Texas Justice

After getting a clean installation of your video and audio drivers, since you are running an ATI card follow the recommendations in the first post in BillZBubba's ATI Issues and Settings Recommendations thread stickied in this forum.

On a quick pass through your settings I saw several that will cause definite problems. Start with the recommendations in that thread and then as you get to where you are running stable for a week or so of regular playing, then you can start tweaking some of the settings up slightly (one at a time, very small increments) to see if you can get a bit more out of the game.

Happy Birthday Peep.

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OK, you're right. But, it has crossed my mind that a little payback to those guys would be great.

[/ QUOTE ]Completely agreed. And it's crossed my mind, too. Multiple times.

Use the SPAM button. It flags the account sending the email for investigation, and appears to delete ALL emails from that account from your inbox. At least, I've seen multiple ones disappear with a single click.

[/ QUOTE ]Yep. That's what I do all the time. It's nice to know that it does more than just add the name to 'ignore'. I've gotten 20+ e-mails and had them all disappear with only 3-4 names added to the list of ignores. These guys are tenacious to say the least. They most likely just get free trial accounts and only use them long enough to spam until they get shut down. Then they just sign up for another freebie.

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Trial accounts cannot send emails. The email system is only available for use by paid accounts.

Yes, there was a bug for a while that was allowing a way around some of the restrictions, but those have been fixed.

Well, at least Moderator 08 posts here using an account that won't show on the Community Digest and bring in the unwashed masses.

Would love to be able to join you all, especially for the Murder Burger run and comradery.

Hope you all have a good time.

I'd recommend starting with Zloth's ++ Common Solutions & Posting Guidelines ++ thread that is stickied in this forum.

Secondly, post a log from running CoH Helper as it will give information about your system and the CoH installation and settings.

Thirdly, post a log from running HijackThis. This will show what else is going on on your computer while you are playing CoH.

It runs quite well for me. I had to do a bit of tweaking to my graphics settings, but that was only due to having an ATI video card. The tweaks I made are the same as those recommended by BillZBubba in the first post in his thread on the ATI cards. I'll slowly be tweaking things up in the next couple of months to find that best settings I can get by with.

As for the Games For Windows brand, there are 4 requirements for a game to be able to use this branding and part of that is testing by not only the publisher of the game but Microsoft as well. You can read more about it here.

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Color me shocked.

TJ made an arrogant, condescending post.

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Apparently you don't know me very well. I can do either arrogant or condescending quite well. I shine when I combine them, possibly even to the point of rivalling LHF or Judas.

However, neither was used by me in this thread until now.

Gratz Noodle (and Richie as well I guess).

Welcome James Montgomery, you've been brought into the world with a name with a fine heritage indeed.

Have a bit of patience. It's the middle of the night for most people that I see giving solid advice in this section of the forums.

Please also understand that these are players of the game, not employees of NCSoft or Paragon Studios. They are doing this of their own free will, on their own time, and with no pay.

Also understand that Mateo has given you the best advice you'll likely get. You have to realize that Netbooks weren't designed to play games on, especially OpenGL games. Lesser quality video cards, such as the one in your Netbook, just weren't made to do this type of work, and often the drivers were written to handle the bare minimum that was needed for the chips. Often, that leaves out proper handling of OpenGL.

Even top end ATI cards don't handle OpenGL instructions well, which is why so many people using ATI cards have to tweak settings so much to get the game to play.

Adding more memory to your system may be the easiest option, although that will also depend on how much memory the motherboard will handle.

Remember, netbooks are not designed for this type of computing.

An interesting blurb I picked up from a website reads as follows:

What are netbooks?

A netbook is a streamlined mobile device designed for the Internet, so you can stay connected on the go. Get up-to-date news, the latest scores and weather information, access your e-mail and social networking sites, and enjoy digital videos, photos and music.

Netbooks may look like laptops, but they don't have the full capabilities of a computer. Instead, a netbook specializes in mobility and the Web, so it's great for travel or as a supplement to your main PC.

Just so that no one takes my previous post (or small parts of it) totally out of context, I'm going to say a few things that have gone through my head for the past few weeks.

And yes, I realize that people ARE going to take my previous post or parts of it out of context. I'm still going to say this and then I'm done talking about this matter on the forums.

Who banned all of these accounts and deleted all of these characters? The Dev team? Possible, but highly unlikely. The Community team? Very doubtful, although I imagine Avatea, Nivienne, Moderator08 and EMpulse were quite busy along with the rest of the forum moderators in trying to enforce the existing (not new) forum rules. Customer Service? Very probable, which likely means this was handled either through Austin, TX (if NCSoft-NA still has offices and CS staff there) or Seattle, WA if NCSoft West is handling CS staffing now. The point is, we don't know who exactly did what. And we likely never will. I'll come back to that part later.

