uninventive

For obvious reasons, revisiting my reply above: 50% less likely they're avoiding Homecoming for legal reasons now.

Pro-Tip: if you're a dork like me and read the new Legal Agreement on the game client from top to bottom, your login will time out. Just click Accept. 😄

Look at you who knows so much. Just so happens that they're only MOSTLY dead.

Hypotheticals? I'd love to see Black Pebble, Sexy Jay, War Witch and or Ex Libris tried HC or contributed to it. Realistically? If they did, we'd likely never know. Privacy being a large issue, as a lot of Paragon Studios people had their RL names attached where many folks here do not. (2012 was well before doxxing was a "Holy crap, what did that troll try to do to you?" kind of outcome. That's not the case today.) Also: working in a Union shop as a number of Development Studios are organizing now, doing non-union work in the same field as a hobby or side-hustle is a big "neoup."

You have been heard: small pop shards should be merged. I understand. And politely disagree. So, back to the topic: Are people leaving? Yeah. But no more than normal. Burnout: folks who have been here since 2019 have likely seen all the sights by now, blueside, redside, goldilocks, and every alignment in-between. Doesn't mean they won't come back and try some new alts, but on their timetable and at their leisure. And they may return proper, or remember the burn and take another break after they reach an idealized build and max out their stats yet again on yet another main or five. Obligations: holidays make things weird. Some folks come back with buckets full of time until January 3rd or so, and some may leave who used to be frequently around to meet family, friends, travel for a bit, then come back after the holiday is through. Attention Span. Like the OP stated... there's newer games dropping all the time. Some may be elbow deep in Baldur's Gate III, Starfield, or something else instead of this. I, for one, have yet to dive into Zelda BOTW and TOTK myself. Trying to finish Oracle of Ages/Seasons on Nintendo Online and Skyward Sword first as I heard those are spiritual 'precursors' to the current Zelda game universe over other titles. (All springtime goals.) So I'll likely fade for a bit after mid-January. And that's fine. Even with all three of the above, Homecoming won't be a graveyard. Looking at Server Status right now, we're close to 2,000 accounts online tonight (even considering multiboxers and AFKs, there's more on now than most weeks). I also don't think it will ever go back to the 2019-2020 peak of 2,800+ people logging in daily ever again, either.

My first question: /graphfps 7, and try to run that where you seem to have problems. Does the repeat, stall or distortion occur when the CPU is redlining? If so, your audio drivers may be fine, Wine is at it's limit because the CPU is at 100%. If that's the case: Close other apps. City of Heroes may be a one-app show for that system. Or run "top" on a Terminal Window (with COH also windowed) and see if another process/app is running the CPU hard that can be shut off. Laptop: ensure you are plugged in. Power management on Laptops and gaming doesn't mix. Keep AC power plugged in (or if the Laptop can use it, plug in a USB-PD Battery pack to keep it at 100% longer.) You may need to turn graphics down, either by FPS or Resolution. 1080/60 is a fair goal post for anything made since 2018, but some laptops do better with 720/60 or 720/30. 4K is going to hurt on any laptop without discrete graphics support (AMD Radeon that isn't Vega or Navi, NVidia, Intel Arc, etc.) If the CPU is normal or yellow (not peaking out), are you able to change from PulseAudio to ALSA (or vice versa) and see if there's a difference? Generalized advice is here: https://devicetests.com/change-wine-audio-alsa-better-sound -- You might not notice a difference, in which case, I'd see if there's a backport of audio driver for your chipset to try. If ALSA works, you can keep it on there, or troubleshoot why PulseAudio is wigging out. (Search Wine forums for PulseAudio troubleshooting in OpenGL games.)

Back on live, Freedom was a high population server with lots of teaming, task force and chat activity. Regularly there were players transferring to a lower population server, like Infinity, Triumph, or Protector. Not a significant or overwhelming amount, but not negligible. Some players are less overwhelmed and happier with smaller populations. And like Six mentioned, there is no business motivation to cull underperforming shards and herd subscribing players onto more populated ones to save on expenses vs. income. If you want more frequent teaming, you can decide if you and your friends want to make the leap to a more populated server or not, fee free. Otherwise, live and let live.

The whole thing is optional. If you don't want INF loss with your Double XP, don't use it and roll with teams. DFB/DIB from Lvl. 1-20 and MSR for the rest can smooth out the boring parts. I'm inclined to the opposite direction: I know the loss of Double XP because farming abused it, but if there was a limited Temp Power like Experienced that granted 5 free charges of 2X INF once a year, I'd be a happier fella. But it's nothing to die on a hill on.

If it involves a chord key other than SHIFT (COMMAND, CTRL, and OPT/START) there might be some weirdness because Mac de-emphasizes ALT in keys, so you might have to 'adjust' the one you're expecting to hit. (If Alt+M doesn't work for a bind and you're using a multidevice keyboard that has Alt/Command on the same key, try pressing Ctrl+M or Opt+M to test if one of those map to Alt+M before declaring the bind a failure.) Other than that, I haven't had any issues.

