I've been making games work over LANs for over 20 years and I have never had as many problems as I have with this game. I've had to setup IPX dedicated local networks to get spoofed heat hosting to get a game to work, and that was STILL easier than getting this game to work.
I will be asking for a refund if this can't be resolved because I've been waiting since January for this to get better.
For a description of our problems:
Regardless of port handling (forwarding, adjusting which ports the game is on, etc.) hosting and joining games on an internal network (all hooked up to the same network hardware) is very inconsistent. We will have 4 machines (A-D) hooked up at the start of our game. Then we play for 2 hours, then we take a 15 minute break. When we come back, A can no longer host D, but B can host all players. So we say, "ok that's just 2 hours lost" and we start over on B (can't load a game if you aren't the host). We play for 3 hours then take a 20 minute break. We come back and A can no longer join B's game, D still can't join A, and for some reason B can't join C's game. So D tries to host and it all works. We all have the same OSes, the Same Router, the same A/V applications with the same settings.
I've been doing QA and IT for 16 years and getting games to work for 20+. This is insane. We finish up for the night and check again in the morning. This time A can host for everyone again and we can load that game just fine (our first failed attempt the previous night). Eventually, we take a break, then try to load it up again, and sure enough, this time B cannot connect to A. So we load up B's game, everyone can join it. Then we take a break and come back now no one can connect to anyone for any reason.
If I can't figure this out within the next month, I'm just done with this game, and done with your company.
Thanks for the time.
