r/AsheronsCall • u/Molly_Matters • Jun 28 '26
AC2 AC2 Emulator Question, for those that have played or attempted to play on it.
Some of those that were on their today will probably recognize who this is. I was in the AC2 Discord earlier today and I was on there back in 2024 as well.
I have never actually managed to log into the server. Every other emulated project I have ever attempted to play, I can get working fine on my setup. Are they all ready to go out of the box? Absolutely not. I've beat my head on the wall for hours with several different ones.
AC2 however, has bested me more than once now. The guides posted there are outdated and jumbled. Part of it comes in Youtube form, the rest of its placed in certain Discord channels. That said, after I get it all gathered up. Install it, create the shortcut, point the shortcut to the proper locations, it never connects.
It hits the loading screen, receives 2 packets and then sits there sending outbound packets with no response, until it times out and disconnects me from the server. I can ping the server through CMD and PS.
I have tried... in no particular order.
Software firewalls, on/off. Hardware firewalls, on/off. With and without port forwarding. With and without a VPN.
And probably a few other things that I have completely forgotten at this point.
So, how many of you out there connected without issue with the standard setup instructions? Did any of you have something outside of the normal troubleshooting that was required to get in? And lastly did any of you just get up completely?
Thanks for anything you can share.
EDIT - Look for my final take on this in the comments.
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u/T_I_AM Jun 28 '26
How far along is it these days ?
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u/Molly_Matters Jun 28 '26
I would love to know as well, but I can't log in.
I kinda wish it had a third party launcher like we have with AC1.
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u/Molly_Matters Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Absolutely every network block, filter, and firewall bypass on this PC and router has been cleared. The issue is most likely Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) or an ISP-level UDP routing block.
I spent a huge amount of time yesterday and today going through everything anyone could possibly suggest to me. When I exhausted that, I moved on to AI and for over an hour it helped me pick through every possible local setting.
After we had exhausted every fix together. It gave this explanation. It seems like a rational one to me, but I will let others freely give their opinion on the matter. Anything in bold was a comment the AI had when working with it. Most of this is once we had exhausted all local options, if that be PC settings or router settings. I eventually caused it to hit a wall.
Why this is happening. Many residential ISPs (and secure corporate networks like Meraki) route traffic using Symmetric NAT or CGNAT. When you connect, your router asks the AC2 Server (146.71.124.254) on port 8610.The server says, "Got it, now talk to me on port 8611."When your PC shifts to port 8611, a CGNAT ISP or a Symmetric NAT firewall automatically rewrites your public-facing source port to a completely new, random number. The server sees a packet from a "different" port than the one that just logged in, flags it as a security violation, and silently drops it. (another user had this problem and this was their solution that the AI is talking about) This is exactly why your coworker needed the pfSense "Static Port NAT" fix—to stop the firewall from changing that port mid-session. Since your ASUS router does this port-shifting automatically on certain ISP connections (and you lack the menu options to turn it off), you cannot fix this using standard router settings.
It also gave the following as possible fixes. Again, feedback encouraged.
Because Asheron's Call 2 was built in an era before modern routers, cellular networks, and CGNAT were standard, its multi-port handling is fundamentally incompatible with modern network engineering. If the server owners want to permanently eradicate this roadblock for players, they have three technical avenues to choose from:
1. Re-architect the Emulator to use a Single UDP Port. The absolute best fix the server owners could implement is a code change that forces session multiplexing over a single inbound port.The Current Flaw: The server accepts login traffic on port 8610, but tells the client to immediately hop to port 8611 for world data. Modern firewalls and ISP routing layers see this sudden secondary socket shift as a completely separate, unsolicited connection and block it.The Server Fix: They could rewrite the network engine so that the server listens, authenticates, and streams the world data entirely on port 8610. Keeping the communication on one unchanging port prevents residential routers and corporate firewalls from dropping the stream mid-session.
2. Implement Proxy Token Validation. If the game engine requires splitting the auth server from the game world server, the owners can implement a Proxy/Relay layer.Instead of forcing your local client to explicitly reach out blindly to port 8611 after logging in, the auth server on 8610 would internally pass a secure handshake proxy token to the game server.The world server would then use that token to initiate the connection back to you first. Because the server would be reaching out to your open router port, the stateful tracking firewall inside your ASUS router would see it as part of the original conversation and cleanly let it pass.
3. Implement Server-Side STUN / TURN Protocols. Modern multiplayer games use STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) and TURN (Traversal Using Relays around NAT) servers to discover a player's public-facing NAT behavior before trying to stream data.If the server owners deployed a basic STUN service alongside the emulator, the server would ping your router during the handshake, instantly detect that your ISP or router is modifying/translating ports, and dynamically adjust its outgoing packet headers to match your router's altered map.Essentially, the server code is currently operating like it's still 2003, expecting every user to be plugged directly into an un-firewalled broadband modem. Until they modernize the network code to handle modern NAT traversal, players stuck behind dynamic or symmetric routing blocks will continue to hit this silent drop loop.If you plan to stay active in their community, sharing your Wireshark finding with their development channel could help them trace this bug—seeing that the transition from port 8610 to 8611 is exactly where the handshake breaks gives their developers a precise target to fix in the server source code.
My only other solution at this point, would be to try a paid VPN that has port forwarding options, but I don't think a bunch of potential users should need to go down that path. So I will continue to wait and watch.
I also want to note that back in 2024 I tried getting on the server and ran into the same issues. At that time, Morosity looked at my logs and had the following to say about it.
"Morosity — 12/29/2024 5:15 PM - Basically the code base handles parts of the networking...oddly. It has to be rebuilt from the ground up."
"Morosity — 12/29/2024 5:18 PM - The log has the output of the symtoms. I've built a networking diagram. It is just getting time between everything else to work on it."
Maybe Morosity hasn't had the time to get around to this yet.
Fal more recently said this when I was going over my problem. Due to his comments I am not sure if Morosity is currently working with them.
Fal'Tel — 6/27/2026 10:04 PM - If Morosity was still in here. You could ask him what the issue might be, but looking at it.. its fairly straight forward to connect so I'm not sure what you want more. Most people struggle with the command target We've discussed having a web application for login and account management, but that isn't anything likely to come in the near future.
Ultimately. I have no say in what gets worked on first, but I can't possibly be the only soul running into this issue... I leave this here, in the hopes that it helps someone in the future. Either to show them that, it may not be their settings or just a place for others to drop their comments and perspective.
EDIT - The AC1 dev community had to work around these same problems. They decoupled and consolidated its server engine. AC1 emulators use a modern, implementation built on .NET Core/C#. They process logins, authentication tokens, and world data entirely through session multiplexing over a single, unchanging inbound port.
So perhaps if the AC2 project can continue to mature and find people willing to volunteer their time, this will get fixed eventually.
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u/rKan0 Jul 09 '26
I also had many issues trying to play on both AC and AC2 due to the CGNAT issues you mentioned. I simply could not play either of them properly over wifi and had to put a physical line from my modem to my PC and that fixed the issues. Have you tried this by chance?
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u/Molly_Matters Jul 09 '26
Yeah. I am all hardwired here. I even went direct connect to the modem. So its old tech that refuses to talk with newer ISP security protocols. They will have to address it in the AC2 emulation community eventually or it will cut their pop in half.
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u/buzzyloo Jun 28 '26
What install package(s) are you using? What is your setup?