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Star Wars Battlefront impressions

jedimike

Member
I played online lastnight... it's fawking great! I loved playing the rolling droid... just roll your ass to a checkpoint setup shields and fire away. Out of the 6 games I played, only one had lag, and even then the game warned me it would lag and flashed a bad connection icon at the bottom of the screen.

Right now, it seems as though everyone is experimenting with the different classes. We managed a few organized attacks (hint: order AI units around with the D-pad) but it was mostly just getting a feel for the maps, vehicles, classes, etc. Everyone I played with on XBL was praising the game. I think this is an XBL game that will stand the test of time like Counter-Strike, R6III, MechAssault, Crimson Skies, etc.
 

Alex

Member
Me and Brandon F finally got it working better last night, like at Midnight, and had some good fun. Balance is pretty fucked to be honest, the anti-vehicle class is almost a joke, espically if anything is manned by a Pilot and that lameass auto-repair trait.

You're better off just avoiding vehicles or taking another up against them, which is fine for some maps (vehicle-less or that don't allow driving to command points) but it doesn't explain the low quality of the Rocket trooper, they're solid for disarming turrets, and shields on Droidika's sure, but I wish they would've take a few of the pilots features and given it to it.

That droid VS republic map with the two AT-TE's is pretty ridiculous, for a poor vehicle balance example.

Edit: Few changes, and also, I admit I haven't tried mines much yet, so dunno how much they help.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
Yea, that midnight spree we had convinced me this game does show some promise for online warfare. Given how unplayable it was over XBL at first, the game gave one of the worst first impressions this year, yet those matches in the wee hours held up beautifully. I never once saw the lag icon pop in during that 2 hour bout or so we had. It only had about 8 humans with 'expert' bots padding out the other slots, but it was surprisingly playable from beginning to end.

Couple thoughts....

Alex and Eggo are dead-on with the balancing. Vehicles are menacing and powerful, but even moreso because of how indestructable they feel. Turrets suck arse from what I gathered, and so do the various classes wielding rockets. BF1942 this is not; what little ammo you are given with these classes just cannot come close to making a noticeable dent in the steel beasts they are built to take down. Irritating.

Air combat is awfully non-epic. Only Bespin seems to offer enough range and space to make these sky battles feel at least interesting...but barely. Any other map with air-units are too confining and impossible to coordinate assaults on. Starfighters cover ground WAY too quickly, and you spend more time trying to stay within the surprisingly small 'battle-zones' than actively taking out opponents. Bottom-line, flying pretty much sucks.

I was pretty surprised at how enjoyable some of the deathmatchy-maps were however. We played one level in the city of Naboo that involved pure ground warfare, tossing our legions of troops at bottleneck zones was awesome! Controlled chaos at its finest, the score was close to the bitter end and I really felt the tug-of-war moving back and forth throughout the fight. Most of my favorite moments last night involved maps where vehicles were not factored in actually, or at least the lighter fare stuff.

The sheer number of maps and variety is really cool. We spent a couple hours playing, but I don't think we got through even half the total. Aside from a few quirks here and there, they are mostly enjoyable and interesting.

If not for this session last night, this game would have been back on store shelves by lunch. If they can fix up some of the balancing issues, and bring more purpose to some of the niche classes, this could be a riot. I do hope finding another playable room won't be as arduous a task either.
 

jedimike

Member
Just went and got the PC version too... we're going to set it up on our LAN at work. Obviously PC version is much prettier than Xbox version. Seems to have some extra lighting features and more anti-aliasing. It doesn't matter much in the gameplay department, but the FMV on the PC version is terrible compared to Xbox. I assume it's because of the compression they used to make it fit on a CD.

??? 2.7 GB install over 3 CD's ??? Come on publishers... let's make the switch to DVD. Those consumers that don't have DVD will spend the $50 to get one.
 

Dr.Guru of Peru

played the long game
Apharmd Battler said:
To me what makes the game fun is the fact that unlike Battlefield 1942, if you don't man a vehicle your not helpless and left ass-out.

Haha, are you kidding me? Its extremely easy to take out vehicles as infantry in BF.
 

