Is it possible to upload .costume and .storyarc files from the original CoH?

[bluehinter]

Hi there,

I just discovered Homecoming existed, and believe it or not, over 10 years ago I exported all my .costume and .storyarc files from the original CoH mission architect just in the off chance somebody did exactly this and resurrected the game on a private server.

If anybody cares or remembers, I was the guy who made Challenge of the Splendid Pals, the 3-part Super Friends parody that just about broke the original mission architect because the file sizes were so large. (I also did Rise of the Ro-Bros, You Only Die Twice and a few others, though Splendid Pals was one of the most popular non-farming missions of it's time.) I'd love to bring it all back, but I didn't see a folder for .costume and .storyarc files in my COH2020 folder, so I'm wondering if they're stored somewhere else locally, or there's some other way to convert them over without having to recreate everything from scratch?

Luckily, I took screen-caps of all my Splendid Pals and Legion of Doom characters, so I at least have visual references for all the main characters, but building the mission packs was a ton of work back in the day, and I really don't have the time to do that sort of thing anymore. (It took me about an hour just to recreate my original CoH alter-ego Aquaman rip-off, 'Blowhole,' only to find out there's already some jerk running around with the same name on Excelsior.  😡  I'm simultaneously touched and peeved that somebody remembered the character well enough to recreate him without me.)

And just to share with the class, here was the lineup for...


On the hero side, we had Splendid Man (who never actually fought crime, he was just really nice) Brassiere (firm supporter of Amazonian justice), Blowhole (master of the stormy seas and friend to sailors everywhere), Speedo (able to tap into a mysterious power he calls the 'speed thrust'), Dark Bishop and his underage sidekick Choir Bird, and the Double Twins, Wilty and Whitey.


And in the villain's camp, we have lazy criminal mastermind Lax Looter, underwater assassin SnorKill, crotchety old farmer The Scare Cropper, the unexpected Olestra, nimble master of ice, Parkour, perplexing asker of unanswerable questions, The Stumper, villainous party clown, Playtime, the man who never showers, Grungy, leather-clad warrior, Gigantrix, the overheated Fursuit, Czarro (who comes from soviet Russia where crime fights you!), the perpetually on the prowl, Cougara, and the galaxy's most villainous math teacher, Calculus.

Edited August 30, 2020 by bluehinter

[Li_Sensei]

If the folders don't exist in your install directory then there're two approaches.

 

1) you know for certain where they're to go, and just make the folders, copy the files into the folders and bang, you're done.

 

2) you're a little more cautious.  Make a simple one mission AE arc, don't publish it, just save it, and do the same with any costume you want.  Go out to explorer and look in your install directory for the directories that will now have been created.  Copy your old files across and away you go.

 

Some costumes may not load completely (or at all) due to changes since they were originally saved.  I know my favourite outfit for my Illusion/Storm controller won't load because it used what was considered a bug back on live, having both a cape (scarf) and the long tails jacket (a second cape, technically) and the dual cape effect was squashed by Paragon.

[Marshal_General]

There is a costumes folder and a missions folder in the City of Heroes folder that should be where you put the files though as said changes may make them invalid or in need of some changes. The costumes will need the gloves changed as asymmetrical gloves didn't exist back then. There will be a button on the bottom right of the load costume screen that you will need to click and the game will try to fix them.

[Heraclea]

Everything continues to work as well as it used to.  Saved costumes sometime decide that they aren't allowed to access parts on a new character and those need to be replaced manually.  Never had an issue with saved AE files.  You will need your Missions, Costumes, and Custom_Critter directories to use them. 

[bluehinter]

On 8/30/2020 at 3:44 AM, Li_Sensei said:

 Make a simple one mission AE arc, don't publish it, just save it, and do the same with any costume you want.  Go out to explorer and look in your install directory for the directories that will now have been created.  Copy your old files across and away you go.

 

Some costumes may not load completely (or at all) due to changes since they were originally saved.  I know my favourite outfit for my Illusion/Storm controller won't load because it used what was considered a bug back on live, having both a cape (scarf) and the long tails jacket (a second cape, technically) and the dual cape effect was squashed by Paragon.