From all that I've read, it sounds as if a script was used that looked at specific criteria to base the actions on. From what I know of scripting, this would have likely been the easiest way to do these actions. But ... you have to be very specific in what criteria you are basing the actions on, and make sure that there are NO other possible situations that may set a True value on those criteria. Such as being in a Level Pact.

Positron and others could well have intended that each situation be looked at individually before performing any action. Those MAY have been their exact instructions, but we will likely never know due to things I'll talk about later. It could be that whoever was tasked with this started looking at the database and after running a few searches had an "OMG WUT?!" reaction and decided it would be faster and easier for them to perform the task using a script, without getting clearance from anyone else. It's also possible that whoever was tasked with this wasn't aware that LP toons might be affected, so didn't include anything in their script to check to see if the character was in a LP. If there were any others incorrectly marked by the script for action, it's likely because the person writing the script wasn't aware that those actions would trigger their limited criteria.

Is it possible someone on the Dev team was the one tasked with this chore? Sure, but I still think it's less likely, especially since it involved account bans. This is why I lean more to it being a CS issue than anything else. Also, it is more likely that a CS person wouldn't have been aware of the fact that LP characters could meet those same criteria. Heck, some of the CS people that work for NCSoft may not even play CoH/CoV, other than an occaisional test session or two, and may not even know what a Level Pact is. Also, since the matter of LP characters was brought up on the forums in regard to this, it is also less likely that it would be someone on the Dev or Community team. I'm sure some of them were reading quite a bit of the posts in reaction to Positron's announcement.

It's also possible that although Positron intended that each case be looked at individually, someone may have over-ruled him when giving the instructions. Much as we like to think of Positron as "The Boss" he still has people he has to answer to, or that can change his desired implementation of many aspects of the game.

Brian Clayton is Executive Producer of the game and (I believe) General Manager of Paragon Studios. But I don't really see this as being something Brian would overrule Matt on without giving him the go-ahead to repost to the forums that things had changed. Brian has always struck me as being very encouraging of the way the Dev team communicates with the players.

I've met one person in the Marketing department, and while he seems to be a very nice person, his job requires that he sometimes shuts down some of the communication between the Devs and the players. I witnessed him giving Castle the Evil Eye when he started talking about things Marketing wasn't ready to have discussed publicly. I'm not specifically referring to him with any of the rest of this, just the Marketing Department in general. I know that (from a current players viewpoint at least) some of the decisions by Marketing often seem to be to get information out to non-players or former players through Gaming sites rather than giving the current playerbase the first news on several things. I could easily see that someone in Marketing may have made a decision that overruled Matt's stated goal of looking at each case individually, without even thinking about how it would affect the current playerbase. Their view of players seems to be more a case of trying to attract players than to work WITH existing players. But that's the nature of their job manytimes.

We just don't know who did what, and likely never will.

Why do I keep saying we likely never will? Past experience with some events that happened and were very publicly aired on the forums. I think the orders may have come down from elsewhere that this wasn't to be discussed and our Dev and Community teams are stuck between a rock and a hard place.


What previous events? Well, think back to Lighthouse's post in the PvP changes thread that got so many people riled up. Some players were calling for him to be fired for speaking so blatantly. Some were applauding him for speaking what they saw as the truth. Some thought he'd just had enough of the whining and moaning and blew off a bit of steam in the post.

A short time later, Lighthouse made his farewell post and several immediately jumped to the conclusion that he'd been fired. Some specifically cited Positron as being the cause, even though there was no evidence then, just as now, that Positron had anything to do with LH leaving. Some players that were blaming Posi then are some of the same blaming Posi now, even though in both cases, we have no idea whether he was involved with it or not.

Prior to that, those very same PvP Changes had taken center stage. People castigated the Devs, and Castle in particular, before the changes were even put on the Test server. I recall several posts that were direct attacks on Castle and took the low road of cheapshots about his physical appearance.

Sure, the PvP changes likely killed the (then active) PvP Community that we had. I certainly haven't seen those changes doing anything to draw new players into PvP. But that's a dead horse I'm really tired of beating with a stick.

There have been other minor things happen that have caused an uproar from SOME forum posters, even though some of them were just proposed changes that hadn't been put onto Test yet to see how viable they would be. Due to the vocal minority on some of these issues, or in some cases the vocal caustic minority, I think that some parts of NCSoft have been revising their view of the open communications we've had with the Dev team in the past.

