For those of you who are struggling with match making services, I want to make you all aware of Evolve. A Free Server hosting program that will behave as both Hamachi and Skype combined.
https://www.evolvehq.com/welcome
From my personal experience, there is some troubleshooting in-order to get the party system to work, but once you do, you get your external IP for a Server. You can also voip and text each other in the party room with a Steam Overlay coming in Evolve 2.0 (In beta).
I don’t know how to make it all work as I’m still trying this, but I should also point out it has a Match Making Service:
And here’s what my party room looks like with my own IP. (Changes every time you stop a Party.)
I’m extremely excited for this program and it boasts to having 1.8 million users. (Probably downloads.) How come I’ve never heard anyone talk about this? I would love to use this in a Steam game as all the Server and Match Making code is done for me. All you need to do to get it running in your game is the ability to search for IP’s with an Input field. Should work great with Unet!
Edit: In-order to fix the Network Adapter for Windows 10 users, once you have it installed, go to your Device Manager, hit Network Adapters and right click ‘Evolve Network Ethernet Adapter’ and set the Mac Address to 0.
I just tested Evolve with my friend and it works perfectly. No port forwarding required, just make sure you check your firewall settings on your game. It’s probably the best way to make an Online game if you don’t want to spend money on custom Servers.
Hey again guys. With some more messing around, I’ve discovered some cool things. Firstly, I’m playing ‘The Forest’ and you CAN use an Overlay with Steam Games. As long as they’re one of the ‘1504’ games available on Evolve’s List. Also, in the screenshot below, you’ll notice that I joined someone’s game for ‘COD WAW’ to say hi since I saw him on Match Making. I love that game and it has serious issues with finding Matches.
It turns out he’s away and I couldn’t make a direct connection. Indicated by his Blue Circle Icon next to his name, it say’s I joined him Via a Relay Server for Free. Another thing to note is that when I screenshot my overlay on ‘The Forest’ it shows my desktop instead. Weird, but not a big deal.
Something else to keep in mind since they’re offering their Relay Service for Free, Evolved warned me that the connection speed is Throttled. So they suggested I do port forward in-order to establish better connection speeds. Simply go in your Router and Port Forward a Custom Port. Said port is chosen by you in the Program’s settings:
So yeah. It works great with both Steam and Unet. Tested and proven. Match Making is functioning good too.
