Late Thursday connectivity update verdicts

This happened to me as well for every game I tried to play last night.

[this as as matchmaking failed] Every single game I tried.

Custom games work great.

It is impossible for me to join a Panthon game. It tries to connect me with 5 other people, then when things are all looking good (everyone connected to everyone else), I am booted out and I get the error "You have been kicked because the matchmaking service has failed".

I have sent my Impulsereactor and Demigod log files to you, Frogboy - as requested last night on IRC.

Played a couple of games. Access for all was almost instantaneous. Game starts no issue. 2 weeks ago the same game would have taken in excess of an hour to start and we may have failed in the process

Well done guys now lets get to moving this game forward - demos, coupon, favor points more gods/maps etc

Tals

p.s I think coupon and demo are quite closely related

wauw as i read this... i am the only one not able to connect to anything... have firewall off, ports forwarded, and tried going with only my internet router but still gets error could not connect to NAT facilitator.
with last patch i had splendid speed and connecting rate but this i think is so weird when i am the only one.
From denmark

I would say it is 11 Million times better for me. I have only played custom games so far though, need to try Pantheon.

No improvement really. Sure I get in faster but the lobby with people connecting to each other is still very sketchy.

-The playername issue, players showing up as "playername" in connecting list.

-Players still are unable to connect , 0 ping issue is still there and happens often.

-Many nat facilitator errors when trying to enter a games lobby.

-Also if I use NAT exe optimizer where you specify ports the game wont connect to anyone. Not sure why that is, been like that for a few patches. My ports are forwarded on the router and worked before.

Overall I couldn't get a game going for 10-15 min so I just stopped trying. I'm not spending 30 min any more trying to play a custom game when I know my pc and router are setup fine and i'm using 7mbit cable.

Everything is working good for myself. I seem to join lobbies faster, as it has been since the beta patch. Things seem a bit more chaotic in lobbies now, but alot of that seems to be people getting used to the new system, and being a bit quick to quit looking for a instant connection game.

On the bad side, I am seeing alot more people in games I am joining who are failing to connect. I think I have started about 10 pantheon matches since the latest patch, and all but 1 had 2v2 trying to set up, with 1 person who couldn't connect to anyone. The same thing everytime. Not sure if its the people trying to connect, or a new bug where one slot just always fails. It might just be that a large number of people who were having connection issues before, are trying the new patch and still failing, making it seem more frequent.

Custom games lobbywise have been working as good as since the last beta patch, but once in game, players dropping has become epidemic. They can't all be ragequiters.

Enjoy your anniversary Frogboy.

I cannot connect to anyone since the new update. see also http://forums.impulsedriven.com/347837/get;2207157 I was able to play before Thursday, I could connect and get into the lobby and play but with the new update... I cannot. It wasn't 100%, I still had my connection problems now and then, but now I can't play online at all. Your update made things worse, at least for me...

I can't say that I can see any change of any kind.
I've tried a bunch of games in Pantheon, Custom Game and Skirmish and there always seems to be one person that my connection gets 'stuck' trying to connect to, and it ruins it. I have managed to play zero games on this new patch.
I'm sure you did a lot of work behind the scenes, however this doesn't appear to have helped me at all I'm sorry to say.

Looking forward to these reflection/proxy servers getting 'turned on' and maybe GPG doing some stuff on their end, if all that fails I'm going to have to call it a day on Demigod, which pains me. Fingers crossed for the future!

Before the patch I was able to play Pantheon games somewhat reliably -- not 100% of the time, but I could usually get in after two or three tries. I tried to connect something like ten times last night and only got into one. Most of them blew up with the message "the matchmaking service has failed" after everyone had been trying to connect for a minute or two. In some cases it looked like everyone was connected, although most times there was one person who couldn't connect to anyone. I've sent my logs to Stardock, hopefully they help.

(EDIT) In case it matters, I get my Internet through the Seattle branch of Qwest DSL.

Not a lot of problems connecting to people, I get occasionals connected but at 0ms tho. Last two games tho, many drops, specially on the last one where it seemed to have dropped me and filled the slots with AI.

Well, prior to this update I was at least able to play... It seems like for me the connectivity issues have gotten worse every single patch. Here's what's going on with this patch:

I'll click to join a game, immediately connect to the host, but the host won't be able to connect back to me. It just sits at "Waiting to connect to: Meta" until I decide to give up or I get kicked. I've tried this with and without my ports forwarded, and with and without my windows firewall enabled, all with the same results.

