Generally the Arena Wars Boards should be you first choice for asking questions, posting requests or bugs.
We will open up an extra technical support board if there are a lot of technical questions.
We (the developers) will constantly visit and check these boards and try to help you as much as possible :)

Arena Wars Community Boards

Please always read this FAQ first before you ask questions and use the board search function
to check if someone had already asked the exact same question before.
This will help minimizing problems and keeping the boards more clean.

First of all do the following default steps to solve most problems:

• Check if you meet the minimum system requirements
• Update your graphic, sound and mainboard drivers to the latest driver version.
  The graphic driver is of course the most important and will help in most cases.
• Make sure no background applications are running when starting Arena Wars
• Check your computer for viruses and make sure the program was not modified (you can update AWR to fix it)
• Often the problem lies not in any software problem, but the hardware. Check if your hardware,
  especially your CPU and graphic board are running smoothly and are cooled properly. Also check
  your RAM and make sure your computer runs stable when running at full workload.
• Make sure the settings in config.txt are supported by your hardware!
  Disable specific features if you got problems (go into config.txt and search for the string):
  
  • Disable the intro video if you got problems with startup/video (set "Disable Intro = 1")
  • Try the windowed mode if your fullscreen mode does not work or crashes, the windowed mode
    is much more stable, but slower (set "Fullscreen = 1")
  • Use lower resolution settings, refresh rate or color depth, sometimes some modes are
    not supported by the graphic driver
  • Disable volumic lighting in the main menu if it fails or displays wrong graphics or is
    very slow with setting "Volumic Lighting = 0"
  • Disable stencil shadows sometimes helps too, but stuff does not look as good as before,
    just set "Realtime Stencil Shadows = 0"
  • Disable music with setting "Music ON = 0" when you got problems with music (mp3) playback.
  • You can also disable the sound with setting "Sound ON = 0", can help if you got problems with DirectX
    (since DirectX is only used for Sound in AWR, no other part uses DirectX)

Some people did have problems when starting Arena Wars on WinMe/98 with older graphic boards
or older drivers, especially for non ATI or NVidia boards. Most of the time a driver update,
a better OS (like WinXP) or a simple restart did help.
There is also a now known issue when the OpenGL Initializiation fails (v1.0.0-v1.0.6) an error
message like "FatalError: System.ArithmeticException: Overflow or underflow in the arithmetic operation."
This is a very strange error, but seems to happen on several different cards/drivers on WinMe,
it is not documented and I haven't found any info about this, but it seems it has something to do
with calling wglCurrentContext the first time or when calling multiple times.
The only cure seems to be to try initializing again, which worked on my TNT2 WinMe Test System (v1.0.7),
so this is fixed hopefully for most cards in v1.0.7. If you still got problems, be sure to post the log.txt
when the OpenGL Initialization failes (please post crash logs and descriptions in the boards).

If you still got problems, please read the boards: Arena Wars Community Boards

Everything about the Ranking and Ladder-System can be found on the Ranking pages:
Arena Wars Ranking Information

To logon to the Arena Wars Server, just click in the main menu on "Multiplayer Internet".
Now you have to enter your email and then the Activation-Key you received via Email
and finally the Serial (see your manual for a detailed step-by-step explanation).
You also have to use the latest Arena Wars Version, which will be checked when you startup Arena Wars, see
How does the Arena Wars Patcher Tool work?

Every time you log on your Account will be verified, it actually does not matter if you have the original CD in your CD-Drive.
Only if your Account is approved you may logon. Use the Serial from the back of your manual.
If you don't have a Serial (e.g. you are just playing the MPDemo, you didn't buy the game, whatever), you can only logon in the "Demo Mode".
In this mode you can only play on the 3 demo maps, won't be able to use certain functions (like sending out voice and webcam data)
and your account will also be limited to 1 month (and several other issues which will kindly "force" you to buy the full game :) )

Warning: Do NOT share your serial, every Account has its own unique Serial, if someone else tries to use your Serial,
your Account will be overwritten (you will receive an email explaining what happend and showing you the new account).
If this happens to often, the Serial will get disabled and can't be used anymore (you will receive an email in this case too).
If you want to use our free Arena Wars online services you have to accept the
Arena Wars - Terms of Use

