Paragon Chat

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This article is about a Titan Network utility. For client command line functions, see Client.
This article is about a tool intended for roleplay and online chat. For for machinima recordings, costume editor experimentation, and other offline use, see Titan Icon.

Overview

Paragon Chat is a standalone chat program created by Codewalker and Leandro that allows the City of Heroes client to access an XMPP chat server. The City of Heroes client was distributed for free to anyone who wished to play for free by NCsoft while the game was in operation, and XMPP servers and programs are available as open source software.

The following features are currently available in the Paragon Chat program as of version 1.1:
(This is not meant as an exhaustive list.)

  • Local Chat, with distance limits as when the game was live.
  • Private Chat
  • Global Channels
  • Global Friend list, with online status
  • Travel Powers, including but not limited to Walk, Run, Flight, Teleport, Super Speed, Super Jump
  • Inter-zone Travel using trains, ferries, gates, or at-will travel using /mapload or /mapmenu
  • Team Chat, up to 8 users
  • Costume Editor, with 10 slots of costume storage per player
  • Mini-Games, including Ski Racing, Badging, and Seasonal Events
  • Base Editing, backup, export in new PCBase file format, import of PCBase files or demoedit bases from live.
  • Add-On Packs, which allow additional user-made maps to be added to the client.

Recent Changes & Roadmap

Release Notes for Major Release versions (1.0, 1.1, etc.) are here on Paragon Wiki. More detailed Patch Notes for Paragon Chat are also available.

A development roadmap and features wishlist can be viewed on the Titan Network Forums here.

Installation

Paragon Chat requires the final Issue 24 beta files to run. If you have the Issue 24 files already, you are good to go! If you do not, you may install them with a launcher (Tequila or Island Rum), as explained in the Titan Icon article, or you may download Issue 24 directly from SaveCOH.com.

To install Paragon Chat, download and run the bootstrap installer. You can specify a location to install the program (do not use the same folder Issue 24 is installed in), or accept the default which places it in your user profile. Once installed, Paragon Chat is self-updating.

Logging In

Your XMPP username, and thus your Paragon Chat "global name", is determined by your Titan Network username. Note that if your username has a space in it, your XMPP name will have an underscore instead, e.g. Bob Dole on the Titan Network would be Bob_Dole for logging in to Paragon Chat. The case with which you type your login name is now used to set the preferred capitalization of your global handle. If you log in with all lowercase, your global name will be lowercase (e.g. bob_dole becomes "bob dole" in game). If you log in with mixed case, your global name will be mixed case (e.g. Bob_Dole becomes "Bob Dole" in game).

To log in to Paragon Chat, type in your [email protected] in the Login field, and your Titan Network password. Click Launch City of Heroes or hit enter. This will take you to the City of Heroes login screen, with fields for Local Account and password. You can type anything into these fields, as they are not outwardly visible (the password can be literally anything, even a single period, because it is not passed to a login server). However, you may want to use the same Local Account name every time, because character data will be saved on your computer per username typed here (caveat below). Once logged in, you can create a character and enter the game world the same way you would with a working server!

Once in the game, Bob Dole's "global name" would now be "Bob Dole".

See you in the City!

Editor's Note:

Your character data is stored by the username you put in the "Local Account" field at the City of Heroes login screen. If you want to use characters you've already made, you'll want to use the same Local Account. However, you can use different Local Accounts to store a whole new set of characters, especially since City of Heroes limits character count to 48 per server and Paragon Chat only has one server. Thus, [email protected] may have Bob Dole Heroes as one login to house 48 heroes, and he may also use Bob Dole Villains to house 48 more characters that are villains, and they will all have "Bob Dole" as their global name. Note that names are unique per XMPP login, so you can't re-use names even if you use different Local Accounts at the City login screen.

Chat By Program/App

You can chat without actually being in Paragon Chat! Just point a compatible XMPP client (like Trillian, pidgin, Monal, etc.) to chat.cohtitan.com, log in with your Paragon Chat information (e.g. username: bob_dole, domain: chat.cohtitan.com), and search for a "Conference" or "Group Chat" or whatever your client calls it named "paragonchat" - this will join you to the Paragon Chat global chat channel. You can join zone Broadcast channels by looking for the appropriate chat room with no spaces (e.g. Atlas Park is listed as atlaspark).

You will not have a presence in-game, so position-based chat like Local and Emotes aren't available, but you can chat with people in Broadcast and global channels.

