Preparing for Beta

4 Easy Steps

This tutorial is to assume EverQuest is installed in the correct location located at:
C:\Users\Public\Daybreak Game Company\Installed Games\EverQuest

Step 1: Purchase the Expansion

Visit EverQuest.com for more information.

PreRequisite

  • After you have purchased the latest expansion, Login to the EverQuest Live Server you play on, with the Character you are planning on using on Beta.
  • Place the items on your character from your shared bank, platinum, etc. of what you want copied – Shared bank does NOT get copied.
  • Once ready, type in this Command in Chat: ONLY DO THIS COMMAND ONCE! Otherwise, your character will be copied over 2x and it will be overwritten from a new copy.

    /beta

  • You will get this text after the command.

    <SERVER> This character is now a candidate for EverQuest Beta Testing. If you are selected, your character may be copied (not moved) to a Beta Test Server. There is no need to use this command again on this character. If you wish to make another character eligible for Beta Testing as well, please switch to that character and use /BETA again. Thank you!

Goal & Important Notes

  • At the end of this Tutorial you will have 2 folders when you are done:

    EverQuest
    EverQuest Beta

    These are 2 separate installations that you can have both running at the same time, if you wish.

  • You will be using your Character’s UI & Hotkey files from your Live server, to be used for Beta, once renamed correctly – there will be 2 files in total.

    Note: If you already have Beta from last year, with Beta Character UI/Hotkey files, they are outdated and will not work for your newly copied character from the Live server! Be sure to update your files!

  • In Step 4, it will explain that you will need to create a GINA Character for Beta if you do not already have one made from the previous year. Forget how? Visit the GINA Installation page for help. Just use that information to point to your EverQuest Beta/logs for your Beta toon.
    As always, this is YOUR responsibility to have that working prior to raiding.
  • If you need help, you can contact Drakah (me) during the week, several days BEFORE raiding. If you have issues the night OF raiding, then you are not taking this seriously and you can sit out of raiding for the night until you are correctly setup.

Do you already have Beta installed from last year?

If you already have Beta from last year, then great! This will be easier for you.

Be sure you have already purchased the New Expansion and have logged into the Live Server to do your /beta command on the character you intend to use on Beta. Then, Update/Patch EverQuest Beta! Just do not login yet…

You need to update your Beta Character UI/Hotkey files, as they are outdated and will not work for your newly copied character from the Live server. Do not have EverQuest running when making any edits to INI files.

 

UI Interface:

  • Copy the UI_Yourname_servername_CLASS.ini from EverQuest folder to EverQuest Beta folder, and Replace/Rename: UI_Yourname_beta_CLASS.ini

Hotkeys:

  • Copy your Yourname_servername_CLASS.ini from EverQuest folder to EverQuest Beta folder, and Replace/Rename: Yourname_beta_CLASS.ini

Maps:

  • Ask your guildmates for a new Map-Pack for the expansion. Be sure you installed/updated the Maps into your EverQuest\Maps folder correctly.

GINA:

  • Be sure you have a Beta toon charcter listed in GINA. This is your responsibility to have this working prior to Raiding. You need to ENABLE the new expansion under “Raids” once you receive the new triggers on Beta. Forget how? Visit the GINA Installation page for help. If you need more help, you can contact Drakah (me) during the week, several days BEFORE raiding. If you have issues the night OF raiding, then you are not taking this seriously and you can sit out of raiding for the night until you are correctly setup.

Step 2: Create EverQuest Beta

Don’t bother installing a NEW copy, instead… Use what you have! It is QUICKER!

Copy the EverQuest Folder and rename it to EverQuest Beta. This should take around 15 minutes depending on your system. (See video)

It will look like this.

Then rename the folder to look like this.

IMPORTANT STEP:

FIND & DELETE eqhost.txt
before you go any further!
The patcher will NOT overwrite it and you will not be able to login.

Click the DOWNLOAD button above, and Install EverQuest Beta ON the folder you just created! GENIUS, right?
Be SURE the location of the install is correct.

