Citizen_Razor

That was the ticket. Thanks, Tex.

OK, my copies of "City of Heroes" and "City of Heroes - Beta" seem to have somehow become entwined.

Basically, when I launch CoH, it updates to the CoH file. Which is fine, and as it should be. But CoH Beta *also* updates to the CoH file.

So when I go and launch CoH Beta, it thinks it has the CoH information, which is clearly wrong, so it updates to the CoH Beta information. This, in turn, causes the CoH file to be updated to CoH Beta.

So when I go and play CoH again ... guess what! It's now on the wrong file! So it has to be reverted back to CoH again.

Bottom line -- I can't run both CoH and CoH Beta at the same time.

Also, for some strange reason, my CoH client seems to be getting files from the Beta folder. For example, whenever I am in the custom creator, and I try to load a saved costume, it goes to the CoH Beta "costumes" folder and shows me the costumes that are there, instead of the costumes that are in the CoH "costumes" folder like it should. Ditto with when I go to the "Power Customization" screen and try to load a saved file.

The same applies for AE story arcs and critters. Looking them up in the "City of Heroes" client calls up the files in the "City of Heroes Beta" folder.

My CoH Beta folder is NOT in my CoH folder. They're two separate folders in the "Program Files" directory. I have no idea why the CoH client is referring the CoH Beta folders.

Any idea what I can do to un-entwine them so that I can play them both separately at the same time?

I know I'm necroing this thread, but I do have something new to add. Just in case somebody searches for this down the road (like I was a few days ago when trying to find Maelstrom).

Maelstrom also appears in the Lv 40-50 villain alignment mission "A Hasty Text Message." This is available only to vigilantes who are doing villain missions.

I understand that development resources is limited, and this will, in all likelihood, never happen. But this is my wishlist, as far as content is concerned:

* A massive revamping of the legacy CoH i0/i1 storylines. Seriously, compare it to the arcs in CoV, much less Praetoria, and it's laughably bad. Those arcs need more memorable contacts (get rid of the "each origin has its own set of contacts who all look the same and provide the same missions anyway" clutter), more variety in the missions instead of "click this" or "kill all enemies," and less pointless zone-hopping.

* While we're revamping the i0/i1 storylines, have the lv1-20 stories be morality choices where your character flip between hero/vigilante (similar to the Loyalist/Resistance choices in Praetoria). Also do the same with the lv1-20 CoV stories (villain/rogue).

* Along with the above, the "Surviving Six" TFs need Positron-type revamps. Right now they're just a series of kill-alls, kill-bosses, or click-glowies, usually with the same enemy group throughout, on dull maps. Although there are far fewer CoV SFs, they easily outshine the non-Positron, "Surviving Six" TFs and the Shard TFs.

* CoH has quite a few "dead" zones. Boomtown, Terra Volta, Dark Astoria, Crey's Folly, Eden, and the Shadow Shard all come to mind. All of those zones need a Faultline-like revamp. I'd start with DA, CF, and Eden because there's a significant lack of content in the Lv30-40 range.

* Over at CoV ... it needs one thing that CoH has -- more paths to choose from. The arcs in CoV are generally better than CoH, but there's only one path throughout the game. I'd love to see a completely new set of arcs, from Lv1-40, throughout the Rogue Isles. There are some aspects that were barely touched upon (the Luddities come to mind) that could contribute themselves to new, non-Arachnos storylines. A few new zones like Hollows/Faultline/Striga/Croatoa, with zone-specific storylines and SFs, for CoV wouldn't hurt either.

* CoV's single biggest hole? The lack of a Lv30-35 Strike Force. Fill it. Seriously, it's been, what, 6 years now? I'm shocked this hasn't been addressed yet, and seems unlikely to be addressed any time soon.

