Homecoming Launcher Public Beta

[zenblack]

I really like the new launcher. Very clean and user friendly.

[Blackfeather]

38 minutes ago, Taffer said:

From the sound of things, the new launcher is portable (or mostly portable)... have you got someone to do a native Linux port? 'cause porting software is one of my things (~30 years experience; I used to be part of the Info-ZIP group) and I'd be happy to poke at it.

Building on that, I wonder how immense the kind of work would be to create a native Linux port of the actual game client.

[Number Six]

1 hour ago, Taffer said:

From the sound of things, the new launcher is portable (or mostly portable)... have you got someone to do a native Linux port? 'cause porting software is one of my things (~30 years experience; I used to be part of the Info-ZIP group) and I'd be happy to poke at it.

It is. The launcher core already builds on Linux and I was testing the CLI at one point. In theory the UI should also be portable since IUP supports GTK, though it hasn't been tried yet and there may be some issues to sort out due to slight differences between the platforms.

 

There isn't a whole lot of reason to do so though. The design intent is that the launcher should be closely tied to the architecture of the game, as it makes things like launching with the correct parameters and working directory much easier. A Linux native launcher might be useful for updating, but couldn't actually launch the game since it can't install or use wine on whatever distribution you happen to be running, and there really isn't much benefit to be gained by dealing with the headache of that extra complexity.

 

If and when there's a native Linux game client, then would be the time for the native build of the launcher to match it.

[Silver Aether]

I like the new launcher a lot, it looks really good, but does anyone know where to transfer stuff it didn't copy? Since the folders aren't arranged in the same way, I'm not sure how to install VidiotMaps, copy over saved costumes, or copy over saved Character order on the Server. I haven't checked for options yet, but I'm dubious if those copied.

[Bill Z Bubba]

No issues to report. Dualboxing works. Launcher is fast. No installation issues, no functionality issues, everything seemed to copy over without issue to the new installation directory.

[Jimmy]

1 hour ago, Silver Aether said:

I like the new launcher a lot, it looks really good, but does anyone know where to transfer stuff it didn't copy? Since the folders aren't arranged in the same way, I'm not sure how to install VidiotMaps, copy over saved costumes, or copy over saved Character order on the Server. I haven't checked for options yet, but I'm dubious if those copied.

All of this should have copied automatically. The only thing that doesn't is the screenshots folder as it can potentially be very large.

[protoraptor40]

A couple weeks ago my antivirus prevented CoH from launching, even though it's worked fine for over a year (no antivirus change, computer change, etc.). After adding it to my safe list, eventually I was able to launch the game but the login screen was completely black even though I could hear the sound. I could hear the keyboard stokes too, so if I was able to log in blind, I'm not sure if the rest of the game would be black too. This was even after I removed all CoH/Tequila files including from the registry and reinstalling numerous times. I installed the beta version today (very easy to do except for the antivirus thing that's been mentioned, and it looks great!) but the same issue happens even when I selected "Reset graphics settings on next run". I haven't found anything that works anywhere; there were one or two mentions of a black screen but nothing helped. The only thing I saw in the TequilaActivityLog after reinstalling every time was that "http://repo.cohtitan.com/icon/icon.exe" always failed to download. I'm not sure why it would cause an issue for the beta launcher if Tequila isn't being used, but obviously I'm missing something.

 

Never mind. It turned out I needed to disconnect all my monitors to just the laptop's, then it showed up. I was able to reconnect the others and it works fine now.

Edited October 21, 2020 by protoraptor40
Problem Solved

[Silver Aether]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

All of this should have copied automatically. The only thing that doesn't is the screenshots folder as it can potentially be very large.

Is there anyway to force a copy over? It doesn't look like any of this did. Alternatively, I could try reinstalling, but I'm not sure what I did wrong that caused it not to work.

