WanderingAries

This is what you get with the ingame respec system:
After doing this I've found where my confusion probably lies. Building a toon from scratch (or simply testing a an alternate build from L1), Mids matches with the ingame leveling system. When you're doing a respec ingame, they do some rearranging and even some consolidations. I have no clue if this has ever changed over the course of the game (I honestly don't think it has), but does anyone else see where there's some discontinuity? For instance, the first level that the respec shows isn't 1, but 0! Near the end of the respec you'll find that they've consolidated level slotting so that one might think that you get 6 slots open at levels 33 through 45. It changes back to 3 slots for levels 47 and 49.

I go eat now, building this test data drained my energy. >.<

your issue release dates go upto 20.5 btw. :-p

Backing Up / Migrating City of Heroes

This guide assumes that you have enough working knowledge of Windows to be able to Drag/Drop, Open/Close, and Edit files. I will discuss a couple registry related things, but the instructions are pretty straight forward. The purpose of the guide is to give a revised method for backing up &/or migrating your installation of City of Heroes. In the past this was rather problematic because of things like checksum files and read-only properties, but for once the Launcher is on our side! The most important thing to note about this guide is that I do Not have access to an intel Mac, so this will be for Windows/Bootcamp users only.

Step One: Data Gathering

The first thing you need to do is to find out where you have the game installed. You need to find the following folders: City of Heroes & Launcher. By default, I believe that they are both installed to: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes & C:\Program Files\NCSoft\Launcher. The locations should be similar in Vista and Windows 7, but I think they’re in C:\Program Files(x86)\. The following is where I have them installed so that’ll be what I reference here:

D:\Games\NCSoft\Launcher (Houses the Launcher)
D:\Games\NCSoft\City of Heroes (Houses the Live version of the game)
D:\Games\NCSoft\CoHBeta (Houses the Beta version of the game)
D:\Games\NCSoft\CoHTest (Houses the Test version of the game)

Once you know where everything is, then you need to figure out how &/or where you’re going to back them up. If you decide on going the DVD-R option (because CD’s would be ridiculous :-p), then you need to keep in mind that while you may be able to squeeze say the Launcher & City of Heroes onto a single disc and CoHTest onto its own disc, the likelihood of getting CoHBeta to fit onto a single disc is going to be iffy. As it stands right now my Launcher & City of Heroes folders take up about 3.8Gb, CoHTest sits at 4.02Gb, and CoHBeta tops them all at 4.97Gb. Keep in mind that a single layer DVD-R can only hold 4.7Gb of data. This is why I highly suggest backing up to an external hard drive if you don’t already.

Note: For those that use any of the 3rd party addon content like custom maps, icons, Mids, etc; the impact of the related file sizes to your backup are negligible at most. You’re more likely to have more Mb in screenshots, custom costumes/powers, AE content, etc than those.

I almost forgot about the Desktop Icons! I’m not sure what your system looks like, but I have atleast the following three game related icons: NCSoft Launcher, Titan Sentinel, and Mids Hero & Villain Designer. You will want to include these in your backup so that you can simply throw them back on the desktop during the restore.

Step Two: Backing Up

Once you decide on your backup method, then it’s simply a matter of copying the folders mentioned above. In my case, all I have to do is copy the entire contents of the D:\Games\NCSoft folder as it houses all related game content even my addons.

Note: For those who use Mids, by default it saves your character files in My Documents\Hero & Villain Builds so you’ll want to copy that folder as well.

Keep in mind that when it comes time to restore/migrate these files you must retain the original file locations in order for this to work properly. It is possible to change the file locations and still have it work, but it requires a number of corrections to a file we’re going to look at later. This is beyond the scope of this guide so I’m not going to go into that.

Game Settings:

Ever wonder how to keep those pesky graphics settings you finally had all worked out the last time you played? Well here’s the quick way to back those up too! Again, this assumes that you are not going to change the location of your installation during the restore. Windows UAC may ask for your approval (gotta love that built-in ‘protection’ Vista/7 have), but we’re not doing anything bad/harmful so go ahead and tell it yes.

