Work around for Staged Download?

Long story made short: my girlfriend's old laptop died before COH: Freedom went live. Her Architect Edition CD is in a storage building. We tried downloading the client last night and installing it, and all was well until it got into the Staged Downloading process--specifically Stage 4, where it started to slow down considerably in the mid-twenties percent.

Is there a time where Stage 4 speeds up considerably? Is there a way to avoid Staged Downloading altogether if we can do a fresh install from a CD such as Architect Edition? Or do we just have to let this one play out?

Thanks in advance.

Installing from a CD/DVD will be faster.

It will still have to patch up, but that should still be faster than a fresh download/install.

The reason stage 4 seems to take so long is it is broken down like this...

Stage 1: Character creator and store
Stage 2: New player tutorial
Stage 3: Atlas Park / Mercy Island and associated content
Stage 4: All remaining content

Stage 4 is literally 80-90% of a 4+ gb game. That is going to take a while.

I'm assuming you have your own computer with CoH on it, Tubbius. Is that correct? If so, try the following:

1) Start the install process on your girlfriend's computer, then close out of it.

2) Copy the CoH folder from your computer to a USB drive, then dump the contents to the CoH install folder on your girlfriend's laptop. (Remember, the game is over 4GB now, so it's going to take a few minutes to copy.)

3) Go into the install directory on your girlfriend's machine and delete the Checksum file.

4) Try launching the game; it should do a quick (less than 5 minute) sweep to verify the files and then she should be good to go.

That should be the absolute quickest way to get her up and running, if it's an acceptable option for you. Best of luck!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

We copied everything over to a flash drive, then copied that over, replacing files that were already installed. We deleted the checksum files in the COH folder. Then, on starting the launcher, it demanded we reinstall the game and tried to restart from stage 1. It will NOT give us a button to click to verify files. What gives? We can't just keep trying to reinstall a 4.5 gb game every day!

I'm going to delete the copy I had saved on my flash drive and recopy everything to it from my hard disk. It was an older install of the game, and I'd tried to copy stuff over without deleting the older version first. Maybe that will work.

Any ideas?

Make sure you have the directory names exactly correct. If it's off by even one capital/small letter, it won't "recognize" the directory and will assume it's a different one.

Try starting the download, then stopping it after the Program Files\City Of Heroes directory appears. Clean out that directory, and put all the files from the flash drive in there. That eliminates any possible mistakes of typing.

Further: on new systems, there's a "Program Files(x86)" directory too. CoH goes in there. The "download and stop" trick I mention above will fix that too, because there won't be a "City Of Heroes" directory at all if you are in the wrong system folder.

Some of the files in my install will be for my character info and Mission Architect stuff, as well as "PlayerCreatedSouvenirClues." What specifically do I need to copy over so that she doesn't end up with my personal stuff?

I honestly don't know. I'd get her up and running, then I'd worry about deleting "personal" info. I'm like 99% sure that it won't really affect anything, since all that stuff has to work even if one customer uses multiple log-ins.

In other words, copying all of your files should work exactly the same as if she used your computer to log in to her account. Which lots of folks do, and it works fine. All that stuff should be "per account name" anyway and the system won't crash or mix things up.

In regards to storage these make little difference but if you're looking to cut the things that might be considered personal client_demos, costumes, Custom_Critter, CustomVillainGroup, logs, Missions, PowerCust, screenshots, and any folders marked with your login name can be safely skipped.

your best bet was if you been playing the game on two different PCs,you could just copy the files from the other PC. I play from two different PCs at times, I only update one of them and copy the files over when it's done. ( assuming I remember to do it or if it looks huge download ).

There is an NCSoft directory and a "City of Heroes" directory.

my guess is that you just need to let it download overnight.

We're going to be trying this in a couple of hours or so.

Let me see if I have the steps down absolutely 100% correct.

1. Run the NCSoft Launcher to begin the staged download of COH.

2. Let it begin downloading. Once it creates the COH folder in Windows, stop the download.

3. Close the NCSoft Launcher.

4. Navigate to the COH folder and empty it out by deleting all files. Leave the folder structure intact.

5. Copy all of the game files from my flash drive to the COH folder on her computer.

TOTAL SIZE: 4.43 GB.

6. Delete the Checksum file(s).

HOW MANY CHECKSUM FILES ARE THERE?

7. Start the NCSoft Launcher.

8. Regardless of any pop-ups or dialog boxes, attempt to right-click the words "City of Heroes" in the menu on the left of the Launcher, telling it to "Repair (Consistency Check)".

9. Let it run, and hope it realizes everything is properly there.

IF NOT, THEN WHAT?

10. Start COH and test run the game.

11. Post back here whether it works or not.

= = = = =

By the way, our average download speed at my house is 110-150 kb/sec. This has been downloading anywhere from about 65-80 kb/sec on the low end to 200-250 kb/sec on the high end. That's assuming the router doesn't drop out with some regularity. Total download time, from the beginning to starting into Stage 4 the other day, was from roughly 2 p.m. to after midnight--and, yes, it still wasn't finished. The real problem is the Stage 4 download, which is another unexpected 2.3 gb. Why can they not just patch the core files and be able to bypass that final download?

Wahoooooooo!

It works!

Go team Venture... er, team CoH Forums!

Final update: I helped my girlfriend to her first level 50 tonight (and my fourth, given the two characters are level pacted).

Thanks everyone for your help.

Back to it. Trying to do this same process for a friend's laptop. However, the game will not allow me to repair for a consistency check. I'm following the above steps precisely, but the game refuses to do anything but to force me to install the software. Any advice would be appreciated ASAP. Thanks.

Is the OS the same? (32 bits vs. 64 bits, Mac vs PC?)

Did you do the "start download to get the directories made" trick?

Those are the two things off the top of my head that would force a full re-install.

My copy at home is Windows XP; this is Windows 7, 32 bits.... Don't know about the bits on my system at home. This machine is about 1-2 years old. Suggestions? And yes, I did the "start then change" trick.