Why can my friend and I not play?

[norb]

usually even if you do not have a static ip, it changes infrequently. So you can usually just go to whatsmyip.org and find it out and have your friends connect to that.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Forgive me interjecting here...

I use to have an ip that changed when I logged in (oh the days of dialup). Anwyay I used something called NO-IP.

Here is the website, and I know it will explain itself better than I can...

NO-IP website Link: http://www.no-ip.com/

It's free to use...

[norb]

Lobby should be back up.

[mitra76]

I suggest you to use tunngle for play with your friend, no port or ip problem. Exist already a lobby for Scourge http://www.tunngle.net.

The software support also interlink (the game server match can be seen and reached from both tunngle and out of tunngle players): http://www.tunngle.net/wiki/Interlink

[Saddletank]

Mitra, normally the SoW lobby is fine. This is the first time I've seen it go offline. The other good thing about the lobby is we have in the past picked up random other SoW players who were waiting there for a game, something that won't happen if players begin connnecting via private means.

[mitra76]

I don't doubt about it, but at example many cannot host because or they are not expert about how config the router or like me, they provider config is particular and cannot host because have not access to ports config. TUnngle permit them to host if they want do a match with their friends.

[norb]

Hosting can be complicated and larger companies can afford to host server and get around the issues. But those solutions are currently out of range of our resources, so we have to do it old school. Open the port and let others join. So someone in the game has to understand how to map a router port. There's also the problem we've seen that some internet providers will slow down any incoming request. I couldn't believe it until I saw it myself. We'll probably revisit this code next year and see if there are better solutions and if we can reach them.

[mitra76]

Hi Norb

I remembered a old MDSN article about the P2P game connections and NAT if it can help: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms811085.aspx ; I don't know if there are more recents specification for directx 9.

ciao

[mitra76]

How about the STUN method: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questi ... forwarding ; I'm not expert but I think is sufficient to have a simple machine with a public ip to act as coordinator server

[Martin James]

The there are only a few players involved, why not just host over a virtual player network (VPN)? It’s very simple to do, and all our group’s early games were played using a Hamachi VPN, which is fine for up to 8 players. If you’re interested in going this route, send me a personal message with email address, and I’ll send you a help-sheet on how to do it.

I’ve come in late to this, so apologies if someone has already mentioned it.

Martin