Docere posted:
HOLY CRAP it seems to be working. For those hundreds of others that seem to be having a similar issue, this is what worked for me (Brace yourself, it's complicated):
1. I had to contact my router company (Linksys) and they helped me configure the ports to open (Port triggering, not Port forwarding like the guide turbine tells you to do, though the ports are the same - 9000 through 9013).
2. I had to contact my ISP (Bellsouth Fast Access DSL) who walked me through how to change my router to bridged mode (I don't really know what that does, I just know it works).
3. Then I had to call Linksys back and have them help me configure the router settings for the new bridged setting.
3a. This involved going into my network settings (Windows 7) and adjusting the IP address of my computer.
All this sounds confusing and exhausting (and it was) but I will say the customer service people were incredible. The Linksys guy orginally had no idea WTF I was talking about and admitted he had never gone that deep into the router configurations. He had to default to his supervisor who thankfully knew what was what. At one point, the linksys guy was on the same turbine page I was trying to tell me what steps to take haha. That being said, they were awesome.
I hope this helps someone because it was an arduous task. See you all in game!
PS this is utterly ridiculous the amount of hoops we have to jump through to access the game. Many, many people apparently have had this trouble and it's silly to think that no other MMO/Multiplayer game has these issues. You'd think Turbine would have addressed this years ago or at least come up with a clear and coherent guide to follow to fix this, as I saw threads from as early as 2004 on this issue.
Congratulations for getting it working.
Yes it is ridiculous the hoops people have to jump through to get AC working. God(or your deity of choice) only knows how many customers Turbine has lost over this as it is not an isolated issue.
The issue falls in the antiquated network code AC1 uses. It's been a while but I believe AC uses the NAT protocol whereas most ISP's are set up using the NAPT protocol. Some are able to utilize both without issue, as you found out, some aren't without massive time spent by the end user to fix it.
I'm no programmer and I have no idea how difficult it would be to revise the network protocol of AC. I'm assuming since it hasn't happened even though it's been a known issue for at least 7 years, it's either too difficult, or Turbine has deemed it not a big enough issue to worry about.
For the record, I came back the ToD was released and I spent my entire 30 days free time working with my ISP and Turbine to get the game working. In the end I literally had the lead tech for my ISP at my house on speaker phone with the people from Turbine trying everything we could think of to get it to work...I know all about ridiculous.
