EA Pulls A Fast One WIth Battlefield 3

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

First: Don't give a damn about the hard life of a console gamer. You're responsible for the shambles the games industry is now in, you've ruined PC gaming so frankly I don't give a damn.

Second, and on topic: $30 for 30 days? You can't be serious. That isn't "nickel and diming" as you put it, that's outright robbery. $30 a year *maybe* (and that's a big maybe, with a really long "a").

Third: I'll concede that at least having a feature to filter servers by whatever criteria should be par for the course. If I couldn't do that on PC I quite simply wouldn't play the game MP. Ideally filtering should be available, at a minimum, by ping, server full/empty, password yes/no, match type and/or map.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Now instead of being pigeonholed into what the mob wants, we get a bit of everything. Are there more 2000% ticket caspian border servers than anything? Sure, but you know why? Because that's what most people will actually go and play.

A bit of 'everything?' Have you even tried to play any of the rented servers?

I'll be quite honest; I don't care whether PC gaming has always dealt with this and that we, as console gamers, should have to 'adapt' to something is so radically new and came right the hell out of nowhere. I wouldn't mind if they never gave us the option to play Vanilla severs before... but they DID, and that's my problem here. This isn't variety; this is basically letting the people with the most money control the game here.

And I'm not a PC gamer, so I can't really judge, but if the people that run the servers are about the same as PC gamers, then I have absolutely no qualms for calling you guys out as elitist pricks that will do anything and everything to make sure the game is always your way. Whenever I play in Battlefield, I am guaranteed to get into at least ONE game where either:

1) A certain weapon or weapon class entirely is banned and is grounds for booting.

2) A certain playstyle entirely is banned and is grounds for booting.

3) All good players are regulated to one team while all the bad players are regulated to another team.

And, of course, games like Conquest or Rush take upwards of one to two hours.

NO.

I. Do. Not. Care. If. This. Is. More. Like. Superior. PC. Battlefield 3. If I wanted to play that game, I'll go out and get a superior PC and that copy and play THAT game. However, I'm playing the console BF3, which has a smaller amount of players and, thus, a smaller ticket count to accommodate it. I'm playing the console BF3, where I can play however I want without modifying my console and not have to worry about losing my progress in the game, since it's still in the game and, thus, is completely valid, completely free, and should be allowed in-game, fairness be damned. If this rent-a-server thing was considerate to all players, it'd give us that Vanilla option, but it doesn't; it expects US to pay for it.

And I already pay for the Internet connection, the Xbox Live Subscription, AND the game itself. Why would I pay continually for a server just so I can play the way I want to. I'm not made of money, nor am I stupid. If the game wants me to keep shelling out money so that I can play it like, I think I'll sell it and pay for something else.

I mean, CoD may copypasta itself every game or so, but at least it doesn't make you pay to play a NORMAL game.

 

[Brett Bowling]

Woah woah hold up, there is a girl playing Halo, a girl playing an fps, a girl playing a video game, four outs before the sides change?
What horrible distortion of reality has EA caused here?

 

[Anti-Robot Man]

I always thought that the LIVE Gold membership was supposed to pay for the whole "online" thing...

It was/is, EA actually strong-armed Microsoft into letting them run their own servers (basically if you don't let us run our own servers we won't publish games on the 360 - which would've been comercial suicide for Microsoft's games division).

They did this purely so they could exploit their customers by doing things like turning off the servers in order to push them into buying a newer instalment of the game (using the excuses that not many people are still playing/it's expensive to run servers - it isn't that expensive and that's a cost they fought to place on themselves).

If you don't like the way EA is taking the games industry there is only one thing you can do to preasure them to change - stop buying EA games.

 

[Sovereignty]

-snip-

As I stated in my post, I have played on the rented servers. I've found normal games (and I wasn't actively searching for it.)

I've also been in a game that supposedly banned players for using shotguns, yet myself (And the rest of the server) were proceeding to run around with them to no ill-effect. (I've actually yet to be booted from an xbox server in all honesty.)

As for the team stacking, that's been a problem of nearly all FPS' that allow team switching. Suggesting it has anything remotely to do with the fact that these servers are user moderated and funded is not really valid imo.


Adding to it, I am so glad to see that people who abuse and/or cheat are now able to be kicked/booted/banned by the server admins. It is much better than the alternative of having to wait and hope that your little report sent through the xbl interface actually bans that guy two weeks from when you send it.

I still don't see much negative to letting players rent servers, after all it's not like if you're so unhappy with the current list of servers you couldn't.. You know, go out and rent your own. I get that to some this may be seen as a, "Why do *I* have to pay to play the game the way I want to play it." though considering that why should everyone else be forced to play it the way you wish to play it on the other side of that coin?

