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[Deleted member 1235]

Mine is piss poor. Absolutely the worst online game on xbox i have ever played, typically if I play for 40 minutes, I may get 2 games in. the rest of the time is spent joining a game, talking to everyone for about 30 seconds, then reading

"Failed to open communications to some players in the game"

Or changing car and then reading

"No signal input has been detected for a long time, would you like to sign back into xbox live?"

If I do get a game, it seems almost a guarantee that someone will lag out and then you have to wait for them at the finish line until someone quits.

I thought EA improved their crapness. I was trying to show my flatmate whos never played live and this was said "God, XBOX live sucks, play the computer." "I give Xbox live 2/5".

I know there is an official burnout thread, but I wanted to complain specifically about this.
I am playing on a 2Mbit/512 connection (from NZ).

 

[GigaDrive]

damn that sucks. i was planning to get Xbox Burnout 3 this week and play on LIVE. what a shame that EA's fucked up. i wish EA was put down. fuck them. oh well, back to Outrun 2 demo on Xbox Live, which btw is working almost flawlessly.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

I did get kicked back to the menu a coupla times, but overall my one experience (so far) with BO3 online was very good. It helped tremendously that I played with a very good friend and only joined his games. There was no lag to speak of. The interface is a bit sketchy but I came away with an opposite experience as you.

 

[Silverbolt]

Burnout 3 pisses the hell out of me sometimes. Sometimes it kicks me out of Live after every game, and some other times I'm stuck at the starting countdown when everyone had already been racing for 5-10 seconds, then it goes 3,2,1 for me. I put in PGR2 and everything is fine. EA has some crappy Live implementations, ruins the game for me.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

hmmm.

See even with the shittest connection showing for all players (1 red bar dropping to none) if the game starts then it plays fine (always a dropper though). Although peoples cars seem to drive sideways alot.

When it works though, shit it's fun.

 

[shuri]

Works fine for me. The "failed to open communication blabla" message was caused because i didnt have certain ports opened up on my routers. Once done, I always have perfect games

 

[Burger]

What ports does Xbox live use ?

 

[Deleted member 1235]

huh, could be a ports thing, but thats weird that I have never really had the issue before.

I suspect the service is a bit shoddy to though, a lot of games seem to be named "EA SUCK MY BOLLOCKS" and such now.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

found some port forwarding stuff. hopefully this improves my luck.

forward ports 3074 (both UDP and TCP), 53 (both UDP and TCP,) and 88 (UDP only).

Found on a couple of forums after googling "Xbox live port forwarding"

 

[JMPovoa]

found some port forwarding stuff. hopefully this improves my luck.

This is the key to success.

 

[Mike Works]

damn that sucks. i was planning to get Xbox Burnout 3 this week and play on LIVE. what a shame that EA's fucked up. i wish EA was put down. fuck them. oh well, back to Outrun 2 demo on Xbox Live, which btw is working almost flawlessly.

If you were any more transparent I'd swear Calista Flockheart was posting on these boards

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Works fine for me. Don't like EA's lobby system but oh well.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

I can confirm after forwarding my ports that the service still blows goats.

I tried to create a game titled "EAS LIVE SERVICE IS HORRIBLY BAD" got halfway through typing it and got

"NO SIGNAL HAS BEEN DETECTED FOR A LONG TIME, SIGN BACK INTO LIVE"?

 

[Sho Nuff]

Absolutely miserable compared to every other Xbox Live game I:ve ever played.

It's the PS2 online experience, now on Xbox!

 

[MightyHedgehog]

True dat.

 

[Warrior]

It's one of the worst live services I have witnessed in an XBOX game.

All these bugs and annoyance just put me off playing the game online.

The single player was still enjoyable.

Edit: I enjoyed the game a lot at first and gave it glowing impressions, but as time went on the game went from being great to just good.

I now feel the online component is a bit raw and really was nowhere near the quality of the single player game. I was kind of hoping for a game packed with features and modes for online play like say MM3, but sadly this was not the case.

