EA DICE withdrew nearly every official server from BF3 (PS360)

I've got no beef with people being able to rent servers and control their own matches. I'm okay with community stuff like that. But I do think there's some eyebrow raising mean spiritedness to essentially bottlenecking a game's entirely multiplayer feature to rely on those who are happy to pay monthly fees.

It's great most people won't have to, but if this is legitimate it's basically EA saying "okay community, if you want to play this game, you need to pay us". Some fan has to be paying them just so you can play your game. That's pretty low.

If no one is really playing on the official server no reason to keep them up when there are plenty of other servers online to play on. As long they put some servers back up when the rented server count drops.
 
Is this in writing somewhere? Is this EA/DICE's statement on the situation? Because if it's not, then you don't know that, no matter how likely it might seem.

It is common sense from my view. The official servers are being switched over to rentals due to the volume of people that wanted to rent them. By not switching them back, when not rented, they are effectively turning off the game.

There is equally nothing to show that is the case at all, and I think the assumption they will turn off the game they are making DLC for right now, is a little silly.

The only issue here is that the volume of custom servers has exploded and drowned out people being able to find a regular game.
 
I don't own the game, but this is BS.

MS needs to sort this out, MS need to wake up and realize that EA needs them more than they need EA. They can't allow EA to continue using their own servers and log in BS come next gen.

Clamp down on that shit, MS.

Sony, well I doubt Sony even care what the hell EA does so long as their games are on the console.

Lol, in a thread about a game you don't own and you still find time to bitch about Sony.

Your former tag was on the money.
 
I'm all for the user servers, but man...I do kind of want to play on default servers once in awhile. It gets old having to constantly quit servers because the description doesn't match up with the server settings.
 
I remember when people wanted private servers for MW2.

This is more or less a good thing people. Oh sure, some random asshat might ban you, but you'll find another server.

Valve hosts official TF2 servers in addition to allowing people to use their own. How are they able to perform such wizardry?!
 
Actually it is the solution. I've been gaming on PC for years and if I don't like the rules of a server I simply find one to my liking.

The server admin payed for the server and they can run it however they see fit.

Hello ..... people can do what they want on their own goddamn server, the point people are making is that EA is forcing them to deal with this shit by removing offical servers on a whim without even a heads up.

I have played PC games for years also, so what.
 
It should be a fair deal though now; scrap the online pass if they're going to do this.

Sure they won't get money from used sales, but the community is paying for the game to remain active now!
 
From my experience on PS3, this is true. What were official servers are now all being rented out. I think the Popularity of the server rentals was higher than they expected, and as a result have chosen to take the dollar instead of offering the standard BF3 affair.

This, but honestly: Unless someone takes a photo of a searched "P"/"EA"/"DICE" quarry with the search tab in the browser, I refuse to believe they're all gone. Because they're still there but hard to find because DICE's server browser BLOWS in that aspect to not find a butthurt admin when me and my team start to roll in Rush.
 
I'm all for the user servers, but man...I do kind of want to play on default servers once in awhile. It gets old having to constantly quit servers because the description doesn't match up with the server settings.

the Problem is this: servers are often rented by a group of friends/clans, they will always play on their servers, so the server is certain to have players on it. Official servers don't have that and matchmaking puts people in games with players / the server browers shows games with more players on them first.

this means official servers often stay empty and custom servers are played on more.
 
Lol, in a thread about a game you don't own and you still find time to bitch about Sony.

Your former tag was on the money.

What can Sony realistically do?

Not much is my belief.

Actually, I'll rephrase. Not as much as MS. MS have their own closed network, they can easily take over the handling of EA game servers and make sure this shit never takes place and that servers aren't shut down for arbitrary reasons.

EA can only pull this shit because they run their own servers through both services. It's downright disgusting that MS is allowing this to happen on their premium network. I can understand why they allowed EA to run their own servers/log in system at the beginning of the gen, but the dynamic of the relationship has changed and MS needs to take a firm hand upside EA's head and not allow this to continue.
 
Uhh no dude, you can play on rented servers unless they are pw protected I would assume.

But if all these players stop hosting/renting servers, will EA still keep the normal servers up? LOL

Yeah, but rented by who? A player. So I guess my statement stands, a player has to rent the server for $30/month for anyone to play?
 
This is why I never ever play console games online. Though I do wish more companies allowed you to host dedicated servers for consoles on PC's(not like this however).

