How can I set up a LAN game over Hamachi?
One of the perils of the tight Steam integration in Borderlands 2 that my brother and I discovered last night, is that if either of us lose our connection to the friends list server, our game goes down. When that happened to us last night, I decided to give Hamachi a try in order to create a LAN game.
We downloaded Hamachi and got the vLAN set up easily enough, but my brother had no luck searching for the LAN game I had just created. The wikia article gives a couple of solutions, but I'm not sure if they're specific to Borderlands, or apply to Borderlands 2 as well;
- Do these solutions apply to Borderlands 2 at all?
- How do I either specify the IP to connect to or the NIC to use when searching for a LAN game?
If those solutions don't apply, what is the solution for playing Borderlands 2 over Hamachi?
Solution 1:
Well, I just got it working. (Kudos to jesseodonoghue on Youtube) Basically you need to do this. Change the path of the shortcut to:
"C:\Program Files\2K Games\Borderlands 2\Binaries\Win32\Borderlands2.exe" 5.0.0.0
Where 5.0.0.0 needs to be changed to the Hamachi IP of the hoster on Hamachi. Note the host does not need to do this, only the connectors. And it works. Just tried it then... GREAT SUCCESS!
Solution 2:
If you can't manage to get Hamachi to work, you might want to try Evolve's VPN feature. It reportedly works better for zero-configuration LAN games than Hamachi does and comes with a few extra videogame-specific bells and whistles.
Full disclosure: I'm a developer on Evolve.
Solution 3:
I work in a place that does not allow port forwarding for the required ports. I was able to play a LAN game with a friend on the outside by following these steps:
- Each person installed the latest version of Hamachi
- A friend created a network through the LogMeIn panel and sent me the network name and password.
- I started Hamachi, hit the power button, then entered the network name and password. Hamachi showed that I was connected and could see the other computers on the network.
- In BL2, I went to the Network Options, and set it to LAN mode.
- I "selected the "Continue" option to go to my existing game.
- After waiting a minute or so, BL2 detected that my friend was in BL2. I invited him to my game and he connected successfully.