 

[JMPovoa]

What is your router Catfish?
Anyway, even if you did the port forwarding right you might still have to turn your Xbox off and then on after doing it.

 

[Burger]

His/Our router is a Dlink DI-804

Ea's tech support site sais it is aware of the "Unable to open communications to all players.." error, and is apparently "gathering information so we can resolve this problem as quickly as possible"

They do mention bypassing the router, but I don't believe this will help.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

WANKERS!!!!

God, this is driving me insane, I just tried for 30 minutes to get one game. Just one.

I really like this game on live, but it never works. I'm sure it's not the router, it's worked completely fine for live in the past with SCT and Counter Strike, I think I have tried a couple other games on it as well. Burnout worked until they did their "update" which was ment to improve service.

If a certain other game pulls off a live service like this on November the 9th, I may not be allowed to be a free man anymore.

 

[Blimblim]

I've had the exact same problem as you catfish. Live works perfectly well for all games except one, Burnout 3. I use my linux comp as the main NAT box, but have ports 3074 and 88 forwarded to the Xbox like I do since 2 years now, so it's not the issue there.
Last time I tried playing burnout 3 I managed to enter one game in 20 minutes, just to be booted out right after the first race. First time in my life I've thrown a game controller, needless to say my Controller S died a very painful death on that wall.
That game has now been sold, that was the first EA game I had bought since Wing Commander 3, and this definitely be the last until long. I had a blast in single player mode until the AI started to bug me way too much (after 73 gold medals), so I certainly do not regret selling it.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

damn, at least someone else is/was getting the problem.

EA is "looking at it"

wonder if they will figure it out, they should hand over their handling of online to MS for XBOX.

 

[JMPovoa]

catfish, you have to make sure that the xbox's ip is the one you're redirecting the ports to.

Anyway, as a last resort, use the DMZ option on your router and assign it to the xbox's IP address. Turn off the console and turn it on again after saving those settings. If that doesn't work, it really has nothing to do with your router. Give it a try please.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

hmm now for xbox live "this game cannot be played at this time".

Being fixed again? Anyone else playing?

 

[Apharmd Battler]

Burnout 3 is the only game that has ever given me problems on XBL (and they are infrequent). It's only when I use the Nyko Wireless Net Extender, if I plug a LAN cable directly in I have no problems. I may play around with the ports myself. But for the most part, 99% of my online games have been fantastic! I love online road rage, worth the price of admission.

 

[Prine]

stopped playing it on Live becuase its such a horrible mess. Thinking about selling it, cant be bothered to play it offline and unlock everything

 

[siamesedreamer]

I tried playing on Live twice when I got it. I was dropped twice and I haven't gone back on since. Its atrocious compared to every other Live game.

Hopefully they'll get thier shit worked out before NFSU2 hits.

 

[shuri]

I never had that problem me neither except than with Burnout3. I checked my firewall logs, and it seems that burnout3 used a random udp port from the port range 1020 to 1499.

I open that range ports when I want to play online, and it works perfectly fine. Actually I dont think there's a problem in leaving them enabled , since theres nothing reserved that is interesting on those ports: http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers

 

[bishoptl]

Weird - my Live experience with Burnout 3 has been absolutely perfect. No drops, no skittering or lag, every race (and I've played several) has been ultra-smooth. Which is a nice change from Sega's NHL servers, I gotta say.

+1 EA Online

 

[Ramirez]

Pretty good for me...

 

[suikodan]

I don't have any problems with the connection during a game, but sometimes, it will kick me off the lobby when a race is over.

Which sucks.

The XBL implementation in this game is really poor.

 

[Vark]

Ha! you people just don't know 'the secret'.

I was playing 6-8 person games with friends, getting dropped, losing voices, the xbox would occasionally lock up after a game etc, etc.

it has to do with the server you're on, there's too many f'n people. Go to a server that doesn't have anyone on it 'japan, germany, etc' and the play experience is flawless.

