Regardless of how you feel about Steam . The fact is I want to play online multiplayer and now I can. My issue is resolved. :P

The companies should develop their own multiplayer systems and keep of any platforms like steam or similar... If they need help with stuff they should least do it at their end not at clients end, so that client is being open for crime against him.
To companies: Protect your client; if you don't then client will never protect you and might only help kill you..


@Dizzyegg05
Steam is a massive spyware application created by Valve the evil hellspwan of microsoft. First steam had only very small trojans that would allow people at the Valve steam dept to record what you we're doing and save it in video files, they would then be sent back to valve and this was all in good taste and in the way of what gamer does with his days.

Then Bill Gates, Gabe Newells good friend from back in the ghetto dayz called down upon him and told him to add massive trojans along with hl2 media to keep users from suspecting anything. These new Trojans would save files in the 400 mb gcache file and it would record literally everything! it would record websites you visited, emails you checked, files you opened and would take up a massive 2 gigs of space now.

Gabe Newell was not happy in the least but Bill Gates still had much power over him, being the richest man in the world and all. Shortly after Steam employes through this was too wrong ethically and quit or went on strike, they were either replaced or sacked and replaced. These new employes had no ethic views or knowledge of what is right or wrong. Steam still does record this information while Gabe and Doug Lombardi are tied up in the back room. But hey! you get your games cheaper there!

Thats an intense story bro and I do love me some conspiracy, but in all honesty Im fine with how things are. I have in excess of 400 titles in my library as well as around 30 in gog and 30 in origin. I install the game , I play the game , goverment knows I like to slack off at work and have disposable income. Gee what am I to do.

Dude, end of the day if you are all just GOG fan boys hating on steam I am not the one to be lecturing as Im not a Steam or Origin or Gog fanboy of any kind. Im a 30 year old video game fan who kicked off on a BBC micro. I love my old games and GOG caters for that. Ive spoken with members of the GOG staf in email and they are awesome folks indeed. My latest purchases included papers please and the Screamer 2 and 2 set. On steam I like my multiplayer titles. Thats my preference. So please stop all this sold your soul to the lord Gabe or whatever. Just enjoy the games. Im glad I was able to resolve my issue and thats pretty much all there is left to say on the matter. At least from me.

Considering that the GOG version does not come with any sort of online matchmaking support, we should make our own channel for this purpose. An IRC channel would be sufficient.

In order to use IRC,
- you need an IRC Client (for example on Google Chrome, the following should work:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/circ/bebigdkelppomhhjaaianniiifjbgocn , but you can use mIRC and there are many others as well)
- login to the server called irc.freenode.net
- join the channel #divinity

And ta-dah, you can meet a... bunch of other people (if people will take to this suggestion), and arrange your own battles!

In order to host a game for Direct IP connection, you need to portforward UDP 23232 in your router, if you have one.

To find out your IP, use http://whatismyip.com

I wanted to make my own thread for this, but I can't for some reason :(

just to be clear, this is what Larian said about the different versions of the game:

"We've noticed there's some confusion about the Steam version of the game versus the other versions like the one that'll be distributed through gog.com or the vault.

The short of it is that all versions all equal and all versions are compatible with one another.

You do need a Steam account if you want to take advantage of all of the Steamworks features that are integrated into the game.

If you don't have a Steam account, then you can still play online or in a LAN, but you won't be able to use the Steamworks features. In that case the Steamworks part of the game will become grayed out.

All versions are DRM free btw but feature a secret surprise for pirates.

Hope that clears it up."

Nowhere does it specify that steamworks is required to use the in game lobby. I assumed that steamworks would be used for modding(since that is usually what games mean by using steamworks) and I am not really interested in modding the game, so I went with the GOG version. on august 7th they added:

"Steamworks is being used for online lobbies, leadership boards and inviting friends. These features are not available if you don't have the game installed on Steam. What you can do with non-Steam versions is play directly with a friend over LAN or online if you know each others IP."

but by then it was too late as the game had already released and many of us had already been fooled by their earlier statement.

There was no intent to fool anyone. The original version of that particular post may not have specified what Steamworks was being used for, but the online multiplayer was always described as using Steamworks. It was stated that there would be a non-Steamworks online option, which Larian didn't provide a lot of early detail on because the details were not finalized then. I assumed it would be a direct connection, not hiring another development team and recreating all the functionality of the Steamworks lobby.

very true.
and dont forget they even had the title "GOG, Steam, Vault etc... No differences" as a header in that announcement.

so in short...
games today are about money. do not preorder. the industry has no honor anymore. no matter which firm.
while i learned that lesson a couple of times since the industry started to change i myself dont seem to get it... might be because back in the days it just wasnt like this.

well in any case mark Larian right up there with all those other firms you got fooled by and vote with your wallet next time. especially when they try to crowdfund again.

edit:
a lot of posts and the rants of all the customers i know say something different.

i litterally know no one that read the statement, bought the game and knew that only the steam versions had lobby-MP nor could you expect NO substitute at all.
whatever you intended. you did fool a lot of people and that announcement was not only unclear about what steamworks meant but starting with a title like "GOG, Steam, Vault etc... No differences" you already put in everybodys mind that there really was no difference except for steam achievements and nonsense like that.

Also it is disgraceful that nowadays you even have to click through some forums before buying a game just to make sure that it got everything you want because you think this way you can circumvent all that shameless marketing stuff. And right after you buy it you have to discover that even that was just some post put in place to get you to buy the game and then have even less features than a pirated one.

And to top it all off there is no workaround, no real excuse, nothing (except for gog having to make up for Larians lies and giving out refunds - thx gog btw).
Not even a official forum area,chat,etc was put in place to supply those who got fooled so they can at least start to organise their mp-matches. instead Larian left us out to dry and even are so shameless as to say that we just didnt read their (deceptive) statement in the right way. your beating someone who fell into your trap for gods sake.

Ah what to say. its just so damn sad what this industry has become. nowadays even "good" games get ruined. and be it just by marketing or distribution.

Is it possible to change the nickname and avatar in multiplayer? So far I could not find an option and I am stuck with my PC's name.

Multiplayer->Start Multiplayer->Create Lobby and in that lobby right up in the right corner there is a grayed out button that says "rename". it is greyed out but it does work. for me at least. Oh and the name usually gets reset at times.

The avatar seems to depend on which slot you have in the lobby. if a friend joins second he has some dude avatar for example.

That only renames the lobby, but does not change your nickname used in the game or the avatar.

sorry for that then, it seemed to work when i was joining a friends lobby yesterday. but in that instance he had the lobby and i was player2. maybe that was the reason. sorry in any case!

Thank you for trying =). I hope that it is possible to change avatars and nicknames in the MP-Lobby. I had no opportunity yet to play online as no friends have the game. Maybe Raze_Larian can shed some light here?

Nobody requests recreating all the features of steamworks. It would be totaly sufficient if a multiplayer-server would on startup announce his name and WAN IP to a small PHP-webpage that sends a list of servers on request that is displayed ingame. From what I read you already improved NAT-punchthrough, so that would not be necessary to be added again.

edit: A HTTP POST and a GET request is all that's needed here. You already have the UI code and everything else. Hardly a huge task.

I'll ask about that.

.
I did ask about the possibility of something like that being implemented, but have not gotten a reply yet. I will pass along your suggestion and reiterate the... disappointment.. some people have expressed.

Hey, I also expected a lobby, but only because that's what I am more or less familiar with (and I won't be playing (much) MP anyway, I suck xD).
Don't pick on the Larian guys, they're cool, I doubt they'd purposely want to deceive their costumers.