Release Dev build · DabDavis/eqoa-rust-client-vanilla

The newest build of master: 4c3242b, 2026-10-29 00:40 UTC: An entity is drawn as GetModel(): the second model a server sends, kept as Changed keeps it.

	with README and licence	the program alone
Linux (x86-64)	`eqoa-vanilla-linux-x86_64.tar.gz`	`eqoa-vanilla-linux-x86_64`
Windows (x86-64)	`eqoa-vanilla-windows-x86_64.zip`	`eqoa-vanilla-windows-x86_64.exe`
macOS (Apple silicon and Intel)	`eqoa-vanilla-macos.tar.gz`	`eqoa-vanilla-macos`

The program alone, on Linux and macOS, needs chmod +x after the download (a download is not kept runnable).

You need your own Frontiers disc image (SLUS-20744) and an account on a server; README.txt in each archive says how to run it, and the repository's README says more. Each push to master replaces this build: only the newest can be downloaded, and its notes below say what each build changed.

Update notes

2026-10-29 · A creature's second body (this build)

A server can send a creature or a player with a second body to show in place of its own (the live game did, for its upgraded models). This client now shows that body, and bumps into it, as the PS2 does: until now it always showed the first one.

2026-10-29 · Invisible walls stop you again

An invisible wall that the server puts up as a creature now stops you, as on the PS2. Sandstorm uses them to keep players out of a place until a quest lets them through, and this client let you walk straight through them: it made a creature solid only once it had a body to draw, and these have none.

2026-10-28 · No stand-in when you enter the world

When you enter the world or change worlds, a human man no longer stands in for your character for a moment before your own appears: the game draws you once the server has described you, as the PS2 does.

2026-10-28 · Steering with the mouse runs as the stick does; coaches with the menu open

Steering with the mouse (the right button held, or either button in first person) keeps your run as it is with the keys or a controller again. Since yesterday's update, a mouse that moved held your speed at what it was when the mouse began to move: from a stand you only crept forward until the mouse stopped, a run you let go of slid on, and on slopes your character sank into the ground going up and floated over it going down.
A coach, a boat or a port that moves you while the start menu or the inventory is open now closes it first and gives you your own camera back, as on the PS2. The camera had stayed in the menu's close-up of your character, and after opening and closing the menu again it sat at one angle round you instead of following behind you. Dying with the menu open is fixed the same way.
Problem reports (F3) now say how the connection to the server is doing, so a report from a world where no one else shows up tells whether the server still hears you.

2026-10-28 · GMs see their server's names for the TRIGGER entries

For GMs only, on a server that names its triggers (eqoaclassic): TEST, Programming, TRIGGER now shows each trigger's name where the PS2 shows eight lines all called TRIGGER. A trigger that is switched off is greyed out, and one that is going on now has a * after its name. A line with no trigger still says TRIGGER. Picking a line fires it as before. Every other player, and every other server, sees no change.

2026-10-28 · Goto Zone lands on the ground; fishing on eqoaclassic

The GM's Goto Zone (TEST, Navigation) now sets you down on the ground of the square you pick, as the PS2 does. It left you under the ground there, and you fell.
Fishing now works on eqoaclassic: buy a Fishing Pole from a Pole Merchant and a can of worms from the Tacklemaster beside him (Freeport's docks, the Oasis, Hazinak and more), wear both, face the water and say /fish (or use a weapon set that holds the pole).

2026-10-28 · Shadows under the characters, fishing, and the GM's TEST menu

Every character near the camera now has a shadow under its feet, as on the PS2: a soft dark patch on the ground, and on docks, counters and steps, fading where the ground falls away. Inside a building, as on the PS2, only the characters you could see through its doorways and openings cast one. Options, Extended, World, Shadows turns them off.
Spell lightning and weapon trails are drawn over the spells' sparks and the shadows, and under the rain and snow, in the PS2's order (they were drawn under the sparks).
Fishing works as on the PS2 on a server that offers it (none of ours does yet): the Fishing window, its power meter (✕ or the left stick to cast and throw), the catch list (Take All, one item, Leave All), its messages, and the splash on the water.
On a server that gives your account the game's GM channel, the start menu shows TEST first, as a GM's PS2 did, with its Buff PC and Goto windows. Every other player sees no change.
A full buddy list on the other side now says so ("Add buddy failed: Your buddy's buddy list is full."), and the game answers the server's connection check and its other housekeeping as a PS2 does. Your position goes to the server at the PS2's own rate (every 101.7 ms; it was 100).

