Why is the NCSoft Launcher such a turd?

I dunno about crashing as such, but I know a lot of people who have reported that it causes the game to crash if they leave it running. My big issue with it is the demands for UAC access. If you say "no", everything works. Therefore it does not actually need admin privs, and apps which demand admin privs they don't need are badly, badly, broken.

I've also had it do clever things like download (possibly more quickly) a 6GB download more than once because it couldn't find the one it already downloaded.

It's not as spectacularly bad as the store code, but it's pretty bad, leading me to think that the bad code was an ncsoft thing, not a Paragon thing.

I patched at about 100KB/s on the old updater.

I patch at 2-3MB/s on the launcher, often faster. I have it set to close after launch, so it never crashes. It pretty much never fails to connect (no more Connecting... #34!). After the download, the "patching" process is slightly faster. Repairing definitely is faster, plus I am not forced to repair after every. single. crash. (though I rarely crash anymore).

It is entirely better all around for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Another thing about the current launcher is it only rewrites the files that actually have changes. The old updater would rewrite every file in the game including the ones that didn't change, a method that can fragment more of the game files than just the ones being patched.

Another good thing is it actually launches your preferred browser if you click on one of the links being displayed. Internally it still uses Microsoft's IE's renderer for the pages it displays (easiest way to include a Windows compatible browser into a 3rd party application) but launching Firefox, Chrome or whatever's your poison is a step up from the old updater.

I'm not someone who leaves apps running in the background waiting for some event to be pushed onto them. I see no reason to leave the launcher running continuously or have it started at boot/login time.

Never had issues with the launcher, not on old computer, not on new computer.
Download speeds about about the same. Its faster in applying the patches tho.
I've never had it crash (try reinstalling it?). I leave my computer on all day long and the launcher is usually open as well, even if i'm playing something else.
Guessing its something with your computer.

The old updater was not written with Windows UAC security in mind. (Yes, you can rename it to fix that, but us EU chumps couldn't do that.) This means a crash in CoH would be more likely to explode your computer, because it would always run with admin rights. The NCSoft Launcher is designed for the 21st century, only invokes UAC when needed, and doesn't launch games with admin rights. That way, if CoH dies, it has more restricted access and won't kill something important.

Like when (another game) overwrote an important system file and stopped your PC from booting entirely.

If you have a mouse that changes mutton layouts on a game-by-game basis, you were out of luck if CoH was in admin mode. Admin programs (CoH with the old updater) are unreadable by non-admin programs (your mouse driver), it's sort of the whole point of admin rights in general.

Also, the NCSoft Launcher updates all clients at once. Live, test, beta. It also isn't trigger-happy with file verification; back in 'day, if CoH crashed for any reason, the updater would painstakingly verify all files before letting you proceed.


Oh, and one more thing. Of all the things to complain about these days, this is a dealbreaker?

I have the fancy stuff like background patch downloading turned off. I'll only run the launcher manually if I'm checking out one of the test servers. I have it set to close once a game is launched so I don't have to look at it.

Other than that, integrating CoH into the launcher has been a massive QoL improvement for me. It downloads and applies patches far faster than the old launcher ever did.

I've had no issues with the NCsoft launcher at least with City of Heroes.

Now with a certain other NCSoft game a couple of years ago, it was pretty awful. I was expecting the switchover to be painful, but it turns out to be just another change for the better.

Does the new launcher make use of Akamai technologies?

I have no problem with it myself but I have been told (second hand) that it can get hit by some ISPs under their peer-to-peer throttling.

Seem to recall whatever it uses is less actual peer-to-peer and more mirrored sources.

Just adding that the new launcher works so much faster and better for me.
Changed downloads from 12+ hours (yes really) to around 2.
I have it set to autolaunch heroes when started and then close. Most times I never even see it it loads & closes so fast.