be specific to this particular time only.
After you do what peterigz said for log in, you will immediately notice that all your window positions and settings are back to default, and all your socials are gone. Thats because EQ knows you're on a different server and so created new configuration files (with default settings) specific to that server. EQ was set up to be that way from day one (March 1999) so that going from server to server (each of which may have different rules and different drops) would not have data clash. Thats why, when you look at your toon's configuration files in your EQ folder, that you see server names as part of the file names.
You'll still have all your equipment and spells because you are playing on a copy of your "original" toon. The stuff you have will be dependent on when the copy was made, and so the copy could be a few hours or a few days "behind" the original. Keep in mind that because it IS just a copy, on another server, nothing you do and nothing you loot will effect your original back on the live THF server.
If you don't want to manually rearrange and reset your toon, there is an alternative...
There are several possible toon configuration files that will have both your toon and the server name in the filename. Using my mage Jaton as and example, they are:
- Jaton_THFTEST.ini: this has mostly test buttons, socials, spell loadouts and the blocked spell list.
- UI_Jaton_THFTEST.ini: this has mostly windows and window positions/settings.
- BZR_Jaton_THFTEST.ini and .txt: this is your bazaar data. It stores item IDs, prices and other stuff from when you go
into trader mode. Unless you have been selling items in the test server, you will not see these files.
- CJ_Jaton_THFTEST.hdr and .txt: this is your NPC Journal file. You can see it in game with Alt-J. Mine is empty.
- GN_Jaton_THFTEST.ini: I forgot what this is. Mine is empty.
Both CJ and GN are in your Everquest--> Userdata folder. The others are in your main EQ folder.
You will want to have all the data that is in the THFTEST files to the same as it is in the HiddenForest files. Let me clarify...you will not be files together...you will REPLACING the THFTEST files with the HiddenForest files but giving them the THFTEST name. Example:
UI_Shadome_HiddenForest.ini
UI_Shadome_THFTEST.ini
Both these files are in my EQ folder. The contents inside them are exactly the same. When I log my sk Shadome into the regular server, EQ will use the HiddenForest file. When he logs into the test server, EQ will use the THFTEST file.
If you are an MQ2 user, your MQ2 folder will have one file for each toon that is similar to how EQ does it.
HiddenForest_Shadome.ini
These files are created when you do your initial MQ2 setup...when you first log on, you type /mac setup. Just do the same thing in the test server for each toon.
If you want to use the MQ2 autologin, thats easy too.
Code: Select all
[Servers]
;HiddenForest=The Hidden Forest [ www.thehiddenforest.org ]
HiddenForest=The Hidden Forest [Test Server]
Note the semicolon in front...that tells MQ2AutoLogin to ignore it. When you are ready to come back to the regular server, move the semi-colon to the front of the other entry. Also note: this works for players running the mqemulator.org version of MQ2 in the RoF2 client, and are using the direct THF server logon. It may not work in other circumstances.
Like peterigz says, when you get to the Forest, look for Voodek to get into Valdeholm. He's over by Sune. He's a big Kael giant...you can't miss him (is there a Kael giant illusion for players in THF? Should there be one? Hmm...). You can go thru his two-click dialog or simply target him and /say ready.
For players that were not here for the xmas event, I wrote a couple posts about the zones and their quests.
For players that were here...make sure to get your mez stick and Dreekin's out of your bank and put it in inventory. The Icy Wand of Beltron will once again be your friend.
The Valdeholm zone looks normal from the map, and the npc's at the entrance seem to say the same dialog, but I
don't know if the programming/drops are the same throughout the zone as I did not venture into the city.
The expedition part starts with Noble Wraithguard Fluum. He is way down in the frozen lake, to the left of the bridge, in a temple structure. During the xmas event, when you hailed him, he would offer three Tiers of Frostcrypt and would immediately zone the hailing toon to the one chosen. But now, he pops up an Expedition window for your whole group just like when doing an LDON. The expeditions have a 1 hour lockout timer, I guess to limit farming. Being locked out of one Tier locks you out of the other two as well. The hotkey for the Expedition window is Alt Z. For those of you
that have AMD Ryzan graphics cards, using Alt Z may instead bring up the status window of the graphics card front end drivers window. So you'll have to edit the settings either there or in EQ. If you elect to change in EQ, the Expedition hotkey is in Alt-O --> Keys. Its not called Expedition Window in the hotkey list though, cause I guess Sony thought thought that would be too easy. Instead, its Dynamic zone window toggle. Why? I don't know.
I hate to get off onto a tangent, but if you find yourself with that problem...if you find you need to change a hotkey in EQ and you are boxing, then you will find that changing it in one toon will NOT effect the other toons that are presently logged in. You will have to separately change it in every toon. Thats because keymapping, like the zone
maps, are loaded into memory when you log in a toon. When you make a change, that change is only seen in that particular toon's memory space...the change is not transmitted to the memory spaces of other toons. Also, that change is not written to harddrive until that toon has logged all the way out to desktop. If you don't want to edit all your toons, then you need to first log off all the boxes, then log off the editing toon (which will then write the change to harddrive), then log all your toons back in. Data like keymapping and zone maps are kept in common files, not separate toon files. In this case, the hotkey for the Expedition window is in eqclient.ini.
Anyways...
It looks like the expedition function is mostly to keep track of farming bosses. It will have a list of the
lockout timers of the bosses within the particular instance of the zone you are in. If you've killed nothing, then
only the timer associated with the zone itself will be listed.
The trash are the same as I remember...the more there are in a group that have agroed you, the tougher they are
to kill and the harder they hit. For me, my reasonableness limit is three. More than that I use the mez stick,
which is often. Its a never-fail 30 second AoE mez. It works excellently on trash but not on bosses. And, unfortunately, it only works in Frostcrypt. Hmmm...not sure if I ever tried it in Valdeholm.