Alex

Member
I played a few matches early in the morning, about 7ish AM or so, ran fairly well for the most part. Optimatch is still busted, however, which is severely irritating.

Battlefront is a weird game. Normally with the complaints I have, I'd take it back in a heart beat, but like Brandon says, it really has some intense moments. The map design, apart from being too small for the aerial crafts, is excellent, there's a lot of "cool" factor from the troop designs and vehicles as well, and the infantry is balanced against one another quite well.

I disagree with him on Turrets though. I have had some solid use from them, and they're the best you can do against vehicles most of the time.

My complaints, all in all, would be:

~I do wish maps would've been sized up, with some focus on vehicles for travel, Ala BF1942, and not just combat. Space ships would've benefited as well.

~Vehicles need to take a serious armor reduction. It should take 3-4 rockets to blow up a tank, not 15+. AT-ST's and the like are ridiculous even if some account for moving bases.

To be fair, vehicles are fairly limited, and do not respawn TOO fast, so they tried to limit it, but didn't go nearly far enough. Vehicle vs vehicle combat is great fun, and for the most part, vehicles don't control the maps. So it's not anything game breaking, but fairly disheartening.

Every other trooper seems to have a few secondaries, but not ARC/Rocket. Oh well. I stand by them for conventional use, as well as turret/Droidika dispatching. I actually managed to finish off an AT-TE's with one earlier as well, score!

~Pilot needs a better gun (perhaps just a bit more conventional, if not underpowered) and less abilities. Having it be proficent in vehicles, the medic, and an engineer all in one package is pretty ridiculous and only offset by it's terrible grenade launcher. and lack of sub-weapons. Perhaps split Pilot's abilities with the ARC trooper and whatnot?

~Netcode, what the hell, seriously. Microsoft needs to start dishing out their net protocol's to other devs, because Mech Assault, Crimson Skies, Midtown Madness, Counter-Strike X and the other MGS ilk are rock solid, polished, and generally the show cases for Live. Halo 2 will rip everything a new one, I don't doubt.

That said, I love Droids. They're just basicly the most fun to play as. Despite being fairly easy to dispatch, newbies are having laughably hard times dealing with my rampant Droidika assaults.

Brandon: The map I played this morning was really, really nifty. Forgot the name, not being a Star Wars buff, but it was some nightime city in the rain. Excellent command post rushing fun. I paired up with another Droidika player, and rolled from checkpoint to checkpoint, great stuff
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
I'm a bit annoyed by what I've read about the game being pretty much unmoddable, due to the PC version being nearly a straight port from what they had created for the consoles. Had they actually given modders some tools, I'm sure somebody could have fixed whatever negative gameplay aspects remain in this final version. I'm curious to see just how bad the air combat is, as I've also read all over the place that numerous controls are missing, such as a rudder equivalent, making it impossible to perform some basic maneuvers, like rolling.

The Galactic Conquest forums are quite full of flames right now.
 

Vlad

Member
Dr.Guru of Peru said:
Haha, are you kidding me? Its extremely easy to take out vehicles as infantry in BF.

I was thinking the same thing, myself. I mean, sure maps like Aberdeen and El Alamein are very vehicle-centric, and they are stronger than infantry, but it's not like an infantry player is completely screwed no matter what when an enemy vehicle comes around.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Vlad said:
I was thinking the same thing, myself. I mean, sure maps like Aberdeen and El Alamein are very vehicle-centric, and they are stronger than infantry, but it's not like an infantry player is completely screwed no matter what when an enemy vehicle comes around.

You'll sing quite a different tune if you play Forgotten Hope, and end up taking the assault class, then going Rambo into the middle of nowhere, and suddenly a King Tiger rolls over the hill in front of you.. :D

Edit: whereas in vanilla BF1942, any jerk with a handful of frag grenades or a bofors AA (which strangely enough is used by every side in that game, beside being an Allied piece) could take out any tank, which was completely assinine.
 

