Titanfall Players Won't Be Banned For Playing Early

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Titanfall Players Won't Be Banned For Playing Early


Respawn boss Vince Zampella says people who get their hands on legitimate copies of Titanfall ahead of the official launch date won't be banned for playing it.

You know how it goes: A hot new game is a few days from release, but the schmoe at GameStop who doesn't read the memos tossed it up on the shelf early and you got your hands on a copy and booked before anyone figured out what was going on. You run home, slam it in, push the button and BAM! You're banned. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough that it's something to keep in mind when you're considering whether or not to take advantage of a stonily indifferent clerk.

But if you happen to see some street-date-breaking copies of Titanfall lying around, go ahead and grab one, because Vince Zampella says it's all good. "About playing early: We won't stop or ban legit copies," he tweeted earlier today. "It is prelaunch, so there may be interruptions in service as we prep servers."

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/VinceZampella/statuses/441830222480953344]

It's unfortunate that a rather mundane and common-sense approach to what is really a non-problem is newsworthy, but there you have it: As long as your copy of Titanfall is legal (and EA/Respawn presumably have ways of knowing if you're naughty or nice), you may do with it as you will, the moment you're able.

Zampella also revealed the less-happy news that Titanfall won't be available in South Africa due to server performance issues, but said the studio will have "good news soon for Aussies." Australian players will have to make do with Singapore-based servers [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/02/titanfall-do-we-need-local-servers-and-if-so-when-are-they-coming/] at launch, resulting in higher pings than those experienced by gamers with "native" data centers.

Source: Twitter [https://twitter.com/VinceZampella]


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Alistair_Darkheart

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Dec 20, 2010
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MinionJoe said:
If you can't play the game unless the server is up, then why is EA wasting money on running servers for a game that isn't even released yet?
Testing? Ensuring everything's up and working correctly? Tweaking settings to try and make them more optimal before launch then during the beta to have a smoother launch? could be any number of reasons not to mention it is likely easier to have the servers up and running a few days to a week before launch and leave them on rather then having to start them up the day before and hope everything loads up.

OT: Well I know what game I won't be getting a launch, the lack of local servers in Aus is just another thing to loath EA over.
 

Synthetica

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Jul 10, 2013
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MinionJoe said:
If you can't play the game unless the server is up, then why is EA wasting money on running servers for a game that isn't even released yet?
If I were EA, I'd not like the idea of having to enable the servers an hour before launch, so to say.
 

Petromir

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Apr 10, 2010
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Sensible, 99% of those this will affect got the game early due to either an error or a preorder delivery pledge and so banning them was never a great idea. The few that were legit at fault deliberately for this (store employees that snuck one home early etc aren't really worth the collateral damage.
 

Kross

World Breaker
Sep 27, 2004
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Why would they announce this policy ahead of time, instead of just implementing it?

The only possible result is it encourages more people (stores) to break the street date because it's been approved.

The ostensible reason is it pre-emptively cuts off people asking about it, but it's not like there will be a noticeable change in the amount of static from announcing a policy about something that only effects a minority of players.
 

Alpha Maeko

Uh oh, better get Maeko!
Apr 14, 2010
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What they're really saying is:

Please, don't wait until everyone else gets on to muddy the waters. Go ahead. Get on when almost no one has the game yet. We'll find you reaaaal easy. You hacking thieves.
 

Jamieson 90

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Mar 29, 2010
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Obviously this is for publicity but it's definitely a good move and the most sensible thing to do, and I agree with it; basically you shouldn't punish people who want to play your game.
 

Genocidicles

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Sep 13, 2012
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It's sad that this needed to be said.

I mean... god forbid someone would want to play the game they bought right?
 

J Tyran

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Dec 15, 2011
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Right, cue some "leaked" copies or something to try and work up extra hype. Of course that could just be my cynical side as usual.
 

CriticalMiss

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Jan 18, 2013
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Alistair_Darkheart said:
MinionJoe said:
If you can't play the game unless the server is up, then why is EA wasting money on running servers for a game that isn't even released yet?
Testing? Ensuring everything's up and working correctly? Tweaking settings to try and make them more optimal before launch then during the beta to have a smoother launch?
This is EA we are talking about, they don't do 'smooth' launches.
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
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Well, that's as classy as you could get on the issue, though I can see a few people abusing this "good will" by intentionally misinterpreting this as "go ahead!, buy it/sell it right now!", BUT considering this is EA and it's immaculate record on multiplayer game launches, I don't think this will be an issue at all.
 

Metalrocks

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Jan 15, 2009
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the same was with tomb raider. i installed it but of course i coulndt play it. i guess i was lucky i dint get banned. well, i got my self the digital version of the game and im just pre loading it. its after all 50GB. should be done before i can play it.