If so, I will update the news to reflect that so people know.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/EverQuestLive?ref=ts

The $2.50 Seeds of Destruction™ Steam sale and our Station Cash™ Anniversary sale has been extended until Sunday at 11:59 PM!

To learn more, follow these links:
http://everquest.station.sony.com/eq11th/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/24130/

I'm a friend of EQ on Facebook and saw it there

[Shadow-Wolf]

anyone else but me notice steam says it's still on sale?

[Arkadin]

If i don't purchase this SoD through steam and use another source will there be an issue if/when you get it running with eqemu?

[trevius]

If i don't purchase this SoD through steam and use another source will there be an issue if/when you get it running with eqemu?

Yes, there most likely would be an issue. It has to be a very specific version otherwise there are bound to be bugs if it even works at all.

[Taurinus]

Just wanted to point this out (for the sake of completeness of the information about the SoD client):

From what I can tell so far, it looks like the SoD client will be much more stable than the SoF client is, and maybe even better than Titanium is since they added multi-core CPU support among other great features.

What Sony actually did is preemptively disable multi-core support by locking itself to one core. This is still a plus, as it requires no special effort from the user for it to run correctly, but it indeed does not support running on multiple cores.

[trevius]

Yes, they did do that, but they also set it so that if you start another EQ session while one is already running, the second session will use the next available core. So, for people with dual or quad cores, this will make it so boxing uses each of their cores instead of all being hard set to 1 of them, or them having to manually change them each time.

Though, by multi-core support, I mostly meant that they resolved most of the previous multi-core issues with EQ. EQEmu players using SoD should not have to do anything special in order to play whether they run a multi-core CPU or not. That is a nice bonus, as many have had multi-core problems, and wasted hours of time to resolve them, if they were ever even able to resolve them. Having a client that can readily support today's hardware is a big plus IMO.

[titan_g]

Just wanted to point out that SoD is still $2.50 on Steam as of today (April 3rd).

[trevius]

I am hoping the Public Login Server is compatible with SoD soon. We are running out of issues to fix with SoD, and need more players using it to give us bug reports so we can fix them. As it is, it looks like it is nearly caught up with SoF and may not be long before it is caught up with Titanium (or surpassing it).

Again, I strongly recommend that anyone who has not picked up a copy of SoD yet do so now before that sale ends! It is an amazing deal for what I believe is an amazing client for EQEmu. I have not had even 1 client crash that wasn't caused by development work. So far, it seems even more stable than Titanium is!

[Akkadius]

Aye, it is much more feasible to let the players get a hold of it and tear it up... Only so much you can do switching back and forth between the spectrum

[trevius]

Here is an update on the SoD client that I have been posting around on a few of the popular EQEmu server forums. Figured I would share it here as well to keep everyone informed of the status:

Currently, as of now, the sale of SoD from steam for $2.50 is still going even though it is well after March 28th when it said the sale was supposed to end. If you don't have your copy of SoD yet, I recommend getting one before the sale ends!

Link to Steam for getting the SoD client for EQEmu:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/24130/

Currently, we are still waiting on Rogean to update the EQEmu Public Login Server to work with SoD, but that should hopefully happen any day now.

The EQEmu developers have been hard at work to get the SoD client caught up with SoF and beyond and even though it has been less than 2 weeks that we have been working on it, it is already nearly done! All major systems seem to function very well. We have resolved just about all of the known issues with the SoD client already and only have a couple of minor issues left to work on until we start getting more bug reports from players actually playing and testing all systems. As soon as the Login Server is allowing SoD clients to log in, any server that is current with the SVN will be able to allow SoD clients to start playing immediately.

I have left my SoD client logged into my test server every day since I was first able to get in over a week ago, and have not crashed a single time other than while we were working on some development stuff. So, the client itself is definitely much more stable than SoF and probably even more stable than Titanium.

