Has any game been more inescapable over the past 12 months than Battlefield 3? EA's biggest ever shooter has drowned the industry in a tsunami of orange and teal, dominating the headlines pre, during and post launch. Even the most casual observer must have been sucked up by some of the hype. 15 million plus have stuck around for the fight, but as is so often the case, many players will have cut ties with Battlefield 3 long ago, ready to hitch a ride onto the next hype train or happy to hide away from anything that's marketed with a litany of explosions and a throbbing score. Those players, then, probably don't know what's happening to one of the world's most popular videogames. There's a seedy, repugnant underbelly dead set on controlling and ultimately ruining what is one of the finest shooters ever made. And for many, it's just too much to bear. Since DICE and EA introduced the 'rent-a-server' option to Battlefield 3's console experience, the game that appeared in October 2011 is no more. Where once everyone competed on a level-playing field, one restricted and governed by the rules and balances DICE introduced to its game, now each server has its own rules. Server rules are established on the landing screen, but there's nothing that stops an admin changing them on a whim without warning. Selecting Quick Match - the typical 'go-to' option of most online games - is a real roll of the dice (if you'll excuse the pun), as you'll be dropped into one of thousands of fan-run servers. Many have specific and aggressive rules established in their loading screens and set by the admins who rent and run the server. Some of these new enforcements might just be small rule changes that many would perceive as positive; things like 'no spawn camping' or 'balanced teams'. The majority, though, are fundamentally game-changing. 'No shotguns' is probably the most common. 'No anti-air' another. These are rules that specifically alter the balance of Battlefield 3, turning it into a new game, almost always for the worse. Many servers run with tickets (Battlefield 3's spawn currency) that are up to and over 400% what the map was designed for, making for farcical matches where the defending team is up against hopeless odds. Worst of all, though, are the multitude of servers run by petty, mini tyrants; people who will kick and then ban anybody in breach of their rules. Or indeed, anyone who happens to not fit into the exact model of game these administrators want. In other words: anyone who happens to be half-decent at Battlefield. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been kicked and banned from servers. And I am no world-class player: a solid medic with a big heart, maybe, but certainly no deadeye sniper or Airwolf-wannabe chopper pilot. A recent example of a pair of servers I came across had the explicit rule 'air vehicles for admin only. Anyone else using will be kicked and banned.' It doesn't take a seasoned Battlefield player to see the rot setting in. It's a real point of contention, too. Cruising the Battlelog forums brings up countless testimonials complaining of the same thing. Some players even consider it a badge of honour to be kicked for playing well. This brilliant animation sums up the situation splendidly. The obvious reaction to all of this strife is to avoid the Quick Match option altogether, which most players will. However, even surfing through the server browser gives no real indication of what experience you might encounter. There are places that clearly exist for the admins and their friends to boost ranks, places which can be easily avoided, but plenty of others seem innocent and friendly enough. Until you get kicked. And banned. Again. Getting banned after 30 seconds is annoying. After 40 minutes of drama, it's utterly infuriating. On occasion you'll find excellent servers with equally excellent admins, and there's actually a bit of a kinship that develops between like-minded players who just want to enjoy the game the way it's supposed to be played. Even then, though, there are issues. The whole notion of matchmaking has been thrown out of the window. Fan-run servers are nothing new on PC, but on console where most shooters have vastly complicated systems that pair you to players of similar skill, suddenly having none of these algorithms in play turns the whole affair into a crap shoot. Plenty of servers are run by decent folk, but decent folk who happen to be outstanding Battlefield players. Competing against them is almost as painful as scrapping with the tyrants. You'd think, then, that restricting yourself to official EA and DICE servers would be the answer. Only, there aren't any. Well, that's not entirely true. On the last count on Xbox 360, I could find six with the magical preface p24, which the Battlefield community tells us denotes officiality, and there is no in-game filter to discern between fan-run servers and official ones. Searching for the word DICE just uncovers countless unofficial servers hungry for players to join their games. At the time of writing, DICE themselves were playing on unofficial servers (according to Twitter). It's a bizarre and almost unfathomable irony. And what of those fans who start with the best of intentions and an open wallet? It's the age-old problem - absolute power corrupts absolutely. While there are plenty of despots in the Battlefield world who just want to watch the world