you don't both need to have the mod loaded. I had a similar problem when playing with my brother and his friends, Somehow, fresh installation we all had different files lol, No one patched or anything lol, anyway, when we were setting up, there were instances were we'd see the game, my brother would close the game, and then reopen it and I wouldn't see it. If you do a direct connection You'll get it. Just ask your friend to open up Dos and type in "Ipconfig" then give you the ip address. make sure your ports are open, and there you go.