Troubleshooting Connectivity

[black_mischief]

i just want to reiterate some of the comments that were made by other posters, that i find it almost impossible that firewall issues are the sole cause for the serious and persistant multiplayer problems. in fact, it's pretty much a ridiculous statement as far as i can tell.

i've been gaming online pretty hard core even since the early doom days, and i have to say that Civ4 is unfortunately maybe one of the worst, if not the worst game, i've encountered in terms of its online functionality. in fact, the sole purpose for me signing up to this website was to convey my thoughts on this matter. it's as if, the multiplayer connectivity was designed with zero thought in mind (not to mention that it just doesn't even really work to begin with). case in point, every day in the stupid internet room the same accounts spam profanity, seriously perverse racist stuff about jews and blacks, and other ridiculous crap -- yet there is no permanent ignore list that stores users to permanent ignore. there isn't even a chat filter, which countless online games have these days. so every day we have to reset to ignore the same idiots who spam the same crap all day long. this is one issue in a series of problems that show that multiplayer was a complete afterthought (or incomplete, as the case may be) for this game.

if there is an address for a refund or phone from firaxis or take-two that I can get an RMA # ... I would appreciate the information.

best regards,

bm

 

[CanuckSoldier]

BM, as I've stated several times in this thread, no one is saying that firewalls are the *only* issue just that it's an issue for some people and it's an issue that is easily solved, with some basic knowledge, by most people.

Multiplayer was coded from day 1 in Civ4, and got just as much attention as SP or modding. You'd certainly realize this if you ever played PTW or C3C. Yes we have still more improvements we can do to the lobby interface, but we didn't initially put as much effort into the interface since all of us C3C vets simply expected GS Arcade to be used, turned out to be a wrong assumption but we are human afterall.

Notwithstanding the interface issues you site, MP is what happens in the game, and it's very well done, you compare this to a FPS game, which is totally meaningless, CIV is a peer to peer game which has it's strengths and weakness, but you have to judge it's preformance based on what is the best a peer to peer game can be. You can't eliminate OOS's but Civ4 is much more tolerant than C3C ever was, you can hotjoin when you do drop, and drops for game reasons are far fewer than in C3C. Being a MP addict myself I can say that the game is very enjoyable, despite the few bugs that are still left(and Firaxis does know about them and they will get fixed), just using the stats from Civ4players(which doesn't account for all the casual MPers) there's 1500 registered members that have played approx 12000 games since Civ4 was released, so I wouldn't give up on MP or return the game just yet, remember that all you here about are the people with problems, the people without problems are to busy playing!

CS

 

[black_mischief]

My response:

1. Soren previously suggested it was only a firewall problem.

2. AOE2 was peer to peer and the interface and multiplayer functionality in that game was vastly superior. There were sync errors in that program, but far, far less and launching was never a problem, ever. I recognize you have invested a lot of time in this game as a tester. I've been heavliy involved in gaming for years, as a player, tester, and a substantial investor on behalf of an investment partnership (hedge fund). But I think you are too close to the situation to be a fair judge, or you are just plain deluded. I'm not harping solely on a negative issue, it's a plain, obvious fact that MP is just ****ed up and does not work right at all. And that's not my lone negative opinion, people spam about it all day long in the internet chat room all day long.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

My response:

1. Soren previously suggested it was only a firewall problem.

2. AOE2 was peer to peer and the interface and multiplayer functionality in that game was vastly superior. There were sync errors in that program, but far, far less and launching was never a problem, ever. I recognize you have invested a lot of time in this game as a tester. I've been heavliy involved in gaming for years, as a player, tester, and a substantial investor on behalf of an investment partnership (hedge fund). But I think you are too close to the situation to be a fair judge, or you are just plain deluded. I'm not harping solely on a negative issue, it's a plain, obvious fact that MP is just ****ed up and does not work right at all. And that's not my lone negative opinion, people spam about it all day long in the internet chat room all day long.

Well you can say I'm to close to be fair, time will tell I guess. But as to Soren "suggesting" I guess that how you *intrepreted* his statement and not how I did. I can't speak to AOE2 as I never played it, mostly because RTS games are clickfests and therefore not what I prefer to play(but that's another topic all togeither). But I did play Civnet/Civ2MGE/PTW/C3C all primarily in MP, and IMHO Civ4 is far superior in any previous versions, and no, I'm not clinically deluded :-/

Yes there are connection problems, I personally believe that GS is more to blame than they are taking responsility for right now, but to prove that to them means eliminating all other possible reasons(ergo Sorens announcement that you take issue with) and this takes time, remember Firaxis has only been back a week now from christmas vacation, and I know they have been working hard to resolve the issues.