[Taffer]

21 hours ago, Number Six said:

There isn't a whole lot of reason to do so though. The design intent is that the launcher should be closely tied to the architecture of the game, as it makes things like launching with the correct parameters and working directory much easier. A Linux native launcher might be useful for updating, but couldn't actually launch the game since it can't install or use wine on whatever distribution you happen to be running, and there really isn't much benefit to be gained by dealing with the headache of that extra complexity.

Yeah, it's not necessary until there's a native Linux game client... I had envisioned it as a (very minor) QOL improvement for Linux players. The port could prepend the WINE bits, and maybe the "make it run on my GPU" bits.

 

The game client is theoretically portable (native Mac and Linux!) because the rendering is OpenGL, but there are a lot of Windows-isms in the code that would need to be smoothed out. Almost all of the 3rd party code is already easily portable, but it's still a fairly huge undertaking.

[zenblack]

With the new launcher my refresh rate is constantly reset back to 60 even after resetting it multiple times to my monitor's refresh rate. Seems like something isn't saving properly. This is also happening with disabling Depth of Field and turning off Desaturation so I'm assuming it's all graphic settings that are reset every time it's opened 😞

Edited October 21, 2020 by zenblack

[Panthonca7034]

Alright, I have some concerns about adopting the new launcher, mainly because I still use Senticon and Paragon Chat, which I occasionally use to put concepts together for storylines involving my alts (namely as AE is still somewhat limited at this moment) and because of NPC costume pieces being available.

 

I understand Senticon and PChat are not under active maintenance, but is it possible that some form of compatibility is maintained with these two utilities? Why do you ask? I need to have some kind of backup to I can have interaction between my alts offline, and just to be prepared in case anything happens.

 

I also don't want to lose any of the settings I have on Tequila...

[GM Tock]

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.

Edited October 22, 2020 by GM Tahquitz

[Ura Hero]

On 10/14/2020 at 7:25 AM, Ura Hero said:

Installs and runs just fine.  Couple of things to consider:

 

1. Play button is extremely small on a 4k monitor.

 

2. You broke all of the keybinds and macros that use files.   I understand the need for a clean break, but you caused a lot of people a lot of work to fix the pathing.

 

3. Support for Dual Boxing seems to be broken.  Or at least so far I cannot get ISBoxer to launch the game.  Not that I dual box a lot, but there are times that I want to content by myself that otherwise I would need a small group for,  Usually this is when I don't have time to do it all in one go and will only be able to do a few missions here and there between doing other things.

 

1. Thanks for the UI sizing.  Makes a big difference on 4k.

2. Nothing to see here.

3. I can get it to run now, but it seems to be ignoring that it is set for windowed mode when launched from the command line.  It looks like it is going full screen.  Launch command is below.

           C:\Games\Homecoming\bin\win64\live\cityofheroes.exe -profile live -auth 51.161.76.201 -assetpath assets\issue24;assets\live

 

I tried the -gfxreset option, but that doesn't seem to help either.

 

[RageusQuitus2]

Looks good.  A few critiques that im sure someone else mentioned and i just overlooked while reading about the new launcher (i spent at least 1.5 minutes reviewing all threads and posts).

 

One it installed on my c drive despite pointing towards my gamz drive on D.  So i have game files on D, and some stuff on C?  Id really prefer as little as possible on my small SSD OS drive.  Maybe I did something wrong during install?

 

Also vidiot maps didnt port over.  Id rather not be bothered to look into what files go where.  Maybe yall could automate that in future releases?  Otherwise neat.

[mechahamham]

I ran this on my existing Lutris install by selecting 'run EXE inside wine prefix', selecting the installer exe from my downloads folder. It installed and ran with zero hiccups. The copy-over from Tequila was flawless. I updated my Lutris runner for CoH to run the new launcher executable in the bin folder.

 

The new launcher is done well and 'correctly' from a programming POV, as far as I'm concerned. It's blazing fast. Kudos.

[Very Difficult]

Can this be used completely now in replace of tequila?

[Number Six]

@Postalityjr Yes. Many of the developers and GMs have been using the new launcher for 1-2 months now; we were just waiting on the code signing certificate to start the public beta. I never run tequila anymore.

