City of Heroes Character Creator
Brandon Blackmoor
These are instructions for installing and setting up the freely available City Of Hero Character Creator from NCSoft.
The first thing you will have to do is download the City Of Hero Character Creator. This is freely and legally available from the Korean City Of Heroes site and from file-sharing networks such as Shareaza (search for "coh_sengsung" or "CCC_Setup": the file is roughly 200 MB).
(Note: As of 2007-12-19, shareaza.com is a scam funded by the Digital Rights Mafia (RIAA and their ilk). The only official home of Shareaza is http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/.)
Once you download it, you have to install it. This is a little tricky, because the default language for this software is Korean. To change it so that it displays in English, you must first install it and run it once.
Installation
- Install the software. The buttons will be in Korean, but they probably say pretty much what you think they say.
- Right-click the "COH Character Creator" icon and select the "Shortcut" tab.
- In the "Target" text box, add the parameter " -windowed" to the end of the command line. So if the "Target" originally said
- "C:\Games\COH Character Creator\CharacterCreator.exe"
- "C:\Games\COH Character Creator\CharacterCreator.exe" -windowed
- Under "Compatibility mode", check the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" checkbox, and select "Windows 98 / Windows ME".
- Run the program once.
- Exit the program.
- Run regedt32 (or your preferred registry editor).
- Go to registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cryptic\KRCOH
- Change the "locale" value to 1.
- Right-click the KRCOH key.
- Select "permissions".
- Click "Advanced".
- Un-check the box labeled "Inherit from parent...".
- Click "Add".
- Type "Everyone" in the "Enter the object name" box.
- Click "Okay".
- Double-click the "Everyone" entry.
- Check only "Allow Read Control".
- Click "Okay", "Okay", "Okay".
- Close the registry editor.
The program should now display in English.
Troubleshooting
If the "locale" registry keeps getting set back to the Korean value, then you did not follow the instructions. If the registry key has only "Everyone: Allow Read Control", and no other permissions, Windows XP will not permit anyone or anything to change the registry setting. Do not email me asking for help: follow the instructions.
If the program immediately crashes when you run it, or displays a black screen, try these solutions:
- Update your video drivers to use the most recent version OpenGL. Most video card drivers (such as ATI and NVidia) include the most recent OpenGL drivers in their driver packages.
- If that still not does work, right-click the "COH Character Creator" icon and select the "Compatibility" tab.
- Under "Compatibility mode", check the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" checkbox, and select "Windows 98 / Windows ME".
CC Project
Element at the COH Guru site has created a project to incorporate all sorts of new costume pieces into the stand-alone Character Creator. There are numerous problems with it, but it works for the most part. If you have problems with it, do not email RPG Lirbrary for help: post your questions at COH Guru.