Guide: GameTree Linux and getting around the NCSoft Launcher
By
Cayenne,
Posted on: 2011-08-02 24:33 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
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Probably not - they have likely looked at the size of the linux gaming market and decided the potential sales which would be generated would not outweigh the cost of developing and maintaining installers for the various Linux distros. Its a business decision they have made and no amount of your slagging them off is going to change that. |
Originally Posted by je_saist
At this point I do not think NCSoft sees the marketing value or the opportunity to grow it's subscriber base with a Linux client.
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If you want any chance of changing that decision you need to present them with a reasoned argument - calling them idiots will definitely not help your case.
Mind of Gaia lvl 50 Defiant's first Mind/Storm 'troller.
Deadly Doc 50 Dark/Dark Corr
and lots more on Pinnacle,Union and Defiant
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If you've read what I've wrote before, I'm not asking them to do that. The City of Heroes engine runs perfectly fine as is under Transgaming's G.T.L. or W.I.N.E. bases. |
Originally Posted by Gaia
Probably not - they have likely looked at the size of the linux gaming market and decided the potential sales which would be generated would not outweigh the cost of developing and maintaining installers for the various Linux distros.
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In the case of Transgaming they could likely obtain permission to wrap the Game Client in a modified G.T.L. launcher, much the same way that the OSX release is managed.
Also, nobody's asking them to maintain various Linux Distros. All NCSoft / Transgaming have to do is target Debian / Fedora bases, a decision Transgaming came to... well... a long time ago. As is now Transgaming only packages for Debian 32bit, Debian 64bit, and a generic package for Fedora.
Yes, transgaming does make the program binary available for users with other types of distro's, but the development reality is that the Desktop Linux market is not as fragmented as it appears. It's pretty much Debian or Fedora.
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| Its a business decision they have made and no amount of your slagging them off is going to change that. |
Am I going to wait around for somebody else to say something? Or am I going to step up and be the focal point for other people to look at and rally around?
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| If you want any chance of changing that decision you need to present them with a reasoned argument - calling them idiots will definitely not help your case. |
Now if you want me to go into WHY reasonable arguments don't work, I'll be happy to do so.
Where should I start? With the F.U.D. that Microsoft constantly spews off that Linux users are all pirates who won't pay money?
With the conceptual idea that any and all software published for the Linux platform has to be GPL compliant?
With the lie that GPL itself is virulent?
With the conceptual idea that there are just too many distributions to support?
With the conceptual idea that there isn't a market to begin with?
I can bring forth data all day long showing that yes, there is a market, pointing out games such as Heroes of Newerth, pretty much every single Humble Indy Bundle made so far, and Epic's old success with Unreal on Linux until Microsoft paid them off to stop releasing a Linux client. I can explain what the GPL really means till I'm blue in the face. I can make a spreadsheet showing how development teams with far less resources than a multi-billion dollar gaming empire easily manage to support 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or in some cases more, Operating Systems with a single code base by using platform neutral API's and toolkits.
It. Hasn't. Worked.
The plain and simple fact is that most modern publishers these days do not do basic market research. Epic Software, for example, is still confused as to all get-out why Unreal Tournament 3 was a flop. It never occurred to Epic that a significant portion of their player-base was no longer on a Windows platform, and were waiting for the Linux client that never appeared. Sales of UT3 were only boosted when the game became playable under Transgaming Cedega and the WINE code-bases. Was it worth it to Epic to take the bribe from Microsoft to can that client over making sales? I'm not in position to judge that. Since Epic Software is still around, obviously what they did worked for them.
One of the problems that many publishers and developers have is that they are stuck in a market-share mentality.
Case in point, the Gamecube and the Wii. After the N64 platform many developers and publishers had largely written Nintendo off, and the Gamecube was plagued by lazy game ports with few developers outside of Capcom taking the platform seriously. Then came the Wii, which again, publishers and developers wrote off. As we all know, the Wii exploded, dominating the sales charts for the next few years, and leaving publishers and developers reeling with just how wrong they were. However, since most publishes and developers had allocated no resources for Wii development, the Wii, like the Gamecube before it, was plagued with lazy ports and shovelware titles. Rather than entering the Wii market with quality games, most publishers and developers shot themselves in the rear end with downright unpleasant game-play experiences. Little surprise that 3rd parties couldn't sell games on the Wii, very few consumers were willing to give those third parties chance... never-minding deliberate attacks on the consumers such as the Goldeneye revamp.