Alex

Member
Air combat is basicly a moot point. It's handled way worse than the Battlefield titles. They're so fast they cross the maps in mere seconds, and feature no rudders. Basicly, they have throttles and weapons, and that's it.

Battlefront rewards teams more for combat sprees, comapred to Battlefield, so occasional dog fighting and aerial turret fun can be useful. But It's not even close to as good as something like the physic-less mess known as Rogue Squadron.
 

jedimike

Member
Maybe I'm more forgiving.. or maybe I just understood that Battlefront wasn't going to be 1942 with a Star Wars facelift.

The complaints i'm hearing sound like people believed the game was something else.

I think the game is extremely balanced. You don't need vehicles or spacecraft to win. How much more balanced can you get it? The game is all about action. And constant action there is. I don't want to have to get aboard a skiff to travel to the battle scene.


I'm curious to see just how bad the air combat is, as I've also read all over the place that numerous controls are missing, such as a rudder equivalent, making it impossible to perform some basic maneuvers, like rolling.

This ain't Tie Fighter. If you want to play an air combat game, play Crimson Skies.

Vehicles need to take a serious armor reduction.

I don't think so... Not once have I seen a vehicle mowing down hordes of infantry. Vehicle combat seems most suited for fighting other vehicles. Whenever I'm just infantry, I've just ignored the vehicles.

Having it(the pilot) be proficent in vehicles, the medic, and an engineer all in one package is pretty ridiculous

Given the reduced number of players for consoles, it seems fitting to just have one class doing the grunt work.
 

Alex

Member
"Not once have I seen a vehicle mowing down hordes of infantry"

Then you haven't played long, I would think. I've racked up to 45 kills in a short match riding around in a tank, and clearing out the spawns at the command posts for friends. This was common happening for every vehicle match I played with Brandon last night. 9 times out of 10, I use vehicles for command post clearing and travel, much more of the former.

You realize the reinforcment bar, aka the teams score is heavily based on kills, right? It's usually the main focus for victory. Capturing the bases is either done for tactical advantage (forcing them into fewer bases, disabling quick vehicle access, etc) or the smaller, less often use victory for capturing all points, and killing the active spawn, thus ending the match. Holding majority bases does take down the reinforcement count gradually, but it's a total waste if you're not mowing people down as well.

The only time I would do Vehicle VS Vehicle was to defend key command posts when someone else tried the same junk (oddly most people I've played against seem to ignore me single handedly raping their team), or the maps that involved AT-TE bases and REQUIRED vehicles. If someone just drives by infantry in a tank, they're quite weird.

"Given the reduced number of players for consoles, it seems fitting to just have one class doing the grunt work."

Grunt work doesn't really apply to battlefront. There's no reward for support players (the personal score is completely based on kills, although it notes captures you participated in as well). Almost no one command post camps. And the game is too fast paced and open ended to support little recon groups in most cases. Wolfenstein this is (sadly) not in this case. But the abilitiy to despense ammo and health to yourself is excellent stuff. And should've been split with the lacking class, aka the ARC trooper/Rocket solider.

The giving the pilot the ability to auto-repair vehicles while on-board. To auto-eject vehicles upon death, to repair turrets, heal himself AND dispense ammo is kinda a bit excessive.

Every class seems to have quite a few niches, but as I said before, the rocket troopers kinda feel one sided for clearing out small mechanical enemies, for people who like to use rockets, and the sort. Although, like I also said before, I haven't messed with Mines yet.
 

Alex

Member
Some aren't too bad to take down with a combo of rockets and turrets. Speeders, AT-ST*s, Carriers, etc. Tanks are the excessive part of the game. They seem to be maddeningly strong for no real reason. It's fairly easy to justify the AT-TE* bases being monsters, but blah.

*~Sorry, got the acronyms mixed up, not a Star Wars geek in the absolute least. Going to go edit the mistakes.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
I just discovered that the snipers can release a little recon droid into the fray and call in a massive airstrike on a cadre of forces. Neat!

Also, wookies have the ability to stick timebombs to vehicles which i would hope do a good deal of damage, but I haven't tried yet.
 

