Darq

It's Morning Again in Norrath

There's a ton of optimism and excitement today as EverQuest II launches its newest TLE server, Varsoon. It looks like a lot of players, both new and returning, are planning to set sail for the Shattere...

A Queue Tip

Most of the time you need the Onscreen Message to remain up and visible for a reasonable amount of time. Certain raid scripts, quest updates and NPCs display text in this area that doesn't also go into the Chat window. If your delay timer is set too short, you won't have enough time to read those ephemeral me...

DarqUI 2K/4K Group 21 Published

Part 3

Just in time for the new Varsoon TLE server, Character Creation and Character Select are now available in 2K and 4K size...

Red Player One

Update:  For now we're going to revert these two components back to their earlier versions.  According to reports from players, this feature may be the source of game crashes. We'll investigate and see if it can be rolled out in a different way. Thank you for your patience.

One of the...

Appearance Familiar Presets

What's better than a giant green frog with a buff following you around? A giant green frog that's really a black panther! There are several hundred Familiars to choose from, and some are, shall we say, easier on the eyes than others. We alr...

May Waypoints

There is magic in the old and magic in the new; the trick is to successfully combine the two.

                    ― A.D. Posey 

You'll notice that some of the items below involve future changes to th...

DarqUI v3.1.3.1

Old Dog, New Tricks

Since the 64-bit rollout appears to be scheduled for mid-summer, v3.1.3.1 will probably be the last utility that targets both 32- and 64-bit platforms. Up to now, everything DarqUI-...

Here We Go Again...

More new developments in the ongoing browser situation, and the borderless fullscreen game feature.

Browser

In a recent update Daybreak replaced the aging Awesomium browser with a Google product called CE...

DarqUI 2K/4K Group 20 Published

Part 3

Here are three odds-and-ends components that I've been wanting to get done for a while: Connection Stats, Achievement Cast and Breath Meter. All three are in the Extras package. Not sure what that's all about? Check out 2022-04-16 16:25:32 +0000 UTC View Post

Things Go Beta with DarqUI

Good grief, has there ever been a cheesier title for a post? As you know, we once again have an opportunity to log in to the Beta server, this time to try out the upcoming 64-bit game platform upgrade. So far I'm very optimi...

Weapons At the Ready!

For raiding, specifically raid leaders, EverQuest II offers some useful basic tools. About three years ago the Group/Raid Countdown window was introduced, providing raid leaders with a very visual way to marshal their forces on the pull with a common timer. The 2022-04-07 00:32:40 +0000 UTC View Post

It's the Little Things...

If you've been watching the news you know that EverQuest II will soon follow in the footsteps of its predecessor by converting to a 64-bit platform for servers and clients. The Beta server has already been converted, and off...

Learning from Lexus

The evolution of UX is not limited to digital applications. When I was a kid my grandparents had to reach across the seat of that mammoth Chrysler station wagon to unlock the passenger doors. Years later pretty much every vehicle came w...

On Further Examination...

Every now and then we experience a "gotcha" when the game developers make an undocumented game change that affects the custom UI in unexpected ways. The most famous instance to date has been surprise changes to the way spell casts are reported, resulting in a super-annoying stutter for players using earlier v...

April Waypoints

April showers bring... 

        ...more reasons to stay inside and explore Vetrovia!

As March comes to a close, all of the utility improvements proposed in last month's newsletter have been finalized and tested. Some new requests and tweaks have found ...

DarqUI 2K/4K Group 19 Published

Part 3

As promised, the Advanced LFG window is now available in L and XL sizes, and that will complete Group 19. Even though LFG doesn't seem to get much use, I did discover that players on the new Kael Drakkel server were giving it a go, and it makes sense to include it in this group along with the Com...

Breaking Camp

The new Camp Next feature has gotten some good reviews, but one requirement to make it work is not obvious. If you have wanted to try it out but it doesn't seem to do anything, most likely account name(s) and password(s) have not b...

Linux Helper

Over the past year and a half we've encountered a surprising number of Darq Side members who game on Linux computers.  Linux in all its different flavors is an operating system that's not for the faint of heart, but it's been growing rapidly in p...

March Waypoints

98% of Yugos are still on the road. The other 2% actually made it all the way home.

Just Browsing

The aging and not very useful in-game browser client disappeared when Visions of Vetrovia went l...

Tradeskill Mount and Gear Presets

• How it usually goes:

Open Tradeskills window
Start crafting
Realize that TS mount and gear set are not equipped
Panic
Interrupt crafting
Open Character window
Open Sidebar
Click Sets tab
Choose Tradeskill set
Click Equip
Open Mounts page
Choose Tra...

February Waypoints

And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been

                       ― Rainer Maria Rilke 

It looks like 2022 is starting out great in EverQuest II with a new 2022-01-29 00:14:43 +0000 UTC View Post

In-Depth: Maintained Spell Monitor

Here's some information that's been requested many times, most recently by Darq Side members Viktore and Lucutious. Take a few minutes and see if there's anything you didn't already know about the Maintained Spell Monitor!

An important new option was added to the monitor recently -- don...

It Went Off Without a Hitch

Recently Darq Side member Levaquin mentioned in Discord that he was seeing a momentary framerate drop, or "hitch," when initiating combat. I immediately thought back to previous troubles with the Maintained Spell Mo...

DarqUI 2K/4K: Group 18 Published

We haven't had a 2K/4K poll since the summer, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy preserving eyesight and reducing squinting all across Norrath.

Group 18, which is available now on the premium server, includes the Enemy List (aka Threat List) which was requested and play-tested by Darq Side membe...

A Big Turn-Off!

A year or so ago, the DarqUI Unified Notifications app was fitted with two new features to overcome some limitations in EverQuest II, namely the absence of a fullscreen windowed client display and an increasingly terrible in-game browser experience. The new DarqUI feature package was named the URL Helper, which you can find o...

A PlayerMessage Message

First, thank you for the very nice feedback on recently published features. I'm always gratified by how engaged and thoughtful our members tend to be. A question was asked about the new PlayerMessage popup -- can the background be transparent like the default Onscreen Message window? If you "fake" camp and tr...

Camp Next

Think of all the different reasons why we log in to each of our characters in sequence: daily quests, overseer missions, checking broker sales, updating character inventories, the list is long. You don't have to have dozens of characters to participate in this ritual. My main account only has about half a dozen characters and...