Frequently Asked Questions: ESO

Having some trouble playing online? Look no further!

How do I use ESO (Ensemble Studios Online)?

Check out the question mark at the top right of the ESO screens. It displays a page of information and tips for using Ensemble Online that can be real helpful when you’re starting out.

What’s the quickest way to get into a multiplayer game?

Quick start is the easiest way to get into a game. Just log into ESO and hit Start on the main screen to have ESO find you a game quickly and automatically. You can also change your game settings, or create a team and ESO will find people or teams with matching settings to pair you up against. It will always try to find you the best match possible for your ratings. (Advanced tip: You can actually change how long it searches before expanding the search criteria. Go to the Options screen off the main menu – default is quickest search.)

But can I get into a quick game with my friends?

A: Yes! Click the Create Team button on the lower left of the quick start screen and then you can invite your friends onto your team and search for other teams to play against (when everyone clicks “Ready” ESO will automatically search for an opponent team for you.)

How do I keep track of my friends online?

Check out the friends list! It allows you to keep track of your friends, see when they’re online and where they are in the system, and invite them into your games.

How does the ratings system work?

A: Everyone’s rating starts at 1600 and then move up or down based on an ELO style algorithm. All quick start games are rated, and all advanced games are not rated. The quick search system will always try to find someone near to you in ratings. If it needs to put you into a game that has players with ratings that are out of your skill level, it will automatically engage the handicapping system and disable rating for that game (this is a rare occurrence though, since most of the time the system can quickly find you players who are in your skill range.) Check out the in-game stats screen to view the ratings and games you and others have played.

Can I send private messages to my friends without opening the friends list?

A little hidden feature: Type /username message to send a whisper to anyone on the system. This works from in-game too!

Can I create more than one user name?

You can create as many usernames as you want on ESO with a single CD-key. The trick, however, is that you need to wait about 5 minutes after you log off with your old username before you log in with the new one. This allows the system time to clear out your username association with your CD-key. (Note, you can only have one CD-key logged in at a time on ESO.)

When I search for a game, it just searches and searches but never finds anyone. What’s wrong?

Typical searches shouldn’t take much more than a minute or two, but until the game is released world wide (late November) the ESO population might not be large enough to support large searches with greater than 4 players or team searches. Also, if your search is taking longer than you expect you might have a connection problem to other players. You can test whether or not you have a connection problem by clicking Advanced Setup and trying to join a game on the Games List. Please read the tips below regarding DSL/Cable routers, NATs and firewalls if you do have trouble connecting.

I get an error 20 when trying to log in! Help!

A: Make sure you have a default language set in Internet Explorer. In IE, go to Tools and then Internet Options. At the bottom of that dialog you’ll see a “Languages” button. Click that, and make sure you have at least one language (likely English) set up in the list of languages.

I get an error connecting to ESO when I try to log in or create an account.

First of all, try it a couple of times before you give up. Right now our autopatch server is a bit saturated and it can occasionally give you a failure if it’s overloaded. We’ll be fixing this VERY soon, don’t worry.

If you receive an “Error connecting to ESO.” then that means that AOM is unable to even access the main ESO webpage from inside the game. Double check for anything that might be getting in between AOM and ESO, such as proxy settings, firewalls, or virus checkers. Finally, you might have spy-ware or advertising software secretly installed on your machine that is getting in the way. Some programs such as Kazaa and imesh install these programs without the user’s knowledge. A great program to scan for and remove these programs is LavaSoft’s AdAware ( www.lavasoftusa.com/aaw.html – click Downloads at the top.) This program will scan for any spy-ware on your system and clean it off automatically.

Make sure your windows clock is set to the correct date and time. If it is set to a date earlier than October 2002, you may experience problems connecting to ESO.

What do I need to do to play AOM behind a router or firewall? (such as those commonly used with DSL or cable modems)

AOM has been designed to work with routers and firewalls as transparently as possible. In most cases, AOM will work best if your router is in its default configuration with no additional setup (no DMZ or static ports required.) However, an *important note* is that you need to upgrade your router to the latest firmware/driver. For instance, if you have a LinkSys router, go to www.linksys.com to download and install the latest driver for your device. Please make sure you restart your router (cycle the power on it) and restart your computer after installing the updates.

If you have a US Robotics router, firmware/driver updates can be found here: http://www.usr.com/support/s-main-menu.asp

If you are running a firewall (such as ZoneAlarm, ZonePro, etc), AOM will try its best to play through it if possible, but it may sometimes be necessary to open up a port. AOM uses UDP port 2300 and 64520 for all its in-game traffic, so you can open these port (bi-directional) if your firewall is blocking game traffic. If your firewall doesn’t support port configuration, you can also try temporarily disabling it. You do this at your own risk, of course.

What ports does AOM use?

Before opening ports, you should attempt to use AOM/ESO with just your default router configuration since this is what works for most people (and also make sure you have upgraded your router to the latest drivers/firmware.) AOM uses UDP port 2300 by default for in game traffic (which might also equate to UDP port 64520 depending on how your router is set up – safest bet is to just open both – In other words, on your router set trigger, inbound and outbound to UDP port 2300 and then do the same for UDP port 64520) You can override this though and make AOM use whatever port you want by adding this to the command line/shortcut for the game:

hostPort=XXXX

Where XXXX is the port you want the game to use for all its in-game traffic.
– You can also try putting your machine on the DMZ, but this should only be a last resort as AOM was designed to work without the need for a DMZ setting.

