I think I'll chip in here as I seem to find myself on a fence in this discussion ??? .
1. I've never used the P5 glove nor do I intend to
2. I've never installed patch 1.30 nor do I intend to
3. I've played online just once and that was just before the official Lionhead servers for B&W multiplayer went down.
4. Following on from 3, I've never used Hamachi or anything like it.
Given all that, I have received communications over the last while from a few different online players on this topic and while I won't name names (I'll explain in a minute), I feel it only fair to display both sides of this discussion.
Via various conversations, a good few Hamachi users have said they use patch 1.3 to play online without the P5 Glove with no ill effects. As these are the guys playing online the most I believe (given the small size of the community), it occurs to me that if they were lying they're only shooting themselves in the foot by preventing more players from joining them in online play.
From reading threads here, I think this debate about the P5 glove is a red herring. I actually believe that we all agree the P5 is a heap-O-crap and no one uses it. The issue here I believe is that while official patch READMEs indicate that 1.3 only adds support for the P5, it also seems to do something to sure-up on the Multiplayer side.
To sum up the other side of the argument - for years after patch 1.3 was released, it was common understanding that it messed up multiplayer and everyone stuck to patch 1.2 as that was what everyone was using. This is why so many of the olbie members here believe that 1.3 should not be used.
Given my complete LACK of understanding of how multiplayer works, can I ask if it is possible that while 1.3 messed up official online play via the Lionhead servers (all those years ago), could it be that it actually helps to stabilise online play via Hamachi somehow (it does operate on slightly different principles to official online play after all)?
That about sums up both sides of the argument I believe.
*Puts on referee's shirt, readies whistle and waits
*
P.S. Almost forgot. The reason why I'm not listing the names of said online players is because of privacy concerns. At the moment, there appears to be an issue of one or two problematic users spamming Hamachi with lots of different logins, so for the time being, the Hamachi users are trying to keep the list of good names private so that replica names can't be cooked up. If someone else wants to join, it's sorted out via other means. None of that is ideal, but until they knock the problem on the head, that's the approach that's being taken.
All this has the unfortunate side effect though of preventing some users posting on here to better put forward their own side of the story. So I hope I don't annoy anyone by putting forward the clarification above.