It has built-in multi-core CPU support that means you won't need to worry about adding any multi-core fixes or anything to be able to run SoD. It also assigns EQ to a single core per session you have up and will assign your first session to 1 core, and your next EQ session to the next available core and so on. This means that boxing performance should be better than normal on most other clients.

SoD also has a feature to let you set the frame rate for EQ windows in the background, which further helps with boxing performance. One nice improvement that SoD has over SoF is that it has an option that will let you lock the window size when in windowed mode, which prevents accidental window resizing and a potential crash. I haven't seen a single issue from switching windows when boxing on SoD so far.

I also notice that SoD does not spike your CPU to 100% and keep it there like Titanium and SoF can do sometimes. SoD only seems to use the CPU amount that it actually needs, so I think that helps with performance and stability as well.

The SoD client also works much better with custom UIs than SoF did, since SoF has a known bug with UIs that was worked out before the SoD client came out. I have tested quite a few UIs on SoD, and so far, it seems to work with many of the UIs from the beginning of 2009 up to even the most current UIs out there. There may need to be some slight adjustments needed for custom UIs from different expansions (like Underfoot) to work 100% correctly on SoD, but in general they seem to work well for the most part.

The SoF client took us months of work to get it to the point we now have SoD now in less than 2 weeks! I expect some very nice things from the SoD client and again am recommending that everyone who can afford the $2.50 to get it right now and download it before the sale ends.

If you are interested on the current development status of SoD, you can check the development tracking thread for it here:

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30909

As you can see, there are not many issues with it that we are aware of that haven't already been resolved. I have even been going back through some of the remaining SoF issues that also exist in SoD and resolving them too. My hopes are that this will be the next mainstream EQEmu client and will replace Titanium. The more people that get it now, the better.

If there are any questions or concerns, post them here and I will answer what I can

[Burningsoul]

I'm sure you get this a lot, but THANK YOU for the immense effort into getting this whipped into shape! I remember back to 2003/4 and patching by the update, this is incredible to anyone that's been following for this long. Keep up the GREAT work!!!

[trevius]

Well, just for the record, it isn't just me working on SoD. Derision has done a huge portion of the work and done some of the more complicated things that would have taken me considerably longer to work out. KLS has also helped and was the one that got the Open Source LS working for it so we could even start to work on it at all. A few others have pitched in as well. I want to thank the others that have helped as well. This definitely wouldn't be moving along nearly as quick as it is without the help of the other devs here :)

[Burningsoul]

Too late for an edit, but that was directed at everyone - I'm astonished at the manpower poured into this over a relatively small amount of time - thank you everyone!

[wtbmacestun]

I want to say thank you to every one of the devs working on this right now. I grabbed the download from steam and am very thankful that you guys are working so hard on this. Keep up the good work you guys!

[cmdrwayne]

Where does Steam save Seeds of Destruction so I can do backup, or do I just use the steam backup wizard ?

I found it here: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\everquest

[Zandig]

Where does Steam save Seeds of Destruction so I can do backup, or do I just use the steam backup wizard ?

I found it here: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\everquest

Yes that is the location. You can move the directory to where you want it or back it up however you want to. I backed mine up to a couple of DVDs to make it easy to install again if I ever need to.

[nano]

Bought SoD off Steam for $2.50 last night and finished download this morning.

I downloaded the server code from SVN and compiled the server and EQEmuLoginServer. My existing PEQ database was still the same revision so I left my SQL alone.

Booted up the server and EQEmuLoginServer, booted up the SoD client and connected to localhost on port 5999. Everything went smooth. The SoD client saw my server and I was able to make a new character and load into the tutorial zone, no crashes or disconnects.

World.exe did spit out a bunch of [Debug] [WORLD__CLIENT_ERR] messages, but nothing that caused a crash or disconnect.

I haven't ran the server for very long but so far it is looking absolutely superb!

