Titan Icon

This article is about the program that enables solo character creation and access to maps. For other uses of Icon, see Icon.

Overview

Titan Icon is a freestanding executable file created by Codewalker which allows players of City of Heroes to access the character creation module of City of Heroes and to be able to enter and view the maps of City of Heroes. The program files and maps of City of Heroes were distributed for free to anyone who wished to play for free by NCsoft while the game was in operation.

Editor's Note:

IMPORTANT

All that Icon will ever be is a costume creator, map loader, animation player, and NPC spawner toy.

There will never be combat, there will never be bases, nor will there ever be powers, mobs, chat, or events.

Installation

Current Version

1.71 - Released August 17, 2013. Version notes are located here.

Installer Downloads (USER FRIENDLY, FOR NEW HARD DRIVES)

Downloaders containing the program as well as the City of Heroes client are available in two Titan Forum topics here and here. These are designed to be much more user-friendly installations, and allow for things such as new computers and deleted clients. They do not require anything to be installed other than the downloader itself.

The Windows version is here and the Mac version is here.

Standalone Download (Icon Only - CoH Client Required)

Program Download Link

Requirements: You must have either the latest Issue 23 (version 2320.201207182341.1) or Issue 24 (Beta) (version 2400.201208211101.1) game client installed. The NCSoft launcher is not required. The Issue 24 client has more costume parts available and is recommended if you have it. If you need to refresh your I24/Beta client, see here.

Source Code

If desired, the source code may be accessed with a Git client here. The source code is not needed to run Icon and is only for educational and development purposes.

Standalone Instructions for PC

Save icon.exe into your City of Heroes program folder. On a default install, this may be in C:\Program Files\City of Heroes, or C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes on 64-bit systems. It should have a cityofheroes.exe file in it as well.

Use Explorer to browse to that folder, and double click icon.exe. You can create a shortcut to it if desired.

Standalone Instructions for Mac

IMPORTANT: MAKE A COPY OF YOUR CITY OF HEROES FOLDER. Since we'll be modifying it irrecoverably, it's best to work with a copy.

Download icon.exe from the link above.

Toss the NCSoft Launcher in the trash. Not really necessary, but it's fun. Laugh while the trash empties.

Use the finder's Go To Folder command and select ~/Library/Preferences.

Delete com.ncsoft.* (anything beginning with that) and City of Heroes preferences.

Right click on the City of Heroes application and select Show Package Contents.

Go to Contents > Resources > transgaming > c_drive > coh .... or that last part might be Program Files > City of Heroes.

Drag the icon.exe into the path above.

Back up to Contents and select MacOS. Click slowly twice in the name "cider" to rename it. Change the name to "cider_die".

Right-click on cider_noui and choose "Duplicate". Click slowly on the name "cider_noui copy" to rename it. Change that name to just "cider".

Backup to Contents again.

Download the Icon.plist file here.

Go to Contents again, and drop the Info.plist there, replacing the existing one.

Close everything up and launch the City of Heroes application. It will go directly into the costume creator!

(OPTIONAL) Change the name of the City of Heroes application to something like "CoH Costume Creator" to differentiate it.

Start-up Parameters

NPC (Developer) Edit Mode: To launch the game in NPC Edit mode, you need to run Icon with a -n switch.
- On Windows, the easiest way to do that is to create a shortcut to icon.exe (right click on icon.exe and use "Create Shortcut"). Once its created, right click on the shortcut and go to properties. In the first box, "Target", go to the VERY end of the line, after everything else. Add a space, then type -n, Hit OK. You can then rename the shortcut so that you know it's for the NPC editing version, or move it to your desktop if you want. OR... download this file Icon-npc.bat to your CoH file directory. It is a simple .bat file that will execute icon.exe -n
- On Macintosh, you will need to edit the Info.plist file within the City of Heroes application folder. Right click your icon-fied City of Heroes application to "Show Package Contents". Open the Contents folder, then edit the Icon.plist file with a text editor or the Property List Editor if you have it installed. At the entry "CiderGameOptions", change the string to "-- icon.exe -n", and then save the changed file.

Bypass Character Creator: Issue 24 Client Only! · Icon now supports a -r command line option to create a random character and jump straight into Atlas Park. Random is random, you have been warned.

How to Operate

You can now enter Paragon City, Praetoria, and the Rogue Isles with your NPC-mode costume creations.