2026-10-28 · You can run again after casting a spell

Since about 00:55 UTC this morning, casting a spell left you walking, unable to run, until you logged in again: you walk while you cast, and the game thought the cast never ended. The clock change below already cured it; the cast's timing is now kept the way the PS2 keeps it, so no clock can bring it back.
Dying now ends the slowed walk of a spell you were casting, as on the PS2.

2026-10-28 · The game's clock can no longer run out mid-session

The game's network clock now starts from a small number each time you log in, so it can never reach the size that stopped the loading screen this morning, and it no longer runs out on November 21 (it would have frozen the loading screen, the alarm and some windows' timing for anyone playing at that moment, until they logged in again). Nothing changes in how the game plays.

2026-10-28 · Entering the world no longer closes the game

Since about 00:55 UTC on October 28 the game closed itself as you entered the world, on every server, at the loading screen. Its turning gears were timed by a clock that counts milliseconds from the computer's date, and that count passed a size the gears' animation could not hold. The gears now keep a clock of their own, and no animation can step outside its frames any more, whatever its clock says.

2026-10-28 · Character select smooth at Render Scale x2 and x4, and HUD Nearest by default

With Render Scale at x2 or x4 (Options, Extended, Video), character select and the other screens before the world are smooth again. The HUD's Sharp filter (Extended, UI, HUD), which draws the menus' art, did far more work for each pixel than it needed, and those screens are covered in that art from edge to edge: at the larger scales a browser could fall below 30 frames a second there while Freeport, crowds and all, kept up. Sharp now does about a quarter of the work and looks exactly as before; the start menu's windows and the HUD in the world are lighter with it too.
HUD is back to Nearest by default, the PS2's own way of drawing the menus' and the HUD's art, which costs the least to draw. Sharp is still on that row for anyone who wants every texel of that art drawn evenly at any window size (if you had chosen it, choose it again).

2026-10-27 · The touch controls laid out as a PS4 controller

On a phone or tablet held sideways the on-screen controller is now laid out like a PS4 controller, with two sticks: the left one walks and the right one turns the camera. The d-pad sits above the left stick and the face buttons above the right one, L1/L2 and R1/R2 above those, Select and Start at the top in the middle, and L3 and R3 just above their sticks. Each stick starts where your thumb lands near it.
Held upright, the same controller sits along the bottom of the screen.
Every button now fits on the screen. In a phone's browser the bottom of the game used to sit under the browser's toolbar, which cut off the lowest buttons.
All the buttons stay on every screen, Station's login and the windows over the game among them. Over a window they are drawn a little fainter, and a tap anywhere off them still goes to the window.

2026-10-27 · Full screen in the browser, and the page as an app

In a browser the game now goes full screen as soon as you press Start: on an Android phone or tablet, and on a computer in Chrome, Edge or another Chromium-based browser. Escape is still the game's key there: tap it as always, and hold it to leave full screen. F11 still switches to a window and back.
On Android, if you leave full screen (the back gesture, another app), your next touch on the game puts it back.
With another window of the game open (multiboxing), Start leaves your windows as they are.
The page can be installed as an app. In Chrome and Edge an "Install EQOA as an app" button shows under Start once you have used the page a little; on an iPhone or iPad choose Add to Home Screen in the browser's Share menu (iPhones let no web page go full screen, so this is the way there). Started from your Home Screen or your apps it is full screen with none of the browser round it, and it keeps the game files it unpacks from your disc between visits, so it starts quicker.

2026-10-27 · Running and turning at the PS2's own speed, at any frame rate

Running, walking, turning and swimming now go exactly as fast as on a PS2, whatever your display's frame rate. Before, the higher the frame rate the faster you went: at 165 frames a second you ran about 5% faster and turned 6% faster than a PS2 player, and the speed also shifted a little with where you stood and which way you faced.
It is as smooth as before: the game still draws every frame your display shows. Only the movement underneath keeps the PS2's own 30 steps a second, and your character is drawn on the way between them, on the controls you hold that moment.

2026-10-27 · Character select shows your race's set alone, and your volume from the start

Character select and creation draw your race's own set and nothing past it, as the PS2 does: the other races' sets no longer show in the distance behind your character, and with them gone the screen draws much faster.
Your Fx and Music Volume are used from the very first sound: the loading pictures, the agreement and the title no longer play at full volume before your settings take hold.
In a browser on an iPhone or iPad, the disc image can be chosen: iOS greyed it out, as it knows no file type for a disc image. The page still checks that it is the right disc.