Make sure to follow these instructions to the letter!

1. Hold the Windows Key and press R. This will bring up the Run command;
2. Type regedit and hit enter. This will bring up the registry editor, but we’re not going to be editing just backing up a few keys;
3. Hold the Control Key and press F. This will bring up the Find command within the registry editor;
4. Type Cryptic in the box and hit Find Next. This will go to the key that houses the game’s general settings that it loads on startup;
5. Right Click the cursor on the word Cryptic. This will bring up the list of options you have available for this key;
6. Choose the Export option and it will give you a window that will let you both Name the file that you are exporting as well as choose where to export it too. A good place to export this would be within the NCSoft/Launcher folder that you’re backing up. I would name the file something like Cryptic just to make it easier to remember. The resulting file will read Cryptic.reg. Note: Make sure that the Export Range is set to Selected Branch otherwise you’ll be backing up the Whole registry! The Selected Branch should read something like HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cryptic and shouldn’t be changed;
7. Close the registry window and you’re all set!

It’s important to note that while you don’t have to follow this step in order for this to work; if you don’t make a copy of these keys, then you’ll end up with the default graphics settings when you get to step four.


Step Three: Restore/Migration

Ok, so at this point you’ve backed up the folders as talked about above, you’ve got your system otherwise the way you want it, and you’re ready to enjoy a simple drag/drop experience. Keeping in mind that you must retain the same file paths that you had before in order for this to go smoothly. Simply goto the location that the files need to be (D:\Games\NCSoft\) and Drag/Drop them from your backup drive to their new home. Next, place your icons onto the desktop. Finally, Right Click the Cryptic.reg file you created and choose the Merge option. Windows will ask if you’re sure that you want to add the information to the existing registry and the UAC may popup as well, but it’s ok to go ahead and tell them both ok.

Step Four: Play!

If you followed all of that to the letter, then all you have to do now is run the launcher shortcut that you copied back to the desktop!

Tech Notes:

The launcher uses a combination of the GamesAddendum.xml file located in the D:\Games\NCSoft\Launcher\Config\Default folder and any settings listed in the registry to create a combined set of game settings updating both locations accordingly.

EDIT: I've found that if you follow the steps as listed, then the launcher retains your settings, but the game loses the UI settings so don't forget those Registry files or you'll have to re-edit them ingame (the first time you re-enter the game).

General Notes:

This process results in a backup that is current as of the moment you copy the files to the backup drive. Any patches that are pushed out between that moment and the moment that you restore them will be triggered to download when you run the launcher post-restore/migration.

I hope this helps people understand the new way to do things and how easy it has become thanks to the launcher!

Installing City of Heroes, Beta, & Test From Scratch, the Short(ish) Version

Installing the Launcher:

Firstly, you’ll need to download the NCSoft Launcher so that we can pull down the current version of City of Heroes. As of this writing you can find it here:

http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/my_account/download_game_client/download_city_of_heroes.php

This will download the file COH_Installer.exe into a folder that you choose or have set to default for downloads. Once that is downloaded, then you need to decide where you want to install the Launcher, Live game, etc. Personally, I find it better for me to have my games separated from the rest of my apps into a Games folder and not the standard Program Files folder that XP likes to use. I also do this for Windows 7 (when I was using it) because of other issues that I read about on here related to permissions or some other OS related game issues.

Basically this is what my directory looks like with windows being on its own partition (C:) and my applications/games on a separate partition (D:). You can still do this with a single partition just make sure to change the drive letter to C: where I’ll have D: listed below. I would go ahead and create these folders ahead of time so that you can simply point the game’s installation to them.

D:\Games\NCSoft\Launcher (Houses the Launcher)
D:\Games\NCSoft\City of Heroes (Houses the Live version of the game)
D:\Games\NCSoft\CoHBeta (Houses the Beta version of the game)
D:\Games\NCSoft\CoHTest (Houses the Test version of the game)

Now that those are setup, go ahead and run the COH_Installer.exe file. The first thing it talks about is system requirements (you need .Net 2.0 and the Launcher) so you can go ahead and hit the next button. The second screen is the User License Agreement, you’re obviously agreeing because you want to play the game! IE: Hit the “I accept” and then Next button again. Now it asks where you want to install the Launcher. This is where you point it to the folder we created above (D:\Games\NCSoft\Launcher). Once you have that entered hit the Install button (I think that’s what it says) and let it finish. It will complete by having the Launcher loaded in front of you.

