City of Heroes Legacy Updater no longer in use from August 4
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2011-07-14 10:08 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Quote:
I haven't had IE crash on me in a long time (disregarding IE at work, which was running some proprietary Java/Opera program through IE), and I don't let anything install toolbars. Last time I used Firefox it crashed incessantly, kept soaking up memory like a sponge (at one point it was using over 300K while it was apparently closed), and wasn't any faster than using IE, while it failed to load some (but not all) Flash games. This is typical of my experience trying other browsers in general. With varying amounts of compatibility issues along the way.
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
What I want from a browser personally is something that works fast and doesn't crash. What I want from a browser professionally is one that people aren't constantly calling me up to ask me why its not doing what they want. IE scores a zero on the first one, and a negative five on the second one. Its actually average normal people who give me more IE8 headaches than my own usage. Given that I don't, in general, use it personally.
So when most human beings on Earth fire up IE8, they wonder why Adobe's installers for Acrobat and Flash silently fail without warning or error, they wonder why FTP links sometimes mysteriously fail, they wonder why they need content ratings on intranet sites, they wonder where the hell all their memory went, why it doesn't always restore page tabs after crashing, where all these stupid toolbars suddenly came from, and what is this Antivirus 2011 thing that keeps telling them they have to buy something to use their own damn computer again. And I load Firefox on their system and call it a day. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Everything seems to be working fine with Steam and the launcher for me. But I just returned last week, mostly thanks to the Steam sale from two weeks ago.
Installed the client around July 16-17, right after the one-day sale. Waited a few days before registering my serial and reactivating though, as I wanted to start last weekend when I had some hours to play.
So after installing all the CoH files in steam, clicking play did "first time setup" which installed then ran the NCSoft Launcher. Then I think after clicking play on that, CoH verified some files. Just making sure the game was ready to go at that point though. Didn't login as I hadn't re-activated.
Cut to Sat, July 23, with time to play. Looked at the game in Steam and the Play button had turned back into an Install button. Ran the NCSoft Launcher from Start Menu and saw there was a July 20 patch. Maybe that's why Steam wasn't reporting installed? Couldn't really figure it out.
Launched from the launcher, logged into game, played, had fun. Wondered why Steam wasn't working right.
Decided to click the Install button in Steam and see what happened. It claimed a 7mb patch was needed. Clicked next. Finished immediately. Play button returned.
Now I click on the play button (or jump list shortcut) in Steam. It launches the NCSoft Launcher, immediately patches/launches CoH, and closes the NCSoft Launcher. CoH runs with Steam overlay, Steam screenshots, play time tracking, etc.
Everything seems to work perfectly, for a fresh Steam install within the last couple weeks.
Just thought I'd toss out my experiences. I know everyone has different hardware, OS, whatever. So maybe there are problems. But from what I've seen Steam integration looks great and the NCSoft Launcher is unobtrusive. Maybe some people could try a fresh Steam install and that would help? Good luck to those still having problems.
Quote:
Yes, there's nothing more I enjoy than downloading circa 4Gb, followed by all the patches that have been released in the last month or so, in the hope that it may or may not fix something that I shouldn't have to fix in the first place.|
Originally Posted by Stele
Maybe some people could try a fresh Steam install and that would help? Good luck to those still having problems.
|
It was bad enough that the update to the Steam version of CoX when they were doing the sale last month forced me to re-download the whole client and repatch for precisely zero benefit, so I'll be damned if I'm doing it again.
Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes
My Characters
CoX Chatlog Parser
Last.fm Feed
I can remember when I had to shutdown, open my computer and change jumpers between games to get things like sound to work.
The entire idea that every single program written should work flawlessly is laughable.
Humans are involved. Hundreds, if not thousands, just so you can play CoH. Humans make mistakes. Humans are imperfect.
Sometimes, if you want something to work, you have to put in some effort. If that effort is too much for you, then you don't get to enjoy what you wanted int he first place. Why is that so difficult to understand?
