So I've been playing Endless Space 2 since it was released and I've actually had this bug before (like, a year ago maybe?) but it solved itself last time. This time it persists and it is driving me crazy.

What's the problem?

I cannot host or join multiplayer games. I have a private multiplayer save with a friend which worked fine until a few days ago. Now, when I try to load the save, three of the AIs are shown as "Name of the Competitor" and I can choose their factions (which should be set). My friend is able to join the lobby, and I can see him join, but it ends there. Chat messages are not displayed on my end, he can't click "ready", and if I start the game anyway it won't load. I think it gets stuck on "connecting to server" - my internet works fine, by the way, I tested that.

If I try to open a new multiplayer game, my own name is shown as "Name of the Competitor". But I can change that back to my username manually. If I set the game to "protected", the chat still says "chat messages are disabled in singleplayer mode", and I cannot invite friends. My friend can see this new game and join, but then it ends as before: he can't click ready, chat messages won't be delivered, nothing.

Btw we're acutually using the same internet network, and his game works fine.

Also, I can't join any other multiplayer games: it get's stuck on "refreshing" without ever showing any games in the list.

I verified the game files via steam, restarted it multiple times, restarted steam and my computer, etc etc. Nothing works. And I have no clue what happened to cause this, I didn't change anything, not on my computer, not regarding the game, not in steam, nor with my internet connection.

I have no idea how to reproduce this... But I hope you can help me fix this, I would love to continue playing with my friends.

Hey,

thanks a lot for your suggestions! I tried quite a bit of stuff over the past few days and in the end it turned out that the issue was caused by corrupted save files. No idea how that can influence the joining or starting of new multiplayer games, but I did a completely clean re-install and the issue was actually gone. So then I carefully added saves and custom factions one after the other, and as soon as I added the save files the same bug appeared again. Deleted the save files but left the custom factions intact - issue gone.

So I guess the saves are lost to me and my friends, but at least the game works again.

knopfn wrote:

Hey,

thanks a lot for your suggestions! I tried quite a bit of stuff over the past few days and in the end it turned out that the issue was caused by corrupted save files. No idea how that can influence the joining or starting of new multiplayer games, but I did a completely clean re-install and the issue was actually gone. So then I carefully added saves and custom factions one after the other, and as soon as I added the save files the same bug appeared again. Deleted the save files but left the custom factions intact - issue gone.

So I guess the saves are lost to me and my friends, but at least the game works again.

Unfortunate of the saves! Luckily the game works, and that is quite important in multiplayer :D

Kind regards,

Keimpe

It does not appear that the devs care about this game anymore.