Thanks. I didn't realize that it only created the folders once they were necessary.

I did exactly as you said and created an empty "test" AE mission, then logged out, copied my old files over into the new directory, and logged back in.
Everything is there, except, as you said, some of the costumes have errors, and there are certain costume bits that appear to be Architect only, so I'm having to go through and check all 81 of them individually within AE and tweak/resave to be safe.  Still, I'm glad that something I put a ton of effort into over a decade ago still survives, and I look forward to republishing it shortly.

[Troo]

ya.....

 

this may have crossed a line

 

[Clave Dark 5]

On 8/30/2020 at 11:31 PM, Heraclea said:

 Never had an issue with saved AE files.

That's funny, the one saved file I had that I sort of once tried to re-upload came up saying the map chosen for the first mish was invalid.  I haven't really checked into AE since that one-off attempt though.

[WanderingAries]

17 hours ago, Troo said:

ya.....

 

this may have crossed a line

I mean, it's funny, but yeah...especially now a days.

[_NOPE_]

 

[Bopper]

18 hours ago, The Philotic Knight said:

 

A Stephen Lynch post?!?...

[_NOPE_]

@Bopper I LOVE musical comedy, and comedy musicals. Some of my faves (but the list can go on and on and on):

 

• Little Shop of Horrors
• Evil Dead: The Musical
• Flight of the Conchords
• Garfunkel and Oates
• Avenue Q
• and of course, the Godfather "Weird Al" Yankovic, a "close, personal friend":

 

[Bopper]

21 minutes ago, The Philotic Knight said:

@Bopper I LOVE musical comedy, and comedy musicals. Some of my faves (but the list can go on and on and on):

 

• Little Shop of Horrors
• Evil Dead: The Musical
• Flight of the Conchords
• Garfunkel and Oates
• Avenue Q
• and of course, the Godfather "Weird Al" Yankovic, a "close, personal friend":

 

My jealousy is overwhelming. Growing up, my best friend was a big fan of Weird Al and had all his CDs. We used to make mix tapes back when that was a thing, and we would make those tapes as if we were a radio station (we had a microphone that plugged into the tape recorder...we were so cool). I'd be the DJ/Host introducing the next song and we'd do interview bits in between, doing call-ins and whatnot. I can still remember the name of our "Radio Station" was K-AL, with the slogan "K-AL: All Weird all the time". So yeah...we only played Weird Al haha.

[_NOPE_]

Nice @Bopper! While I *said* "close, personal friend", that was really a sort of in-joke, since that was what is fan club is/was named.

 

I only got to meet him the once for about a minute, during his "Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour", and I paid some good money for that, let me tell you. But I came prepared. I had this little darling worked up by Carmine Goglia (the one that actually MAKES the Walk of Fame stars the the stars get to take home after their official ceremonies) to give Al a taste of what his upcoming (at the time) star was going to look like (I shoved in some old pictures of when I was in college and got to meet his band at a bar during his "Running with Scissors" tour for completeness):

 

It was one of the greatest 60ish seconds of my life.

Edited September 2, 2020 by The Philotic Knight

[Mister Mass]

Phil, I am deeply proud of you - & deeply jealous.

 

But I worry that your posts above may have compromised your secret identity... 😟

[_NOPE_]

@Mister Mass that was a joke right? Because I'm like Mister Fantastic over here, anyone that cares to can know who I am, I plant my name all over stuff. Probably a bit of narcissim.  I blame it on my fear of "the Abyss".

 

Once Ayn Rand was asked in an interview if she's scared of dying because she doesn't believe that there is a God or afterlife, and her response was "of course not, it didn't bother me before I didn't exist, why would it bother me after I don't exist?"

 

I always found that quote brilliant, but on a fundamental level I can't agree. I *LIKE* existing, I'm TERRIFIED of death, and as a result I'm determined to leave as much of "myself" in this world as possible.

 

Hell, if I could be a brain in a jar like the Clockwork King or like in Futurama, sign me the hell UP!