The Big Giant Icon Thread

[Tanklet]

I think that even if we can't use powers or anything, it would be good to have citizens walking around in the areas. I like to travel around but... I feel like I am in a ghost city and while it is great to visit, it makes me sad to see no one around. For example, it's hurtful to see Ms Liberty not standing at her usual spot in Atlas Park. Even if we can't talk or interact with anyone, at least, the city would feel alive again in a way...

The thing about the citizens, is that spawning and controlling them is a server function. Controlling our characters (basic movements) is a client function because we're making the inputs (W, S, A, D). Inputs that control NPCs, bad guys, spawns, etc, come from an as of yet no longer existent server.

[Codewalker]

Technically player motion is a server function, too. Fortunately, the client is able to simulate it in order to produce the illusion of not having lag. Otherwise, when you pressed 'W', it might take up to half a second or more for your character to react, depending on latency.

Normally the server does identical calculations, but if they get out of sync and the server sends back a different position than the client thinks you're in, the server 'wins', and the client snaps you back. That's what causes rubber-banding. On the live game, it happened most often due to the unpredictable movement of other players and NPCs, causing the space you thought was empty to actually have something solid in it.

Icon exploits that by patching the client and rewriting some of its code to think it's connected to a server, as well as setting appropriate physics parameters. Then it just lets you run around on predicted motion, never receiving any position corrections. It's theoretically possible to do something similar using Cheat Engine to modify the memory (assuming it can handle changing protection on read-only memory segments), but it would be a very tedious process of entering about 1,000 overrides by hand.

[faero malikite]

I know this is probably solved in this thread somewhere but my brain started to melt as I read through it.
I am not computer savvy which definitely hurts me here, I have tried literally all day to follow the directions to do this and all I have ended up with is 5 new programs that have changed my startup page and now pop up every time I hover over something.

I do not have the game still on my PC.
I tried to download the torrent program that was recommended in the main post. (no idea if I did it successfully or not)
icon.exe is in my coh folder.
when I try to open the coh beta file it tries to open it with adobe and fails.
when I try to run the icon.exe it says no cityofheroes.exe file is found, I have the coh test.exe on my pc but it gives me an error message with that one as well.

help...me....please.....

[Hyper Ai]

This put a huge smile on my face.

Being able to log in is great. I didn't realize how much CoX meant to me until it was gone. Many thanks for bringing a part of it back into my life.

[Reaper]

 ;D This is great!  I, too, never realized how much I missed this game until I logged in and was standing in Atlas.  Now I don't have to revisit my old videos just to see some of these zones.  Thank you very much, Codewalker!

[Back Blast]

Very nice and absolutely wonderful. Getting to fly about in AP was great. Are all the interiors there though? I could get inside AE with the clipping mode on but couldn't find the inside of city hall. I looked about under the map for it as well but couln't find it if it is there at all. I recall from past adventures in map holes and the like that most of the interiors were down under the map but I didn't see any of them on the AP map. I assume they are there somewhere, I just don't know where to look.

[tommyboytrd]

Technically player motion is a server function, too. Fortunately, the client is able to simulate it in order to produce the illusion of not having lag. Otherwise, when you pressed 'W', it might take up to half a second or more for your character to react, depending on latency.

Normally the server does identical calculations, but if they get out of sync and the server sends back a different position than the client thinks you're in, the server 'wins', and the client snaps you back. That's what causes rubber-banding. On the live game, it happened most often due to the unpredictable movement of other players and NPCs, causing the space you thought was empty to actually have something solid in it.

Icon exploits that by patching the client and rewriting some of its code to think it's connected to a server, as well as setting appropriate physics parameters. Then it just lets you run around on predicted motion, never receiving any position corrections. It's theoretically possible to do something similar using Cheat Engine to modify the memory (assuming it can handle changing protection on read-only memory segments), but it would be a very tedious process of entering about 1,000 overrides by hand.

Have you used CE at all with this process?  Or just talking about theoreticals and not played with it?

[Bigg Beef]

Can anyone help me with getting the music to work in game? I notice people saying the music was working in AP but mine is not, the music at the creation screen works fine.

[Lolliad]

Interesting thing: With the /nocoll 1, I was able to go to Nova Praetoria and Neuropolis from Imperial city. I was also able to go inside pocket D (not just the ski chalet).

