Mirai_Teirusu

To me, it does sound like your motherboard, but its still possible that your power supply could be a fault. When diagnosing a problem like this, I always try the power supply first, just to make sure.

Since you said you have another computer at home, its not too difficult to remove the power supply from it, then use it to try to POST your non-working computer. Or, you could buy a power supply from a store, temporary, and use it instead for this purpose. (During a test like this, I'd always unplug components from the motherboard and power supply that are not needed for POSTing: All drives, extra add-on cards like sound and Wi-Fi cards, etc. )

If your computer still doesn't POST with a working power supply, then yes, its most likely your motherboard, and depending on how old it is, you might not be able to find an exact replacement. (At least something that matches your CPU and memory!) So, be prepared to buy a new motherboard, CPU, and memory; in that case.

I had this problem as well.

The way I've been logging in for the longest time is to use the special short-cut to bypass the updater and just launch the client directly. But yesterday, after the maintenance, it kept saying to check my network, etc. And refused to log in.

I eventually decided to try running it from the updater once. While it didn't download any new patch, I was able to log in afterward without fail. I even restarted the game with my short-cut to bypass the updater and I was still able to log in.

My guess is since they changed the IP addresses for the servers, the updater will 'fix' the client to use the new IPs, instead of the old ones.

You could also try temporarily disabling your anti-virus/spyware programs while playing the game. I managed to fix the odd-ball lag I was having by either disabling my anti-virus program, turning off its Realtime protection, or adding it as an excluded process.

Anyone using Microsoft's Security Essentials whom are experiencing some kinda lag...

Like some people reporting on the forums, I was getting some kinda 'input' lag while playing ever since i17 came out. At least, in my case, running around the game I was fine, but as soon as I used a power, the game would lag noticeably. Something like using 'Fault' would cause my computer to lag for at least a second or more.

Like others, I tried disabling the ATI Hotkey Poller service and it did not work for me. So, I started to disable programs running in the background to see if something else as messing with it. Low and behold, when I finally had the idea to turn off MS Security Essentials (MsMpEng.exe) in the Taskmanager everything started working smoothly again, no lag what-so-ever! I tried turning off, and turning Essentials back on several times and was able to repeat the behavior of lag whenever I turned it back on! Turning Essential's Realtime Protection off resulted in the same outcome; No lag with it off, lag with it on.

Fortunately, I managed to fix this problem -without- having to shut of MS Security Essentials Realtime Protection! Under the 'Settings' tab there is an option for 'Excluded Processes'. I added the 'Cityofheroes.exe' from its Program Files directory here. Once I did that, lag went away.

The name thing could be fixed a number of ways.

As someone already mentioned: 'Servername@Localname' could work, or you could simply do it by 'Globalname@Localname'

This is how Champs does it, all lines in the chatbox display 'Globalname@Localname'. Although, there is an option to turn this function off so it will only display the 'Localname'.

Anyhow, I do remember some long long time ago, a red-name did post something about a serverless environment but never did mention a timeframe, and personally, from a hardware stand-point. I think this would be a good idea.

Clustering the servers together means loads/processes can be spread across the -whole- server farm. Things like mother/hami raids and invasions could have more processing power allocated, resulting in less lag on these overall.

Still, I agree on the idea of keeping the servers mostly seperated, as others have said, like alternate dimensions that you could travel to and from using Portal Corp and the like. I like Lakanna's ideas on what you could then use each of the servers for, but I can think of several reasons why they might be roadblocked.

For example, "Hey! Why did -my- server get over-run by Rikti and THOSE didn't! *mad*"

What happened to indented word wrap? It makes it hard to tell at a glance one text string from another. It actually hurts my eyes now a bit to read the chat windows.

For example, before it was like this:

[Channel Name] {Global/Character name}: "Text......................
----->"More text.............................................. ..................
----->"More text............................."

Now its like this:

[Channel Name] {Global/Character name}: "Text.....................
.................................................. ....................................
............................."


Before you could easily make out a conversation between multiple people, now it feels like everything is a run-on sentence. Please give us the option to change it back to the original functionally.