[WanderingAries]

5 hours ago, Number Six said:

@Postalityjr Yes. Many of the developers and GMs have been using the new launcher for 1-2 months now; we were just waiting on the code signing certificate to start the public beta. I never run tequila anymore.

So at this stage then, would it be prudent to abandon any Tequila based troubleshooting for future threads? I chime in here and there if I think I can help, but if we're going to be retiring this sooner than later, then focused efforts and all that.

[WanderingAries]

On 10/20/2020 at 7:06 PM, Silver Aether said:

Is there anyway to force a copy over? It doesn't look like any of this did. Alternatively, I could try reinstalling, but I'm not sure what I did wrong that caused it not to work.

Try this out:

 

 

[Renegade]

Ran into issues with my AV saying the link to download the launcher was infected and blocked, I added the url to the exception list then I get this when the install runs

 

Feature:

Antivirus

The file C:\Games\COHBeta\Homecoming\bin\win32\launchercli.exe.stage is infected with Gen:Variant.Fugrafa.6013 and was moved to quarantine. It is recommended that you run a System Scan to make sure your system is clean. 

 

AV I am running is Bit defender, I also told it to restore the file and reinstall, but this probably needs to be looked at and addresed

Edited October 25, 2020 by Renegade

[Voltor]

My old WinXP box installed the launcher but after clicking it and agreeing to the agreement nothing happens.  Checked task manager, the launcher appears then vanishes.

 

Same with my Win 7 box.

[mrudat]

I think it would look nicer if the entire background of the box for a version was used to represent install state, rather than having a distinct progress bar.

 

Something like:

• A completely grey background for not installed
• The currently selected version is highlighted/filled in green (the orange looks a little strange as a highlight to me).
• A non-selected version is filled with dark blue.
• An out of date version is perhaps partially filled (missing the top 20%), or perhaps diagonally striped (which gets replaced with a fully filled progress bar as the download progresses).

 

 

Given that there's a empty spot on the UI in the bottom-left corner, and it does not look like it is possible to resize the window (what if someone has a small monitor?), perhaps a 'Play/Install/Upgrade' (the currently selected version) button could go there?

[Gavric]

I installed the new launcher, yesterday.  Played both the production and Beta versions for a bit.  While testing the new Base Teleporter mechanics in the Beta, I had a game crash.  I decided that was a sign to spend time in the real world, and walked away from my computer after submitting a crash report.

 

Today, I have opened the launcher for the first time, since.  I've been staring at a "Completing Setup" window for 30 minutes.

 

Canceling the window does nothing.  I had to go into Task Manager and end the launcher.exe process.  Same behavior on re-launch, after rebooting the PC.  I'm going to "uninstall" and re-install, and try again.

 

Launcher suddenly started working, after launching it directly from the folder instead of using the desktop shortcut.

 

launcher.log

Edited October 25, 2020 by Gavric
Add Information

[Gavric]

I'm seeing a lot of graphics artifacts.  Admittedly, this could be my system.

 

When I move my mouse pointer over sections of the GUI, they black out.  Sometimes everything except what I hover over blacks out.  Anyone else seeing something like this?

[Ura Hero]

On 10/22/2020 at 2:31 PM, Ura Hero said:

 

1. Thanks for the UI sizing.  Makes a big difference on 4k.

2. Nothing to see here.

3. I can get it to run now, but it seems to be ignoring that it is set for windowed mode when launched from the command line.  It looks like it is going full screen.  Launch command is below.

           C:\Games\Homecoming\bin\win64\live\cityofheroes.exe -profile live -auth 51.161.76.201 -assetpath assets\issue24;assets\live

 

I tried the -gfxreset option, but that doesn't seem to help either.

 

Finally got a chance to do some in depth testing on #3.  It appears to be an issue with ISBoxer.  I can get it to work if I move the game to different monitors than my main 4k, but trying to run two windows on my main 4k monitor causes the issue.