GM Tock

Turn in a support ticket and our team can see what happened. Include the times of the last transfer you did (visible in the Beta Account Center for the most recent transfers.) You don't need to delete any of your characters on Beta or Staging. New ones, even if copies of ones already there, will have a number transposed at the end to allow multiple copies. You are free to delete any you like, or a server wipe will take care of it before the next beta test, either way.

Network communications appear to stop with the game immediately after login. This has happened on Paragon Chat a bit back in the day for the same reason. Three things: 1.) Secure communications is time-dependent. Check your system time/date/timezone and make sure they're set correctly. (This is fairly unlikely except in edge cases, as an incorrect clock would affect your HTTPS browsing as well.) 2.) There's some client advice from Paragon Wiki/HC Wiki from back in the day: See if opening these ports makes a difference in Windows Firewall or your security app of choice. (Outgoing Rules ONLY, setting these in Incoming Rules creates more vulnerabilities without helping to connect any better.) 3.) If neither of these help, you can use a Launch Parameter to see disconnection errors better in your case: This will show you the network activity upon login in a different window. Be careful, as if the client is closed or crashes, the console window dies immediately. (A second monitor, even if it's hooking a HDMI cable to your TV temporarily, may be helpful.) When you have the info you need, clearing the Launch Parameters box in Tequila will stop the Console Window from opening when starting the game.

It's a download link. Clicking the link sends the tequila.exe file to your system. Possible reasons that it didn't start: Anti-Virus blocking the download. (AVs with "real time monitoring" usually notify if this happens when you try it.) Browser already got the file (check your Downloads folder). Network filtering is in effect. (Don't download this at school or work.)

Updated the Appendix from PM feedback, parties credited above as given. 🙂 As mentioned, I welcome any reports and feedback, but if somebody uses a Gentoo variant to play please let us know how it's working. If not, I'll wipe and retry my laptop install of Homecoming from Fedora to Gentoo for completeness-sake. (All five major versions of Linux tested means offshoots should have similar results.) Also in the works, I might be going back on my own advice at one point... stay tuned.

The Upgrade button buys replacement TO/DO/SO enhancements as if you went to a vendor and bought them yourself. It can save time versus buying and slotting. What it won't do: Upgrade only brings your slotted enhancements to the current level, combining still has value if you find them as drops. If you want to slot +3 ones from a vendor, you can still do that. Upgrade won't change Enhancement types. If you want to change from TO/DO/SO, you have to buy them yourself. IOs are ignored by Upgrade.

Focused Feedback threads are under tighter moderation than other places. Everone, please stay on topic concerning the powers in discussion.

Focused Feedback threads are under tighter moderation than other places. Everone, please stay on topic concerning the powers in discussion.

Focused Feedback threads are under tighter moderation than other places. Everone, please stay on topic concerning the powers in discussion.

Focused Feedback threads are under tighter moderation than other places. Everone, please stay on topic concerning the powers in discussion.

Collect the Accolade badge for finding the Atlas Park Nav Badges. LRT is granted. Free as in no cost in Inf or spending a power choice when leveling up. (Or any zone with a SG Accolade for Base Teleporters in the past.)

Similar to Fitness, though, all your toons get it for free. And if you’re not keen on the new TP T5, you can respec to a new choice. But yes, earning SG Accolade Badges to populate it is a cost in time. That’s fair.

The above chart look alright? Arch, I'm assuming it's 2020.10.01 release.

I remember in your last guide mentioning a change upstream in Mint broke Wine gameplay, but that might have been resolved by now. It was earlier in the year.

Tequila and Island Rum aren't going anywhere. Please don't! And this isn't an official guide, just advice. If the instructions don't work, forum and Discord pointers is as far as we can go. In fact, I haven't tried HC Launcher with Linux Mint, and I know that's a really popular distro. I am willing to update the above with other distro info if other Linux users want to post updates here.

The only Homecoming-related help I can think of is running at the same escalation level as Discord. (Don't run City of Heroes or Homecoming as admin if you do.) It's not a widespread issue, I've been using Discord with City of Heroes with no issues for a year now. Homecoming Launcher hasn't changed my Discord client's voice/video chat connectivity. (This does not mean I do not believe you.) When Discord voice chat has issues, first thing I check is the Voice and Video area of Settings and make sure the correct mic and camera is selected.