Really dated question prompt on this one. For those with image issues/vision impairments: Claiming this reward will immediately increase your Influence gain by +25%. Also, this power grants the user a greater chance at earning Medium and Large Inspirations, provided the user is either a VIP or has the appropriate Reward Level for these Inspirations to drop in the first place. Additionally while this power is active, the user will have drop rates for Invention Salvage, Recipes, Very Rare Recipes, Rare Boss Recipes, Incarnate Shards (if level 50 w/ Alpha Slot unlocked) and Incarnate Threads (if level 50 and in an Incarnate Trial) increased by 50%. NOTE: Salvage and Recipe drops require the player to either be VIP, have Reward Level 7 or own an Invention License. Incarnate Shard and Incarnate Thread drops require the user to be a VIP subscriber. These effects last for 1 hour. You cannot claim a Windfall power while another is already active. Do you wish to continue? For all of the "Um, Actually..." corrections I could offer up, only one comes to mind. What is a Rare Boss Recipe?

Actually, that is awesome. Just tried that on my own Ubuntu install with the game. Thanks for sharing that!

From what I understand NVidia is dropping support for GameStream and similar tech. Moonlight's awesome work is effectively at an end of life when they change GeForce Experience to cut GameStream out-- even if the hardware supports it, no GFE support, no GameStream. A sober explanation of this is here: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-docs/wiki/NVIDIA-GameStream-End-Of-Service-Announcement-FAQ -- There's folks taking this moment to push Sunshine or Parsec as alternatives, but both are software encoding-based and have a hit in performance over GameStream (like Moonlight, they also require twiddling to get StreamLabs, OBS or other 'uptake' app to see it and sling it to your video feed.) TL;DR: There's no day or date to prepare in advance. They're going to do it when they are ready, but when NVidia updates GeForce Experience to kill GameStream, that's it. Party's over. Being practical: Anyone wanting to stream a game on Twitch or YouTube, hardware capture remains the best option. It won't matter what video card is involved. You may need to invest in a Game Capture device from Elgato, Razer, EVGA (they still make gaming hardware!) or other third-party that allows for low-lag and encrypted capture. It means a tangle of cables and possibly a second computer but the video output will be a lot more usable: Gaming Device - could be anything including Consoles - plug HDMI or DP output to the Capture Device input - Capture Device output, whether USB or PCI-Ex connection, links to a Streaming PC that sees and controls the output What to watch for: Elgato CamLink and those $20 HDMI to USB Capture cards on Amazon are great, but they stop short of HDCP. Any encryption on HDMI and they spit out empty video until you disconnect it. If the price is under $50, make sure the return policy is up to par in case it doesn't do what you're looking for. Good game capture devices have a separate power input for processing video so the input and output lines are just signal. Be very skeptical of a device that uses a single USB plug for both signal and power (convenient isn't always good).

Other idea I haven't seen said yet, check the video card settings (In Start, Programs, varies by model: NVIDIA Settings, AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, Intel Graphics Settings, etc.) Some settings apps override choices made in games, if you don't make a habit of changing apps in this way, make sure Gamma is Application Controlled and not defined by the Settings for your card.

If your choices cannot finish a character, the character creator will have various ways of stopping progress: No Origin: can't pick a title to play. As 'antiquated' as the concept of origin is for Homecoming, it still determines shops, contacts, early enhancement offerings and mission choices available in certain arcs. No Playstyle: This screen can be overridden by picking an Archetype by yourself. Playstyle just groups the categories of ATs for you: Holy Trinity, Crowd Control, Pets, etc. No Archetype: Power Selection stops and shows an interesting screen -- The Archetype icon in all its glory. No Powers: Can't move past the costume screen. The "Custom" tab will be blocked until you make power choices. Oddly, "No Costume" is impossible: the character creator spins up a random template costume if you make no choices. No Name: The final "Register" screen will have the name you picked earlier front and center with your Bio. If the name field remains blank, the field will blink red and you can't continue until a unique name on the server is picked. Your biography can be changed at will anytime by visiting Menu > I.D.

Was gonna say, worth a shot. Worst case scenario, the .costume file fails to validate and doesn't load. The tool was intended for the Sentinel+ program made before the game shutdown.

The Character DATA cannot be imported. Everyone on Homecoming starts at Level 1. The Character COSTUMES from Issue 23, however can be. https://cit.cohtitan.com/senticon/ Takes the XML files you got from Sentinel+ and makes .costume files you can copy to your game's "Costume" folder. It'll be like they left the same Tailor.

Yup! Open your Applications folder, then look for "coh" as a folder. That will be your Homecoming Installation, it uses the same folder structure as it does in Windows.

