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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0021445AI War 2Gameplay IdeaSep 25, 2020 9:58 pm
ReporterChris_McElligottPark Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Severityminor 
Status closedResolutionwon't fix 
Summary0021445: Multiplayer: MAYBE: auto-detection on LAN.
DescriptionThis was in the first game, and was implemented in a pretty simple way: the host would just do a multicast on the local network, and clients would watch for that and thus identify providers of interest. Or maybe the host was watching for multicast from any client that opened the screen, I can't recall -- that actually sounds more correct.

Problem is, firewalls on the OS are now a built-in thing and multicast almost never works now unless you explicitly have already allowed your game through your software firewall, and if you're on windows then you have to be in a certain network mode even, I think. The landscape was really different when XP was the main OS people used when I was making the first game. Now with Windows 10 dominating, I don't really feel like this feature will work for many people.

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Also, it's worth noting that multicast broadcasts are basically NEVER sent over VPNs, so if people were using something like Hamachi or whatever then this never worked in the first place. I think the number of people sitting together on a LAN is going to be exceedingly small these days.

So I dunno, this seems like a pretty useless feature. It was killer 10 years ago, but not so much now.
TagsNo tags attached.

Relationships

related to 0021446 resolvedChris_McElligottPark Multiplayer: Show all ACTIVE local IPs for those using LAN or VPN. 
related to 0021444 resolvedChris_McElligottPark Multiplayer: Show IP on host, and client connection by IP. 
child of 0021432 resolvedChris_McElligottPark Multiplayer todo - parent issue. 

Activities

Chris_McElligottPark

Sep 25, 2020 9:58 pm

administrator   ~0058691

This is a pretty rare case, as most people will use Steam or GOG, and we have the IP detection stuff anyhow. Multicast is almost always blocked by software firewalls, so this is really pointless these days.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Jul 31, 2019 4:52 pm Chris_McElligottPark New Issue
Jul 31, 2019 4:52 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => assigned
Jul 31, 2019 4:52 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Jul 31, 2019 4:52 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship added related to 0021444
Jul 31, 2019 4:52 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship added child of 0021432
Jul 31, 2019 4:55 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship added related to 0021446
Sep 25, 2020 9:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status assigned => closed
Sep 25, 2020 9:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => won't fix
Sep 25, 2020 9:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0058691