This might not help much, I am still fairly fresh behind the ears when it comes to compiling and running an EQ server, so I have to say if *I* was able to get it up and running without any trouble that must mean something! ;)

[djeryv]

Since it is a digital download, that means you will be able to get it instantly instead of having to wait for it to come in the mail. I highly recommend making a copy of the install folder somewhere on your harddrive (or burn it to a DVD) so you will have a backup in case you mess the client up or need to install it fresh again at some point.

I downloaded it off steam and backed up the install dir to a DVD...now how do I get this game on another PC with these 2 DVDs I made? I don't want to hook up to STEAM to play this.

- Djeryv

[trevius]

All you need to do is copy the install folder to your other PC where ever you want it and then create the shortcut to eqgame.exe like normal. Everquest doesn't require anything special like registry entries or anything like some applications need, it just needs to have the install folder there and you can start it up right away. It is very easy to move the install around because of this :)

[gaeorn]

SoD is no longer on sale. The price is listed as $19.99 on Steam now.

[trevius]

Awwwe, that sucks! I hope everyone who wanted it has gotten it already... I will go around and update all of the posts that mention the sale to reflect the change.

[djeryv]

Thank you trevius. I was getting a tad worried because I did what you said on a Windows 7 machine...and I get some memory errors on load up. I will bring it home later and try it out...as I have many Windows XP machines there.

Also...since I mentioned it...does anyone have SOD working on Windows 7? If so...did you have to do anything fancy for it to work. In order to get SOF working on Windows 7...I had to install direct x 9c...but it worked after that. I did not have the same success with SOD.

-Djeryv

[trevius]

I have Titanium, SoF, SoD, and EQLive all installed on my Windows 7 Ulimate 64bit system and they all work fine. I didn't have to do anything special at all to get SoD running on Windows 7, it just worked. Maybe you were missing a file or something. I wouldn't be surprised if you still need to install DX9c for SoD, but mine worked right away on Windows 7 (though I already had DX9c installed from previous EQ installs).

[loglos]

I'm also running win7ult 64 and I have it running but I had to load dx9c first. Once I did that, it all ran fine.

[cavedude]

Moved this from news since the sale is over.

[trevius]

Thanks, Cavedude. I will probably make a news post about EQEmu being compatible with SoD again once Rogean gets the Public Login Server working with it. It will basically just be an informational news post to let people know a bit about the expansion and where to get it and such.

I will also make sure to update the install wiki guide to add SoD specific instructions to it once it works with the Public Login Server.

[js26170]

I purchased and downloaded the steam SoD yesterday right before the sale closed but even changing the port number and trying it using 2 different sets of eqhost.txt settings I cant get it to go online. It gives a "cannot connect to server" message

[code:1:fb7b962cbb][LoginServer]
Host=projecteq.net:5999
[/code:1:fb7b962cbb]

or

[LoginServer]
Host=projecteq.net:5999



Ive also set the shortcut for eqgame.exe with the
" patchme statement.

Ive tried with all firewalls disabled and still cant connect.

I am online running SoF client just fine on the same XP machine so I know it has to be something in either my SoD DL or a setting im missing, Any help would be great.

[trevius]

Yeah, I think PEQ is the only current server that people can play on with SoD until Rogean gets the Public LS working with it. It looks like you had the eqhost.txt file set correctly as far as I can tell.

I think PEQ requires that you register your account to be able to log into their secondary private Login Server. Does your SoF install work on their Private LS ok? If so, the eqghost.txt file for SoD should be exactly the same as the one you have on SoF, accept the port should be 5999 instead of 5998.

[js26170]

Yeah, I think PEQ is the only current server that people can play on with SoD until Rogean gets the Public LS working with it. It looks like you had the eqhost.txt file set correctly as far as I can tell.

I think PEQ requires that you register your account to be able to log into their secondary private Login Server. Does your SoF install work on their Private LS ok? If so, the eqghost.txt file for SoD should be exactly the same as the one you have on SoF, accept the port should be 5999 instead of 5998.

