I am aware of all the hours Stardock has been putting into fixing the connectivity errors in the game and I appreciate the hard work but I'm still seeing all sorts of problems with online play:
-I've opened ports multiple ways trying to make sure that my network is passing the data properly. This includes disabling SPI, opening UDP 6000, 6073 and 6100-6200; forwarding the entire 6000-6200 range; and explicitly opening 6000, 6073 and all even ports from 6112 to 6132 in both my router and Windows firewall. I've even taken the time to confirm the ports with a Stardock employee on the IRC channel.
-I've basically given up on connecting to other people's custom games. It almost never fails that, even if I can get into the lobby for the game there will be at least one other person who has joined who cannot connect to me (though I almost always connect to everyone). I expect failure when I try to join someone else's game now.
-I host 99% of the games that I do play since I almost never have an issue getting two way connections with anyone. That doesn't mean that I still don't see a ton of problem with other people who join my game not connecting with others in it. My experience is that it is exceedingly rare to find any game (my own or someone else's) in which we dont' have at least one player that has to leave because they cannot connect to someone else.
What really takes the cake though, and the reason I'm posting this is the testing and troubleshooting I did yesterday. Firingsquad has arranged a forum game night for Demigod for this week and another FSer and I decided to give it a test run before hand. We could not connect to each other in a private custom game. Being on voice with each other, we proceeded to try to correct the issue but with no success.
We both checked and rechecked all port forwardings. We started looking at the Reactor logs and found some odd traffic on one end using a port in the 40,000 range so we used ReactorOptions to force the game to use a 7000-7100 range and both opened those ports. That still didn't work though it did stop the odd port traffic in the logs.
Eventually we both ended up trying to connect with both our PCs in DMZ, Windows firewall disabled and AV software disabled; essentially wide open on the internet, and we still could not connect successfully. One would connect but the other would be stuck attempting to connect. If left long enough, it would reset the connections and the othe would connect but the first would then be attempting to connect and it would continue to alternate like that.
There seems to be something quite wrong with the way this game's netcode is trying to connect. Two moderate to highly tech savvy users should not have this much trouble getting a game to connect. Two completely exposed and open PCs should never have trouble establing a simple pair of connections like we were experiencing.
At this point, we're looking into setting up a VPN to try and fake LAN connections and possibly avoid some of this. That should definitely not be necessary but at this point that may be the only option.
I realize that the proxies are supposed to come online today and may resolve some of the connection issues. The problem is that they really shouldn't be necessary if the end user's ports are forwarded properly. Proxies are going to be slow and the game already sees enough stuttery play and lag issues as it is. Proxies will work as a band aid but the underlying issues still should be corrected.
My hope remains that Stardock is able to find the problem and correct it but clearly they have not reached that point just yet. If any Devs happen to read this I hope it is at least somewhat useful in illustrating what seems to be a clear case of it simply not working when it should. If they'd like more information or to discuss this particular scenario more I'm certainly willing to help.
-dolynick