See this thread for a little more detail and to troubleshoot errors.

User Agreement

(From Paragon Chat, July 1, 2015)
I agree to be awesome, in all things, all of the time.

Slash Commands

As of release 1.1, macros and binds work for the following commands. See Bind or Macro for assistance.

General Commands

/tell, /t, /private, /p, /whisper
/t @somebody, message here
Sends a private message. This shows up as a tell to other PC users, or as a direct instant message to someone using a standard XMPP client.
/say, /local, /l, /s
Local chat. Sends to people within a 100' radius (50' in Pocket D). This is implemented behind the scenes as multicast direct messaging, so it does not show up to people who have joined the zone's broadcast channel using XMPP.
/e, /me, /em, /emote
Either performs an emote animation if the name is found in emote.cfg, or sends to the emote text channel which functions exactly like /local but with a different chat bubble graphic.
/yell, /y, /broadcast, /b
Zone-wide broadcast chat.
/request, /req, /sell, /auction
Request channel. Functionally identical to broadcast, but is a different color and can be sorted into a different chat tab.
/chan_join
/chan_leave
Joins or leaves a global channel. These are actually client-side commands, but listing them for completeness.
/chan_send, /send
Sends a message to a global channel that you are a member of.
/chan_invite
Sends a global channel invite. Not really very useful right now since Paragon Chat doesn't process incoming invites. Standard XMPP clients might, though.
/invite, /kick
Add or remove users from your Team. Enables chat with team members on the Team channel, as well as permitting certain powers (Recall Friend.)
/gfriend @global
Sends a global friend request to the specified user. Paragon Chat users will get the familiar popup. XMPP users will be prompted in an application-specific way that someone wants to subscribe to their presence.
This command does work with character names, too, if the character has been in zone with you recently enough for your client to remember their character name. Note that since character names aren't unique, you might not be friending the right person if there's a duplicate, so it is recommended to always use global names if possible.
/gunfriend @global
Removes a global friend without prompting.
/ignore, /gignore
Adds a player to your account-wide ignore list.
/unignore, /gunignore
Removes a player from your account-wide ignore list.
/afk
Sets yourself as AFK, with an optional message. This is fully integrated with XMPP presence and you will appear as Away to people running an XMPP client. As XMPP presence updates are rather heavyweight, using this in rapid succession is highly discouraged, and there is a rate limiter in place to prevent it from being used too often. If you are looking for something to use in a keybind to show people you are typing, you want /typing.
/architect
When standing near an Architect terminal, opens the Mission Architect window. You can create or update missions, though they cannot be tested or played at this time.
/set_title_name, /settitlename
Changes your badge title to a given title. Title MUST be an internal badge name, such as Anniversary10 or AtlasParkExplorer.
/basesave name
Saves the current base you are editing or visiting. Bear in mind the owner of a base can disable this command at the Super Group Registrar to prevent copying (either with /basesave or through demorecords).
/costume_change, /cc
Changes costumes to the specified number.
/customwindow name
Creates a custom macro window titled name. Displays macros that are available across all characters. This window will only persist if your installation folder contains a /data/customwindows folder (create one if you don't have one already).
/roll
By itself, it will roll a 20-sided die. The results of the die roll are shown to players in local chat range. It takes parameters in several different forms:
/roll 100
Roll a 100-sided die
/roll 3d6
Roll 3 6-sided dice and add them together
/roll 4 8
Roll 4 8-sided dice and add them together
/roll @global 2x12
Roll 2 12-sided dice and add them together, and send the results only to the player @global (not to others in local range)
The maximum number of sides of a die that can be used are 100,000. The maximum number of dice that can be rolled at once is 100. Keep in mind that large dice pools have a higher probability of rolling totals in the middle of the possible range, approximating a bell curve distribution. For multi-die rolls, the individual results can be seen by the player who issued the /roll command in the Combat To-hit roll channel.
/stuck
Teleports you back to the zone entrance point. In Base Editor, this command returns you to the base portal in case you cannot move or leave the boundaries of your own map while editing.
/typing
Causes an AFK-style bubble to appear over your head, with the intent that you are using it as a typing notification. As with /afk, it accepts an optional text message up to 48 characters long. This only appears to people near you and does not affect your AFK status as far as friends in other zones or on XMPP are concerned. It has no rate limit and does not trigger AFK auto-replies.
/whoall
Shows a list of all players in your current zone. It also displays diagnostic information indicating if someone is invisible to you, and why.