I use the EQemu login on SoF. But no I hadnt claimed on the PEQ. I claimed my account and attempted the login again, now its giving a "timed out" message. I checked my EQhost file and its changed to the following on its own....

[LoginServer] ]
Host=projecteq.net:5999

[LoginServer]
Host=xp-smitchell:7308
Host1=

[trevius]

This is what you want it set to:

[LoginServer]
Host=projecteq.net:5999

Try using it on your SoF install and if it works there, then it should work for SoD as well. If it still doesn't work on SoD, then maybe you patched SoD by mistake after you downloaded it from Steam.

Make sure you use the exact text I have in that code box above though. All of the other examples you have tried so far have not been exactly accurate. Also, make sure that the shortcut you created is for the eqgame.exe not the everquest.exe file.

[js26170]

Thanks so much, I changed SoF to PEQ and it logged in fine showing just the one server. Then i copied exactly what you put in the eqhost file and this time it logged in to SoD and didnt change the host info.

I dont know what was different other than using the PEQ host file in my SoF from when i tried the second host info from my first post but it works great now on both clients. Thanks!!

[ChodExplode]

I purchased this game during the sale. Should i download SoF or SoD. I would currently like to start playing. Can i just download SoF and start playing once i follow the instructions on this website?

[titan_g]

I don't believe believe they have the login ready for SoD. The login stalls after entering in the user name and password. But before I removed it, SoF was working fine.

[ChodExplode]

When you guy SOD special it came with a SOF as a seperate download from SoD. So am i able to download just SoF ands play. Sorry if im not getting this right away.

[trevius]

From what I have heard, the SoF download from Steam is just the same download as SoD is as far as files go. I am not really sure why it is there other than maybe as a backup download or something.

Currently, the only way to play using SoD is to register over at the PEQ website and use their private Login Server. They use the open source Login Server for their second LS connection, and that one is compatible with SoD. We are still waiting on the Public Login Server to be updated so it is compatible with SoD.

[Clinicus]

So just confirming before I try to muck around too much. The only server you can play on with the Steam install at the moment is PEQ?

[trevius]

Yes, that is true, but with the recent addition of the Dual Login Server code to the Google SVN, it probably won't be long before other servers start using another Login Server so people can use SoD (or just to have a backup LS). I know I plan to get Storm Haven on a Dual LS setup one way or another fairly soon.

Hopefully the Public LS is compatible with SoD soon, as it is still the simplest way to handle accounts and such. But, until then, at least we have an alternative way opening up that also adds to more diversity/redundancy for LS access.

[Speedz]

I bought the SoD a little too late. I ended up payin the 19.95 but I figured wth.

I seem to have an incomplete download from steam tho or it's a different version/updated a bit. I seem to be missing files in the default UI folder.

The game crashes and throws a UIErrors.txt log
I tried replacing the XML files it said it was missing from my live version but that ended up in a dead end of undeclared referenced file errors.

Any ideas here I am at a loss now.

[Noport]

I bought the SoD a little too late. I ended up payin the 19.95 but I figured wth.

I seem to have an incomplete download from steam tho or it's a different version/updated a bit. I seem to be missing files in the default UI folder.

The game crashes and throws a UIErrors.txt log
I tried replacing the XML files it said it was missing from my live version but that ended up in a dead end of undeclared referenced file errors.

Any ideas here I am at a loss now.

I would install Sof first then Sod the one you bought then load and copy the steam version if your having problems. the Sod version you bought is back dated too Sof opcode that why i said copy the steam version.

[Speedz]

Yea I tried the SoF default UI folder in the SoD folder, was still a no go. It gave me the same errors.

But on a whim I decided to go comment happy on the live version's XML reference files. Well it worked. Had to do mass commenting in EQUI_Templates.xml (I loaded all the XML files into VS and did a find in files 'file name from error log here' and killed all reference to them)

Apparently the achievements window is something new in live since the steam version or at least they modded it? Either way, I got it to log in and work fine.

Thanks for the reply and the thought, much appreciated.