Matrix Games Forums

well I bought GWTC after almost a year of waiting for all the bugs and stuff to be ironed out. I have a brand new PC with windows 8.1 64 bit.
I don't know what to say really....what a damn disappointment...not with the game per say...haven't had time yet to give it a good go...I spent the day trying to connect to the damn multiplayer lobby. what a joke. still theres connection issues and no one around to play on it.
1st off I tried to join a game with a player and we had lobby freezes when I joined his game. he hosted. the message that comes up was connecting to your opponent and then we would hear...connection established..but the lobby would freeze there and we would have to control..alt ..delete out.
we tried this a few times then I turned off my firewall. now im led to believe from other posts that my windows firewall should have nothing to do with connecting to a game thru this type of lobby. am I right??? well after I shut off my windows firewall, were able to connect and start a game.
we played a battle for about 5 minutes ..then the game crashed on my end with ...close combat engine executable has stopped working... error message. so we lobbied up again and were able to connect [ my firewall still being off ] and play again for a few minutes till my opponent had to leave abruptly.
there was no else in the lobby to try to connect with at that point. [ cant figure out why the lobby nots full of CC players??????? }

a few hours later I contacted my buddy RD Knights by e mail and we hooked up to try the lobby again. Knights told me and I read on the forums that there has been lobby issues. they haven't gone away since the game came out apparently ;-(
so were in the lobby, my firewall is back on, he hosts...we have the same issue as earlier...connecting to your opponent message comes up...we hear connection established.. but the lobby freezes. we have to use...control ..alt..delete ...to get out of the game/lobby!
I turn my firewall off and we try again. we are able to connect, but when we go to hit next from the command screen after he has selected the battle and sides etc the command screen is frozen...none of the buttons work..IE: next, exit, etc. we have to control alt delete again.
we try it again and are able to play a few battles with no game issues.
we drop out to try to connect with my firewall ON and have lobby / connection issues again. turn firewall off and we get to the command screen and have it freeze... buttons freeze.

at that point we gave up in disgust. Knights had to go and no one else was in the lobby for me to try and figure out some of this crap / stuff. I still am not sure whats up with the whole issue...weather my firewall is an issue or its just that damn lobby....was / is the lobby acting up????
what a disappointment. unbelievable really. I paid good money for this game only to be let down once again.

so whats going on? steve? any ideas here? why am I having issues? are you guys going to fix the lobby so it actually works like its supposed to?
we asked for you guys not to take away TCP. you promised the lobby would work..........

bump

Having the same issue as of this afternoon. Both of us using the Steam version, both getting frozen in the "connecting to opponent..." phase.

The bug is back?
Damn,
Worked fine last week (20/8).

I know it's not much help but sometimes, the next day everything works fine. So you might wanna try again?

STIENER,

We are investigating but haven't been able to reproduce the unreliable connections some users are seeing.

Are you using the Steam version of the game? Do you know what version Knights has?


Note that when the host selects a new game file at the command screen, there can be a delay of several seconds while the new scenario is created (especially for massive scenarios like the Grand Campaign.) If you're not already, you might try waiting ten or twenty seconds just in case the host is running very slowly for some reason.

Steve

Steve.....I was hosting and I have a fairly high-speed cable connection. This is the same problem as Hetser and I have experienced, and that I have explained in another thread.

Some thoughts:
1) Is GtC game hosted on a common server with other games? If so, Is there a way of monitoring traffic on that server to see if its capacity is being exceeded?
2) The game has a tendency to "stall" if once players are in the game, and while they are in the grand campaign strategic screen deciding on movement, and they take more than a few minutes to execute orders. Does the game server time out players if no apparent game executions occur in a period of time? If so, how many minutes do you have to execute orders?
3) This "non connection" issue has been an intermitent problem for me. My usual game play window is from 1930 (GMT -8) to 2100 (GMT -8) originating from the Los Angeles area. And I have usually hosted the game.

steve
im not using the steam version of the game. were waiting minutes sometimes for things to happen and nothing does happen and the game is frozen...nothing works. no buttons nothing. we have to ctrl ..alt..delete

oh ya...what about my firewall theory?? with win 8.1, could the firewall be causing a connection issue? or am I just imagining it?