Yep. Spin up a new email address. Since you mentioned Gmail, the plus trick might be faster: [email protected] - Example Email account as your Main [email protected] - Will deliver to the above account. [email protected] - Same. Anything after a + will still deliver to your mailbox. (A more formal explanation: https://eit.ces.ncsu.edu/2023/02/gmail-plus-addressing-the-hidden-feature-that-can-help-you-get-more-out-of-your-inbox/) You can then use Gmail's filters to catch the +HCAlt1 and +HCAlt2 messages and place them in a label you like, so for the above example you make a label called HCAlt1, filter messages from that address to gain that label (Example: any message with the "From" address of [email protected], apply the "HCAlt1" Label), then when you click on the HCAlt1 label you get your alt account password reset emails, then repeat that setup for HCAlt2. As far as the forums are concerned, they're three different email addresses. That way your email (main account) is the only one you need to keep active. Major downside to that is it's a good idea to keep your main email password well-protected (password over 12 chars, use 2FA other than SMS, change the password annually... or what people should do on any email account tied to financial access, same principle.) If your main email is compromised, there goes all three characters.

That can happen. I'd be no different, there's some email accounts I haven't checked in years.

Can you login to the forums with the account in question? If so, hit Account Settings and add your new active email address in it's place. The forum will send a new email to confirm you have control of the email account. Click the confirmation link, and you're all set. (Alt accounts need a separate address from your main account. Save for tricks like using + in Gmail, using the same email won't work for multiple forum accounts.) If you CAN'T log into the forums with your alt-account info, That's Support ticket territory. Put in a ticket (click this, or Support above, it's the same link) and ask GMs what your options look like. The presumption is "your email address is your access." Lose control of the email account and you lose control of your game account, as your forum account controls your game password. So if you can't log into the forums, someone who has your address can click "forgot password" and retrieve your forum account... then your game account. (Your game client password to log into the game can be reset by the forum account at any time with zero knowledge of your old game client password.) But if you use free email services (even GMail 'tombstones' inactive accounts now, so nowhere is safe) you don't generally get told when a provider is wiping and reusing your email address for someone else. If that is what happened, I'd plead my case and answer any questions to prove you did own the account. But not in this thread. Support ticket. Those are confidential. 🙂

I donated to this ten years ago. Ten. City of Titans. That silly Dynamic Duo tier that I'll never get to use. Just realized that right now. It's Grey Gardens all over again, "We're really close to launch, it'll be ready tomorrow, you'll see..." I'll be hearing that from them another 20 years from now. Another bunch of demos, more pictures of 3D Models that a 2nd Year college student could do better. Graphics that resemble Myst. (I mean, parts of City of Heroes looks better than the 'new' models.) Asking for a refund today would mean I'm stopping someone from having dinner that night when I've already got food. They need it more than I do at this point. Cruel? Mean? No. Cruel and mean would be calling this (what boils down to basically being an art project) group nothing but scammers and thieves. I think they meant to do what they intended. But in polite company you don't yell shenanigans if they can't perform, but I also won't call them artists either. Just leave the theater, keep a tighter grasp of my money next time, and do something else with my night.

Bottles is (are? Not sure because program name...) very handy for Flatpak running distros, like Arch, Manjaro and even the Steam Deck. The Ubuntu-based distributions a user would have to add that on first before they can use it, since those distros put their fortune in with Canonical's Snaps. (Most could be as simple as a command line job, but it's still a few lines to enter.) The old XKCD joke about standards rears it's ugly head: Before - There are eight competing Linux App Packaging Standards. Linux Users - This is terrible! Even Linus Torvalds says Linux apps are the worst! Windows and MacOS are easier by comparison to install apps with. Something has to be done about this! Today - There are now 13 competing Linux App Packaging Standards. Circling back to Shortguy... if you figure out something that works for you, do it. There's always going to be someone (not Darth above, they're right for Arch-based installs...) on YouTube or Gaming Discords claiming that "X" distro and "Y" method is superior, and suggesting you start over to do it their way. And of course, flushing what works to start over always runs the risk of "now it doesn't work anymore." Those videos are great for AAA gaming and FPS play. To keep it candid, most methods to game on Linux won't eke out more performance than you already see out of what you're already doing... using Wine on a nearly 20 year old OpenGL game that's two years away from being able to drink.

Most concise instructions are here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/City_of_Heroes_on_Linux Bullet list summary: Install Wine, create a wine prefix. Install Homecoming Launcher (Windows installer) in some folder inside that prefix. That's it. Helpers (winetricks, Lutris, etc.) for Wine are available but not required. Neither is Mono or Gecko libraries when Wine asks to install those libraries in the prefix. There's also a link to the Steam Deck install script from Faultline if you have one of those (also a Linux device) because Wine is already on the device in a custom install location.

Try /graphfps 7 (/graphfps 0 to shut off) and see if one component over the others is causing a bottleneck or halting the game. (It'll cover your right half of the screen with a transparent graph. Teams and TOT league may fare better over TF and iTrials in trying to make it crash on purpose.) Swap is your HDD chart, with CPU and GPU self-explanatory. I doubt network is causing crashes, but that's a separate graph: /netgraph 1 (/netgraph 0 to shut it off.)

Ventura. The only Mac I can't promote to Sonoma is on Monterey and is one year from being end of life (2014 Mac Mini).