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Ndaara
03-14-2011, 05:19 PM
<p>Hello, I was using Station Launcher with no issues for several years on 3 different computers. With the new Velious launch, one of my XP machines stopped working with Station Launcher. After a few hours research on these forums, I discovered the new Launchpad 3 was the preferred method of entering the game. So, installed that.</p><p>My issue is this: Yes, it gives me a "PLAY" button almost right away, but the downloading still must occur before I actually get in-game. 15 minutes and we are 72% into Thurgadin - exactly where I camped out last night at 10:30pm (shortly before Mikk's quest resets). (took another 3 minutes to get into Thurgadin, I'm in now... Other account has been in for almost 20 minutes...)</p><p>Previously with Station Launcher, all files were updated while my connection was idle, as long as Station Launcher was running. Vastly prefer THAT method of updating, but I can't get it to work with that machine. 2 other machines (one Windows 7, 64 bit version; the other, Win XP sp3) still work perfectly with Launcher. As long as they are working I am not changing to LP3.</p><p>While I love the idea of this "streaming patcher", in my case at least it still has to load everything, albeit after I get my PLAY button. Am I missing a setting somewhere? Only using LP3 for that one single computer so not sure if it's the computer acting up or what.</p><p>Hopefully I'm just missing something. But truly prefer the Launcher method of updating as long as I have it running (also like seeing my friends list outside of game, being able to chat, etc... pretty much everything about Launcher!).</p><p>I see on another thread that LPX is being worked on, cool! Hope that gets done SOON!!</p><p>PS: Last time I looked on these forums, the Launcer WAS the preferred method and all other methods of patching were being discontinued... Maybe there could be some sort of communication when this sort of thing occurs? I DO read all SOE emails sent to me! Might eliminate some of these 'what happened to my launcher' posts.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
03-14-2011, 07:25 PM
<p>LP3 can function in the exact same manner if you allow it to download everything up front as you would with Station Launcher.  You can simply leave LP3 on as well.</p><p>Other than behind the scenes the only difference between the 2 in this regard is that LP3 will let you play while it downloads and Station Launcher will not until fully downloaded.</p>

Ndaara
03-15-2011, 05:39 PM
<p>Thank you for your quick response! I let the LP3 run overnight and then fired it up again this morning when I got up, in case it didn't catch something from last night's update. (It didn't, immediately gave me a play button)</p><p>And... it sat on a black screen for about 10 minutes after clicking "PLAY" - I cancelled out and rebooted my computer, and.... we're now at 20 minutes sitting at a black screen again...</p><p>Last week everything was working with the old "PAKS" file but once the patcher converted those PAKS, I have had slow zone times and now today, I can't even get in.</p><p>In contrast, my other computer running station launcher loaded the game in just about 60 seconds. LP3 computer is still working .... I started trying to log in at 10 minutes before 1pm for the Ring War PQ and here we are at 1:35pm.</p><p>Clearly I am doing something wrong somewhere! What is my next step? Reinstalling the game would not take that long as I do have a complete copy, updated via the station launcher, on this computer that can be copied over. Or I can let it run all day to download a complete new copy.</p><p>Rarely do I have any issues at all with my Sony games. I can see why people would get upset, especially if they only have one computer to work with!</p><p>So - what do I do next?</p>

Lempo
03-15-2011, 06:30 PM
<p>The previous launcher was superior in many ways, direct access to your other games, able to see server update notes, this was not an upgrade to the launcher that was needed it was something that was slapped together hastily and called an upgrade. If there is a way to see the server status from this directly I sure can not find it, not that the info there is always good but at times it would let you know there was a reason that you couldn't log on.</p><p>I have to agree launchpad3 is fail.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
03-15-2011, 07:27 PM
<p><cite>Ndaara@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thank you for your quick response! I let the LP3 run overnight and then fired it up again this morning when I got up, in case it didn't catch something from last night's update. (It didn't, immediately gave me a play button)</p><p>And... it sat on a black screen for about 10 minutes after clicking "PLAY" - I cancelled out and rebooted my computer, and.... we're now at 20 minutes sitting at a black screen again...</p><p>Last week everything was working with the old "PAKS" file but once the patcher converted those PAKS, I have had slow zone times and now today, I can't even get in.</p><p>In contrast, my other computer running station launcher loaded the game in just about 60 seconds. LP3 computer is still working .... I started trying to log in at 10 minutes before 1pm for the Ring War PQ and here we are at 1:35pm.</p><p>Clearly I am doing something wrong somewhere! What is my next step? Reinstalling the game would not take that long as I do have a complete copy, updated via the station launcher, on this computer that can be copied over. Or I can let it run all day to download a complete new copy.</p><p>Rarely do I have any issues at all with my Sony games. I can see why people would get upset, especially if they only have one computer to work with!</p><p>So - what do I do next?</p></blockquote><p>What folder is it installed to and are you launching the game as an admin?  (right-click the EQ2 icon and select open file location to see where it is installed and/or select Run as Admin to launch it as an admin).  While I respect your opinions on the LaunchPad, the best I can do is work through the issues with you when they arise.  If you have feedback to submit on the patching method, the connection support forum is not the place for it.</p>

