BF 2 Server concerns from forum planet

[[ES] Secret Squirrel]

Here is a post I made to another BF2 forum. I'm posting this hear for coverage and because a representative of EA has replied in this thread. I'd like to get a comment on my thoughts.... I don't want to beat this issue to death, but I do want to add a few more talking points to this discussion in case someone happens to see it and take into consideration. These points have nothing to do with ranks or stats, but delve into what implementation of this scheme will ultimately do to those who would normally rent a server.

Right now, my clan rents 2 dedicated boxes. One is a dual Xeon and the other is a dual Opteron. On each box we can run 4 or 5 game servers. This costs us about $600 per month total.

Before we went dedicated, we rented servers from a GSP on a per slot basis. For the same amount of players we can currently support (~200), it would've costed us about $1000 per month to keep using a managed solution.

You have to know that any EA licensed server is going to cost more per slot than you could rent an unlicensed one, because EA is going to want their cut of the fee, so it stands to reason that it will probably cost more than $5 per slot which is the cheapest I've seen for a managed BF1942 or BFV server.

What this will do is reduce the total number of servers available to the community at large, because the clans will either not be able to afford multiple servers (officials) or they will not see the benefit of doing so if it will be labeled as unofficial.

So now let's look at some figures:

At the present time there are:

1197 BF:V servers with 3200 people playing... Out of those servers there are only 78 EA servers with 407 players

2519 BF42 servers with 7382 people playing... Out of those servers there are only 41 EA servers with 422 players

So basically the EA servers are only getting about 8% of the total gamers playing the two Battlefield franchise games. The lions share of gamers are attracted to the servers run by community admins.

By forcing admins to rent servers that are licensed, they run the risk that there will be less servers available. That means they will have to make up the difference by increasing their own lineup of EA run servers, which they stated they plan on doing. Do you honestly think they are going to throw up a couple thousand servers in order that everyone who buys the game will be able to play? I hardly think so considering they currently only have 119 for the two games they have.

Sure, some will rent an official server. But many, many will not. And make no mistake about it, the vast majority of pub players will want to play on an official server. I think EA knows this and have brilliantly devised the system to take advantage of that.

Now, going back to the cause of the problem, here is a solution that I posted on my own forums that I think would work. I have no idea whether this is how EA has it planned or not.

Believe it or not, there really is a simple solution to this. Whether or not they are willing to do it is the question.

What we know:

1. Stats will determine your rank in game.
2. Your rank will determine what position in the chain-of-command you have available to you.
3. Your rank will also allow you special unlocks within the game.
4. Your rank is transferrable from server to server.
5. You can only accumulate and transfer rank by playing on official EA licensed servers.

The problem:

The problem is for players who play exclusively on a private clan server, they will never achieve rank. Pubbers who play regularly on an official server can join your clan server and bring their rank with them. This will allow them to use features of the game such as commander mode and locked weapons that others who don't pub on official servers will never be able to achieve. Private server admins will be forced to turn these features off.

The easy solution:

The easy solution would be for the developers to make the same stats tracking system that they plan to use on their official servers portable to the unofficial ones as a standalone version. They don't have to report to the central server, but make them so players who play on the unofficial server regularly can have their stats kept just for that server. Then give admins the option of toggling off the ability for players to transfer their rank into the server from the official ones. This will make the playing field level so that only stats accumulated on any unofficial server can be used on that server and that server alone. When a player plays on an official server, they use the rank they've achieved while playing on all official servers, but when they join a private server whose admin has toggled stat transferring off, they will only be able to use the rank they've achieved on that one server.Thanks,

[TLB]Sinister The Lazy Bastards


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So within a paragraph of explanations you have cleared up nothing that we do not already know. Moreover your responses have clearly showed exactly what EA is doing. This is about money and your responses solidify that point.

You are forcing the vast majority of Server Admin's like myself in a precarious position. Like I have stated earlier, EA is putting us at a severe disadvantage in attracting audiences to our servers. You say we have the option of turning our unlockables off or on but your not recognizing the problem or just not acknowledging it.

If we turn lockables off our server will be a ghost town. This will lead to a massive snowball effect. Ghost town ->No donations ->No Server ->No Community. Is that what EA thinks is best for this platform? to have the world playing on their servers in a free for all unregulated mess (yes unregulated, because history has shown that you do not Admin your servers) Moreover, EA could never keep up with the demand so servers will be packed full. How are my clan and I be able to go to a EA server when only two slots are open? What’s the point starting our own server if it’s going to be empty?

I was born a hard ass street kid from Jamaica Queens and one thing throughout my entire life I have been able pick out is a shakedown when I see one.

Take ECGN as an example, MMmmgood started a BF server at their Hosting Company the minute the game was released. Over the years he has developed an amazing community of players that regularly play on his server, chat it up on his forums and even meet and greets. I am in awe of the community he has built up and is a perfect example of what the BF platform really is. The reason why his server and his community is such a success was his ability to compete on a level playing ground with other servers. He put forth the fastest server with a staff of tremendous Admin’s who cared about the community. The only real competition he faced was EA and Nvidia servers, but with those being smacktard heaven with no Admin's He found success.