"The side that is unhappy is not the side that the game was intended to make happy, or promised to make happy, or focused on making happy. The side that is unhappy is the side that is unhappy. That's all." - Arcanaville
"Surprised your guys' arteries haven't clogged with all that hatred yet." - Xzero45
Quote:
Question: Do you have to play through Steam?|
Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU
Yes, there's nothing more I enjoy than downloading circa 4Gb, followed by all the patches that have been released in the last month or so, in the hope that it may or may not fix something that I shouldn't have to fix in the first place.
It was bad enough that the update to the Steam version of CoX when they were doing the sale last month forced me to re-download the whole client and repatch for precisely zero benefit, so I'll be damned if I'm doing it again. |
If not, there is a solution I can recommend.
First, make a back up of your City of Heroes directory. It doesn't matter if you are using a DVD burner, USB thumb drive, or a temp directory on your hard drive.
Then, download the NCsoft Launcher.
Start the NCsoft Launcher. If it asks you to install City of Heroes, let it start. Make note of the install directory.
Next, stop the NCsoft Launcher. Take your backup, and copy it back to the directory that NCsoft was installing to. Delete the checksum files (.checksum or .chksum).
Finally, start the NCsoft Launcher again. Right click on City of Heroes, select "Repair (Consistency Check)". It shouldn't actually download 4 GB of files. Let it verify the files.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
Quote:
I do prefer firefox, but its memory use is one of those things that are hugely inconsistant|
Originally Posted by Tenzhi
I haven't had IE crash on me in a long time (disregarding IE at work, which was running some proprietary Java/Opera program through IE), and I don't let anything install toolbars. Last time I used Firefox it crashed incessantly, kept soaking up memory like a sponge (at one point it was using over 300K while it was apparently closed), and wasn't any faster than using IE, while it failed to load some (but not all) Flash games. This is typical of my experience trying other browsers in general. With varying amounts of compatibility issues along the way.
|
from system to system, setup to setup. On some people's computers, it's very efficient.
On mine, ever since FF3 came out and I upgraded to it, it's been a pig like it thinks it's
California, and memory is other states' water and electricity. And I run it very light
compared to a lot of other folk.
If I've had it running for awhile, it'll routinely eat up 3-500m just sitting there minimized on
about:blank nowadays, and nothing I remove, uninstall, or change has seemed able to do
anything about that.
It had a host of other problems relating to flash, but I was able to eventually rid myself
of those by disabling its "plugin container"(which, ironically, was tossed in there because
it was supposed to make flash run /better/ in FF, and isolate the browser from flash
taking it down. Neither of which actually worked.) Disabling that was easy, but required
actually deducing that the plugin container was what was causing the trouble, and then
finding out what to do about it, which is sadly too much trouble for some people(and I
don't really blame them on this count.)
Considering the other problems I've seen plugin container cause folk, I'm amazed they
got away with putting that thing in to start with. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many
of your FF-related problems rooted from it too.
What's wrong with the old launcher that I can't keep using that? You say the new launcher is suppose to be faster but if anything it's actually slower. I get on just as fast as I did before when nothing else is running on my computer but if I have firefox running at the same time it gives me errors saying I'm having internet connection issues even though firefox is still running perfectly fine. The other updater never had issues with firefox being left running in the background. This seems like a cheap way to advertise for other NCSoft games because the new updater has buttons on it for games that I'm not even playing. I only need an Updater for CoH as that's the only thing I play not every other game you have out that I don't even own.
You can set the launcher to quit immediately after opening CoH itself. That's how I have it set. I just click the CoH icon, it opens the Launcher long enough to launch CoH, then it shuts again.
Quote:
I don't *have* to, but I want to continue to. It shouldn't really surprise me, but it would have been nice if they had bothered to either update the Steam client to use the launcher without having to screw around with it or, at the very least, provide clear instructions on how to modify the config of your existing Steam install to have it start using the Launcher.|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Question: Do you have to play through Steam?
|
Now I can probably work that out by myself given sufficient time and will, but I really shouldn't have to.
Right now there are going to be a lot of people who bought the game on Steam, don't read the boards and who won't have a clue why their game suddenly stopped working today.
Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes
My Characters
CoX Chatlog Parser
Last.fm Feed
Server Status shows that all servers are up. But I can't get on the game! I keep getting that dialog box that normally only shows up when the servers are down. I did manage to log on once for about 10 min. and hardly anyone else was even on. I crashed and now I'm back to being stuck at the log in screen.