Ndaara
03-16-2011, 04:05 AM
<p>Sorry for the delay! Eventually the LP3 did let me into the game - after several reboots and messing around trying to get in via EQ2.exe and Everquest.exe, I managed to pat my belly and rub my head in the right order, finally! Once in, zoning times today are much improved, and no further downloading to slow things down. I'm apprehensive about logging out but, that will happen very soon and we'll see how things go tomorrow.</p><p>The computer having issues is Win XP SP3, there is no right-click option to run as admin. Although it is true I forget about that sometimes on Win 7 (And hate it, but this is not the right forum for that, either...)</p><p>Folder installed to is: C:Program FilesSonyEverQuest II</p><p>There was a thread... somewhere... that indicated a different place to install, specific to LP3? Since everything was already patched, just not working properly, I did not reinstall in a new location. I'll move it all wherever, if it will help. I'll even reinstall from scratch if you think that might help.</p><p>I'd like to thank you in particular, and other devs too, for being very much more interactive these days than in the past. Truly appreciated! I've been several Sony games since December 1999 and this is the most direct contact I've ever seen. Thanks!!</p>

Ndaara
03-16-2011, 05:01 PM
<p>Well, today, things are working! It's definitely slower to log in than it used to be, but it IS logging in just fine.</p><p>I'd also prefer to choose my character at my desktop and load the game directly to the chosen character - but there is already a long thread on that not working (all I get under the characters section of LP3 is "New Character").</p><p>So for now it seems to be fixed, thank you for trying to help me!! (I didn't do anything but keep trying to log in, in case you wondered)</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
03-16-2011, 06:24 PM
<p><cite>Ndaara@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well, today, things are working! It's definitely slower to log in than it used to be, but it IS logging in just fine.</p><p>I'd also prefer to choose my character at my desktop and load the game directly to the chosen character - but there is already a long thread on that not working (all I get under the characters section of LP3 is "New Character").</p><p>So for now it seems to be fixed, thank you for trying to help me!! (I didn't do anything but keep trying to log in, in case you wondered)</p></blockquote><p>I'm keeping my eye on the LP3 character list issue but it is a server side problem that we can't fix together.</p>

Kileren
03-26-2011, 10:40 AM
<p>We had the problem where we were not offered any characters to select from after the login screen. We had to go in with whoever we logged out with, an then change. So I decided to run EQ2.exe, which also didn't show a list of players, but we were able to go to the character select screen. This apparently rebuilt the list of characters and now our characters show up on the login screen as they used to.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
03-30-2011, 03:38 PM
<p><cite>Kileren wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We had the problem where we were not offered any characters to select from after the login screen. We had to go in with whoever we logged out with, an then change. So I decided to run EQ2.exe, which also didn't show a list of players, but we were able to go to the character select screen. This apparently rebuilt the list of characters and now our characters show up on the login screen as they used to.</p></blockquote><p>I believe you are using an older launcher, not the LaunchPad 3.  The issue with LP3 would result in always going to the character select screen.  It has a different character list UI than the previous methods, it shows a head shot of the character with brief details with a create a new character option.</p><p><a href="http://launch.soe.com/eq2" target="_blank">[EQII] LaunchPad</a></p>

