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Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

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lax

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Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:32 pm

Post Sun May 19, 2019 8:16 am

Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

This guide assumes you've used ISBoxer before, and are familiar with the basic setup process. If not, check out http://isboxer.com/wiki/ISBoxer_42:Quick_Start_Guide for any pieces you need help with.

INTRO
City of Heroes was shut down in 2012. When the game shut down, ISBoxer worked with it. The game is now reappearing via private servers. The game did not exist publicly for several years, and development on both Inner Space and ISBoxer continued -- so naturally, some quirks of City of Heroes were no longer tested against, and there's a couple of issues to work around at the moment. This guide will help you get started with the new City of Heroes private servers.

CHAT/HELP:
ISBoxer Discord -- https://discord.gg/ESxEzhs -- has a channel for City of Heroes. Anyone setting up/playing City of Heroes with ISBoxer should join the discussion! Join the Discord server, read the "#welcome_rules_faq" channel it places you in, then go to "#i_play_another_game" and click the icon under City of Heroes. This opens up the "#city_of_heroes" channel -- come say hi!

===========================================================================================================================
KNOWN ISSUES
Before you get started, please review the following!

- SLOW LOADING TIMES/DISCONNECTS: City of Heroes loading times are directly related to FPS (framerate). The higher your FPS, the faster the game will load. To solve long loading times and avoid disconnects: During the Quick Setup Wizard, on the CPU selection page, we recommend putting 60 in both the Foreground and Background FPS boxes. If your team is already made, you can use the CPU Strategy Wizard to apply new settings to your team (also note, the CPU Strategy Wizard does not show you what your team is actually set to, it just shows default values for the wizard). For the CPU drop-down, we recommend setting it to use all CPUs with all windows.

- MOUSE CLICKS: Due to the way the game's code works with keyboard/mouse, Inner Space needs to apply a fix for mouse clicks to work with City of Heroes.

- TEQUILA LAUNCHER NOT WORKING: Inner Space has issues with the Tequila launcher at the moment. To launch the game for use with ISBoxer, you can skip the launcher. Point Inner Space at the client executable. The game client requires parameters to be passed to it or it will immediately shut down when launched. The parameters you need to pass to the executable are different, for each private server. The parameters are, however, easy to collect.
1. Launch an instance of the game for your desired server
2. Open Task Manager
3. Click the Details tab (Windows 7 or earlier have this on "Processes" tab. The Processes tab is changed on Windows 8 and later)
4. Right click the column headers (Name, etc) at the top of the list of processes, and click "Select columns"
5. Scroll down to find "Command line" which is not ticked by default. On my Windows 10 it is underneath "Image path name" and above "Operating system context". Tick the box for Command line!
6. Now find your launched game exe in the process list, and the parameters you need are listed right there under the Command line column.
The parameters will look something like this for City of Heroes:
Code:
-patchdir F:\Cityofheroes\homecoming -patchversion 20220102_4776 -auth 51.161.76.201 -noversioncheck
or
Code:
-profile live -auth 51.161.76.201 -assetpath assets/issue24;assets/live


- WINDOW LAYOUT: City of Heroes is an OpenGL game. Most of the games we play with ISBoxer are DirectX. This makes a big difference for ISBoxer Window Layouts, because DirectX will automatically scale the display to fit the game window, and OpenGL does not. If you use a typical ISBoxer Window Layout for City of Heroes (or any other OpenGL game), it will not work correctly. For example, a window resized smaller than the rendering size will show only the top left corner of the game, and Mouse Broadcasting to such a window will have incorrect cursor positioning. Therefore, you should NOT use a typical Window Layout for City of Heroes. Video FX Layouts should generally work correctly.

===========================================================================================================================
So with all of that explained, here's what you want to do ...

STEP BY STEP
1. Inner Space must be build 6450 or higher. Live is currently 6838, so you should be good here.

2. Launch an instance of the game for your desired server, and get the Command line (refer to above). You can leave the game window and the Task Manager window open in order to do the next step, which requires you to type out those parameters.

3. Right click Inner Space and select Add Game. Point Inner Space at your cityofheroes.exe or homecoming.exe etc (the game client). For the Name, I would suggest something like "COH - private server name". Enter the required parameters, found via Task Manager, in Parameters box in the Add Game window, then click OK.