Alex

Member
Haha, yeah. The recon droid is funky. I haven't really figured out how exactly the airstrikes work. But I sent one off during a multiplayer match, and actually killed a bot with it's tiny cannon, funny.
 

Vlad

Member
DarthWoo said:
You'll sing quite a different tune if you play Forgotten Hope, and end up taking the assault class, then going Rambo into the middle of nowhere, and suddenly a King Tiger rolls over the hill in front of you.. :D

Well, I was referring to the unmodded game. I'm not a big fan of the more "realistic" stuff, especially when BF's hit detection online can be so all over the place.


Edit: whereas in vanilla BF1942, any jerk with a handful of frag grenades or a bofors AA (which strangely enough is used by every side in that game, beside being an Allied piece) could take out any tank, which was completely assinine.

The grenades haven't been able to do that much damage to a tank since a few patches ago. They used to be able to destroy a tank in three hits, but now they do signifigantly less damage. And I don't know what a "bofors" is, but the axis and allied sides have different AAs that spawn at their bases. The allied one goes by the name "AA_Allied", while the axis one is called something like "Flak39", and looks quite different.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Vlad said:
The grenades haven't been able to do that much damage to a tank since a few patches ago. They used to be able to destroy a tank in three hits, but now they do signifigantly less damage. And I don't know what a "bofors" is, but the axis and allied sides have different AAs that spawn at their bases. The allied one goes by the name "AA_Allied", while the axis one is called something like "Flak39", and looks quite different.

Still, a grenade should at most be able to chip the paint of any moderately armored tank. The AA_Allied is the Bofors. Despite it being Allied, you'll also find it on the Japanese carrier. That was just a trivial detail that I still found troublesome.

40ItKBofors_2.jpg
 
Alex said:
Some aren't too bad to take down with a combo of rockets and turrets. Speeders, AT-ST*s, Carriers, etc. Tanks are the excessive part of the game. They seem to be maddeningly strong for no real reason. It's fairly easy to justify the AT-TE* bases being monsters, but blah.

*~Sorry, got the acronyms mixed up, not a Star Wars geek in the absolute least. Going to go edit the mistakes.

Don't you mean AT-ATs not AT-TE?
 

Ramirez

Member
I just got done playin online for about 3 hours,amazing game.My first try was filled with lag however and I was very dissapointed,but after that game no lag at all!

Hoth is awesome,that is all.
 
Ya, Hoth is awesome. Balanced or unblanced, it's the best representation ever of Hoth as you're pretty much playing it out unlike a segmented section like in Rogue Squadron.
 

Alex

Member
Meh, I'm just going to Ebay my copy. Between the busted optimatch, slight to unplayable lag in every server (barring last night's rarity), and the occasional crashing I feel pretty burnt out already. It's a good game, but it's not worth putting up with this.

I'd suggest renting it first if you're interested. These are pretty widespread problems, so I've read.
 

signet

Member
I have been playing all afternoon, this game is so much fun. I feel bad for those guys having such a hard time but that is life. Sucks to be you.
 

Alex

Member
I'm pretty picky about lag. Unless it's perfect, which it should be, it's not going to work for me. Misplaced blaster fire, lagged, doubled looking side rolls. Unplayable vehicle passenger roles. Not fun.

It's not like I'm crushed about it, it's a broken, vastly unbalanced Battlefield clone that does nothing nearly as well as Battlefield actually does. *shrug* I dig the novelties of it (Droids rox), but I was mostly having fun being able to play with old friends again, haven't had an Xbox Live game in like, what, a year?

The lag is just one problem, the busted optimatch (biggest showing of the fact that the game obviously avoided any kind of heavy testing), crashings, menu bugs, little glitches and a general coat of non-polish sealed the grave for me. Easily the most rushed feeling game I've played this gen, no question.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
jett said:
Is this game just a Star Wars FPS?