Ndaara
04-03-2011, 06:42 AM
<p>Still having issues with this patcher. Tonight I had some issues so deleted a few files in the "Asset Cache" folder (my defrag told me they were highly fragmented - not completely clear what that means but I figured I'd just delete them and get fresh files). I ran the patcher and was surprised that it immediately gave me a big green PLAY button! So I watched for a while, KNOWING it had some information to download... but nothing happened.</p><p>After about 10 minutes I clicked PLAY and then had to wait... and wait.. until eventually (after about 5 minutes) the game did start to load. All told it took just over 10 minutes to get to character select, and then I got right into the game.</p><p>However it is now still downloading files. According to ingame /play, it has been running for 27 minutes while I tried to find a setting I'd missed.</p><p>So - just so you know - LP3 does NOT behave in the exact same manner as LP2. I still prefer the LP2 model but I get it, it's not supported. Understood - however you indicated that I could just leave LP3 running and it would work just like LP2 - but it doesn't. Unless what you meant was, I need to let my character sit in game (somewhere that's NOT the guild hall!) to complete the downloading. Kinda won't work on patch days, either.</p><p>Any suggestions? The only thing I found was the "Download Mode" that allows throttling. Is that what I need to do to get smooth game play while it's downloading?</p><p>Really don't mean to be contrary or a pain, I just want it to work!</p>

Ndaara
04-07-2011, 05:26 AM
<p>Still taking 10 minutes to zone. It is random - all day yesterday went well, only a couple of longer (2 minute) zones. Earlier today I got right into Great Divide, no waiting. Camped out for a few hours, logging back in took nearly 15 minutes to get back to Great Divide. This never happens to me on my other 2 computers (both still successfully running unsupported Station Launcher LP2).</p><p>I haven't tried the non-streaming patcher because of that post up there ^^ that indicated it is not the patcher itself but the game that is streaming. In case I didn't understand that post, gonna try the other, "full" patcher tonight and see if that helps.</p><p>/sigh... Obviously I'm doing something wrong, I just can't figure out WHAT.</p>

Morghus
04-07-2011, 06:12 AM
<p>I've been  using the original launchpad (LP1) since I bought the game, and I just switched to the new non-streaming patcher, and so far I have some rather harsh criticism.</p><p>There doesn't really appear to be a progress bar.</p><p>There is no update notes button.</p><p>It doesn't seem to tell you what you are downloading.</p><p>It seems to cause a much larger amount of hard drive chugging/noise when scanning.</p><p>It seems slower at downloading and scanning, much slower.</p><p>When I used the streaming client/patcher on beta it even seemed to cause the game executable to eat up more memory.</p><p>It seems to chew up a lot more memory while scanning than LP1, it also appears to drastically reduce overall internet browsing speed while scanning even though it is slower than LP1.</p><p>Overall, it's slow, it's clunky, it's ugly, it's more memory abusive, and should be rebranded as LP - (negative) 3 in my opinion. The only thing it currently has going for it is the ability to save login information. Everything else feels like a downgrade.</p><p>It feels like an application that is either in the beta or alpha stage and the player base should not be "subjected" to it until it is in an acceptable state.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-07-2011, 01:09 PM
<p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been  using the original launchpad (LP1) since I bought the game, and I just switched to the new non-streaming patcher, and so far I have some rather harsh criticism.</p><p>There doesn't really appear to be a progress bar.</p><p>There is no update notes button.</p><p>It doesn't seem to tell you what you are downloading.</p><p>It seems to cause a much larger amount of hard drive chugging/noise when scanning.</p><p>It seems slower at downloading and scanning, much slower.</p><p>When I used the streaming client/patcher on beta it even seemed to cause the game executable to eat up more memory.</p><p>It seems to chew up a lot more memory while scanning than LP1, it also appears to drastically reduce overall internet browsing speed while scanning even though it is slower than LP1.</p><p>Overall, it's slow, it's clunky, it's ugly, it's more memory abusive, and should be rebranded as LP - (negative) 3 in my opinion. The only thing it currently has going for it is the ability to save login information. Everything else feels like a downgrade.</p><p>It feels like an application that is either in the beta or alpha stage and the player base should not be "subjected" to it until it is in an acceptable state.</p></blockquote><p>The LP3 scan feature is much more in depth and identifies much more missing or corrupt data than any previous iteration of our patcher.  I don't see the reduction in browsing speed as being an issue considering it is very thoroughly inspecting over 12GB of data at this point. </p><p>Not sure what is 'slow' about it other than the scan method which is reasonable slower considering its doing much more and capable of repairing much more.</p><p>The executable for this game barely takes any resources to maintain.  What is using up more memory is the larger and new game files present when an expansion or update is on the horizon such as you would see within a Beta server.  Many code optimizations occur, in-game features are added and/or removed, leaving the Live client much different than what the beta client had.  </p><p>I don't understand the term memory abusive in this context.  The LaunchPad uses less than 5MB of memory more than the previous iterations of the patcher.  The game itself has grown with content and features and as such requires more memory while you play depending on your settings but that has very little to do with the patch method at that point.</p>