Next step is to download and install the Live version of City of Heroes. Notice that it gives you a Customize option on the screen. This is where you can tell it to point to the folder we created above (D:\Games\NCSoft\City of Heroes). It also seems to want to create a desktop shortcut for the game. I don’t use it because that’s one less icon on the desktop, but that’s up to you whether you want it or not. Personally, I have the default Launcher shortcut on the desktop and use it instead of having three different icons primarily because it makes controlling patch downloads easier. Once you have it pointing to the right folder, then let it download/install the game. While it is true that you can gradually use the game while it downloads (in stages) I would recommend just letting it finish the download uninterrupted.

At this point you should have the most current version of the Live game installed. With the launcher still open, let’s go ahead and make some tweaks to the Launcher’s/Game’s settings that’ll pre-empt future headaches. These adjustments should make it so that your overall game experience includes fewer headaches related to stuff like memory leaks and GPU woes.

On the Launcher, go to the File menu and choose Settings. It seems that most people recommend Not having the Launcher running after you load the game so I’ll give you those adjustments even though that’s not what I have. To do this, on the General Tab, make sure that nothing is checked (there are two boxes) and in the “After Launching Game” section choose “Exit Launcher”.

The Auto Update Tab is kind of a personalization thing. You can either leave it alone and it’ll automatically trickle-download game updates while the launcher is open or you can go as far as telling it Not to download giving you full control over the times that you update the game. Again, I leave this one alone.

The Advanced Tab is where one would tell the game to allow you to run “Multiple Instances” or to put it another way, Dual-Box on the same system, thus allowing you to run more than one game account at the same time on the same computer. While I don’t do it often, I do have that option checked. The other option listed talks about sending usage data to NCSoft so that they can troubleshoot issues with the Launcher, etc. Most seem to leave this unchecked, but honestly I’m not sure how big of a system resource impact this poses. Either way I’ll leave that one up to you.

Customizing the Live game settings

Right clicking the arrow next to the City of Heroes button in the Launcher will bring up the options for the game. At this point you want to select Properties so that we can make a tweak that’ll save you headaches later as most of us tend to do things like run to the forums for help or youtube when somebody posts a funny link ingame channel. Under the Extra Command section you’ll want to put the following exactly as written and then hit the OK button:

-maxinactivefps 5

Take my word for it, this will be a good thing!

So at this point you have both the Launcher and Live game installed. From here you can either go play the Live game or follow the next set of steps to do a patch-install of the Beta and Test versions of the game. I say patch-install because the game will patch the pigg files accordingly, but it’s still faster!

Installing Beta

Our first step to installing the Beta version of the game is actually to Copy to Live version into the Beta folder we created above (D:\Games\NCSoft\CoHBeta). Open up the City of Heroes installation folder as well as the CoHBeta folder in two separate windows. Now you want to Copy (not Move!) the files from the Live folder into the Beta folder. Once that is done, then we need to change a file in the Beta folder. Find and open the file named Launcher.ini as we need to change this to reflect the fact that this is located in the CoHBeta folder. This step is quite simple, where it says City of Heroes change it to say CoHBeta (which happens to be the name of the folder you’re in BTW). Save and Close the file as we are done with this part.

Next we need to open the Launcher again. You should see the COH Subscriber Beta option listed. Right click the arrow next to this like we did with the Live version and open the Properties window. Go ahead and put in the same Extra Command like above. The Installation Location should say “Not Installed” at this point so go ahead and click the Browse button to make it point to our newly populated CoHBeta folder. Once all the changes are made, go ahead and hit the Ok button and it will ask if you want to install the Beta version. Obviously we do or we wouldn’t have gone this far so go ahead and hit Ok. Let it do what it wants to do until it’s completed and that will set us up with both the Live and Beta versions installed.

