So in the past week, I have learned something about XBox Live … the whole spiel about needing to have a “Live Certified” router to make sure you can make good connections to other players apparently has a little bit of merit.
About a week and a half ago now, I tried to connect to a co-worker of mine to play Gears Of War (highly addictive, I’ll get into that shortly), but couldn’t, no matter what I tried (or had him try for that matter). My router had the proper ports forwarded, but it was a newer version of a router that had previously been “Live Certified” (V6 instead of a V3). So while the NAT said open, it wasn’t letting this game connect, and I could connect to anyone else, period.
So, in order to try and resolve the problem, but not give up using the Linksys that has been solid as a rock for torrents and a lot of my network uses, I broke the home network into a pair of subnets, each using its own wireless router … the XBox now using a Microsoft MN-700 router, old, generally a piece of crap, but Live Certified. I finally was online last night with time to play a few games, and once I got around the seven invites I got to play a game right as I signed on (shows the popularity right there), I signed on with the co-worker to play. Worked great!
So I guess the lesson for us kids is, go on eBay, find one of those old crappy Live Certified routers, and know that it’s going to work no matter what. Interesting stuff.
