Texas Justice

This should really be over in the Issue 24: Resurgence [VIP Beta] Forums section instead of in the Test Server section.

There is an entire section there with Patch Notes, Bug Reports and Feedback sections.

You can see those forums easily if you click the City of Heroes Forums link in the upper left directly under the link for Official Site.

I've been on an annual subscription since launch. Currently on the 12+2 plan.

I do have friends that are students that like the game but don't have a credit card but do have spending money from part-time jobs, self-employment (babysitting, mowing, housecleaning, etc).

I won't even go into the GameStop nearest me because they refuse to carry anything to do with CoH because in their words "no one plays that". That's been their mantra for the last 6 years at least. Despite regular customers asking for Time Cards every few months, asking for various box sets as they were released, etc.

The one this happened at was in Colorado and it was after I moved back to Texas.

The Best Buy and GameStop near me both have carried them in the past but won't order them anymore since they sat on the shelf for a long time before they sold.

Now they won't stock them even though they have 3 customers that have started playing CoH (one is a returning player) and want the time cards and they are customers that have been regular there for several years.

They still refuse to stock them or even special order the time cards for these guys and gals.

I was told at one of the Best Buy stores in Austin that it's a decision that is made by each store. Friends that work at GameStop have told me the same thing, it's up to each store. One friend told me that his manager stopped ordering the time cards just to run off one customer he didn't like. Luckily, they had another GameStop across town that kept them in stock.

So get the VIP Starter Kit on sale from GameStop, apply it first since it only works on new game accounts. Then get the bundle from Amazon that Dr. Darkspeed listed. For less than $40.00 that gets 4 months of time, permanent access to the GR costumes, permanent access to the Alignment System, permanent access to creating a Praetorian, permanent access to the costumes that came with GR and whatever goodies came with the CoV Collector's Edition. 400 Paragon Points each of those months (1600 Paragon Points total) plus the Reward Tokens and Transfer Tokens each of those months. That will get them into Tier 3 so several of the chat channels are unlocked.

Since they no longer sell the Booster Packs I don't know if they still let you choose between the Cyborg and Magic Booster packs that came with the AE edition.

30 Days of VIP time. 1 Server Transfer Token. 400 Paragon Points. Access for 30 days to all Free to VIP content and powersets that they wouldn't have access to as an F2P account. Any Free for VIP costumes they use on characters during that 30 days can still be worn after the VIP time expires unless they try to edit that costume slot.

You make it sound like 30 days of VIP gets you nothing. Since it's a discounted price from the normal subscription it's a bit of a bargain. Add the free New Player Pack to that and they've got a pretty nice package going for 30 days for less than the normal monthly subscription rate.

That will give them time to try powersets that they'd have to purchase if they were on an F2P account. It would give them time to try costumes they'd have to purchase if they were on an F2P account. It gives them time to try Controllers and MasterMinds that they'd have to purchase (or get far enough in the Reward Tiers) if they were on an F2P account. Time to try the Signature Story Arcs they'd have to purchase if they were on an F2P account. Time to try Praetoria and First Ward that they'd have to purchase if they were on an F2P account. Time to try out the Alignment System that they'd have to purchase if they were on an F2P account. Time to try AE (with rewards and even creating arcs) that they'd only have access to on an F2P account by getting up far enough in the Reward Tiers. Time to try Incarnates if they get that high. Time that they'll be able to have no chat restrictions which they'd only have access to on an F2P account by getting far enough in the Reward Tiers.

That's a lot of things to get to try out. That might give them a better idea of what unlocks or purchases they may want to make in the market after the VIP time runs out. It might also convince them to stay VIP for a while.

The New Player Pack is available for free in the Paragon Market for new accounts. It can only be "purchased" once per account.

Also, GameStop's website is currently selling the VIP Starter Kit for $9.99. Just do a search for "City of Heroes" and it's the only thing tht comes up. That same VIP Starter Kit is currently $14.99 on the NCSoft site.

Get them the VIP Starter Kit, then get them the free New Player Pack from the Paragon Market and they'll be ready for the first 30 days.

Are you running Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode before installing the drivers?

What happens when you try the modified 12.11 drivers I linked above?

You might want to try downloading and running the AMD Mobility Radeon Driver Verification Tool from the AMD site.

If it says that the current Mobility Drivers are compatible with your system then you can fill in the information in the dropdown box on the front page of the AMD site and download the drivers it shows in the results or grab the drivers from here (I filled in the fields with the info from your CoH Helper report and this was the result).

If it says that they aren't compatible you may be able to use these drivers instead. Just follow the directions on the page exactly. I think those are a modded version of the 12.11 drivers, but they should work for the game.

I wasn't keeping up with my extra slots so I'm not sure if I got the character slot or not when I hit 8 years in April.

By the time I thought to check that it was well after my anniversary date.

Odd. As many times as I've opened that window I've never seen applications listed there, only inputs.

It's deja vu all over again.

- Yogi Berra

Interesting. I hadn't seen that before Roderick. Is that new with Vista or 7?

I know I never saw it in XP listing all of the running programs, but I'll double-check a system at work tomorrow to make sure it isn't there.

Do you have a proxy set in your browser? If so, it may not be passing the address correctly for the market pages.

Are you using any web accelerator type software. If so, try turning it off and see if it resolves the problems.

If you continue to have trouble, follow the instructions in Hyperstrike's [Guide] Asking for technical help on the forums and paste the output from CoH Helper and HiJackThis in the thread.

The 3800 series is not that great of a graphics card. The 4850 to 4870 is able to run "some" Ultra mode settings without issue but even beefier cards have problems with some settings such as Ambient Occlusion. That's a real resource hog. The 3800 series won't run the as well with the same settings as a 4850 can handle easily.

Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what your in-game settings are since the CoH Helper report is showing most of the settings asUnknown (2147483647).

There are generally two conditions that will cause it to report this way.

The first is that CoH Helper isn't being run with elevated priveleges (Right-click the CoH Helper and select Run as Administrator).

The other is generally due to software on the computer blocking access to the registry. Firewall programs, Security Suites, Anti-Virus and other programs can often block other programs from reading the registry entries correctly.

Of course, there may be other issues involved but it's hard to tell without seeing a HiJackThis report to see what software is running on the computer that could be causing issues. It would be helpful if you'd run HiJackThis and post the results from that in a reply here.

I do know that CoH at times has problems with multiple monitors. Try disconnecting the second monitor or run the game in Windowed mode but resize the game so that it has about an inch of space between the right-edge of the game window and the edge of the screen.