Why the Hell do I have to be PC geek to be able to play MP?

You mean to open ports? Most games require you to have specific ports open Nothing special about Sins in that regard. Unless you mostly play Solitare and stuff

Apparently you are far from a PC geek. Apparently you don't even know what a capslock is.

Care to elaborate? We can't do much to help if you don't actually tell us what the problem is (doesn't take any computer knowledge to work that one out)!

www.portforward.com. Follow the instructions. You don't have to be a 'geek', but we DO appreciate you using your brain a little. Like trying the search feature in the forum for all the other (whiny idiots') posts about this before having a fit.

Seriously, have you never played warcraft, starcraft, red alert, or any of those online? All of them require you to open ports just like this.

Also remember that just because you get the error "MOst players will not be able to join your games" when you host, does not at all mean taht no one will be able to host. I found this guide usefull, it was in one of the stickies on this site:

http://www.kiclan.com/Monk/Networking_and_SINS_by_the_Monk.pdf

Only trolls and morons scream on a board. How about asking? Its a miracle that these good people even reply to such a post. Kudos 2 u

Well, that's odd. My computers have been behind the same LinkSys router for the past 6½ years, and Sins is the one and only game that has required me to configure the router -- ever.

I don't consider that Savage, World of Warcraft, EVE, Lord of the Rings Online , Guild Wars, Battle for Middle Earth I and BFME II (to name a few that I have played online) are like "Solitaire and stuff" :

None of the above-mentioned games have required any form of router configuration to play online, a few minutes after installation and account creation -- NONE !

It's very easy to belittle the problems that the average consumer is currently experiencing after having purchased Sins with the promise that it could be played online.


I don't remember seeing on SDC and on the retail box that studying the instructions posted at www.portforward.com was a necessary requirement.

Most consumers never visit game forums, and if they do, they do not have the time to explore its many threads to get an education on port-forwarding and static-IP addresses.

Why should they ? The above-mentioned games never required me to ever enter in my router's webpage : their online MP functionality worked right out of the box.

P.S. > I guess that I'm a "troll" and a "moron".

@OP - WTF is with the thread title? You given new meaning to the term FNG.

The above mentioned games don't function on a p2p system for multiplayer; try any other RTS and you'll discover you have the same issues. NAT traversal and port forwarding is generally not an issue when you're connected to a central server. Though I must say that your tone certainly qualifies you as a troll, and the fact that you proudly proclaim your dedication to so many MMO's pretty much marks you as a moron too.

Ahem, speaking from experience with SupCom, I tried to open port 6112 and some others, and I learned that some routers don't open ports, even after you told them to, they simply don't. I suggest you avoid routers in whole, or buy another one. Though, don´t blame me if that isnt the issue.

Btw, it could also be because you installed some mod/overwrote some files.

Let me give you a little lesson on basic networking. All of the games you mentioned are hosted on a remote computer and you are a peer connecting to that host.

In games like Sins, Neverwinter Nights, etc - that is, games where one of the game owners hosts the game rather than a central game operator - the host of the game will need to open the ports necessary to host the game.

I'm sorry you're frustrated that hosting a game is different from playing an MMO, but ... that's the way computers work. Thankfully, your screaming on the forum has made everybody aware of this pressing issue that is caused by your router and not the game itself. Kudos.

If u are a gamer, you should use only the best router! $100 for a router is not bad considering how much use you get out of it. I had a shitty $50 netgear before, and I died so many times in MMOs cause it would get overwhelmed anytime someone started downloading a file while I was playing. Now I got a D-Link for $100! It is best money I ever spent!

If you mean game play, I hear there is a Hello Kitty MMO coming out, you might want to check it out.

http://www.sanriotown.com/onlinegame/index.php?s=introduction

"Profanity is the effort of a weak mind to express itself forcefully."

So is caps lock too I think...

Sorry but I never had to do anything special to play SupCom, EU3, AOE, or AOM to play multiplayer. Install game, go to game lobby and boom, I am playing multiplayer. Sins is a whole other experience altogether to get it to work multiplayer. And even when it is working, it still tells you that it is not working.

Winner of this thread.

Two words... Microsoft Windows.

It pretends to make a desktop operating system user friendly and for the most part does an ok job so long as you are running Microsoft applications.

I cannot understand why people are having so many problems with the multiplayer.

1) Did you turn on a software firewall, find your network IP address, and switch on DMZ mode to your specific address? Obviously things won't work out if you've got DMZ set to the wrong address. DMZ normally works just as well as port forwarding and is easier to switch on and off. You don't necessarily need to turn on a software firewall, but it may be a good idea in your case.

2) Are you sure that software firewall is permitting Sins to access the internet? (this includes Windows firewall as well as other applications like Comodo) Accept/Deny prompts may be popping up behind the game. If you are running firewall software or security suites be sure to add Sins to the safe list or do a fresh scan for new applications. This normally is the culprit as some firewall/security suites will automatically block new games unless you tell them not to block them.

3) Are you and the other person running the same mods? Having different mods enabled will cause a mismatch. Problems seem to arise when mods are installed, but I haven't installed any mods yet so I cannot say the severity of these problems or fixes for them.

