What the heck is going on? I just heard from a friend today that EA shut down their Battlefield 3 servers. I went on Xbox Live, and sure enough there were no EA-hosted servers on there! Tell me this is only a temporary thing. What gives them the right to pull out so early when we paid full price for this game? (When I say "right", I'm talking about a moral one, not a legal one. So don't get all "they can do what they want" on me.)
They have servers you can "rent" for a fee. So let me get this straight. In less than a year, EA pulls their servers and then asks us for more money if we want to keep playing online?
Just more proof why we need to have tight, extremely-specific regulation laws in every aspect of big business. And those laws need to be written by consumer advocates.
Or am I getting ahead of myself and raging for nothing?
EDIT: It seems some DICE servers are still up, but not as many. And some of them are unofficial servers that just say "DICE" in the title to confuse us.
not when they jsut realsed a big old patch a while ago...and dont forget all that nice gear peopel can pay for..rather than "play" for, why give up that cash?
not when they jsut realsed a big old patch a while ago...and dont forget all that nice gear peopel can pay for..rather than "play" for, why give up that cash?
There are still people-hosted servers. Lots of servers paid for by players.
And I may be getting ahead of myself a tiny bit. There appears to still be DICE servers kicking around. But not as many.
Captcha: Toyota Prius c Toyota: Moving Forward... even when you take your foot off the gas and apply the brakes.
Seems rather early but you people need to know EA shuts down servers after a year, has been doing it for ages even if the game breaks with it they just don't give a shit. Probably not the real deal yet, I don't think they would be that stupid now that new DLC is at the door...
Mr.K.: Seems rather early but you people need to know EA shuts down servers after a year, has been doing it for ages even if the game breaks with it they just don't give a shit. Probably not the real deal yet, I don't think they would be that stupid now that new DLC is at the door...
a year?
what kind of bullshit is that? they push for multiplayer in games like Dead space 2 and Mass effect 3 and then just shut it down in a year?
but why battlefeild 3? that was one of the biggest games to come put, they wanted it to compete with COD....why shut it down after a year? thats the stupid "hype untill release day!" thing and then throw it on the scrap heap
They dropped a lot of the official servers to make space for people who wanted to rent their own. I assume that if the level of players renting servers was to drop then more official would re-appear. They haven't actually shut anything down.
At the moment it's just to appease the players who either want to exclusively play a certain map/game type with custom rules or be a complete fuckhead with their admin rights.
Mr.K.: Seems rather early but you people need to know EA shuts down servers after a year, has been doing it for ages even if the game breaks with it they just don't give a shit. Probably not the real deal yet, I don't think they would be that stupid now that new DLC is at the door...
That's bullshit. Battlefield 2: Modern Combat was released in April 2006, and its servers were shut down in August 2011. EA don't seem to have a set pattern, it's based entirely on activity. (Aside from sports titles which may or may not have a yearly long pattern).
Seriously, I regard it as players essentially "stealing" the DICE hosted servers, because the more rented servers there are, the less official ones there will be.
This would be fine, except I just want to play a normal fucking game of battlefield. Not a 600% tickets or "air maps only" server. Just normal. I want the game to end, for god's sake.
Its getting harder and harder to find normal servers now, because I have to wade through all these shitty custom servers.
If you want your own server, that's fine, it doesn't mean I have to see it, though. If they just added a filter that allowed only official servers, it would be fine (and thank god they added Conquest Assault as a separate gamemode, man that mode is shit).
Lots of the other things they did with the patch were great, but something doesn't feel right. I dunno, it just doesn't feel as fun playing Battlefield anymore.
Man that was a long rant...
In short, there are less official servers to make room for the rented ones.
Mr.K.: Seems rather early but you people need to know EA shuts down servers after a year, has been doing it for ages even if the game breaks with it they just don't give a shit. Probably not the real deal yet, I don't think they would be that stupid now that new DLC is at the door...
a year?
what kind of bullshit is that? they push for multiplayer in games like Dead space 2 and Mass effect 3 and then just shut it down in a year?
but why battlefeild 3? that was one of the biggest games to come put, they wanted it to compete with COD....why shut it down after a year? thats the stupid "hype untill release day!" thing and then throw it on the scrap heap
and they say used games are their problem /rant
what games have they dont this with?
Calm the fuck down. The BF3 EA official servers are not gone, I literally just played one, jesus, keep it in your pants.
Sports games are their usual petri dish for developing these sneaky practices, and any game that didn't live up to expectations.
And when the EA CEO went "herp derp we could sell ammo in games" he wasn't just talking out of his ass all that shit is going on in sports titles, subscriptions, buying power, one time consumables, multiplayer shut downs,... With everything else they will just implement it slowly so noone gets up in arms.
Word of final warning Origin also only has a 1 year legal limit for your downloadable stuff, beyond that they can remove games without repercussion.
