Multiplayer Issues - Loading/Joining/Unstable game

Deio

Hello,

I've been playing some 3-man multiplayer this weekend and it's been quite the pain so far. Before you read below, take note that all ports are forwarded correctly and that me and my friends have played every Infinity Engine game together over the past few months.

1. Joining the game - Joining a set up multiplayer game only works about 1/10 times. Sometimes the person joining can't see any characters in character-creation screen and is kicked out of the game after 15 seconds. He's still able to type to the other players. If everyone do make it to the character creation screen and we start a game, most of the time people are simply dropped from the game while we wait for the gameworld to load and they have to rejoin. Loading a game seems to be even buggier and yesterday we spent 2 hours trying to load a game to no avail. This was tested on both TCP/IP (with and without Hamachi) and through Beamdog multiplayer. Sometimes it says "connection terminated" and sometimes the game simply crashes back to desktop. Yesterday, we were unable to get a game going at all and gave up after trying for about 2 hours.

2. Loading games - If you're all in the game and happen to have to reload cause of cleric going crazy and running into a trap, you're in trouble. We haven't managed to reload a single time yet, even though all 3 players are in the game, as soon as you have to reload everyone except the host drops. Players are then unable to rejoin the game and you have to start the process of trying to get all the players into a new game again.

3. Area transitions - Alot better than in BG1:EE atleast. Load times are generally really slow, but we managed to go in and out of the Copper Coronet 3-4 times without anyone dropping (and this is without giving character control to the host). During chapter changes, everyone except the host dropped (even with giving the host character control)

All of the game-bugs we encountered have been reported in the other thread, so I'll leave those. If anyone has managed to get a working game going with more than 2 people, please post any suggestions you have in this thread.

Thank you.

Teirandash

I am also having the same issues, especially with more than 2 players, It seemed that the order in which we joined the game affected how effectively we could get into the game. Joining a MP session would freeze the client (You could tell because the music stopped) and we would have to Cnt+Alt+Del to shut down the game.

The chapter cut scenes would play and then freeze the game. Our host had to play through the cut scene solo, save, and then quit, re-host the game after the scene just so we could continue playing.

When a player disconnected they were unable to rejoin our game in progress (unsure if this is intended or not) but it made it very difficult with an unstable game as it is to continue play to have to quit, rehost and gamble at whether or not we were all going to be able to join the freshly hosted game.

Bump

Deio

Hello Teirandash, the exact same problems as us then. In what order people joined seemed to affect if the game was able to start aswell for us.

Just some more general information about our setup, please post yours aswell.

Player1 - Host
Windows 7
Beamdog client

Player2
Windows 7
Beamdog client

Player3
Windows 7
Beamdog client

Deio

Hello Gate70,

I've read the thread and I follow every step of it.

However, the biggest issue for me is simply getting a game going at all. As soon as players are inside the game and have their characters assigned, things run smoothly as long as you dont have to reload or go through a chapter transition.

I appreciate the advice though, and if you are running a multiplayer sessions with 3 people or more and are not encountering any problems, please post any ideas you got.

Deio

Yes, we recognise alot of the issues from BG1 aswell.

Changing your name everytime you drop out of a session usually solves the "Person X is already in the game" but now a days, we simply just recreate the game if someone drops to eliminate all the hassle.

I also think alot of these issues will be fixed in future patches, but the lack of threads on the forum worries me, as it makes me believe most people are actually getting 3-man multiplayer to work without issues. Thats why I want some more feedback from people.

ChildofBhaal599

Deio said:

Yes, we recognise alot of the issues from BG1 aswell.

Changing your name everytime you drop out of a session usually solves the "Person X is already in the game" but now a days, we simply just recreate the game if someone drops to eliminate all the hassle.

I also think alot of these issues will be fixed in future patches, but the lack of threads on the forum worries me, as it makes me believe most people are actually getting 3-man multiplayer to work without issues. Thats why I want some more feedback from people.

i think it is more that not many people play BG as a multiplayer. most people like filling their party with NPCs and letting them banter, then there are some who use multiplayer just as a way of getting a custom made party for themself. i mostly play with NPCs but I did use multiplayer to make an all mage party then converted it to single player. i am sure that most people are experiencing the issue though

Teirandash

Hey Deio,

We have tried a similar set up to you

With myself hosting

Windows 7
Steam Client

Friend 1
Windows 7
Steam Client

Friend 2
Windows 7
Steam Client

Friend 3
Windows 7
Steam Client

Friend 4
Windows 7
Steam Client

Here is where the trouble comes in though all parties are joining through steam and have the steam version of the game. We have looked at many guides opening ports and it seems like people are just taking shots in the dark.

I was able to find that people were able to join when the game started and it would revert back to the character control screen. People creating their character however would get kicked out of the game after a period of time and have to start their character creation all over.

Deio

Hello again,

Thanks for all the information. Atleast from the people I've spoken to, it's pretty much verified that it doesn't matter if you use beamdog or steam, you still encounter the same problems. I've also tried playing with people on the same network as me, but we still encounter the same issues.

I'd love to hear from people who actually manage to get 3-man (or more) multiplayer games going without any issues.

Shamelessly tagging you @cuv , since you seem to be in on the multiplayer bits of the game.

Cuv

I have been trying out the MP, yes

I tried some public MP games, and created a few. I am using Win 7 Ultimate and the Beamdog client. Here are my observations:

Successes for MP -
1. The host needs to have a really good internet connection
2. Joining players should also have good connection
3. All players need the exact same setup and ini settings
4. Mods can cause problems if they are not the EXACT same setup
5. Custom scripts worked, even cheat scripts for players joining my game. I had one person who was using a custom cre with some old vamp/VENOM scripts (dueling, old school) that didn't cause problems. We played for 5+ hours in BGEE and he only got booted once near the end of our session.

Problems and causes - players getting booted unexpectedly, my musings:
1. Steam and Beamdog versions may have slight differences that cause this. I don't know, but I seemed to have the best success when using beamdog with others using beamdog client. Probably the same is true for Steam users only accepting other Steam users, I don't know.
2. Players with Win 8.1 seemed to get booted much more often than others. Win 8 seemed to work fine before the upgrade.
3. Players with vista got booted often, but I only encountered on person who was using that. No problems with XP sp2 observed.
4. Players with wifi connections got booted more often, check your bars, heh.

Not sure what can be done about much of the above problems. It's really a matter of choosing your game carefully and being prepared. Make sure you have a good internet connection and all the players who will be joining coordinate to have the same game setup exactly. I would suggest creating closed games where you have a game password rather than letting random people join you.

I also had trouble with more than three people, but there were so many factors that I can't guarantee they didn't have some ini setting that I didn't have. This may or may not be helpful, but we are looking into the problems for sure!