Firaxis: Will PtW be playable behind a NAT router? / in-game match-making

[MarkG]

this software have advertisements, you are paying with your privacy and security

eeer you are already giving your info in order to register to the service and be able to connect. nothing to do with the ads...

[ydiiby]

Originally posted by MarkG

this software have advertisements, you are paying with your privacy and security

eeer you are already giving your info in order to register to the service and be able to connect. nothing to do with the ads...

Sorry, I don´t know how works Gamespy Arcade. I thought that was this kind of software that has "third part software".

[Whitestar718]

I have played on Gamespy Arcade (GSA) for about a year now. I use ZoneAlarm Pro as my firewall software.

On GSA I have had no problems joining a game that someone is hosting, but I do have problems if I try to host. Despite configuring ZoneAlarm to give Gamespy (and the game in question) full access, I have found through trial and error that I cannot successfully host games unless I am willing to set my internet security level to the minimum setting, which I am not comfortable with.

Fortunately, there are enough people out there to match up with, so it's not a major inconvenience, but I would like to find a solution to this annoyance.

MH

[Kramsib]

Originally posted by ydiiby
If you don´t pay (money) for a piece of sotware and this software has advertisements, you are paying with your privacy and security.

Yddiby, I think you are asking if that kind of software includes Spyware.

I do not think so, I do not think Gamespy Arcade has any Spyware. Perhaps you are confusing Gamespy with Spyware, and they are totally different things.

The money you do not pay for this sofware is given by the advertising companies so the program is totally free. Of course, If you want it free of ads you should pay.

Spyware is specific of other kind of free programs, mainly those used to exchange files.

[ydiiby]

I know that p2p software (kazza...), download managers (gozilla, flashget...) and other popular programs have spywares.

For that reason I was suspicious of Gamespy Arcade. It seems that old versions of Gamespy had webhancer (a well-known spyware).

I´ve installed Gamespy Arcade (ArcadeInstallFull109.EXE) and Ad-aware 5.82 has found NOTHING. During the installation I uncheck all the options that I can, and said "NO" when ask me if I want to install other programs.

[Franses]

Originally posted by Lucilla


True, I still don't know whether the routing through my firewall will work.
If I understand it correctly from Franses' post, I would have to open specific ports when using Gamespy. But do I have to configure port forwarding then as well? How do I do that if I get my internal IP via DHCP and don't know which IP to forward to? My firewall doesn't support specifying DNS names instead of IPs for port forwarding...

And what happens when I use the PtW built-in matching? Will the same ports be used or will they be random (worst case scenario, I'm not going to open up all my ports!)?

Lucilla,

If I interpret your post correctly you are using a comp that has its own IP address. In that case you will not have much trouble. (at least I do not have if I play CTP on the comp that has an IP address). The point here is when playing on a comp that does not have its own IP address and uses another comp (or a separate router) for its Internet connection. In that case you have to open the ports mentioned. Am I right guys?

[Lucilla]

Franses,

I've got a cable modem that is connected to the outside world. That cable modem is connected to a router. The router gets it's IP via the cable modem from the ISP. The router is also connected to a hub, where the rest of the LAN is connected to. The router provides IP adresses to the LAN's PCs/Macs via DHCP. These internal adresses are not visible to the outside world and thus have a completely different subnet.

So if for instance I want to use a computer in the LAN as FTP server and want to connect from outside, I need to connect to the router (which has a DNS name) on port 21 (FTP). The router then uses port forwarding to route the request through to the correct PC in the LAN (which can't be seen from outside...). That works all fine. The problem comes afterwards, when the FTP server in the LAN provides a new port number for the client to connect to. As this is a random port, the router doesn't know when and where to forward to and the client from outside can't connect.
Hope, that doesn't sound too confusing...

So far I haven't found a way to get around this problem, and I was wondering whether PtW might have the same issue, at least if I try to host a game.

[Franses]

Lucilla,

OK, I misinterpreted your earlier post. You are right. In your case the seperate router "spoils" it for all of your machines. In my case I use ICS. The comp that connects to the Internet and has ICS installed can be used for MP. All others can not if I do not know which ports to open. We will have to wait and see whether this issue can be solved using gamespy or the in-game matching facility. I am hopefull though.

[Conqueror]

uh, GameSpy... Lots of problems for us unlucky people who dont have our own ip's.

I am behind NAT and theres nothing i can do about it (except pay 60 euros per month extra to my ISP if i would like to have an ip address of my own, and that i will not do )

GameSpy has never worked on me but The All-Seeing-Eye http://www.udpsoft.com/eye/ always has, i sure hope PtW will be compatible with it too.

[Jahi]

i dont see why not, you can get to the internet via nat correct? you can play quake via nat correct? then why should Civ 3 not work?

[Lucilla]

Well, I don't know about quake, because I didn't try it. But "The Settlers" definetly doesn't work without opening all ports, and what's the use of the firewall then?

BTW: internet browsers are different, because:
they use special reseved ports
they request content from outside, but they don't let anybody connect to your browser, so they are client, not server.

For hosting a game, you need to play a server role. If you can participate as a client in a game that's hosted somewhere else (without NAT), I guess it would work.
Let's hope that there are enough people, who are able to host a session.

[Jahi]

nat should work just fine in most conditions. i can get just about everything to work via my linksys router and/or my cisco 2611 which i have configured as a firewall as well.

certain games and apps dont work if they make a request from the outside with out a session already being open inside. the router maintains a look up table of open ports and TCp sessions

now, if the inside machine (behind nat) contacts the outside machine (non nat'ed) for a game then in theory it should work, if the outside machine contacts the inside machine first it should time out (not work). which means that two dynamicaly nat'ed boxes should have a heck of a time talking to each other w/o a central server in the middle or some configuration on the firewall.

how is that solved?
well, something happens in application (civ, gamespy) that helps this along (3rd party central server),
or there is a central server that is wide open (to the appropate ports) that users connect to (could be part of the game), therefor not needing to connect to each other,
or the router is configured to forward the proper ports to the proper machines.
there might also be a problem if the client responds on a port different than what it recieved on (common FTP problem).

in all honesty we wont know until we get the game or a coder lets us know. if it works anything like a quake server (client server model) the host/servers admin will have to open up the appropiate ports in the firewall and have them forwarded to the hosting machine. other wise it just wont work. this can be a problem for some home routers (linksys and such) because they cannot support anything more than a basic configuration. (yes, they can forward a few ports, dont panic)

a few definations:

static nat: one outside ip equals one inside up, ie, 10.10.10.10 = 192.168.1.10 (in the routers look up table)

dynamic nat: a network can use a range of outside addresses, ie, 10.10.10.1-255 = 192,168,1,1-255 in the routers look up table. this does not need to be on a one on one translation.

dynamic nat with pat overflow, a range of addresses 10.10.10.1-255 = one address 192.168.1.2

fun huh?

[Panag]

Originally posted by Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS
We're using gamespy for internet games, so it's whatever they require. My incomplete understanding is that you cannot host a game behind network address translation, but you can join. I'd check out a few other gamespy simultaneous launch games just to be sure.

Jeff

hi ,

why dont you use a something like Command & Conquer , tibsun , .....

have a nice day