If you try to abuse, hack, cheat or missuse the Server, we will ban your Account and Serial!
Also do NOT try to enter wrong Serials if you don't have a valid Serial, if you try this to often
your Account will get banned, after 3 wrong Serials you will get a warning message and after 12 tries its over my friend :D

This is how a Serial looks like:
ASDF-ASDF-ASDF-ASDF-ASDF-ASDF

An Activation-Key (you need this to create a new Account, an Activation-Key will be sent to your email) looks like this:
ASDF-ASDF-ASDF

An Reset-Key (for changing a player account password) looks like this:
ASDF-ASDF

For an explanation about all the used server icons and functions please read the manual!

You can create new Players by clicking on 'Create new Player' when logged in.
You are allowed to create as many Players as you like, but if a Player has low or no usage
(days unused should be less than twice the number of games played plus 10 days),
the Player will be removed (e.g. 10 day old and 0 games -> deleted, 15 days old and 3 games -> not deleted,
21 days old and only 5 games -> deleted, 1 year old and 200 games -> not deleted).
So if you want to keep your Player accounts you have to use them.
Please check out the Terms of Use for more information about Accounts and Players.
Please behave on the AWR Server!

Arena Wars will check everytime you start it if the original CD is inserted.
If no CD or not the original Arena Wars CD is found, the game will start in the "Demo Mode".
In this mode you can only select "Multiplayer Internet" (to play online, no CD Check is required to play online!),
"Multiplayer Lan" to JOIN multiplayer lan games (you can't host a multiplayer lan game) and
"Replays" to watch replays, the menu items "Singleplayer" and "Editor" are gray and can't be used!
Just insert the CD and start Arena Wars again to play the Singleplayer or use the Editor!

If the CD does not work for some reason its always best to disable all virtual CD drives, especially
if you have SCSI-Drives and use programs like Nero Virtual CD, Alcohol or Deamon Tools. Disable or
deinstall this applications and then try again. We have tested Arena Wars on a lot of computers and drives
and it worked always fine, but we can't assure it will run perfrect on 100% of all systems ...

If there will ever be a No-CD Crack available, it won't help much because Arena Wars will automatically
try to patch itself to the most current server version everytime it is started.
If you just want to If you are not using the most current server version, you won't be able to log onto the Arena Wars Server.
Its also important to mention that unlike in other games if the Server detects a hack or cheat attempt,
you will immediatly get kicked and if this happens to often your whole Account and Serial will get deleted!
Check out the Arena Wars - Terms of Use

We will remove the CD-Check in a future patch version most likely anyway,
its just included to ensure more people buy the game in the first months ^^

The Singleplayer (SP) Demo is based on the v0.9.0 Arena Wars Engine and is intended to provide
just a first look at the game and it features. The SP Demo will not patch or update itself, and its
not possible to add new content to this Demo. Its just there to play it ^^

The Multiplayer (MP) Demo on the other hand is quite complex, it uses exactly the same features as the full version.
This includes patching to the most current version and playing on the Arena Wars Server.
The MP Demo does not contain any Singleplayer missions or maps and can't be played alone at all,
but you can use it as a "Replay-Viewer" to watch replays of the MP-Demo or even the full version.
The MP Demo allows you only to play on the 3 Demo Maps (Simple Life, Cyclus and Incubus),
there are also several server limits, see 2. How does the online server work?.

The Full game will act the same way as a MP Demo when no original CD is found, but the cool thing about
the Arena Wars Server is, it will actually check if you are have an authorized Account (with a valid Serial)
and let you login into the Server as a normal user, even if you don't have the original CD inserted!
Even if you don't have a Serial, you can logon as a "Demo User" and play around a little :)

Arena Wars uses ONLY TCP Port 6112, this is the same port used by the battle.net and is most likly already configurated on most routers!
All you have to do in case you are behind a firewall or a NAT/Router, just make sure your computer can be reached at TCP Port 6112.
Arena Wars also supports UPnP-Nats, which will be automatically configured by Arena Wars (see below).
Arena Wars supports ANY port for incomming connections, you can change this Port number easily in Options.
However, the Arena Wars Server will always run on Port 6112, but only an outgoing connection
attempt is needed, which is allowed by most nats/firewalls anyway!