C:\Users\Public\Daybreak Game Company\Installed Games\EverQuest Beta

Note: The installation will try to install Direct-X. UN-CHECK “Install Bing Bar” (is that even still a thing? OMG surprised) Since you already have Direct-X, it will fail, so just keep moving forward. After it is done, it will place an EverQuest Beta icon on your desktop.

EASY, RIGHT? We are almost done already!

Step 3: Rename your Character files for Beta

This will allow you to use your existing Interface layout & Hotkeys from the Live server to Beta.

Watch the video to see how easy this really is.

In the EverQuest Beta main directory, locate and Rename these 2 files. (Again, Do not have EverQuest running when making any edits to INI files.)

Your Interface layout starts with “UI_” in front of the file name. Your Hotkeys starts with your Character name (the file without the “UI_” in front of it).

1.  Rename: UI_Yourname_servername_CLASS.ini to UI_Yourname_beta_CLASS.ini

2.  Rename: Yourname_servername_CLASS.ini to Yourname_beta_CLASS.ini

If you find out your Interface and/or Hotkeys did not load when you loaded Beta, then you either might of renamed the file wrong or you were in some other directory. Just copy the 2 files from your EverQuest folder to the EverQuest Beta folder again and try again. Watch the video above that shows you the renaming.

Do you use in-game Audio Triggers? You can setup that too:

EverQuest Beta\userdata directory:

1.  Rename: AT_default_Yourname_servername_CLASS.ini to AT_default_Yourname_beta_CLASS.ini

2.  Rename: Yourname_servername_CLASS.ini to Yourname_beta_CLASS.ini

Launch EverQuest Beta!

It should look like this on the bottom left. Once logged in, your Log File “should” be running so you can now move to the final step for GINA. You can verify by checking to ensure you have a current log file under:

C:\Users\Public\Daybreak Game Company\Installed Games\EverQuest Beta\Logs

Ready to Play? Great!

If you are in Drakah’s raiding guild, be sure you have your Beta Character listed into GINA as per Step 4.

Step 4: Add Beta Character to GINA

You should have 2 characters in GINA. 1 for Live Server and 1 for Beta Server.

Please note: This information is written for the my raiding guild. However, you are welcome to follow the information if it helps you in your installation.

You will need to Add Character in GINA for your new beta character, if you have not done so already.

As always, there must be a log file already existing to do this. Log into Beta and you should see the new log file generated at:

C:\Users\Public\Daybreak Game Company\Installed Games\EverQuest Beta\Logs

If you do not, try typing the command:

/log on

and the text file should magically appear.

  1. In GINA, click on the “Add ” button, click the […] button in the Log File section, to point to your Beta log file for your character. This will create your character.
  2. Click on your charcter name on the left to show the check-boxes on the right and enable the new Beta expansion listed under Raids, when you receive them.

Forget how? Visit the GINA Installation page for help to go over this in more detail. As always, this is YOUR responsibility to have that working days prior to raiding! Not 10 minutes until engage.

General In-Game Beta Instructions:

Playing on the beta server will grant you a special reward for your live accounts and will help provide us with valuable feedback as we work to polish the expansion before launch.

Here is all the information you’ll need to help you get started with beta:

HOW DO I ACCESS THE BETA SERVER?

  • Use the beta launcher to access the beta server.
  • If you don’t already have the beta launcher, you can directly download it here. (There may be a lot of data for you to download, so please be patient and plan accordingly!)
  • Be sure to run the beta server LaunchPad shortcut every time before you log in. Failing to do so may cause you to experience crashes or gameplay issues that could be fixed by patching.

I KEEP GETTING A 1017 ERROR. HOW DO I FIX THAT?

  • What time is it? If between 5AM and 7AM PT, please wait until 7AM and update your client.. The automated update runs every morning that pushes out the latest to beta. If it’s not during our update time, make sure that you’ve updated your beta client and that in LaunchPad it’s still pointed to the “Beta” version.
  • Otherwise, Re-Download the beta install -> https://launch.daybreakgames.com/installer/EQ_Beta_setup.exe
    Run it using the Repair option when you run it, and be sure you have the EQ Beta folder selected.
    Don’t worry about the DirectX install, let it run, it will validate that DirectX is current and stop without making any changes.