But your broad non-specific statement that MP just is "f**** up" in general is just as wrong. There are some legitimate problems that are not the players fault, but there are also lots of people that need to configure there firewalls that haven't, and worse lots of people trying to play this game on sub standard hardware despite the fact that the minimum system requirements(esp video) are quite clear.

So yes you will see lots of complaints in the lobby, especially during peak times. But there are also 1000's of games played every day, which is highly susprising for a game with a MP system that "it's a plain, obvious fact that MP is just ****ed up and does not work right at all", funny it's working for lots of people so your statement is blatantly false.

If you want to complain about specific problems/issues I'll be glad to address them and any new bugs I'll take directly to the dev's and we can test and solve them, but your general negativity is not going to help people solve anything.

CS

 

[SirT]

There are some polite replys to this post. But I am way past the point where I can continue to be polite about this. So, I am gonna tell it as I see it. THIS IS A TOTAL bullfeathers ANSWER!!!! I have kicked EVERYONE from my game only to have people still be ubable to connect due to bad peer....I know the issue is not me as I have hsted 9 players games...

Also, EVERYONE seems to have no trouble connecting to games already in progress..Yopu know what that means...people TRYU and connect to games already in progress. So if you are lucky enough to get a game going you will spend the entire time waiting for people to connect.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

There are some polite replys to this post. But I am way past the point where I can continue to be polite about this. So, I am gonna tell it as I see it. THIS IS A TOTAL bullfeathers ANSWER!!!! I have kicked EVERYONE from my game only to have people still be ubable to connect due to bad peer....I know the issue is not me as I have hsted 9 players games...

Also, EVERYONE seems to have no trouble connecting to games already in progress..Yopu know what that means...people TRYU and connect to games already in progress. So if you are lucky enough to get a game going you will spend the entire time waiting for people to connect.

Well you go ahead and tell it like you see it and it'll tell it like I see it, which is what I did in that post, which I also had problems contining to be polite, so I guess that is a two way street too. To each his own.

I prefer to talk about facts and not perceptions, but some people just want to trash Civ4 based on there limited, and apparently bad, experiences with Civ4, but don't want to bother discussing why this might be happening to them, it could be just a technical problem, but because *I* can't play Civ4 it must be crap, the 100's of successful games played everyday don't count apparently :-/ Sorry if I offend anyone but I'm again just calling it like I see it.

CS

 

[salqadri]

Canuck you mentioned u dont play RTS games online, so that does explain ur views.

The peer-to-peer networking is one of the oldest, most tried and tested model. They go as far back as Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires, heck even Kaza. They worked great (esp. relative to Civ4). You are absolutely right that compared to previous civs this is better, but I would argue that it is true only in terms of gameplay (I am totally addicted to Civ4 mp despite the fact that I have to spend more time trying to get a game going than actually playing). In terms of connectivity though, its still worse than Civ3, atleast for me.

And Gamespy cant really be the problem, as many in the community (including myself) have suggested. Actually, it may be the problem, but go visit http://www.gamespyarcade.com, and you'll see what I mean. They host Call of Duty 2, one of the most stable and popular multiplayer games. They host Quake 4. And they host Civ 4. How many have the problem? Its just Civ. You wanted facts right? Thats a fact. Plus the fact that you mentioned that all previous civs were worse means only one thing: Firaxis sucks at coding multiplayer, or has sucked so far, despite their years of MP programming experience. P2P networks have traditionally proven to be robust, but Firaxis screws it up somehow.

I suggest you try Call of Duty 2, which runs via gamespy, and then maybe you have the right to defend Civ so vehemently. I know you feel pressured by being the only one in their defence, but if everyone, including a trusted tester like yourself, truly believes that Firaxis is at fault, then perhaps they will put their act together, realise that its their own problem (not GameSpy, not the players) and hopefully do something about it asap.

[MUD] salqadri

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Firaxis is operating on the assumption(true or not) that it is there problem, but other than the enhanced lobby functions the MP code from 1.09 to 1.52 did not change at all. So things are not so simple. And yes I know that other games seem to operate fine as peer to peer games and with GS, but they are not TBS games. Which is a important difference, if in a Quake4 game some data is lost, it's no big deal the game just manufactures/extrapolates the needed data, who cares if the scenery doesn't look exactly the same for all players? In a TBS game all the data of cities/units/terrain is all critical, and lost data has to be re-transmitted. I would agree that Firaxis has not done a good job at MP in the past, but beleive me they had PTW formost in there mind when they programmed Civ4 MP from day 1. But they still have to deal with a TBS peer to peer game mechanic, and even though they have a very talented MP programmer and programming team in general, they can only program in graceful responses to the worse case scenarios of lost data and dropping peers, and I think they did a good job of it.

