any of your gear or persistence?

Am I the only person who is seeing the problem here?

Bard wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 13:47:
What SHOULDN'T be required are:
*having to connect to a server online to retrieve a server list when you already know the IP address of where you want to play
*being UNABLE to play multi at all if their servers are down.

You should be able to direct connect to a server of your choice via IP - even if your unlocks are unavailable - when the EA servers are down.

The approach was nothing more than 'lets make it hard for the pirates' without thinking 'how's this going to screw our customers'

There's NO excuse and it's the last time EA sees a dime of my money - not because of the downtime - but because of the POLICIES that will ensure that the same sort of crap happens in future.

Bad Company 2 is far more comparable to an MMO in terms of how much is being tracked and how much inherently depends on a running master server, than something like Counter-Strike or any number of old FPSs that have been released over the years.

Yeah, they could always allow you to connect to servers without stat tracking, but that would make the entire game horribly boring and uninteresting to play. Why doesn't WoW let you just log in when the master server is down and connect with your friends to play vanilla raids without any of your gear or persistance?

Because it would be fucking boring, that's why.

You don't have much experience with Gamespy then because historically its reliability is head-and-shoulders above what EA and Ubisoft are offering now.

I don't have any experience dealing with back-end Gamespy stuff. I do have significant experience dealing with Gamespy as a consumer, their reputation amongst gamers hasn't been particularly good over the years and with good reason in many cases. As for who keeps the servers running and why, I have no idea. You've made that claim in other threads but I've never bothered to source it myself. I do recall some of the older run games you're mentioning being a terrible clusterfuck at launch just like BC2 however, regardless of how long they are run afterwards. Some of that has to do with the state of the client as much as the server to be fair.

This comment was edited on Mar 11, 2010, 16:19.

Zardoz5 wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 12:07:
Why do you say that they can't pull online support for a game if they used GameSpy tech for it? I recall the ToS in all other BF games stating they can pull the plug after giving 30 days of notice.

EA can't pull the plug on the Gamespy-run games. Gamespy would have to do it, and to my knowledge it has never done that for any game except for one which the publisher didn't pay for the contract at the release of the game.

EA has terminated the support of every older multiplayer game for the PC it has ever released for which it controlled the network infrastructure. The only older EA games which still have Internet multiplayer support are the ones runs by Gamespy such as Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, MOH:AA (and its expansions), BF1942, BF:V, BF2, and C&C: Renegade. All of these games would be dead by now except for BF2 were it not for Gamespy.

Verno wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 12:47:
Based on my experience with previous Battlefield titles and other Gamespy enabled games like Borderlands, Gamespy doesn't really know what it's doing either to be blunt.

You don't have much experience with Gamespy then because historically its reliability is head-and-shoulders above what EA and Ubisoft are offering now. Plus Gamespy's system is more robust and segregated with the authentication and master list servers separate. And, it is a fail-open system which means that if authentication fails, users can still get a list of servers and connect and play on the game servers. So, online play doesn't come to a standstill because a user can't login or their CD key can be validated.

Gamespy has powered a lot of games over the years (including ones that are over a decade old and still supported for online play) and has done a great job at it especially compared to what we are seeing now from the likes of EA and Ubisoft.

xXBatmanXx wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 13:18:

you're kidding right? i smell a shill in here somewhere. and it's a blast!

Don't they go down for maint every Tuesday?

So far every day i've tried to play EA has had some issue that's stopped me playing the game.

elefunk wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 10:58:

Darks wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 10:25:
Believe it or not, this is no better that Ubis bullshit DRM. This is why I am so against this kind of service from any publisher. Fricking relying on their login server just to play the game. I feel like I’m a little kid being told what to do with my own toys.

Except for, you know, the teensy little unimportant fact that the required internet connection actually has a reason in Bad Company 2,

Yeah - to connect to servers to play.

What SHOULDN'T be required are:
*having to connect to a server online to retrieve a server list when you already know the IP address of where you want to play
*being UNABLE to play multi at all if their servers are down.

You should be able to direct connect to a server of your choice via IP - even if your unlocks are unavailable - when the EA servers are down.

The approach was nothing more than 'lets make it hard for the pirates' without thinking 'how's this going to screw our customers'

There's NO excuse and it's the last time EA sees a dime of my money - not because of the downtime - but because of the POLICIES that will ensure that the same sort of crap happens in future.

you're kidding right? i smell a shill in here somewhere. and it's a blast!

Don't they go down for maint every Tuesday?

I've Got The News Blues wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 10:19:
Gamespy has been in the business of running a gaming server infrastructure for 15 years for a reason. It knows what it is doing because that is its core business. But, EA wanted to save some money and be able to pull the plug on the game at some point, so it is hosting the servers for this game in-house. That is the problem. EA doesn't know what the hell it is doing because it doesn't have the experience at doing this.

Based on my experience with previous Battlefield titles and other Gamespy enabled games like Borderlands, Gamespy doesn't really know what it's doing either to be blunt.

