Feedback: NCsoft Launcher
By
Alleged Shooter,
Posted on: 2011-02-24 16:05 in The Global Training Room Test Server
Quote:
It might have worked if you asked the NCSoft launcher to install the Test Client, then stopped it. Then asked it to repair the files.|
Originally Posted by gameboy1234
Objective:
I didn't have Test installed, so I did the copy trick (copied the City of Heroes folder to CohTest, and removed the checksum file) and then installed the NCSoft installer. The NCSoft Installer did NOT find my CohTest, although it did find the regular City of Heroes and CohBeta. Just saying: to do the copy trick, I need to use the old cohupdater.exe. The NCSoft Installer can't figure out that it has to update CohTest. This'll be a big pain if I have to actually download the whole thing to get NCSoft Installer to recognize it. (I.e., if cohupdater.exe ever goes away.) EDIT: Confirmed. After running cohupdater.exe for Test, the NCSoft Installer found the test install and listed it for me to choose. I didn't have the filename messed up or anything like that, just a short download from test and I was ready to go. |
Or... ask the NCSoft launcher to install the Test Client, then stop it, then copy over the files from Live, then ask it to repair.
A new install for Live, Test, or Beta puts info in Windows' Registry that keeps track of which directory that client is stored in. For the copy trick to work, a launcher, any launcher, needs to start a new install to put those lines in the Registry. After that, copy tricks work.
But the new NCSoft Launcher is dumb in that it doesn't auto-repair if your files are wrong. And I've already given the Devs my opinion about *that*.
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Subjective:
If this is going to be mandatory, then there needs to be a way to make a shortcut to the launcher so that you can click on one shortcut and it goes ahead and launches a particular game. Having to tell the launcher which game I want to play is annoying. It's almost as ridiculous as the 'Next' button in the current launcher.
I never enjoyed the NCSoft launcher when I was playing Dungeon Runners and Tabula Rasa and Guild Wars. I don't expect I'll like it more now, so the easier you make it for me to ignore it, the happier I will be as a customer.
Quote:
That functionality is indeed present. It's easily found in the menus and it's mentioned in this thread.
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Originally Posted by Dark Quill
Subjective:
If this is going to be mandatory, then there needs to be a way to make a shortcut to the launcher so that you can click on one shortcut and it goes ahead and launches a particular game. Having to tell the launcher which game I want to play is annoying. It's almost as ridiculous as the 'Next' button in the current launcher. |
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Objective:
When updating files the dialog only shows the current file you are downloading and its size, it does not show the total size of the whole update. I am unsure if this is a bug or intended, but if intended (subjective) that stinks like butt.
Subjective:
Numerous visual/graphics glitches on the updater window and the launcher window itself. I expect this is due to my hardware which is about 8 years old. Having a game launcher with higher graphical requirements than the game it launches is ludicrous from any standpoint.
The NCSoft launcher is downloading files for the CoH Test server at about one-sixth the speed of the usual game launcher. This is unacceptable.
The "Uninstalled Games" thing is unnecessary and mandatory at the same time. It's something that really should be able to be toggled off.
Quote:
So it is. Yay! Thanks for pointing out my error, ZM!|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
That functionality is indeed present. It's easily found in the menus and it's mentioned in this thread.
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I now enjoy the launcher more than the previous method. Bring it on!
Objective feedback: Launcher installed easily and detected all of my Live, Test, and Beta installations. Updating Test took much longer than the normal updater, something like 2 and half hours. Updating Beta took longer as well, but only around an hour and a half instead. Of course, I've updated Beta more recently than I've updated Test.
Subjective Feedback: I like being able to have a single launcher to update all three installs. Being able to set it to allow launching multiple instances of the game is nice as well. I don't like seeing all the games I don't have installed and it would be nice to have an option to hide those. Options are always good. I don't like the slower downloading speed.
While waiting for the update to Test to complete and hoping the speed would pick up I decided to check another vBulletin forum I frequent. Just opening the site in either IE or Firefox slowed down the update. I have that forum set to hide all images, smilies, hyperlinks (aside from site navigation links) and anything other than plain text. Yeah, boring, but the focus of that forum is more suited to being plain text. The reason I mention all of the settings I use on that site is to show that it isn't the downloading of images or anything else on that site that should have caused a speed reduction in the updater.
All in all, it's not something that's going to make me quit playing the game, but it could use some improvements in the speed of the download and presenting a few more options such as hiding games not installed.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
Something weird seems to have happened with the Launcher - it's not showing that I have a Euro version of the game installed as well as my American one - even when I change the regional setting, it still just shows CoH (US), COH Test (US) and CoH Beta (US) as the only 3 playable options.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am loving the launcher. Installed it, and it did all the updates fine...launched Test Server, no prob. Logged out, used it to launch Beta Server, no prob. (It's closed, but still got to the logiin screen.) It even launched my live game to the screen I see when I hit the shortcut. I also like the 'server Status', 'account' and other handy links. This is a winner for me.
