Multiplayer is just not working. Advice?

I've been dealing with Dark Souls online issues for over a year now with varying success. My first triumph was opening my NAT type and finding that many more people that I thought play the game. Then I was able to summon friends. Finally, I was able to host LAN parties with all being able to summon all.

Recently, I had a problem in New Londo ruins summon but that was fixed by a quick look up on the wiki regarding the draining of water. I now seem to be having the same problem in OTHER areas of the game.

I was able to summon my friend all night last night until I got to the 3rd fire in Anor Londo. I opened the shortcut on the same run he has died in. Then BAM.....couldn't summon him again. I know about the SL summon range and we've made sure to stay within it. Now it appears that this problem is affecting all of my characters in different stages of the game.

I can't imagine this is a router issue as NOTHING has changed. I even power cycled it and the cable modem to be sure. It can't be a problem like the New Londo Ruins summoning issue because all of my characters are at varying SLs and areas of the game. It's not xbox live because the people I am trying to summon are getting invaded and summoned constantly (again, they are in my SL range).

Has anyone had this happen? Please help.

It's often not your fault, the game is famous (or infamous that is) of being terrible on the online part. Type "summoning failed" in google and you get millions of hits. These issues are going to be less annoying in DS2 because they bring back Dedicated servers. Oh yeah! My messages will be rated in the hundreds again, sticky white stuff anyone? Lol.

For your problem, well keep trying. But don;t change your settings too much. It's on the game's end most of the time.

Good luck!

Is there any reason why it seems to only affect a small percentage of people at any one time? I just had two friends online who were both able to summon each other. I'm not being invaded or summoned and I'm at Oolacile Township - a super heavy area. I don't even see summon symbols. I do see messages though.

Is there anything I can do?

I just saw a white symbol, a red symbol and a shadow. Does is come back gradually? Should I just give it a break and come back in a few hours?

.....and now my fire is going nuts. I saw a fog wall for a few seconds, then it disappeared. After that I couldn't put my symbol down.....and there goes the fog wall again. What the F?

I really don't understand how this game works sometimes. I love it so much but I've never had so many problems playing online with any other game. Contemplating calling FROM SOFTWARE technical support and having them explain every detail to me. When it works - it's great. When it doesn't - it's one of the most frustrating ordeals in gaming.

I've given it an hour break and I'm still in the same boat. Should I just cut my losses and try tomorrow? It's never been this bad....

You saw that link to dscfix v1.0 in the PC section? Didn't try yet, but it might help you out.

I'm on 360 but thanks for the advice anyways.

im on ps3 but i had this issue upon release of the game, changed my nat type to type3 and it all went good, dno if that will help for xbox

My NAT type is wide open. Nothing has changed on my router. Thanks for the reply though!

It seems to be working a little better today. I wonder what the reason is....

maybe your connection just isnt good enough for consistant Gaming on the Dark souls servers

My connection is great.....



And since I've fixed my NAT in October it's been smooth sailing.

I had trouble the other night. Damn copper line DSL ( Verizon ). Farm country DSL.
I went to dslreports.com tested my speed. Download approx 1.37mb, upload approx 340kb. But that day my latency was 112. That was testing an east coast server, when I tested a Virginia or calif server it was worse. ( probably cutting the pool of players to pull from, drastically)
I have ample download for Netflix and everything. Best I can tell as I monitor my connection all the time is when my upload number is crappy (360kb and below). Summons get rarer. That latency number seems to be a real factor too, best online is when it's 50-70. My online play wanes when it's raining too.
I don't even try playing online when my wife is streaming anything. Our connection craps out when multiple users try to use it for downloading/uploading.

Point is, if it was working good it will again. Sometimes your just at the mercy of your connection.

Best thing I find, is reboot your modem,
If you know how, use your browser to view your raw connection speed 192.168.1.1
(my best raw speed I like to see is 1789kb DL. / 447kb UL. But rebooted yesterday at least 8x and could only get 1789/389). Wasn't seeing signs in Aramis, summoning was deathly slow. You can' t tweak the speed, but you can see when you connect poorly, so you can reboot.

Shoulda read to the end. Your speed is superb! Lol

billy_bayonet wrote:im on ps3 but i had this issue upon release of the game, changed my nat type to type3 and it all went good, dno if that will help for xbox

Where is this done? Would like to check mine.

If you have DSL it can be a pain as the modems / routers work differently than a cable line set up. You'll have to find out how to put your router in "bridged mode" and access the router by typing in the ip address into your web browser (most likely 192.168.1.1). Then either open or forward the necessary ports for ps3 online gaming (not sure what those are off the top of my head) OR you could just route the ps3 through the DMZ.

Technically you don't want NAT type 3. That means there is an issue with your connection. The "type" is just a word that Sony uses. You want an "OPEN" Nat Type.

Check this out. It will give you a better understanding....

gillem defoe wrote:I really don't understand how this game works sometimes. I love it so much but I've never had so many problems playing online with any other game. Contemplating calling FROM SOFTWARE technical support and having them explain every detail to me. When it works - it's great. When it doesn't - it's one of the most frustrating ordeals in gaming.

I agree with you dude. I have learned to bare with it. Funny thing is with other games I am hosting all the time (nat is wide open, download is 80MB, up is 10MB) Only DS is having issues. Glad they go back to dedicated. They have learned apparently.

Try to have fun when it works. Because it really does sometimes. Umbasa.

billy_bayonet wrote:maybe your connection just isnt good enough for consistant Gaming on the Dark souls servers

Dark Souls has no servers ;-)

Thanks to everyone who responded! It seems like it's back to normal....for the most part.....

A new problem I encountered is being invaded in the forest but only when I have two people playing on the same LAN. We can summon each other but then the invasions go WAY down. As soon as we let each other go the invades get back to normal - never waiting more than a minute. I think this problem falls in the same category as a summon who gets kicked when summoning another or when getting invaded which happens much more when hosting a LAN party.