GM Tock

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Removed some posts. Brought orange slices and mint tea. Take a breath. We're all here for a video game. And exhale.

TL;DR (or "Another Link; Didn't Click"): "How can I join Closed Beta" is in the works. No ETA on when.

That's probably not it then. It'd have to be a huge mismatch or one of the components being bad quality, which is easy to test with other things to rule that out: if you got another bluetooth headset to try on the USB Adapter, or pairing the headset to your phone and seeing if something happened with them. Chipset Drivers would cover the sound card (Bluetooth is an output device, the sound card still processes the audio regardless) if you still want to give those a shot. If you're unafraid of trying an "at your own risk" fix, @BlackSpectre shared an article not so long ago regarding using OpenAL Soft to try to restore 3D Audio to City of Heroes on modern hardware without trying to use modern peripheral soundcards. (Most of which are either PCI-Ex 1X and weird to use, or USB and laggy.) https://gnd-tech.com/2020/08/how-to-enable-3d-audio-in-directsound3d-and-openal-games-without-a-sound-card/ -- I did it on a Windows system and it seemed to make the game sound less muddled, but it's hard to know if it's using the library or not since City of Heroes uses the Windows Audio system defaults. (Multiple sound devices? Select it in Windows, in-game Options just has volume and that's it.) Worth a shot. There's no uninstall, except for following the directions backwards. I used these instructions on my Windows system: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Sound_card#Universal I don't advise using the instructions for specific audio hardware, as most of those 'helper apps' are reaching a decade old or longer. (That RealTek tool was out when Windows Vista walked the earth and majestically ate leaves out of the tops of trees.)

Bluetooth devices have a list of supported profiles: handsfree with the worst quality, headset (AM quality audio), and A2DP (CD-quality audio). How old is the TP-Link Bluetooth dongle and headset? (If they're both recent, it's likely they're fine. If one's older than the other, I'd check to make sure both support A2DP.) Profiles is a match-game: to get A2DP working, both the dongle and headset have to support the profile.

Disable doesn't cover Team or Duals, since they're opt-in. To not receive Team or Duals, you'd revoke the Enable Inspiration choice that turned them on. They don't count as the single inspirations. (This also impacts the 3 to 1 convert feature, as Teams and Duals are take em or leave em.)

The mission is timed, alas, so it doesn't appear in Ouroboros. You'd have to be Level 25-30 to do it (if Laurie isn't a contact in that range and you're not terribly close to 30, completing a Safeguard mission would grant her as a contact after doing some radio missions.)

There's a new thread in the post above. Go use that one. This one is mildewy. (Also I politely disagree, I'm using a Mac Mini and it plays great. M1-M3 isn't the doom everyone thought it would be, it runs circles around Intel Graphics.)

Unless headphones are in use under Bluetooth, that's likely not it. (If it is, let us know, there's some stuff to try.) When updating drivers, is chipset drivers included in your routine? (Depends on the computer: most models will come from the OEM, some systems such as Gaming PCs that are custom built, you'll visit the Motherboard manufacturer site.)

Might need to put in a Support ticket for that one, since it involves our Forum Access. Check your PMs here for more info.

Quoting to reaffirm: For the live service, everyone starts again at Level 1. No Beta shard characters will ever be playable on Live shards.

If you share what's happening with your system, we might be able to see if it's 100% related to this issue and offer help.

Personal attacks aren't cool. Please aim your critique at the idea, not the person. Thanks.

Is the option for 3D Sound lit in the in-game Options screen? If so, turn that off to return to 2 channel sound. Otherwise, there may be a sound feature from your computer that picks up on "Environmental Audio" or EAX support that CoH uses, but shortly fell off the radar after 2005 in most hardware manufacturers. You'd have to dig into your sound settings to see if/what has changed. A good 90% of computers these days use motherboard embedded audio. If there is nothing about environmental or 3D audio in your system settings, don't be surprised.

It may not catch all crashes, but if it does and the Crash Reporter window appears afterward, be sure to send a "memory dump".

Envenomed Daggers also help from the P2W Store. Toss one when they buff up or their regen negates your damage to help level the playing field. They're cheap, and soloing players it can make the difference between a long fight where you complete the mission, and yet another hosp. run back to try again.

Thread pinned. The debt of gratitude we all owe the Kheldians for saving us from doom at the end of The Abyss.

@Luminara within reason. After all, there's 18-ish GMs, half of which are tasked in other areas, and there's 10,000+ players. If there's a flood, we've got higher priorities. Log errors are insufficient to determine client crash issues. On a working copy of the game that doesn't crash, 100's of errors for graphics card calls and FX errors will take place. Do you have the Diagnostic Client turned on?

Toss in your perspectives in Suggestions and Feedback. Someone already got that ball rolling for you.

LaunchCat is a traditional MacOS app. Drag it into Applications, then in Launchpad, run LaunchCat instead. Or pin to the Dock and click that. It should summon the HC Launcher after checking for updates on Mac-specific fixes.

From what I've been hearing, there's a few players with bases that won't load since the last maintenance. The next shard reset on Tuesday AM should free them up. Don't do anything drastic (change SG settings, member rights, etc.) as the base is still intact. But it may not be available until next Tuesday. I apologize for this outcome. This also goes for anyone who also is locked out of a SG base in the same manner.

There was an issue earlier. You should be okay to log in now.

There was an issue earlier. Let us know if you cannot access the base or other instanced maps.

Current status on Tequila from the City Council:

I'm on QHD displays myself (2560x1440), Borderless is likely to work better. Also to answer the above: HC Launcher displays news content on its own, no WebView elements are used (Edge or IE). The disconnect is the game client isn't being reported accurately what the actual resolution is at. This can happen for a number of reasons: Graphics Driver is using a resolution altering feature that is incompatible with CoH. Try using default settings and see if it clears up. You have a multiple graphics system (AMD along with Intel Graphics from the CPU) and COH is using Intel graphics and not the desired graphics card. Check Settings app in Windows, open System, Displays, and make sure City of Heroes is running off of the Graphics Card, not Integrated. (If only one graphic card is present, these options will not be present.) A monitor driver has been updated, which affected the gaming mode in question. A "Driver Rollback" may fix the issue (Open Device Manager, navigate to your display, Properties, Drivers, click "Rollback Driver" button), which will stop the problem temporarily until another driver update is prepared. If the driver is stock (no updates occurred, the current driver came with Windows 10 on installation), this is safe to ignore. Microsoft Windows Update replaced your AMD driver with a WDDM graphics driver (you mentioned Server Maintenance is when this occurred, which also coincides with Microsoft's "Update Tuesday"). In which case, reinstalling the AMD driver will restore performance. As both MIDS and City of Heroes is being affected, my suspicion is hardware-related. (Not so much your graphic card is messed up, but drivers/settings pertaining to it is suspect to the sudden change.)