stuck on patcher character selection not available

[Lostlore]

<p>Ok I'm as newb to eq2 as they get, ive played eq for 8 years and retired decided something new. I finally figured out how to make it through Vista and patch eq 2 but now I'm stuck on the patch screen in the upper left corner it says test server and it tells me the character selection is unavailable please help me thank you</p>

[Bakual]

<p>First of all I think you run the wrong patcher, you shouldn't use the one for the test server if you want to play on the regular servers.</p><p>If you got the right patcher, you probably have to configure the right ports withing your firewalls as found here: <a href="http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bin/soe.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12293" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bi...p?p_faqid=12293</a></p><p>There are also issues with Vista and it's user management system (how is that thing called again?). Either turn that thin off or make sure that EQ2 runs as administrator (right click on file -> run as admin)</p>

[Rokaab]

<p>Do you have a big red 'Play' button? If so you need to press that to get to character selection. If not, you havent finished patching.</p><p>The 'character selection is unavailable' option in the drop down box appears when either you have no characters yet, or sometimes when the servers have been down/crashed.</p>

[Lostlore]

ok am i just dumb or how do i create a character ?

[Rokaab]

<cite>Lostlore wrote:</cite><blockquote>ok am i just dumb or how do i create a character ?</blockquote><p>Do you have a big red 'Play' button on your patcher screen? If so, press it.</p><p>If not, you havent finished patching and may need to look through the techie forums to find out why its not doing so.</p>

[Bakual]

<cite>Lostlore wrote:</cite><blockquote>ok am i just dumb or how do i create a character ?</blockquote><p>After you get the red Play button and got to the game, it will show you the character creation screen where you have to choose class, race, appearance, name and alignment of your character. For some it's the most plaisure in this game to take the time to create a character, I know some that need several hours to create their char (mainly womans, though *g*). But you can do it faster of course, mens usually need only a few minutes <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Once you have created a character on a server, you will get the option to choose them at the patcher window and log in direct to this character.</p>

[Vendolyn]

<cite>Bakual wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lostlore wrote:</cite><blockquote>ok am i just dumb or how do i create a character ?</blockquote><p>After you get the red Play button and got to the game, it will show you the character creation screen where you have to choose class, race, appearance, name and alignment of your character. For some it's the most plaisure in this game to take the time to create a character, I know some that need several hours to create their char (mainly womans, though *g*). But you can do it faster of course, mens usually need only a few minutes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" /></p><p>Once you have created a character on a server, you will get the option to choose them at the patcher window and log in direct to this character.</p></blockquote>Are you kidding?  I got this thing down to a science!  Start to finish in 2 minutes!

[Lostlore]

I'm just about ready to give up and play something else like i said I'm using windows vista ive disabled every [Removed for Content] security measure on it i have uninstalled the first hours of patching and am now again patching for hours and am stuck again on the patcher it just stops and gets on this loop with a stuck file please enough with the jokes and more help

[Lostlore]

sorry for being a rude [Removed for Content]...just been up 12 hours trying to get this going i dont know what i did but it finally went back to patching for the time being

[Bakual]

<p>We're actively trying to help you, but we don't have a crystal ball to look in. You have to help us as well helping you.</p><p>What exactly is writen below the two bars that fill up? And are they staying filled up or still moving?Are you using the correct Launcher? If there is written "testserver", then you got a wrong one. You need to start eq2.exe.It's not unusual that you have to patch several hours after a clean installation. Just wait till it's finished. If it seems to hang - just quit it and restart it. The launcher is quite intelligent and looks itself which files are there already and which ones are missing. If it constantly hungs up on the same file, delete that file and try again.</p><p>If the patcher or the game has problems connecting, check the firewall settings provided in the link above.</p><p>Deleting and reinstalling the whole thing was probably the worsest thing you could have done. The game doesn't need any registry entries or something similar to run. It just needs all files, and the patcher takes care of that.</p>