Ndaara
04-07-2011, 04:01 PM
<p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been  using the original launchpad (LP1) since I bought the game, and I just switched to the new non-streaming patcher, and so far I have some rather harsh criticism.</p><p>There doesn't really appear to be a progress bar.</p><p>There is no update notes button.</p><p>It doesn't seem to tell you what you are downloading.</p><p>It seems to cause a much larger amount of hard drive chugging/noise when scanning.</p><p>It seems slower at downloading and scanning, much slower.</p><p>When I used the streaming client/patcher on beta it even seemed to cause the game executable to eat up more memory.</p><p>It seems to chew up a lot more memory while scanning than LP1, it also appears to drastically reduce overall internet browsing speed while scanning even though it is slower than LP1.</p><p>Overall, it's slow, it's clunky, it's ugly, it's more memory abusive, and should be rebranded as LP - (negative) 3 in my opinion. The only thing it currently has going for it is the ability to save login information. Everything else feels like a downgrade.</p><p>It feels like an application that is either in the beta or alpha stage and the player base should not be "subjected" to it until it is in an acceptable state.</p></blockquote><p>The LP3 scan feature is much more in depth and identifies much more missing or corrupt data than any previous iteration of our patcher.  I don't see the reduction in browsing speed as being an issue considering it is very thoroughly inspecting over 12GB of data at this point. </p><p>Not sure what is 'slow' about it other than the scan method which is reasonable slower considering its doing much more and capable of repairing much more.</p><p>The executable for this game barely takes any resources to maintain.  What is using up more memory is the larger and new game files present when an expansion or update is on the horizon such as you would see within a Beta server.  Many code optimizations occur, in-game features are added and/or removed, leaving the Live client much different than what the beta client had.  </p><p>I don't understand the term memory abusive in this context.  The LaunchPad uses less than 5MB of memory more than the previous iterations of the patcher.  The game itself has grown with content and features and as such requires more memory while you play depending on your settings but that has very little to do with the patch method at that point.</p></blockquote><p>Thank you for answering the other guy - but I'm still wondering what I'm doing wrong. You mention a better "scan method", is that an option I can check? I am perfectly happy leaving my patcher running over night, what I am NOT happy with is waiting 10 minutes to zone from Gread Divide into Tower of Frozen Shadows, when I was just there a week ago!</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-07-2011, 04:33 PM
<p>The scan method I referred to is what is available in the LaunchPad options with the up to date streaming or full LP3.</p><p>There were recent changes made to LP3 and we do offer a full download version which includes the PAK/VPK file structure and all the files up front.  There will be zero streaming of the core assets with this download.  It does not use the asset_cache folder like the streaming version of LP3.</p><p><a href="http://launch.soe.com/eq2" target="_blank">[EQII] LaunchPad</a></p>

miragian
04-07-2011, 05:09 PM
<p>I'm a bit confused with the new launcher:</p><p>a) It has the option to download LoN but no way to launch it from the launcher.</p><p>b) It's missing all of the characters I own (I think I saw somewhere else this will be fixed later?)</p><p>c) There's no way to go to the test server from the launcher that I can see.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-07-2011, 05:12 PM
<p><cite>miragian wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm a bit confused with the new launcher:</p><p>a) It has the option to download LoN but no way to launch it from the launcher.</p><p>b) It's missing all of the characters I own (I think I saw somewhere else this will be fixed later?)</p><p>c) There's no way to go to the test server from the launcher that I can see.</p></blockquote><p>The Full version of the new LP3 does not currently have the test server available.  This is known and being looked in to so that everyone can access the test server.</p><p>The missing characters from the LP3 interface is a known bug and its hit or miss at this point.  Works on my work PC but not my home pc but works on my roommates PC at home.  It's being dealt as quickly as possible.</p><p>For LoN, checking that option downloads the required in-game client files for LoN.  You can only access LoN with this download method from in-game using the /lon command or menu option.</p>

