Connecting to P99 from China

[Alarik Zekaiden]

Figured I'd ask this question here since there are a lot of tech-savvy folks here and I'm running out of ideas.

So I've been messing with the whole "Project 1999 Classic EQ" thing lately, and it's been fun. I even convinced my girlfriend to give it a try while she is off teaching China. I figured this would be a great way for us to not only keep in touch, but also have a fun time doing an activity together.

All has been going well up until recently. The system admins at Project 1999 added a "IP Check" to the login servers with their most recent patch and now she can't log in at all. According to the head dude of the project, her ISP changes her IP address every connection attempt, sorta "round-robin" style, and it triggers the security on the IP check, so she is denied login access.

I have no idea how to get around this sort of thing (haven't really worked with proxies, VPNs, or other such things in years), nor do I even know if it is possible. If there was a way to stabilize her IP somehow, but it required her to have to create a new P99 account to get that IP in the system, that wouldn't be an issue. Her character is pretty low level, and I'm sure she would probably be ok with starting from scratch again.

Here is what he sent me about her login attempts, if it is any help:
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[08.05. - 07:11:21] [WORLD__ZONE] Enter World: LSName: 176434
[08.05. - 07:11:21] [WORLD__CLIENT_ERR] Shumira: IP Mismatch. Connected IP: 122.194.11.182, Auth IP: 122.194.11.31
[08.05. - 07:11:21] [WORLD__CLIENT_ERR] Shumira: Auth Information: 176434, C9YE5LQOIG
[08.05. - 07:11:21] [WORLD__CLIENT_ERR] Shumira: CLE Information: Status: -1, LSID 176434, AccID 25048, LSName Shumira, LSKey C9YE5LQOIG

Her ISP is alternating IP addresses on every conection. Currently the sever binaries don't support that. We haven't decided if we are reverting the IP Check.
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Any help would be much appreciated.

P.S. Yes I tried posting this on their tech support area. No dice.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Hmm seems kind of retarded of the game to do that. I don't see a clear gain for them by enforcing that.

One of those free VPNs might work but I'm inclined to think that China probably wouldn't let you circumvent their firewall that easily, but I guess it won't hurt to try (assuming those rotating IPs won't kill the VPN either).

Honestly I think your best bet is a different game until they remove that kooky restriction of requiring a single IP.

I googled "free vpn" and got plenty of hits. That's where I would start.

[Falundir X`Viento]

Odds are due to it being China, you will have to create a VPN connection to your home router, and essentially play as if she was from home.

[Alarik Zekaiden]

Alright. Any tips on where I should look to do that? Been a long time since I've messed with VPNs.

[Falundir X`Viento]

Start with looking up your router information and verifying that you can host a VPN. If not there are many inexpensive solutions that are at or under $100. Once you determine, or purchase a VPN capable router post the model here and I'll help you set it up.

[Ddrak]

Surely they can handle multiple IP's per user? Lots of ISPs change a person's IP address, and lots of people play games from multiple places?

Dd

[Alarik Zekaiden]

I got the remote desktop connection thing set up, and she can log into a computer at my place. Unfortunately, it's fairly laggy. Not sure what I can do to improve that, or if there is a better route to go for gaming. I currently have it plugged in via a direct ethernet connection, but I was considering using wireless. Not so sure now. I set up the remote desktop connection host service through DynDNS, which seems to be working.

My router is a Linksys WRT160Nv3. I'm not sure if it is VPN capable or not (it does have a section labeled "VPN Passthrough"). I think there is a beta version of the Tomato Firmware that works on it that might possibly add additional features if need be. If you have any recommendations, I'm totally ok with shelling out some $$$ for something better.

As far as Project 1999 goes, they don't really condone playing it from multiple places. It's kinda a weird draconian system to prevent "boxing." Personally, I find the whole thing bullshit anyway, since a small number of people somehow bypass it and manage to two box anyway, but it's not common. I was wondering about the whole ISP/DHCP IP lease thing and how that works with their system, but I'm not sure how they manage it.

I'm not sure why they have chosen to go this route. She didn't have any problems with it until they stealth-added an IP check in with their last patch. Unfortunately, she seems to be the only person getting screwed by it. Haven't seen too many posts about it on their forums.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Surely they can handle multiple IP's per user? Lots of ISPs change a person's IP address, and lots of people play games from multiple places?

I think the problem is multiple IPs per session. Some applications establish more than one connection, and I believe what Alarik is getting at is that every time the game makes a connection, he gets a different IP, so if the game keeps > 1 connection (which lots do) then he might have a gaming session with > 1 IP. But I'm just guessing from what the description of the problem was.

And I think Falundir isn't giving the most practical advice. Why would the OP's GF need to establish a VPN all the way to the OP's home router when she could just connect to a free third party VPN instead? Uh, they're free and you just click-click to connect to it. Why not just do that? The goal isn't a point to point connection to the OP's house, the goal is a stable connection outside the people's republic of bullshit. Like I said in an earlier post, just google "free VPN", pick one, and it probably has good directions for setting it up.

[Alarik Zekaiden]

Many of these VPN sites look like identify theft/credit card fraud waiting to happen. A lot of them, like that Ultra VPN site, apparently don't work with China. But I'll dig around and see what I can find. I can't believe that I have to go to this kind of crazyness just to get my girlfriend to be able to play Everquest with me.

The things I do for women, sheesh.

[Ddrak]

You can always host an OpenVPN server on your machine and get her to use the OpenVPN client from her box?

Dd

[Falundir X`Viento]

Surely they can handle multiple IP's per user? Lots of ISPs change a person's IP address, and lots of people play games from multiple places?

I think the problem is multiple IPs per session. Some applications establish more than one connection, and I believe what Alarik is getting at is that every time the game makes a connection, he gets a different IP, so if the game keeps > 1 connection (which lots do) then he might have a gaming session with > 1 IP. But I'm just guessing from what the description of the problem was.

And I think Falundir isn't giving the most practical advice. Why would the OP's GF need to establish a VPN all the way to the OP's home router when she could just connect to a free third party VPN instead? Uh, they're free and you just click-click to connect to it. Why not just do that? The goal isn't a point to point connection to the OP's house, the goal is a stable connection outside the people's republic of bullshit. Like I said in an earlier post, just google "free VPN", pick one, and it probably has good directions for setting it up.

The reason I'm pointing towards VPN is because China spends it's free time finding ways to block people from using those VPN sites to access 'illegal content'. It's like trying to connect using one of those sites when you work at the Fed. Not to mention you are trusting a 3rd party with unfettered access to your computer.

[Alarik Zekaiden]

She's currently using Skydur (http://www.skydurvpn.com/) to access Facebook when she can. I'm tempted on seeing if the paid for version will actually work for this problem. Not sure though. Would be a minimal amount of fuss on her part.

[Falundir X`Viento]

I stumbled on this and I think it might be worth a try in your situation.

https://secure.logmein.com/US/products/ ... nsing.aspx

I have not used their VPN, however if it's as easy to use as their remote desktop products it should be perfect for you.

[Alarik Zekaiden]

Alright, will give it a shot. So far, everything has been a lot more miss than hit.