But first lets take a look how P2P-Applications like Arena Wars work:

Player 1 tries to connect to Player 2 (e.g. Player 2 has just created a new game and Player 1 is joining),
in most of the cases this will work just fine (Player 2 just has to open up TCP Port 6112 on his firewall, if he is using one).

Sometimes players don't know much about firewalls or are behind a NAT router, which is not configurated for Arena Wars.
Lets assume Player 2 is not reachable (because firewall is blocking all attempts to connect to him or he is behind a NAT,
which does not know Player 2 wants to be connected via Port 6112).

In this case connecting to Player 2 will always fail, both players will be informed about this when this happens.
The Arena Wars Server does not only detect this problem, but also tries to help the players to connect to each other!
So Player 2 is not reachable, the Arena Wars Server sends now a message to Player 2 to try a reverse connect to Player 1,
which is hopefully reachable. Player 2's firewall won't matter because he himself tries to make an outgoing connection,
which is posibble (since Player 2 is already connected to the Arena Wars Server at the same port). Lets see what happens:

If Player 1 is reachable, both players are now connected and can start to play games, watch their webcams, communicate via voice, etc.
The Arena Wars Server will also detect if both players are behind the same firewall/NAT and allow a local connect in this case.

Now you might say: "What if Player 1 is also not reachable?". Well, usually this means playing won't be possible:

As you can see, both players are not reachable and both can't connect to the other machine because of the firewalls/NATs.

But we have another trick called "Simultaneous TCP Open", which works on some configurations. Lets take a look how this works:

As you can see when Player 1 is trying to open up a new connection to Player 2, he opens a hole in his firewall (at least for
outgoing connections), now Player 2 does the same at his firewall and if both firewalls allow this trick, the players are now connected.
Sadly a lot of firewalls/NATs does not support this, including the Windows Firewall and Internet Connection Sharing services
(this means if you are using a software NAT with Windows 2000/XP/2003 this trick will most likely not work).
Some NAT routers support this only at the UDP Layer (because UDP is a connectionless protocol), some not at all.
Skype is a good example which also uses this technique (with UDP).

But this is not everything Arena Wars has to offer, Arena Wars does also support UPnP NATs.
This is especially useful for using multiple machines behind the same NAT running Arena Wars, normally
you would have to assign a unique port for each player behind the nat (e.g. 6112 for player 1, 6113 for player 2, etc.).
But if an UPnP NAT is enabled (which is supported by almost all hardware routers, you just have to enable it!) Arena Wars
can automatically assign Ports at the NAT for each player dynamically. Everytime someone starts Arena Wars the UPnP NAT is
informed to open up a port starting with 6112, if this port is already used, we are trying next, etc.

Check out this example with 4 players behind the same NAT:

Every player has his own port, but all of them use the same IP of the NAT. If now someone wants to play with Player 3
he will automatically connect to the NAT using the port of Player 3 (6114), the NAT accept this message and send it to Player 3.
You don't have to use UPnP for multiple players behind the same firewall/NAT, you can assign all ports for yourself,
but UPnP NATs make this job a hell lot easier!

Finally lets take a look how to configure the Windows XP Firewall (or if you are using Windows 2000/XP/2003 as a software router,
you can configure your NAT server the same way). First you have to open up the Network connections:

Note: This screenshots are taken with a german version of windows, the english screens look exactly the same!

Select the firewall-protected device and right click on it, then select "Properties".

Now click on "Advanced" and select "Settings" (as you can see, the firewall is activated, as it should be!).

