I have some questions about the logistics of multiplayer games. I want a P2P system where one of the players is the host as well as a player. The game is one where people will probably play it with three of their friends, not with random people.

I'm having trouble finding a lot of things about this.

1. Is it reasonable to expect players to do port-forwarding to connect to each other?
2. Is there some other way through Gamemaker to have direct connections that doesn't have this expectation?
3. If I decide to develop a networking system for P2P connections is it hard to transfer it to a server based system? Vice Versa?
4. Is it a better idea to go through steam for these ideas?

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I have a few questions about using steam for networking as well.

a. Specifically, Is there any resources that explain how to integrate steam networking into GMS code? I have no idea where to begin.

b. Steamworks is confusing to me, is steamworks a program that I need to download? A library for a certain language?

Any answers for these questions would be appreciated.

I've only just started to learn networking, so bare with me if I ask any stupid questions.