Just some background info: I use a Qwest 1.5Mb DSL connection (I know it's slow, but i've played the game fine in 4v4's online before), my PC is fairly high end (Runs the game at sim speed 9 or 10).

100% worse here. I've been staying away from multiplayer for the last two weeks while I waited for things to settle out, but now I can not connect at all. Release day, I had no problems (aside from overloaded servers). I'm running on a D-Link DIR-655, Vista 64, Norton Internet Security 2009. As of right now, 10:15 EST Friday, Pantheon and Skirmish sit there flaking out and custom games will spit back the 'Could not connect to NAT Facilitator' error message, both hosting and attempting to join.

I've port fowarded 6000-6200 (UDP and TCP), disabled SPI, enabled Multicast streams, enabled WAN ping respond, enabled uPNP (previously enabled anyway, and IIRC not used by Demigod) and turned off all OS security including Norton. Also tried tossing myself onto the router DMZ with no change. Please, tell me if there's a setting I'm missing somewhere.

My current plan is to try again with full security, just for laughs. Then I'll remove the router from the equation, and uninstall NIS after that. I'm on a limited testing window today, though. *sigh* I really wanted to play DG online again. Ah well. I have faith it'll work again, I'm just a bit frustrated ATM.

Edit for extra info:

Comcast 6/1 Hardwire connection
Vista 64 SP1
Quick Rig specs: Core i7 920, Radeon 4870, 6 GB RAM. The rig ain't hurtin' for power

Well, after the latest patch, I'm back to being unable to connect to any game - panthenon, custom or skirmish.

Ah well

it is so good that i can not connect to any game again.

I'm one of the users that hasn't experienced the problem directly from the beginning. However, that being said, I noticed everyone negotiating with each other much faster than before. There was still an occassional person that was not negotiating however I believe this only happened once (luck? - I dunno).

The only time I experienced the NAT error message was when a patch went live when I was online. Updated and all was smooth.

All games were 3v3 except for one, which was 2v2....

Awesome game! Great communication!! Really appreciate your efforts and the insight into the technical and not-so technical problems you're encountering and how you're dealing with them!

As an update to an earlier post:

I'll be damned. For laughs I set my router and computer back to full paranoia mode and was able to connect. Time to start testing router settings. one. by. one.

I'd like to officially beg for a way to tell what connection method the game is using. I know it's coming, but it would be really helpful now. Ah well, in any case, I can play again! Woo!

Well, after the latest patch, I'm back to being unable to connect to any game - panthenon, custom or skirmish.

Just +1.

And also, it could be very possible that this category of "cannot connect to anything" players like us renders pantheon unusable. About in 80% tries I could see at least 1 another stuck in "Waiting to connect to" player, and this means that there's quite a lot of such players - and even one of them will ruin the would-be-game with "matchmaking service has failed" error.

Custom Games work awesome now (and have for sometime).

I think favor is actually working for me now. Items purchased seem to save and favor seems to be working right.

Pantheon and Skirmish still take forever to find a match/game. Haven't been able to actually get in a game in awhile (since the patching started).

At any rate....Happy Anniversary! Take the weekend off! You need it!

who needs players when you have 5v5 AI games

Sniff , i don t want to rouin the mood , Frogboy , but me too

I can t connect anymore on Pantheon , and on some Custom games

i never had connection problem , until now , ever in the beta

=> For pantheon

3 player find + me

I connect to player A , player B , but not player C

Then , player C dissapear

After, player B dissapear

then player A , and the message "you have been disconnected because the matchmaking service has failed" or something like this

i had the same message 7 times in a row

One step forward, two steps back. I can still connect to a good bunch of the players in Pantheon, the connection info is actually showing something but so far there still is at least one player I can't connect to and the matchmaking is unsuccessful. Then finally one Pantheon game loads - and I'm matched up with 5 AIs. I guess that means I dropped from the original match.

If I have my firewall on I get a report about an opentear attack. Switched it off, no improvement, disabled autoload at startup, again with no success.

The beta patch from last week worked okay in Pantheon and i was able to play a few nice Pantheon games.

Oh, and the 'demigod is stuck/abilities don't fire' bug is back it seems...

Careful question: Do players have to continue as beta testers with daily game updates ?