burn, there appear to be an equal amount who just can't help themselves. After all, if you ran a server and played with 10 friends, say, and suddenly a highly ranked, extremely skilled player dived into your server and dominated every round in a helicopter - as they are more than entitled to do - how tempting would it be to just make him disappear so everyone can go back to having fun? It's definitely a lot easier than organising your team to tactically and deliberately counter his every movement with SAMs and rockets. So, if Quick Match is a no go, and finding an official server is next-to-impossible, what's the choice for the action-hungry Battlefield player? You've already guessed it. Hire your own server. It's the trap of all traps, and whether it's a deliberate ploy on behalf of those in control or an unfortunate set of circumstances is largely irrelevant: the outcome is the same. People are paying extra just to enjoy the game they've already paid for. There is still beauty in Battlefield 3. You just probably have to pay more to enjoy it. A month's worth of server fees will set you back 2000 MSP on Xbox 360 or $24.99 on PC and PS3, which then gives you your own play space where you can customise the rules and take command of who is allowed into your game. Look at it from a punter's point of view. They've bought the game. If second hand, they'll have paid $10 for an online pass. Now, six months in, they can't get a decent game without paying even more. It's a grim situation. Couple this with the massive push for Battlefield's new Premium service (which is in fact an oddly-named season pass rather than the gold-card club it sounds like) and it only adds insult to injury. There's nothing Premium about fumbling around for an hour trying to get a game. It makes you feel like an unwanted guest - the competition winner who's allowed in the executive box but isn't really supposed to talk to anyone famous. I'd known full well what was going on, so my complaint was somewhat surreptitious, but it's not out of the question that many players think they're being banned or kicked by DICE - not everybody is as ingrained in the industry as those who read and write about it on a daily basis. In response, I simply asked how to connect to a non-rented server, but I've not had a reply. On Reddit, DICE's community manager Daniel Matros was asked about the server situation by user Kilkito in an AMA (ask me anything) discussion. Do the tyrants even know how awful they are? To which Matros replied "I've heard this for a while now and the feedback has gotten louder. This is definitely something I will raise when I get back into the studio tomorrow." This sort of thing doesn't help the public image of a company that's constantly at the forefront of consumer/company angst. Complaining about EA's business practises is a fool's errand without the specifics of its balance sheet to hand, and DICE does listen and respond well to its community, a very active and vocal one at that. Regardless of whether this situation is innocent or not, it appears rampantly cynical. At the very best, it's massively misjudged. The real tragedy though, is nothing to do with money, online passes, premium services and other such ugliness. It's the simple fact that one of the finest online shooters ever made is being torn apart from the inside. Battlefield 3 at its best is a thing of beauty - a multi-faceted conflict where myriad elements combine to create stunning, orchestrated chaos. Where war stories live forever in the memory, where every corner and every courtyard is another stage for its peerless theatre. That game, though, no longer exists for most of us. Wading through the thugs, the boosters, the tyrants and the elite is more of a battle than the game itself. Battlefield 3 matches aren't short either - they're long, involved and at times mentally exhausting. Getting kicked for no discernible reason after 40 minutes of hard work is utterly exasperating. So if you can't beat em, do you join em? What other solution is there? Another server rented. Another tyrant born. The cycle begins again. Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-3-how-fan-run-servers-are-ruining-dices-game
I hope all the admins will take a moment to read this. It's an article that really nails what's going on with servers these days. I'm happy that we can play on our own server and not have to deal with horrible admins. I also believe that our rules help better the game instead of making it frustrating for players. We don't implement bs rules, like no m320, or no SMAW's against infantry. There is a certain etiquette when it comes to those things but we don't kick people for it. It's our job to run the server properly and to defend the good players from the griefing noobs who inevitably try to ruin everyone's good time.
Leave it to a media source to assume all are alike. Last time I checked our server doesn't have any bs rules, just the rules to keep the game fair and on a level playing field like it mentioned. And usually the quick match search settings can be changed just like the basic search settings. And even further than that, the rules are in the name or a player just has to type in !rules once they enter the game. However, more often than not players get kicked/banned for breaking rules and complain about it when it is entirely their fauly for being too lazy to read or type in a command and read.