Loading Maps

/loadmap_prompt · Default keybind: F1 · Maps can be loaded! You can either use the F1 key for the dialogue box or the /loadmap slash command. The map name should be specified in the same format as it is found in demorecords. The game doesn't care if the name ends in .txt or .bin, so you can use geobin/ paths too (just cut out the geobin and start the path with maps/). When changing maps, Icon parses the newly loaded map and attempts to find a suitable spawn point to move your character to. It picks one completely at random; the intent is to simply get you somewhere "inside" the map. This might mean in an interior area like a shop or hospital. It also means that on maps with an Arena, you have a chance of spawning inside the infamous Matrix Room.

/loadmap [mapname] · Default keybind: None · Loads the map specified in the parameter bypassing the dialogue box.

/time [num] · Default keybind: None · Changes the time of day. Should be specified as a number between 0 and 24 -- fractional values are allowed. The default time is 12 (Noon).

See PopMenu section below for menus for choosing a map or a time of day.

Movement, Positioning, and Viewing

/prev_spawn, /next_spawn, /random_spawn · These are by default bound to the bracket keys: [ and ], and F12. They allow you to jump between player spawn points on the current map. If you don't like where you spawned, you can press F12 to go to a (probably) different random place within the map, or use the square brackets to step through the spawn points in order. Especially useful if you don't see a map or don't see the other sections of a map that you would normally 'warp' to by clicking a door or elevator while on a map.

/fly · Default keybind: 1 · Take to the skies!

/edit_pos · Default keybind: F3 · Allows instant jumping to a new map position. The command toggles a panel in which you can edit your X/Y/Z coordinates in order to instantly teleport to any desired position. The button switches between accepting absolute coordinates, and relative coordinates for moving just a "little to the right". Affects self if nothing is targeted, otherwise, it affects targeted NPC.

/detach_camera · Issue 24 Client Only! · Default keybind: F2 · Detaches the camera from the player; excellent for precision placement for screenshots. While the camera is detached, W/A/S/D move the camera, Q/E rotate it, Space raises it, Z lowers it, PgUp/PgDown tilt the view, N/M roll, and B resets the roll to zero.

Developer Commands

/map_dev · Default keybind: F4 · Show normally hidden developer markers most likely used as part of the map editing process. Neighborhood volumes, spawn points, etc. More importantly, it also makes indoor sections (which are normally invisible when you're not inside them) show up, so they're easier to find in no-clip mode. Pressing F4 again turns it off. You can see but not really edit markers.

/no_clip · Default keybind: F5 · Toggles no-clipping mode on and off. Basically the same as using /nocoll 1, but is a toggle so it can be easily bound, and also displays an on-screen message to notify you if it's on or off.

/access_level Number · This command changes your client access level. Cheater. The default access level is 0. Higher access levels unlock many, many developer and debugging commands, which are outside the scope of this page. There are no commands that require higher than access level 9.

/show_all_minimaps 1 · Requires access level 9. Enabling this adds a dropdown to the minimap allowing you to select any one you want. It seems you get the AE-style map markers when enabled, and it doesn't seem to track your current position even if you pick the one for the map you're currently on.

Console: Hit the backtick (`) key, may also be tilde (unshifted ~) on your keyboard to bring up the console. cmdlist will show you most of them, though there may be too many to scroll through the whole list. cmds [name] will search. That's all built into the client (if you have AL>1) and not new commands added by Icon.

Note: One thing that definitely won't work is the map editor, since Icon overwrites part of its UI code in order to steal the coordinate editor for F3. However the map editor doesn't work without a server to handle the commands that it sends anyway.

Caution! These commands are intended for developer use, and many are not user-friendly. Several of them will crash your game client. Use this command at your own risk.

Spawning, Moving, Deleting NPCs

/spawn_npc [internal_designation] [given_name] · You can use this slash command to create an NPC at your current position. It takes two parameters, the model to use (this is the same as shows up in demorecords), and the name for your NPC. You can put the name in quotes for readability if you wish. Some examples:

/spawnnpc Model_Statesman Statesman

Creates a Statesman NPC with the name 'Statesman'

/spawnnpc 5th_Mek_Man Mr. Roboto

Creates a 5th Column Mek Man with the name 'Mr. Roboto'

/spawnnpc Nemesis "A Plot?"

Creates a Nemesis NPC with the name 'A Plot?'

See here for a list of NPC models

See PopMenu section below for a menus for choosing an NPC or item.

