Trying multiplayer with a firewall

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Carnuss
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Trying multiplayer with a firewall

Post by Carnuss »

I realize that tech support is not offered for playing multiplayer behind firewalls, so I was hoping the community might know the answer to this question. What ports need to be opened for this game to work without disconnecting your firewall altogether?

I tried my first multi-player game yesterday over the public internet, and received a spam of "update your PC now!" prompts almost instantly. I fear what damage may have been done by simply removing my firewall for a couple of hours, and would prefer to never have the thing unplugged again. I prefer that hacking programs at least have to take me out to dinner and ask nicely before screwing me.

Also, I was able to host the game, but my friend was not. When he selected host game, it just never loaded the scenario selection screen. I'm curious if this is an issue with his installation of the game... It doesn't seem like that screen is bugged for him though, because he can get to it fine when playing a single player game.
Baloogan
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Post by Baloogan »

Yes this is important.
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bergsjaeger
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Post by bergsjaeger »

? I play mp games without turning my firewall off and without opening any ports. All i do is simply get into the games and the game play is fine at times. Would be better if I didn't have a crappy connection.

As for advice for the others things u mention. Have no clue maybe someone more of a tech can help u.
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Lightbringer
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Post by Lightbringer »

Like Berg, I have had little (if any) problems with my firewall and/or ports. If anything I have had worse luck after mucking about with them. What I have noticed, (although we have no concrete proof of why) is that certain people have certain problems with certain others. I'm not sure if it is server or PC based, but there are several players who flat out cannot join a game hosted by me... and that means with/without firewall...and before or after I have opened all ports. There are a few players who i can join their games, but lose the connection after 30 seconds or so....again, no matter what situation I have set up on my PC. It basically seems to be a technical crap-shoot, with some as-yet determined factor that screws up the way some people connect within a hosted game.
I dislike gamespy from previous experience, but once I get the itch to try multi player again I imagine I'll grit my teeth and give that a shot.
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

While you are correct that we can't provide support, you can at least get some comfort from knowing it is a bother for us as well because we simply don't control the various firewalls ppl use.

In the last MP game I joined, I was having trouble connecting. My setup is a PC on a wireless card to a router. My solution was to use Port forwarding to the IP used by my machine during the game (since I was not sure what port we use - we use the DirectX networking framework so I'd have to lookup their documentation to find out - I simply forwarded the entire set 0-65565 to my IP. It worked, after the game I removed the forwarding...
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Carnuss
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Post by Carnuss »

I should have put an additional post in here when I figured it out, but I forgot all about having left people puzzling over it. I never did get my firewall to work, and no matter how long I went between removing my router, I always seemed to get the same IP address, and along with it the same popup errors indicating I was receiving god knows what from the intertron telegraph thingie. I did however get it working, and with a firewall. Just not my Lynksys.

I turned on the Windows firewall in XP, and it worked like a charm. The popups stopped, and the game ran without an issue. Another sidenote, if you want to know what port it is that you are using on the game, it actually tells you in the Windows firewall GUI. Port 2023 UDP, if I remember correctly, but I'm not at home to doublecheck myself. It's in big bold friendly letters in the allowed program list by default though, so you can't miss it if you try it.
stuarttank
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Post by stuarttank »

you can use maccafee on whilst playing multiplayer (at least on the demo) as long as you config it in certain ways.
probyte
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Re:

Post by probyte »

[quote="Balthagor"]While you are correct that we can't provide support, you can at least get some comfort from knowing it is a bother for us as well because we simply don't control the various firewalls ppl use.

In the last MP game I joined, I was having trouble connecting. My setup is a PC on a wireless card to a router. My solution was to use Port forwarding to the IP used by my machine during the game (since I was not sure what port we use - we use the DirectX networking framework so I'd have to lookup their documentation to find out - I simply forwarded the entire set 0-65565 to my IP. It worked, after the game I removed the forwarding...[/quote]

This is not a good tip, to open the range means you have no protection anymore and you computer is full conected to the internet ... DONT do this !!!! it is a bad tip!!!!
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Balthagor
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Re: Re:

Post by Balthagor »

probyte wrote:...DONT do this !!!! it is a bad tip!!!!
No, it is a risky tip. I completely agree that users should be aware of what that forwarding means (that you're bypassing the router's defenses) but if your system has good antivirus/antispam and it's own firewall for the length of a game I don't see this as being a "never do this" kind of thing. Obviously, people should only do what they are comfortable with on their own systems...
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