What can i expect from stardock online?

Well it's called Ironclad Online first of all...
You can expect to be completely unable to host games, with no way to jump through enough hoops to fix what should be a working function at launch.
You can expect disconnects every other game.
You can expect players quitting after minimal setbacks an hour into a game.
And you can expect frustration beyond compare at why Ironclad Online is so ridiculously broken in every regard.


It's so annoying because playing a successful online game of Sins is the most rewarding experience I've ever had. But the devs need to GET IT TOGETHER in their next patch and figure out what the **** is wrong with their online component.

Heh I'm fanboi as they come, but Pitah may be right I had plenty of issues myself. I am still positive overall however.

Haven't played too many games online, and I sympathize with the problems other people are having, but note that the technical issues aren't universal.

At least, things are working fine for me, and worked fine for me out of the box.

I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous, Pitah7. Ironclad Online is by no means perfect, but it does work and hundreds of people are using it just fine. Just because you may have trouble doesn't mean that the vast majority does.

If you're having ICO problems:

1) Set up your PC with a static IP address so that you don't lose your settings or have to go back into your router to change the IP every time.

2) If you're using a software-based firewall or something more draconian like Norton Internet Security, let Sins of a Solar Empire.exe access the Internet and open ports 6000 through 6112 on TCP/UDP.

3) If you're using a router with a firewall, setup Port Forwarding for ports 6000 through 6112 on TCP/UDP for your PC's IP address or enable UPnP which should also work.

Sometimes other programs like anti-virus, anti-spyware, Windows Defender, also block ICO access for reasons unknown. Try switching them off if the above doesn't work. 

If you still have issues, please email [email protected] outlining your network architecture, what you have tried, what the specific errors are and we'll work with you to figure it out.

Just get some friends together and use Hamachi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi ). It emulates a LAN network. Get everyone connected to your Hamachi server and host a non-Ironclad online multiplayer game. The people connecting will have to use your Hamachi IP (not your normal one) which is listed by your name in the Hamachi window. Never had any problems with it, nor did anyone connecting. It's way more reliable than the matchmaking service. The only reason I see not to use it is if you don't know enough people with Sins to get a game going. I guess you could ask people in the chat room if they want to play then give them your hamachi info.

I honestly hope, for your sake and mine, that you don't believe ICO is working properly Yarien.

I have never had such a headache trying to host games. I recommended this game to a bunch of friends of mine (hopefully not a mistake, we'll see), and not a single one of them has been able to decipher how to simply host a game.

I have successfully hosted games in Warcraft 3, Dawn of War, company of heros, star wars empire at war, rome/medieval total war, and starcraft. NONE of them have given me anywhere near this amount of headache, and half of those are hosted on GAMESPY.

I have the latest firmware for my router
I have enabled UPnP in my router settings
I have forwarded ports 6000 to 6112 in my router settings
I have SSDP and UPnP set to automatic
I have windows firewall disabled, and have no antivirus or antispyware installed


I like SINS very much, and it IS a new game so I plan to stick it out a while, but I truly hope that you guys at ICO and stardock can figure out a solution to this mess. The blame is not entirely on the host's end.

I couldn't host on my home network, but then I didn't have a lot of time to mess around with it. I've never had problems with joining other peoples games, and here at school(where I was expecting my college to have all the ports blocked and what not) I have absolutly no trouble hosting or joining games. I think it is a case of like most forums, the people having troubles come and complain, and the people with no problems just play the game and never say anything, causing there to be an illusion that "everyone" is having problems.

I would say there is enough truth to that your point is quite valid.

However, I will also say on the other side that I have not seen another RTS game of recent years that has so many posts about hosting and general multiplayer issues--this is something "special" with SINS.

Lol I've
Lol I've tried it with my PC directly connected to my DSL modem with an ethernet cable so everything gets forwarded to my PC no matter what and also disabled any software firewalls and I still get constant problems. So I gave up on IC online and just play with friends on Hamachi. But it's not like any other game does it better. CoH is probably the most popular RTS these days with the most financial backing and their online service is just as bad as Ironclad's. I can't remember any RTS' that have had good online services since Blizzard's Starcraft and WC3.

I agree with Legerdemain (liking sleight reference btw) up there and back up Yarlen. Hosting and joining has been pretty painless for me from the beginning and I haven't had to muck about with the port settings.

Of course there are the games on there that have the d/c from game server problem when you try to join because of improper setup, but if you have played Warcraft 3 online or WoW before, then your ports should be set up properly already as Sins uses the same port as Battle.net. ICO actually uses TCP port 6000 (some threads have said you have to do both TCP/UDP but I have not found that to be the case) to connect and port triggering is not enough for both port 6112 and 6000, have to forward both ports, but I actually managed to join and host games without doing any of those.