Ndaara
04-07-2011, 05:40 PM
<p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The scan method I referred to is what is available in the LaunchPad options with the up to date streaming or full LP3.</p><p>There were recent changes made to LP3 and we do offer a full download version which includes the PAK/VPK file structure and all the files up front.  There will be zero streaming of the core assets with this download.  It does not use the asset_cache folder like the streaming version of LP3.</p><p><a href="http://launch.soe.com/eq2" target="_blank">[EQII] LaunchPad</a></p></blockquote><p>Thank you, I will try this one instead. I THINK I tried it last night, there was a 5 GB download upfront - but the "PAK" folder only contains the same handful of files that the streaming patcher had.</p><p>I will try a fresh install today and see what happens.</p>

Morghus
04-07-2011, 05:40 PM
<p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been  using the original launchpad (LP1) since I bought the game, and I just switched to the new non-streaming patcher, and so far I have some rather harsh criticism.</p><p>There doesn't really appear to be a progress bar.</p><p>There is no update notes button.</p><p>It doesn't seem to tell you what you are downloading.</p><p>It seems to cause a much larger amount of hard drive chugging/noise when scanning.</p><p>It seems slower at downloading and scanning, much slower.</p><p>When I used the streaming client/patcher on beta it even seemed to cause the game executable to eat up more memory.</p><p>It seems to chew up a lot more memory while scanning than LP1, it also appears to drastically reduce overall internet browsing speed while scanning even though it is slower than LP1.</p><p>Overall, it's slow, it's clunky, it's ugly, it's more memory abusive, and should be rebranded as LP - (negative) 3 in my opinion. The only thing it currently has going for it is the ability to save login information. Everything else feels like a downgrade.</p><p>It feels like an application that is either in the beta or alpha stage and the player base should not be "subjected" to it until it is in an acceptable state.</p></blockquote><p>The LP3 scan feature is much more in depth and identifies much more missing or corrupt data than any previous iteration of our patcher.  I don't see the reduction in browsing speed as being an issue considering it is very thoroughly inspecting over 12GB of data at this point. </p><p>Not sure what is 'slow' about it other than the scan method which is reasonable slower considering its doing much more and capable of repairing much more.</p><p>The executable for this game barely takes any resources to maintain.  What is using up more memory is the larger and new game files present when an expansion or update is on the horizon such as you would see within a Beta server.  Many code optimizations occur, in-game features are added and/or removed, leaving the Live client much different than what the beta client had.  </p><p>I don't understand the term memory abusive in this context.  The LaunchPad uses less than 5MB of memory more than the previous iterations of the patcher.  The game itself has grown with content and features and as such requires more memory while you play depending on your settings but that has very little to do with the patch method at that point.</p></blockquote><p>The main thing I am noticing and getting irritated by is "hard drive" thrashing/chugging, which is incredibly loud and with the new scanning procedure, takes a large amount of time to finish.</p><p>And the overall responsiveness from the launchpad during that process borders on the behavior of a program that has stopped responding.</p><p>It is affecting my computer's memory access, in that when it finishes everything loads up slowly because of the memory it had been using up for the process.</p><p>I also, am disappointed in the lack of a quick-scan feature, so that I could theoretically leave the launchpad up over night, click quick-scan and receive the next days new update quickly instead of having to restart the patcher or do another full scan.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-07-2011, 05:49 PM
<p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been  using the original launchpad (LP1) since I bought the game, and I just switched to the new non-streaming patcher, and so far I have some rather harsh criticism.</p><p>There doesn't really appear to be a progress bar.</p><p>There is no update notes button.</p><p>It doesn't seem to tell you what you are downloading.</p><p>It seems to cause a much larger amount of hard drive chugging/noise when scanning.</p><p>It seems slower at downloading and scanning, much slower.</p><p>When I used the streaming client/patcher on beta it even seemed to cause the game executable to eat up more memory.</p><p>It seems to chew up a lot more memory while scanning than LP1, it also appears to drastically reduce overall internet browsing speed while scanning even though it is slower than LP1.</p><p>Overall, it's slow, it's clunky, it's ugly, it's more memory abusive, and should be rebranded as LP - (negative) 3 in my opinion. The only thing it currently has going for it is the ability to save login information. Everything else feels like a downgrade.</p><p>It feels like an application that is either in the beta or alpha stage and the player base should not be "subjected" to it until it is in an acceptable state.</p></blockquote><p>The LP3 scan feature is much more in depth and identifies much more missing or corrupt data than any previous iteration of our patcher.  I don't see the reduction in browsing speed as being an issue considering it is very thoroughly inspecting over 12GB of data at this point. </p><p>Not sure what is 'slow' about it other than the scan method which is reasonable slower considering its doing much more and capable of repairing much more.</p><p>The executable for this game barely takes any resources to maintain.  What is using up more memory is the larger and new game files present when an expansion or update is on the horizon such as you would see within a Beta server.  Many code optimizations occur, in-game features are added and/or removed, leaving the Live client much different than what the beta client had.  </p><p>I don't understand the term memory abusive in this context.  The LaunchPad uses less than 5MB of memory more than the previous iterations of the patcher.  The game itself has grown with content and features and as such requires more memory while you play depending on your settings but that has very little to do with the patch method at that point.</p></blockquote><p>The main thing I am noticing and getting irritated by is "hard drive" thrashing/chugging, which is incredibly loud and with the new scanning procedure, takes a large amount of time to finish.</p><p>And the overall responsiveness from the launchpad during that process borders on the behavior of a program that has stopped responding.</p><p>It is affecting my computer's memory access, in that when it finishes everything loads up slowly because of the memory it had been using up for the process.</p><p>I also, am disappointed in the lack of a quick-scan feature, so that I could theoretically leave the launchpad up over night, click quick-scan and receive the next days new update quickly instead of having to restart the patcher or do another full scan.</p></blockquote><p>The scanning process may be intensive on the file level but it wouldn't cause your hard drive to behave in a way it shouldn't in and of itself.  What that sounds like is an issue wiht your hard drive or a incredibly fragmented drive.  In any case, it's hard drive noise so let's take a look at what's wrong with that hard drive.</p><p>The overall responsiveness during a process you aren't supposed to interrupt has a very low priority on the list of things to fix here.</p><p>I mean I can see the convenience gained by not having to restart the patcher... but again, not very high on the priority list unless theres an issue that you and I can troubleshoot together because of an existing problem that is causing an issue with being able to restart the patcher or something a long those lines.</p><p>The memory problem is something that is known and being worked on but it has nothing to do with the LP3 and requires further memory optimizations within the game itself.  Definitely a problem that needs to be addressed, just not an LP3 problem specifically.</p><p>With all of that said, your feedback is still valid and I do relay it to the appropriate parties regardless of what is discussed after you report it.</p>