If you use HC Launcher, you don't need Tequila around to keep Paragon Chat and Icon running. You do need the files in the folder still for those two programs, but if you delete Tequila.exe on a lark, Paragon Chat and Icon will continue to work, even if the Homecoming client in your Tequila folder doesn't patch any further. (This has been said over the years before Homecoming existed, of course.) The Issue 24 files will never change. The same Issue 24 client files used for Paragon Chat/Icon in 2012 will be used indefinitely for these apps. As long as you keep good backups of the Tequila folder you have now, you're all set. Tequila can re-download Issue 24 in case the backup gets lost, however. Paragon Chat is already self-updating so if it does get a patch in the future, just running it will update the app. As of 1.0, Paragon Chat's data files and program actually are in "C:\%APPDATA%\Roaming", not Tequila. (Open the app, click the blue folder button, and copy all that you see to a flash drive. You just backed up Paragon Chat. Destination computer, run Paragon Chat & paste the flash drive contents to the blue folder location over there. Restored.) And Titan Icon is essentially end-of-life as no more updates are coming for it. If Titan Icon stops working someday, Paragon Chat's offline mode works for a majority of the use cases for Icon. (Senticon is a different thing. That's 100% on the web.) Even if you want to run Paragon Chat on another computer, just copying the backup of the Issue 24 files and Paragon Chat to a new machine and running the Paragon Chat app once to 're-install' is all you need. Making HC Launcher compatible with Paragon Chat and Icon is counterproductive to the future. Two reasons why: 1.) The folder and file structure of the Homecoming Launcher is incompatible with Paragon Chat and Icon. These programs expect the files to be in an arrangement that NCSoft/Paragon Studios originally devised. It's not just folder locations, it's how the files are patched as well by HC Launcher which isn't the whole-file copying that Tequila is used to. Future changes to the client will make these files more and more different as time goes on, as "Issue 24" becomes less rigidly defined as the Homecoming 'source' and new .pigg files replace the original client in turn. 2.) Removing Paragon Chat and Icon also makes less of a dependency on Titan Network's servers, In Tequila, when Titan Network had an outage, it would bottleneck Homecoming users from patching up without a good reason. Homecoming client doesn't use either app in the first place, and the files were never hosted on Homecoming's Content Delivery Network.