I finally decided to go ahead and make sure those ports were forwarded through my router and firewall just to make sure that most people who wanted to join could join since ICO kept on telling me that my settings were such that people would not be able to join my games. Well they could join even before I forwarded the ports, and ICO still gives me the same message after I had forwarded the ports, go figure, but I myself have had no problems.

Ironclad online will sometimes give false positives about people not being able to join your games but in most cases, it works fine.

On my home Comcast setup, I just port forwarded 6112 TCP to my box (same as I did for CoH) and it just works, people could join no problem. I do, however, get that annoying warning when I create games.

Hey Stardocker.
Ironclad Online is "by no means perfect", or, to put it another way, "by no means acceptable" for a commercial game. Sorry - that's the truth. I have been an RTS gamer online since the days of using Kali for a hosting program (that's circa-Warcraft 2 era for the youngsters) and Sins of a Solar Empire has the WORST online functionality I have ever seen.

Yarlen, this is not exaggeration. You need to accept the fact that IO has SERIOUS FUNCTIONALITY ISSUES for your average customer, so that you can take steps to fix it.

I, and most others, do not want to have to mess with port settings (which I have tried BTW) to play a game out of the box. I HAVE NEVER HAD TO DO THAT BEFORE, and don't want to start now.

Sorry if you find this "ridiculous" - I find it "frustrating".

AND I REPEAT: I AM STILL A FAN OF IRONCLAD, SINS, AND THIS FORUM. BEING ABLE TO EXPRESS CONCERNS AND GET RESPONSES IN A PUBLIC FORUM FROM COMPANY EMPLOYEES IS AWESOME, AND SOMETHING MORE DEVELOPERS SHOULD DO. I LOVE YOU GUYS, BUT SOME TOUGH LOVE IS IN ORDER!!

Thanks,
Pitah7

I think Sins is a great game, and playing against humans is a great experience. However, I am experiencing some trouble staying connected during long games and have disconnected after about 2-3 hours in both of the last epic games. This is very irritating because I always seem to disconnect just as I am closing on an enemy homeworld after winning many hard fought battles.

I have played many, many games multiplayer and rarely disconnect. Hopefully ICO will take seriously posts expressing trouble staying connected, hosting, or just being able to get online working because there do seem to be some compatibility issues out there (not everyone is using it just fine, there are many complaints here and in the lobby almsot all the time). Most new games have these sorts of issues and the ones with long-term multiplayer success are the ones that fix the majority of problems with patches. The ones who refuse to fix the issues or dismiss them as unimportant are usually the ones that lose their audience all too quickly..

Stardock Online is just the way you get the game. Kinda like Steam, in a way. It seems to do other stuff, but I'm not sure what.

Pitah: No one is denying that you are having problems connecting.  Nor is anyone denying anyone else who says they are having problems.

But we also know that the vast VAST majority of users are not experiencing problems.  That doesn't mean we think ICO is perfect. Each update will make it better and better.  But it's not fair to say that ICO is "broken" as a generalization simply because you're having problems with it.

I've been playing multiplayer for years as well and know the pain. To this day, for example, I can't host a Cokpany of Heroes game on my home machine and I don't know why. Yet I can host it fine on my work machine - which you'd think would be harder given the firewall.  But am I going to claim that Company of Heroes is "broken"?

Every single multiplayer game out there has some % of users that have problems connecting.  All we can do it keep trying to make it work for as many people as possible.  But it does, even right now, work for nearly everyone as long as they have port forwarding properly set up.

If I could, I'd beam over to your house and set up your router for you.  Perhaps you could create a thread asking users who have had problems to post their configuration (OS, network router, firewall software, etc.) so people can see if there's a common thread.

If you guys think this is bad try getting Age of Kings (IMO one of the best RTS games ever made) working over a routed network. I have tried for years to get that game working reliably... A friend and I, (I am a MCSE/CCNA, he is a MCSE/CCNP) tried for 12 straight hours once trying to get it to work, but some of our friends routers just wouldn't play well no matter how we set it up.

Also, AoM, AoEIII, Homeworld, all had pretty serious issues with routed networks. It seems to be pretty common for RTS games.

Most routers also have a remote login option. People having issues could ask trusted forum members who are willing to login and observe the settings to make sure they are correct.

Do you actually collect statistics from ICO about how many games fail or how many people get connection problems, etc. or are you just basing your opinion on the support emails you get?


So you're saying that because there's another popular game out there that has notorious multiplayer problems it's acceptable to make Sins just as bad?

Funny how I spent 10 minutes configuring my router (which I have never done before) and I was able to host.

