EA to Shut Down Old Game Servers - BF2, Red Alert 3 And More

[Therumancer]

The one that gets me is them dropping "Neverwinter Nights" and "Neverwinter Nights 2" given that they both have fairly active communities with people even having built their own little pseudo-MMOs using it. Not my cup of tea, but I know a lot of people who are hugely into that (having met a lot of them playing Cryptic's Neverwinter).

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't NWN and NWN 2 allow you to establish your own private servers? I mean there are NWN 2 servers that bypass in-game server browser and gamespy altogether so they shouldn't be affected by EA's decision.

I never got into NWN multiplayer as I said, so I can't tell you. I was under the impression they required EA's servers to run though. I don't remember ever hearing anyone say they ran their own server.

While I'm on hiatus (playing ESO primarily) next time I drop into Neverwinter I'll see if I can find any of the guys who were telling me how hooked they were on the Multiplayer. I grouped with a few of them fairly regularly doing my Malabog's Castle grind.

 

[The Lugz]

Ah, no wonder Origin was giving away Battlefield 1942 for free. I guess I should play it already to see how it's like before they shut down that server.

So they're closing down Star Wars: Battlefront 2 as well!? D: Dammit EA!!! Does anyone know if people will make their own servers? I don'y quite know how that works.

In a word, yes. it's just a piece of software that runs on any old computer, 'servers' are nothing special in fact most of the time they have rather mediocre specs, because all they're doing is processing simple requests, like 'fire' and 'update coordinates' you can bet someone already has emulated it somewhere.. there are private servers for most popular online games it's just a matter of finding one, and if it doesn't exist.. well perfect time to find some geek buddies and make it happen.

I know people have built cry-2 servers because I've been on one, ( pc ) but I can't comment about anything else on the list.

 

[jackpipsam]

This is connected to gamespy, it's not entirely EA's fault.
But I guess EA hating is a great way to get clicks on articles.

Hopefully EA will be able to get some of these transferred over to Origin.

BF2 and Crysis 2 seems likely.

 

[Irridium]

first of all, how many of these games allow you to host your own private servers? beucase if they do, thats fine you can still play muiltiplayer on community servers and they are just pulling the official servers, which in any healthy community is the minority servers anyway.
now if they dont have that, we have a problem as they are loosing part of the game here.

this right here tells us one thing: allow community to host their own servers and you wont have to pay for old servers since community will do it for you. and if there is no community, well, then noone is going to complain anyway.

Glad you pointed that out. A good few of them have dedicated servers. However, it doesn't matter, since they also use Gamespy which is shutting down by the end of this month. So their multiplayer's going to die no matter what. It isn't all EA's fault, this is true, however you'd think they would try to migrate the most popular games like Battlefield 2 over to Origin or something.

 

[rofltehcat]

Battlefield 2? I sure hope the modding community build their own server browser! Some of those mods are neat.

I wonder how long it'll take them to also gut Bad Company 2

 

[shirkbot]

Oh my God. I'm no big fan of EA but grow up. Hamachi is a thing.

I think it's more about the broader implications of always-online gaming and letting the creator control their product after it's been sold to you, rather than much direct outrage about specific games. Hamachi is a thing, but it only works if a game supports LAN.
However, if you want to prevent a lot of people from complaining then EA should provide the EULA before purchase and they should have a planned service termination date listed at the very top in big, friendly letters.

Although the Titanfall part of your comment only makes the whole thing funnier, since this is the fate Titanfall has waiting for it, only unlike most of these games it's unlikely there will be anyone unset about the shutdown.

You are right, I doubt anyone will care. I know I won't because there has never been a game I care all that much about after six years. Besides by then there will doubtless be a sequel that has hopefully improved on the original. (ya know, like what happened to battlefield.)

Just a friendly interjection: 6 years is a really long time, in fact it's inabouts a quarter of my entire lifespan to date, and as such I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with such a final statement as "never." I still log time on Psychonauts now and then, and that's getting close to 10 years old, no sequels. If you'd like a fairer example, then TF2. Just because you personally don't care so much for things in your gaming history doesn't mean that you never will or that other people don't, but again I'll stop complaining when they do as I said above. You can prevent a lot of things by being upfront with people.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Has multiple sales on various multiplayer centric games the past few weeks.

Announces servers closing next month.

And people wonder why the above image is a thing.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Why, thank you EA. And thank you Valve for offering a discounted Battefield 2 Complete one week before word spreads that the servers are going down...

Valve doesn't set the sales nor the pricing, most evident by the recent Activision sale.

Spoiler

But yes, the timing couldn't have been any better as I've seen several of those titles appear on one weekly sale or another for some time now.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

That is kind of annoying because I still play Crysis from time to time. At least I can still setup a VLAN setup of some kind. At least I think I can, if not, I shall be quite pissed.

 

[lee1287]

well they shut down NHL 10 A While ago. Welcome to my pain people!

 

[Zulnam]

Didn't they make a statement last month saying that they will find a solution for the BF2 servers after gamespy shuts down? Is this their solution?


