Host a Private Game?

[Thales]

My daughter and I would like to play a multiplayer game using the Game Lobby. Is it possible to create a "private" game?

In exploring how to do this, I did not see any option. Additionally, others were attempting to join. Hopefully, I did not irritate anyone.

[maroder]

you can set a password which prevents people from joining when they don't know it.

[Mentula]

@maroder's solution is correct.

For your information @Thales, you can achieve the same, but without entering the Game Lobby. Just do the following:

• one of the players hosts the game: from the main menu choose "Multiplayer" and then "Host Game";
• the other players join the game: from the main menu choose "Multiplayer" and then "Join Game". The joining players just need to enter the IP address of the hosting computer in the prompt.

If playing with people you know, this alternative solution has some benefits: no need to register/authenticate with a lobby account, no need to set a password when creating a game, no information on your games are made public, risk to be DDOSed is reduced.

[Thales]

The short answer; success, we made an internet connection through the lobby.

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The longer answer.

On 05/12/2022 at 2:43 PM, maroder said:

you can set a password which prevents people from joining when they don't know it.

When I first experimented with using the lobby, I may not have set a server password. Overlooked it???? Anyway this time I made sure to set the password, my daughter successfully joined the game with that password.  Didn't see anyone else attempt to join.

 

On 05/12/2022 at 3:09 PM, Mentula said:

... you can achieve the same, but without entering the Game Lobby. Just do the following:

That is the process we use on our local home LAN.

When I used https://www.whatismyip.com/  to get my internet IP address, my daughter was not able to join. She received the error message that "this is often caused by UDP port 20595 not being forwarded on the host side, by a firewall or anti-virus software". For a quick test, turned off the firewall, but she was still not able to make a connection.

Very helpful. Thank-you for responding.

 

 

[Norse_Harold]

22 minutes ago, Thales said:

That is the process we use on our local home LAN.

When I used https://www.whatismyip.com/  to get my internet IP address, my daughter was not able to join.

You should have your daughter connect to your private LAN IP address, not your public Internet IP address, if you are both on the same LAN and you intend to host a non-lobby game. You can retrieve your LAN IP address on Linux with the following command.

/sbin/ip addr show

Look for "inet 192.168...." under an interface, or something like that.

Also note that if either of you is connected to a "Guest" wireless network then communications within the LAN are blocked, and only Internet connections are allowed. You need to use an unrestricted local area network in order to play 0ad over the LAN.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Norse_Harold

[Thales]

35 minutes ago, Norse_Harold said:

You should have your daughter connect to your private LAN IP address, not your public Internet IP address, if you are both on the same LAN and you intend to host outside the lobby. You can retrieve your LAN IP address on Linux with the following command.

We have no problem connecting on our home LAN, where we are in the same house. What we have been attempting to accomplish is to connect from two different locations about 150 miles (241 Kilometers) apart. That is the reason for attempting to use the public internet address obtained from https://www.whatismyip.com/ . Just tried it as an experiment. Anyway, the lobby worked. Problem solved.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Thales