Also funny how out of 20 or so games, I've only been disconnected by bad routers in 3.
You're doing something wrong.

EDIT:

Do you actually collect statistics from ICO about how many games fail or how many people get connection problems, etc. or are you just basing your opinion on the support emails you get?
No, he meant compared to forum members and IRC help, there has been a relatively small percent of people who have problems with hosting.


So you're saying that because there's another popular game out there that has notorious multiplayer problems it's acceptable to make Sins just as bad?
He meant not all games are perfect.

The world doesn't' resolve around you; get over it.

This is Good Info. Keep it up! I am using this site to see how players are doing B4 I get the game. Anyone done a LAN base game and how was it and is it better than online play.

Shut up Windexglow. You don't know what he was trying to say, and he doesn't need you to interpret for him.

UPDATE: I have spent about 6 hours+ trying to configure my system to work online with this game, and I think I have managed to configure my router correctly - I'm hoping I've jumped through enough of Ironclad Online's hoops to make their game work. I'm resentful of the effort I've had to put in to repair something that should have worked from their end from launch.

But, every game I've played since then has had connection issues with other players, lagging, dropping. It's not just them quitting.

SO... I stand by my statement - even if we manage to get our OWN systems working with Ironclad Online, we are still affected by these problems because we're playing with users who haven't fixed it.

There's nothing more frustrating than playing a huge 4v4 map and having 2 of your teammates disconnect 1 and 2 hours in.

What is the point??

I didn't even configure anything (port forwarding at 6112 already setup because every other RTS I have uses it), and everything works perfectly fine. The people I play with haven't had any issues at all either.

You may have an issue, but don't rant on like everybody in the world has the same problem you do.

Hundreds.... hmmm One of the top selling games in NA at the moment over 100,000 sold... and your satisfied with hundreds? Thats a very low ratio (yes i know LOTS of reasons people buy a game and may not play online, my point is HUNDREDS out of over 100,000.) Let say 300 active users out 100,000. that 1:330. i doubt 1 out of 300 people who bought THIS game are all that wish to play online



If this information is relevent to over 50% of the people who bought SIns, why is it not in the Manual... the guide with the neccessary information to play the game... which this is (for multiplayer). Because making your players do THIS to be able to play is not apporpriate. This also contradicts your mission statement on this game. "We lowered the intensive graphics, so it would be able to run on as many systems as possible" -should be changed to... "As many systems that have users that are capable to doing the changes needed" PT2 "We neglected the single player campaign infavour of sandbox play and great multiplayer" So we traded singleplayer focus and current gen graphics (turrent animation as example) for this great multplayer experiance that only 1 out of 300 are currently enjoying. IT seems we have have been shot in our collective foot.



WTF?!?!?! You have got to be freaking kidding me!! That is the worce post i have ever seen a company employee or moderator post. Thats a LIE and you know it. the VAST majority are having problems. Remember the people that have hosting issues still play and join. So many of the active players "listed as not having a prolem" who cant host still join and are counted as active members. A 1v1 has one person garunteed not to have the hosting issue. a 5v5 also only has ONE person garunteed to not have the hosting issue. So just counting active players isnt giving the right information.

Broken (bro·ken)- One meaning is to not work properly (fully). That works for me for ICO, Its broken, which means it can be fix. Dont pick on him cuz he has a point that you dont want to hear (More work to do on Sins). The ONLY reason the boards are only HALF filled instead of totally full of connecting isses threads is what is the point of making a new thread when there is already 10 with 30+ replies about the hosting issues with different titles. Also the "port setting forward" blanket used to describe ALL connecting issues is now debunked as recently people with no fire wall, or no router are still getting simlar messages. There is more than one Issue out there, that have been admited by other Stardock Personel. Multiple issues (not all have been found yet) are triggering the same hosting faiure message. (sometimes false). So please stop with the "well if you knew what a router was, and wasent a computer noob then you wouldnt have these issues" stance... its insulting and completely useless.




False... Again! We are starting to see the message come up for more that just Port Forwarding. You may think i am being over critical or have encredibly high standerds for MP. You put all of your eggs in one basket (Muliplayer) and less than 1:100 people are being able to use it as promised. You guys have an awsome reputation for fixes, patches, updates, and all around online enhancemes to the products you release. Live up to your strenghths and reputation and you guys will be fine. You have the right to not "fix" anything, But to say there is next to no problem with connecting and to make it seem like the person who cant is the "odd man out" or is "their problem" is just sticking your head in the sand and ingnoring the forums around you.

We will see... Ban, Deletion, or just a long reply??

No, Lath, I'm just going to ignore you.  If you really think most people can't get multiplayer games to work in Sins then be my guest. Don't let reality stand in your way.