Morgan Reed

Huh. Well, I'll be...

I'm not sure that article is a list of requirements as I do not have anything set up as it suggests. I think it is more a list of things to try to resolve issues. Sort of a "well here. Try this and see if it works."

Because all of my ports are stealthed at the router, and nothing from CoX/NCSoft is given specific permission on my PC firewall lists.

But that right there could be the problem if opening port 80 can help all by itself. Of course, good luck trying to get an ISP to change its "security measures" of blocking incoming port 80 packets.

According to his/her list, only inbound port 80 requests are blocked. (So, no hosting your own web server...) Outbound, and response packets aren't blocked, so web surfing is not hindered.

Completely open? No, that isn't true. My router "stealths" port 80 (much like the posters ISP), and I don't have a problem with the new NCSoft Launcher. Now, it may be that my router is smarter than that ISP...

And then there are threads such as this one where everything was fine before a CoX patch. (User looks to be using ATI 11.1 drivers.)

And yet there are users (like me) that have severe crashing issues with ATI 11.5 drivers that 11.4 works for. (I haven't tried 11.6 at all.) And there are those users that 11.4 doesn't work for. And I could keep going.

And yet there are several users that have issues with nVidia OpenGL drivers.

As long as we are using circumstantial observations, it appears that CoX isn't coding properly for OpenGL.

But it isn't that clear. As players it is impossible to roll back versions of the game (I'm not even sure Devs can do it - they may not even have that code anymore) to do any real proper testing. Not to mention, as players, we won't even get paid to do it.

All we can say for certain is that something in CoH (likely Ultra Mode related) and something in ATIs 11.X drivers aren't playing nice together.

This is far from certain.

ATI drivers worked well until the introduction of i20, and more specifically i20.5. In other words, players using the same ATI driver before and after the issue launch had the game "break" after the issue change.

This does not mean it is a Paragon Studios problem. But it isn't clear as to who is at fault.

It would be great if Paragon Studios could get into contact with ATI and hash out where things went wrong and how to fix it, though.

Well then. There is good news. This bug is a lot less random now.

Entering, and leaving, a Lambda trial locks my pets near 100% of the time.

Very repeatable.

Now that is a slippery slope.

"The only allowed topics of free expression are those topics I agree with."

Well, first the catch phrase used was closer to "You keep what you have paid for" than "you won't lose anything (etc.)..."

And neither of those statements are really wrong. You "keep" everything. You don't "lose" anything. But you do lose access to some things. And keeping access, or not losing access, was never promised.

And as mentioned, veteran status can unlock stuff for you. So you may not feel the sting at all.

In case you miss it, this thread in this forum gives instructions on how to fix it, as well as mentions looking into eliminating the problem.

If that were true, you would think the thread would have been moved by now, what with a whole week in this forum.

I guess the forum mods aren't as good at their jobs as you are.

Ouch. So it isn't available with helmets. I would have preferred to know that before I spent 10 Astral Merits on it.

Thanks for letting me know though.

I'm still trying to find where my Ascension Mask went to after I unlocked it...

That isn't exactly new. Holders of what I call "soft IP" (as in their Intellectual Property doesn't have a physical form, just their distribution method does) have been trying to break consumers of the mentality that they actually own stuff they purchase for a few years now. Usually with very bad results. From DRM ("What do you mean I can only install the game 3 times?!? I bought the game!) to the DMCA ("Wait, wait, wait... Does that section actually say that I do not have the rights to resell the physical product even though I purchased it?!?" [I have to track down what ever happened to that...]).

Without even getting into if that is proper or not, it is an uphill battle because ever since bartering was invented, consumers have always had ownership of what they purchased.

