Investigating Multi-player Issues

[prjw73]

1) Played several battles tonight against a player who does not have any mods installed. No crashes. No airstrikes used. Truce used each time but only after we agreed a truce via chat and immediately accepted the truce, within 1-2 seconds. Truce was requested by the same player in all 4 instances (german player).

2) Test battle to test effects of tanks blowing up on game crashes: approx. 10 tanks blown up in game but this didnot result in a crash. Game ended by truce.

3) Lobby bugs:
After establishing connection with same player (I invited him to host), then going back to lobby and invite player to my hosted game, I could indeed invite player to join my game, but the player had not actually returned to the lobby and the screen froze. When he returned he could not accept my invitation. I don't think it was visible to him. Remarkably, after he returned to the lobby, on the chatline I was displayed as "Commander" rather than with my user name, suggesting we still had a connection established.

Another lobby issue:
Unexpected crash in the lobby. I first established a connection with another player but he aborted. Then, trying to connect to the aforementioned player an error message appeared: "Close Combat encountered an internal error at address 0x415EB5 and will now exit. Game version: 2014.6.24.0 ." Does this number actually correspond with version 1.01?

[STIENER]

wow...hard to believe theres still this many issues with multiplayer and the new lobby after the game been out this long [;)]
nice to see that matrix is going to look into the issues finally.

from the look of how many players are responding to this post from matrix, i would guess that 1] matrix isnt getting the word out that they need feedback to help fix issues. 2] having taken this long to actually look into fixing the multiplayer game and lobby, that allot of players have given up on GWTC and moved on. hope not but........

[PztCrackwise]

I think a considerable amount of players lost their motivation during the week where the servers were faulty and people could not connect to each other. For me at least, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. I realized then what would happen when Matrix games dropped support of the servers (e.g. went bankrupt, sold the game to another company etc.). There would literally be no option to connect to each other in GtC! You see how right the people were who actually wanted to keep the manual TCP/IP connection intact, so that it would server as an alternative to the lobby.

In releases up to LSA, you can connect via manual TCP/IP. If it doesn't work, use gameranger. Still unavailable to connect? Use a Hamachi type of program. In GtC, if the Matrix servers are down, that's it, no other option and you have payed 40 bucks because you only play CC multiplayer.

Apart from that, if you want to have a relatively crash-free multiplayer game at the moment, don't use truce and airstrikes. I would say you will have a much lower crash percentage (perhaps even none?).

[prjw73]

Came across a weird connection issue tonight: After my opponent invited me to join his game and we established a connection, he selected the scenario and then we both hit 'ready' and our statusses turned green. Then he hit Next and the game froze. I had to ctrl-alt-dlt and restart the game.
Tonight was the first time this happened and it happened 3 times in a row when selecting a campaign to play. It did not happen when selecting a single battle. In the end I chose to host a campaign and we played without encountering any further problems. No airstrikes used.
My opponent does not have any mods installed.

I also played against another opponent without encountering issues, of course avoiding airstrikes.

[prjw73]

Last Wednesday we had a crash after taking all VL's and agreeing to a truce. The game froze. Turned out that the game had saved so that we could continue the campaign.
However, the past days I have not been able to login at all. I keep getting the message "Unknown Command Failed. Unknown error."
Another error message that i got again today when trying to login to the lobby says "Unknown Command failed. Your IP has been locked out for 10 minutes." This is not the first time I am getting these error messages.
In my opinion this game is not suited for multiplayer. I have been trying for nearly 2 weeks to have an enjoyable multiplayer experience but I am throwing in the towel. Basically multiplayer in this game is just a laugh.

[PztCrackwise]

Hi Pete, I never heard these "Unknown Command Failed. Unknown error.", "Unknown Command failed. Your IP has been locked out for 10 minutes." type of errors. I seem to be able to log in properly to the lobby at the moment. I haven't heard these issues from another person either. Have you come across other people having this issue?

It may perhaps be specificly related with your connection. Firewall, router etc.