Fixed. It sucks that even companies like atlus eventually have to pull the plug on their online servers because of the nature of console games. What ea is doing is pure greed though.
 
I've got no beef with people being able to rent servers and control their own matches. I'm okay with community stuff like that. But I do think there's some eyebrow raising mean spiritedness to essentially bottlenecking a game's entirely multiplayer feature to rely on those who are happy to pay monthly fees.

It's great most people won't have to, but if this is legitimate it's basically EA saying "okay community, if you want to play this game, you need to pay us". Some fan has to be paying them just so you can play your game. That's pretty low.

You're right in saying that they're asking the console community to pay to play. DICE's biggest mistake, in my opinion, was waiting so long to implement DLC. (B2K aside, because they gave that free to people with the limited edition/first print run of the game.) I feel that they're still "waiting on money" since EA invested so much money into this game, if you catch my drift.

I think they overestimated how big the console version was and are probably trying their best to recoup losses on all the ghost town servers they originally hosted for the game.

Besides, it's not like they've actually taken them away (yet) because all you have to do is search them, apparently.

Soultron is soultron'ing hard in this thread. Haha I love it.

You know me too well, my friend. I still feel like a lot of people are making non-issues in this thread. Do they still play? Do they even own the game?

I'll admit I'm making more of an issue than I should because I don't play the game on console anymore.

With over enthusiastic admins on their own servers able to kick you for whatever they want this move by EA is bullshit.

Maybe if you still played it you might know this.

Also when people are paying for online passes its even more bullshit.

So are you asserting that every time you've played you've been kicked by an over-enthusiastic admin? I need to do reading on the private server controls on console because I honestly didn't know you had that much control over them.

Admin controls are definitely a part of the private server experience, however. (Especially in pubs where jackasses can ruin your friendly fire server with TKing.) Not all admins are going to boot you because you're taking up the last spot when they're waiting for a buddy, they're shit and you're better than anyone else on the server, or just because they're an asshole.
 
Hello ..... people can do what they want on their own goddamn server, the point people are making is that EA is forcing them to deal with this shit by removing offical servers on a whim without even a heads up.

I have played PC games for years also, so what.

Which is exactly how the PC runs right now (the version I play). So, I have a hard time seeing this as a major issue.

Dealing with a pissy admin ends when you chose to leave the server.
 
i was always under the impression, at least on the pc, that ea/dice only opened servers up whenever they are needed. say for an example if ea/dice had only one server running and the player count eventually reaches 75% of the maximum player count, then whatever system they have in place would automatically open up additional servers to meet the expected demand. if no one is playing, then those servers will eventually get shut off leaving just the bare minimum number of servers. this is how i noticed it working during the bf3 beta as well as bf2 vanilla and countless other pc titles.
 
My guess is that the 'official servers' are the same that are being rented.
The player base end up paying the server costs so the game will be live meanwhile we say so. :3
 
It's like inviting your pals round for a party asking them to bring booze, then going out to a club instead and keeping all their beer. It's like, "fuck off! Yeah, I chose to go out instead, but you don't get to keep my shit too! Greedy bastard!"
 
Yup, I'm only level 4 and I kicked from nearly every server I join. No one wants to play with new players and there's no official servers to play on.
The game is just a clusterfuck now.
 
What can Sony realistically do?

Not much is my belief.

Actually, I'll rephrase. Not as much as MS. MS have their own closed network, they can easily take over the handling of EA game servers and make sure this shit never takes place and that servers aren't shut down for arbitrary reasons.

EA can only pull this shit because they run their own servers through both services. It's downright disgusting that MS is allowing this to happen on their premium network. I can understand why they allowed EA to run their own servers/log in system at the beginning of the gen, but the dynamic of the relationship has changed and MS needs to take a firm hand upside EA's head and not allow this to continue.

No they can't, and you're an idiot if you believe "only" MS can do that. MS is grabbed by the balls to allow EA to use their OWN servers just as much as Sony. And in fact, they were ball grabbed FIRST with the OG X-box.

Oh, wait you mentioned that. But you're still an idiot if you believe MS can just take over their servers. EA wouldn't allow either of them to do it and would stop publishing games on their platform and just go to the PC and use Origin instead.
 
Would love to see the private server owners get together and close their servers. Let's see what happens when nobody can play BF3 on consoles.
 
My guess is that the 'official servers' are the same that are being rented.
Quite a good biz move.

Exactly. And now that supply has been surpassed by demand, the number of (and need for) official servers is minimized.

