Some things to bear in mind with the new multiplayer

[AsLan]

Hey guys, I'm AsLan. I currently host 4 dedicated servers across the two platforms that, prior to this update, hosted servers for SWBF2.

While this new update is awesome, and hopefully we'll have lots of players playing online soon without the need for third party programs, there are a few things from the perspective of a server host worth pointing out:

- Initially, there are unlikely to be any dedicated servers going up on the game, the rooms are likely to be home-hosted by other players, who won't necessarily have an internet service capable of hosting a server that can connect to lots of players simultaenously across the world. For those experiencing difficulties connecting to some servers, this is worth bearing in mind. A sure tell of a non-dedicated server is that the ping will show up as 0 in the multiplayer room list.

- The newly set up master servers are likely to experience some technical difficulties due to the high amount of initial traffic.

- For those who already played online via gameranger, updating your game is likely going to prevent you connecting to gameranger servers, so make a backup before you update.

- I've been told that the update is incompatible with the unofficial 1.3 patch of the game, which several larger scale mods use.

- Dedicated servers with proper admin support and management tools will be worked on by some of the hosts that were on other platforms prior to the update, such as myself.

It's awesome that we got this update, there are people in the now much diminished online community who have stuck around from the beginning and thought the game would die after Gamespy shut down. We've kept it alive somewhat through Gameranger and SWBFSpy, but hopefully this update will be a massive boost to the player base.

Thanks,

AsLan

EDIT: I also admin for 3 large discord servers that held the online community before this update, this main one can be found here: https://discord.gg/RxFq9U

EDIT 2: It doesn't initially look like there is support for disk users, however when we get more information about where the master server is and the method the update used to connect players to it, it's possible that some community members might try to create an exe patch for disk users allowing them to connect to the new servers, but no guarantees.

[LethalOwl]

I'm going to assume firstly that the reason my game completely freezes and grinds to a halt when I so much as click on "multiplayer", is because of high traffic. It just goes into "Busy ..." mode, remaining at 0% indefinitely and forces me to shut down the game through Ctrl-Alt-Delete methods.

Also, nice to know there's discord servers for this game - this has gone unnoticed by me.

[AsLan]

Yes, I suspect if you can't even access the server list, then it'll be due to high traffic that GOG's master server will be experiencing.

[Sketchy]

Originally posted by LethalOwl:

I'm going to assume firstly that the reason my game completely freezes and grinds to a halt when I so much as click on "multiplayer", is because of high traffic. It just goes into "Busy ..." mode, remaining at 0% indefinitely and forces me to shut down the game through Ctrl-Alt-Delete methods.

My game does the same. Does anyone know of a fix?

[LethalOwl]

I've tried a couple of things, none of which have yielded any results yet, Sketchy. And I'm honestly surprised others get past it - I've a ridiculously strong internet connection, so I'd suspect it's on the gameserver side of things, but at the same time some players are getting through. So it's weird.

[Sketchy]

I'm currently uninstalling and reinstalling the game to see if I had any mods installed without my knowledge. I've had the game downloaded on this PC for well over a year now, so there may have been things I have forgotten about. I'll see if this fixes up the game.

[AsLan]

If you have mods installed, or the unofficial 1.3 patch you made need to reinstall. I've also seen people talking about running it windowed mode helping, and its always worth using the "Verify Integriy of Game Files".

However it also may well that GOG's master servers are struggling to cope with the traffic (remember also that they are working within the constraints of a 2005 game), which is something we'll have to wait on.

[LethalOwl]

After 2 failed verifications, I've now successfully verified it by removing my addon folder from the gamefiles. I suspect I still have to potentially reinstall the game entirely, as I still get stuck on the multiplayer screen - But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait a bit first. Going to test if ordinary SP still works as it used to.

[LethalOwl]

SP still works fine, at least. Funny thing, right after playing SP for 1 round I went into MP again - lo' and behold, I got into the game list immediately. But then I went back and forth across the menus, and next time I went into the list it restarted the "Busy ..." thing - so it's a bit by chance, I feel, until it becomes more stable.

[LethalOwl]

Larry, I've been running with the 6M for quite a while, it makes little difference to me - Sometimes I get into MP, sometimes it freezes and forces me to restart the computer to get out of the game.

[LethalOwl]

Yeah, reckon it's a bit of a hit or miss. Thanks anyway, seems it helped a lot of people in the thread mentioned.

[Sketchy]

Reinstalling the game made me able to at least load the multiplayer lists. Haven't been able to actually join a game just yet.

[Kitsu-Nesh'Kaa]

1.3 is break multiplayer(

[Dylzie420]

can you repost your discord..

[AsLan]

Yes, @Top Cat heres another link: https://discord.gg/cCzbSyn

Myself and a couple of others are also trying numerous ways to get through to GOG about dedicated server support, which is the main thing right now. Once we get that we can have several dedicated servers run on rented virtual machines with top grade internet connection up online for people to play on within hours. Those will be a LOT less laggy and those unable to connect to most servers now should be able to connect to them.

Until we get dedicated server support the servers will be very laggy and mostly unplayable for the majority of players.

It looks like GOG is partially aware of this, check this link:

https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_battlefront_ii/busy/post20

[Dylzie420]

ok, well atm i cant even see any servers or anything let alone get into a game