/rename · Changes the name of the targeted entity to what you specify after the command. May optionally be enclosed in quotes, but not required. If you don't have an NPC targeted, changes your own name. It's a Known Issue that Some NPCs display a P-string for a name instead of their actual name. Unfortunately, the localized names for some of the NPCs are not present in the client files, as this is information that is normally sent by the server. If your favorite NPC is affected by this, feel free to /rename to rename them.

/load_costume [Filename] By popular demand, this command loads a player costume from a .costume file. The file should be located in the "costumes" subfolder of your COH install -- this is the same one that is used for loading or saving costumes from the character creator. You should not include the .costume extension in the name, just use the name of the character that the costume was saved for. If you are targeting an NPC when you use this command, it will load the costume onto that target instead of yourself.

/be_npc [NPC_Name] · Ever wanted to know what it was like to be the Avatar of Hamidon? Type "/benpc Avatar_Hamidon" and find out! This takes the same type of NPC costume specification as the /spawn_npc command -- see link above for a full list.

/move_npc · Default keybind: G · Useful for fine-tuning NPC positioning for screenshots, using this command or pressing 'G' will teleport the targeted NPC to your position. Note that this will bump you out of the way unless you have noclip mode on, because: Citizens > All. The F3 Coordinate Editor works on targeted NPCs.

/delete_npc · Default keybind: Shift+Delete · Sends your poor targeted NPC to the great bit-bucket in the sky. Why would you want to be so heartless?

/clear_npc · Wipes all NPCs off the face of the map, creating a "Ghost Town". Some of the residents of Paragon City thought that empty zones were boring, and decided to come hang out. This includes contacts, trainers, and any NPCs that are "Persistent" NPCs, that is, they are hardcoded in the map data to always be present and not be spawned conditionally by the server.

Animations (Emotes)

/mov [MOV_name] · Default keybind: None · Makes your character, or the NPC you have targeted, play an animation (what players know as 'emotes'). The animation should be specified in the same format as MOV commands from demorecords. Note that the normal /emote (/e, /em) commands do not work, nor do the normal naming conventions ('dance,' 'newspaper'). You can only use '/mov' as a command and the internal names of the animations.

/rememberap33 · Default keybind: 2 · Raise a torch in remembrance of all the heroes who have walked the streets of Paragon City. (And the Villains because... FIRE!)

See PopMenu section below for menus for choosing a map or a time of day.

Available PopMenus

The following are player-created popmenus to be used for Titan Icon. They are text files that you download and then place them in the game sudbdirectory at: \data\texts\English\menus - if these folders do not exist, manually create them. Note that spelling and capitalization is important!

They are called with the command: /popmenu <name of file>

They can be bound to a key: /bind <key> popmenu <name of file>

Pick Map

Chose a map from a select list

/popmenu maps

/bind <key> popmenu maps

From Tacitala and Phaetan and wyldhunt on the Titan forum.

Set Time of Day

Set the time of day

/popmenu time

/bind <key> popmenu time

From batqueen on the Titan forum.

Pick NPC/Item Spawn

Choose an NPC or an Item to spawn from a deep menu list

/popmenu npc

/bind <key> popmenu npc

From batqueen on the Titan forum.

Pick Animation

Chose the animation (MOV) of the target (self is none selected)

/popmenu mov

/bind <key> popmenu

From Phaetan and Tacitala on the Titan forum.

Notes

Loading a map is an experimental feature, so many things won't work. Notably, doors are not usable and will freeze the client momentarily as it waits for a reply from a nonexistent server.
Certain weapon unlocks (Rularuu weapons, Romulus weapons, etc) still don't work in I23 version. You can still use NPC mode to access them in I24/Beta version.
Icon now displays a message with its version number when first entering a map, to help you be sure that you're running the version you intend to.
Along with persistent NPCs, Icon now spawns all the doors that are referenced by zone maps. They are non-functional, but look better than empty spaces where they should be.
Command parser reworked to be compatible with context menus. Icon commands can now be directly called from a popmenu.
The source code is no longer provided as individual zip files. Instead, a Git repository has been created so that the entire development history of the project is available.

You can clone this with the Git client of your choice.

Fixed the /spawn_npc command to prevent a buffer overflow that could possibly crash the client if very long names are used.
Icon now includes the patch that allows the game client to load any files as overrides from data/. This should make loading custom maps, geobins, and other mods easier in the future.

If you wish to see this in action, look here for the original Atlas Park.

Thanks to the efforts of Codewalker, TheDevilYouKnow, The Fifth Horseman and others in this thread, it is now possible to view minimaps from the map interface.