Yep, login server is definitely offline.
There's another reason that could happen. If the updater isn't updating it'll do that. Anyway I'm on now after like 100 log in attempts.
Quote:
Last I checked, server status has shown all servers up continually since something like January. Including during scheduled maintenance and crashes.
|
Originally Posted by Rial_Vestro
Server Status shows that all servers are up. But I can't get on the game! I keep getting that dialog box that normally only shows up when the servers are down. I did manage to log on once for about 10 min. and hardly anyone else was even on. I crashed and now I'm back to being stuck at the log in screen.
|
ya i cant get on with the old launcher at all. and i just dl the new one and cant get the game to even load up what the heck.
With Great Power there most also come Great Responsibility!
I was about to direct you to the support forums for help, but I see you've already fixed your issue.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
-----
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
|
Hi all, just a reminder that the CoH legacy updater has been deprecated, and will no longer allow players to connect to the game through it. Please use the NCsoft Launcher or the Steam platform to launch City of Heroes.
Quote:
Sounds like a Nemesis plot.
|
Originally Posted by Beastyle
Steam platform
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quote:
if Steam would launch the Coh client directly, it'd be one plot I could get behind.
|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Sounds like a Nemesis plot.
|
The only time I've had problems with the new launcher was when my .NET install was messed up. What made it worse was that I couldn't uninstall or reinstall that version on my computer. Then I found this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/arc...8/8904493.aspx and used the cleanup tool it to remove .Net and then was able to successfully reinstall it. I haven't had any problems with the launcher since.
So if you're having issues with the launcher it might be worth giving it a try.
This is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea and whoever came up with it should be fired.
Harsh? Maybe. But given that probably half the people on my global friends list who are always around when I am have inexplicably vanished since this "improvement", I don't personally think so.
Cutting paying customers off from playing your game is not just bad business, it's insane.
Make the old launcher functional again.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
- Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Beastyle
Hi all, just a reminder that the CoH legacy updater has been deprecated, and will no longer allow players to connect to the game through it. Please use the NCsoft Launcher or the Steam platform to launch City of Heroes.
|
Sounds great, except Steam still launches the old launcher, and hence I've no way to play any more.
Well I'm reinstalling the new launcher now because guess what? I woke up to find my computer was restarting to install updates, went back to sleep, and when I woke up again my computer was still trying to restart. I had to run in safe mode and do a system restore which normally saves all my old files and it did except for the NCSoft launcher which was mysteriously missing when I finally got my computer running again.
I wish to direct anyone wanting to use CoH from inside Steam, while still using the NCSoft Launcher, to this thread. I just followed the steps, and now I can use the Steam community and all its bells and whistles from inside CoH.
Ok so how the hell do I play the game via steam if I bought the game via steam as they have not updated the links/game/platform to use the NClauncher so I now have to have to shortcuts to the game via my steam client to play 
So when most human beings on Earth fire up IE8, they wonder why Adobe's installers for Acrobat and Flash silently fail without warning or error, they wonder why FTP links sometimes mysteriously fail, they wonder why they need content ratings on intranet sites, they wonder where the hell all their memory went, why it doesn't always restore page tabs after crashing, where all these stupid toolbars suddenly came from, and what is this Antivirus 2011 thing that keeps telling them they have to buy something to use their own damn computer again. And I load Firefox on their system and call it a day.
Most normal human beings on Earth don't complain very much about these things because they don't know any better because they don't know they are all 100% avoidable.
I suppose its better than the IE5/6 days when the security community was actually *this close* at one point to declaring IE to be essentially malware, and auditors were starting to tell corporations with any security requirements to ban it from the premises.
Mind you, referencing where this topic came from, I don't actually mind using the IE engine as an embedded browser in controlled environments like the NCSoft launcher in theory. Its actually the only place I *would* specifically use IE without much objection, because in that situation virtually all of its flaws are maskable. But as an end-user tool if I owned the button that would vaporize it from the Earth, the label on the button would have been worn off the top of it by now and I would be dancing on its grave.
Its not, say, ASA 8.3 bad, but its close. I only contemplate destroying IE, not murdering its dev team like I do with 8.3.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)