2026-10-27 · Updates with two windows open, and lighter fireballs

An update now goes through while another window of the game is still open on the version before. On Windows a running program can't be replaced, and the copy the last update set aside was still running in that window, so every look for an update failed ("Access is denied") until every window was closed. If yours has said it could not update, close every window of the game once and start it again.
Where the Lavastorm throws its fireballs (round Klick'Anon), each frame takes a little less of your computer: the client made 31 new buffers a frame for them, and now keeps its own.

2026-10-27 · A sharp HUD by default, and the world's textures smooth again

The HUD's and the windows' art is drawn sharp now unless you choose otherwise, every pixel the same size at any window size, as the text already was. Options > Extended > UI > HUD puts back the game's own look (Nearest).
Options > Extended > World > Textures is gone: the world's textures are drawn smooth, as the game draws them. Crisp did not suit them.

2026-10-27 · Render Scale, and a sharper HUD and textures if you want them

Options > Extended > Video > Render Scale: x2 or x4 draws the whole picture two or four times larger and shrinks it to fit your window, which smooths jagged edges, leaves, fences and thin things. x1, the default, is as before. x4 needs a good graphics card, and on a big window it draws at the most your card allows (the page tells you when it does).
Options > Extended > UI > HUD: Sharp draws the HUD's and the windows' art with every pixel the same size at any window size, the way Text: Sharp draws the letters. Nearest, the default, is the game's look.
Options > Extended > World > Textures: Crisp draws the world's walls, props, characters and plants sharp, each pixel of their textures a flat square. The ground, the sky, water and glows stay smooth, so roads still blend into grass and snow. Smooth, the default, is the game's look.
Text (Sharp or Smooth) is on the UI page now, beside HUD.

2026-10-27 · The map, the minimap and the extra bars are gone

This client keeps to the game: the additions it never had are taken out. Gone are the map (M) with its waypoints, group waypoints, XP camps, coaches, routes and community markers, the minimap (N), the quest markers, the quest tracker and the quest guide behind them, the Stats Box (B), the power bars under your group, your target and its target, and the Target of Target bar.
What a computer adds stays: widescreen, any frame rate, the mouse, the touch screen, the keyboard and the Controls page, controllers, several windows at once and the Extended options.
F still targets whomever your target is targeting: it is the game's Assist Target.
Your options, keys and buttons stay as you left them.

2026-10-27 · Multiboxing: a window in the back keeps its frame rate

On Windows, the game now asks Windows not to slow it down while its window is not in front (Windows 11 slows programs in the back to save power), so the box you are not playing keeps its frame rate. On a Mac it asks macOS not to put it to sleep in the back (App Nap) or bunch up its timers.
In a browser, the browser decides how fast a window in the back runs: on Windows 11, Task Manager's Efficiency mode (the green leaf) on the browser, or a power-saving power mode, can slow it.
A problem report now says how fast each window drew while it was in the back.

2026-10-27 · The page says when your browser is not using the graphics card

In the browser, if the game is being drawn without your graphics card (in software, as Windows' "Microsoft Basic Render Driver" does), the page now says so: on the start card, in a message at the top you can dismiss, and beside the frame rate in the corner while you play. The game runs slowly that way, whatever the settings. To fix it, turn on the browser's graphics acceleration (Chrome or Edge: Settings > System > "Use graphics acceleration when available", then relaunch the browser) and update your graphics card's driver.
The program does the same check, and says so in its log, which a problem report carries.

2026-10-27 · Network Setup: finishing the address takes you back to the title

On the title's Network Setup, finishing the server's address (Enter, or R2's End) now keeps it and goes straight back to the title, ready for Play. Before, the page stayed open and only △ (Escape) left it. An address that is not a server address is still refused with a message, and the page stays so you can fix it.
The small edit box you get when typing on a keyboard: its End and Cancel can now be clicked or tapped before you are in the world too (Network Setup, Station's login, a new character's name), as they already could in the world.

2026-10-27 · Tab picks targets as on a PS2 in a wide window

In a window wider than a TV's 4:3 (most monitors), Tab (R1 on a controller) now picks the next target in the same order a PS2 does: creatures in front of you and close come first, and ones off to the side later. Before, the wider the window, the less being off to the side counted, so a creature near the edge of the screen was often picked before one straight ahead.
Creatures you can only see because the window is wide can still be picked.