�Many things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.�
Installed fine. Found my Test and Beta installations correctly. Picked the settings I want / currently use. Had to repair my Test server install before it would update it; the download speed for the Test update seemed OK, staying above 800 KBs/Sec (the number reported by the progress bar) though I have no information to compare it to.
Would like to see Server Status information incorporated into the launcher window instead of opening my browser separately.
Would like to see the main graphic (currently for the animal pack) smaller so as to incorporate more news and actual information in the main window. The TF Targets should not be limited to a graphic that flashes by.
Would LOVE to see the window incorporate global friend information to see who is online currently. If there was a way to communicate to them as well, I would forgive all for making me use this launcher as a whole.
I've already forgotten about most of you
Quote:
Since the current installer is run from a dedicated install directory, it uses that to determine where the game files it cares about are located. Since the new installer doesn't share an install directory like this, the only ways it can automatically find the installs are (a) to look in the system registry (almost certainly what it does on Windows) or (b) search all your hard drives. Option (b) would suck hardcore on my own system, as I have many hundreds of thousands of files.|
Originally Posted by gameboy1234
Objective:
I didn't have Test installed, so I did the copy trick (copied the City of Heroes folder to CohTest, and removed the checksum file) and then installed the NCSoft installer. The NCSoft Installer did NOT find my CohTest, although it did find the regular City of Heroes and CohBeta. Just saying: to do the copy trick, I need to use the old cohupdater.exe. The NCSoft Installer can't figure out that it has to update CohTest. This'll be a big pain if I have to actually download the whole thing to get NCSoft Installer to recognize it. (I.e., if cohupdater.exe ever goes away.) |
They could let you point it at an install directory. That seems like a pretty decent compromise. If they don't do something like this, we're probably going to have to add registry hacks to the existing copy trick instructions, which is not pretty for non-technical users.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
Orrrr.... Have the NCSoft Launcher start a fresh install, which creates those registry entries, then stop it. Then copy over piggs. Then restart the NCSoft Launcher and tell it to fix the piggs.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
They could let you point it at an install directory. That seems like a pretty decent compromise. If they don't do something like this, we're probably going to have to add registry hacks to the existing copy trick instructions, which is not pretty for non-technical users.
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You know... just like I posted above.
Although... I should test it to see if it works that way.
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Didn't ask me where I wanted to reinstall test...do not like having games put on C drive...everything else is fine.
Ojbective: works. Didn't have any problems with it.
Subjective: I do like it, however, I'm not sure if I like the fact the EULA (ie, that thing nobody reads) is on the log-in screen. Also, I find it a little curios that NCSoft will let me patch COH before verifying I have an account (trial, active, etc). Not that I mind, of course, but it seems like a possible cost savings.
The fact that clicking on server status used my open/default browser instead of IE is highly appreciated.
Quote:
You can already patch up CoX without verifying you have an account right now... infact it does it as soon as you launch the game with the current existing launcher
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Originally Posted by Psyte
Ojbective: works. Didn't have any problems with it.
Subjective: I do like it, however, I'm not sure if I like the fact the EULA (ie, that thing nobody reads) is on the log-in screen. Also, I find it a little curios that NCSoft will let me patch COH before verifying I have an account (trial, active, etc). Not that I mind, of course, but it seems like a possible cost savings. |
Thanks everyone for your continued testing of the new Launcher. It's extremely helpful to us to get your feedback!
- Z
Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
Quote:
Yeah, as long as it does create the registry entries at the start, that should work fine. What I was describing is only required in the case that it waits till the download is complete to create the right registry entries.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Orrrr.... Have the NCSoft Launcher start a fresh install, which creates those registry entries, then stop it. Then copy over piggs. Then restart the NCSoft Launcher and tell it to fix the piggs.
You know... just like I posted above. Although... I should test it to see if it works that way. |
As I think about how that would need to work in order to allow it to be completely stopped and existed and still resume later, I think your test will probably be successful.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Commentary at this time is based on the following:
Intel Core2Duo E6600 w/2GB Ram
Win XP Pro SP3
NVidia GeForce GTS 450 w/266.58 Drivers
Main City install only
Objective:
Download and Installation of NCSoft Launcher went fine. Including the fact I did not install the launcher to the recommended location.
Upon first launch, noted the Main City Install and stated it was ready for play.
After following the instructions to set up the Test install, Test is D/Ling at about the pace I expected (snails pace, but my net connection isn't the greatest). I am doing this to see overall performance.
I was also able to set overall option to where I want them.