HOW DO I COPY MY CHARACTER ONTO THE BETA SERVER?

  • Run /beta in your chat window on the character that you would like copied.
  • We’ve scheduled scripts that will copy characters to the beta server to run alongside the morning patch.
  • Please note that it can take several days for us to copy your character, depending on patches.

HOW DO I MAX LEVEL MY CHARACTER?

  • Hail Lorekeeper Antonov and say “MAX”.

HOW DO I RECEIVE MAX AA’s??

  • Hail Lorekeeper Antonov and say “ASK”. This will give you around 10k AA’s to spend on your character. After you log out, anything over the threshold will be removed.

HOW DO I RECEIVE MAX SPELLS?

  • Hail Lorekeeper Antonov. Not sure if you need do to the /spells command prior, or at all, but you should just be able to say “Rank One”, “Rank Two”, or “Rank Three”, depending which tier you want to get all your NEW spells.

HOW DO I USE THE /betabuff COMMAND?

  • We want people to be able to test the content with a variety of classes and levels. In order to give you that ability to test as much of the expansion as possible, we have created a /betabuff command.
  • To beta buff, use this command on a level 1 character: /betabuff
  • This command will only work if the character was created on the beta server and is level 1.
  • You should target your character to be Level 115 when the beta starts.

HOW DO I GET TO BETA ZONES?

  • When you get onto the beta server, create your character and head to the Plane of Knowledge and speak to Old Man Thorren.

HOW DO I GET FREE TEST GEAR AND OTHER IMPORTANT ITEMS?

  • Visit the Plane of Knowledge and click on Old Man Thorren, as he is a merchant as well. He has everything you need!
  • Perfected Augment Distillers.
  • Gate potions.
  • Trophies for your house (purchase a house in the neightborhood).
  • Beta Fish (Summons merchants for testing Augments and more).
  • Race/Gender change.
  • … and much more!

HOW LONG IS THE BETA?

  • The beta test is scheduled to end sometime in December before the launch of the expansion. However, this may be subject to change.

HOW CAN I LEAVE BETA FEEDBACK?
There are three methods for passing information to us about what you experience during the beta:

  • /bug command
  • Beta Forum
  • Beta Bug Reports Section in Forum

Starting a thread in the Beta Bug Reports section of the forums is the preferred way to submit bugs. You should search through pre-existing threads and like the top post on that thread if it is important to you. If you have additional information about the bug, please add a comment to the thread. If you cannot find your issue, please make a new thread. When creating a new thread, please make a new separate thread for each issue instead of including multiple things in one thread.
/bug is another way to report bugs. Bugs are gameplay features that do not work, spelling errors, or anything else that does not work as intended. Please give us as much detail about the bug as you can when reporting it.
You can also leave feedback, ask questions, or discuss topics on right here our Beta boards! For the most part, these boards should be used to discuss parts of the expansion that work properly, but that you would like to see changed. If you discover an item that you think should have less Wisdom (WIS) and more Intelligence (INT), post it here. If you think a certain encounter is too easy or too hard, post it here.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

  • DO NOT USE /claim or the loyalty merchant on beta. This is tied to your live account and will affect your claim items and loyalty crown balance on live.
  • Beta installs into a separate folder that will take up about the same amount of space as the live game version.
  • The beta server may not be accessible at all times, as patching will occur whenever it is necessary (and frequently between 5 AM and 7 AM PT, as mentioned above).
  • The beta server will get wiped periodically, meaning beta characters may be deleted with or without notice.
  • If you find yourself in dire need of assistance, you can use /petition to contact us for help. Please only petition if the situation is one that you can’t correct yourself. For example, if you used /betabuff to create a character and you have lost the corpse, there is no need to /petition. You can just log out, create a new character and use the /betabuff command again.
  • There is no Non-Disclosure Agreement specifically for this beta session. However, we would still prefer that beta-related discussions are kept in the beta forums so that we can keep track of and find information more easily.