Quoting soultaker,

reply 2

It hasn't been a good experience for me. Constant "0ms" pings in the lobby, even with ports forwarded.

Quoting Zechnophobe, reply 1We had one person who had connection problems, but he was replaced very quickly.
lol.

Quoting Protocept00, reply 22Frogboy, any problems I've had with the online connectivity are completely erased. You guys did an excellent job and I commend both Stardock and GPG and everyone else (you know, the coffee makers, spouses, and donut chains) involved in making this work.

The main thing however, that I have noticed recently with the new updates... is that now we got a bunch of people who join 4vs4s and 5vs5s thinking that the update is gonna somehow resolve their slow internet connection speeds. This is obviously nothing that is within Stardocks control as it is usually an uneducated user trying to play 5vs5 on a shit connection, thinking/hoping that new update makes internet speeds better or something.

I suggest making a guideline though for newer players to see detailing appoximately how much upload and download bandwidth is required for each amount of players involved (2vs2, 3vs3, etc). So that users don't join 5vs5s thinking it is somehow Stardocks fault that their connections speeds are slow. Obviously a user like this probably wouldn't know any better, but I think establishing a guideline would help newer players understand what they are capable of with their internet connections in regards to Demigod.

Also, maybe a "Demigod News" section in the multiplayer screen would be excellent. A poster somewhere in these forums already suggested it, so I don't want to take his credit... but it sounds like an excellent thing to do. Newer/causual players wouldn't know anything about the Demigod website and forums, so having a news feed come up when first logging into Demigod multiplayer would greatly help and improve their experience. They could read your blogs and stay abreast of updates and connectivity progress just like we at the Demigod site can.
You might be on to something. I can generally play 3v3 games fine. The rare 4v4 or higher and my ping to everyone starts to spike. I'm on a high end rig (cI7 920, GTX 260/c216, 6gb ram), so it has nothing to do with that. My internet connection isn't even terrible -- it should be able to handle 4v4 and up (3.0/356 DSL in Atlanta). No downloads/uploads running in the background while I play. Is it possible that this game is bottlenecking my upload in large games?

From http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ -- Download Speed: 2911 kbps (363.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 308 kbps (38.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Your computer definitely isn't the problem. But that's about what my old upload connection was and I could only play up to 2vs2 fine. I am surprised you are even able to play 3vs3. Once I upgraded my connection (including upload speed), I now can play 5vs5 flawlessly, as far as my own pings and such go. So you might want to look into that, or atleast bargain with your ISP for more upload speed. Since Demigod is p2p upload speed is what is more important than download speed.

Edit: After rereading your post, I saw that you said YOUR pings are really high with everyone but only 4vs4 and up, in that case, it is definitely the upload speed. I had the same exact problem, but after upgrading my connection and making sure that new upload speed was enough, I can play games just fine. Too be honest though, 5vs5 is not what it is cracked out to be. lol. SO far from what I've experienced, it is just a disorganized mess with no teamwork whatsoever. I honestly prefer 3vs3 even after upgrading my connection.

First, the good news from this patch:

Connecting to other players is lightning fast now, and barring any of the weirdness I listed below, games have the potential to start within a minute or so.

Other then that, I had a harder time trying to connect last night then normal.

I could not get in a Pantheon game at all last night.

The first time, I was host and the list showed 5 people trying to connect including me. When I dropped the 5th who hadn't connected to anyone, the game crashed.

I logged back in and tried to get in another and I got the connection window but no players where listed. I tried again and got into another connection list and it also had 5 people trying to connect, so I dropped. When I tried again, I got a blank connection window. My last attempt actually had 6 trying to connect and we all connected to each other and then we just sat at the connection screen for a couple minutes. Then people started leaving.

I abandoned pantheon games and tried my luck with custom. I joined one match that was aiming for 5v5. We looked good to go, 10 people connected up and with minimal latency, then when only one more person was about to click ready, the connection to the host timed out. When I rejoined the same match, everyone was trying to reconnect, so I just gave up and looked for another match.

I found a 4v4 but my latency was in the 700's to all of them. Which is strange, because in past matches, I've connected with people overseas and it was never higher then 200's. Needless to say, the host kicked me when I couldn't resolve the latency.

My final try for custom was successful with a 3v3 match.

That was my Thursday night experiences.

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Late Thursday connectivity update verdicts