Changes on Test - an issue?

[rogues]

*** Test Server Highlights ***

Changes have been made to the way the client is notified about other entities (players, NPCs, etc.) in the zone. Watch for any problems related to zoning, teleporting, and players or NPCs coming in and out of your actor clip range.

Also, we’d like feedback if you notice any performance differences in zoning, memory usage, etc. This change is the first of two phases. More will be coming soon.


*** Items ***

- Added new spell drops to Meldrath’s Majestic Mansion.
- Increased the drop rate slightly for some spells in Crystallos.
- Added recommended and required levels to some trade skill drops to help clarify their use. This does not change their actual use as trade skill containers do not pay attention to the recommended and required levels of items put in them.
- Added a set of new vendors that sell many of the spell research components. The cost of these have been adjusted so that they sell to an NPC closer to the price it cost to make them, but merchants will sell them at a premium. This means that you can save money while gaining skill. Also when you make spell combines you can choose between saving money, or saving time. You save money by making the sub-combines yourself, you save time by buying them.
- Chromatic focus is now available for slot 12 augments for Cultural armor.


*** NPC ***

- Ralfin in Bloodmoon keep will now cast his heal spell less frequently.


*** AA ***

- Added Rangers to the Critical Affliction line of AAs.
- Implemented AA Experience point scaling. You will now gain AA Experience at different rates based on how many AA you have currently earned.


*** Miscellaenous ***

- Situation where double length timer was given on events has been fixed. Occurred specifically to people who dropped out of the expedition and hadn't been kicked out of the zone yet.


*** UI ***

- The tracking window can now be sorted alphabetically and reverse-alphabetically. Also, it now updates automatically ever six seconds.
- Our UI xml schema has changed. If you are using a custom UI you may need to update this file in your custom UI directory.

- Changed -

SIDL.xml
EQUI_FindLocationWnd


- The EverQuest Team


Sounds a little like they're trying to change what the EQ client is notified about. I'm assuming showeq doesn't work on test. Is there more word about these changes than what's here? Hopfully I'm just jumping the gun.

[rogues]

guess not, here's Rashere's responses on the sony forums:

It's more a secondary aspect of the changes that prompted the feedback on performance. It's not specfically anti-hacking, though there are some aspects that will limit the usefulness of some 3rd party apps.
To explain a bit more, the client doesn't really need to know about the whole zone at any particular time. It needs to know about what is around your PC and areas your PC is likely to move to next. Everything else is basically wasted information so this change is to not send the information the client doesn't need to know about. By itself, this change won't do too much, but it ties into other changes we're making which could have a significant impact on performance.
Rashere
and

It ties into the changes mentioned with not sending down all the info in a zone. With those changes, NPCs that died while outside the awareness range of the PC would still show up as living on the track list until the information is next updated. The obvious solution is to just update the info periodically. What's the downside you're worried about?
The track window retains its current sorting and position through updates if that is the concern.
Rashere

[CeleSEQ]

Hmm, that doesn't look too promising. SEQ would change a lot in usefulness if that happens, although it still might be handy sometimes. Knowing how EQ handles z-axis, it still might be somewhat useful, especially in vertical zones.