Here's the ASPCA base on Virtue. Much has changed since the last time I posted it. Its now a fairly large 16x16 base, and I haven't even dipped into our prestige grant yet, I can't think of anything else to do. ^_^:

Base Overview
Main Entrance
Main study to the east. I'm doing to replace the teleport with a fire and ice pillar soon.. just need to delete the room and rebuild it.
Main Study

The main library to the south of the study, I recently rebuilt it so its a bit different then what you see in the overview.
Main Library 1
Main Library 2

To the west of the study is... well, I built a pond room. It also has some storage in it, heh.
Pond 1
Pond 2

Directly south of the pond room is a Dojo, with some side-rooms , a vault, and invention table next to it.
Dojo overhead view
Dojo 2

North of the Pond room, is another area thats just personal rooms, we let everyone decorate their own little rooms.
Personal Rooms

North of that area, in the far northeast corner of the base is the Recreational Room. Lounging area, large TV, kitchen, tables, and places to sit and read.
Rec. Room 1
Rec. Room 2
Rec. Room 3
Rec. Room 4

To the west of the Rec. Room I created a, umm, Lava room upon the suggestion of one of my SG-mates ^_^;
Lava Room 1
Lava Room 2

Now, going back to the beginning, just south of the entrance is a pool hall.
Pool Hall 1
Pool Hall 2

To the west of the Pool Hall, in the far southwest corner of the base is the medical bay. Its a newer room, I built several parts using magic desk techniques.
Medical Bay 1
Medical Bay 2
Medical Bay 3
Medical Bay 4
Medical Bay 5
Medical Bay 6
Medical Bay 7

Just north of the Medical Bay is the teleport chamber.
Teleport Chamber 1
Teleport Chamber 2
Teleport Chamber 3

The energy room with some trophies is directly north of the teleport chamber.
Energy Room

Now, once again going back to the beginning of the base, just north of the entrance is the main center piece of the base. This room is largely unchanged from when I previously posted the base
Main Room 1
Main Room 2
Main Room 3

Finally we have a tech area connected to the northwest corner of the main room.
Tech Entrance
Tech Storage
Tech Control 1
Tech Control 2

And thats it! Hope you guys enjoyed the small tour and got a lot of ideas outta it!

Here's one of the bases I've managed to get my hands into. I'm the architect of 2 or 3 now

The biggest, the A.S.P.C.A. of Virtue. Its an anthromorphic rp group, however we do like to play, we managed to worm our way onto the top 100 list, somehow.. (Though, pretty much on the bottom, haha )

Overview

-------------------------

Entrance1
Entrance2

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Infirmary

Since its an RP group, several of us have personal rooms in the base. Midnight Paw (The doctor of the group, she also decorated this room) has her room/office behind the lateral files (Lateral files is being used as a wall, fyi) and bookshelf.

-------------------------

Reading/study room

Just to the right of Midnight's Infirmary is a small reading room, which also has some teleports going to hazard zones.

-------------------------

Library1
Library2
Library3
Library4

This is the teleport room just to the right of the entrance, all the teleport pads lead to low level zones. It serves as a library/classroom.

-------------------------

Hallway
Storage alcove
Recreational Room 1
Recreational Room 2

Here's a few screenshots of the 3x4 workshop. First pic is the hallway leading into it from the library. The second is of the small alcove leading from the hallway, which contains a tech storage and empowerment station. Behind the lateral files (Again, just used as make shift walls) are a few safes and cabinets.

Then, finally there's the large part of the workshop with was turned into a rec room. There's a magic workbench (basic), magic storage, and magic empowerment.

-------------------------

Poolhall 1
Poolhall 2

This is our pool hall, complete with a full-sized pool and hot tub attached. And, of course the hot tub has a wide-screen tv and a small bar. Oh yeah, there's teleporters in there too.

This room I also didn't decorate. .Charlie did, he was the previous base architect, in fact, I was the decorating monkey.

-------------------------

Back Room
This back room contains telelports to some higher level zones, but also contains several personal rooms as well.

Medical Recovery
This is a medical recovery room, for those that need extended medical care over a long period of time.

Terra/Fel's Room
Terra Silver Spar and Fel Fox's room. Fel doesn't sleep, she mediates on the couch. Fel made their room, I let everyone furnish their own rooms ^_^

Sanders Pad
This is Sander's room, he's one of the leaders.. even though he isn't around a lot ^^; We still love 'im though!


Melissa's room/study
My room! With more books and alchemic supplies then you can shake a stick at

-------------------------

Energy1
Energy2
Energy3

Here's the back energy room, one empty/unused personal room and a bunch of weapon trophies.

