Waste of money, does not work

No offense, but probably not the best approach to getting help at a forum like this.

I am not a networking expert by any stretch, but whether you choose to accept it or not, until the world is free of hackers and other nonsense, there will be firewalls and security, and that will play hell with ANY software meant to connect via networks. I hate having to play with this junk, and I hate having to know how to do networking just to be able to fight pretend monsters. I hate having to know enough about NAT to get my PS3 to play nice with other machines.

Welcome to the Modern Era.

Having said that, I am an owner and user (former user?) of Fantasy Grounds, Klooge, and a number of other tools....they ALL have this requirement of 'fiddling'...if you don't want to mess around with it, that's clearly your choice, but I think you're going to be annoyed and upset with a LOT of software packages, unless they reside 100% within your own house/machine.

This forum has done wonders for my ability to get it running well, and ALL issues I've run into turned out to be my own (some I STILL don't fully understand)...I doubt anyone will set it up for you just to stop you from yelling, but there are lots of helpful folks here.

 

This program costs nowhere near what is should for what it does. Just because you won't take the time to learn to setup your router which is not part of d20pro so it will work, is not the fault of the software. Any software that works this way you would have problems with if this is your attitude. If you are going to use a client-server architecture you need to be able to setup your router to forward the d20pro port to your private ip address of your computer, unless all the people are connecting from inside the router. Every computer that connects to the internet has a public IP address that others can get to your computer if your router is setup correctly. The software isn't the problem, the problem is between the keyboard and the chair....

 

Here is the step by step directions to setup your router to forward the port to your computer, which I took 10 min of my time to find on the internet. http://knowledgebase.pace.com/?page=view&article=21&text=3000%20series%20HGV-B&cat=&sort=

 

No, but there is a thing called UPNP that if implemented properly would open a hole in the firewall. Also, the fix is not stickied and having someone run a search for something that has been a problem for a couple months is kind of unacceptable. I am sure though the cheerleading squad will come out and parade how great a software it is.

 

My Verizon DSL carrier didn't block ports but apparently AT&T does while I'm tethering via my iPhone. I'll see if my replacement/faster Covad DSL blocks ports. On Verizon I forwarded 10101 to my hosting workstation. That didn't work under AT&T.

Anyway, my group has had a couple of successful sessions now by using the Logmein.com (Log me in) Hamachi product (the downloadable, unmanaged, free version). [Thanks edwardcd for recommending]

Each person installs and logs in ("power on"), and one person creates a network. Each joins the named network and enters a password if the creator specified. This is the "mesh" network, and is a type of virtual LAN (VLAN).

Traffic is directed via this software, and the default port that d20Pro uses is not blocked. You don't need to configure port forwarding on your router.

When I host d20Pro, players put in the IP address showing for my system in the Hamachi network window (e.g. 5.xxx.xxx.xxx). It is neither my real external address nor my internal non-routable address.

 

No, but this thread and your input here sort of illustrate one problem with coming on here and just blasting away, calling something a 'waste of money', and claiming it 'does not work' instead of beginning with a reasonable question. When you make that kind of post, how can you not expect people to refute what is clearly not true, which then takes time/attention away from actually fixing your issue?

It is NOT perfect, and there are LOTS of things that annoy me about the software (including both bugs and feature gaps), but to come on to a forum filled with people who are actually using it and saying it does not work as if that was a general rule for all users instead of something impacting them...well, are you expecting people to let something like that just lie there? If someone says "This software doesn't work", and I say "Well, actually it does", that doesn't make me a cheerleader. If I'd said the software was without flaws then I would be.

Another twist as well - - as mentioned, I have LOTS of these products and D20Pro is the best - not perfect, just best of those I've tried.

But there really ARE "LOTS of these products", which means that D20Pro is a niche product in a crowded market for niche products of this kind. If someone new comes to this forum and sees someone posting a subject that is not called "Issues with Connectivity", but is actually called "Waste of money, does not work", then they may be turned away, meaning fewer customers for D20PRo, which could potentially mean limited resources for new development or even an end to this option for us. I am NOT saying that this forum should be only positive comments, only that it would be nice if the subject lines were accurate or at least not clearly meant to inflame.

I assume (perhaps incorrectly), that the nasty subject line was meant to get attention - that the OP predicted it would get attention with that subject. And of course it did...but notice the ratio of argument to actual info (not helped by me at this point, admittedly)...the OP should have been able to predict that as well.

I will confess I know nothing of UPNP, but perhaps that's part of the point - - I was still able to get it to work.

 

http://portforward.com/english/routers/ ... onitor.htm

Now, don't just look at the pictures either. If you couldn't figure out the port forwarding from the other post, this one walks you through it as well, complete with pictures.

 

Word of advice, next time before spending money - try the 30 day free trial first.

 

I'm very sorry that you've had problems using d20Pro. If you'd like to discuss a refund please shoot us an email using our contact page. If you'd like to try and get some help with the problems you're running into you can try our FAQ, Help Wiki, our contact page or use some of the great suggestions here in this thread.

 

I don't ever say a word about the negativity in your posts towards d20Pro because, well, I've got a thick enough skin I guess and (more importantly for me) a lot of the time you have a valid point. I have no tolerance for personal attacks on this board though and the 'cheerleading squad' comment is just that as far as I'm concerned. Yes, it's incredibly tame compared to other stuff you'll find out on the Interwebs, but I'm going to keep things extra squeaky clean around here as far as insults and such go. Unless it's against Gnomes. Gnomes are fair game.

Also, you kinda have to expect a 'd20Pro cheering squad' on the d20Pro forums, right? I mean, there's no pretense of this being neutral ground and while I can empathize with the frustration that can be caused by an unfamiliar piece of software, the OP was really more belligerent than he needed to be.

In the prophetic words of our GM of many years:

What's red and looks good on Gnomes?

Fire

 

Hail and well met,

Now this is a lively thread! First of all i'd like to thank those who took the time to defend d20Pro and also offer help to those in need.

Let me be the first to say that d20Pro is clearly far from perfect. And as we are just a small business (we all work day jobs), it's an incredible challenge to keep innovating and staying on top of bugs. And that recent issue with the file chooser, Java really hosed us by making some arbitrary change that broke the native Windows code that had worked fine for years.

As for issues with routers, port forwarding, firewalls, et al thanks to those who pointed out that this is a generalized problem that has nothing to do with d20Pro in particular. I'm pretty sure all other competitors out there have the same limitations. We have drafted up some plans to support tunneling to alleviate the situation; however, that solution is not implemented yet.

I'd also like to point out we offer a 30 day free trial so anyone can test drive d20Pro and make sure it works for them.

d20Pro allows gamers to play faster, play better, and play anywhere. I'm proud of this and know that many out there benefit greatly from this software. It's certainly not for everyone. We know there are shortcomings and we works our butts off to make the software better day after day, year after year. Stick with us because this is really only the beginning.

I'll end with this. We are for gamers, by gamers and stand by this. If you are at an impasse, please private message me and I will work with you to address your concerns.

 

Wow... This makes me love this product even more when one of the people responsible say things like this.

The people I play with know how much I hate Gnomes and a fight was going bad for them because their rolls were just really bad. One of them threatened me by saying "if you kill me I am going to make a Gnome". I then said "well then, Rocks will fall and everyone will die". Someone else said "but none of the rest of us are Gnomes". So I responded "It's your own fault for being friends with a Gnome".