Confirmed Underfoot will not be in Retail Stores
 

Well, I was hoping to start work on Everquest: Underfoot to get the emulator compatible with it when it came out. We really only needed 2 things for that to happen. One was that it needs to be an all inclusive set like Titanium or SoF, and Underfoot is all inclusive. The other important part is that it needs to have a retail release so our community can buy the game legally to play on the emu with it, so we aren't condoning anything illegal or providing any illegal links or downloads.

Looks like we have confirmation from the Everquest community manager, Zatozia.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/po...157208#2329170

Ahh well, I guess we won't be having a possible new client this year. And, from the sounds of things, I don't think we will have a new retail client for EQ ever again. So, I guess it is a good thing we got SoF running with the emu, because that is probably the newest client we will ever have available via retail.

So with the possibility of SoF being the last retail release of Everquest has anyone entertained the idea of obtaining newer content in another way. An organized download direct from SOE would be a legal way of obtaining Underfoot without it having to be a retail release. Setting a predetermined time frame to patch to live and having everyone do so within that time frame would potentially work. I know this idea is flawed in more than a few ways but it is viable option for obtaining newer content.

There will be nothing SOE can do about this as we would all be paying to play for a month or using up a trial subscription we still have the rights to use from the purchase of a previous expansion.

If we could use the download, it would have to be without any patches. If the game is patched at all then everyone that would ever play would have to patch during that same time frame, even people who don't know eqemu exists yet.

That being said we probably could use the downloaded Underfoot, the only issue then becomes whether sony decides to change the download and fix it with patches. Newer players would not have the same version.

So it really seems like the boxed editions are the only ones that we can really depend on not to change.

Trevius, we might still have a chance. The digitial distribution on steam is a more recent version of the game, and I am willing to bet they will put Underfoot on Steam. That would, ideally, be the best way to go if we wanted a more "up-to-date" client for people to play on. I still need to get Underfoot, so i'll hop on steam and see if it is viable for us.

This was the case with Seeds of Destruction, and it might be a good way to redirect people, too. They'd just have to download the game from Steam, and it's a legal alternative too.

it was unlikely that they would do another All-in-One package, since SoF basically came out just 1 expansion prior.
But they could do it in expansion after the Underfoot.

The chances are, all digital downloads will always be updated with latest patches

And personally I think there still crap load of features still missing from Emu SoF support to say that "we done with SoF, we need a new expansion pack!"

Chaos, all current and future expansions will include all of the previous expansions. SoD and Underfoot are that way already.

I don't know if steam would be a possible option, but without there being a retail disk option, there is no way to be sure that the version won't change without notice. And, it isn't really worth putting work into something that might suddenly poof. The only other option would be to chase live and try to keep up with each patch, but we don't have the team to even consider that.

What all would be needed to chase Live? New opcodes (can get these from SEQ). Anything else?

With them down to patching once per month, it should be easier than it has been in the past.

Well, SEQ only requires a bare minimum of opcodes to be correct for it to work. We probably have 100 or so opcodes that we need to be accurate for it to work. Opcodes aren't extremely hard to get, but probably by the time we had most of them cleared up from a particular patch, they would patch again and we would start all over. Then, there is also the packet structure changes, which sometimes aren't many, but other times they can be pretty confusing. The player profile itself normally changes a couple times per year at least and also the NPC and Client position packet structures change pretty regularly and are a pain to get set perfectly.

In order to even consider doing it, it would require 1 or more people dedicated to work to make every patch compatible. We just don't have the resources to even consider doing it IMO. Also, for chasing Live to even be used by EQEmu players would mean they would need to have currently active Live account, which most EQEmu players do not have. Otherwise, it would require some complex downloading of the patch files directly from SOE, which is probably a bit shady. Either way, I personally don't see Chasing Live as an option for EQEmu ever again.

As a GM and player I would rather just concentrate on what we have. SoF seems fairly stable compared to the previous client. I mean it still crashes but not as often. Getting the non existent zones populated and other minor things are the biggest things we need right now.

Hopefully the collector can be made to work soon. I'm sure there is plenty of people that would be willing to run it while they play and upload the data. Getting zones populated is the easy part. Implementing the quests and scripted stuff is the hard part.

Well that is about the only place that I could help in. Perl I can do, C++ I cannot do.

The Collector works! The Extractor needs a lot of work ;)

Chaos, another All-in-One package, since SoF
I have allready made Sod Non Pached Cdrom.
Tips:
To Make All-in-one copy the Data1.zip to the cdrom
Rename it to Data5.zip now after SoD that what it would
be at Underfoot All-in-one.

trevius
One was that it needs to be an all inclusive set
No problem here making that one! 80)

the problem is, distributing copies of sony's stuff is illegal and eqemu doesnt allow for ANY of sony's stuff to be distributed amongst the community that way. if we can not get a legal copy of it ourself, then we are S.O.L.

Its too much of a pain I.T.A. to even attempt to anything like this if sony isnt going to release the game on another set off all-in-one cd/dvd set box for retail stores.

I say we stick with SOF until sony releases another all-in-one cd/dvd set in retails stores...

Buying SOF for 5.99 online last year was awesome! not sure if its still available since I only need 1 copy.