Changing Maps

With version .97 and newer, typing /mapmenu opens a list of maps to choose from, categorized by type/location of map. This list is generated based on the zones listed in the zone.cfg configuration file. You can add maps to this file manually if there are no zone number conflicts. In Windows, the file is located at %APPDATA%\Paragon Chat\Config (copy that to Windows Explorer and it'll open the real location). In Mac, the file is located at ???. If you do not have access to this slash command, update Paragon Chat per instructions given above.

Editor's Note:

Adding maps causes all of the zones to be grouped under the 'Other' category. To restore the correct behavior if this happens, you will need to delete zone.cfg, described above.

If you are making a keybind, you can jump directly to a category by specifying its name with the command. i.e. /mapmenu Rogue Isles will take you directly to the list of villain zones.

Typing /mapmove # will send you a static map/chat room. Since Version 1.1.0.2, zones should have unlimited players and no longer 'instance' when a zone fills up, however please note that it is not currently possible to move from one instance of a map to another, e.g. from Atlas Park 1 to Atlas Park 2. You will be placed in the oldest map instance with space available.

The following numbers correlate to specific maps:

1 - Atlas Park
3 - Cimerora
4 - Midnighter Club
5 - Kings Row
6 - Steel Canyon
7 - Skyway City
8 - Talos Island
9 - Independence Port
10 - Founder's Falls
11 - Brickstown
12 - Perez Park
13 - Boomtown
14 - Echo: Dark Astoria
15 - Crey's Folly
16 - Ouroboros
18 - Abandoned Sewer Network
19 - Echo: Faultline
20 - Terra Volta
21 - Eden
22 - The Hive
23 - Sewer Network
24 - Outbreak
29 - Galaxy City
36 - Nova Praetoria
37 - Imperial City
38 - Neutropolis
39 - Underground Nova Praetoria
40 - Precinct Five
41 - Destroyed Galaxy City
42 - Underground Imperial
43 - Dark Astoria
49 - First Ward
51 - Underground Neutropolis
52 - Night Ward
55 - Fort Trident
56 - The Crucible
60 - Rikti Crash Site
61 - Peregrine Island
62 - The Hollows
63 - Tunnels of the Trolls
64 - Firebase Zulu
65 - Cascade Archipelago
66 - The Chantry
67 - The Storm Palace
68 - Paragon Dance Party
69 - Striga Isle
70 - Breakout
71 - Mercy Island
72 - Port Oakes
73 - Cap Au Diable
74 - Sharkhead Isle
75 - Nerva Archipelago
76 - St. Martial
77 - Grandville
78 - Bloody Bay
79 - Siren's Call
80 - Warburg
81 - Recluse's Victory
82 - Croatoa
83 - Pocket D
84 - Faultline
85 - Rikti War Zone
86 - The Abyss
87 - Monster Island

Add-On Pack

In version 1.1.0.5, Add-On Packs were added to Paragon Chat. The first Add-On Pack by Leandro and DemonHunter adds the following zones:

44 - Kallisti Wharf
4401 - Modern Office
88 - Rikti War Zone Remix

To access these maps, the Add-On Pack must be installed before launching Paragon Chat (instructions are in the link above.)

XMPP Specific

/xmpp_set_jid
/xmpp_set_password
/xmpp_set_server
Manually sets the username, password, and optionally xmpp server to connect to. If no server is set, the appropriate server for your JID is determined by an SRV lookup, or failing that, a direct connection to the domain part of the JID. Setting these affect the next connection made by /xmpp_connect.
These are normally not needed as this is handled automatically by the login form when you start Paragon Chat.
/xmpp_disconnect
Disconnects the active XMPP link. This will result in all other players disappearing and chat no longer functioning, though you can still use /mapmove and local-only features like tailors.
/xmpp_connect
Connects the XMPP link. Useful if you get disconnected.
/xmpp_add_global @global jid@domain
Manually associates a global name with a JID, overriding the automatic global name assignment, and saves it in your local database so that the JID always gets mapped to that @global.
/xmpp_forget_global @global
Removes the JID associated with the given global and removes it from database persistence. The next time the associated JID is seen, automatic global assignment will be used.
/xmpp_set_muc_service subdomain.domain
Sets the name of the MUC (conference) service that Paragon Chat uses. This is normally automatically discovered for the xmpp server that you log into, but can be manually set if your server doesn't support discovery, or if you want to connect to a MUC on a different server than you logged in to. Does not take effect until you /mapmove to another zone. For advanced users only.
/xmpp_chanjoin "channelname" jid@domain
Similar to /chanjoin, but allows you to manually specify the full JID of the XMPP room to associate with the channel. Possibly useful on servers with s2s federation enabled.
/xmpp_chaninvite "channelname" jid@domain
Sends a channel invite to a full JID, otherwise works the same as /chan_invite.