We learned a few days ago that EA has to lay off a large number of employees and are restructuring. For all the people who say this makes them want to puke, I'd rather them do this than send another few families packing.
 
No they can't, and you're an idiot if you believe "only" MS can do that. MS is grabbed by the balls to allow EA to use their OWN servers just as much as Sony. And in fact, they were ball grabbed FIRST with the OG X-box.

Oh, wait you mentioned that. But you're still an idiot if you believe MS can just take over their servers. EA wouldn't allow either of them to do it and would stop publishing games on their platform and just go to the PC and use Origin instead.

Microsoft probably doesn't give a shit because Battlefield 3 doesn't have the words "Call of Duty" anywhere in its title.

People are going to hate on me for saying this, but shit, I'd rather pay to keep something going instead of seeing EA shut the online component down completely when the new sequel is coming or when its EA 1.5-year lease has expired.
 
Gamers just love to pay for things they used to get for free. It's only going to get worse.

i swear to god i made a post when the mw2 pc dedicated server fiasco was going on, that said basically "watch dedicated servers become the next big thing for consoles, then console gamers will line up to bend over for them", and here we are.
 
Would love to see the private server owners get together and close their servers. Let's see what happens when nobody can play BF3 on consoles.

private server owners are the reason nobody plays on ea's servers:

servers are often rented by a group of friends/clans, they will always play on their servers, so the server is certain to have players on it. Official servers don't have that and matchmaking puts people in games with players / the server browers shows games with more players on them first. So the official servers stay empty as long as nobody actively tries to fill them
 
Even near launch there were so many servers that were ghost towns. It sounds like EA/DICE took notice of this and decided to strip things down a bit. And it makes sense that they'd remove the freebie ones from the server browser because they're offering the rented dedicated servers now.

It doesn't strike me as a totally anti-consumer move, really. It seems like a smart business decision. But the whole "EA sucks" hate train is the cool thing to ride, I know.

I seriously doubt that half the people in here are still even playing BF3 on console. I know I'm not anymore. Even if I wanted to start playing again, I'd just hop into a server that someone had put up.

EDIT: stuminus3, there is a pass with BF3. You can get a 48-hour trial here, however..

Tsk tsk, you've been corrupted.
 
Would love to see the private server owners get together and close their servers. Let's see what happens when nobody can play BF3 on consoles.

And you don't think that they would be switched back to official servers? You think that they would just turn them all off?

Really?
 
Don't see the problem here. Now they can't shut it down. Plus rather have this then lame official servers.

I was actually surprised and happy when I logged in recently to see servers with actual good play lists and with a ticket rate that wont make the rounds shitty.

Might make return.
 
It´s one of those things that maybe isn´t wrong, but sure ain´t making me eager to be an EA customer. There are so many great games to play now, that I think that i´ll stick to the ones made by companies that makes an effort to make me feel wanted and appreciated.
 
And it kind of sucks because it's not exactly easy to find a server with the settings that EA uses for those official servers. EPIC Battles clones are out there, but you also have douche bags admins or owners banning people(always without warning) for their own reasons.

I noticed this when I last played(and yes, Soultron, I do still play this on a console :/) I could not find an official server. Even when narrowing down my search to the exact types of names associated with them. i.e. [DICE] Epic Battles
 
The server rental fee on top of the xbox live fee is a disgrace anyway. What's so special about a dedicated server that means it's worth $30 a month when compared to just using Live? From a console gamer perspective, i mean.

Sadly we are heading towards a Pay to Play model (monthly fees) and by next gen it may be the standard.

Good job i'm betting the house on Nintendo. Being a gen behind will be a fucking huge advantage for them.
 
No they can't, and you're an idiot if you believe "only" MS can do that. MS is grabbed by the balls to allow EA to use their OWN servers just as much as Sony. And in fact, they were ball grabbed FIRST with the OG X-box.

Oh, wait you mentioned that. But you're still an idiot if you believe MS can just take over their servers. EA wouldn't allow either of them to do it and would stop publishing games on their platform and just go to the PC and use Origin instead.

Nope, EA needs MS more than they need EA. It's a simple dynamic. MS is the market leader (or sorts) in the console market, if MS decides to take back control, EA can either agree or, as you said, stop releasing their games on the best selling console currently on the market.

Are EA shareholders really going to allow that to happen? Nope, didn't think so.

And there's no need for name calling.
 
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