Bringing this back around to Desktop Linux, nobody is saying that the platform is going to be a multi-million dollar sales opportunity from Day 1... but it does not HAVE to be one. Most commercial game publishers and developers approach the Linux platform as though the Linux platform was it's own separate contained little world, and treat it as such. That is a mistake as most commercial publishers and developers will only approach a platform if that platform offers a certain level of return on investment.
The simple fact is, if commercial publishers use platform neutral toolkits and API's, they can hit multiple-platforms with a single code-base... a development mentality most commercial publishers and developers already are having to embrace with game console ports (PS3 uses OpenGL and Linux, Xbox 360 uses a WinNT dervied kernel with DirectX).
This platform-neutral development lesson is also being learned commercial game developers and publishers working with Android and IOS. A code-base using platform neutral API's is a lot easier, and a lot cheaper, to maintain and port between the platforms. Applications that were built with platform-neutral toolkits and API's in the past are also much easier, and cheaper, to modernize and republish... something IDSoftware leveraged with their own mobile app-space games.
Most commercial publishers and developers are once again learning the lessons their progenitors learned back in the 1990's. New platforms need to be approached as growth opportunities, not as guaranteed sales pitches. Yes, a new platform may not reach a certain level of R.O.I. New platforms generally do not have to. New platforms are where customer bases are built up. If that means a few losses up front, so be it. Most commercial publishers and developers have been through this cycle throughout both console generation changes: e.g. Playstation 1 into Playstation 2; and operating system conversions: e.g. Windows 9x into Windows NT. One would think given the ample experience of publishers and developers who took risks back in the 1990's and 2000's by betting on a new platform as a growth market, there would not be the industry stigma towards just getting a Linux client out the door.
Now, I can't fix the perception problem on the part of commercial publishers and developers. I cannot make an executive suddenly start treating Desktop Linux as a growth market. I cannot force executives to implement a policy that development be done in a platform-neutral manner.
I can, however, raise as much noise as possible, hope other people join me, and hope that at some point, hope it's enough to result in a change of policy.
je-saist, I feel your pain. Unfortunately for you, the pace of game development on the Linux platform still lags heavily behind Windows and even MacOS. The choice you made to run Linux as your main OS has had this same downside since Desktop Linux was born as a viable choice.
The problem is that your outrage is just not justified. Feel free to be disappointed or annoyed. You will find many here that sympathize considering our own battle with getting this game running correctly even on its native Windows platform. But frankly, your otherwise informative post is overshadowed by your insulting delivery.
The simple fact is that CoH is a 7 year old game. They took a smart marketing outlook with the release of an OSX compatible launcher simply because of the growing number of Mac users in their core demographic. There is still so little money in the Linux side of things that there is no real marketing potential. It doesn't make it easier when they *do* something for your end of the scale, then get ripped and insulted when something they honestly don't control makes it hard for you again.
The CoH developers most likely had very little input on the switch to the NCSoft launcher. Once CoH was bought by NCSoft, you should have been getting ready for this. It would have prevented a mad scramble and angry, abusive rhetoric aimed at people that were most likely told that the new launcher is how it WILL be from their corporate owners.
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Can't really explain it better than that I guess.
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Originally Posted by Mephisto_Kur
je-saist, I feel your pain. Unfortunately for you, the pace of game development on the Linux platform still lags heavily behind Windows and even MacOS. The choice you made to run Linux as your main OS has had this same downside since Desktop Linux was born as a viable choice.
The problem is that your outrage is just not justified. Feel free to be disappointed or annoyed. You will find many here that sympathize considering our own battle with getting this game running correctly even on its native Windows platform. But frankly, your otherwise informative post is overshadowed by your insulting delivery. The simple fact is that CoH is a 7 year old game. They took a smart marketing outlook with the release of an OSX compatible launcher simply because of the growing number of Mac users in their core demographic. There is still so little money in the Linux side of things that there is no real marketing potential. It doesn't make it easier when they *do* something for your end of the scale, then get ripped and insulted when something they honestly don't control makes it hard for you again. The CoH developers most likely had very little input on the switch to the NCSoft launcher. Once CoH was bought by NCSoft, you should have been getting ready for this. It would have prevented a mad scramble and angry, abusive rhetoric aimed at people that were most likely told that the new launcher is how it WILL be from their corporate owners. |
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tl;dr
Thanks for taking your time Je Saist, I'll try and see fi this works on Ubuntu aswell.