2026-10-27 · A waypoint for your whole group

On the map, hold □ (or Q) for a moment to put a waypoint for your whole group. Everyone in your group playing this client sees it on their map, minimap and compass, in orange, with your name under it on the map. A quick press of □ still puts your own magenta waypoint.
On a keyboard G does it at once, or hold Shift and click a spot; on a touch screen hold your finger on the spot. G can be moved on the Controls page.
It goes where □ would put yours: the middle of the map once you have moved the map, else on your target, else where you stand, to call the group to you.
It reaches your group as a line in the group's chat, so it works on any server and a player on a PS2 reads it too: "Dairine tells the group: Waypoint in Tunaria at x 24611, z 15502 near Freeport". One every few seconds.
The group's waypoint goes when you reach it, when the one who put it leaves the group or you do, or when you click it on the map. A newer one replaces it.

2026-10-27 · Waypoints and map suggestions on your target

With someone targeted and in view (a merchant, a quest giver, a creature), □ (Q) on the map puts your waypoint right on them; press it again to take it away. A white ring shows your target on the map.
Suggest (N, or L3 on a controller) takes your target's spot too, with their name already typed in for you to keep or change.
What you choose on the map still comes first: once you move the map, □ goes in its middle, and Suggest takes the spot you point at or a waypoint you just put. With no target, both work as before.

2026-10-27 · No more creatures fighting you while lying dead

A creature or a pet could come into view lying on the ground as if dead, then run after you and fight like that. It happened where many look alike, in a camp of one kind: when one came into sight just as a corpse of its kind went out of it, the game gave it the corpse's body. Each creature that comes into view now gets a body of its own, standing, as on a PS2.

2026-10-26 · Play on a phone or a tablet from the first screen

On a phone or a tablet you can now play from the very first screen: tap your way through the licence, the title, Station's login, the server list and character select and creation. ✕ △ ○ □ stay on screen the whole way, and in the world the whole on-screen pad is there as before.
In the browser, tapping a name or password box brings up your device's own keyboard. The game's on-screen keyboard still works too, by tapping its keys.
The update notes' Back and the failed update's Restart can now be clicked or tapped.
On a touch screen, the bug report's buttons now take a tap.

2026-10-26 · A Stats Box, and N for the minimap

A Stats Box: your stats (Str to Cha, AC, max HP and power, the resists) in a small box under your effect icons. A buff that raises a stat shows it in blue, a debuff that lowers one in red. It is off unless you turn it on: Options > Extended > UI > Stats Box, or press B. Click or tap it to open your Summary.
Press N to show or hide the minimap. Both keys can be moved, or given a controller button, on the Controls page.
Options > Extended: Text (Sharp or Smooth) is on the Video page now.

2026-10-26 · Spell visuals on yourself and on a target at once

On the Help match spell visuals page, "Lands on: the caster and a second human" plays a visual both ways at once: the human on the left casts it on itself while the one beside it casts it on a second human, so a buff, a debuff and a damage spell can be told apart without switching back and forth. The page remembers what you picked.
The training dummy is gone from that preview: its small size shrank what landed on it. A harmful spell now lands on a second human.
W and S step to the visual before and after in the list from anywhere on the page, the preview too, except while you type in a box.

2026-10-26 · A server's patch in the browser too

In the browser the game now takes the server's patch, as the program does: on Sandstorm, its damage colours, robes and armour, menus, words and the rest, where the page played every server as the plain disc before. The patch comes from the server's own website (https), so a server whose site serves its patch files gives it; one that does not is played as before.
The page keeps the patch between visits, so the next start fetches only what changed.

2026-10-26 · Community markers on the map

The map shows places other players suggested and a GM accepted: a pin each, coloured by what it marks (a landmark, a camp, a quest's place, a merchant, a way to travel, a danger), its name beside it when you zoom in, and what it is when you point at it. X hides them with the other markers. The list comes from eqoaclassic.com whichever server you play on, and is kept for a start with no connection.
Suggest one of your own: put your waypoint on the spot (a click on the map), or point at it, and press N (L3 on a controller, or the map's Suggest button). Type its name, then a note if you like; Enter sends it for a GM's approval, Escape sends nothing. The map says when it went.

2026-10-26 · Voice chat was only a test

Voice chat was only a test, and it is out of the game and the page: the voice chat window (O) and the microphone badge beside the minimap, the /voice commands, Voice Chat, Voice Demo and Voice Volume in Options > Extended > Sound, and the push-to-talk keys (V and N) on the Controls page.
The game asks nothing of your microphone any more. Your other options and keys are kept as they were.

2026-10-26 · A controller that turns up mid-game

On Windows the game no longer stops when a controller turns up while it runs (Steam can make one as a window comes to the front, and two pads made it likelier): until Windows has finished connecting it, the game passes over what it sends, and reads it from then on.