A few minutes should definitely be long enough.

This problem sounds more like a loss of synchronization between host and client (or inviter and invitee) where one side sends a message and starts waiting for a response, but the other side either never gets the message, or it's response never arrives. And the one side ends up waiting for something the other side doesn't even know about.

It's possible that firewalls could be involved, but the way it is intermittent makes me suspect not. Normally a firewall either blocks all your traffic or it blocks none. I wouldn't expect it to happen sporadically.

The one thing the firewall definitely could effect is what sort of connection you make to your opponent. A direct connection can happen when the host has port 1944 open for incoming connections, and this is more efficient than a lobby connection. A direct connection is made automatically as long as the host player has this port open -- if it works you'll see 'DIRECT CONNECTION' on the lobby screen after you get connected to your opponent. If not it will say 'LOBBY CONNECTION.' Note that this will only influence performance /after/ you've connected to your opponent, so it won't have any effect on the problem of connecting in the first place.

As for the back-end, I don't know the full details of how much traffic and/or bandwidth that has, sorry. We are continuing to look into this though.

Steve

Hi There

1) Bought the Steam version of the game a week or so ago. I've played CC from the first incarnation with my friend in Florida. We've had similar problems with Gateway to Caen. The "connecting to your opponent" freeze then multiple kill tasks to get to a connection that works. We've tried re-launching Steam as well as re-launching the game and whether you get a connection seems totally random. Is there any chance that there is an issue with the lobby element itself?

2) Is someone from Matrix monitoring the lobby as some people ... including myself have posted issues to there as well?

3) It's truly a brilliant game and deserves to be played more widely... but is there a way that the multiplayer can be made more robust so this can happen?

Epishade

steve
last week the connection worked well for RD knights and I, I haven't been back since, but plan to this week, but I see from the above post its acting up yet again.
I had my firewall ON and we hooked up fine like I said. we will keep u updated if we have more issues.

There are a number of issues in this thread from what I can see. Some people are failing to see each other in the lobby, others are failing to connect when trying to start a game. Is this correct?

Cheers

Pip

im going to say yes pip.

ORIGINAL: PipFromSlitherine

There are a number of issues in this thread from what I can see. Some people are failing to see each other in the lobby, others are failing to connect when trying to start a game. Is this correct?

Cheers

Pip

The most frequent one is the following:
You see another player in the lobby, click host, my friend accepts and then everything freezes. Ctrl+Alt+Del is the only solution to get out of it.
Afther numerous times, it will connect eventually, but its so damn frustrating.

Connection is also lost often at the end of a battle. But as the battle result is saved upon the end of a battle, at least the result is not lost.
Its more frustrating when it crashes mid game, but its also less frequent.

Housies, are you and your opponent running with ports open (direct connection) or not?

Cheers

Pip

ORIGINAL: PipFromSlitherine

Housies, are you and your opponent running with ports open (direct connection) or not?

Cheers

Pip

I have no idea how this port stuff works. Running on standard settings.
I don't have direct connection I believe.

Housies,

In both these situations a fair amount of data is being transferred from the host to the client. This can take some time, and should show you a progress bar while it's in progress. Regardless, if you want a few minutes and the game does not resume then yes, there is a problem.

You might test if the amount of data transfer is related to the issue by playing a single battle (which transfers the least amount of data) and seeing if you get consistently better results that way.

If the host player opens Port 1944 for inbound connections (through their router and/or firewall) you can use a direct connection which is much faster in terms of data exchange, and may help with this problem. You would need to look at the documentation (or Google) for your router or firewall for how to do this.

Steve