FAQ

Is an account at Titan Network required to use Paragon Chat?
To log in to chat.cohtitan.com, you need an account on Titan Network, which is available here. It's free to sign up, all you need is a current email address.
Help! I'm invisible!
Update to the newest version! You should stop being invisible.
Help! I'm seeing invisible people!
Tell them to update to the newest version! They should stop being invisible. You should also update if you haven't!
Help! I'm invisible or seeing invisible people and have the newest version!
There are still some issues with costume data being sent between players. The developers are actively working on narrowing down causes. If you're still invisible please post in this thread to possibly help track stuff down.
Help! I can't log in due to a "Cannot connect to DB server" error!
The most common reasons for DBserver errors are:
  1. You're on Windows XP. Workaround: You can try using the -localhost flag, which has worked for a few Windows XP users. Version 98c may have fixed compatibility - update!
  2. Your anti-virus or Windows UAC is interfering with Paragon Chat. Solution: whitelist paragonchat.exe in your anti-virus and/or run PC as admin (right-click, "run as admin") to stop triggering UAC.
  3. You're closing the Paragon Chat window before logging into City proper. Solution: don't close the Paragon Chat window.
  4. You have another copy of Paragon Chat running in the background already. Solution: check your running programs and close it.
I did log in, but after a while I can't move and chat has stopped! What happened?
Check the center of the screen for one of the following messages: "Lost Connection to Mapserver" or "Mapserver Disconnected". This means that the XMPP Server is down and cannot be reached at this time. Logoff and try logging in again. This also happens when a Patch or Update is just recently issued. Logging out and allowing the client to update will get you back in. If you still can't log in, check your Internet connection.
Can I change costumes? Can I use the other costume slots?
Yes! Visit any tailor, including the nonstandard ones in Pocket D, the Rikti War Zone and Imperial City.
How do I create a new global channel? How do I join an existing global channel?
Both of these simply require /chanjoin name.
How do I see who's on?
You can't see everyone who is on, but you can get a list of who is in your current zone by using /whoall. Also, if you /gfriend someone's global name, they will show up in your Global Friends list. And if you are part of a global channel, the member list will show up in the friends list pulldown tab. A good "guesstimate" of how many people are on is to look at the Paragon Chat channel, since everyone joins that by default and only people who have manually removed themselves will not show there.
Does the zone music work?
Yes. Either your options are set to zero, or you need to change zones to re-trigger the transition.
Does Mission Architect work?
Yes, to an extent. You can click on the consoles or type /architect while standing near them, and edit your exiting missions or create new ones. However, you can't test or play them yet.
Are there travel powers?
Yes, mostly! As of version 1.0.12, Super Jump, Super Speed, Flight, Teleport, as well as a variety of cosmetic travel powers like Rocket Board and Ninja Run are working, with Recall Friend being tested.
Do the trams/etc. work?
As of version .99b, yes! TUNNEL was not included as /mapmove and /mapmenu are better. (If you really want to roleplay using TUNNEL, stand next to it and mapmove.)
Are there supergroups?
Not yet. Soon(tm)!
Are there superbases?
Not yet. And not as Soon(tm), but its in the works!
I have more questions! -OR- I want to ask a question!
We're sure you do. Visit the FAAAQs on Titan Network Forums for more.

Specific Info for Paragon Chat

Editor's Note:

To keep the Paragon Wiki as close to accurate concerning the state of the City of Heroes client as possible, please make pages concerning Paragon Chat below rather than editing existing pages on topics like zones, badges, etc.

Badges in Paragon Chat - How badges are implemented in Paragon Chat 1.1X forward.

Events in Paragon Chat - Events and minigames in Paragon Chat.

Command-Line Options for Paragon Chat - Options that can be used in the shortcut for Paragon Chat, in the Options panel, or on a Command Prompt.

External Links

Retrieved from "https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/w/index.php?title=Paragon_Chat&oldid=10561"