without being rude about this, direct connection in this day and age is worlds most idiotic design decision, its like the developer isnt even aware of the really real world.

I am hoping the proxy solution performes well enough so that i can close the port/static nats ive had to configure to just make the game work. if not then i guess ill have to live with the direct connect mechanism, however ; given there are 2 of us in the house, and every time i try to make demigod use custom ports; the app crashes (does this on obth machines, same os ' different builds / owners however).

ill say it again , direct connect, with pnat are stupid stupid design decisions ALWAYS, this is not 1998 and we dont have modems and native IPs anymore.

Alll that said, i love the game and its mechanics, lots and lots of fun, i only bought the game on saturday (i am from the UK and only just read a quick review) - not sure i have a faviourate demi yet, but the games core is brilliant - shame the multi player is such roadkill.

/Theo

PS: its also worth pointing out i feel sorry for stardock, the multi player in this game looks pretty much like the multiplayer in every other GPG game, terribad design. i get the feeling stardock have had to take the flak for whats basically nieve coding on the part of GPG. It does rather show what a stand up company SD are; not sure id be so happy to take this all on the chin, however i guess thats the difference between the game blame and the bussiness of making a service work as well as it can at any cost.

I think there are many people exaggerating on the forums as to the state of the game in multiplayer.  Maybe I am just used to lag-free gaming but when I am able to play with other people (1 in 10 chance on a good day) after a few waves of creeps it is terribly laggy to the point of being unplayable.  And no my computer doesn't suck.

It sounds like a combination of things.  It sounds like those that configured their ports turned off their firewalls and live in the US are not really having many issues.  I couldnt connect for the life of me the first week but after their first patch and reading the monks guild on setting this up for networking I have not really had many issues (most issues in game like the damn click an ability that doesnt work bug).  I mostly play custom 3v3 and 4v4 and they usually take 3-5 mintues to get going.  The typical game at least one person will drop but its never that bad.  I hope this proxy stuff fixes alot of the issues people are having because not everyone should have to know how to forward ports.  My friend just got this game and if he has any issues he is not going to put up with it like I have.  Only reason I have is because the game is so fun to play when it works.

First, excellent question, and i admit its a sweeping statement; but from a first principles pov, its a true statement. Just to set position here, i am a Security Consultant / Network engineer and have been for over 15 years, so i fall in to the bunch of people that is ok with configuring my own router (but i sitll think its retarded).

Peer to peer gaming was largly popular and functional in a environment that does not exist thesedays except for a segment of users are are able to configure equipment. a huge percentage of all houses in the UK that use a ADSL service use a routed solution. these means at least 1 itteration of hide nat. in any peer to peer situation this can complicate matters at a base level. This would be a none issue if the networking component of the game was robust, in specific's the NAT facilitator;

i am making a number of assumptions here about how the networking in the game works but you basiclly directly fire UDP between the folks in the game session, and i am attempting to understand how the nat facilitator functions at a base lvl, more infomation would be nice. the bottom line is if the games design at a first principles level is peer to peer, then the facilitator no matter how eligant, is a cludge to a flawed design. (again not to say it isnt a eligant one).

In environment and world where you are almost certainly going to be passing through one form of many to one, or hide (however you prever to express it) NAT, then any direct connect is a issue, the one good exception is torrents, and thats largly because its pretty eligant in design.

That arguement that direct connect makes the session faster than a properly designed client server model is in my opinion conjecture at the best, especially if the client server model is well thought about from a efficency point of view.

In the direct model, even at a base level its not machines are sat there doing nothing, they are all rendering / performing disk reads writes / NA other tasks / id say realisitcally given the environment we live in today a 150 ms round trip time to a deadicated environment is preferable to having a architecture that at a first principles lvl is not robust. In a environment were each client has to sync with each other your exponentially (spelling) increasing the risk of failure with each client added, a C/s mechanism has its issues as well ; but general robust nature is not one of them.

how would i make it different? i dont know man,

but id always look for the most robust of solutions and the fact remains for about a zillion reasons any direct connect solution is not one.

/Theo

Ok, first of all