Morghus
04-07-2011, 06:01 PM
<p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been  using the original launchpad (LP1) since I bought the game, and I just switched to the new non-streaming patcher, and so far I have some rather harsh criticism.</p><p>There doesn't really appear to be a progress bar.</p><p>There is no update notes button.</p><p>It doesn't seem to tell you what you are downloading.</p><p>It seems to cause a much larger amount of hard drive chugging/noise when scanning.</p><p>It seems slower at downloading and scanning, much slower.</p><p>When I used the streaming client/patcher on beta it even seemed to cause the game executable to eat up more memory.</p><p>It seems to chew up a lot more memory while scanning than LP1, it also appears to drastically reduce overall internet browsing speed while scanning even though it is slower than LP1.</p><p>Overall, it's slow, it's clunky, it's ugly, it's more memory abusive, and should be rebranded as LP - (negative) 3 in my opinion. The only thing it currently has going for it is the ability to save login information. Everything else feels like a downgrade.</p><p>It feels like an application that is either in the beta or alpha stage and the player base should not be "subjected" to it until it is in an acceptable state.</p></blockquote><p>The LP3 scan feature is much more in depth and identifies much more missing or corrupt data than any previous iteration of our patcher.  I don't see the reduction in browsing speed as being an issue considering it is very thoroughly inspecting over 12GB of data at this point. </p><p>Not sure what is 'slow' about it other than the scan method which is reasonable slower considering its doing much more and capable of repairing much more.</p><p>The executable for this game barely takes any resources to maintain.  What is using up more memory is the larger and new game files present when an expansion or update is on the horizon such as you would see within a Beta server.  Many code optimizations occur, in-game features are added and/or removed, leaving the Live client much different than what the beta client had.  </p><p>I don't understand the term memory abusive in this context.  The LaunchPad uses less than 5MB of memory more than the previous iterations of the patcher.  The game itself has grown with content and features and as such requires more memory while you play depending on your settings but that has very little to do with the patch method at that point.</p></blockquote><p>The main thing I am noticing and getting irritated by is "hard drive" thrashing/chugging, which is incredibly loud and with the new scanning procedure, takes a large amount of time to finish.</p><p>And the overall responsiveness from the launchpad during that process borders on the behavior of a program that has stopped responding.</p><p>It is affecting my computer's memory access, in that when it finishes everything loads up slowly because of the memory it had been using up for the process.</p><p>I also, am disappointed in the lack of a quick-scan feature, so that I could theoretically leave the launchpad up over night, click quick-scan and receive the next days new update quickly instead of having to restart the patcher or do another full scan.</p></blockquote><p>The scanning process may be intensive on the file level but it wouldn't cause your hard drive to behave in a way it shouldn't in and of itself.  What that sounds like is an issue wiht your hard drive or a incredibly fragmented drive.  In any case, it's hard drive noise so let's take a look at what's wrong with that hard drive.</p><p>The overall responsiveness during a process you aren't supposed to interrupt has a very low priority on the list of things to fix here.</p><p>I mean I can see the convenience gained by not having to restart the patcher... but again, not very high on the priority list unless theres an issue that you and I can troubleshoot together because of an existing problem that is causing an issue with being able to restart the patcher or something a long those lines.</p><p>The memory problem is something that is known and being worked on but it has nothing to do with the LP3 and requires further memory optimizations within the game itself.  Definitely a problem that needs to be addressed, just not an LP3 problem specifically.</p><p>With all of that said, your feedback is still valid and I do relay it to the appropriate parties regardless of what is discussed after you report it.</p></blockquote><p>Fair enough. I am simply calling it as I see it having gone from LP1 to LP3 after using LP1 for years, regardless of facts it simply doesn't "feel" like much of an improvement so much as an excuse to have a "prettier" launcher versus a not so pretty launcher that simply does what it is meant to, quickly and efficiently.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-07-2011, 07:06 PM
<p>The bottom line is that you are free to use whichever you want to use.  We will fix game breaking issues with Station Launcher from the development end.  What is limited is support from the technical support (me) end.  </p><p>LP3 works great for many people, and not at all for some.  Likewise with Station Launcher.  In fact, this discussion is very similar to the discussions that occurred as the release of Station Launcher approached.  If it doesn't work for you, try another launcher while we fix it from the backend.  We're not abandoning it any time soon but there are an increasing number of unsolvable (again, from the tech support end) issues with Station Launcher that you may eventually run in to.</p>

