Plutonium

Resxt By version of the game you mean which title update is it's latest install? Eg Patch 1.6 or something?
While I assume mine is fine being done through steam, would my friend just have to download the title updates manually until it checks out that the version is the most up to date one?

Resxt So all players regardless of where their game is sourced should all meet the requirements to connect to one another via plutonium? So it is just tweaking our network settings and such to enable a compatible network to host and join on?

So I'd first like to say, at the time of writing I have followed the guide laid out in the play with friends post up until the port forwarding steps so I can't say for certain it's entirely impossible to play with friends, however, I was wondering if there is by any means a block of some kind when connecting or viewing over players, for context I myself have bought a Steam version of World at War, my friend has not thus they own a less ethically sourced copy and while we're followed and show up as friends, both have UPnP on and have attempted joining an already existing match as per the step by step guide it seems we are unable to get into a match together.

So are we just unlucky in which we both have to deep dive into our network to allow joining one another or is the issue probably that their game is a torrented one and it's the cause of the issue and not something else we're doing wrong?
I'm entirely new to PC type stuff so I apologise in advance.