Future-Proofing My EQ Experience

[rainwalker]

Hey All,
First off, thank you for and great job on building this EQII emulation community!
I'm posting because I have a question or two about the future of this emulation project. I'm really big on 'future-proofing' my ability to play my games; that's why I came looking for an EQII emulator in the first place. Anyway, I only own the original EQII so I was wondering, first and foremost, if there is any intention to make the emulator compatible with the original game (if possible). Second, if there isn't any intention, how should I make the best of my circumstance? Do I have to sign up for that trial or is there some kind of patch or something I can download (I'm not a current subscriber) to make my original discs compatible with this emulator?
Thanks for your time!

[oghog]

The easiest way is to go out and purchase the RoK box from Bestbuy, Walmart etc. I dont think there are any plans to have the original version working with the EMU. The ROK box edition is the starting point from which the EMU has been coded.

[rainwalker]

Shoot. If this was my first time playing EQII, that would have been fine. But I already bought it once and found it to be pretty disappointing. I've hear RoK (and expansions) are a lot better but I don't want to drop any more money on it if I'm not sure I'm going to like it.
Thanks, though!

[rainwalker]

Ok, had a new thought.
I found a 3gb file called "EQ_2_trial.zip" here at fileplanet:
http://www.fileplanet.com/160695/160000 ... ree-trial)
It says in the description that it allows you to play Echoes of Faydwer, so, although my knowledge of EQ lore is quite rusty, I'm guessing that this is the trial installer discussed in this thread:
http://eq2emulator.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=117
If so, then this installer from fileplanet will hopefully provide an emulator-compatible EQII build. Am I on the right track so far?
Also, I'm currently using link2009's Sony Universal Product Patcher (located at this thread: http://eq2emulator.net/forums/viewtopic ... ht=patcher). It's downloading about 9gbs worth of EQII files. Would it be possible and/or a good idea to try to selectively add-in content from the 9gbs worth of files to the hopefully-compatible (but yet-to-be-tested) 3gb trial version, to make a customized, updated, full-featured EQII build which is also compatible with the emulator?
Just some food for thought I've read through the forum rules and I'm pretty sure (as supported by the previous posts which I linked to) that my discussion of these trial clients and compatibility concerns is legitimate and acceptable (and perhaps helpful!). My apologies if I'm wrong!
-rainwalker

[JCL]

The trial will update if you create an account and log in. If you use the patcher, it will patch to the latest as well. At this point there is no way to directly patch to the version the emu is at. You could wait for another emu update like some of us, or even buy Rise of Kunark.

[rainwalker]

Oh well, worth a try. Thanks for the info. Are there many of us without RoK waiting on a new build? Any ETA on it?

[John Adams]

It is not about releasing a new build when the live client gets updated. It's about validating the data structures to ensure SOE didn't move things around. The current server executable will work with any client from ROK+, but there is always a slight delay in this validation process after clients get updated.
Which is why we always recommend Emu players maintain a separate copy of EQ2 that does not ever touch SOE's site. I myself am stalled at build 4812L because it works for me. Why update?
Your situation is a little more dire. I can understand not wanting to plop down $50 US on a game you might not like. However, if you did not like EQ2 Live, you will likely not like EQ2Emu. It's the same game.