Multiple instance chat logging

[Sekoia]

When running multiple instances of City of Heroes with chat logging enabled (on a single machine, not multiboxing), the chat logs for all the instances get merged together into the same files. This intermixes the chat logs and makes it impossible to determine what came from which account. (Plus anything multiple accounts see, gets repeated multiple times.)

I looked around on the wiki and the only information I could find about logging was this:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/The_Players%27_Guide_to_the_Cities/User_Interface/Options_Window#Chat_Options
Which only mentions that you have the option to turn it on and off and that it gets stored to "\logs\game".

I looked for an article on "multiboxing", "multibox", and even searched by "box" and couldn't find anything on the wiki. :/

I then looked to see if maybe there was a client option that would help, in this article:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Game_Client

Apparently there are no command line options that allow you to specify a target directory for chat logging. Not a big surprise I guess.

Is there some way to finangle multiple instances into writing at different locations? The best I could think of was to make multiple installations... but I got the impression that since it uses registry settings, only one would really work?

[Codewalker]

Having multiple copies might work, I know that the game uses the current working directory for a few things and won't start up correctly if you try to run it from somewhere else.

IIRC the "install path" in the registry is only used by the launcher and not the game itself. So a launch shortcut straight to cityofheroes.exe that bypasses it (and has the start directory set) should do the trick.

If all else fails, you can create a second user account on your computer and use "run as" to launch a process under that account. All of the registry settings are stored in the per-user hive and will be different for another OS user.

You can mitigate the disk usage of having a second copy by using the Junction utility to make them share the piggs directory (make a junction point in the second copy that points back to the first).

[Sekoia]

So a launch shortcut straight to cityofheroes.exe that bypasses it (and has the start directory set) should do the trick.

I followed your advice and set up a second folder with junction links to most of the content, copying over cityofheroes.exe and everything else in the top level folder that couldn't be junctioned.

Unfortunately, running cityofheroes.exe directly results in this error message:

Code Select Expand

You can't run this program directly, please run NCsoft Launcher instead.
Vous ne pouvez pas lancer ce programme directement. Veuillez d'abord exécuter le lanceur NCsoft.
Dieses Programm kann nicht direkt ausgeführt werden - bitte dazu den NCsoft-Launcher starten.
.

I found that starting using cityofheroes.exe -project "coh" allowed me to at least log in... but when I got to the server list the only entry was "UNNAMED". I tried entering that server and City froze (I force-closed it at that point, didn't see a point in waiting).

I also tried using "-launcher" but that still gave me the error message.

Evidently the info at Game Client is out of date. Is there a new "-project" parameter that will get me in?

[Codewalker]

It's not -project that is the problem, that still works just as it always did.

The issue is that the hardcoded auth server IP in the client no longer works, and they're depending on the launcher to pass in the correct address.

Fortunately I know what it is. :)

Try: cityofheroes -project coh -auth 64.25.36.88

You can throw -launcher in there if you want. I don't think it actually does anything anymore -- previously when you used it, it would cause the game to grant any account you logged into the Wisp aura...

[Sekoia]

That did the trick! Thank you so much. :D