miragian
04-08-2011, 09:48 PM
I appreciate the fast response regarding my concerns. Any plans to integrate the ability of the station launcher to chat with people from outside the game (it's useful for those laptop/netbooks that can't run the game itself) or for that matter the ability that use to exist to chat with your guild while out of the game? Granted not exactly an existing launcher feature.

Ndaara
04-09-2011, 05:02 AM
<p>Delightfully, the "Full" version of LP3 is working GREAT for me! Snappy zoning so far (only a handful of times but hey, no troubles at all) and the game is running better than ever. This is excellent news and I'm very pleased. Also, I already knew I needed to reinstall windows xp on that machine, I just was dreading it... After seeing the results of a fresh EQ2 installation, I am (almost) looking forward to it.</p><p>So... One final question - with Station Launcher, I just leave it running most of the time and it keeps things updated. Can I do exactly the same thing with the "Full" LP3? It does not add itself to the system tray so I am not sure if the functionality is the same or if I need to do something differently.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-11-2011, 05:10 PM
<p><cite>Ndaara@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Delightfully, the "Full" version of LP3 is working GREAT for me! Snappy zoning so far (only a handful of times but hey, no troubles at all) and the game is running better than ever. This is excellent news and I'm very pleased. Also, I already knew I needed to reinstall windows xp on that machine, I just was dreading it... After seeing the results of a fresh EQ2 installation, I am (almost) looking forward to it.</p><p>So... One final question - with Station Launcher, I just leave it running most of the time and it keeps things updated. Can I do exactly the same thing with the "Full" LP3? It does not add itself to the system tray so I am not sure if the functionality is the same or if I need to do something differently.</p></blockquote><p>At this time, LP3 only checks for new patches when a scan is run or when you log in initially.  Automatic updates is something already requested through feedback so we'll see what the future updates include but I don't know of any immediate plans to include that functionality at this time.</p>