My thoughts about the silence? I don't really like it, but I'm not gonna whine and moan in almost every post I make about it. I'm not gonna drop snide little comments into my posts or my signature. I'm gonna wait to see what happens, which will likely be nothing. I think the decision was made by Marketing or someone higher up the chain than Positron (Matt) that this would be an item that would not be discussed officially. I think that is the wrong tack to take, but I don't get to make those decisions.

I've been told that people were in meetings and on the phones discussing this situation most of the day while people were trying to get their LP characters undeleted, most likely trying to figure out exactly what accounts and characters the script had incorrectly acted on, and how to reverse it (along with what compensation to grant for the error). Much of this probably also included the blow-ups on the forums and the mods having to work non-stop trying to keep up with deleting threads, warning players, as well as their regular duties and trying to get some type of response they would be allowed to post. As I said earlier, I think someone higher up likely decided that no official comment would be made, which I can see Brian, Matt, Jesse and other Devs along with Moderator08, Nivienne, and others fighting and arguing against. These are the people that know the community the best, and know how bad such a decision would be.

But we will likely never know.

And that's the LAST I'm saying on this subject on the forums.

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I'm staying.

Though I'm sure nobody cares; just like I don't really care that people are leaving.

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Finally, a rational thought process that I can agree with.

And no, I really don't care if people are staying either.

The only shame I see is those that openly admit that they don't play the game, but insist on coming to the forums to inflict their diatribes on the rest of us. Sure, you're paid up and that permits you to post on the forums, but spew your insults and snide remarks elsewhere please, not on the Justice forums.

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Not a fan of it costing, but DEFINITELY a fan of a throw money emote

Do we have a BABs' official emotes suggestion thread?




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We do, but it's not on these forums and only I have access to it.

So far, I'm not getting a lot of quality suggestions.


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Perhaps it's time to open that thread up and put it on these forums then. :P

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I think BAB has learned why I dread him posting in the Justice forum and bringing in the unwashed masses. I'm thinking that may be the reasoning behind keeping it off these forums and with such limited access.

After all, we've all seen what has happened in Jay's Costume Suggestion thread. We don't need a repeat of that on ANY subject on these forums.

I'd recommend starting with Zloth's ++ Common Solutions & Posting Guidelines ++ thread that is stickied in this forum.

Secondly, post a log from running CoH Helper as it will give information about your system and the CoH installation and settings.

Thirdly, post a log from running HijackThis. This will show what else is going on on your computer while you are playing CoH.

I'd recommend starting with Zloth's ++ Common Solutions & Posting Guidelines ++ thread that is stickied in this forum.

Secondly, post a log from running CoH Helper as it will give information about your system and the CoH installation and settings.

Thirdly, post a log from running HijackThis. This will show what else is going on on your computer while you are playing CoH.

OK. There is so little information here to start working with that I'm going to give a bit of advice on where to begin looking and some programs that will give others here some specific information in order to assist you better in resolving your problems.

First of all, I have no clue what you are referring to by "sliding choice buttons". There are very few areas of the game that use a slider in the selection process and even fewer that have a slider without a numeric input box. But ... I'll leave that for you to explain in a later post. Letting us know which sliding choice buttons you are referring to may help narrow down the problem. Off the top of my head at 3 AM I can think of sliders in the Costume Creator screens (including the corresponding sliders in Icon/Facemaker screens and MA Custom Critter creation screens), the sliders in Trade windows (I think there are sliders there, I seldom use the Trade option so can't remember, but I believe they also have a numeric entry box if there are sliders there), the sliders in WW/BM transaction windows (and these have a numeric entry box as well). There may be a few other sliders, but it's not very many more if there are, and at 3 AM I'm lucky to be this coherent. You can thank the Hydrocodone for my current lucidity.

I'd recommend starting with Zloth's ++ Common Solutions & Posting Guidelines ++ thread that is stickied in this forum.

Secondly, post a log from running CoH Helper as it will give information about your system and the CoH installation and settings.

Thirdly, post a log from running HijackThis. This will show what else is going on on your computer while you are playing CoH.

As for the lag, what server(s) are you playing on? What times are you playing that you are running into the lag? What zones are you in during those times of lag, are you in any particular buildings such as the AE buildings?

What type of internet connection do you have? Cable? DSL? Dial-up? Wireless? Satellite? Are you behind a router?

Install SP2 for Vista. It's known to resolve a few issues with nVidia graphics and could help your problems some.

Belated Happy Birthday wishes for you Karo.

Sorry I missed the actual birthday of my favorite Designated Driver.

If I make it to HeroCon this year, even though I won't be drinking I may still ask you to drive. The GPS unit seemed to like you better anyway.

The text below is from the Briefing given to you by Crimson before you accept the mission.

