I'm running nobara currently as my distro, but these issues persist after trying Pop!_OS and several other distros with help from forums etc. Be it pure WINE, Proton, or Lutris installs across multiple distros and drivers, the game will work perfectly for the first run. Afterwards, the game will immediately crash after character selection.
I'm at an in-between level of experience with Linux, so I'm not inept but far from a guru. I suspect the issues might be caused by the recent half integration of DX11. As far as that goes, let me explain - this game is old and ran on DX9 up until 2023. I'm not sure if that weird hybrid combo kills compatibility or not.
There is an intall that almost works here. It would be a lot of work to get this to work on my current Fedora based install vs. what it is meant for, but the install methods should be the same. The issue is that with that install textures are garbage and most are just jet black.
I can provide specs etc. If there is some kind of known bug on Proton that will prevent me from launching on Steam that can be fixed with Protontrix please let me know.
I know that I'm likely to be the only one to post about this issue here, ever, but I don't know a better place to ask than here! Also, the game is free on steam if someone can get it going correctly.
I'm at a loss. I have to completely wipe an install to get it working again which is a pain because my UI gets reset.
Weird, I was just checking Lemmy randomly and crossed this. I don't have an answer, but I stream EverQuest and know many players use Linux. If any community can help you, it would be the P99 forums or the Project Quarm discord tech support. Between the two communities, you have a couple thousand players with decades of experience. Might even be worth checking out The Al Kabor Project's discord as well.
I doubt you'll find these two niches intersect anywhere else.
Edit: I did successfully get it running on my Steam Deck, which uses Proton, so I know that might be a path worth pursuing. Find one of those guides and see what you can get to work.
P99 runs perfectly with "out of the box wine" for a decade on my debian, however, I suspect OP may be trying to run EQLive which has a whole lot of more content and different binaries - maybe that is not comparable.
@OP: Did you check out winehq.org and try to set up your EQ installation aligned with one of the "Gold" or "Platinum" rated test entries there?
Yep. I got it. The guide got me most of the way. Some things that I'm guessing are related to DX11 are still broken (mostly textures), but at least the game runs reliably now. Thanks for all the help!
The only thing specific to Steam Deck in the guide is the Discover Store. This "app store" is actually a part of KDE, which is the desktop Steam Deck uses, when one switches to desktop mode.
The Discover Store is a way to install flatpaks, which are a universal application format that runs on all linux distributions.
On Febora flatpaks should be enabled by default. You might have to enable the flathub repository, which is the main hub for finding and installing applications.