Isn't this easier than the complicated install guides?

[RogerWilco]

The Getting Started part of the forum points to all kinds of complex guides.

Instead I just went to http://telstar.eekstudio.com/    where I picked the correct IslandRum for my operating system (MacOS 10.14) and chose to install Homecoming 64-bit when I ran IslandRum.

 

Am I missing something?

 

Pointing people to http://telstar.eekstudio.com/

just seems a lot simpler than https://forums.homecomingservers.com/installation-guide/

or

 

or

 

What am I missing?

 

I will try to install it on Linux over the weekend, see if that is as easy as the Mac install went.

Edited May 28, 2020 by RogerWilco

[Troo]

That's great you got yours working. I really didn't have any problems with setup on PC or Mac...

 

PM me if you figure out a simpler private server setup. = )

 

[WanderingAries]

The reason being that there seems to be many that have issues getting it to run even when following what Should be an easy process. I doubt it's a "following procedure" type of issue as even my Catalina attempt sits and spins essentially while my Mojave was straight forward.

[RogerWilco]

My point is that the existing guides that are referenced in the Getting Started section of the forum, have all kinds of steps like installing Wine, which are (recently?) part of the IslandRum install itself.

The way IslandRum installs these is much less likely to cause problems for most people, than the complicated solutions that are in the guides on the forum.

 

This could be a recent IslandRum development, I've only joined here a few days ago.

 

My personal experience just has been that all the complicated guides don't seem to be needed any more, and having people install Wine separately for example, might only lead to many more support questions.

 

I did indeed install on Mojave. Catalina is indeed probably more complicated, it's a pain for a lot of things. I don't have a Mac to test that with right now. I might be able to test it on Catalina on Monday. I will test on Windows 10 and Mac High Sierra over the weekend.

 

Is the source/development for the IslandRum tool available somewhere? I might be able to help with the development/testing. I used to help a lot of Mac users on the old Paragon forums back before 2012 and have some Linux skills as well and am a professional software engineer.

Edited May 29, 2020 by RogerWilco

[WanderingAries]

16 hours ago, RogerWilco said:

Is the source/development for the IslandRum tool available somewhere? I might be able to help with the development/testing. I used to help a lot of Mac users on the old Paragon forums back before 2012 and have some Linux skills as well and am a professional software engineer.

That would be a @Manga question right there as I believe they were looking for help testing on the older platforms.

 

But yes, at this stage, due to all the work of Manga, many of the older combined threads could use a rewrite. I think the hope was the platform specific threads could work in the interim.

[Daggenthal]

On 5/28/2020 at 6:10 PM, RogerWilco said:

The Getting Started part of the forum points to all kinds of complex guides.

Instead I just went to http://telstar.eekstudio.com/    where I picked the correct IslandRum for my operating system (MacOS 10.14) and chose to install Homecoming 64-bit when I ran IslandRum.

 

Am I missing something?

 

Pointing people to http://telstar.eekstudio.com/

just seems a lot simpler than https://forums.homecomingservers.com/installation-guide/

or

 

or

 

What am I missing?

 

I will try to install it on Linux over the weekend, see if that is as easy as the Mac install went.

 

In all honesty, you shouldn't have any issues with my guide. All that's needed to be done, is to clone into the script, give it executable permissions, and run it. It installs the latest version of both Wine and Lutris for your flavor of Linux (if it's supported). The only things you need to do, is to copy over CoH (or download it), open Lutris, and just point Lutris to Tequila. This will automatically run the 64-bit version of the game with (hopefully, don't know what your specs are) no performance issues.

 

My guide assumes that you already have a copy of CoH, but provides a downloadable link to one. I checked out the guide you linked, and they just have Island Rum download + install the game, which, you are correct, is dramatically easier to do. I didn't know that this guide existed at the time, otherwise I'd've just pointed to that instead. I appreciate you linking to my guide here, as I wouldn't've known about it before hahahaha.

 

The only reason why I use Lutris, is that it both provides a nice UI for people who want to add other Windows games, and allows us to use custom commands / Kernel options for our games so that they can either run better, or change their resolution (or whatever you honestly want to do); All they'd have to do (hopefully), is just add a new game to Lutris and point to the .exe.

 

In the end, you're entirely correct. The Island Rum launcher is dramatically easier, and should be the de-facto way to go forward from now on. If you'd like, I can re-write my entire guide so that it just points to the website, or I can add it as either the primary, or secondary, option.

 

I went ahead and downloaded the Linux launcher for Island Rum that's located on that website, and it works flawlessly, mind you I already have wine pre-installed.

