(Originally posted on http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?p=5008590#post5008590)
At time of writing, Gameranger is the only supported way to play multiplayer games in Borderlands (1). Gameranger isn’t compatible with the latest version of MacOS 10.9.4, Mavericks. I wanted to play with my brother Brandon, but we couldn’t get a game going over the internet because of Gameranger.
I’ve used Hamachi before to play a LAN game of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow with a friend, so I thought to try Hamachi with Borderlands. My brother and I got Hamachi up and running, he fired up a LAN server in Borderlands, but my game would not detect his borderlands LAN game through Hamachi. This wasn’t a big surprise because the vpn tunnel Hamachi creates isn’t a class C IP network, it’s a Class A network (it gave me 25.41.26.145/8.) Borderlands probably only scans class C networks. What made it bad was that Borderlands provides no method using the GUI to directly connect to a server using its IP address!
I found a wiki that described how to direct connect… In Windows. The process described creating a desktop shortcut with a command line argument of the server you want to direct connect to. I tried both method 1 and method 2 described in this stackexchange answer, but ultimately gave up because I couldn’t get the borderlands executable to accept any command line arguments.
An alternate solution I found was to enable the Unreal engine console in the game. If I could enable the console, I could bring it up in game and enter “open x.x.x.x” where x is my brother’s Hamachi IP address. According to the Borderlands Windows Tweak Guide, there is a WillowInput.ini file that has a directive, “ConsoleKey”, and if you set it to “Tilde”, the tilde button will open the console in game. I found WillowInput.ini on MacOS @ /Users/[MYUSERNAME]/Library/Application Support/Feral Interactive/Borderlands GOTY/MacInit/WillowInput.ini but it didn’t have the directive, and I didn’t try adding it.
I did find something else though, a crazy workaround. I made a key binding that maps my F10 key to a the “open” console command.
In that same WillowInput.ini file, under the section [Engine.PlayerInput], I added this line:
Bindings=(Name="F10",Command="open x.x.x.x")
(where x.x.x.x is my brother’s Hamachi IP address)
After saving and closing, I opened Borderlands, opened my singleplayer saved game, then as soon as it loaded I pressed F10, and via Hamachi my game connected to the LAN game my brother was hosting.
Now I’m not 100% sure this method works, because I got a connection error saying our game versions were incompatible. I think this is because he has Steam Borderlands, and I have the Apple Store Borderlands GOTY. It definitely did connect to his server though, I know this because I could try pressing F10 while he’s wasn’t online and I got a connection timeout error.
Anyway, he’s going to buy the GOTY version and we’ll try again.
UPDATE!
After my brother purchased the windows GOTY version, we tried again, but the same incompatible version error pops up when connecting. Dead end here. What a waste of time, energy, and money!
Double Update! Sept 15, 2014
The windows steam version of Borderlands works flawlessly in Linux using WINE! http://www.steamgamesonlinux.com/borderlands/ Paired with the linux version of Hamachi I’m gaming with my brother!