[SteveMcClaire]

When you get the "Unknown Command" or "IP Locked" are you using a Steam version of the game, or the non-Steam version?

Thanks,

Steve

[SteveMcClaire]

Also, an update on the multi-player front. I am making a version of the game with extensive error reporting to help track down the root cause of the problems people are seeing.

Please send me a PM if I don't contract you directly and you'd like to assist in this effort.

Thanks,

Steve

[prjw73]

Hi Steve, I am using the PC version exclusively.
I am not getting the same message when logging into the PiTF lobby.
My priority now is to focus on getting a connection because I have still not been able to connect to the GtC lobby since Thursday or so.

[STIENER]

has matrix thought about cruising the GWTC lobby and asking players there if there having issues? not allot of player feed back here. obviously theres still serious multiplayer issues.

[prjw73]

Hi Steve,

Login problem solved now . Thank you kindly for your help. I am going to continue testing the bugs now.

[STIENER]

steve
can u keep us updated on how things are going with fixing the multi player / lobby issues please.

[PipFromSlitherine]

We are waiting on feedback and data from the players who are having issues. If you have repeatable crashes when playing MP then grabbing the debug versions and replicating the issues would be very helpful.

Cheers

Pip

[PztCrackwise]

Well Pip, it is pretty simple actually. You just load the game among yourselves and start a multiplayer game. Play a couple of battles with this debugger version of yours, call in airstrikes, make truce, offer truce and withdraw it afterwards etc. Do not play where both of the people are at the same location, perhaps that's why you cannot replicate the crashes since your game perhaps acts like a LAN connection or something. Try connecting when you and your opponent are at different locations e.g. your homes. Basically your internal QA team should be replicating the circumstances pretty easily. We have reported the bugs countless times, so you know already which stuff causes crashes and freezes.

If I had a somewhat more relaxed schedule I could offer to test your game. However, it is your responsibility first of all to provide us with a bug-free professionally made game. So please allocate some resources and hire some professional testers to test these things, don't rely solely on casual gamers!

And believe me there are a lot of people interested in multiplayer with this game. I see in the lobby, on steam and on the forums so many people wishing they could have a more reliable and stable multiplayer experience with this game... The people who have trusted you and bought your games deserve it, really.

[PipFromSlitherine]

We have attempted multiple times, with a variety of people, machines, and locations, to replicate these issues with no luck. Thus we need to get information from the wild, where people are seeing the issue, to solve it.

Cheers

Pip

[STIENER]

@ Pztcrackwise = [:)]

[SteveMcClaire]

ORIGINAL: STIENER

steve
can u keep us updated on how things are going with fixing the multi player / lobby issues please.

I asked for information from people who are seeing the problem. Basically the entirety of the feedback I've received is in this thread for all to see. As Pip said, we are trying to reproduce the problems.

If anyone would like to volunteer to assist with this, feel free to PM me.

Steve

[STIENER]

hi steve
perhaps to gather more information to help fix the issues you could drop into the game lobby a few times and ask the players there to help out.
i dont think the word is getting out that your looking to fix the lobby / multiplayer issues.
its awesome your spending the time to fix these issues. so if your going thru all this effort, why not take it one step farther and go to the source and start talking to the players at the lobby?

[SteveMcClaire]

Players who go to the forums and read a thread about 'investigating multiplayer problems' are more likely to have experienced a problem and be interested in helping to find the cause. Players going into the game lobby to play a game are there to play. I don't want to interrupt them to ask if they would like to help test something that will require them to install a special version of the game and then try to reproduce a problem they may never have experienced themselves.

That said, I already have several volunteers and am awaiting bug reports from them once they can reproduce the crashes.

Steve

[STIENER]

OR your going to run into players that are there to play, THAT ARE having issues. see posts above...these guys are there days on end....so to speak...trying to get the game to work.

you dont have to ask them to install another version of the game in all cases. just ask them what issues there having. that may be enough for you to get a better feel for whats going on.

i think most players would welcome you asking about there game play and all around well being. [;)]
as ive mentioned before... i know players who play CC, that never go to the forums to look or post.