Now you have to enter a new entry (if port 6112 is not yet configured): First click on (1) "Add",
Now enter the name of this entry (2), you also need to enter the (3) name or IP of your computer
(press start->execute and type in "cmd"+enter, there type in "ipconfig"+enter if you don't know).
Now you enter the (4) port you want to use (6112 is the default Arena Wars port, its also used by the battle.net)
Select TCP (5) and enter the (6) internal port (6112 again).

Finally press on (7) OK and restart your internet connection (if its an dialup/broadband connection).
If you have multiple computers, assign a different port to each of them (6112 for player 1, 6113 for player 2, etc.),
also make sure the port configurated in Arena Wars matches (you can even configurate different external ports).
Start Arena Wars and have fun playing :) If you have still problems (and there so much configurations out there,
someone has always something crazy going on), please visit the community boards and ask others to help you.

To enable the voice and webcam go into options and select the voice and webcam tabs.
If you have multiple sound cards and want to select another recording/playback device for
voice recording and playback, use the config.txt file (SoundDeviceNum).
If you have multiple webcam devices or drivers, you should select the fastest driver,
just try out all the devices/drivers.

The webcam data is captured internally with in a 160x120 pixel resolution, then its
converted and compressed to the SQCIF format internally using 128x96 pixels. After that
it gets compressed into a video stream and decompressed on the other side using 128x96 pixels
again (usually at only 5 fps to save bandwidth), then it can be displayed on the screen.
1024x768 uses roughly 128x96 pixels for webcam data output, 1600x1200 uses ~170x125, 640x480 uses ~80x60, etc.

The voice data is recorded in 16kHz 16bit mono and compressed in that very same format
using very highly advanced compression methods, most of the time there is silence and nearly
no bandwidth at all is needed. But even when speaking only 1-2 kB/s are nescessary depending
on the used compression quality.

If your voice recording does not work even with a correctly connected microphone,
please follow the following steps to make sure the microphone is selected as your input device:

Start the volume control (select it from programs->extras->sound tools->volume control or just
enter "sndvol32" in start->execute) and click on file->properties.

Now select "Recording" and press Ok

Finally make sure the microphone is selected as the input device. For most microphones and sound cards
its better not to activate the microphone boost (sometimes also called AGC) because it makes the
sound quality much worse. Some soundcards will allow recording even if the wrong input device is
selected, for example a ESS soundcard of a beta-tester recorded voice while line-in was selected,
but after some minutes recording in the game the sound got worse and was not longer understood,
selecting the right input device and disabling microphone boost fixed the problem!

The Setup installs Arena Wars, who would have guessed it?
Well, the Setup does following steps:

Install Arena Wars

Creates Desktop and Start-Menu shortcuts

Makes sure .NET 1.1 is installed (and it installs it if not)

Makes sure DirectX 9 is installed (installs it if not)

Installs the Windows Media Player 9 Codecs

The full version contains all Map, Replay, PlayerLogos and Mission directory and files,
in a future patch version additional directories will be unlocked to allow modifications.

The SP Demo contains only the 3 Demo-Maps and some example replays, there are no missions
or any singleplayer or multiplayer content in this version (can't be used as a patching base).

The MP Demo contains the same data as the full version except of all the Singleplayer missions and maps.
This way the MP Demo can be patched the same way as the full version and the MP Demo can be used as a replay viewer!

As some people might have noticed the files in the \Game\Languages\ and \Game\Speech\ directories are used
to show all texts and to play all announcer and unit sounds, and all this files can be shared, copied and exchanged.
But for the release of Arena Wars we had to make sure every version just supports one language,
this is just required by the publishers. We will provide all language tools and a lot of language and speech files
in a lot of languages (e.g. someone could make a klingon version, there are a lot of fun versions or just people changing
some parts of the game, also very cool are the fun speech packs with crazy voices, etc.) on the community site at a later point!

The .NET Framework was developed and is supported by Microsoft. Its not like I am a big fan of Microsoft or anything,
but I have to say .NET is by far the most greatest thing Microsoft has ever done, I think it will have a great deal in the future.

Basically the technology is very similar to the Java Runtime and at its first look it might seem that .NET is especially
useful for web applications (Microsoft didn't really push this technology in the right direction at first). But .NET is useful
for everything, only very very low-level operations like writing drivers could not benefit from it.