[SeaLily]

Very nice and absolutely wonderful. Getting to fly about in AP was great. Are all the interiors there though? I could get inside AE with the clipping mode on but couldn't find the inside of city hall. I looked about under the map for it as well but couln't find it if it is there at all. I recall from past adventures in map holes and the like that most of the interiors were down under the map but I didn't see any of them on the AP map. I assume they are there somewhere, I just don't know where to look.

I was hoping for an answer to this, too.  AE obviously needs to use windows to look out into the zone, so it's where you'd imagine it should be, but the hospital, Icon, City Hall, Vanguard HQ, etc, are nowhere to be found.  I'm guessing the rooms are invisible from the outside?  But I have no idea where they would be, and hoping to randomly stumble upon them is less than ideal.

I want to get inside City Hall and go into the Mirror World that's inside it's reflective floor again.  That was my favorite bug back in the day.

[Noyjitat]

Loaded up my saved costume for my main and upon hearing the atlas park music I began to cry. I wanna play again so badly.

PLEASE if anyone reading this has the power and money to buy and restore City of Heroes please do it! You will have some very happy and loyal lifetime customers!

[HeatSpike1]

Oh WOW!! Hello, fellow coh-ers :) I'm having issues with the mac client.....it's so involved......if anyone can help pls message meh!!!! :o

Peach, I had to do the mac version for my self.  Message me with questions that you're having.

[xXHalfSliceXx]

Still have an issue with not being able to click anything when the Game Opens

[tommyboytrd]

Still have an issue with not being able to click anything when the Game Opens

Make sure you had/have the last version of the game or beta. The when you open, make sure you have a origin selected along with CoH or CoV.

[Codewalker]

Have you tried hitting alt+enter to switch between fullscreen and windowed mode? Other than that, I can't think of anything -- if you were able to play the game, it should be no different.

[Codewalker]

I was hoping for an answer to this, too.  AE obviously needs to use windows to look out into the zone, so it's where you'd imagine it should be, but the hospital, Icon, City Hall, Vanguard HQ, etc, are nowhere to be found.  I'm guessing the rooms are invisible from the outside?  But I have no idea where they would be, and hoping to randomly stumble upon them is less than ideal.

Yes, most of the indoor areas are invisible unless you're in them as a performance optimization.

City Hall I believe is directly under the building, but it's FAR below the map. Try orienting yourself forward and then hitting X to sink straight down. The hospital I know is below it, but you'll zip through the floors really quick if you're moving fast.

[Gothica]

<sob>--can't get in . . . .

Running Vista Home Premium SP2 64 bit. It's my older backup computer and the only one I still have CoH installed on, since crashed in December forced me to scrap my Win7 and XP machines with CoH on them.

Backed up my CoH directory.

Overwrote what was in the directory with the files from the torrent.

Ran icon.exe, from the main CoH directory, which brought up what appears to be the I24 splash screen, different from the old splash screen with Penelope Yin. version.ini shows version=2400.201208211101.1

Ran through costume creator, which in itself was enough to bring a tear to my eye.

Then when I tried to enter the game, got the "Map failed to start" message.

Tried again running the icon in the CoHbeta folder, standing independently and then placed in the main CoH directory. Same result.

Tried overwriting the files in the main CoH folder with the stuff from the CoHbeta folder. Same result.

Tried running the torrent file on a Windows 8 64 bit computer that has no CoH or NCSoft launcher installed on it. Same result.

Help . . . ?

And ty ty ty for all the hard work. I think all of us should send you a month's subscription fee, though if we did it I'm sure it would bring NCSoft lawyers down on you.

[Blackmoor]

Can anyone help me with getting the music to work in game? I notice people saying the music was working in AP but mine is not, the music at the creation screen works fine.

Is it safe to assume you flew around the map a bit?

The music for the current neighborhood doesn't trigger when you spawn into the map, but will play when you enter from a different neighborhood on the map. Fly around a bit and it should trigger.

If not, it's a technical problem on your end.

[Codewalker]

Ran icon.exe, from the main CoH directory, which brought up what appears to be the I24 splash screen, different from the old splash screen with Penelope Yin. version.ini shows version=2400.201208211101.1

You're close; that's the right version all right.

Map failed to start probably means you're running an old version of icon. Try clearing your internet cache and re-downloading it from the first post in this thread, and make sure you overwrite the one that's in your COH directory.

[blackjak]

Wow. I actually started playing Icon as a ghost character with the /nocoll command. Playing for God's sake!