If not, I'm gonna try and get a -refund- from ncsoft. I've payed in advance for 6 more months of gaming (yeah, i like CoX that much) and if that doesn't work I guess I'll have to find something else to play and -pay- for.
Windows is not an option atm, unless someone sponsors me with a win7 ultimate 64-bit and a 250gb+ sataII drive.
//CX
I don't have (or want) a valid Windows installation, I've been using Linux as my only OS for about 12 years now. I prepaid through sometime next year, but I guess it's time for me to find a new game to play. Meh.
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And why would you need those, as opposed to Windows 7 Home and a smaller drive?|
Originally Posted by Cx_1233
Windows is not an option atm, unless someone sponsors me with a win7 ultimate 64-bit and a 250gb+ sataII drive.
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Regardless, don't hold your breath on a refund.
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Why would they give you a refund? Linux has never been a supported OS.
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Originally Posted by Cx_1233
Thanks for taking your time Je Saist, I'll try and see fi this works on Ubuntu aswell.
If not, I'm gonna try and get a -refund- from ncsoft. I've payed in advance for 6 more months of gaming (yeah, i like CoX that much) and if that doesn't work I guess I'll have to find something else to play and -pay- for. |
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.
@memphis bill & texas justice,
why i would need 64-bit ultimate? i'd like to have a system with as few locked-down settings as possible. as for the drive, my new mobo doesn't come with a pata-connector and ide drives are hard to come by these days.
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Dunno why you directed that at me, I said nothing about a Windows OS or any drives.
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Originally Posted by Cx_1233
@memphis bill & texas justice,
why i would need 64-bit ultimate? i'd like to have a system with as few locked-down settings as possible. as for the drive, my new mobo doesn't come with a pata-connector and ide drives are hard to come by these days. |
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.
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what Bill said, ultimate doesn't really have any feature that you need for a home PC over what home premium has. and for the record you could install it on a 40GB HDD...if you could find one|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
And why would you need those, as opposed to Windows 7 Home and a smaller drive?
Regardless, don't hold your breath on a refund. |
But I'm curious why you guys feel so, hell bent, on using linux on a gaming rig. I get the benifits of linux vs Windows. But all the hoops you guys seem to go through in order to play this game seems like it costs you just as much in time as it does for me to go buy a copy of windows. So can you esplain it?
V-Tronix - Angry Angels
V-Tron Elec/EM - V-Tron X EM/EA
To Build a Better Hero #53098 [Newly edited and looking for Feedback] - Renegade Robots: V-Tron's Task Force # - A Summer Song and A Winters Tail #104106
@texas, sorry mate, was going to write something directed at you but my better judgement kicked in.
@v-tron, yeah, i can use an old 40gig harddrive. i might even have one laying around somewhere. Still gotta jum through those hoops though. it's an old ide drive and my mobo doesn't come with that. :|
might have an old ide-sata adapter somewhere. it's a bodge, but it could work.
as for gaming on linux, linux's been my main os for the past 5-6 years or so, all my data is stored on ext3/4 filesystems which to my knowledge windows can't read.
going from an 'all-included' os which comes with firewalls, utility programs et.c. allready installed and switching to an os that might (my windows skills are a bit outdated) need third-part software just to behave properly is a major pain.
then there's the money issue, a full version of win7 home premium costs about 240$, my time however, is free 
gaming isn't that hard on linux either, CoX worked beautifully through wine with the old launcher.
some games might even perform better on linux/wine then in a windows enviroment.
but i am ranting and taking focus from the main purpouse with je sais how-to.
//cx
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Go OEM, or even upgrade (you *can* use it without an actual copy of Windows-something-else.) $99. Of course, you'll have other hoops, I believe, to jump through to get it to ignore your bootloader (GRUB2 or whatever you're using) and add it to that, but it is cheaper. |
Originally Posted by Cx_1233
then there's the money issue, a full version of win7 home premium costs about 240$, my time however, is free
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gaming isn't that hard on linux either, CoX worked beautifully through wine with the old launcher. some games might even perform better on linux/wine then in a windows enviroment. |
Far too much fiddling about to get games to work, IMHO, though. Some played nicely, others... definitely didn't. (Which is still the case, and just not something I have the patience for these days. Everyone's tolerance for what's "just a little tweak" vs "too much mucking about" is at a different point, admittedly.)