.NET code is not compiled into the machine language but in a byte-code, which runs on the so called CLR (common language runtime).
Whenever you start a .NET program the JIT (just in time) compiler automatically interprets this byte-code and converts it to machine language.
This might seem a bit slower than compiling directly to the machine language, but this is only the case for the very first time
you execute CLR code, after that the JIT remembers the machine code and can re-use it next time needed.
For a computer game it will most likly never happen that you need to execute different functions all the time, its most likely
99% of all code needed while playing a game will be executed directly in the first tick and after that just be reused.
Another important thing is that in Arena Wars most of the time the CPU is waiting for the graphic card to finish up rendering,
its not very CPU dependant (this means its very fast), even using 8 computers on the highest settings won't bother the CPU much,
it needs only several ms each second leaving enough time for all the other tasks.

Now you might ask yourself why there is no game or big application using .NET right now. Well first of all .NET is not very old
and software developers tend to re-use their existing code as long as possible. If you already have a big set of working functions,
its not that beneficially to switch to a new language and have to rewrite most of it or use complicated interop services or dlls.
Seems like we have to wait for another few years to let .NET become more and more popular, its not so important for the end-user,
but VERY important for the developers, working with .NET does not only save a lot of time, it also ensures the resulting product
is much more stable, usuable and tested.

Do you want to talk a little about .NET? Use our boards :)
For more information about .NET check out the following sites:
www.msdn.com
www.gotdotnet.com
Top 10 .NET Sites
www.franklins.net/dotnetrocks
www.dotnetfreaks.com

Every windows platform which is able to run .NET applications can be used, this includes

Windows 98

Windows ME

Windows 2000

Windows XP

Windows 2003

Windows XP or 2003 using 64 Bit with the .NET 2.0 Framework (currently in beta)

As you might have noticed 99.9% of all pc games are written for windows, so there is nothing special about it ^^

Generally it would be possible to port Arena Wars to other platforms like consoles (which makes absolutly no sense)
or to Linux/Unix/Mac using Mono for executing .NET code, BUT there would be some parts which have to be
rewritten or changed to the platform (concerning DirectSound, Webcam and OpenGL code, all not hard to do, but a lot of work).
Since there is not much money to make converting everything, it will be most likly not worth the effort,
so don't expect any port in the near future.

When you start Arena Wars for the first time, you will see the following dialog.
If you want to see this dialog again, just delete the config.txt from your Arena Wars directory,
the next time Arena Wars is started the "First Time" dialog is displayed again:

First thing you have to do is to select your language, you can always change this dynamically
in the game, which is very cool, you can always switch your text language and speech language.
The next thing you have to do is to enter your player name, which defaults to your computer name
(in case you wonder where arena wars knows your name from ^^).
You can also select the resolution for Arena Wars and the graphic settings (fastest, fast, default, nicest).
You can change your resolution and graphic settings under "options" in the game as well.
Read the tooltips in the game for a detailed explanation about all the graphic options!

You can also change the config.txt file directly, all entries are commented and can be
changed, the config.txt will be loaded when Arena Wars starts up and saved when you change some settings.
If you somehow damage your config.txt file, it will get automatically repaired when starting Arena Wars!

Here are a bunch of questions someone asked us, some have a serious answer, some not ^^

Arena Wars crashes, I got strange errors and program exceptions, whats going on?

First of all make sure you got the most up to date version!
Then check if you have properly working drivers for your graphic board, sound card, mainboard, etc.
A lot of problems are caused when the graphic card driver is buggy or to old, please update your drivers!
If that does not help, check if your hardware is working properly, is the CPU cool enough,
do other programs work or does the PC crash randomly (then it has nothing to do with AWR).
Finally you should always check constantly if you are infected with viruses or trojans,
this can happen very quickly, especially if you don't use a firewall and anti virus scanner.
Usually trojans try to affect the program files and modify them to spread themselfs, this does
not work the same way with .NET programs, usually the infected files get invalid or will throw
exceptions all over the place. AWR tries to repair and update itself when it gets infected.
If you still have problems or need some help, please go into the boards and ask for help!