EA screwed up big time by not opening the PC Beta to the public and testing their new server infrastructure with a realistic load before releasing the game.

They did it open it up to the public in the last month of beta.

I've Got The News Blues wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 10:19:

Verno wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 08:57:
They've only had 10 years of Battlefield games to figure it out.

That's just it. EA doesn't have that experience running a master server infrastructure for the Battlefield series or any popular FPS game because it has always farmed that out to Gamespy in the past. EA has only run the master servers for Medal of Honor Pacific and Airborne, and it has already pulled the plug on Pacific because unlike the other Medal of Honor games, no one played it. If EA wasn't such a cheap bastard and a control freak, it would have hired Gamespy to perform these functions for this game too.

Gamespy has been in the business of running a gaming server infrastructure for 15 years for a reason. It knows what it is doing because that is its core business. But, EA wanted to save some money and be able to pull the plug on the game at some point, so it is hosting the servers for this game in-house. That is the problem. EA doesn't know what the hell it is doing because it doesn't have the experience at doing this.

EA screwed up big time by not opening the PC Beta to the public and testing their new server infrastructure with a realistic load before releasing the game. Then again they probably knew what the end result would be what we are seeing today. I never thought I would be sad to see GameSpy go but at least it worked quite reliably for the most part.

Why do you say that they can't pull online support for a game if they used GameSpy tech for it? I recall the ToS in all other BF games stating they can pull the plug after giving 30 days of notice.

Yes I do own the game, I am refering to EAs bs login crap.

Darks wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 10:25:
Believe it or not, this is no better that Ubis bullshit DRM. This is why I am so against this kind of service from any publisher. Fricking relying on their login server just to play the game. I feel like I’m a little kid being told what to do with my own toys.

Except for, you know, the teensy little unimportant fact that the required internet connection actually has a reason in Bad Company 2, and you can still play the single-player campaign without an internet connection just fine.

Do you even own the damn game?

Batman

What OS are you running? I am having connection issues with this game ever since I got it. Never ever had so many problems playing online with any other games ever.

xXBatmanXx wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 03:45:
?

Played all day and all night - maybe 1 hr total downtime?

WoW has more downtime than that....having a blast.
Played my first few Team Deathmatch games - that is a blast!


Anway. night. have fun.

you're kidding right? i smell a shill in here somewhere. and it's a blast!

Yeah well thats the way to do business these days. Why pay extra when you can get off with paying little or nothing at all.

The same goes for quality over quantity.

Thankfully its not 100% prevalent in the games industry yet, as we still have a lot of quality developers out there but unfortunately most of them are owned by massive corporations and those that arent cant really compete on the same level so its only a matter of time...

Believe it or not, this is no better that Ubis bullshit DRM. This is why I am so against this kind of service from any publisher. Fricking relying on their login server just to play the game. I feel like I’m a little kid being told what to do with my own toys.

Verno wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 08:57:
They've only had 10 years of Battlefield games to figure it out.

That's just it. EA doesn't have that experience running a master server infrastructure for the Battlefield series or any popular FPS game because it has always farmed that out to Gamespy in the past. EA has only run the master servers for Medal of Honor Pacific and Airborne, and it has already pulled the plug on Pacific because unlike the other Medal of Honor games, no one played it. If EA wasn't such a cheap bastard and a control freak, it would have hired Gamespy to perform these functions for this game too.

Gamespy has been in the business of running a gaming server infrastructure for 15 years for a reason. It knows what it is doing because that is its core business. But, EA wanted to save some money and be able to pull the plug on the game at some point, so it is hosting the servers for this game in-house. That is the problem. EA doesn't know what the hell it is doing because it doesn't have the experience at doing this.

TheVocalMinority wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 06:35:
Sorry but there is no technical reason for EA to control the game servers like this.

Yeah actually, the servers are dependent on the master server due to the unlocks. I'd be fine with giving them up but a lot of people only play these games to "level up" and shit these days. Anyways it's a shame EA's shitty server infrastructure is ruining this game for many people. They've only had 10 years of Battlefield games to figure it out.

Surf wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 04:07:
I dunno, game hasn't been out a week and i am losing interest already.

Me too but not because the game is bad but because I can not fucking get online and play it in MP for more than 20 seconds before EA server disconnects.

Get rid of that piece of shit EA log in crap and let us play the game FFS !

elefunk wrote on Mar 11, 2010, 03:37:
The 32-man privately-rented public server I regularly play on has been running without fail for the last week, and the admin has full control over it just as he always has been able to do.

Including, say, running mods?

Sorry but there is no technical reason for EA to control the game servers like this. BFBC2 does nothing other games haven't done which have had freely available dedicated servers (not to mention the ability to run listen servers and LAN play as well).

All you are really demonstrating with these apologistic posts is that not only are PC gamers willing to buy games with features stripped out but that they will then go and and justify to themselves the removal of these features if they like the game enough.

Good work!