Kowl, I think the point of the article is that admins are creating asinine rules that make the balance of the game completely lopsided. I think rent-a-servers are a huge problem for groups that don't have fair rules and ones that don't work only in favor of the people who comprised them. Tyrant admins also will kick or ban players who do something that they don't like, when it may not even be a stated rule to begin with. Read through the Battlelog forums and see the frustration in players who are being wrongly kicked from servers: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2832654489822653502/ Read the third comment down: A fucking No Explosives server? What the fuck is that? This is exactly what the article is talking about. And look at this fucking moron defending a No Explosives server, like there's nothing wrong with that. What a complete assclown. Here is someone who was banned for having a high ping: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2832654625068639582/ Tyrant admins being morons: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2832654489751079632/ I could find hundreds more. I think the article nailed the state of BF3 from a server perspective. You get power tripping admins who design horrible rules and kick and ban paying customers for absolutely no reason. Dedicated servers were the way to go. People downloaded server files and ran servers on their OWN pcs. Not some shared server hosted in the GameServers.com datacenter. It took knowledge and required advanced hardware. Now any 14 year old can rent a server with his Dad's credit card and do whatever he wants with it, so long as his rules benefit his score, happiness and stats, kicking anyone who pisses him off along the way. It's a huuuge problem. But NNG uses it to its advantage. We capture up, people who are tired of shitty servers and end up with lots of loyal customers. Hell, the reason I even started NNG was because of shitty servers with mentally challenged admins.
Don't get me wrong, I do get the point that the article is trying to convey but it's not just the admins fault, it goes both ways. And I've played on no explosive servers but those were metro only where explosives are bs. Most servers do have idiotic rules and admins but I'm just saying the person who wrote the article is trying to paint every server and the admins as the ones in the wrong.
I think the point is that aside from a few obvious taboos such as intentional teamkilling, players should be able to play the game DICE made. You can argue to flaws of the design all you want, but explosives are a part of the game.. even on Metro :confused: . Players that quick match to a server expect to be able to switch to that rocket launcher in their kit and shoot it at someone simply because that rocket launcher is in their kit. This is especially true if they quick match to a ranked server, as these rules are against the TOS of a ranked server. He's not painting every admin as being in the wrong, only the ones that fundamentally change the game DICE created. I like NNG's rules, but even they aren't completely necessary to experience "BF3" as it was made. If we stopped enforcing the no baserape rule, people would eventually jump in the giant anti base rape cannon that is conveniently included in every uncap and take care of it. The chat filter; I agree with its ability to filter douchebags from the server, but without, players can just press "H" to hide the chat and be offended no more. However, I like our rules and they're completely within the TOS of a ranked server. They are a mandate of courtesy, not really game changers. DICE have done a respectable job of balancing the game and these admins with crazy rules are putting on their game design panties and taking it in a direction that isn't on the back of the box, and that is their fault.
I agree that even our rules are unnecessary if the game is played within its own intentions. The problem though, is that I've joined matches in BC2 or BF3 where the enemy team will bring their heli over the enemy base, and just hover it. Killing everyone that spawns in even as they attempt to reach the AA station. That is so cheap, I just can't stand it. As far as language goes, I would say that most of the time people who use the language that is in our chat filter tend to be people that we don't want to play or associate with. Rules designed to better the environment or better the game are fine by me. BF3 has had a surge of players as opposed to past BF games and with that surge come the morons, so we have to protect ourselves and our customers. I'm not defending our rules to you, because I know you get them and that's why you're here. I just figure maybe one of the newer guys will read this.
You also have to remember now... Xbox and PS3 you can rent servers now also. Imagine the Xbox community and the bro gamers and the ghetto ass gamers and the fucking annoying 12 year old gamers owning servers. The Xbox community is full of special people who should not have been born. Trust me I work at GameStop I have seen em. We are the lucky ones maybe not lucky maybe we are justsmart enough to stay on PC and have a highly dedicated core group of gamers who play battlefield. I'm sure most of us have been around since at least BF2. Games change drastically from console to PC. PC gamers are organized. They play with the same people. They communicate to the same people and do shit exactly like this. They talk about things and try to find ways to improve it. Xbox everyone gets issued a Mic and everyone knows how to use it to swear up a storm. I just think when an article like this comes out we need to take it with a grain of salt. We are PC, we are fair and obviously people like our server because it's always full and it's always returning players. Our rules are fair. We only ensure that one banana head won't ruin it for an entire team.
"The Xbox community is full of special people who should not have been born" You sir, win 10 Internets!