I'll admit I've only played 10 minutes of a multiplayer game so far with a friend for the first time last night. It was with a friend I convinced to buy Sins--many more friends are picking it up today and later this week (I'm not sure if people follow me for the computer advice, artwork, or modding stuff, but there sure are a lot of people that pay attention--some 26 people successfully returned UT3 or Gears or BOTH after the whole Epic fiasco a few weeks ago). The Sins game was so short because of parental interruption (when you live on your own like me, you choose when the parents get to interrupt; not the other way around ). I didn't have any issues, but my friend had some because he entered the wrong network IP address when he went into DMZ mode. That wasn't hard to fix though. After that correction, things worked flawlessly with no noticeable lag. We were doing a 2v2 comp stomp. Maybe it's because I've always been able to do amazing things with computers all the way back to the 386 days, or my B.S. in Comp Sci, or any number of other things, but I just don't seem to experience all of the network-related problems people are talking about or find solutions to them quickly. The only exception is when a game is coded poorly (UT3) and kicks people from a server because it took them "too long" to load a map.

I see you un-capitalized it.

I got the hosting working, but I agree the whole online design is bad. Not everyone has full control over the entire chain of router/firewalls from their PC to the internet. Even though I got mine to work, I still get the very unhelpful msg "most player can't join your game" with no useful explanation. Also the game can become dead if the host drops. If you check for the list of available games (or the lack of) to join online it should be fairly obvious that the online design is not helping to get more players into the game.

I'd rate the MP experience for this game at the bottom of all the games I played recently. I'm not sure if it worth creating a bad MP experience and losing players, just so ICO can avoid having dedicated servers hosting the game.

I agree, the "players can't join your game" message is not ideal, especially because it's a false positive a lot of the time. But this is simply not a game that lends itself to having dedicated servers. That's somewhat cost-effective for games with 16 or more players, where players can join and quit at ease - first person shooters are a good example of this.

But for a game where it's usually 2-4 people playing from beginning to the end of the whole game? It's not going to happen. I just wish people would get it out of their heads that because they can *connect* to an MMO, or because they can play Halo 3 on Microsoft's paid servers, it's Ironclad's fault that they can't *host* a multiplayer game on their PC.

Since the end of the blissfully firewall-free analog modem days I have had port issues with every single multiplayer game I have ever tried to host.

Guys you need to understand people like CyberMage. In another thread he claimed you needed to "cd.." to get back to the root "c:\" before being able to type "ipconfig" at the command prompt.

Interestingly he remained strangely silent after I pointed out to him that, that wasn't at all the case since "c:\windows\system32", etc. are in the system PATH statement making it possible to type system-related commands from anywhere!

or

Avoiding the command-prompt alltogether by going to your "network connections" folder, right-clicking on "local area connection", left-clicking STATUS, and then left-clicking on the "details" button. Same thing as running ipconfig from the "command-prompt" CyberMage and wow, no need for as you put it "DOS-knowledge" in the nice friendly windows GUI.   

I'll bet he'll never download and read my guide "Networking and SINS", and keep coming on these forums blasting ICO for how difficult they make their MP setup. A tip for you CyberMage, my guide has everything you need to know in it to get hosting/playing on ICO, not to mention that I'm always more than willing to talk people through the implementation (should they fail on their own).

the Monk

Really? Have you played UT3 or Crysis lately? Crysis in particular is infested with hacks like a freeze gun and now a one-hit kill pistol. UT3 has this nasty habit of dropping you because the map took too long to load, plus just trying to connect to a game is an exercise in frustration due to the poor UI design and GameSpy. Sins' multiplayer isn't perfect and I'm sure it will be improved, but to say it's the worst out there...well, either you haven't played those other games (which is totally normal; they're a different genre) or there's something going on with your network or ISP.


Your point is right on the money and I'd like to elaborate on it. There's no possible way Ironclad could predict every conceivable network setup. Sometimes people run routers behind routers which requires multiple DMZ's to be enabled or multiple pieces of hardware to forward ports. Other times there are ISP local offices that wreck havoc with online games. My particular Comcast local office has been atrocious about this and will lie to you about the ports they block. They'll reference their corporate HQ which does not block ports when in reality the independent offices do. They'll also deny any sort of speed regulation slowing down gamers' connections because they "play too much" in the opinion of Comcast. They monitor what you do, when you do it, how much of it you do, what ports you use, and so on and actively block stuff to try to coerce people into "upgrading" to premium packages or business packages. I've had to call my local office multiple times because of these issues. Multiplayer problems are not always the fault of the developer, and commonly they're the result of your network layout/configuration, ISP's (Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, etc.), or internet traffic routing issues with different traffic servers.

Before you run around blaming Ironclad, I would take a good look at your ISP and see what they block and what they allow. There's normally fine print on top of fine print in the case of Comcast. You only get their corporate fine print instead of the local office junction's fine print which actually may or may not state what is or is not blocked regardless of what your router is set on. These days it's becoming less of a concern since so many people play games, but it does crop up a lot, especially when a company wants to corner you into having to upgrade.

I see maybe a few hundred players online at the peak. Since the Sins host computer doesn't need to do much processing, one server for the whole community would be enough and could have avoided all the misery.

Lesson in SINS game mechanics:

1. ALL computers run the entire simulation themselves.

2. The HOST does nothing more than "synchronize" the information between all players.

3. This is also why the slowest system will cause "slowdown" for everyone.

4. A dedicated server can't work here. Each group of people wanting to play would "spawn" another instance of SINS on ICO's server? (you'd need that kind of system or you can say "bye" to saving MP games etc.) Ridiculously inefficient and bandwidth consuming (you and all of your buddies have fibre-lines to your homes? hehe)

5. This is the reason for the P2P network structure.

6. ALL of the above information was available via these forums etc. before any of you purchased this game. Period.


- monk out