I still haven't played it, thanks to the package containing it apparently just sitting on ebgames.com's shelf while the USPS just putzes around, but it's sort of Star Wars meets Battlefield 1942, on a smaller but faster scale. And unlike GC for BF1942, it has working AT-ATs. Crappy flying though.
 
im so frustrated with this crap. ive played 2 games in the past 2 days...after a million attempts to sign onto a game. dont get me wrong when im in the games a blast, but whats the point when you cant even get into a fuckin game. what a waste of 50 bucks.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
I haven't had much trouble connecting to a game on the PC.

I'm not going to attempt to connect to Xbox Live until the flood of people playing the game dies down a bit.
 

FightyF

Banned
Does this game support system link? 24 Xboxes linked up hopefully?

I'm setting up some deal with my friends to have 16 Xboxes hooked up for a LAN thingy once every month. This sounds like a decent game to play, and unlike my other options (PGR2, RSC2...racers generally), a good FPS like this might be purchased by more people.

Games like Red Faction and Timesplitters don't get much attention, but the SW license and decent gameplay is good enough to convince most of my friends to pick it up.

I'd normally buy a game like this, but my wallet is going to get squeezed this Fall...too many awesome games...I think I'm gonna rent it (renting games...a rarity for me).
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
yes, it supports system link, including direct or via a hub. Don't know how many you can connect this way though.. seems only two players splitscreen on on xbox, and I don't know whether you can system link like that.

We had a lot of fun yesterday coop splitscreen (don't have xbox live at work). Only played as the bad guys so far though. Do you get to play as the rebels too?

Also, in xbox live play, can you choose from any mission, or do you have to unlock them in single player first? Its important for me, as I don't have much time to play these days, so I'd prefer to go straight in on live, rather than use up time unlocking the maps.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Ok, my copy finally arrived in the mail today, and so I took a couple screenshots of instant action, just in case anyone wanted more.

bf01.jpg


bf02.jpg


bf03.jpg


bf04.jpg


bf05.jpg
 

Defensor

Mistaken iRobbery!
It's really lag city during peak hours of the night. So far I have gotten the hang of the rebel star fighters during a battle. Im mostly the tank buster during tatooine and hoth stages since I go for them first instead of the tie fighters. Taking down a AT-AT while flying a Snowspeeder, with the right gunner, is very satisfying. I was even in a match where 2 snow speeders where teaming up to take down one AT-AT but the problem is a head on collision with each other is inevitable.
 

tenchir

Member
It is really fun, the only thing I don't like about it is the voice activated headphone. The last game I played had this fucking >13 year old kept breathing through the microphone, everyone kept telling the fucker to move the mic away from his mouth, but he never did!!! I keep hearing *breath* *breath* *breath* *breath* throughout the whole freaking game. They really need to add a voice button.There's also a lot of newbie since I am consistently 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in the games I played.

edit: The Battlefront PS2 server is released on fileplanet. I join these games hosted on these, pretty lag free so far. May be someone here should host server for GAF PS2 people.

http://www.fileplanet.com/files/140000/145863.shtml

This is the Server code for hosting Playstation2 Star Wars Battlefront games without having to use your Playstation2 as the host. Users can use this application to host games on their home machine or remote servers.
 

Nester

Member
tenchir said:
It is really fun, the only thing I don't like about it is the voice activated headphone. The last game I played had this fucking >13 year old kept breathing through the microphone, everyone kept telling the fucker to move the mic away from his mouth, but he never did!!! I keep hearing *breath* *breath* *breath* *breath* throughout the whole freaking game. They really need to add a voice button.There's also a lot of newbie since I am consistently 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in the games I played.

edit: The Battlefront PS2 server is released on fileplanet. I join these games hosted on these, pretty lag free so far. May be someone here should host server for GAF PS2 people.

http://www.fileplanet.com/files/140000/145863.shtml

Why can't this be done for Xbox Live games? I'm not just talking about Star Wars Battlefront either. There's hardly any dedicated servers for a lot of games because Microsoft and the Developers hardly put up any servers, and hosting on an Xbox sucks. I don't want my Xbox running 24/7 to host a game for people, but I would gladly host a dedicated Rainbow Six 3, Halo 2 or Star Wars Battlefront server on my PC if I could.
 