Mysstie
04-12-2011, 02:48 AM
<p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>At this time, LP3 only checks for new patches when a scan is run or when you log in initially.  Automatic updates is something already requested through feedback so we'll see what the future updates include but I don't know of any immediate plans to include that functionality at this time.</p></blockquote><p>I see no point for automatic updates.. (because I don't want another background process running on my PC). Trust me, you guys will get a lot of hate mail if you do and make it something not easily disabled. If you do go down this path, it better be optional and disabled by default. I only want the game to update itself when I specifically start the launcher to patch and then run the game. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

Ndaara
04-12-2011, 06:08 AM
<p>Adding the auto update functionality would be FANTASTIC! While I agree I want to be able to control that behavior, having it available would be great. As long as I get to control them, background processes can be nifty. I get it if you don't want to use it, but please don't prevent ME from having it available! I often have little 15 or 20 minute smidgeons of time available for playing this game and it annoys me to wait for a patch on one computer while the other one can log straight in. (such as for the faction quests in Thurgadin recently, OMG what a pain in the neck to wait for the patching when I was not used to it...)</p><p>Where would I go to offer feedback on the launchers? I have some strong opinions about them and while I understand THIS is not the right place for it - I am not sure what IS!</p>

Wingrider01
04-12-2011, 09:29 AM
<p><cite>Mysstie@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>At this time, LP3 only checks for new patches when a scan is run or when you log in initially.  Automatic updates is something already requested through feedback so we'll see what the future updates include but I don't know of any immediate plans to include that functionality at this time.</p></blockquote><p>I see no point for automatic updates.. (because I don't want another background process running on my PC). Trust me, you guys will get a lot of hate mail if you do and make it something not easily disabled. If you do go down this path, it better be optional and disabled by default. I only want the game to update itself when I specifically start the launcher to patch and then run the game. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>automatic updates go all the way back to EQ1, the patcher untilized the microsoft BITS transfer service routines (same exact service that the ms windows update routine uses), the orignal patcher for eq2 also utilized this fucntionaility if you did not opt out of it in the options.</p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-12-2011, 04:46 PM
<p>We'll just have to wait and see what the future updates to the LaunchPad will have <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

Mysstie
04-13-2011, 05:16 AM
<p><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mysstie@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>At this time, LP3 only checks for new patches when a scan is run or when you log in initially.  Automatic updates is something already requested through feedback so we'll see what the future updates include but I don't know of any immediate plans to include that functionality at this time.</p></blockquote><p>I see no point for automatic updates.. (because I don't want another background process running on my PC). Trust me, you guys will get a lot of hate mail if you do and make it something not easily disabled. If you do go down this path, it better be optional and disabled by default. I only want the game to update itself when I specifically start the launcher to patch and then run the game. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>automatic updates go all the way back to EQ1, the patcher untilized the microsoft BITS transfer service routines (same exact service that the ms windows update routine uses), the orignal patcher for eq2 also utilized this fucntionaility if you did not opt out of it in the options.</p></blockquote><p>Hmm... I don't remember EQ1 ever having automatic updates during the time I played it.. just the same kind of launcher/patcher that EQ2 has now. But then, I quit playing EQ1 long time ago.. last time I logged into it I was like 10 expansions behind or something LOL, and, apparently, I started playing EQ2 after they quit using it. </p><p>Anyway, I'm one of these people that has Windows' Automatic Updates turned off (after some experiences with certain updates rendering some applications in-operative at work several years ago).  I do manually check once a week though. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

TSR-JoshuaM
04-14-2011, 11:05 AM
<p>I prefer to have automated processes disabled whenever I can help them but this is a widely requested feature and while I can't say it's definitely headed for LP3 down the line, what I can say with certainty is that our LaunchPad developer is very aware of how requested it is!</p>