Also something to note, Take2 bought a separate namespace for Civ4 on the GS system, so Civ4 is just not another user of the general GS system. This was done to avoid player name conflicts with other games, but it just shows you that while other games may be getting the bandwidth they need, that doesn't mean GS is giving Civ4 what it needs. GS is not a large, first come first serve, server free for all, companies get(or should get) what they pay for. So it is still very debatible whether we are getting what is needed from GS regardless of what is happening with other games. Needless to say inter-company legal agreements and politics is not something we are going to hear about in the public eye.

CS

 

[black_mischief]

canuck -

i've attempted to be slightly civil. i really don't care for your responses at all. i really dont give a **** what games you've played and what you compare it to, and as far as i'm concerned, your opinions are useless as to what is good and what is bad because you aren't the customer, you apparently haven't played many other RTS games with peer to peer connectivity, and you didn't seem to have a clue as to what is going on until 10 people *****ed in this forum.

if firaxis had such a concern over connectivity and port 2056 being unblocked by users, they would have built in a simple check for such an issue into the program itself as the client logged into gamespy. No firewall/port check built into the program shows a complete lack of foresight on behalf of the company. i dont see port 2056 in any of the manual documentation, am i missing something here? you think your average customer who picks up this game and buys it even knows what the **** port 2056 is? lol.... WAKE UP ALREADY.

 

[salqadri]

they programmed Civ4 MP from day 1... and I think they did a good job of it.
CS

You seriously believe they did a good job?

RTS games are infact more complex than a game like Civ because in those you have to continuously stream lots of data, whereas in Civ data sending is event-triggered. For example you only need to update the position of a warrior when it is moved, which is, to be honest, only once a turn, and every turn is like 60 seconds in mp. But in Quake for example, a guided missile needs to be continuously updated in realtime maybe 60 times a second to every player, and no matter what tricks you employ, it is much more expensive and complex than an event-triggered single action (war position only updated once, as in, cell [row, col] to cell [row+1,col], but a missile is continuously updated many times a second using equations derived from physics, and involves a lot of expensive interpolation too that come from lag and the discrete nature of computers). I am myself a programmer, and have developed network engines (if you dont believe me i'll send u my bio on c4f). I can tell you that though your point on accuracy is valid, the fact that Civ has very long delays between each event means that accuracy can be easily guaranteed.

If you still think that a Turn based game is harder than rts, then i basically give up on you.

 

[Karl Townsend]

how do i close and open ports on my router

 

[CanuckSoldier]

To BM, not much I can say to you, I paid the same money you did for this game, so I don't see how I'm not a customer, and in case you are thinking I'm somehow paid by Firaxis, let me asure you I have never been paid one penny for the work I've provided in testing CIV for Firaxis. And just to clarify something, Civ4 is not a RTS game, so you can't say "other RTS games". And I'm very well aware of MP problems long before reading this thread, I came here to CFC to help people understand what the issues are, and dispell the mis-information that to easily spreads. If you haven't noticed my signature I'm an Admin at the largest Civ4 MP league in existance, which presently has 1500 members. And I didn't just start doing this yesterday, I was in the PTW lobby the day PTW was released trying to help people play a MP Civ game that was trully screwed up. So the problems that are in this thread are not a susprise to me, but since I know that most people here don't think to visit the ladder forums I came here. Cheers.

To Sal, I'm no programmmer like yourself, and not there no need to send me your resume. I don't know what is different between a RTS game like AoE and the Civ series, maybe Firaxis are inept or there is legitimate reasons that TBS games are harder in a peer to peer situation, I don't have the expertise to say. But I doubt it the lack of good programmers at Firaxis, I do have the experience of dealing with them to know that they are highly skilled and dedicated to a quality product, and I know they get frustrated when things like GS don't always work as advertised.

CS

 

[CanuckSoldier]

how do i close and open ports on my router

Any recent router has web interface tool that allows you to connect to the router and change it's settings, but the details are slightly different for each brand and model. But your manual that came with your router should tell you how to do this. But if you post your routers Brand and Model here, I'll see what I can find out.

http://civ4players.proboards44.com/index.cgi?board=tsf

CS

 

[MMV]

Problems galore with connectivity - that's for sure.