But no, seriously, you guys, EA needs to shut off the servers so they can save a few thousand dollars since EA is a small company and they don't have that much money, you guys. I mean, this is the kind of situation that only a leading publisher, let's say "second largest based on revenue", could handle and EA is small you guys, seriously.

And besides, you guys, they are old and lol just nobs playing them lol come to 21st century srsly

 

[Nikolaz72]

I thought these were being shut down because Gamespy was shutting down?

Yea, a lot of these shut down way back when Gamespy shut down (Neverwinters/Battlefront/Command and Conquer generals).

Fans are still keeping them alive and will still keep them alive.

Only thing EA might still be keeping alive is key validation.. And if that's what they are shutting down then that'd just be shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Spygon]

The final step in destroying the command and conquer series has come.

Good bye good friend

 

[tdylan]

This is connected to gamespy, it's not entirely EA's fault.
But I guess EA hating is a great way to get clicks on articles.

Hopefully EA will be able to get some of these transferred over to Origin.

BF2 and Crysis 2 seems likely.

I'm personally not a fan of origin and a strange thing happened when it debuted: my EA Games (C&C Generals and Zero Hour, BF2, and BF2142) began giving me an "invalid cd-key" message whenever I tried to play online. I figured it was EA trying to get me to switch over to Origin, but I couldn't find anything definitive on it.

This sucks though. I enjoyed those games. And while they were dicks about mod support for 2142, I'm hoping I can continue to play the BF2/C&C mods.

 

[james.sponge]

The one that gets me is them dropping "Neverwinter Nights" and "Neverwinter Nights 2" given that they both have fairly active communities with people even having built their own little pseudo-MMOs using it. Not my cup of tea, but I know a lot of people who are hugely into that (having met a lot of them playing Cryptic's Neverwinter).

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't NWN and NWN 2 allow you to establish your own private servers? I mean there are NWN 2 servers that bypass in-game server browser and gamespy altogether so they shouldn't be affected by EA's decision.

I never got into NWN multiplayer as I said, so I can't tell you. I was under the impression they required EA's servers to run though. I don't remember ever hearing anyone say they ran their own server.

While I'm on hiatus (playing ESO primarily) next time I drop into Neverwinter I'll see if I can find any of the guys who were telling me how hooked they were on the Multiplayer. I grouped with a few of them fairly regularly doing my Malabog's Castle grind.

It seems it does not need EA to run, there is a bunch of private servers for NWN 2 (just googled up some of them) so basically the decision will affect people who were using gamespy until now, other players will have fun as always.

 

[Karadalis]

Spoiler: Snip.

One second.. hasnt nwn and nwn2s server browser been shut down completly by gamespy anyways?

And doesnt it work with dedicated servers in both cases where you can still direct connect to IP adresses? Also werent those games made by Atari and not by EA?

It would be news to me that EA has any sway over what goes on in NWN since they never had their hand in it to begin with.

Gamespy had dropped their support for the game along with a shitton of other games some time ago but that doesnt mean that you cant still use them when you have a direct connect option that omits the whole login thing.

Being a BioWare game means EA has some degree of control over what should be done with the servers and yes, they shut down the master servers containing the list of servers you can connect to, an incovenience, but not as crippling as completely shutting down the multiplayer altogether, wich is pretty much exactly what they're doing.

Fortunately the game has LAN support, so it could be possible to set up an online lobby with Hamachi and similar means, but it's definitely not the same as playing on a dedicated server :/

The publisher is atari thought, the NWN games belong to atari and are still being sold by atari, no matter if bioware made them or not. And how can they "shut down multyplayer" if you are using direct connection anyways?

This is a legitimate question of mine since i wasnt aware that any gamespy services where still needed for direct connecting to nwn2 servers.

EA has no control over nwn and nwn 2 because they dont own jack shit.. the games where made before EA bought bioware or else EA would have been the publisher no? Cause it would be news to me that a publisher hires another publisher to do the publishing.

So in short EA has nothing to do with anything being shut down in those two games.

EDITH says:

Yup.. just as i guessed... person couple of posts over me confirmed that nothing at all will change for nwn and nwn2 due to the direct connection option.

So im still confused why those two games even made that list. Both arent owned by EA, both allready had the master server shut down.. and there is no "canceling the multyplayer" either. Gamespy allready abandoned both games some time ago. Nothing will change

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

This is connected to gamespy, it's not entirely EA's fault.
But I guess EA hating is a great way to get clicks on articles.

Hopefully EA will be able to get some of these transferred over to Origin.

BF2 and Crysis 2 seems likely.

the original halo will be patched so the multiplayer will still be playable, so yeah EA are a bunch of jerks, pulling the plug in many games that still have significant communities, not to mention they put the battlefront games on sale a week ago, not giving these news before the sale is a disgusting cash grabbing move

Why, thank you EA. And thank you Valve for offering a discounted Battefield 2 Complete one week before word spreads that the servers are going down...

valve doesnt really have much to do with the sales, but now that you mention it, its true, battlefield 2 was on sale not long ago, its not just battlefront 2 customers the ones that were scammed

EA you fucking disgusting piece of shit