Now what is he supposed to do? If he decides to run a BF2 server and locks down his server features, no one will play there. If He does not, then he risks some noob who played on the EA Official server for a weekend coming on and taking over the commander module. In either case He will have a tremendously hard time keeping his server populated because EA (who will be creating more servers) will be enjoying a massive feature advantage. He collects no donations, he has his former community fractured and playing all over the place because all the servers all almost full. No one goes to the forums and talk about the other nights pursuit because 99% of those where not there to enter into a discussion.

You claim it is because you want to be able to tell the public that your rank system will be certified and protected. One thing that I have found throughout the years being an Admin for BF1942, BFV, RTCW and Enemy Territory is that THEY WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO CHEAT OR EXPLOIT ANY AND EVERY VUNERABILTY IN A GAME. You might as well understand that now; even on your “policed� servers it will still happen Here is what I propose.

Leave EA and their official servers to have their own database like you have already planned. Release it, swim in it until your fingers get all pruney. When you release the Server package to us public server admins give us the ability to maintain our own individual stats database. That way we will all be on a level playing field. By having my server keep track of my own communities stats will be a powerful tool in getting people to come back to my server.
This way everyone wins, the noobs will play on your official servers and gain rank to their hearts content. My community will not fracture and be torn apart but instead given incentive to come back night after night to my server As long as the XP stats stay on to a particular server then there should be no problem.

If you could write the program to send data to an outside database, you can surely send that data to a local database module. This is not something that will be hard to do, and you know it. If EA decides not to do the above mentioned then one is only left with the fact that it is about money and cornering the server market. Because this solution solves everything and makes everyone happy. But I bet you dollars to donuts you all wont do it…why?…$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Looks like a classic case of money over community. I just hope the mod community set this up to make a BF2 community feasible. I would like you all at EA to understand something, you do this and you will destroy something that took three years to make, real communities.


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This new information just solidifies everything that I had posted a few days ago. This is the worst situation possible and here is why:

1)Its hard enough getting our public servers and communities packed everynight as it is. By having EA and there ultra expensive leased servers enjoying a massive features advantage to woo prospective players, the public server admin community is screwed and will become a ghost town.

2) We now find out in the above mentioned article that EA will be launching many of their own servers. Great! instead of competing against NVIDIA servers, now we have to deal with numerous EA servers + their leased counterparts. For every 64 player server that goes up there are 64 people not involved in a real BF community. Playing on a admin-less, forums-less, Clan-less, noob fest, free for all's do not make communites!

3) Servers cost massive amounts of money. What Server Admin in their right mind would purchase servers for 300-500 a month if its only going to be a ghost town. No players x no donations = ghost town. By the way, think about all the great hosting companies who have made the BF series what it is today, getting screwed.I own my own server and lucky enough to have it sitting at a friends ISP and I'm pissed, think about the guy who does it for a living and putting food on the table. EA says they will have special partnerships with the hosting companies?...BULLSHIT!. What Admin in his right mind would rent a server if can't have any control over it?

4)If EA was so admimant about finding a solution to this dilema why don't they just change the stats feature from going to a global database to an individual one? If I start a server which has its own database, then every time Joe Schmo plays on MY server his stats will stay with me. That way, EA would give ALL server admins a way to keep people coming back to their servers and holy shit! develop communities!!! Instead they would rather keep it to themselves for safe keeping. What a load of malarky, this is a move for them to corner the hosting market or setup a pay for play scenerio.

5)If EA is so damn serious about whats best for the community that fills their wallets, let them give Public Server Admins the ability to unlock all the weapons and use the commander feature on their own private servers. If they don't care about the $ then they should have no problem giving us this ability. It's not like Joe Schmo is going to take a gun from my server and bring it to EA. Everyone on the server will have the same access so what is the problem? I'll tell you, it's because they want to make $$$$.

6)Well looks like I will be scraping my plans to host my our own BF2 server. My Clan has been a huge contributor to the series and now we look forward to the noobfested un-Admined (If you believe there actually going to police there servers your a retard) full the brim, chaotic server, to get our BF2 goodness.

7)Hopefully POE will port over their mod, then I will start up a new BF2 Server.

8)WAY TO FUCK OVER THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THIS GAME WHAT IT IS ASSHOLES!


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Having your stats count only on EA servers is going to cause every single one of them to be filled up, 24/7. There will be long lines for EA-sponsored servers, while the rest of the servers will be ghost towns. Quality of play will be decreased due to the high number of smacktards, poor recognizability of the random group of strangers, inability of clans to be in the same server together (if you think it's tough waiting in line, imagine 5 or 6 people in a clan waiting in line for the same server), and the generally poor settings of EA servers, and their total lack of admins.

But the question is, what happens next, after the ranking system leads people to poor quality play?

