[cheesebelly]

Firstly, sorry for the massive post.

I've been trying every day since last Friday to play a private co-op game.

I went through all the hassle of opening all the relevant ports on my router and still no joy. I got this lengthy reply from EA's technical support;

Thank you for writing back. If you wish to call us, you can contact us by telephone on 0870 2432435 between 9am and 9pm Monday to Friday.

In the meantime, if the same issue still persists, I will need the information below to have your account checked and so we can further investigate on the issue:

1. Your PSN ID.
2. Mark down the next time you log in (day and time) to play Army of Two, including the time zone you currently access from. This is used to view your access in the server logs and the more exact times you provide, the faster we will be able to locate, correct, and follow up on the issue.
3. Also, we would like you to send your connection information so we can diagnose and fully understand what obstacles are preventing you from maintaining a connection with the EA server. Below are the following steps to send your connection information to us.

1) First, download the program under "file attachments" at the bottom of this link http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/fattach_get.php?p_sid=LtZdj2si&p_accessibility=&p_ tbl=9&p_id=536&p_created=1125176564&p_olh=0 (http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/fattach_get.php?p_sid=LtZdj2si&p_accessibility=&p_ tbl=9&p_id=536&p_created=1125176564&p_olh=0)
2) After installing it, open the program and if a pop up box appears telling you "UO Server List not found" just click "No".
3) Click the "Options" menu at the top of the window, and select "Advanced".
4) Next, in the rectangular window where the server is listed, type in the IP address (easo.ea.com) to check the connection to the server.
5) Now, just click the button labeled "Trace route", which is the fourth button to the right of the IP address window.
6) After the trace route has completed, click the "Poll" button, which is two buttons to the right of the trace route button. This tells your computer to send data packets to the host server.
7) Let it send around 100 or so packets then select "Stop Poll".
From here, just click "Edit" then "Copy".
9) Open a blank text file, such as Microsoft's Notepad, and select "Edit" then "Paste" from the toolbar. The IP address should still be easo.ea.com
10) Look at the results in the text file. If there are any places where the connection shows a ping time of over 300ms, there's a good chance that this is preventing you from connecting.
11) Contact your ISP and see if there's anything that can be done on their end, or try another ISP in the interim, if possible. If you're playing another player via direct connection or IP-IP, put in the other player's IP address if you know it, and you can test the connection between the two machines. Bear in mind that most players won't give out their IP address.
12) If you're getting 100% packet loss on the first hop, you'll need to turn off your firewall and try again. Please be sure that when connecting to the EASO service, that you either turn off your firewall or open the proper ports needed to play online.
13) Check the ports listed in the Install Guide. If you are having continual problems, or if it appears that the server is down, please feel free to use the "Contact Us" page to submit a query to our Technical Support staff.

How to interpret the results:

Host names/servers - These are the individual computers that make up the Internet. The connection you make to the UO server may travel through 15-25 individual hosts before reaching it. Problems suffered by these hosts can cause poor game performance. The shield icons next to the host names give a graphical display of quality. Green indicating a good connection and as it worsens, the colors pass through various shades of yellow, red, gray, and finally, black.

Ping Average - Ultima Online uses the TCP/IP protocol that sends data in the form of packets. A ping time is the amount of time it takes for a packet of data to be sent from your computer to a host server.
If you are getting pings that are higher than 200ms then you will notice a bit of latency in the game.
If the ping for a particular host is too high (above 225ms) it usually signifies that the host you are testing is either receiving more traffic than it can effectively handle, or is having some type of technical issue.

A high ping will cause your client to not be able to communicate fast enough with the server for the game to maintain fluid motion. This will result in your character's movements appearing jerky and you will notice that the players and monsters around you seem to be able to move much faster than you can. This is due to the fact that the other players are most likely taking a different route to the server and are not being affected by the problem.

If you consistently notice high ping times, contact your ISP and discuss the problem with them. Be sure to have a list of the problem hosts or to actually be running UOtrace while you are speaking with them.

There will be some routers that your data will pass through that are independent companies and your ISP may not have any influence over them. In this case you can use the nifty Who is? feature of UO Trace.
1. Simply right-click on a host name
2. Select Who is?
3. You will be given information about that hop, usually including an email address and telephone numbers which you can use to contact them yourself.

% Loss - This is the percentage of packets that are being lost. In other words, you are sending information to or through that host and the host is either not receiving the data or is not able to return it to you. Any packet loss is a sign of some type of problem. These problems could be caused by hardware issues at the host server, bottlenecking (too many users communicating through that host), telephone line noise, and other causes.

Most packet loss issues are generally resolved quickly by the hosts (a matter of minutes), although some may take several days to resolve. If you consistently notice packet loss, you should contact your provider to discuss possible solutions. You may also consider trying a different ISP.

If you have any other questions feel free to reply to this e-mail, and I will be very glad to help you out to the best of my ability.

Should you require further assistance about this or any Electronic Arts games in the future please visit our website and review our extensive Self Help knowledgebase (http://electronicarts.co.uk/support) (http://electronicarts.co.uk/support)) .

It was nice of the guy to try and help but how can they expect us to go through all that!? I thought I left these problems behind when I bought a console. EA should not be allowed to get away with this. They should not have released a game that they can't support. They bragged about it being this great co-op game and yet you can't even play an online co-op game. Ridiculous!

Poor show EA!

I certainly won't be buying another EA game and will be sure to tell my freinds and family to do the same. I can see why GAME fell out with them now!