Hero in a half shell: Just wait until EA starts to fool about with the default server list they have currently running (leaving popular maps out of rotation, spamming one map into 90% of their servers loadorders, etc.) to make people have to resort to paying for their own server to actually get decent map rotations. They did it with Battlefield play4free, I wouldn't put it past them to try it here as well.
Yea I call bullshit. EA is not dumb enough to do something like that since they are not legally allowed to. They may pull some crazy shit that certain gamers dont like but EA does not go around doing obviously illegal crap like that.
Mr.K.: Seems rather early but you people need to know EA shuts down servers after a year, has been doing it for ages even if the game breaks with it they just don't give a shit. Probably not the real deal yet, I don't think they would be that stupid now that new DLC is at the door...
a year?
what kind of bullshit is that? they push for multiplayer in games like Dead space 2 and Mass effect 3 and then just shut it down in a year?
but why battlefeild 3? that was one of the biggest games to come put, they wanted it to compete with COD....why shut it down after a year? thats the stupid "hype untill release day!" thing and then throw it on the scrap heap
and they say used games are their problem /rant
what games have they dont this with?
They shutdown servers for games that nobody plays anymore. If the game is still popular they will keep it running. The requirement for shutting them down is something like less then 1% of all traffic is used by the game. Thats why the servers for things like Bad Company 2 have not been taken down.
Well, thats nice. The more EA goes hands-off on the dedicated servers, the better.
I really dont have an issue with them doing this - after all, Battlefield 3 allows the community to rent their own servers and run them how they see fit. Shutting down servers for games which make use of matchmaking without DS? Thats a dick move.
Yeah, I get that too. I really liked the standard servers, and I don't really like the fact that all of the servers now have a bunch of changes. I wish there was an option to use EA/DICE servers, rented ones, or both.
Belated: EDIT: It seems some DICE servers are still up, but not as many. And some of them are unofficial servers that just say "DICE" in the title to confuse us.
It's clunky for now, but honestly not hard at all. Search "DICE", find a mostly full server, click on it and check the box listed the owners gamertag. Unlike the server name you CANNOT change it on a rented server, if it says DICE, you are good. If it has a gamertag, you know it's rented trying to trick you.
Das Boot: Yea I call bullshit. EA is not dumb enough to do something like that since they are not legally allowed to. They may pull some crazy shit that certain gamers dont like but EA does not go around doing obviously illegal crap like that.
What exactly would be illegal about it?
They're not shutting the game down, they're not impeding/stopping online play, they're doing nothing wrong at all. If the multiplayer component relied on the EA game servers to function then there would be an issue - but that's not the case here.
Das Boot: Yea I call bullshit. EA is not dumb enough to do something like that since they are not legally allowed to. They may pull some crazy shit that certain gamers dont like but EA does not go around doing obviously illegal crap like that.
What exactly would be illegal about it?
They're not shutting the game down, they're not impeding/stopping online play, they're doing nothing wrong at all. If the multiplayer component relied on the EA game servers to function then there would be an issue - but that's not the case here.
They legally have to support online play for a minimum of one year. That means providing servers for people to play on.
ITT: Console gamers learn about dedicated servers. It's rare for a game that uses dedicated servers to have official ones at all, except maybe for tournaments or the first few months after launch. After that, the whole thing is self sustaining, and can literally last for decades. Although with BF3, they took out the option for people to host their own server[edit]without paying EA to rent it, I mean[/edit], so it won't have quite the longevity that, say, Unreal Tournament, Quake, or heck, Battlefield 1942 had and still have.
Das Boot: Yea I call bullshit. EA is not dumb enough to do something like that since they are not legally allowed to. They may pull some crazy shit that certain gamers dont like but EA does not go around doing obviously illegal crap like that.
What exactly would be illegal about it?
They're not shutting the game down, they're not impeding/stopping online play, they're doing nothing wrong at all. If the multiplayer component relied on the EA game servers to function then there would be an issue - but that's not the case here.
They legally have to support online play for a minimum of one year. That means providing servers for people to play on.
Um no they don't, and no it doesn't.
If anything, they have to provide the ability to play online, which is what they do with their battle login thingamabob (can't remember what they call it). They have no legal obligation to provide physical game servers at all.
Learn to dedicated server dude. As stated, if it was a P2P thing and they were shutting down the servers that handled the matchmaking, then there would be reason to blow up. As it is, the more control the community has over the servers, the better IMO.
If anything, they have to provide the ability to play online, which is what they do with their battle login thingamabob (can't remember what they call it). They have no legal obligation to provide physical game servers at all.
Your right they dont have to actually legally do it but if they dont they get fined a metric fuckton. So yes they have to provide online service for a minimum of one year.
If anything, they have to provide the ability to play online, which is what they do with their battle login thingamabob (can't remember what they call it). They have no legal obligation to provide physical game servers at all.
Your right they dont have to actually legally do it but if they dont they get fined a metric fuckton. So yes they have to provide online service for a minimum of one year.
Which is exactly what they're doing, shutting down game servers doesn't change that.
