Played once and now need a 10 hour update again?

Just paid for and downloaded the game... hurrah. Played for 30 minutes before having to turn it off to pop out. Go to restart the game and im hit with another 10 hour 2+ gb download ?!?

All withing the space of less then an hour.

Any ideas as to whats going on?

Do I really need to intall the game every time I want to play it?

Any help would be greatly recieved.

First of: No, you don’t need to download the game each time.

After your initial download, it should only download when there are new patches, and which are much smaller.

Are you sure, it is actually downloading the game again?
It might be verifying files, if for some reason you didn’t get logged off properly, such as if you disconnected.

If it actually is downloading, you need to give more information. Like if you have done anything else in the meantime.

And if you are running under the same account. If you run the game as administrator then turn around and run it as somebody else, it's going to forget a lot of your settings (including where the game is installed).

Ok this is what i did.

Paid for and dowloaded the game by clicking the buy now button. Created an account and used the code they gave me.

After a massive 2.8gb download the game started.
I built a character in Paragon City and done the tutorial.

I then had to go out so used the scroll down list and hit the quit option.

About 20 minutes (tops) later i tried to run the game again, by clicking on the desktop icon and it comes up with the çity of heroes update manager.

It says verifying all files, fixing files and tells me I now have 13.49 hours to go and another 2.8gb.


I have no idea about computers and have no idea how to fix this.

I really need help and in plain english so I can understand it.

Ok. Let's start by getting a little information first.

What Operating System are you using? Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X, or some flavor of Linux?

What is the name of the file you are clicking on to start the game?

Are you playing on the North American servers or on the EU servers?

I eagerly await your reply so that I can try to help you get back into the game.

First off thanks for the help so far.

Ok I am using Windows Vista. And the type of computer is a HP touchsmart
I have the Europe version of the game and was playing on Defiant I believe.

To start the game I am clicking on the icon on the desktop which is a little picture of a guy with a star on his chest. It is just called city of heroes.
if I right click on the icon it gives me a load of options ranging from open to file properties. Clicking on File properties opens up another window with the tabs at the top reading General, Shortcut, Compatibility, Security and Details.

When i go to details it tells me that the file name is City of Heroes.Ink

Hope that makes sense?

There's a common problem with the EU client which causes it to set up the icon on your desktop to point to the US updater. Very annoying of it. You need to change the properties of the updater to point to the EU updater instead.

Have a look at the instructions here and see if they solve your problem:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=165253

(The quick summary - in the shortcut properties, the last part of the target for the updater should be CohUpdater.EU.exe NOT CohUpdater.exe.)

If that doesn't solve the problem, come back and we'll try again :-)

And welcome to the game.

The bit under 'target' on the properties part of the updater reads

"C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.EU.exe"

Well, that just ain't right. Obviously the updater doesn't know where its actually installed. Rest assured, we can get you playing again.

Are you comfortable with using regedit? That would be the fastest way to blook at what's foing on.

Once again thanks for taking the time to help me out here.

I have right clicked on the icon on the desktop and gone to the properties section and put a tick in the administrator box - still no joy.

If I open up the file in windows called city of heroes it contains the following. (the ones with f infron are folders the rest are not)

(f) cider
(f) City of Heroes
(f) doublefusion
(f) logs
(f) piggs
(f) Rabbitz6634
City of Heroes
Coh.checksum
CohUpdater.EU
CohUpdater.EU.prv
CohUpdater.prv
CohUpdater_UI_Win.dll
CrashRpt.dll
dbghelp.dll
DFEngine.dll
CohUpdater.EU (2)
dxdiag
NxCooking.dll
PhysXCore.dll
PhysXLoader.dll
README
ReadmeFrench
ReadmeGerman
ReadmeUK
uninstall


Oh and Necrotron I have no idea what regedit is or how to use it.

Right. CoH is installed where it should be, but it doesn't know it. I have a very good idea of what could be wrong, but before I send you off making changes, I want you to look at one last thing.

Download TweakCoH to have a look at your registry. It's a program that lets you change CoH settings without running CoH itself; it also tells us where CoH thinks it's installed. Run it and tell us what the installation folder is on the first screen.

EDIT: I have the problem. There's a City of Heroes folder in your City of Heroes folder.

At a guess, you ran the updater and it said "CoH will be installed to X", and you selected the existing folder. But the updater is quirky. If you select a folder to install, it makes another City of Heroes folder inside that, and starts installing there.

Run TweakCoH to check it. I have a solution if I'm right.

My last test with Vista (UAC enabled) and tweakCoH, it wasnt working.

Just do the reg-edit manualy, it aint hard to find it.

Doh

Ok it says -

Current Version: 18.20090311.3T
Installer - English(United States)
Installation Folder: c:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes
Start Menu Folder: City of Heroes
Launcher Web Page: http://www.coh.com/updater/live.html
Eula Web Page: http://www.cityofheroes.com/beta/eula.html
Patch Info Web Page: www.cityofheroes.com/updater/update.html

Ok changing the drop down to EUCoh it reads

Current Version: 4.20041208.10
Installer - English(United States)
Installation Folder: c:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes
Start Menu Folder: City of Heroes
Launcher Web Page: uk.cityofheroes.com/updater/update.html
Eula Web Page: http://www.cityofheroes.com/beta/eula.html
Patch Info Web Page: Nothing written here

Yikes.

Thats really wierd. I created a character, done the training and then went to the city and spoke to the Liberty woman and upgraded to level 2. I then went into the building behind here before I logged off.

mmmmm something really not right with that.

Ok so I have to basically redo the game again.

When I run the updater where do I install it to?
c:\Program Files(x86)\City of Heroes ?

I am not sure if I will be able to do it yet because living a million miles from anywhere we dont get great download limits per month and I used just over half installing it the first time round

I will see what I can do and keep you posted.

You've never had 1.5Mbps (MegaBits per second) DSL then. 10 hours translates into 75-80 KBps (KiloBytes per second).

Here are my computers specs according to 'can you run it'

CPU
Minimum: Pentium 3 or Athlon equivalent
You Have: 2 processors running - Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5750 @ 2.00GHz

PASS
CPU Speed
Minimum: 800 MHz
You Have: 2.00 GHz Performance Rated at 3.90 GHz

PASS
System RAM
Minimum: 256 MB
You Have: 4.0 GB

PASS
Operating System
Minimum: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
You Have: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, 64-bit (Build Service Pack 16001)

PASS
Video Card
Minimum: 32MB Direct3D Card (GeForce 2+/Radeon 8500+/Intel 845G+)
You Have: Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family (Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family)

PASS
Video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card

Video RAM: Required - 32 MB , You have - 448 MB

Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes


Video Card Driver Version (DirectX)
Your driver version number is: 7.14.10.1461

FYI: Your video card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper video card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.
DirectX Version
Minimum: 9.0 (included)
You Have: 10.0

PASS
Sound Card
Minimum: Yes
You Have: Speakers (SoundMAX Integrated D

PASS
Sound Card Driver Version
Your driver version number is: 6.0

FYI: Your sound card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper sound card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.
Free Disk Space
Minimum: 2 GB
You Have: 292.4 GB

PASS
CD
Minimum: 4X speed CD-ROM
You Have: TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-T633A

PASS, but the Speed could NOT be analyzed.