Still, even though *I* may find it too much messing around to get something to run doesn't mean I don't appreciate the OP's efforts here (or that I don't support trying to find a more elegant way around it that doesn't require a windows install.)
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99$ is still way over budget, especially if you consider that I won't be using it on a daily basis...and OEM...yuck. I don't buy retail systems I put them together myself from separate parts.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Go OEM, or even upgrade (you *can* use it without an actual copy of Windows-something-else.) $99. Of course, you'll have other hoops, I believe, to jump through to get it to ignore your bootloader (GRUB2 or whatever you're using) and add it to that, but it is cheaper.
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I'm hoping that grub will kindly ignore the disk windows will reside on and let me choose which one to boot from via a pop-up menu from BIOS.
//CX - Boldly going to a place he hasn't visited in years. Windows.
Has anyone tried this?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ull/
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... um... that's when you buy OEM. I don't mean a copy from Dell or HP. OEM is a generic full install. Only difference from retail is (a) no fancy packaging and (b) no tech support from Microsoft. (You do, of course, still get updates, service packs, etc.) (Well, and (c) you get the 32 OR 64 bit edition, not a copy of both.) |
Originally Posted by Cx_1233
99$ is still way over budget, especially if you consider that I won't be using it on a daily basis...and OEM...yuck. I don't buy retail systems I put them together myself from separate parts.
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I build my own as well, and that's generally what I buy. $99 for home (vs $200 or whatever,) $130 for Pro (vs $300.)
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Ah, my mistake then |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
... um... that's when you buy OEM. I don't mean a copy from Dell or HP. OEM is a generic full install. Only difference from retail is (a) no fancy packaging and (b) no tech support from Microsoft. (You do, of course, still get updates, service packs, etc.) (Well, and (c) you get the 32 OR 64 bit edition, not a copy of both.)
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Just tried it. Unfortunately, because it's a few years old, it doesn't work. When you set it up to launch CoX it just opens the old launcher.
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Originally Posted by Tex
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I've just installed and attempted ULL myself, and for me, it DOES attempt to launch the new Launcher. Unfortunately, I'm hitting the same wall that I run into with wine, where it locks up at 25% while "Checking for Updates". Tex, thanks for this suggestion!|
Originally Posted by Salvete
Just tried it. Unfortunately, because it's a few years old, it doesn't work. When you set it up to launch CoX it just opens the old launcher.
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Here's where I stand: my laptop, running SuSE 11.3, WILL update my CoH files using the NCLauncher (which still doesn't display properly itself), but is unable to run the game due to other reasons.
My *desktop*, also running SuSE 11.3, refuses to even start the launcher, with the error "wine: Install Mono for Windows to run .NET 2.0 applications." When Mono IS installed, it stalls, as noted above.
If anyone has any winetricks suggestions, I'm willing to try them!
W4E
God, this is depressing. how tragically unnecessary this is.
well, my subscription is up soon anyway...
good-bye, CoH. we had a great run.
=(
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In external patching mode, it attempts to use the old City of Heroes updater, or possibly the NCSoft launcher. In internal patching mode, it uses a system that appears to no longer be used by NCSoft: there are no valid patches on the server it contacts.|
Originally Posted by Tex
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Edit: Further investigation reveals that it may be using the correct patching system, but accessing the wrong server. Some tweaking of the GameList.xml file may let it work properly.
Edit: Found the server. The GameList.xml file at http://pastebin.com/7iw0kp9V should let the Universal Linux Launcher patch and launch City of Heroes and the test server. This is totally untested, though, since my installations for both are up to date. Note that the ULL requires Mono, and may require additional packages (gtk-sharp, glade-sharp, and xdelta).
Cheers Katie_v.
I've compiled the ULL and edited the gamelist.xml to point to the new server, it still launches the old launcher/patcher though.
Any ideas?