EXTRA CREDIT: DESKTOP SHORTCUT Here is a template "City of Heroes.desktop" file that should be usable across most desktop environments - copy the text below into a file, plonk it into your ~/.local/share/applications/ directory, and it should appear in your applications menu so that you can start it up from there: [Desktop Entry] Exec=env WINEPREFIX=~/.wine wine /home/[username]/.wine/drive_c/Homecoming/bin/win64/launcher.exe Icon=homecominglauncher Type=Application StartupNotify=true GenericName=Homecoming: City of Heroes Comment=Superhero MMORPG Name=Homecoming: City of Heroes Path=/home/[username]/.wine/drive_c/Homecoming/bin/win64/ StartupWMClass=launcher.exe You'll need to include this image file (named homecominglauncher.png) to make it have an icon for cosmetic's sake, and place it in your ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps directory: The /home/[username]/.wine/drive_c/Homecoming/bin/win64/launcher.exe and /home/[username]/.wine/drive_c/Homecoming/bin/win64/ section may need modification to point to the right place to start up the launcher. Refreshing your application menu may be required to see this. --------------------------------------------------------------- Special thanks to GM Korvin for additional work on this guide. APPENDIX: DISTRO REPORTS The following distributions have been tested in the community and have been checked by our players. If there are any catches or special considerations, or if a different guide is needed, a link is available below in Notes. Last Updated: March 2021 - Download links subject to change without notice. Distribution Version Tested By Working? Notes ArchLinux* (Download) 2020.10.01 (Rolling) GM Korvin Yes Wine-staging 5.20 works, both 32/64 bit. This means you can use the Wine built-in to Arch and skip installing Wine Stable. Manjaro* (Download) 20.2 Mechahamham Yes Slow loading performance on Linux 5.10 kernel on BTRFS disks, resolved in 5.11. Fedora* (Download) 33 GM Tock Yes Fedora 33 comes with DXVK by default, works, both 32/64-bit. (Using the 2nd method above works if removing DXVK first for older cards.) openSUSE* (Download) Tumbleweed (Rolling) Klypso Yes 64-bit support on Wine 5.18 has issues with rolling release distros, use 32-bit instead. 64-bit support works on Wine 5.14-2 (Staging) and under, crashes if higher. openSUSE (Download) Leap 15.1 Sonarr Yes Using Wine Staging 3.7 instead of Stable. Linux Mint (Download) 19 Archviste NO Driver restrictions on 32-bit are end-of-life for NVidia. Linux Mint (Download) 20 gypsyav Yes UsingWine/Winetricks setup, no Lutris. Ubuntu (Download) 22.04 LTS GM Tock Yes None. Ubuntu* (Download) 20.10 Klypso Yes Using Wine Staging 5.20 instead of Stable. Linux Decoder Ring (Source) -- Distributions with Installers (as in insert USB/Disk, boot, install): Debian Distributions are gold. (Sorry Ubuntu fans. Gentoo was purple first.) Redhat... well, red. Slackware Distributions are green. Arch Distributions are blue. Hard Mode: (Same as above but minimal or no OS installation "wizard" script included in initial setup) Gentoo Distributions in purple. From the lack of user reports, Gentoo fans are especially welcome to report (I tried and gave up, you get points and respect from me if you succeed at this.) Independent Distributions (Linux From Scratch, Purpose-Driven Distros like SliTaz, OPHCrack if you're really adventurous, etc.) will remain white. Why does this matter? Common distributions should have a similar experience in installation. Debian based distributions, such as Ubuntu means anything downstream of a reported version above (current versions of Pop_OS, Elementary OS, Zorin OS, etc.) as well as the "spins" of different UIs (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, UbuntuMATE, Ubuntu Budgie, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio) should all work as well. Upstream reports are definitely welcome (Debian Buster, for example.) Distributions with an Asterisk are on a rolling release or non-Long Term Build cycle, so only the latest version will be reported here. Builds with LTB (Ubuntu Long Term Support, Debian, etc.) are not asterisked. Reports are welcome for LTB variants for any non-deprecated versions. (No extended maintenance, please: users should not need to pay to get security updates.) I don't see my version listed -OR- I really like "X", make a guide for it! Use this Linux Distribution Map. See where your distribution lies and if it's in one of the four major upstreams, give this guide a shot first. Contributing to this table: Reply below with a distribution you've tried to run HC Launcher on. Include the following -- Distribution Name Version (Please only report on versions released in the last 12 months.) Working? (Can HC Launcher run using the methods above, or did you get it to work on your own?) Notes: if there's a couple of 'gotchas' concerning installation, name them here. If it's past two sentences or 50 words, I'll link to your report post. I also welcome links to a forum thread if you've written a guide (Either Help & Support or Guides work for this purpose.) This is a "distro report", so issues with Graphics Drivers are not included in the above. (Too many combinations to consider.) Still, any advice you can give for specific cards that are problematic under Linux is helpful, even if they're not a part of the above table.

