Multiplayer still crashes

Close Combat - Gateway to Caen : Tech Support

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major_rud
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Multiplayer still crashes

Post by major_rud »

Hi Steve and all it might concern,

Me and my friend have been playing Close combat multi player since the since CC 4. I my self have bought every CC games since Close Combat 1.

When it runs and works fine i still believe that CC is the most realistic and challenging game there is and in my opinion it is developed as a multi player game and not as a single player game since the AI always have been rubbish.

My problem is recently we tried to give Caen a second chance we thought that now, a game that's been on the market for almost two years must be fully up and running, all issues fixed with patches and updates. We sadly still have the issue that the game is extremely unstable in multi player and the games breaks down or one of us are disconnected... I am extremely disappointed. People pay big money for a game and expect it to work... We have not received any value for our money.

Of cause it might be that one or both of us is doing something wrong. In which case I would like to apologise for my comment and ask for assistance so we can have the game work on our pcs.

In any case next time you release a new Close Combat let it run as a beta, so when people buy the alpha the game will run stable. This is what you expect when you buy a product.

Looking forward to hear from you.
A CC fan
Housies
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by Housies »

Same thing here. Tried connecting to another player 3 times but we timed out on each occasion and received the connection lost message.
SteveMcClaire
Matrix
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by SteveMcClaire »

major_rud wrote:Hi Steve and all it might concern,
My problem is recently we tried to give Caen a second chance we thought that now, a game that's been on the market for almost two years must be fully up and running, all issues fixed with patches and updates. We sadly still have the issue that the game is extremely unstable in multi player and the games breaks down or one of us are disconnected... I am extremely disappointed. People pay big money for a game and expect it to work... We have not received any value for our money.
That does sound frustrating -- the game is generally stable in multiplayer, so I'm not sure what is causing the issue you are seeing, but there have been several updates since release. I would recommend making sure you and your opponent both have the latest patches (available from www.matrixgames.com or applied automatically if you're using the Steam version of the game) and that you're playing without any mods to the base game.

A couple of other things to try:

* Start a brand new game. If this is an old saved game file it is possible the file is corrupted somehow.

* Have the host player open their firewall / router for incoming connections on the game port 1944. This will allow the client to make a direct connection to the host machine and avoid the overhead of using the Slitherine routing servers. If this is successful you will see "DIRECT CONNECTION" on the Multi-player screen after connecting to your opponent. If not, it will say "LOBBY CONNECTION."

* Shut down as many other network-intensive apps on your machines as you can, and be sure no one else is running a large download / upload, just to make sure bandwidth isn't an issue.

* Try temporarily turning off any security / anti-virus software, just to be sure it's not blocking connections for some reason.

* Switch which of you is hosting and who is joining and see if that makes a difference.

* Try playing single battles instead of a campaign or operation -- the amount of data exchanged is much less and if you are reliably able to play a battle but not a large campaign there may be a reliability / throughput issue.

* Try connecting to other players to see if it is something specific between you and your current opponent.

If none of these help us narrow down the source of the problem, we can start looking at your Windows version or other configuration-related issues.

Thanks,

Steve

Steve
major_rud
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by major_rud »

Wow thats a lot of things one have to do to run this game in MP... But whatever we need, we'll do....

It was a new game and we do both have steam and no mods. So guess newest patch...

* Have the host player open their firewall / router for incoming connections on the game port 1944. - port 1944? Don't know what this means.... In the old CC games we could play MP if we used Hamachi. With other games we play MP we don't have any problems. So I'm not aware what it means...
SteveMcClaire
Matrix
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by SteveMcClaire »

To clarify, I posted a list of possible troubleshooting steps. None of these are 'necessary' to play the game multi-player in most cases. It's not a list of 'try all these at once' but rather a list of things to try one at a time and check the results, in an attempt to narrow down the source of the problem.

Hamachi is a relay service that acts much like the current Gateway to Caen lobby system, and both avoid the need for an inbound connection and opening ports in your router/firewall. I suggested you try a direct connection to see if this improves performance and reliability for you and your opponent, but doing this is a bit technical if you're not familiar with the process. Here is an article on the general procedure -- I am sure you can find others more specific to your router via Google:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/244314/h ... outer.html

Did you try any of the other steps I suggested, and what were the results if so?