//cx
No idea. City of Heroes launches fine here, and I can't test updating because I'm already up-to-date. Are you sure you edited the GameList.xml file properly? It's more than just a matter of changing server URLs: you also need to point it at the City of Heroes executable rather than the launcher, and you need to tell ULL to use its internal updater rather than CohUpdater.exe.
Okay, for those unaware, NCSoft is hellbent on both forcing CoH users to use it's crapware launcher, and creating more work for its own developers by having a completely separate launcher for it's official OSX client. NCSoft, so far, has shown no indication that it will rethink it's strategy, get the hell away from .NET, and produce a launcher using a platform neutral API and toolkit.
Given that Linux users are, for the time being, out in the cold as of August 4th, here's a work-around to keep CoH running on a Linux install under Trangsgaming's Game Tree Linux.
No, this is not going to be the most elegant work-around ever. You Will Need a Valid Installation of a Microsoft Windows Operating System or an Apple Computer OSX Installation to use this work around.
This guide shows a common usage scenario, where the user has made no major modifications to their system and is not wanting to make major modifications.
There is now a guide posted showing how to modify fstab to make the drive / partition with Microsoft Windows Operating System installed an auto-mount, as well as how to point Game Tree Linux to the City of Heroes installation files on the Windows Drive / Partition.
This guide is taken from a Microsoft Windows Operating System installation.
Windows Portion
You'll have to start off in non-Linux operating system with the Crapware NCSoft Launcher.
Go ahead and patch up the game client
After patching Run The Game
A pop-up will appear asking to verify the files
Let the files verify
That concludes the Windows Operating System portion of this guide.
At this point we'll need to continue inside of your Linux installation. Now, the best way to continue from this point is if you have a pre-existing installation of City of Heroes through GTL. If you do not, the next steps will help you set up the pre-install environment.
Preinstall
I have uploaded the configuration scripts generated by GTL into a zip file located through this link.
Here are the configuration scripts and data generated by GTL for the City of Heroes Test server.
As a note, this file only contains the data created by Game Tree Linux. This file DOES NOT, repeat, DOES NOT contain the City of Heroes program.
And yes, I am doing this through Google Chrome. You'll see why in a minute...
Anyways, if you need the Game Tree Configuration data, go ahead and Download it.
Next, extract the downloaded file.
This is also why I used Chrome... I didn't feel like mucking about with the KDE / Firefox themes.
Wait for the extraction to complete
Then Copy the file
City of Heroes Installation
If you already have City of Heroes installed through Cedega, this is where you can jump back in.
Now we'll need to go to the Cedega install location. Typically it's at /home/(username)/.cedega
In my example though, I'm installing under /root. As a note, this generally isn't a recommended action. As to the other folder already here, I've also been trying this method with the Coh-Beta server, and so far I can load to the login screen.
Paste the CoH2 folder from earlier
Wait for the paste to complete
Go ahead and navigate down to /.cedega/CoH2/c_drive/Program Files/
Now we'll need to load up the Windows Drive to go fetch our City of Heroes installation folder.
If you are using KDE Dolphin, your windows Drive SHOULD appear in the left-hand column of dolphin as a mountable disk. However, the location of the City of Heroes folder will likely change. There are generally four different possible locations for the City of Heroes folder.
- /mnt/sda#/Program Files (x86)/
- /mnt/sda#/Program Files (x86)/NCSoft
- /media/disk-#/Program Files (x86)/
- /media/disk-#/Program Files (x86)/NCSoft
As I am using a Kubuntu derived operating system, my installation location is as follows:Go ahead and Copy the City of Heroes installation folder.
Now we need to go back and PASTE the folder into the /.cedega/CoH2/c_drive/Program Files/ location from earlier.
This copying will take a little longer to finish out:
With that done we can open up our GameTreeLinux UI. If all went well there should now be an entry for CoH2
and four or five of you suddenly went I know why he's in root
Checking the shortcut should show us that the pertinent information has already been filled in. The game is set for direct launch.
Before launching though, it's probably a good idea to check the resolution.
Set the resolution you want City of Heroes to inherit.
Now apply
And let's play
Now, if you haven't launched City of Heroes before, you'll likely get a resolution error here as CoH sets a new resolution.
If all went well you should be able to login...
and go to a server
there was also something else on my mind...
oh yeah.
Ultra Mode is working on Nvidia with the 280 OpenGL driver
Alright, now that the guide is over, time for a semi F.A.Q.