So me and 4 of my friend tried to play HotA via GameRanger. We used to play Heroes 3 Complete before without any problems. But, after installing Horn of the Abyss, some of us cannot join to some hosts, we have problems with desync and such. Everything works fine without installing HotA, so I assume it itself causes some bugs. Here's what we've all done:

1. Installed Heroes 3 Complete from the same source;
2. Put a recent version of HD mod on it;
3. Installed HotA 1.3.2.;
4. Created HD .exe from h3hota.exe and renamed it to Heroes3.exe;
5. Pointed to this Heroes3.exe via GameRanger;
6. Tried to play.

2 of my friends can join my server, 2 of them don't (with or without port forwarding). I myself didn't change anything in ports (so do my friends) which are:


I tried it with HD mod and without it, nothing changes, so it's not this mod's fault. Also port forwarding does not affect anything. My question is - does HotA use different ports than Heroes 3 Complete? Is it possible to make one .exe similar to good old Heroes33.exe, which solves nearly all problems with multiplayer? What do I need to do to play with all of my friends? We're really pumped since HotA 1.3.0 in English came out and we want to play it. Badly.

You can respond me in English (preffered) or Russian (I will try to translate it).

Please move this topic to "Horn of the Abyss" category, I've made a mistake putting it here, on "Heroes 3" cat and I don't want to double-post. Thanks.

HotA seems not to be compatible with GameRanger, after all that is a specific software, that can work only with specific games. HotA is not included. I'd advise trying Hamachi, TeamViewer or Tunngle as a VPN client.

P.S. If someone managed to play HotA through GameRanger, they'll correct me

Try to put this dll to Heroes 3 folder: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c0822r9b2qz3s4n/DPWSOCKX.DLL
Don't know exactly, but maybe it will help.

You also should disable firewall.


HotA with gameranger worked fo me, but it was old version, 1.1 or 1.2.

@nik312
GameRanger works with HotA, just rename h3hota.exe to "Heroes3.exe" and point this file in GameRanger's settings. The question is - why it doesn't work for everybody. As I stated before, we managed to connect 3 of 5 players. 2 can't join no matter what we do.

@Sav
The firewalls on our PCs are disabled, it is the first thing that everybody who wants to play H3 multiplayer does. Also, we all have this DPWSOCKX.DLL in H3 directory, so it will not help.

Any other suggestions?

I can probably enlighten you about GameRanger issues. Firstly, these guys are Mac-oriented on the first place. This is confirmed by their minimalistic design.

The problem with hosting/joining is often caused by the inconsistencies with the CPU type. Thus, people with AMD CPUs cannot host Lords of Magic, for example, but can join.
There also can be some problems with x64 systems.
Also, there is always a lot of problems with joining when there is some difference with the necessary game files and/or EXE file version.

We have exact same copy of Heroes 3. I uploaded and shared mine just to be sure that everybody has the same files. Also, problems appear only after installing HotA - we can play clean H3 Complete with ease, so I don't think that it's GameRanger's fault. I thought that if I post it there (on official's HotA forum) somebody from mod's crew will respond and help me, but I'm apparently ignored by them. My questions from first post in this thread are still valid - does HotA use other ports than Heroes 3 Complete? Is it possible to make new .exe which will solve our problems like Heroes33.exe did before? HotA makers - respond!

Look credits, to know who is Sav.

From me.
1) Rename .exe files for capability with gameranger. "Wrong" name like h3hota.exe. Gameranger needs heroes3.exe or something like that.
2) Only two players can play HotA with gameranger, not more. I don't know why. Third or next can't see others.
3) Sorry for my english.

Already 3 members of the team have responded you. Including main coder. If there is no answer to your question, then that is I'm afraid all there is. HotA should not use different ports as I play through hamachi w/o any problem with old port-forwarding

@Mantiss
I don't like quoting myself, but as I stated in my first post - we all renamed "h3hota HD.exe" to "Heroes3.exe" to use it with GameRanger. I descibed problems with connection via GameRanger, so we all got it to work with HotA, atleast partially. 2 of my mates joined my room without problems, another 2 couldn't. Also we all have mentioned .dll in our Heroes 3 directories (it comes with GOG's Complete version). Firewalls were disabled at first place. Rule you posted in third point of your post also doesn't apply - we managed to play in 3 ppl without any problems. And it's always same 3 ppl, so it doesn't matter how many players are there or in which order they joined the room.

@nik312
Sorry for inconvenience, but this forum has barely no signs or banners of who is who. I could sit and read credits, like Mantiss adviced, but I came to this forum instead, hoping for help. I didn't saw any markings and I'm not fluent in Russian (I use Google Translate mainly) so I didn't know who actually responded me - coder, team member or someone else. I was thinking that if someone from the HotA team responds me I will know it by, atleast, colour of their nicknames.

Anyway - after another few hours of trying anything what we found online (including other than Hamachi or GameRanger applications), we managed to play without any problems through Tunngle. If anybody experienced same problems as I had (and which I mentioned repeatedly in this thread) I recommend you all to use this app. I, as host, forwarded only 11155 UDP port, but I don't think even that was necessary - nobody forwarded anything and we played smoothly over few hours.
It would be nice to play through GameRanger but since HotA is like a woman - nobody knows what she likes and what she doesn't - we're all happy that we finally connected with each other even if Tunngle is not our favorite tunneling application.

Also, responding to Orzie - we all checked our hardware and Windows' versions and it turned out that it doesn't matter in our case. I have Intel's Core 2 Duo and 32-bit system (W7) and my friend who can't join me has Intel's Dual Core with 64-bit (also W7). Normally I would blame those bit difference, but my second friend also have 64-bit Windows 7 (with AMD CPU surprisingly) and he can join to play with me on GameRanger without even forwarding his ports. But! We noticed that those 2 friends who coulnd't join my room in GameRanger use notebooks and WiFi connections, while other have PC's and cable-connection. I don't know if it's necessary to point it out, but i felt like I should write it - maybe you guys can make use of this info.

Although we managed to fix our problems the topic is still viable (IMO). HotA still hates GameRanger and I'm open for any suggestions.

Sav, Mantiss, and nik312 all are members of 'Member Group: HotA Crew', and this fact can be found in their accont profiles.