* The Shadow Shard. I know this will take up a lot of dev time and resources, but make this co-op, revamp the four zones so that they're not so bleeding huge and doesn't require fly to get around, add story arcs for each zone, rework the TFs (especially DrQ) and give each zone its own TF. Bonus? Add in the end-game incarnate trails to the Shadow Shard and show the other aspects of Rularuu that we haven't seen yet. The end-game shouldn't be all Praetoria, all the time.

Now, I realize that the above list is pretty much unrealistic, espeically considering the devs' limited time and resources, and the fact that my "wish list" won't bring in the big bucks like the end-game stuff will. But it'd make CoH a much more streamlined game, and make the transtition between the "new shiny" stuff such as Praetoria and the original CoH game look much less jarring. Ah, one can always dream.

Finally fire up my copy of "Final Fantasy XIII" and play it.

This toon is the reason why I wanted the Animal Pack in the first place.

Behold ... the Carolina Panthar!



He wins 2 out of every 16 fights!

Since my entry, "Angry Lemur," won one of the 20 PCGamers giveaway spots, I decided to go ahead and create him in the game. He's a Claws/SR brute. It was very hard to create the distinctive thick ring-colored tail given what we have in the character creator, as well as the "mask" face, but I tried my best.





Here's his dreaded Stink Bomb Attack.



Kinda wish we could just have "natural" claws as a weapon instead of the Wolverine-like or blade add-ons.

As was I. I guess "Angry Lemur" was indeed terrifying.

Like you, ransim, I had already bought mine. D'oh! Wonder what I can do with the extra code.

Sorry to break the streak of lame animal puns, but ...

The website seems to be down. I was trying to post my entry for the contest when ... blammo, couldn't load anything! :-(

I don't want to change a shortcut. I want to change the icon of the updater itself. I'm using a program called "ObjectDock" and for some reason whenever I put link to a shortcut, it ignores whatever icon the shortcut is and uses the icon of the actual program itself.

Eh, I figured out a workaround to my question, but thanks for the assistance.

Guess I should've mentioned I'm on Windows Vista. There's no "Change Icon" button when you right-click on the icon.

I dunno if this is the right place to post this question, or if the tech section would be better. But this is "Player Questions" and I have a question, so I figured I'd ask it here.

I'm talking about the desktop icon that has a blue background and Statesman posing proudly at us. The one that refers to cohupdater.exe. I want to change it.

When City of Villains was released, it had its own icon, which was simply the CoV logo on a white background. The file associated with the icon also had a different name (covupdater.exe), probably because it was considered a separate game back then.

With Going Rogue, the DVD itself has a different icon (the Loyalist icon). However, the CoHupdater.exe icon is the same as the original icon. I want to change that icon to the "Loyalist" icon. Is that even possible? If so, how?

Thanks to Healix for suggesting Safe Mode. I did that, and was able to reset the screen resolution so that it is the same as the desktop (makes CTRL-ALTing much easier).

However, I seem to be unable to set the video settings into what it used to be before I reinstalled Windows. I had Ultra Mode enabled, but now every time I attempt to move the button beyond "Performance" the game locks up. I have a GeForce 9800 GTX, so it should be able to handle Ultra Mode easily.

Ah well.

I had to a wipe and re-install of Windows Vista, so I'm busy restoring all of my previous settings. This includes a re-install of City of Heroes.

However, that means that all of the graphic settings that I used to have on my copy of CoH is now gone, and I need to go back and reset them.

My problem is, every time I go to Options and click on "Graphics and Audio" tab, the game freezes up. That means I can't even do something as simple as change the screen resolution. So every time I load the game, everything goes to 800x600.

I've already downloaded and installed the latest graphic drivers from nVidia. There's no updates from Windows left to install. Is there a work-around so that I can at least change the screen resolution of City of Heroes to 1440x900? I'll deal with setting up the rest of Ultra Mode later.

Thanks in advance.

Midnighter Arc to unlock Cimerora.

As a Deaf person who plays City of Heroes ...

No thanks to voice chat.

Kthxbai.

