Patch 1.52: Civ Now Unplayable on Gamespy

[Kirzon-Dax]

Multiplayer is the only reason I bought this game.

Firaxis, 2K, and Take2 are all incompetent. Suggest class action lawsuit for false advertising. Put them out of business and give the CIV IV software to the public domain so that competent folks can replace the grade-school-level-coders who developed CIV III and CIV IV. I'm sure some lawyer some where would be willing to take on this case. Heck, he/she could even require that his/her mug and bio be used as part of a new Civ.

 

[Zhao]

Hmmm.....

Well, everything was working fine last night (fine = very few contacting peer problems, but now my game crashes and I try to load up a save it says "This is protected blah blah blah and I get a CTD . . anyway)

Today it's back to the same old problem though. I dunno what's going on

 

[Smidley]

I got the "Contacting Peer" a while ago, but was able to play since then.

 

[SirT]

What REALLY makes me mad is that there is not indication on the firaxis or 2K sites that this issue exists... If this game gets any GOTY awards with these problems going on I will be sick. As it stands right now its easier to get a civ 3 game going....

 

[Wallabulla]

I can't connect at all, always getting "Connection to the game server unaviable"... what's up with that, I dont have the antivirus program that causes some problems installed. Can play Guild Wars, HL2 Unreal Tournament without problmes..

 

[marshalljames]

Anybody get a player joining a dead civ only to leave,then the game freezes and no one can play.This has happened a couple of games I've been involved in.It's very annoying and you get pissed at the guy joining,but it has no idea they just F***ed your game..................

 

[PowerkrauT]

Hey there !

I own the german (EU I guess) version of CIV4 and all i can say is that i encountered the peer connecting problem even before the patch (1.52) and I dare say that no one actually cares - as long as CIV4 sells.
So do we have to collect money to get things right? Did anyone of Fireaxis ever really tested this pre release ? I think not - and its funny that no review or preview of this actually great game covers this big MP bug.
Ok now for some facts:

When does this "connecting to peer" problem arise ?
- actually every day, more often when lots of people play online. Access to a game seems quite random, depending on the peers of players all over the world with different versions of the game (not the patch versions).

What can YOU do ?
- not much really - moving to the USA might help but switching off your firewall does not (it wont open ports if its not there so dont bother with it). Why open ports anyway ? Officially only one port is needed - the one specified in the *ini file, which is 2056. As i dont use a router at all i think theres not much to do.
Playing at different times shouldnt be a general solution but helps if u have the day off - chances to get into a game are highly increased

What can FIREAXIS do ?
well get some decent coders (might try them BLIZZARD guys) and get some satisfaction back to us players with a decent patch which solves some of the MP riddles. Mabe playing the game helps

If this seems to much critiscism to anyone - I think not - I try to play online almost every day and theres so many many many people having peer problems, just dare enter the lobby if you are from the support team.
If this game wouldnt have such great potential, I wouldnt bother posting here - just keep that in mind.

I think thats enough for now - I hope we see this fixed before 2007

Keep trying and praying and you might get lucky to join up some game...

PS: For all those "router users" : Somewhere I dug up some ports for CIV4 which COULD be forwarded (doesnt help me with a firewall though)

2056 (standard port in the *ini )
2075-2079
2081
13139
6500 (host)

 

[marshalljames]

Moving to the U.S won't help...I find myself connecting with euro servers more often than not.German and spanish mostly...go figure..

 

[marshalljames]

now the list of games is dissappearing for some ppl

 

[Phyr_Negator]

list of games dissappear after alt-tabing, I just join random game and cansel joining instantly to get text back. Still, I realized that going to MP now is a waste of time - there is no guarantee that after 1+ hours you'll start a game. It seems that only 1x1 duelers are happy right now.

 

[Zyekad]

Connecting to peer observations :

The peer that is stuck is usually NOT someone you see in your game. Read below for backup information.

I have two computers, two DSL connections (two phone lines each with their own DSL) and two copies of the game (one my wife REFUSES to ever play again because she won't waste her time with multiplayer due to this stuff.)

I create a game on one computer, someone joins, we now have the host and one peer. The Gamespy screen shows 2/6 in the game. This is as it should be.

I then go to connect with my second computer. When I do I get the contacting host, it connects, I get contacting peer, it connects, I then get contacting peer AGAIN. This is a THIRD player, and they dont show up in the player list I can see on the host computer, and they don't show up on the gamespy list as a 3/6, it is still 2/6. This is someone "invisible" who is stuck while connecting that is preventing me from connecting on my second computer.

This is definate proof that at least sometimes, the stuck peer is not even a person in your game, but someone trying to connect to your game.

I haven't seen anyone mention this before and thought it might help...

In the meantime... I have asked in multiple other threads how to obtain a refund for this buggy software since the place I purchased it refuses to accept returns of opened product. Anyone have a phone number in the USA for Firaxis so I can request this refund directly?