Subjective:
It would be nice to see an actual display of download progress on the actual launcher. Having to Tool tip to see progress is rather annoying.
Is there a potential way to minimize what NCSoft games you do not have installed? At this time, I'm not really interested in purchasing any other NCSoft game and would not like to be reminded of any.
I had used a version of the installer when I was playing Exteel. I was not really happy with the launcher at that time. I am not overly thrilled I will be forced to use this launcher in the future for City.
As for right now, I'll see how it goes.
Thank you for the time...
@Travlr (Main) / @Tymers Realm (Test) 
Subjective: With the old launcher I had to click two buttons, both are a large size and easy to target. With the NCsoft launcher, I need to click the game name and a button. While the button is large and easy to target, the game name is not. Two possible solutions are to either increase the text font size or to pad above and below the game name to make the clickable target area larger.
global handle: @Celtic Coders 1, @Celtic Coders 2
The new updater downloaded 27.3 MB to bring the Test Server up to date. With the identical game installation, the old updater only downloaded 7.1 MB. The file sizes were reflected in the download times. If all patches will be this inefficient from now on, those of us with slow connections will see four times longer downloads on every patch. Only players with extremely fast connections will benefit, and then only if the new mirrors can bypass a bottleneck that choked their connections to 25% of capacity.
Quote:
The games' click-bars are rather narrow and could stand to be widened, I agree.|
Originally Posted by Celtic_Coders
Subjective: With the old launcher I had to click two buttons, both are a large size and easy to target. With the NCsoft launcher, I need to click the game name and a button. While the button is large and easy to target, the game name is not. Two possible solutions are to either increase the text font size or to pad above and below the game name to make the clickable target area larger.
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If you want ease of start-up, you can, through the NCSoft Launcher, create a desktop icon for each install of the game (and set the NLauncher to terminate upon client start-up). Then, when you launch the game through the desktop icon, it's just one click start-up.
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Quote:
Just to point out, there *was* a patch for the test server (at least EU side) yesterday, that was around 25MB.....
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Originally Posted by Pengy
The new updater downloaded 27.3 MB to bring the Test Server up to date. With the identical game installation, the old updater only downloaded 7.1 MB. The file sizes were reflected in the download times. If all patches will be this inefficient from now on, those of us with slow connections will see four times longer downloads on every patch. Only players with extremely fast connections will benefit, and then only if the new mirrors can bypass a bottleneck that choked their connections to 25% of capacity.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Celtic_Coders
Subjective: With the old launcher I had to click two buttons, both are a large size and easy to target. With the NCsoft launcher, I need to click the game name and a button. While the button is large and easy to target, the game name is not. Two possible solutions are to either increase the text font size or to pad above and below the game name to make the clickable target area larger.
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Actually, with the launcher, you can right-click and get multiple options for the game.
Green: Game is ready to play.
Yellow: Game either needs patching or consistency checking..
Red: Game isn't ready to play. Needs patching at least.
My Beta install is red due to my having remove the PIGG directory to save space on my drive.
Okay, quantitative analysis here:
Test System:
Lenovo ThinkPad T61p
4GB RAM
Windows XP 32-Bit.
Memory Usage:
CoH Launcher on startup: ~25 MB
After Idle: 2.756 MB Leaks up to 4.048 MB after 30 minutes and stable after that.
NCSoft Launcher on Startup: ~56 MB
After Idle: 3.7 MB Immediately starts leaking memory.
First time startup after 5 minutes: 8 MB
Second time startup after 5 minutes: 11 MB
Third time startup after 5 minutes: 11 MB
Leaving it run causes it to, slowly, continue to leak memory. Usually in single to double KB increments over time.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
If I want to install the Euro Test server via the NCSoft Launcher, what should I add to the "[space]/LaunchGame=CohTest" part?
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
I intended to try patching identical directories with the old and new updaters. I didn't take notes of what files I copied and from where, so I might have made a mistake. Today, though, a fresh copy from my Live folder to an empty Test folder seems to want 8.5 MB with the new updater, and only around 2 MB with the old. |
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
Just to point out, there *was* a patch for the test server (at least EU side) yesterday, that was around 25MB.....
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Different numbers from last night, and I don't know why, but the same size ratio between updaters. I expect I was working with copies that weren't identical to Live last night. Erm, from what notes I did find it seems I was patching from 1950.201102010039.0 last night and from 1950.201102120907.1 this evening, so there's the difference.
Worked fine for me, though it didn't recognize that I had the Test and Beta versions installed. They were red, but when I clicked on each one it gave me the Update button, and patched each with no trouble. All links seem to go where they are supposed to.
I had UM graphics going while moving around the Talos Wentworths and there didn't seem to be a noticable difference while the Launcher was still active in the background. (Win 7 user). We'll see when there's more than a handful of people on the server at the same time if that changes.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.