I'm one of those who used to play and create MA arcs and stopped a while back. My reasons are many, but ultimately it all boils down to this:

Too many sticks. Not enough carrot.

Here are a few of my gripes with AE:

• The interface sucks, and it's virtually impossible to find anything good if you only use the interface. Especially with the same list of missions constantly on the front page.

• There are way too many clutter in the database. All of the forgotten story arcs, broken farms, and half-done arcs need to be wiped out.

• Dev's Choice is not handed out nearly enough.

• The requirements for Hall of Fame is virtually impossible, especially when it's so easy to grief the ratings system, and arcs are getting so few plays nowadays.

• The ratings system is horrible and needs to be reworked. Go with something like a simple "thumbs up / thumbs down" method instead. Anything OTHER than the current "5 stars" method.

• Lack of attention from the devs. We still cannot have bosses guarding hostages, something that we see all the time in the core game. We also don't have "keys" that unlock the next part of the mission and have to rely on chained objectives that might or might not spawn where we want them to. And I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of other features that have been asked for countless times.

• Lack of purples and shards in AE missions.

All of those frustrations and problems, and for what? So that every once in a while I might find a nifty arc to play through? Not worth it. Honestly, I think they just need to wipe out AE and start all over again. (Not the system, which works fine -- but the trappings around the system.)

Natural Pack (with Ninja Run) and Mutant Pack (with Secondary Mutation) are the most useful. Ninja Run is a nice little travel power to use for the early levels until you get your pool powers, and Secondary Mutation provides you with a small random self-buff whenever you use it.

Costume wise -- Magic Pack probably provides the most variety, and the Science Pack gives you the ability to change size or gender.

The Technology (Cyborg) Pack is the least useful, IMO.

Just got my 1,100th and 1,101st badge today on my hero badger! So now I'm a member of this "exclusive" club. Go me!

I must've missed a memo somewhere, but why is it not possible to create a Claws / Stone combo for Brutes?

I mean, I know why we can't make a Claws / Shield or Dual Blades / Shield Brute (Shield requires that one hand be free, while Claws and Dual Blades are two-handed sets).

But I don't see any conflicts between the Claws and the Stone Armor sets. What am I missing?

That's some helpful info, and really helps me see where I went wrong. Thanks!

I'd like to take a look at your inv/mace tanker build and see what you did differently.

I just respecced my tanker for Inherent Fitness, and I wanted to get some feedback from you experts.

My playstyle gears more towards soloing, but I do like to join TFs. I'm mostly satisfied with my soloing build, but was wondering what I could do to make the build more team-friendly.

I haven't touched my 2nd and 3rd build, so if needed I can always make a specific solo build and a specific TF build.

Also note, I'm not rich, so I can't afford a purpled-out build. That's a nice, long-range goal, but isn't what I'm looking for.

So without futher ado, here's my Mids build:

On Tuesday I focused on unlocking the Alpha Slot on both of my Lv50s.

On Wednesday, I did a LGTF which netted me 7 shards, plus the Hero 1 DNA. That also gave me enough Vanguard merits to buy a Gr'ai Matter. I crafted a Musculature Boost (common) from that.

On Thursday, I did another LGTF, then the Apex and Tin Mage TFs. When all was said and done, I had 18 shards, another Gr'ai Matter (via Vanguard Merits), and the Hero 1 DNA. I could've crafted the Musculature Core or Radial with what I had, but I decided to go for the Cardiac Radial instead. Looking at the Alpha Slot tree, I figured that I needed either 2 more shards or the Nictus Fragment to create a Cardiac Radial boost.

On Friday, I did the ITF, which netted me 6 shards and the Nictus Fragment. That was enough for my uncommon slot. I also picked up another shard while doing tip missions. For now, I'm good with my alpha enhancements, but I'll probably prepare myself for i20 by getting the Cardiac Core as well, so I'll have an easier path towards creating the very rare enhancements.