Earlier this month EA released news about "Ranked Servers"

"Ranked servers will be where the hardcore bump heads and clash knives. All Ranked Servers will be configured to provide the definitive competitive Battlefield experience."

"Ranked servers will be heavily administrated and have Punkbuster on. The integrity of the stats system is of paramount importance to EA (and of course to those participating in it) and so we will be monitoring things constantly. At the end of the day, Ranked servers will be a safe, regulated environment on which the most competitive players will be spending their time. If this environment doesn’t sound right for you, that’s great. That’s what Unranked servers are for."

That sounded like it made some sense... and they continue....:

"Unranked Servers
These servers are the wild cards – every one will be different, set to suit a specific part of our community (that part can be an individual player turned server operator, whole clans or even fan websites). The one thing these will all have in common, however, is the lack of pressure to meet the high standard of play we will expect on Ranked servers (i.e. don’t be a nuisance, don’t break EA’s Terms and Conditions and strive to be a team player)."


I have waited with every other BF guy to get this new game and have some excitement again, just like DC did for BF1942. But! Do you remember playing Battlefield 1942 or Battlefield Vietnam and remember thinking that your scores didn’t matter because EA was watching over them? Me neither. It seems EA with these statements is openly implying, if not admitting they think those of us who are more likely play mostly on "Unranked" servers are the less competitive or "hardcore" gamers than those that play ranked servers. In both of the games we have been playing for years you go to clan servers for the best games and you go to the EA servers if you are an a lost noob or you just want to feel better about yourself and waste a dozen or two of them. Why are they really doing this??? I predict that the EA “Ranked” servers are going to get all the guys that have only mastered the Cobra or gunships, that have small wood, and point to their individual scores for validation. Actually, if we could banish all the players like that to EA servers…


If you find your self, like I do, migrating to clan servers because your favorite mods is there and EA doesn’t play those, and the competitions are more challenging there, and the noobs are either getting trained or getting killed in a hurry there. We are the players that made the Battlefield series the success that it is today! Why are they isolating us? They give some sort of cooler UNLOCKABLE WEAPONS to those that decide to play on EA servers?

I hope the open source movement of some kick ass mod developers wins out over this,


Can’t Sleep

b3ak3r
http://www.firescore.com