Installing Test

As with the Beta folder, you need to copy the contents of the Live folder into your Test folder (D:\Games\NCSoft\CohTest) and change the LauncherID.ini file within the Test folder so that it refers to CoHTest. This one’s a little trickier as it’s going to involve editing an XML file, but I’ve found that this saves playing with the registry. Assuming you’ve followed this guide as written, then you should find the file named GamesAddendum.xml in the following folder:

D:\Games\NCSoft\Launcher\Config\Default

We don’t want to Open the file, but actually edit it as opening the file will simply display its contents in a browser. Right click the file and choose Edit. This should open up the file in Notepad so that we can edit it. I found this rather eye straining, but it is a little safer than the registry. Look for the line that talks about CoHBeta. It should read something like this:
If you look a little higher, then you’ll see something like this referring to CoHTest:
This is where things are easier than the registry. Copy the line that talks about the LastStartLocation for Beta and replace the corresponding line in Test so that test now reads like this:
Save and close this file as you are almost done with Test. Now open the Launcher again so that we can tweak Test just like we did with Live and Beta. Right click the Test link and change the Properties so that the Extra Command matches what we put for Live and Beta. Click Ok when done and Right click Test once more. This time choose Repair instead of Properties as this will update the files within the Test folder as well as make sure the rest of the files are correct. Once that is completed, then you have all three versions of the game installed!

I realize that this was a bit of a read and I said Short(ish) Version, but I feel that this is much easier and faster than messing with the icons and letting the game patch stuff the old way.

Important Notes:

Hyperstrike made a wonderful quick reference Guide to the launcher here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=254442

If you’re like me and have downloaded the unofficial map add-ons and icon replacements from BadgeHunter.com, then it will save you time if you actually install them right after installing the Live version of the game. This way when you copy those files into Beta/Test, then you’re only installing the add-ons Once! Well, atleast until the i22 related maps are updated, then you’ll need to manually install those files in each folder. Additionally, since I also use things like Mids Hero Designer and Titan Sentinel, I find it easier to install those in either the NCSoft Folder (under Mids/Titan accordingly) or directly in the City of Heroes folder (also using the corresponding Mids/Titan subfolders) just to keep things along the same logic as why I chose the custom folders in the first place.

BadgeHunter: Host to the custom ingame/online Maps and icon packs that likely everyone uses as well as the original(?) badge hunting utility site.
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?app=uportal

Titan Network: Host to everything from the unofficial Paragon Wiki to the popular Mids Hero Designer.
http://www.cohtitan.com/

Thanks for reading! Please be gentle with comments as this is my first attempt at a Guide for CoX. >.<

Agreed, I highly doubt they took inventory recently of all the statesman related merchandise and chose to revamp that.

Sometimes reply triggers don't always come out as they do in one's head...I think the Mom in my example was more worried about content similar to that of what GTA offers NPC wise even though the more educated of us realize that it's just as easy to reskin one NPC into a totally different one.

"Ooh that body looks scandalous"

This...Before they did whatever restrictions in AE, I could get stuff reasonably from the market. Now I can't really even base my bids on what cleareled last as there are so many people (presumibly farmers) rolling over stock at rediculous prices for things like quick badges and perhaps inf storage.

This definitely makes sense as I swear I started playing Before November of release year.

So...what's the actual difference? I understand DDR2 being older/slower than DDR3, but wtf is the G (and 5 for that matter) in GDDR5?

This, it's much easier to start at the baseline of GFX settings and step your way up to tollerable than to start at the top and wonder what happens if....

Oh, so that's what that is. Might need to invest in a couple slow fields.

This

weird up one side and down the other...

Edit: if you can't do that though, then you might wanna start looking into perhaps a refresh install of the system to clear out accumulated clutter in the OS.

Please tell me you've been checking your Spam box...I've had them end up there before. >.<

I chose not to get into the whole XBL stuff as I forget what that game even has access to at this point.