-------------------------

Tech workshop
Control 1
Control 2

Here's the main tech area of the base, a simple workshop and control room just above it.

-------------------------

And finally the main meeting room of the base, again .Charlie decorated this room, I haven't really touched it since he left the group, he did an awesome job on it. There's also several personal rooms here as well.

Meeting Room 1

This is from the doorway from the entrance room.

Meeting Room 2
Meeting Room 3
Meeting Room 4

Here's the member rooms, starting from the top then going clockwise around.

Miss Mephit's
Ferretgal's

Mephit and Ferretgal are the other two leaders of the group.

Duj/Yami's room

Spare room

Then on the west side of the meeting room...

Frost Katt's

KitZune's office

O-Shi's room...*sigh*

-------------------------

And that's it, I hope you enjoyed the little tour!

P.S. Sorry it was so long

Issue: Bitter Freeze Ray is under-powered, especially in comparision to the three holds offered in the blast epics. For example: Bitter Freeze Ray vs. Shocking Bolt

Bitter Freeze Ray:
ACC bonus: 0%
Damage: 3.6 BI
End cost: 15
Activation: 3.7 seconds
Recharge: 20 second
Range: 80 feet
Hold Duration: 15 seconds

Shocking Bolt:
ACC bonus: 0%
Damage: 3.6 BI (DOT)
End cost: 10
Activation: 2 seconds
Recharge: 16 second
Range: 80 feet
Hold Duration: 10 seconds

So Shocking Bolt has better activation time, lower end cost, AND recharges quicker. On top of that Char has a 1 second activation time and shares the same recharge and end cost as Shocking Bolt. The only thing better about Bitter Freeze Ray is the extra hold duration and that we can get it at level 26. However, these are not valid trade-offs for its long activation time, higher end cost, and higher recharge.

I would like to emphasis that the major problem with this power is the unusually long activation time. 3.7 seconds is long time to be doing nothing but 'posing'. At least with Full Auto your doing lots of damge during those six seconds, but with Bitter Freeze Ray you are just posing... and more posing to get this minor damage w/hold attack off. Also, this power doesn't fit easily into an Ice Blaster's attack chain, especially under a Buildup and/or Aim. A combo of Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, Bitter Ice Blast, and Freeze Ray will do the samething as a Bitter Freeze Ray but with TONS more damage and it would only take .5 seconds more to get off.

Bitter Freeze Ray is a power that's routinely skipped, and when it is taken, its only real use is a combat opener, much like a snipe however it does really low damage incomparison to one too...

Possible suggestions to fix Bitter Freeze Ray:

1) New animation. (The current, nearly 4 second animation is NOT fun...) Preferibly something 1 second, maybe 2. This I consider, is the number 1 thing that needs to change, regardless of what other changes are done to the power. The power is just not useful with the current activation time.

2) Reduction in recharge and End cost, and reduction in hold duration to compensate. As it stands Bitter Freeze Ray using a lot of end bar just to fire it off, as stated above it uses 50% more End and still has longer recharge then the epic holds.

Honestly, I wouldn't really care how long the hold duration on Bitter Freeze Ray is, even if it's just 5 seconds... For the trade-off of a low hold duration, I would like to see some bonus over the epic holds to compensate: More damage or lower End cost, or lower recharge, something...

3) If giving Ice Blasters a second short activation hold power is over-powered in your eyes, then prehaps give us a new non-hold power. Something like Infrigidate. The Ice Blaster set, as a whole, has several AOE slow powers that actually work alright; Frost Breath, Ice Storm, and Blizzard. But lacks single-target slow powers besides the blasts themselves, and by the time you notice their slow affect on the target, the target is almost dead or IS dead.

So the suggestion is, give us a power similar to Infrigidate, but with a slightly reduced amount of -slow and -recharge, and axe out the other effects, and to compensate give us a minor damage component, like what Bitter Freeze Ray already has.

You could call it Benumb Ice Blast:

'A deadly blast of ice so cold that it numbs the target to its very core, slowing its attack and movement speed, while also damaging the target as well.'

You could even use the Infrigidate animation, which means less work for your art department, and the Ice Blaster (Corruptor as well maybe?) couldn't stack two holds on a target, BUT would help keep the target out of melee range.