a solution to the NC Soft Launcher problem has been provided by Mark on the WineHQ page for City of Heroes.
this is a PERL script he wrote. the original page is located here and it will list the dependencies needed.
this script will update an existing install. it will also download a new version of the client if placed into an empty folder. i could not get it to work correctly with a fresh install from DVD (Architect Edition) due to a lack of a version.ini file. i recommend downloading a new client with the PERL patcher instead of trying a fresh install from CD/DVD.
complete directions for it are on the webpage provided above. make sure to place the script inside your City of Heroes install folder (ie. where you want the game to be) and run it from there. for example, mine is located here: /home/<USERNAME>/.cxgames/CityofHeroes/drive_c/Program_Files/City_of_Heroes
i have made a minor adjustment to the script so that it will launch using CXG. in order for this work you must first:
1) open your Manage Bottles window in CXG.
2) highlight the City of Heroes bottle that you've made.
3) click on the Advanced tab.
4) Check the box that says "Use This Bottle as the Default for the Command Line"
that should sort it out. you can grab my CXG specific version of the patcher here. all i did was change the wine call at the end of the script to the cxgames specific method of a command line call.
NOTE: the script assumes you installed CXG with the generic .bin installer. if you used a .deb or .rpm installer, you will need to first locate the directory where the CXG program was installed, and then edit the call at the bottom of the perl script to call the correct directory.
for example, user Vauluur tells us this:
"Thanks, I was able to find the cxgames directory. It installed to
/opt. So I modified the script to call /opt/cxgames/bin/wine and it
now functions perfectly."
Common errors:
1) Freezing at Loading bar: if the game freezes at the loading bar, launch the script with the argument -renderthread 0
2) (THIS ERROR SHOULD BE OBSOLETE NOW, BUT I'VE LEFT IT HERE JUST IN CASE) UNNAMED server: if after logging in you only see one UNNAMED server, launch the script with the argument -auth 64.25.36.4. for the test server it's: 64.25.36.21. for the beta server it's: 64.25.36.19
the command i use to successfully run this patcher and launch the game is this:
./cohlaunch.pl -renderthread 0
test server access needs the following:
./cohlaunch.pl -test -renderthread 0
and for the beta server it's:
./cohlaunch.pl -beta -renderthread 0
i've updated my ranking to Bronze now because, while the game itself runs great, we need to jump through a few hoops outside of CXG to get it running.
let me know if this helps you!