 

[Dennis Scimeca]

I still don't see much negative to letting players rent servers, after all it's not like if you're so unhappy with the current list of servers you couldn't.. You know, go out and rent your own. I get that to some this may be seen as a, "Why do *I* have to pay to play the game the way I want to play it." though considering that why should everyone else be forced to play it the way you wish to play it on the other side of that coin?

You only need to read all the complaints in this thread. The negative is real. That it may not seem negative to you doesn't make the negative others are experiencing any less real, and this is not the only place you will find those negative experiences being shared. So, the first step is to recognize that a lot of people don't like what's happened here, and to either respect that or not.

The argument "You can go ahead and rent your own server" is ridiculous. Basically what you're suggesting is that the appropriate response to Electronic Arts pulling the vanilla, official servers in order to get people to rent servers, which is the reason why so many people are upset, is to validate what Electronic Arts did by renting your own server?

Do you see how little sense that makes?

Asking "Why should everyone play it the way you want to play it?" also makes no sense because that's not how "you want to play it." It's how the game is played. It's how Battlefield has worked on consoles for Bad Company, Bad Company 2, Battlefield 1943, and for a while Battlefield 3. No one is asking for anything special. They are asking for what they had and which was taken away in order for EA to make some extra bucks on server rentals.

Seriously, the nature of this situation is not very difficult to grasp. I'm glad to see that so many people having the issue have come out of the woodwork. And to everyone else, even if you're not directly affected by this, even if you're a PC gamer who is used to this sort of thing, understand the root of the problem: Disrespect for the customer.

Console gamers pay to play console games. They pay for a specific kind of service which has now been removed from Battlefield on consoles. People are not getting what they paid money for.

That is bad for everybody.

 

[MagmaMan]

If only more people were playing Bad Company 2, this shit they are pulling off with 3 made me sell it. Ah well, back to War for Cybertron

That's no better, it is a good game, and if you manage to get a good Online game you can have a blast, but at least 6 out of 10 games you have will be glitched to fuck. On PC it is worse, but dear god even on Console im seeing Scouts with the Whirlwind and Warcry ability!

OT: Yeh, this doesn't affect me at all seen as thought Battlefield isn't a game i own, and by the looks of it never will.

Now if everyone will excuse me, I'm going to clean up Arkham City.

What system were you playing on. I've never noticed any hackers on Xbox 360 and have been playing it constantly since I purchased it 3 months ago. I see glitchers in Escalation mode alot though. That's easily remedied with 1-3 friends though.

 

[Buizel91]

If only more people were playing Bad Company 2, this shit they are pulling off with 3 made me sell it. Ah well, back to War for Cybertron

That's no better, it is a good game, and if you manage to get a good Online game you can have a blast, but at least 6 out of 10 games you have will be glitched to fuck. On PC it is worse, but dear god even on Console im seeing Scouts with the Whirlwind and Warcry ability!

OT: Yeh, this doesn't affect me at all seen as thought Battlefield isn't a game i own, and by the looks of it never will.

Now if everyone will excuse me, I'm going to clean up Arkham City.

What system were you playing on. I've never noticed any hackers on Xbox 360 and have been playing it constantly since I purchased it 3 months ago. I see glitchers in Escalation mode alot though. That's easily remedied with 1-3 friends though.

I'm on 360, However i am in Prime Mode, so maybe i get different players to you, considering you have only just started, level up a bit more and you will see what i mean

 

[Buizel91]

I always thought that the LIVE Gold membership was supposed to pay for the whole "online" thing...

If you don't like the way EA is taking the games industry there is only one thing you can do to preasure them to change - stop buying EA games.

Even that won't work, have you seen how many people Buy Fifa/Madden? Battlefield sells like hot cakes, and we have the new Medal Of Honor that looks pretty good.

Easier said than done, EA may be a dick, but some of the games they release are pretty good, even if they manage to fuck them up later after release.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

-snip-

I still don't see much negative to letting players rent servers, after all it's not like if you're so unhappy with the current list of servers you couldn't.. You know, go out and rent your own. I get that to some this may be seen as a, "Why do *I* have to pay to play the game the way I want to play it." though considering that why should everyone else be forced to play it the way you wish to play it on the other side of that coin?

My problem isn't the fact that I want to play the game the way I want to.

Rather, it's the fact that I always have to adjust to a new set of rules instead of having plain Vanilla servers that always have a set assortment of rules, the system THEY HAD AT THE BEGINNING.

