IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR EXISTING SUBSCRIBERS USING STATION LAUNCHER
Alright, the exact specifics of the Station Launcher "update" to your files even though you've already got the game is becoming clearer.
It creates new versions of a lot of the existing game files.
If you've done things like me, which are to go and create your own hotkeys and things, you'll need to backup your current options.cfg (and if you use it useropts file) which are found in your main game directory.
More details will come through about things like this as the devs get more feedback, so keep it coming.
For those who don't know what the launcher entails, this is the basic screen you see when you login using your station access username and password:
and with this you can pretty much run anything you want.
Your main games are split between mmo, stratagy and casual.
If you click a game you haven't installed (I've used Planetside as an example), your launcher loads up another screen:
Again, quite clear and obvious to follow.
Anyway, that's the very basic stuff on how that runs. All done through the simple clicks of a mouse for the most part.
SOE have actually done a very fully inclusive help page for this beta, which you can find here.
There's lots of neat features, especially the friends option, where you can keep track of friends you know in all SOE launcher supported games (so pretty much all of them I think) and chat to them outside of the game.
So yeah, give it a bash. I quite like it. It's smooth enough in its running and although there are clearly some things that still need work on, hey it's a beta, so that's expected.
You can download the Station Launcher Beta here.
Get gaming, it gives them money to get fun things in-game
GETTING THE MATRIX ONLINE TRIAL THROUGH STATION LAUNCHER
Oh how long have some of you been waiting for this?
Anyway, what follows is the step-by-step method of getting your friends on The Matrix Online trial by using the Station Launcher.
Step 1
Get them to download the Station Launcher Beta - find it at this location here
Step 2
On the first screen that loads up, click "Create a Free Station Account"
That will load up a pop-up screen that looks like this (I've created dummy information for the sake of this):
You will now be sent back to the first screen on completing this form correctly. (Note - for sake of security, don't have the same station handle as your station username)
Step 3
Login with your new Station Account details. You will then see the following screen load up:
Step 4
Click onto The Matrix Online. You will then have an additional screen pop-up:
Click the "Try!" button.
This pop-up will then close and your main screen looks a little bit different:
The Matrix Online tab is now a darker blue, indicating that your Station username is now registered to use this game.
Step 5
Click on The Matrix Online again, and you'll see this screen come up:
Select the option to download the basic game (note this can take some time depending on connection and will not be the updated version of the game - read the next post in regards to updating your game through the launcher).
FINISHED!
Guess what? Once this is done (including the updates - explained below) all your friend has to do is to log into the Station Launcher with their Station name and password, click The Matrix Online and off they go, exploring the Megacity! Neat huh?
What happens when you launch Mxo through this thing? Does it still do the nifty code logo, or does it just skip to the character selection screen?
UPDATING THE MATRIX ONLINE THROUGH STATION LAUNCHER
Right, now this works differently depending on what you're doing but the essential process works the same.
Firstly, for those updating the game through the trial. Even once you've downloaded the game (see the step-by-step above) you'll still have to update it to the current game version that we all use.
Even if you have an up-to-date version of The Matrix Online as you're already a subscriber, you'll still have to do the update to make Station Launcher recognise that you have a working version of the game.
So, before reading the following you're one of two things:
1. A trial player who's just gone through the step-by-step above
2. An existing player who pays the monthly, tri-monthly, yearly (whatever) subscription
Login to Station Launcher
Off the main screen click The Matrix Online. You'll be presented with the following screen:
(this says Matrix Online Trial for trial players or just Matrix Online for normal players).
For initial setup (trial once you've completed above step-by-step or existing subscriber using for the first time) select the option that reads, "Have Station Launcher scan my computer for the game"
The scan takes approx. 2 minutes and when it's completed you'll be presented with a whole list of possible locations for where this game might be.
Now, don't freak out and start guessing which one it is, scroll down until you find the normal folder location for your game files (a default install has this at C:\Program Files\Monolith Productions\The Matrix Online)
*NOTE* DEFAULT LOCATION FOR DOWNLOADING THE GAME THROUGH STATION LAUNCHER IS C:\Program Files\Sony\The Matrix Online
*edit* figured out that all the launcher picks up on here are all the major updates that have been done to the game and lists them. Either way, just do what I've said above for this step and it'll work fine.
Once you select that folder, the launcher does a full system scan of the game files. It will update them automatically if the game needs it. Now, don't worry if you're installing the Launcher as an existing player, this "update" still takes place. The Launcher simply checks the files are all 100% up-to-date. It won't try to re-install the entire game.
That's essentially it. Once it's completed, you'll get this screen:
When you click launch, the game goes through a quick-lauch system and jumps straight to your normal character selection screen, select who you want to play as and off you go!
kou_urake wrote:What happens when you launch Mxo through this thing? Does it still do the nifty code logo, or does it just skip to the character selection screen?See the above post, as that covers all game updates and the game launch itself.
I'll adjust that slightly now I see what you're asking.
You'll still get "The Matrix Online" green code logo appear and also the usual launcher that we're all used to opens. The difference is that the Station Launcher skips the username and password section of this and runs automatically (and smoothly too) right into your character selection.
Oh yeah, this is nothing ego-based at all, but this need to be totally stickied!
I'm going to be creating linked posts to this thread on different areas of dn1 highlighting different aspects of this thread, mainly the trial option (as I can see that loads of people have been begging for this for so long now on these boards)
I hope they release other GUI for it because the one they have now is horrible looking.
Probably not, the colour scheme here is based on the standard Station look that matches all the main Station websites and tools (like account information etc)
Speaking of which, you can access all your account details through this Launcher too!
A NOTE ON YOUR CHARACTERS WHEN USING STATION LAUNCHER BETA
Oh my, this confused me when I just tried this.
Ok, so there's a couple of changes to how the game physically loads up and runs.
The Launcher creates a new folder with new data for every character that you try to load up through it
By that, when you go into the game for the first time using the Station Launcher, you'll find that the game auto-loads into the game proper and not the loading area (still playing around to see where the settings are for this) and it also bumps you into Creston (that might be random, again, still working on that). You'll also find yourself suddenly lacking in all your carefully made hotbars too.
This is purely done for the sake of the Launcher, as it's effectively ensuring all your character data is nice and safe (this is still a beta afterall).
What you need to do is go into your game directory.
Click Profiles. You'll see here listed all the normal things (any /savelo you have done and also one folder per account that you have). You'll also notice a new folder, created in the same place as your account folders, which has the name of the character you just told the game to load while having System Launcher running. This is the folder that the Launcher creates.
It's a completely blank slate, just like you would be starting a new character from scratch.
Now, don't worry, your normal files for this character will still exist within the normal folder of the account that the character is under. So, to simply get all your hotbars, pblips etc etc, simply copy & paste all the files from your normal character file into this new one.
Once I've figured out a few more features, I'll post a summary up here