DarthWoo said:
Ok, my copy finally arrived in the mail today, and so I took a couple screenshots of instant action, just in case anyone wanted more.

bf01.jpg


bf02.jpg


bf03.jpg


bf04.jpg


bf05.jpg


great so you can play in in FP mode....PC version will be mine...weeee!

except one question this or the BF 1942 mod...which is better?

ok I lies 2 questions..

Which would have more people playing on it XBL or PC?
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Great Wasabi Man said:
great so you can play in in FP mode....PC version will be mine...weeee!

except one question this or the BF 1942 mod...which is better?

ok I lies 2 questions..

Which would have more people playing on it XBL or PC?

I suppose Battlefront has a more Star Wars feel to it. The effects look better, from what I've seen. It's nice to have working AT-ATs, and AT-STs that don't start somersaulting in the air if they get hit by another vehicle. On the downside, BF's maps are all pretty small when compared to GC's average sized maps. Air combat is pretty poor, as it is somewhat hard to maneuver within the small map confines.

I don't know much about the second question.
 

Ramirez

Member
Am I the only one who thinks it takes way too many rockets to bring down AT-ST's and the like?I understand their armored,but damn!6 Direct hit rockets should bring it down,but it don't :(
 

tenchir

Member
SpeedRazor said:
Why can't this be done for Xbox Live games? I'm not just talking about Star Wars Battlefront either. There's hardly any dedicated servers for a lot of games because Microsoft and the Developers hardly put up any servers, and hosting on an Xbox sucks. I don't want my Xbox running 24/7 to host a game for people, but I would gladly host a dedicated Rainbow Six 3, Halo 2 or Star Wars Battlefront server on my PC if I could.

Because XBOXLive is a "CLOSED NETWORK." The simple reason it can't be done is because MS won't allow it.

Edit: Lots of PC-Side server is popping up in PS2 game!!
 

Nester

Member
tenchir said:
Because XBOXLive is a "CLOSED NETWORK." The simple reason it can't be done is because MS won't allow it.

Edit: Lots of PC-Side server is popping up in PS2 game!!


I guess I should have clarified myself. I know why it can't be done, I just think it's stupid. Being able to host XBL games on PCs would help a lot. A lot more dedicated servers would be up if MS allowed it. With the whole EA thing making the network that much less closed, I think it would be a good thing to allow people to host XBL games on PCs.
 
DarthWoo said:
You'll sing quite a different tune if you play Forgotten Hope, and end up taking the assault class, then going Rambo into the middle of nowhere, and suddenly a King Tiger rolls over the hill in front of you.. :D

Edit: whereas in vanilla BF1942, any jerk with a handful of frag grenades or a bofors AA (which strangely enough is used by every side in that game, beside being an Allied piece) could take out any tank, which was completely assinine.


Thank you...exactly my point, but to each his own. I keep trying to tell people that the key to vehicle is TEAMWORK. Of course one heavy weapons guy can't take donw an AT-AT. You need a couple of guys working in tandem. I think that's the point. Also a vehicle is more powerful if you have a co-pilot, it's all about working together. Just think about it, you need to communicate with your team member and set up some strategy. I've seen too many people run for vehicles first (ala BF1942), and don't play as a pilot. The pilot's inate ability allows him to auto repair vehicle health, but morons aren't taking advantage of the character classes. They just jump in a drop ship and go and mess around (don't even bother to config the controls) and get blown to pieces and complain how the game sucks. You could play the game like deathmatch, but what's the point?!

I'm not trying to defend this game but many of my pals are wishing it to be something it's not. I feel the game is fairly good if you play it with diversity and work as a cohesive team. I played last night for 4 hours straight with some of my war gaming pals and we had a blast (one friend works for SBC and has a T1 and let me say 24 players in this game is absolutely awesome). Many of the laggy gaes I've been in have been from people who don't know anything about their upload speeds and are hosting games larger than their bandwidth limit. And from what I hear the PS2 version is having it's fair share of issues (especiallyl in regards to voice chat). It's not a bad game for what it is, heck yeah it could be better, but I will say it's some of the most fun I've had with a console multiplayer game in a while.

