I purchased the Baldur’s Gate series of games almost two years
ago, fully intending to play through it on multiplayer mode with a friend.
However, we soon gave up on this and rendered it basically impossible; there
was so little information about and neither of us are particularly tech savvy.
However, recently I began playing the game's single player again, and we
decided to give it another go. After 6 long hours of Google searching and
tinkering, we finally had a game session running between us.
However, by searching the web I noticed the vast amount of people who
have major problems setting up a multiplayer game. Also, there are no guides
out there (that I could find) that just take you through the process step by
step. Sure, it’s all there if you search hard enough, but I thought that I’d
save people the hassle by writing this guide.
I literally got this working Friday, so I’m not sure what setup this all
works on, or if any mods are temperamental, but this is what I had installed:
-Baldur’s Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast expansion
-TotSC patch:
UK - http://tinyurl.com/d7pdlcm
US/Canada
- http://tinyurl.com/brsj4ox
International - http://tinyurl.com/bn5kmyv
-Baldur’s Gate II and Throne of Bhaal expansion
-ToB patch:
UK - http://tinyurl.com/3w37mp2
Europe
- http://tinyurl.com/balzlce
-Easy Tutu - http://usoutpost31.com/easytutu/
-Tutu Fixpack - http://tinyurl.com/3tv6r
-BG2 Tweaks - http://tinyurl.com/azehsqq
I was also using
Windows 7. Obviously this should still work with any setup, but I thought I’d
include that anyway. Also, I have only tested this with two people. I have read
that the game gets funny with any more than that, but you can try and see what
happens.
1) Installation
First of all comes the
installation of the game and any mods. You need to make sure that your
installations are exactly identical – this probably means connecting to each
other on Skype or some other messenger and going through everything to make
sure it is all the same. Be sure to install the games and mods to C Drive, but
not Program Files. Something else that needs to be done in this stage is ensuring
that your portrait folders are the same, as the game requires you to have the
other person’s portraits in order to see them in game.
2)
Port forwarding
From my experience, only one person needs to port forward;
this person has to be the host. However, if you are having problems at the end,
try port forwarding on both computers. First of all, open the Start menu, and
search ‘cmd’. The black command box should pop up; enter ‘ipconfig/all’, and
copy down the following information:
-Default Gateway (Should be something like 192.168.x.x)
-IPv4 Address (Something like 192.168.x.xx) (Different to
the Default Gateway!!)
Now, open any internet browser and enter your Default
Gateway into the URL bar. It should come up with the login box. If you have had
to change your router settings before, you should know the user and password,
and may have even changed them. If not, it is likely to be a combination of ‘admin’
in the user box, password box, or both. If this doesn’t work, search for your
router and what the default login details are.
When I first log in, it has three tabs on the left hand side
of the screen: ‘Quick Start’, ‘Summary’ and ‘Advanced’. Hit advanced, and then,
on mine, there’s a tab along the top called Advanced. This may also be
something along the lines of ‘port forwarding’. (Relevant, huh?)
Now there are 6 ports that your need to forward; three of
them are TCP and three are UDP. I don’t have a clue what they mean, but I know
that it worked. So, click ‘Add’, and it will ask for some information. The
first of these is ‘Private IP’, and on mine there are two boxes for it. When I
was doing it I just entered the IPv4 address in the first box and left the
second one blank. Second of all, select ‘Protocol Type’ TCP; after the first
three you will change this to UDP. For each type of protocol, you need to
forward to three sets of ports, and each has a Public Start Port and a Public
End Port. These are:
-Start: 2300
End: 2400
-Start: 6073
End: 6073
-Start: 47624
End: 47624
Once you have forwarded these three ports for both protocol
types, you can close down this tab and move on to the next step. Remember that
the person who forwarded the ports has to host the game.
3)
LogMeIn Hamachi
LogMeIn Hamachi is a programme that allows you to create
your own network, and it gives you a ‘virtual IP’. This virtual IP is what the
clients will use to join your game. All players will need to download Hamachi.
First of all, download it from here: http://tinyurl.com/cg829fg
Once it has downloaded and been setup, you will be asked to
give yourself a nickname. This is just to make it easy for people to recognise
you, and has no other impact on the game or anything. After this, press the
power button in the top left corner of the window, and this will start Hamachi.
Now the person who forwarded their ports must create a network; give it a name
(preferably something related to Baldur’s Gate) and a password if you wish,
just make sure that everyone knows these details. After you have created the
network, all of the clients must join it. At the top of your window, and next
to your name for everyone else, is your virtual IP, and this is what the
clients will enter to join your game.
4)
Setting up
the Game
Before you load up the game, you all need to open the
BGConfig file in your install folders. This will open up a window that will
allow you to change all of the settings in the game. You need to ensure that
everything here is exactly the same for everybody. Also, on the tabs to the
left, hit the Display tab and put the game in Windowed mode. If you leave the
game in full screen mode while starting the game, every time you try your game
will just crash on you.
Open up the game, and if you are the host, hit Multiplayer
> Connect > Protocol > TCP/IP. This will ensure that the game is using
your IP to host the game. Then hit create game, enter session name, your name
and password if you wish, then hit New Game. It will bring up a screen showing
6 character slots, and from this screen you can change permissions for people
that join, and assign the slots to different people (as people join). Now you
wait for the clients to join.
If you are joining the game, you also need to set your
protocol to TCP/IP. Then hit Join Game and enter the host’s Hamachi IP address
(displayed next to their name in the Hamachi window). It should say something
along the lines of ‘Joining, this could take a few minutes’. Eventually, if
everything was done correctly you should join. Congratulations, you’re in a
multiplayer game of Baldur’s Gate.
5)
Playing the
Game and Afterthoughts
When you first start the game, instead of trying to play
properly straight away, get a feel for your party and make sure that you’re
happy with it. Also, test out any mods that you have installed; it’s easier to remove
them now than later on when you’re half way through the game. There were a few
mods that annoyed us straight away, so we quit and uninstalled them. No matter
what you do, you need to ensure that your installations are exactly the same,
including portraits. And if you change your mods in any way you will need to
start a new game. Only the host can save and load the game, so make sure that
if that’s you, you save often. It’s bad enough dying when you’re not letting
down other people as well…
To load the game, just go about like you’re going to create
a new game, but instead of ‘New Game’ press ‘Load Game’.
But most importantly, just have fun.
Thank you for reading this guide, I hope it helped some
people, because I found it to be a massive pain, and nearly gave up a few
times. If there’s already a guide out there then I apologise because I couldn’t
find one that was thorough.
If you have any ways that it could be improved, I’ll leave
contact stuff below. I’m aware that there’s probably lots of grammatical
mistakes, among others things, but I typed this up in like an hour at about
4am.
Also, if you have a way that I can make some of the more technical stuffclearer, or have some screenshots I could include also get in touch with me.
Thanks.
Email: ryanterry9519@googlemail.com^_^
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