I honestly would not have so much complaints that I do now if EA would reserve one or two servers for people to play the game as it was, without any adjustments or anything, and mark those with some kind of specific codeword that NO ONE ELSE CAN USE, but since EA rents out all of theirs and DICE's servers makes it really hard to find those servers, and there's no way to accurately search for them since everyone can use the [DICE] tag.

 

[MagmaMan]

If only more people were playing Bad Company 2, this shit they are pulling off with 3 made me sell it. Ah well, back to War for Cybertron

That's no better, it is a good game, and if you manage to get a good Online game you can have a blast, but at least 6 out of 10 games you have will be glitched to fuck. On PC it is worse, but dear god even on Console im seeing Scouts with the Whirlwind and Warcry ability!

OT: Yeh, this doesn't affect me at all seen as thought Battlefield isn't a game i own, and by the looks of it never will.

Now if everyone will excuse me, I'm going to clean up Arkham City.

What system were you playing on. I've never noticed any hackers on Xbox 360 and have been playing it constantly since I purchased it 3 months ago. I see glitchers in Escalation mode alot though. That's easily remedied with 1-3 friends though.

I'm on 360, However i am in Prime Mode, so maybe i get different players to you, considering you have only just started, level up a bit more and you will see what i mean

I'm almost in Prime mode. Leader is level 25, every other class is around 19. Well, except Scientist. I've tried so many configurations and so many tactics and I just can't figure out how to use that class effectively. Maybe he's just not made for Team Death Match.

What kind of hacks are they using? Perhaps I have run into them and just haven't noticed.

 

[Runegrace]

Quite a few people seem to be missing the argument, many being PC players, so here's a hypothetical:

Say when 343 took over Halo Reach from Bungie, they got rid of matchmaking. Gone. Now, all you can do is quick-match into a random Custom Game lobby, playing with whatever rules random players think is "balanced". If you don't like it, you can make your own Custom Game lobby...oh, but you have to pay $30-60 a month to make your own lobby, now. Can you understand why some people may be upset about that?

Now, that's obviously a bit of hyperbole. A dedicated server is something more, though spending more than an MMO sub, and more than a LIVE gold sub every couple months, seems a bit exploitive. And there are still some official servers...they're just very hard to find. Search for Conquest, all US servers, exclude full servers, and you'll be lucky to see an official server within the first 10 pages. As to the idea that, if you see so many user servers it means that many people WANT to play the game like that...do the same search but include full servers. You'll see LOTS of official servers...full. So many people are trying to play on vanilla that those servers are constantly full, and so other players have no choice but to find a custom server with the least ridiculous rule set. And it seems that this was intentional, as it forces players to play on the custom servers so the people paying will get their money worth...even if people really don't want to play with those rules.

And that's the problem. User-run servers are great. That being added isn't the problem; it's that official servers are being outright replaced by them, and you can't search/find official servers in any reasonable fashion. The way that the game was played at launch, when people bought the game, is gone.

Like if you had a racing game that had split-screen, but later had that removed so that they could charge for it. It doesn't matter that no PC racing games have split-screen, so a console player shouldn't complain. It doesn't matter that you can pay an excessive rental fee to get that experience back temporarily. You may have gotten the game so you could play it with a friend when you hung out, but now you can't. Just like I can't jump on with friends after work and quickmatch into a couple 15-20 minute games. The fact that the way the game played before was removed so they could squeeze more money from players certainly feels a bit like bait-and-switch, especially since it would be so EASY to include an "official only" search parameter...but they choose not to.

 

[Cranky_Gamer]

Sum up: PLAYER SERVERS ARE GOOD BUT HAVE A VANILLA BUTTON OR A SYMBOL SIGNIFYING THAT IT IS ACTUALLY A VANILLA SERVER.

Wait a minute, all these people moaning and complaining about how these servers are ruining the game and EA are evil incarnate, is due to nothing more than the server list lacking filter options?

 

[NvrPhazed]

Sum up: PLAYER SERVERS ARE GOOD BUT HAVE A VANILLA BUTTON OR A SYMBOL SIGNIFYING THAT IT IS ACTUALLY A VANILLA SERVER.

Wait a minute, all these people moaning and complaining about how these servers are ruining the game and EA are evil incarnate, is due to nothing more than the server list lacking filter options?

Pretty much ya. Most people are complaining that it is impossible to discern what is a regular server and what is not.

 

[ben-]

I play shooters on consoles to avoid the custom server garbage. Playing on and paying for Xbox live should assure me some sort of official servers.