Thanks,

Steve
yerDEAD
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by yerDEAD »

Hey Steve,

We are having the same issue. Been playing via the lobby connection as we have never been able to get the direct connection established. Recently, the game is hanging on receiving data and won't load completely. It is very slow in the lobby and sometimes we cannot see each other in the lobby.

Have there been changes to the lobby or server hosting the lobby?

Can we get some direct help getting the direct connection working ie. opening the ports properly etc...

yD
pipfromslitherine
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by pipfromslitherine »

yerDEAD wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 6:39 pm Hey Steve,

We are having the same issue. Been playing via the lobby connection as we have never been able to get the direct connection established. Recently, the game is hanging on receiving data and won't load completely. It is very slow in the lobby and sometimes we cannot see each other in the lobby.

Have there been changes to the lobby or server hosting the lobby?

Can we get some direct help getting the direct connection working ie. opening the ports properly etc...

yD
When was the most recent instance of your connection hangs etc?

Cheers

Pip
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mukikakku
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by mukikakku »

Dear Tech Support,

I used to play close combat years ago and I’m still great fan of the series. As a matter of fact, I’m such a great fan that I bought not one but two licenses for the Close combat: Gateway to Caen and installed it onto both of my laptops. Apart from occasional bootcamping (not really interested in playing against the poorly performing AI), my main goal was to setup an ongoing, regular head-to-head grand campaign with a friend utilizing the multiplayer feature of the game.
Now, I’m quite sure it comes as no surprise to you, I have been sorely disappointed with implementation of the multiplayer feature of the game. When attempting to register in the multiplayer lobby I just get: “register new user failed. lobby system error.”
I (and I imagine many others as well) have paid for a multiplayer feature that works. With “works” I mean a fast, reliable connection whenever the user wants. When I commit to a grand campaign with tens of hours of my (and friend’s) valuable time I need to be 100% sure I have no crashes, saving works reliably etc. to put it simply you don’t deliver what I (and many others) have paid for.

While I know this might be futile, I would still like to make a suggestion: As it seems that you don’t have necessary resources for a properly implemented online multiplayer how about developing (or allowing someone to develop) an add-on /upgrade that would allow a local multiplayer via a LAN connection or otherwise completely bypassing the lobby server. I’m not into coding myself but I imagine a bugfree multiplayer is much easier to accomplish via LAN than an online solution. Personally, I have little or no use for lobby / matchmaking etc. as I organize my own matchmaking inhouse.

When suggesting solution(s) please remember: multiplayer that works sometimes is even worse user experience than a multiplayer that never works. The multiplayer has to be reliable.
Please give this a game a chance,
make it work.
pipfromslitherine
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by pipfromslitherine »

Our experience is that the MP is reliable for >most< people. But we know the sometimes things fail. If you are able to post here then you have registered an account and should now be able to play. We know there are some registration issues that can occur when the limitations for usernames etc are not fully explained in the client.

You are able to set up a direct connection to your opponent (once the game has been started) if the host opens the appropriate port on their router, which should solve any connection issues. I see you mirrored this to the Matrix forum, so please let us know there any specifics on the issues you are seeing.

Cheers

Pip
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Kinskinho
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by Kinskinho »

Hello developers of the fantastic CC, I regularly play GTC online, historically when we were able to connect to the online game we celebrated like a goal, sometimes it takes the whole process longer: try, restart, change host, restart the system that the match itself, but do what, what choice do I have? I am playing through this drama year after year, but this month I am not getting even this, I am not being able to connect with any opponent and I see that this happens to everyone, the server is down?

Note: I do not know and I did not want to keep opening doors like 1944 ... but I suspect that this is not working too.

thx
pipfromslitherine
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Re: Multiplayer still crashes

Post by pipfromslitherine »

There was an error that happened on the backend recently. This should now have been fixed and the problem resolved. Sorry for any hassles.

Cheers

Pip
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