How do I get external connections to my LAN games?

November 10, 2005 1:10 PM

I have two computers in my house, connected via a router to broadband. I play Diablo II with my partner on the two computers across the LAN. Now, how can I get my friend to connect to the same game via the internet so three (or more) of us can play?

I'm fairly sure this is possible, but don't know how to get it happening.

posted by tomble to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Well, the easiest way would be to start an internet (not a LAN) game and have both the local and remote player join. Right?

Is there some reason why that's not an option?
posted by selfnoise at 1:18 PM on November 10, 2005

You might be able to have the guy VPN in to your LAN and do a LAN game. If Diablo II can see multiple network cards then he'll point the game to the virtual device that makes VPN'ng possible.

I think the thing that allows you to share your connection on your LAN( the NATted router ) is going to make this a little impossible. I've tried getting games working like this before with mixed results. I think I figured it out where that the guy outside your LAN is sending stuff back to one IP address on the Internet that both of you are behind. From here the router isn't sure which internal address to send the game packets to. I'm quite possibly wrong, isn't this what NAT is supposed to do. It may depend on the game protocol. Don't most games do connectionless(UDP) traffic? Are there issues with NAT and UDP?
posted by mnology at 2:17 PM on November 10, 2005

Additionally, the problem with doing an Internet game and having the other internal guy trying to join, the internal guy never gets outside of the router. The router essentially sees that a connection is being attempted to connect to itself. This doesn't get passed on to the game server.
posted by mnology at 2:23 PM on November 10, 2005

On your router you need to port-forward port 4000 and the port range 6112 - 6119 to the PC hosting the LAN game. Then the remote player connects to your "external" IP address. In fact, you can connect as many as you want up to the game's limit (8?).
posted by krisjohn at 2:52 PM on November 10, 2005

Krisjohn is right, me and my friends do this all the time. We actually all bought headsets and connect to ventrilo at the same time so we can chat.

If you dont know your external ip just check it on

http://whatismyip.com
posted by meta87 at 4:26 PM on November 10, 2005

Groovy! I'll give this a shot!
posted by tomble at 4:32 PM on November 10, 2005