In a much more mild way, CoHF touches that issue too. I know there are some (I predict a large number) MMO customers (across all MMOs, not limited to CoX) that have the perspective that they purchase the content, and the subscription fee is just renting server time. These persons will have one hell of a wake up call when they find out that Paragon isn't just removing the server rental fee with CoHF. And they will feel insulted (the famous "slap in the face") to have to "pay for that content a second time." (I'm referring primarily to MMs and Controllers, but to a lesser degree EATs, and I'm predicting some powersets won't be available by default to Premium players.)

I suspect those holders of "soft IPs" will keep fighting the fight, until consumers finally give in, or they go bankrupt for trying.

Apparently, that is borked too.

No. Keyes Island is supposed to give iXP for the first five slots. I say supposed to, only because I have not verified that myself.

I know I read it some where... But I can't remember exactly where right now. If you would like a confirmation link, let me know and I'll track it down.

Good to hear. If you have any further problems, let us know.

Wow. Doesn't that post come off as unnecessarily pissy. I hope that me trying to help isn't bruising your ego.

Did those say "A possibly unknown NewHeur-PE" virus?

My quick bit of research shows that those are probably false positives.

Do you have access to another anti-virus scan to verify? If not, try an online scanner such as TrendMicros HouseCall.

If that is a bit too much work right now, just make sure your NOD 32 definitions are up to date and rerun it.

Sending a copy of the files(s) to ESET is a good idea too.

The title "NewHeur_PE" seems to be a placeholder name for things anti-virus haven't had defined yet.

Are you using an ATI card? All of the * list gliches I have read about (including my own) have been related to ATI and their drivers not working well with CoX.

Check your driver version. If they are quite old (less than 11.2) try updating to the newest ones. If they are the newest, or fairly recent, try rolling them back a version at a time.
There doesn't seem to be one driver version that works for everyone. But I have read success from drivers between 11.2 and 11.6. (My "magic number" was 11.4.)

Am I understanding you correctly, and you are saying that with this same computer the only game that locks up is CoH currently? Or were these games in the not so recent past?

If you have recently played other graphics intense games during or after you CoH lockups, that makes me think it is the video crashes CoH has with the newest video drivers for some people. I thought that was pretty much limited to ATI though, and I do not know nVidia driver numbers.

If ruling out the wireless doesn't cure you, try rolling back your video drivers one version.

If upgrading to Windows 7 doesn't fix your problem, and you have an ATI card, you can try rolling back the video drivers. Go back one version at a time until about 11.2 or so. It has improved many players crashing problems. But the "magic number" is different for most people so it takes some trial and error.

If by "other characters" you mean the ones that you didn't unlock with the global character slots, then you are correct. If ever you subscribe again, they will be unlocked during your subscription.
If you should lapse into Premium status again, you will only have limited ability to reassign your global character slots again, according to this post from Positron. So, hopefully you will have them on the servers you want.

EDITed: My info was off a bit. Corrected.

Oh... That stinks. Not that you fixed the problem. But that is was a Windows update.

Do you have a listing of which ones were installed?

For the handful of systems I've explored, video drivers are "Recommended" updates only.
If it was a "Critical" update, it might actually be a Windows component that is gumming things up. Or, your particular drivers were considered critical.

As for if you can download it... I would say it depends on if you can suffer the lag. If it is "Critical," odds are you could really use the update. But at the same time it is likely to cause the lag again. It falls into one of those "lesser of two evils" category that others can't really answer for you.

If you could track down and list the updates, I'd like to know what they were. And I might be able to give you further advice on the issue.

My freezes were using DVI only, and running 11.5 Catalyst drivers. So, the potential HDMI port problem wasn't directly a cause for me. Although my card does have a HDMI port... So it might be related.

That suggests to me you aren't getting wireless interference.

Do you have Windows Update set to automatically download and install updates?

If so, check your update history (Windows Start button > Windows Update > Review Update History) and look if it installed a video driver update during the night before the lagging started.
I'm not familiar with the Crey's Fire Farm, but if it has a bunch of fire effects, it might be a video driver issue.
If you find the video driver was updated, you might want to try rolling back the driver version to the previous one.