LINUX METHOD TO INSTALL HOMECOMING LAUNCHER ABOUT LINUX AND HOMECOMING... As the title states, this is for running Homecoming Launcher only. With that in mind. I'm not going to discuss Tequila or Island Rum past this point. FULL DISCLOSURE - OR, WHAT DOES "COMMUNITY ONLY" SUPPORT MEAN.... This guide is intended ONLY for hobbyists and enthusiasts to give an idea how to approach playing the game on their system. There is no native Linux client for City of Heroes. This guide is about using Wine to shoe-horn the Windows client into running on Linux anyways. If you don't know if this is for you or not, consider the following skills required: Operating System Installation & Bare Metal Recovery - putting your computer back to normal with a fresh OS install. You will need to be able to do this at any time if needed. Linux Package Management - not ALL of them, just the one specific to your distribution: APT, YUM, RPM, PACMAN, etc. You should not need to compile anything from source code, however, at worse, knowing how to remove a package and recover your installation from a failed install avoids need for a Bare Metal Recovery. ... BASH, in any flavor (Most folks see this as the Terminal app). YOU MAY BE REQUIRED to edit config files across the file system when needed, especially when installing a video card driver. Be ready for it. And generally, navigation through a zero-promise, no-guarantees, self-support driven experience that Linux users would basically consider a normal Tuesday... This is an example of one of these places. Our assumption is that you know how to do all of the above. You don't have to be a master at it, necessarily, and we can give pointers. But those three areas listed are completely out of scope for this forum. Finally, a note on bugs and issues in Linux. To be clear from the start: there is nothing stopping you from running ANY of the patchers on Linux. However, if you find a bug in the client that doesn't work in Linux as it should in Windows or Mac, developers will not fix them. Turning in tickets for something that doesn't work in Linux will be responded with a form-letter stating that we don't support Linux client issues. Last Chance: If any of the above bullet points are not in your wheelhouse, or if that last paragraph discourages you, please stick to Windows or MacOS. We CAN help you with that. PREREQUISITES Read that? Good. If that didn't turn you away, let's continue. This procedure has been tested with the latest distributions of the following Linux spins during early Phase 1/2 testing: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - This version is supported by Canonical until April 2025. Fedora 33 - This is the current Fedora installation at the time of this guide. Fedora versions only last as long as the next release. For other distributions based around Debian (APT) and RPM setups, other distributions may work if you're willing to fill in the gaps for what is needed. For users with other package manager distros, you are encouraged to make guides to help folks along, but if it's APT/RPM, this SHOULD cover it. In addition, this does NOT change the System Requirements. This is NOT going to work on devices such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino, ATMEL devices, Chrome OS, Android, iOS/iPadOS, and the like. Your computer will need to be compatible with City of Heroes in the first place if it's able to play it in Windows or Mac. Also, Mac systems not under Intel processors (the upcoming Apple ARM processors, etc.) or that couldn't run it in the first place (Intel Core Solo) are not going to work with this guide. Finally, using these instructions for a Virtual Machine is not advised. City of Heroes runs best under native execution, with Wine being a close 2nd Place. (Remember, Wine stands for WINE Is Not Emulation.) VIDEO CARD This part of the guide works best with recent Video Cards released in the latter half of the 2010s up to today. A lot of your prep will be concerning your video card in use. This will determine your path to installation more than any other section. AMD: Radeon 7000/8000 or newer should be used to play COH. I can't verify personally as I don't have any cards on hand, but the open source drivers have been reported to work on Homecoming by various users with no special effort needed. So this should be far less of a hurdle to jump. NVidia (and a word about Nouveau): You will need a NVidia GeForce GTX 400 series card or newer. The Open-Source video driver, Nouveau, is installed by default on most Linux systems with NVidia hardware. The game will run on Nouveau, but it will be generally unplayable. For the best experience, YOU NEED the proprietary driver (Version 440 for the above minimum). For the two most popular distributions: Ubuntu: open "Additional Drivers" in the Activities pane, pick the version number you need, then click OK and wait a few minutes. Reboot, done. (Ubuntu 20.04 is STRONGLY recommended for NVidia users if you're new to Linux gaming.) Fedora: you'll need to use RPM Fusion to install NVidia drivers as an outside repository. You can read more on https://rpmfusion.org. This isn't a be-all, end-all for Nouveau, but the current state of affairs. If for ethical reasons you refuse to install proprietary binary blobs on your system, I'm all ears. I could not manage to get City of Heroes playable under Nouveau. I'm willing to learn if someone else figures it out. Intel: You really should use a dedicated card for this game, even on laptops. Barring that, Intel Skylake and newer does better on COH than prior processor versions of Intel Graphics. If your system has 4GB of RAM or LESS, you may need to turn down the "3D Resolution Scaling" option in "Graphics & Audio" under Settings to get acceptable performance. Remember: Intel graphics SHARES system RAM. It doesn't use a separate RAM bank from other programs like a discrete card does. Unlike AMD and Nvidia, Intel graphics are covered more or less with the Mesa drivers (co-developed with Intel and AMD) which is pretty standard in most Linux Distributions. Pro: no separate Intel Graphics driver should be needed, which saves time and effort. Con: like on Windows, expect the heavier post-processing options of Ultra Mode to remain greyed out. If having all the sliders turned up to full on Ultra Mode matters to you, you'll need different graphics to do that, just like on Windows. CAUTION: Do not install drivers "by hand". This includes using a shell script or package from your video card manufacturer. Using a package manager assures that updates coming down will be recompiled to work on newer kernels, keep any modules in check, and automatically handle your GUI setup. Otherwise, you'll run into problems when you get updates and the video driver 'breaks', which can result from anything between falling back to Nouveau for video support or failing to start XWindows/Wayland and going to a shell prompt when you boot. For this reason, if you use NVidia for a Video Card, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to use Ubuntu to simplify things. (No command line needed to switch drivers, can be done on the fly.) PROCESS - SETUP SUMMARY The sequence to get it working goes something like this. 1.) Install Linux. This process needs to happen in a traditional hard-drive install. This will not work to put Lutris and Wine on a USB Live stick of your favorite Linux flavor, as video drivers require kernel modules to work. We're not going to go over this part, as it will vary GREATLY across users. (Bare metal, dual boot, EFI and Secure Boot signing vs. CSM, GPT vs. MBR... all are past the scope of this guide.) And ultimately, as long as you can successfully and consistently boot after each step, it doesn't matter. 2.) Update your system. Ubuntu/Debian/Linux Mint: "sudo apt update". Enter your password, then when updating is finished, "sudo apt upgrade" to carry it out. Fedora/Mandriva/Suse: "sudo dnf check-update". Enter your password, then when updating is finished, "sudo dnf upgrade" to carry it out. Arch: "pacman -Syu" Enter your password. GET USED TO THESE COMMANDS. You will be running them frequently as once a week or more to keep your system up-to-date. Finish all pending upgrades before continuing, especially Kernel and Kernel Header updates. If the system asks to reboot, do it, and check for updates again. Missing any of these will cause headaches/heartbreak. 3.) Install Video Drivers (required for NVidia.) See above for advice. This part will be specific to your operating system and hardware, so I can't make a specific guide for your system. 4.) Install Wine, use the Stable Branch - https://wiki.winehq.org/Download 5.) Install Homecoming to the Wine C Drive. Download the HC Launcher Public Beta here. Find the HCInstall.exe file. Doesn't matter where it is saved, you'll only run this once. A first time use window will appear asking you if you want to pick the directory. The default should be fine. Click Install. IF YOU RAN TEQUILA on your copy of Wine before, it'll ask if you want to import the files. Say Yes, because this migrates costumes, power customizations, screenshots, and all the Issue 24 files you already have over to the new Installer for use. If this is a fresh system, you'll see the Launcher window. Press Play on Homecoming to begin installation. Once the Launcher says "Ready", close it. One last part to do... 7.) Configure Homecoming Launcher to start from the Wine C Drive. Now that Homecoming is installed, depending on your system, locate the Wine C Drive (for a default install, should be /home/YOURNAMEHERE/.wine/c_drive/) Open the Games folder, then Homecoming. Follow the instructions for your distribution. Examples: Ubuntu/Debian, see below on making a .desktop file. Linux Mint, use the Menu Editor to create a launch shortcut in the Games directory. You can also make a .sh script of instructions to load the game. Make the script executable, and put it somewhere you can find it, like in the Desktop, or in your Home folder. 8.) Profit.