"$name, it's time to deal with Jack Firenze, aka Director 17 of the Malta Group. This won't be easy, and we know that he has another Kronos class Titan under his command. If he activates it, there might not be much time before it can cause a lot of damage. Gather your resources and block out some time. When you give me the go-ahead, it's on."

And from the clue when you defeat Firenze:

"After his defeat, Jack Firenze, aka Director 17 of the Malta Group, cursed you by saying:

'Where were you getting your information? Tell me! Who was helping you? How were you able to tear down so much, expose so much? You so-called heroes never understood. Now you've ruined it. I've already seen the news. they call us a criminal conspiracy in the intelligence community. They'll all search for us, try to weed us out just to protect their jobs. We would have brought a new era of peace and security through this war. We would have brought everyone freedom, freedom and democracy under our control.'

'But it's not over! Even if this is the end of me, I still have one card left to play. When I realized extraction wasn't coming, I activated my second Kronos Titan. it will crash right through the War Wall, and level this area of the city! Not even you can stop it! Ah-ha-ha-ha!!!' "


Notice the bolded part and especially the italicized portion. This is the same type of clues you've been given throughout your career as a hero when there is a chained timed mission. The clues are there, if you take the time to read them. This arc has been this way since it was introduced to the game, and there are other similar missions earlier in the game that use the same types of clues in the text that will tell you that a timed mission is coming.

IF this were the first time this type of mission chaining had been used, I could see how you might be confused by the wording, but it's not the first time unless you've skipped a lot of content. Actually, the only chained timed mission I can recall that DOESN'T give any verbal clues is from Tina Macintyre at the beginning of the Praetorian War story arc.

Over the last 5 years, a few chained timed missions have been pulled, or at least had been separated so that they aren't chained, due to complaints from players that didn't read the clues they were given during the mission offering. It's also why they started highlighting parts of the mission offering text in different colors to draw the players attention to things such as Forced Teaming missions, AV's, timed missions (the mission you are being offered, not a chained mission). I'm not sure if they've retroactively edited all of the missions' text to do this since they started coloring the text, since I haven't run a lot of the lower level missions in a while.

I think this is the first I've seen where someone complained about the timed mission in World Wide Red. There may have been some complaints, but none that I've seen. Usually, the only complaint I see is that we don't get to face MORE Kronos Titans than the few in this Arc.

I'm not sure why NCSoft suggested you post this in the forums, and I'm assuming it is the Customer Support team that suggested it. Apparently you communicated with someone that wasn't familiar with this series of missions.

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They have referenced bugs before. One is even commemorated on a plaque.

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For those wondering which plaque, go to King's Row and take a left when you exit the Tram. Cross the road and you will find a plaque that is part of the Intellectual badge.

The wording on the plaque is as follows:

"For months, unbeknownst to the city's finest Super Groups, a Lost Pariah called Ishmael attempted to psychically control the entire city. It was here that his efforts had the greatest effect, causing many citizens to run about in a stupor for hours on end."

Man, those were some fun times watching the citizens running crazy on that spot.

Something else you may want to try is to download the Updater from the NCSoft Account page using this link.

When you run the updater, have it install it into a different directory from where you have the game currently installed so that you get a full non-Steam install.

If the game launches and runs correctly from this, you'll know it is due to Steam and possibly Vista and how they interact. If it still doesn't work, there are other issues going on and you may be asked to post the output from CoH Helper and a HijackThis log.

Also, please post a current CoH Helper output file.

There is no listing as to what your video card is or what driver it is using.

Also, several items list as blanks. Several services list with an Unknown Owner with the file missing.

I think I'd start by running a malware scan with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. After that run a full virus scan then update all of your drivers.

I think you'll find parts of your problem before you get to the stage of installing updated drivers. I'd wait to update the drivers until finding and fixing those problems first.

A few other things.

Flush the DNS cache. Do this by opening a command prompt and type (without the quotes) "ipconfig /flushdns". It may be that the path it is trying to take to the update server is having problems.

Also, don't let the updater just keep running and running. Once the updater hits attempt 10 or 15, you may as well kill that instance.

Yeah, Satellite can have it's problems.

As far as a trusted site to download from, I generally use Major Geeks for downloading utility programs. Not only do they have a large selection, they scan all files to make sure that you aren't getting an infected file.

Update your drivers. Video and audio especially.

If Sony doesn't have more current drivers on their site for your video card, go to OmegaDrivers.net to get newer drivers. If they don't have newer audio drivers, you may still have problems. If there are any other hardware driver updates for your laptop, I'd recommend installing those as well.

The drivers being so far out of date is the reason so many items report Unknown in your CoH Helper logs.