There will not be enough slots in the EA servers, so people will go to the private servers. However, they will be very bitter about it, and the fact that they won't "get credit" for playing there will cause them to act like smacktards. "Stop screwing around!" someone says. "Who cares, it's not like this counts," comes the response.

Ironically, the private servers will now be the ones that attract the most smacktards. They're the impatient, angry little ones, and when they can't get their slot on demand, they'll blow off some steam on the private servers. The diehard fans, more disciplined, might resign themselves to flipping through a magazine while waiting for a slot to open up on an EA server, even if the level played is not his favorite. This is likely. The most popular levels will be the ones filled up the most.

Server admins start saying, "Why should I pay $X a month for a private server when no one will show up? And the only people who do show up are high-ranking strangers looking to play commander mode on a server with low-ranking people. The rest are smacktards. Other times, it's empty. I'm not going to spend my money here."

In the world of online gaming, bad word of mouth is bad for business. This scenario will cause bad word of mouth. EA knows this is going to happen. They know there's going to be a shortage and a bunch of very angry people. If they didn't plan it this way all along, they've figured it out from the hate they've been getting from the forums they monitor. I think EA will respond.

EA basically says, "Alright, you know and I know that the only servers worth renting out will be our EA servers. We're a monopoly, and we can charge whatever we want. If you're serious about hosting a BF2 server, you will pay whatever we ask. However, we also know that an extreme server shortage is seriously going to hurt us. So we'll make a deal with you guys. You guys rent our servers, and only our servers, and we won't charge you something ridiculous. We'll still be charging you more than 'fair market value'. You won't be able to get servers at the normal prices. You'll be paying extra. In fact, most of you won't be able to afford it. But enough of you guys will be able to afford it so that we don't have an extreme server shortage."

What I think this means is, there will be fewer servers overall, but there will be enough EA-sponsored servers for people to play on. The ones that do exist will fill up quickly. You won't have all of those empty servers sitting around. The average server admin is not going to like this, since odds are he will not be one of the guys who can afford the EA prices.

My suggestion for those server admins is this: find other people like you. Even if EA charges three times what you're used to paying, find two other server admins in your position and agree to split the cost with them. It's probably awkward for different groups and clans to be sharing servers, but you will be guaranteed a full server of players.

[NeoMort]

Dang ...some well constructed and valid points being put accross there ...sqrl did you say an EA rep responded to those points ...I would be very interested in reading their response  

[Rogain69]

If that doesnt piss you off, i dont know what would   Shucks opinions of EA are starting to creep over to me now.

[[ES] Shuck]

If that doesnt piss you off, i dont know what would   Shucks opinions of EA are starting to creep over to me now.

I tell you man, I am way ahead of my time

EA are bastards, from the way they licence games, to the way they treat their employees, to what they have done to the gaming market.

[[ES] Mindflayer]

That's been a concern of mine. It also ties in to the decision on running our own server, renting from EA, or riding on someone else's.

[[ES] Secret Squirrel]

Tons of stuff, a lot repeating. Just go onto the forums and search under battlefield 2 keyword server. You could read for a day.

[[ES] Canadian Bacon]

can someone post a lmnk to that site? I cant fnd it

[Rogain69]

can someone post a lmnk to that site? I cant fnd it

http://www.forumplanet.com/

Google is your friend. Keep saying that over and over.  
Just messin w/ ya bacon

[{B*B}BlackMagic]

I like what you said there Shuck.. EA are bastards. They're one of the few publishers capable of taking a great game and making it a commercial failure. I'm still bitter about their crappy efforts with system shock 2. Every major review of that game says it's great (90% +) and it barely sold any copies. Half the people in my clan are under the impression EA developed BF as well... the only thing they develop are mediocre James bond games

To be honest though, the whole server issue thing sounds a bit like Americas Army. For those not familiar, you have an "honor" level, which goes up with time and indicates how experienced you are. And guess what, the only way to gain experience is to play on official servers (much like BF2). But to be honest, over the years on AA the attraction of honor points has worn off. It doesn't show how skilled you are, just how much you play the game. Some players have really high honor simply because they've played the game for hundreds of hours. However, this doesn't make them good. You just get a lot of n00bs who think having a higher rank makes them better than you.

Kinda like the score-whores in BF...

At the end of the day i just play for fun, so it doesnt really bother me if im the lowest-ranked player in the world

[[ES] Mindflayer]

The part that bugs me is that certain features of the game are unlocked only by playing on a EA server - either rented or run by them. That's just squeezing the player for every penny they have. I guess people will vote with their wallets moving forward.

EA needs to remember being the biggest player does not guarantee eternal dominance.

[{B*B}BlackMagic]

couldnt have said it better myself

[[ES] ReCo]

this forum makes u wanna buy b/f 2 right now  
EA r a bunch of twats 4 doin this

[[ES] Canadian Bacon]

I might not buy BF2 until some of that stuff gets sorted out