As CS stated, people are working on it.

Blame? It doesn't matter.

Responsiblity? Either Take2 or Firaxis, that's for sure as they own the game and ALL the current issues it has.

CS - with all due respect (and you know that I mean that sincerely), Maybe it's time to STOP "defending" the efforts of Take2, Firaxis, etc and maybe assert to them the disatisfaction of the approximate 1500 ladder members you represent?

Truly, I don't think the number of games played are a true statistic as an adhoc answer to the connectivity issues anymore than I think that the number of murders NOT commited in the world are representative of the world justice system.

 

[Soren Johnson]

1. Soren previously suggested it was only a firewall problem.

I don't believe that is what I said, but I apologize for not being clearer. At any rate, we don't believe that this is the only problem, but making sure Civ4 is on your firewall's exception list is one important step for troubleshooting connectivity. Certainly, we don't see this as being the user's fault - if the user has to take extra steps like this, obviously the blame falls on us. We are certainly working to try to identify other bugs that would be hurting connectivity. salqadri is right, though, it is a problem that we are having a hard time replicating internally.

It would be great if we could find two people who can repeatedly connect during X hours but not during Y hours.

 

[dob]

I also registered on the board only to vent frustration over this issue. While it's great to see Soren actively pursuing the bug, my Civ 4 multiplayer experience had been decidedly mixed. (I.e. mixed as in "The multiplayer is really great when you can get it to work).

From a pure technical standpoint however, the game is the worst I have ever experienced, multiplayer-wise. (SP has been great on my comp from day 1, go figure...)

I have opened port 2056, along with the gazillion other ports listed on this forum. (Hell, I even unplugged the router!) Yet I tried game after game tonight (and many other nights) on Gamespy, and in *every* case (that's 100 percent, count 'em folks!), the joining sequence got hung up on "connecting to peer". I doubt I was alone in this, as the main chat was filled with pronouncements along the lines of "Gamespy sucks!".

I have had some success in either hosting myself and/or broadcasting my IP adress in the main forum (Thanks for the chat-while-in-staging patch thingie btw!), but the huge failure rate of matching is simply way too high. The only game with problems that approach the ones of civ IV is (ironically!) the early versions of Rise of Nations.

So, to sum up:

1. Thanks for creating a great, great (really great!) game.

2. But boo for not letting me play it properly it in its best form. (I really can't enjoy Single Player anymore. After tasting proper MP, it really feels bland...)

Over to you Soren!

 

[SirT]

I don't believe that is what I said, but I apologize for not being clearer. At any rate, we don't believe that this is the only problem, but making sure Civ4 is on your firewall's exception list is one important step for troubleshooting connectivity. We are certainly working to try to identify other bugs that would be hurting connectivity. salqadri is right, though, it is a problem that we are having a hard time replicating internally.

It would be great if we could find two people who can repeatedly connect during X hours but not during Y hours.

I'm a bit calmer now...I have decided to set myself a rule. NO MORE posting on here after trying to play Civ 4 multiplayer

Soren-I want to say thank you. Even for your first post that I throughly trashed in my earlier one. To hear *something* fromt he devs is BIG. At least the community knows you are *thinking* about it I guess I am too used to MMORGP games that have thier own community site where feedback occurs in near real time. To have Civ 4 MP be almost unbearable since Christmas with no word from the dev was, I think, even more fustrating than not being able to connect. So, THANK YOU for the feedback.

Now, about that feedback. I am glad you guys are not just chalking it up to rounter settings. I would like to offer the following acidotal evidence to try and help you guys nail this thing down:

1.)
****This might be a big clue and happened only by chance**** One of the MP games I was hosting was actually working and starting to fill up. A guy on my buddy list had been trying for hours to get into game. Well I quickly messaged him and told him to get his butt in mine as it was filling. He tried to join....bad peer. BUT others were joining, he tried and tried and tried but always bad peer. Then, suddenly he tried one last time and got in!! He got slot 8 of 9 open slots. Well suddenly someone joins, but no in slot 9, no they join in slot 8 which kicked him out, and of course slot 9 filled right after Very odd both in that he was finally able to join after getting bad peer so many times, ANd that he got booted by someone else joining. Could this mean that the "bad peer" is actually people fighting for the SAME slot in a game, or trying to talk to each other WHILE joining?

2.) You will NEVER see a bad peer. You can kick everyone form your game, close all open slots, and open them back up and people will still get bad peer while joining your game.

