Classic Darkness bug reports & feedback
 

Hi all,

The Classic Nighttime lighting rework is going live with the next patch. This thread will serve as the main place for feedback and bug reports.


What is changing?

• Advanced Lighting will be forced on for all clients.
• Nighttime and unlit indoor zones will be dramatically darker for races without Infravision and Ultravision.
• Ultravision will have a significantly stronger blue tint in dark areas.
• The intensity of dynamic light sources has been reduced due to player feedback. (EC tunnel is still very bright when crowded, but should be less like staring into the sun.)
• Stars have been removed from all night skies.
• Day/night cycles have been restored to foggy outdoor zones.

What is the intent behind these changes?

The restoration of "extreme darkness" as a significant game mechanic, as it was in classic Everquest. Any race without access to Infra or Ultra-vision should find it difficult (or impossible) to navigate dark areas without the aid of a light source.


What kind of feedback is useful?

The p1999 team is mostly looking for quantitative feedback. We understand that forcing Advanced Lighting on will be an unpopular decision with a minority of players, but we believe that the advantages (truly dark nights) outweigh the disadvantages (some people think it looks kinda poopy.)

Examples of good feedback:

• Lighting appears glitchy in <area> as <race> with <equipped item>.
• My framerate tanks in <some circumstance>.
• Ultravision functions improperly in <zone>.

Examples of feedback that is unlikely to change anybody's mind:

• I hate advanced lighting! It sucks!
• Advanced lighting isn't classic!
• It's too dark in Toxxulia and I don't like it!

Please note that feedback about crappy framerates has been heard loud and clear and we are actively working on a resolution. It is not expected that people should have to suffer poor performance due to this change. However, users with exceptionally old hardware may be beyond our ability to help.

Thank you in advance for helping test on the Green beta server! The more eyes we can get on this, the quicker we can address issues that crop up.

https://i.imgur.com/NOECI0s.gif
I wear sunglasses at night.

This is kew.

Classic didn't have stars in the sky? Why don't I remember that? Feels like I have been looking at stars in that sky since I could remember.

But, I don't remember too well.

According to Telin, stars are not classic, so I disabled them at his request.

The bigger reason they are being removed is a complex problem related to the day/night cycle and foggy zones. Basically, stars are incompatible with having the time of day actually change in Everfrost, Toxx, Nektulos, Gfay, etc, and so we would be removing them even if they were classic.

Cool. Whatever works man. :)

They didn’t come until Omens of War expansion with the “enhanced” sky, particles, weather, and lighting effects.

those hi-rez asteriks stars def not in my memory, fully support

Were you able to eliminate the quirk where adjusting far-clip plane was causing the light sources' effective radius to change?

Danth

YAY!!!