Why there are only 6 units? I want 5 000 000 different unit types.

Lets go online and see if you REALLY can use that 6 units well, in other games with A LOT more
unit types you usually end up with using just a few too, because they all so inbalanced :D

Unit X/Item X/Feature X is so freaking inbalanced, please fix it!

Well, are you sure? No? Anyway, we always hear complains like this and while its certainly not easy to
balance everything perfectly, even with only 6 units and 16 item types, most of this complains do not
consider all the possibilities and other factors. For example lets say someone thinks the Berserker is
to strong, because it is good against Buggies, Spiders and Walkers and think there is no counter against it.
First of all, in this case there is the Destroyer, which is the perfect counter against the Berserker,
but thats not the end of the story. There are also a lot more factors we considered when balancing the Berserker.
For example fast units like the Buggy are not always hit by the Berserker, the Berseker is the perfect unit
to capture the enemy flag because enemy Berserkers can't hurt it much, etc.
Its most likly you did not consider all factors, so its always best to first discuss this kind of issues in
the boards and then when we really see a lot of people think some unit is to strong/weak, we might consider changing it ^^

My voice transmission gets bad after some time, is this fixable?

See 7. How can I make sure the Voice and Webcam features are working properly? and make sure
you selected the correct input device. Its also not a good sign if you have voice feedback when testing recording in options.
Make sure your soundcard and microphone are working correctly.

A player has a green webcam, whats wrong?

Well, usually this should not happen, but if a webcam from a player did not send an initialy full frame
to you, the webcam decoder does not know what pixels to use and will show green rectangles (looks not pretty ^^).
To fix this simply disable and enable this players webcam again (just click on the webcam icon).

How can I disable these anoying webcams or voice of other players, I don't want to hear them

Simply click on their webcam or voice icons (right beside the player name), this will simply disable their
webcam and voice transmission. Click this icon again to enable it again. You can also click on your own webcam
and voice icons to toggle between sending to all, sending to team (default) and disable sending.
Right clicking on your own webcam icon will toggle if you see your own webcam.
Right clicking on your own voice icon will toggle if using voice manipulation (see options).

I get some error when loading and then the game quits, what could that be?

First of all: Read the error, most of the time it will tell you whats wrong. Also check out the log.txt file
located in your Arena Wars directory. If there is for example an error message like GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY this means
you don't have enough video memory to load some textures. First of all (as usual): Update your graphic drivers!
If this does not work for you (then you must have a really limited video memory amount), you should consider
starting the game with fastest settings, either edit the config.txt yourself (disable "High-Detail Textures") or
simply delete the config.txt file to allow you to set new graphic options when starting Arena Wars again.

Alt+Tab, minimizing or returning to Game after being in Windows does not work :(

Well, I'm sorry, but it looks like your graphic driver was not able to restore the graphic state.
If its a bug in the game, it should be fixed, see the boards. But most of the time the graphic driver
simply suxx, just update it or buy a better graphic card. Some computers need few seconds to activate AWR again!
Anyway, it is possible to use another mode which doesn't have this problem, just select "options" in the main menu.
Now select "graphic settings" and disable the checkbox "minimize when Alt+Tab pressed". Now you can press Alt+Tab
but the application will still stay alive. The downside of this approach is that the game resolution will stay active,
but I really like this feature and use it always, also cool when making new maps or watching replays. You can move
other window programs in top of Arena Wars and still see the game running in the background.

I don't want to enter my email when logging on the ArenaWars Server for the first time.

Well, then you should not try to play online, entering a valid email is required to create a new Account.
This email will ONLY be used for verification and to restore lost player account, no other player can see your email.
Your email will not be used for anything else, we also won't spam you or anything (that would be gay, wouldn't it?).
Its also important that EVERY email must be unique on the Arena Wars Server, its not possible to create a new Account
with an already existing Email (but you can activate your Account again if using the same Email, but it is important
never to log on with the same Account on 2 PCs at the same time, this is not allowed and will be logged)!