Soe Launcher going live ?

**cloudwolf** · 05/06/2008 15:16:14

I actually quite like this update, its kinda like what steam did with its first big overhaul, the first version of the revamp was far too flashy with all sorts of bloat and special effects and then they proper toned it down, went for a minimalist approach and was all the better for it. Performance shot up. Same applies here so far.

**Croesis**

Re-downloaded it this afternoon, still lists every persona I've ever had on any SoE game, even if deleted (Probably due to the SoE policy of keeping names attached to accounts... if it's deleted free it up... please....) doesn't distinguish between the same friend by multiple characters, doesn't load up my account details, when enter the friends pane it shows my friends that I'm logged on but on all 3 servers at the same time!

It's shiny but until these things get sorted out I think I'll continue to use the normal launcher...

**cloudwolf**

Vinia wrote:

when enter the friends pane it shows my friends that I'm logged on but on all 3 servers at the same time!

Thats all changeable from the privacy settings of your friends network preferances. I only appear online as my main when i use SL.

**Croesis**

cloudwolf wrote:

Vinia wrote:
when enter the friends pane it shows my friends that I'm logged on but on all 3 servers at the same time!

Thats all changeable from the privacy settings of your friends network preferances. I only appear online as my main when i use SL.

So it is. Well I still have to wade through multiple instances of friends and through dead characters. I've mentioned it already before on the station forums I think but I think it'd be nice if they could correlate multiple instances of friends into one and have the ability, if unable to delete dead characters properly from the account, then at least hide them... I never realised quite how many characters I've made...

**Procurator**

I can sort of see where they're coming from by not correlating multiple instances of the same friend. If you initiate a conversion to an in-game friend through their entry under one of your characters, that character will appear to be speaking to the person in-game. Initiate it through your second character and they will talk to your friend. That's kinda neat. It means I can talk to people in-game as both Procurator and my ship's operator (one of my alts). Plus, it looks like the cross-game SOE chat system needs a 'from' character and a 'to' character to send messages, so if you correlated all the friends it would have to pick one of your characters at random to use as the 'from' character, which would be weird.

Having said that, of course, the execution still sucks. They should correlate the friends in the list, but let you choose a character to speak from when you initiate a conversation. Neater, cleaner, more efficient. More intelligent. >_>

And the appearance of dead characters is really annoying. I know they keep the names attached to players' accounts, but there's obviously a flag on each character that tells the game they belong to whether they're an active character or not. Use that to work out whether or not to add them to the list! It should have been one of the first things they programmed.

**cloudwolf**

You guys should post this feedback on the actual feedback forums SMILEY

**Procurator**

Heh, no point. These things have been mentioned a dozen times already. They say they'll, uh, take it into consideration...

**Croesis** · 05/07/2008 02:48:46

The issues I have were posted very soon after the initial release of the beta launcher by a number of people.

[Edit] What Proc said... got there before me! [/Edit]

**TheUnknownShadow** · 05/07/2008 17:35:47

To answer a couple on here (from questions I've asked myself):

As Virrago says on the other page this is still in the beta right now. To go into that in more detail, there are still a number of features that are still being designed for the launcher which will need to be tested out beforehand. This particular update was to play around with the friends and chat areas of the launcher, although there's been some minor coding changes to the game launch system too, which has caused problems for a few games (huzzah! ) oh and then there's general UI changes too.

Hmm... what else... oh yeah, those of you who get a freeze on the update, it's unfortunately a combination of issues that are being worked on, which is down to how station launcher updates itself when there's a significant download. The main thing I can get one of mine {I have two launchers, one is a nice one that I don't touch and one I screw to buggery with } to crash on is the download of the dll files. They're not overly massive files in themselves and if I was downloading them from a direct source it would take a matter of seconds, however the launcher update download is a bit daft. It does do it eventually if you leave it for like forever, however right now it usually (more or less) goes through alright if you close it down and get it to start up again.

I am awaiting a workaround on the download btw, I've asked one of the tech team and the main dev who work on this if I could get direct download links as they will be sitting on a server somewhere, yet it's probably a secure access and normally only through the launcher for downloads for public, so it might be a while on that.

In terms of issues that many people generally still have with the chat system, that's still going through massive development, as is the whole launcher in general. They know that there's a big ol' list of issues that need to be sorted, which is basically why there's been no definate timescale to the end of the launcher beta period.

Hope that clarifies a few points on it.

**ChloeAnn**

everytime i use it, it locks up on me when i try to send someone a message, so i dont bother with it

**TheUnknownShadow**

ChloeAnn wrote:

everytime i use it, it locks up on me when i try to send someone a message, so i dont bother with it

Define "locks up" as in the entire program, the chat window or the general friends area... (just checking)

I'm talking with MasGravy over PM's about the recent update (more specifically about the download issues but not exclusively), I think this might be the first he's heard of it, so he's probably checking it out.