Also as a side note, on the XBox version you can setup your controls to toggle between 1st and 3rd person. Go into controller options and assign it to a button (the cotrols are customizable). Since left stick click was empty I out it there. Now I can switch perspectives with a switch of a button, and it helps when sniping and with accuracy. Also config your controls for vehicles and starcrart. Also, chosse the class that can build turrets from the onset and set up a perimeter first to cover your guys in case you get overun and this will buy you some respawn time.
 
Saw this postedover at Gamefaqs.com

http://forums.lucasarts.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5908&tstart=0

Greetings from the Star Wars Battlefront development team. We're very excited that the game has finally hit the shelves and is in your hands. We're committed to supporting the game and improving the experience for players. Many of us are monitoring various boards and listening to player feedback regarding the title. We would like to address several known issues regarding the gameplay and the player experience:

- Server Browser and Join Problems - Servers may not always appear in the browser window. In addition, some people can't join servers that appear to have spaces but are actually full. We are currently working on a solution for this.

In the meantime, we suggest trying to refresh the server list if you're playing on the PS2 or PC. If you're using a Xbox, we suggest joining games through Quickmatch or through your Friends List.

- Lag on servers – For people hosting games on their home systems, the important thing to keep in mind is that game performance is most affected by your upstream bandwidth. This is the amount of data that you can send to the Internet. Most standard DSL connections are capable of sending only 128 kilobits upstream. Star Wars Battlefront needs to send at least 40kbps per client over the upstream connection. Therefore, on a standard DSL connection, you will only be able to host a game for 3 other players.

If you're hosting a Star Wars Battlefront game, you can set your Hosting Bandwidth in the Online options menu. We do not prevent you from setting this higher than your actual connection speed, but everyone in your game will experience poor performance if too many players join the game. If you'd like to host your own games with a large number of players (i.e. 16 or more), then we recommend you have at least a T1 connection to the Internet. For more information regarding your bandwidth, we suggest you contact your Internet Service Provider.

- Can't find\join games with your friends (PS2) – We are exploring several different options which would allow people to find/join games by session name. Xbox players can use the Friends List to find games with friends. PC players can join a specific game by IP. Please check these forums for more information.

- Voice issues – We're researching the issues that some people are experiencing with voice chat. We're also looking into ways to improve voice chat for the PS2. Since there are several voice choices on the PC (Roger Wilco or Teamspeak), we made the decision late in development to remove voice chat support for the PC version. However, we are investigating alternative communication methods such as voice commands for the PC version.

- Dedicated server options – We are working to improve the dedicated server programs for both the PS2 and PC versions. We're currently working on a Linux port of the server code. We will then focus on options that will provide admins with greater control and flexibility.

- PC Multiplayer Frame rate lock – The framerate lock is set to 20 by default. You can set the values to 15, 20 or 30. To change the settings, go to the main menu and select Options/Online Options and then change the "Ticks per second" setting.

Please check these forums for regular updates from us. Thank you for your detailed responses and enjoy the game.

Sincerely,
Star Wars Battlefront development team "
From: talkinroots (gs) | Posted: 9/22/2004 10:51:34 PM | Message Detail
"If you'd like to host your own games with a large number of players (i.e. 16 or more), then we recommend you have at least a T1 connection to the Internet."
 
This dedicated server is good news for the PS2 version. Once enough servers get up and running Lag shouldn't be an issue.

We're currently working on a Linux port of the server code.

oh wow, good news. I wonder if I can set one up on my T1 at work :D
 

tenchir

Member
Just tried the PS2 dedicated server. I can comfortably host 12 players on my 256 kps connection. I am not planning to host games often since I don't play online games for more than 2 hours.

This games really need a friends list and sub-rooms like Socom II for better navigation.
 
I played the demo that came withthe Star wars DVD's.

It's ok..

Is there any way to run or do you have to stroll through the map?

Why do wookies take 3-4 head shots to go down?

And who needs PKers online when the AI does a good job of it.Pretty fun definatly something I would play online only I'll probally wait for a price drop or somethingtill I get it though.
 
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