Granted, this only works if you're playing with friends and can get them to go there with you and not for joining random games, but it makes the experience so much better.

 

[Apharmd Battler]

I never had that problem me neither except than with Burnout3. I checked my firewall logs, and it seems that burnout3 used a random udp port from the port range 1020 to 1499.

I open that range ports when I want to play online, and it works perfectly fine. Actually I dont think there's a problem in leaving them enabled , since theres nothing reserved that is interesting on those ports: http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers

Hey Shuri, could you send me details on how I open ports on my router. I'm not the smartest when it comes to networking. I know the basics, but I don't know enough savy details to play around with my ports.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

Hey Shuri, could you send me details on how I open ports on my router. I'm not the smartest when it comes to networking. I know the basics, but I don't know enough savy details to play around with my ports.

Your router should have an ip address, you should be able to put that into a web browser and access an admin page probably password protected. This all depends on your router of course but there should be an "Open ports" menu or similar. To forward a port it usually goes something like this.

Protocol Start port End Port
(TCP or UDP)

Some of the time you will need to make 2 rules, one for tcp and one for udp, if you only want to open one port, make sure start and end are the same.

You should look for the documentation on your router for how to get to these options relative to your equipment.

I just found out that someone in my flat has opened every single port on our router for all traffic in and out :S, so thats not causing my live problem.

EA knows about the issue I am having, I wll post their response to my email when I get one.

MY EMAIL SENT YESTERDAY
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I keep getting the "unable to open connections to players in the game"
It's doing my head in!!!! This used to work when I first purchased your game, now I can try for 1 hour and possibly get one game in. IT IS BROKEN. It's not my router, not my cable modem, our service is terrific otherwise, it's just XBOX LIVE/EA combo and it was working before you stopped the service to do a large update.
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[DJ Demon J]

Weird - my Live experience with Burnout 3 has been absolutely perfect. No drops, no skittering or lag, every race (and I've played several) has been ultra-smooth. Which is a nice change from Sega's NHL servers, I gotta say.

+1 EA Online

IAWTP. The first 5 minutes of ANY NHL2K5 game is a lagfest. Goals scored during this time shouldn't count.

My Burnout 3 experience online has been great as well, and flawless after the recent patch.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

My Burnout 3 experience online has been great as well, and flawless after the recent patch.

Sigh,

See my experience is opposite to you. I had labelled everyone complaining about the service as big whiners as I was experiencing no issues (apart from getting booted back to the lobby after a game) but after the recent patch, not a single game will work anymore.

 

[DJ Demon J]

Sigh,

See my experience is opposite to you. I had labelled everyone complaining about the service as big whiners as I was experiencing no issues (apart from getting booted back to the lobby after a game) but after the recent patch, not a single game will work anymore.

It's definitely your router. If you're running anything else (special settings to allow P2P filesharing to work, XBConnect or any other LAN-piping software), I'd suggest resetting your router to factory default settings, clearing your Xbox Live settings on your Xbox and let it reconfigure. The same thing happened to me after XBox Live 2.0, I couldn't play any game for more than 5 minutes before it disconnected. Turns out the problem was leftover XBConnect settings in my router.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

Negative,
Response from EA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello,

Thank you for contacting EA technical support. I am sorry that you are having difficulty.

Unfortunately we are having difficulty with the servers acting strangely.
Try again in about an hour and if they are still not working right, bare in mind its on our end and are trying to get things resolved ASAP.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Try again in an hour! I've been trying for days god-damnit.

 

[GSG Flash]

I don't have Xbox, but I'm having similar problems with PS2. I can't even go on to EA's servers, it always says that timeout crap and asks me to reconnect.

 

[JMPovoa]

catfish, if you don't mind, can you do a print screen of what is configured in your router regarding open ports? (just to a print screen of the open ports configuration) Post it here.