4. In ISBoxer Toolkit, use the Quick Setup Wizard (as you would for any game).
4a. On the Window Layout page: Either select <NO WINDOW LAYOUT> or set "Video FX Layout" to "true". Using NO WINDOW LAYOUT will require less effort/knowledge on your part. Using a Video FX Layout may require you to match the in-game resolution setting to the Window Layout's main window size -- however, after doing so, the Window Layout should function correctly. (refer above)
4b. On the final wizard page: This tip isn't actually specific to City of Heroes. The thing that people have the most trouble with is the FOLLOW/ASSIST MODE drop-down and related Game Key Bindings settings below it. This sets up how the Alt+A (assist) and Alt+F (follow) ISBoxer hotkeys actually interact with the game. You can (just imagine this ...) choose a mode that is easiest for you to understand and configure. For example, one of the modes will target the party leader, and then press the Follow Target key -- if you choose this mode, you will need to fill in the key configured in-game to target the party leader, the key configured in-game to Follow Target, and the key configured in-game to Assist Target. It's not all that complicated, ISBoxer just can't predict what settings you need here. You can fill the Game Key Bindings in after the wizard if needed, under "Variable Keystrokes".

5. Export to Inner Space and launch your City of Heroes team!
Last edited by bob on Thu Feb 03, 2022 10:39 am, edited 5 times in total.
Reason: updated
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Mojoguy01

Posts: 150

Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:53 am

Post Sun May 19, 2019 12:33 pm

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

OH EM GEE, City of Heroes emulation !?!?! That came out of no where :O! POG
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Galactus55

Posts: 7

Joined: Mon Jun 03, 2013 12:06 pm

Post Wed May 22, 2019 12:18 pm

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

Well I tried what you said no errors but after I put in account name and password nothing happens. It will be nicer if you all can get it to work with the Tequila ;)
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lax

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Post Wed May 22, 2019 12:21 pm

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

Galactus55 wrote:Well I tried what you said no errors but after I put in account name and password nothing happens. It will be nicer if you all can get it to work with the Tequila ;)


I would recommend coming to the ISBoxer Discord for any help with this.

I would have to guess that either the IP address parameter is wrong or the server is unavailable.
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Galactus55

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Joined: Mon Jun 03, 2013 12:06 pm

Post Thu May 23, 2019 6:41 am

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

OK will do thanks
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insanitywiz

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Joined: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:24 am

Post Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:33 am

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

Lax, any chance you could add the homecoming servers (homecomingservers.com) to the work around required for mouseclicks? It uses it's own executable (homecoming.exe). Thanks
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MiRai

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Vibrant Videographer

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Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:30 pm

Post Sun Jun 02, 2019 3:32 pm

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

insanitywiz wrote:Lax, any chance you could add the homecoming servers (homecomingservers.com) to the work around required for mouseclicks? It uses it's own executable (homecoming.exe). Thanks

Can't you just rename the executable file? I'm pretty sure this is what everyone else has done, up to this point.
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insanitywiz

Posts: 7

Joined: Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:24 am

Post Sun Jun 02, 2019 6:23 pm

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

Yup, didn't notice that line in the instructions above. Thanks
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rlp122

Posts: 3

Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2015 6:27 pm

Post Sun Jul 14, 2019 11:31 am

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

Latest Innerspace Beta build seems to make it impossible to log into City of Heroes. This worked fine last weekend. Installed latest beta today and can't get it to load an instance. I log in, select character, go to load the instance and it flops back to log in. I can log in multiple characters fine without using ISBoxer. Can't log in a single character when using ISBoxer. Sits on the instance loading screen forever, then logs back out.
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lax

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Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:32 pm

Post Sun Jul 14, 2019 12:17 pm

Re: Getting Started with ISBoxer + City of Heroes

rlp122 wrote:Latest Innerspace Beta build seems to make it impossible to log into City of Heroes. This worked fine last weekend. Installed latest beta today and can't get it to load an instance. I log in, select character, go to load the instance and it flops back to log in. I can log in multiple characters fine without using ISBoxer. Can't log in a single character when using ISBoxer. Sits on the instance loading screen forever, then logs back out.

I've updated the original post to reflect that the required build (6450 or later) is live. You no longer need the development build of Inner Space, to have build 6450 or later for City of Heroes to work.

You can determine if your issue is in fact related to the version of Inner Space by switching versions of Inner Space. Most of the changes in the current development build (versus the live build) -- and particularly any fresh changes -- are specifically updates to LavishGUI 2, which you're not using. You're also the only one reporting a new issue so far, so if the live build works and the dev build does not, we can work together to find out a specific build that broke it for you.

Since you've hopped in Discord we'll continue there. :)


p.s. anyone else who wants to report new issues, please begin a new thread to detail your issue; this is not meant to be a megathread about all City of Heroes related issues.
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