This topic has been locked earlier after a horse zombification was attempted and failed. Thanks!

No! It might help somebody else!

As the client was coded back before f.lux was popular and Windows 10 existed, it kinda ignores any "night mode" services (on any OS or helper app). This is a known issue, and there's no lasting fix at the moment.

This isn't really pertaining to in-game support, so I'll lock this conversation. Nerio72 is right though, as the 'Devil Rubber Ducky' existed long before I was born, and is a non-issue. ZeroXephon, I'll send you a PM about your situation. In the future, any Code of Conduct questions not relating to in-game issues should be asked using the Support tool.

It's not ideal, but some players report using a VPN in front of the game helps them to be able to play (at the cost of a loss in speed and worse latency in some cases.) We can't help in that direction, but might be worth looking into.

When playing, you can see the Network Performance in the client. Use "/netgraph 1" to see a graph of the game's communication, "/netgraph 0" to shut it off. It'll show a ping rate, any dropped packets, and if it lags, you'll see the graph pause and turn red or yellow. Another idea if your Internet connection has a single uplink apart from the rest of the network is to disconnect the uplink from your router and plug that in temporarily into your gaming machine (there's network couplers you can pick up from a store if it's too short to make it.) If the connection issues go away, you have something in your house to check out. If they persist, it's either your ISP or the route taken to get to Homecoming's servers past your ISP. (Depends on where you live.)

Slight disconnect there. If the game is running smoothly, you don't need to move it. If you're having network issues, take a look at your Wi-Fi/Ethernet setup.