For a game that was "designed from the ground up for multiplayer" we all seem to spend more time trying to get multiplayer to work than actually playing the game. My wife won't do it and will never play again (she quit after day 2 of contacting peer) and I would like to return and get a refund for her copy of the game.

~Zy

 

[SirT]

Very usefull information Zyekad! I tried making a game last night and when people could not join I started to kick people in the reverse order they joined, no go. This would explain why!! Maybe if you close all slots that are open then open them back up again this will help? I'll give it a try tonight. Also I am in 100% agreement, I feel like asking for my money back on this one. Not suprisingly, when I tried to call 2K, after spending 15+ min on hold an automated voice came on and told me to all the number for Canada...then hung up...without giving me the number...

I am getting so angry witht hier customer support and ZERO comunity feedback...I think the entire MP community is owed a BIG appology from Sid and everyone else...

 

[PainlessProd]

Well from what I can see, as long as the host is all good and can take a few connections and you forward port 6500 through to your gaming pc you are all good. All people in the game connect to the host under this port and various outgoing ports talk with them. Hope this helps

 

[Enoeth]

Not only the fact you usually have to wait about 2h to get into a working game .... sometimes that's not enough. When the game loads, you might get a OUT OF SYNC crap, and all that 2 h were in vain. The only solution for me seems to be the HOST A GAME and i might get lucky. I have to wait 30 min to get 8 players ... but it's all crap, cos at a point some might not be able to come in anymore.

From what I've noticed, not only the last guy's connection (last guy's peer) must be compatible with those that want to join your game, but somehow everyone else'`s peer must be at the same ping/speed/ compatible.

Why hasn't Firaxis made districts, channels or something like that, like : channel for people in Europe, America, Asia, and so on ... and sub channels made accordingly to ping to the channel server, thus creating categories of people who have about the same ping to one another, so it isn't such a pain in the aRS to connect to a gam and TO host one .

 

[xxPOGOxx]

Actually, I can honestly say that ping isn't a real issue. I live in America and the other day I played in a game in which all the other players were living in Europe. Granted, the game ran a little clanky because one person had such a huge ping discrepency compared to everyone else, but we still somehow managed to get all of us into the game and going.

I'm still not sure what exactly "hosting" a game means other than you get to select options like turn timer, game speed, map type/size, etc. You're not really hosting it. The game is run across all the players computers, which means in the case above, the game ran kind of clanky for EVERYONE just because I had a bad ping (relatively speaking) to EVERYONE. If the host was actually HOSTING the game and it was running through his computer, the other players wouldn't actually need to connect to each other (that eliminates the peer problem...) and the only person who would see gameplay effected because of a bad ping would be the person who was pinging bad to the host. The only thing would be that the host would need a slightly better PC than what is actually listed on the system requirements/suggestions if he were to host a smooth game, but I think it's ultimately a better solution than whatever BS 2K is gonna work out with Gamespy.

 

[Kirzon-Dax]

Class Action Lawsuit IS THE ANSWER!

I bought CIV III, and all its updates along the way, with hope against all odds that Firaxis would fix multiplayer operations. However, they failed miserably. But damn my desire to play this game once again in multiplayer mode. After all... it has been a very long time since CIV II. So after all the hype... that multiplayer had been fully tested in CIV IV... Game Of The Year... Etc... I went ahead and bought three copies for my friends and I so that once again we could enjoy glory together into the wee hours of the morning. Only then did I discover the real truth, that when it comes to multiplayer, CIV IV is also a piece of

I read somewhere that over 1 Million copies of CIV IV had been sold. Well 1M * $50 ~ $50,000,000.00. Somebody must know some lawyer somewhere who would be willing to go after all that cash.

Somebody please relieve our pain.

I call out to Sid Meier. Sid Meier, where are you? Your legacy is in jeopardy. You must step to the plate and help us. What is your answer?

Moderator Action: Please watch your language.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Willburn]

Filling lawsuits left and right is not the answer. Its blody arrogant too. (Laws are not ment to frikking harass companies like this....)

The game is great and ive had many enjoyable multiplayer games and a ton of good singleplayer games.

Ive heard from several sources firaxis is on this problem so im not worried.

 

[groobz]

why don't you guys play via ip connect? me and my buddies do this everytime, no problems at all.

 

[southjerseyrisi]

Multiplayer is the only reason I bought this game.

Same here!

I *WAS* able to play multiplayer just fine with 1.00 and 1.09.

Now I'm stuck with a shiny Civ4 coaster...

 

[Stryx]

Yeah, I find it funny that the game had more crashes in 1.00 but u could always join a mp game, with 1.09 you started having more peer problems but I suffered very few crashes. Now, almost no crashes but an uncountable number of peer problems.
And developers wonder why the PC game market is shrinking. Why would you want to suffer through this BS, patch 400 times, hope you end up with a product that's working 6 months after its release, when you can play Halo 2 or Madden online right out of the box with very few problems. Course, rumor has it Xbox2 might be dragging consoles into this hell.
Oh well, its about time to shelve this one, and hope I get back around to it once they find a way to fix this trash.