Nightingale PTR Portal
I really am unsure how to word this entirely, but for those players that want to use the listen hosting, it seems to only work with certain PCs/ISP/Routers? And without knowing why or how to get around it, it's causing issues from the get-go.
Okay so let me explain.
User Onisshoku and I can not be hosts for the listen server.
Onisshoku has been trying for at least 3 days of the test to get it to work.
We can't figure out why I can't host (we spent like 2-3 hours trying different things and nothing worked), and they believe it's because of their NAT system for their issue.
My concern is that people are going to want to host, who have the same issues that we can not figure out, and might not be as IT savvy to go into firewall settings, router settings, port forwarding, etc. and give up/blame the game.
I however am able to join when I tried with Koriania, but she could never get to me, the error was "gallyfluf".
Onisshoku and I during those hours tried all of the following:
1. Attempt to host regularly
2. Enabled port forwarding
3. Run port tests and change ports on router
4. Bypass all firewall restrictions
5. Look up manuals for router to see if something was done wrong
6. Check DNS
7. Turn firewall off entirely
If there's anything you guys could shed light on, maybe a step by step, or a reason as to why we can't host, it would help so much in setting up a guide for people once the service goes live.
I know it goes without saying, as it's a new feature and needs tweaking, but I haven't really run into this issue for other games except Vrising, where I needed to go into router to set up port forwarding, but eventually that wasn't necessary either.
I'm also fully ready to work with someone on the team if they're willing in DM's tomorrow morning (Monday, 12/16/2024 11am CST-1:30PM CST, as I leave for work at 1:50pm) to try and figure out what to change and enable to get it working or narrow down the issue.
I confirmed with my ISP that I'm in a CGNAT that they implemented around 2 months ago, and that obtaining a static IP should allow me to properly port forward. 3 hours of customer service calls later and I had basic internet back. I've heard that some games such as Palworld or perhaps VRising have implemented workarounds for such things. If there is some way to detect/warn players that they may need to perform extra steps to get Listen Server hosting on their end, or a workaround to bypass the port forwarding requirements, that may be something to consider.
As with both Kat and Koriania, I'm willing to work with the team if that would be beneficial.
I went back and looked at what I did, and the only lasting changes that I did at that time were firewall exceptions for the program on both incoming and outgoing for both parties, and a portforwarding on the router.
I had to set up Nightingale as a custom service, and then tell it where to forward the port to (note: Korynn is the name of the specific machine I would host on. Other machines on my network would not be able to host an external game & the big white middle blocks are where I've blacked out other services in my list for privacy reasons).
As with Katari, I'd be happy to help test with anyone that wants to.