3.) I have been trying to join games and gotten the bad peer. However, I notice while I am getting this bad peer issue, other people are able to join the game.

4.) ****I think this is a biggie too**** As I mentioned previously. People have realized that while they have trouble joining games that are staging, they CAN almost always join games that have already started (much to the fustration of those in the game). Now, here is the million dollar question. You have ot connect to ALL the peers when you join a game already in progress (from what I understand). So why is it an issue when staging, but no an issue when the game is already started?

Hope this helps.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Problems galore with connectivity - that's for sure.

As CS stated, people are working on it.

Blame? It doesn't matter.

Responsiblity? Either Take2 or Firaxis, that's for sure as they own the game and ALL the current issues it has.

CS - with all due respect (and you know that I mean that sincerely), Maybe it's time to STOP "defending" the efforts of Take2, Firaxis, etc and maybe assert to them the disatisfaction of the approximate 1500 ladder members you represent?

Truly, I don't think the number of games played are a true statistic as an adhoc answer to the connectivity issues anymore than I think that the number of murders NOT commited in the world are representative of the world justice system.

I understand your POV MMV, and believe me I and many other MP testers certainly do represent the MP community in ways that are far more effective than adding one more complaint to a thread like this.(this you should be more aware of as I see that you have joined the beta test).

No one is saying that it's not Firaxis's/T2's job to fix the problems, the only thing I've tried to do here is actually educate people on what are the real issues, "MP sucks" is not a accurate statement no matter what the problems, in fact, are. I want to see MP as close to flawless as the next person, but I'd rather be part of the solution, not just one person in the lynching mob

CS

 

[Soren Johnson]

I'm a bit calmer now...I have decided to set myself a rule. NO MORE posting on here after trying to play Civ 4 multiplayer

Soren-I want to say thank you. Even for your first post that I throughly trashed in my earlier one. To hear *something* fromt he devs is BIG. At least the community knows you are *thinking* about it I guess I am too used to MMORGP games that have thier own community site where feedback occurs in near real time. To have Civ 4 MP be almost unbearable since Christmas with no word from the dev was, I think, even more fustrating than not being able to connect. So, THANK YOU for the feedback.

Now, about that feedback. I am glad you guys are not just chalking it up to rounter settings. I would like to offer the following acidotal evidence to try and help you guys nail this thing down:

1.)
****This might be a big clue and happened only by chance**** One of the MP games I was hosting was actually working and starting to fill up. A guy on my buddy list had been trying for hours to get into game. Well I quickly messaged him and told him to get his butt in mine as it was filling. He tried to join....bad peer. BUT others were joining, he tried and tried and tried but always bad peer. Then, suddenly he tried one last time and got in!! He got slot 8 of 9 open slots. Well suddenly someone joins, but no in slot 9, no they join in slot 8 which kicked him out, and of course slot 9 filled right after Very odd both in that he was finally able to join after getting bad peer so many times, ANd that he got booted by someone else joining. Could this mean that the "bad peer" is actually people fighting for the SAME slot in a game, or trying to talk to each other WHILE joining?

2.) You will NEVER see a bad peer. You can kick everyone form your game, close all open slots, and open them back up and people will still get bad peer while joining your game.

3.) I have been trying to join games and gotten the bad peer. However, I notice while I am getting this bad peer issue, other people are able to join the game.

4.) ****I think this is a biggie too**** As I mentioned previously. People have realized that while they have trouble joining games that are staging, they CAN almost always join games that have already started (much to the fustration of those in the game). Now, here is the million dollar question. You have ot connect to ALL the peers when you join a game already in progress (from what I understand). So why is it an issue when staging, but no an issue when the game is already started?

Hope this helps.

thank you... info like this is very helpful

 

[SirT]

I understand your POV MMV, and believe me I and many other MP testers certainly do represent the MP community in ways that are far more effective than adding one more complaint to a thread like this.(this you should be more aware of as I see that you have joined the beta test).

No one is saying that it's not Firaxis's/T2's job to fix the problems, the only thing I've tried to do here is actually educate people on what are the real issues, "MP sucks" is not a accurate statement no matter what the problems, in fact, are. I want to see MP as close to flawless as the next person, but I'd rather be part of the solution, not just one person in the lynching mob

CS

Any *****ing and feedback are what make these sites work But I would like to suggest that the angry mob forms, NOT because of the MP issues, but rather the lack of feedback on them. Civ players are a patient lot by nature, but when you get us addicted to Civ4 MP, then take it away, you should expect some widthdrawl-driven actions