2026-10-26 · New swings at once, Extended's menu

A level reached while you play counts for your swings at once: at 20 and at 35, where a round gains hits, your character swings the new round straight away instead of after you log out and in again.
Options > Extended's menu has room for all eight of its parts: Quests no longer sits on top of Select and Back.
A problem or crash report says which version you are on and what the game found when it last looked for a new one, so a game that stops updating itself tells us why; a crash report also carries only that run's own details.

2026-10-26 · A voice chat window

Press O (or type /voice in the chat) for the voice chat window: turn voice chat on or off and pick Push to Talk or Open Mic, see whether you are connected and how loud your microphone is, and which keys talk (V to your group, N to your room; change them on the Controls page).
It lists your group and your room with a light by each person who is talking. Turn anyone up or down (0 to 200%) or mute them.
Join a room from the lobby (a locked one asks for its password), leave the one you are in, or join a room by typing its name: that is also how you make one, with a password if you like, and unlisted if only people who know its name should find it.
While voice chat is on, a small microphone sits left of the minimap: grey while you are quiet, green while you are heard. Click it to open the window.
Works with the keyboard, a controller (✕ to choose, △ to close, L1 and R1 to jump between parts) and the mouse or touch screen.

2026-10-26 · Voice chat

Talk to your group by voice: Options > Extended > Sound > Voice Chat, Push to Talk (hold V) or Open Mic. It is off until you turn it on, and nothing is asked of your microphone before then. Voice Volume sets how loud the voices are, up to twice.
A lobby of voice rooms anyone can make: /voice join <room> joins one, or makes it; add a password to lock it (/voice join <room> <password>: the password never leaves your computer). /voice unlisted <room> makes one only those who know its name can find. /voice rooms lists them, /voice who says who is in yours, /voice leave leaves it. Hold N to talk to your room (Open Mic talks to both).
A speaking mark lights on each groupmate's bar while they talk; the room's speakers show beside your own frame. Click a mark to mute someone, again to hear them.
The voices go through the server, never from player to player, so nobody sees your address. The keys are on the Controls page, to move as you like.
On a server without voice (Sandstorm), Voice Demo (same page) uses eqoaclassic's voice server instead: a demo, open to anyone who knows your group's names or your room's name.
In the game itself (not the page) there is no echo cancelling yet: wear headphones for Open Mic.

2026-10-26 · Sound at 60 frames a second

At Frame Rate 60 (or the display's) a busy moment lost sound commands: a sound could start at full volume however far away it was, or not start at all, and an ambient track that should have stopped could go on playing over the sounds after it. In a 40-second test in the rain with a bard's songs, the last build lost 698 of them at 60 frames a second; this one lost a handful, as the PS2's own 30 a second does.
The few a very busy moment still has no room for (the PS2 loses those too) now go a frame later instead of never: a sound's volume, pan and pitch, and a track's stop.
If the sound turns crunchy again, press F3 while it is: the report now says which kinds of sound commands were lost, and the log says when a voice played on with nothing left to stop it.

2026-10-26 · Quest markers and the tracker on Sandstorm too

On a server that sends no quest markers or tracker of its own (Sandstorm), the game now makes its own from a guide built in: the quests of levels 1 to 20 of every home city's classes. A "!" at the NPC with your next quest, a "?" at whoever your quest wants next or where its creatures are, and the tracker under the minimap.
It reads your quest journal to know where you are, so it can be wrong: a quest it does not know shows as the journal says it, and everything it made says "(guide)".
Items are counted from your bags and what you wear ("Slashed Pawn Belt: 1/2"); kills only as the game saw you or your pet make them, so they say "(seen)".
It remembers the quests it saw you finish on this computer. On our own server nothing changes: the server's markers and tracker are used.
A quest name or goal too long for the tracker now goes onto a second line.

2026-10-26 · The map shows where your pointer is

Under the map's title, the place under the mouse pointer, as the game counts it: "x 24611, z 15502" (on a controller, the place under the middle cross once you pan the map off yourself). Thanks for the idea.

2026-10-26 · Two windows, one PlayStation controller

With two windows of the game on one PlayStation controller (Windows), a press made while a window is busy coming to the front is no longer lost: the game now keeps every report the controller sends until it can read them, as it already does for the keyboard. Before, the second window could ignore the controller for up to half a second as it came to the front.
A problem report from one window now also carries the other windows' last lines on coming to the front and on their controllers, so a delay in one window shows up whichever window you press F3 in.

Older notes: https://github.com/DabDavis/eqoa-rust-client-vanilla/blob/master/UPDATE-NOTES.md

Dev build