If anything, they have to provide the ability to play online, which is what they do with their battle login thingamabob (can't remember what they call it). They have no legal obligation to provide physical game servers at all.
Your right they dont have to actually legally do it but if they dont they get fined a metric fuckton. So yes they have to provide online service for a minimum of one year.
No, they really don't. They don't have to provide online service because dedicated servers work in a way that they literally don't have to provide online service, because the community does it for them. Complaining about this is like complaining that your WoW subscription doesn't cover your actual internet bill.
No, they really don't. They don't have to provide online service because dedicated servers work in a way that they literally don't have to provide online service, because the community does it for them. Complaining about this is like complaining that your WoW subscription doesn't cover your actual internet bill.
Wrong because people have to pay extra to run those dedicated servers.
No, they really don't. They don't have to provide online service because dedicated servers work in a way that they literally don't have to provide online service, because the community does it for them. Complaining about this is like complaining that your WoW subscription doesn't cover your actual internet bill.
Wrong because people have to pay extra to run those dedicated servers.
Also who the hell is complaining about this?
Well, you're complaining about it, for one. And no, it's not wrong, this is what dedicated servers are. It's what PC gamers have had since Quake, and it is /so/ much better than matchmaking. The only minor issue here is that EA requires people to rent their servers, instead of giving people the option in addition to the traditional method of doing it on an old machine in the basement, but seriously, "official servers" are not only as rare as hen's teeth on games that use dedicated servers, but they almost never get used because the community servers tend to be better.
Das Boot: Yea I call bullshit. EA is not dumb enough to do something like that since they are not legally allowed to. They may pull some crazy shit that certain gamers dont like but EA does not go around doing obviously illegal crap like that.
Mr.K.: Seems rather early but you people need to know EA shuts down servers after a year, has been doing it for ages even if the game breaks with it they just don't give a shit. Probably not the real deal yet, I don't think they would be that stupid now that new DLC is at the door...
a year?
what kind of bullshit is that? they push for multiplayer in games like Dead space 2 and Mass effect 3 and then just shut it down in a year?
but why battlefeild 3? that was one of the biggest games to come put, they wanted it to compete with COD....why shut it down after a year? thats the stupid "hype untill release day!" thing and then throw it on the scrap heap
and they say used games are their problem /rant
what games have they dont this with?
They shutdown servers for games that nobody plays anymore. If the game is still popular they will keep it running. The requirement for shutting them down is something like less then 1% of all traffic is used by the game. Thats why the servers for things like Bad Company 2 have not been taken down.
Word of final warning Origin also only has a 1 year legal limit for your downloadable stuff, beyond that they can remove games without repercussion.
Word of warning so does every single game ever made that has online multiplayer.
The last bit I got to call you out on mate if my understanding is right. What I read is you they only grantee 1 year of safe use of something you have on origin, and then they can remove it (Same s walking up to yoou and demanding the game disk back after a year).
If such is the case that is my #1 big argument against digital only purchases. Unless it is licenced for all eternity you are at the mercy of the company. Not just evil maybe maybe not practices, but bankruptcy, server malfunctions, serious errors, business agreement disputes. If I buy something I wanna be able to use it till it falls appart, simples.
The last bit I got to call you out on mate if my understanding is right. What I read is you they only grantee 1 year of safe use of something you have on origin, and then they can remove it (Same s walking up to yoou and demanding the game disk back after a year).
If such is the case that is my #1 big argument against digital only purchases. Unless it is licenced for all eternity you are at the mercy of the company. Not just evil maybe maybe not practices, but bankruptcy, server malfunctions, serious errors, business agreement disputes. If I buy something I wanna be able to use it till it falls appart, simples.
Your not actually protected at all from bankruptcy, server malfunctions, errors, etc. Hell they can straight up ban you for whatever reason they want and there is nothing you can do about it. Its the same for Origin, Steam, and every other digital distribution platform.
No actually I am not. If you bothered to actually read my fucking posts you would have known that.
Okay, excuse me. You're calling bullshit on the entire idea that they're doing this, because you find it so insane and worthy of complaint that they couldn't possibly be doing it. You're complaining about the /possibility/ of them doing it, not about them actually having done it. Talk about splitting hairs.
What the heck is going on? I just heard from a friend today that EA shut down their Battlefield 3 servers. I went on Xbox Live, and sure enough there were no EA-hosted servers on there! Tell me this is only a temporary thing. What gives them the right to pull out so early when we paid full price for this game? (When I say "right", I'm talking about a moral one, not a legal one. So don't get all "they can do what they want" on me.)
They have servers you can "rent" for a fee. So let me get this straight. In less than a year, EA pulls their servers and then asks us for more money if we want to keep playing online?
Just more proof why we need to have tight, extremely-specific regulation laws in every aspect of big business. And those laws need to be written by consumer advocates.
Or am I getting ahead of myself and raging for nothing?
EDIT: It seems some DICE servers are still up, but not as many. And some of them are unofficial servers that just say "DICE" in the title to confuse us.