I want to play the game behind my home network with multiple computers. Can I do that?

Yes. AOM was also designed with home networks in mind. If you have multiple machines playing the game behind the same connection such as a home network, AOM will also try to configure itself transparently. If you are experiencing trouble getting multiple simultaneous people on the same network into a game, try adding this to the command line/shortcut for AOM:

hostPort=230X

(replace X in the line above with the number of the machine, so for instance machine 1 would have hostPort=2301, machine 2 would have hostPort=2302, etc)

Note you need a CD-KEY per machine playing simultaneously online. You can still play an LAN game with just one CD-KEY though.

Will ESO work if I have multiple network cards?

AOM will be unhappy if you have multiple network interfaces active in your machine (as in more than one network card – if you don’t know what we’re talking about then don’t worry, it probably doesn’t apply to you.) If you have multiple network cards and you are experiencing trouble, please disable the network interfaces that you’re not using to play the game, and then restart the game and try again.

Can I use DirectIP behind a NAT, router or firewall?

AOM was engineered to be played over ESO if you are using a NAT, router, or firewall. AOM games played over DirectIP (non ESO) require a direct internet connection and do not officially support these network devices. If you are trying to set up a DirectIP game behind a NAT, firewall or router, and your machine has a “fake” IP address (such as 198.something or 10.10.something) you will need to plug your machine directly into the internet so that you have a “real” external IP address before attempting the DirectIP game.

The best suggestion is “Just use ESO and everything will work automatically.”

The rest of this answer only applies to advanced users who cannot or don’t want to use ESO and would rather use the DirectIP connection type behind a router or firewall.

If you need to use DirectIP with a router, the best way to ensure that it will work is to set up your AOM client machine with a real internet IP rather than an internal address (in other words, have your client machine plugged directly into your internet conncetion.) If your router is incapable of setting this up, you can also try statically mapping UDP port 2300 (bi-directional) to the client machine (set this up in the router.) You can also try setting up the client machine on the “DMZ.” Finally, when you go to connect to another AOM user over DirectIP, make sure you type in the external IP address of the router rather than the “fake” internal IP address that it may assign to your client machine.

Unfortunately, many ISP’s actually put you behind ANOTHER hidden router/firewall/NAT on their end, and so the external address you think you have may not actually be a real external IP address. Another avenue you can try is switching who is hosting the game and trying to connect in the other direction.

All that said, with today’s internet connections (which typically involve all sorts of firewalls, NAT’s, routers, switches, etc) it is best to just use ESO (Hey, it’s free!) and let the servers work their magic on your connection. In most cases AOM will be able to find a pathway through all of those devices and connect you up to other players without requiring any additional configuration on your part.

I’m still having trouble connecting. Could my virus scanner be getting in the way?

If you followed the above advice and are still having difficulty connecting, please double check your running virus scanners. Some virus scanners, such as PC-cillin, actually block network ports (such as the port AOM uses) which will keep AOM from being able to connect to other users. In the case of PC-cillin, even disabling real-time monitoring is not enough to open these ports and the program must be shut down entirely to disable its port blocking. Of course, you disable virus scanners at your own risk (and doing so should only be after you’ve tried everything else listed above), but you should be aware that many of them can actually interfere with network ports so this is something you can try disabling if nothing else works.

I’m having graphics problems, are my video and sound hardware supported?

Age of Mythology runs best with the latest drivers for your video card, sound card, and network card. If you have a motherboard with a non-Intel chipset, you should make sure that those are up to date as well.

Go to Windows Update (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) and/or your system manufacturer’s web site to obtain the latest drivers.

The following Cards are not supported:

3D Labs Permedia 1
3Dfx voodoo rush dual plane
3dfx voodoo rush single plane
3dfx voodoo banshee
3dfx voodoo
3dfx voodoo 2
ati rage pro
ati rage ii
ati rage ii+
ati rage iic
ati rage lt
ati rage mobiliity m/m1/p
ati rage lt-pro
cirrus logic cards
chromatic research cards
intel i740
matrox g100
matrox g200
matro millennium
matro maillennium ii
matrox mystique
neo-magic cards
number9 cards
nvidia riva 128
oak technologies cards
rendition cards
s3 virge­_vx
s3 virge_mx/mv
s3 virge_mx+
s3 virge_mx
s3 virge_gx2
s3 virge_dx/gx
s3 trio64v2_dx/gx
s3 trio64UV+
S3 Aurora64V+
S3 Aurora128
S3 Savage 2000
Tseng Labs Cards

I get a “Stats Error: 2,4” sometimes when a game completes, what is this?

Download and install all official game patches.

After games I get “Error connecting to ESO stats server” How do I fix this?

This is an error that is caused by IE7. To fix it, download the offical patch provided by ES at our forums.

I didn’t find the answer to my problem, who do I contact for support?

Contact Microsoft Personal Support at no cost. The Personal Support options available to you are:
Online Support: Available 24 hours a day. Responses are normally sent back within a 24 hour period.
Phone Support: 425-637-9308. Speak with a support professional. Available M-F 5AM-9PM, Sat 5AM-3PM, or Sun 9AM-3PM (All times Pacific).