Guild Wars Loves Uni Firewall

Right then, i've just moved to university and everythings hunky dorey. Freshers is epic etc etc, and i've managed to setup absolutely everything fine.

Except guild wars.

Before i go to try and find the tech types on campus, i thought i'd try and clue myself up a bit more and see if you more knowledgable types may know the cause of the issue.

Guild wars loads the initial mini pop up thing, however you cannot then login and i'm given the error 58 message (for garble from PlayNC on this error see link http://eu.plaync.com/eu/help/support-doc/doc_3104) something about not being able to connect to the login servers, this is most likely caused by an internet routing issue.

Now it says there's port 80 and 6112 that must be open, i don't know about the first one but the 6112 is also used by Blizzards Battle.net and my Warcraft 3 logs onto that no problem so i dunno about that. However that information is form wikipedia so take it as you will.

The more particular part (see about the 3rd last paragraph on this page http://www.southampton.ac.uk/iss/com...sfirewall.html) that i was hoping for insight on was this incoming/outcoming thing, they block all things trying to make incoming connections so as to avoid some malicious stuff, my question is do you think GW uses these types of connections? Something callled Network Address Translation.

My last thought was it might be because Anet changed the way GW would work with masked IP's (if memory serves) and it says something about them doing that, but would that be an issue at all?

Side stuff, windows XP sp2. Warhammer Online, Cod4, every other online function on my pc works perfectly.

Thanks in advance for any insight ^^

First things first, kudos on researching a little yourself, it's amazing how alot of people simply give no details on what was tried.

For a error=058, follow instructions here first: http://uk.support.plaync.com/cgi-bin...i=&p_topview=1

A 058 is usually due to network configuration errors, and can be related to a firewall issue. If gw works with that machine back home, then your pc is configured correctly i'd guess so the problem lies twith the college network.

Your college network may have blocked access to the GW game servers. You can probably see this regardless of what you are doing because the client thinks there were no new updates. when you try to connect to the game servers, again, if the college has blocked access, you would receive a 058 error. If you can browse the internet (port 80) then i would say the gw servers are specifically blocked, probably due to alot of use by previous students hogging the college network.

It's quite normal for a firewall to block incoming connection requests from untrusted sources, but as you are initiating the request, your returned queries should get in.

I wouldn't worry about NAT config or masked IPs or any of that sort of stuff as it generally wouldn't relate to your issue. Speak to the college net admin and ask him if there's a reason why this game is disallowed, many colleges block network gaming to maintain stability on college networks.

One other thing i've thought of is that you may still be using an IP address assigned by your home network. Log into your pc using an administrator account and go to start>run and type cmd.
In here, at the c:\> prompt, type the following:

ipconfig /release <hit return>
ipconfig /renew <hit return>

this will ensure you are getting an ip address from your college network rather than your home network.

I'd recommend getting SP3. Also, you're posting on the forums so port 80 (HTTP) is open. You can also use Microsoft's netdiag.exe to check for issues. If you're on a software firewall check your settings.

I've tried resetting my IP but it seems that'd already changed so unfortunately that hasn't changed anything, thanks for the hint though i hadnt a clue how to do that lol.

I'll phone the techies tomorrow see if they know its blocked or not, and if so try and blag my way into them unblocking it or finding the fault.

What advantages are there with sp3?

Also just downloaded netdiag.exe to see if it offered anything but i dunno how to work it/start it, pointers at all^^?

SP3 is, among many other things, a collection of every fix/update since SP2. It's faster and more secure. It's free.

IE7 gives netdiag.exe too. IE7 also has a lot of important updates.

IE7 gives netdiag.exe too. IE7 also has a lot of important updates.

Hmm, seems guild wars requires access to inbound connections as well as outbound, which my uni's firewall is blocking.

Time again to try convince the admins to unblock the ports, not holding my breathe though =(

I vaguely remember there being some ways of getting around port blocks, using proxy's or something, could anyone inform me if this is true or if i'm babbling?

Befriend the admin, by him/her a pint or two and he/she'll sort it out for you. Well, that was what I did when I was at manchester uni anyway.

And if the admin is a she, man, you've got nothing to lose.

Are you sure it requires both incoming and outgoing access? Because I'm pretty sure it only makes outgoing connections. In my firewall, I often see 3 connections. And I know one of those is to the friends network.

Lol, that's the plan etta aye.

Well thats what plaync says about port usage, but i dunno about it being 100% correct or not.

Here's where i read it; http://eu.plaync.com/eu/help/support-doc/doc_2443/

As an ex soton uni student I know they are notoriously tight about unblocking ports (or at least they were 3 years ago). Your best bet is to try and persuade them through whatever means but I wouldn't hold out much hope - sorry fella