 

I can go ahead and teach you how to set this version up for CoH, as it's pretty simple.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Now, we're going to need to have 3 things already for this process to be simplified. These three things are as followed:

1. A copy of City of Heroes already, one that we have ourselves that we can simply copy over, or the one downloaded from the link in my guide.
2. Wine to already be installed. If you don't have it, you can easily install it yourself by following the guide here VIA the official WineHQ website for your current flavor of Linux.
3. A copy of the Linux version of Island Rum.

Now, with those 3 things out of the way, we need to extract islandrum-linux.zip that we've just donloaded; This can easily be done by locating the file in your ~/Downloads folder, right clicking it, and clicking "Extract Here".

Once this is done, we'll need to go inside the folders (islandrum-linux / Island Rum), and then we'll find Island Rum.x86_64.

The next step is to either right click it and click on "Run", or double-click; If we're doing this in the Terminal like I did, we just need to cd all the way to where we are, and type ./Island\ Rum.x86_64.

 

Now, we can either let this fully download and install the game ourselves, or, if we already have the game downloaded / a copy of it ourselves, we can just point to our new path and Island Rum will detect the change in location and just patch it.

 

To do this, click on the little Palm-Tree in the upper left, and a drop-down menu will appear. From here we just go down to Options, and where it says "Install Path" and has a white text-box, click inside the box to change the path. What we want to do is locate our CoH folder that we've downloaded / already have, and then we click the floppy-disk / save icon in the bottom right. Once completed, Island Rum will populate with the new location, and should download some updates.

 

Once that's done, click on the big right-arrow at the Bottom Right, download some Mono files that are needed (this has to be done, so just click on "Install" until it's over), and CoH 64-bit should start right away!

 

If you have any issues / want some guidance, let me know and I'll try my best to help you!

 

Also, to @WanderingAries , I will heavily consider doing it later today / tonight, as this is a much simpler way of doing it. Appreciate you all!

[RogerWilco]

I had a friend install the game on Linux (Debian 10.4) yesterday.

 

He had not played the game before 😉

 

He said it was a breeze. Had to do two things:

Quote

sudo mkdir /usr/local/games/coh

sudo chown 1000:1000 /usr/local/games/coh

Where 1000 is your actual user ID.

 

 

 

Other than that IslandRum from http://telstar.eekstudio.com ran flawlessly as far as I understood.

 

I've tried the Windows 10 install from there myself, and it ran without a hitch. City of Heroes in 4K is glorious!.

Edited June 1, 2020 by RogerWilco

[RogerWilco]

On 5/30/2020 at 11:11 PM, ColdZero said:

 

My guide assumes that you already have a copy of CoH, but provides a downloadable link to one. I checked out the guide you linked, and they just have Island Rum download + install the game, which, you are correct, is dramatically easier to do. I didn't know that this guide existed at the time, otherwise I'd've just pointed to that instead.

I do not think that all the different guides should go away. They are indeed useful for all kinds of specific solutions, where things like Wine or the game are already installed, or you want a custom location, want to use this Lutris, or you run into trouble with something.

 

But to me it seems that whatever telstar.eekstudio.com is doing (who is behind it and Island Rum?) should be the default for new players, and then point people to the more elaborate guides when things don't work.

 

It is dramatically easier, as you put it, than giving people a "wall of text" guide. Leave those for when they run into trouble.

Edited June 1, 2020 by RogerWilco

[Daggenthal]

5 hours ago, RogerWilco said:

But to me it seems that whatever telstar.eekstudio.com is doing (who is behind it and Island Rum?) should be the default for new players, and then point people to the more elaborate guides when things don't work.

 

    You are entirely correct. I was thinking of seeing if I could add it as a different version of the guide, as in they could either try it the way I've been doing it, or do it that way.

 

    To be completely honest, I'd prefer the Island Rum way if I was new and coming into this on Linux. I don't have a lot of time nowadays, and will be gone for quite a while in a few weeks, so I'll do my best to make both accessible.

 

    I really thank you for quoting my post in this, as I'm able to learn about a newer way of doing this that will dramatically help out others. I will gladly credit you, for pointing it out, and the Author of Island Rum + that website, when I finish it. :D

[RogerWilco]

On 6/1/2020 at 6:34 PM, ColdZero said:

  I really thank you for quoting my post in this, as I'm able to learn about a newer way of doing this that will dramatically help out others. I will gladly credit you, for pointing it out, and the Author of Island Rum + that website, when I finish it. 😄

I don't need any credit, I was just pointing out the good work others have done, in the hope it gets picked up in the community, so more people get to install and play this awesome game!

 

I would be interested in getting in contact with the developer(s) of Island Rum, to see if I can help out.

I know from experience that testing install procedures is half the work in developing such an application.

(I made my own .msi files back when I still wrote Windows software).

I'm happy to help support this on Apple.