An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

[Harmor]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Haven't read every post, but I would like to see if anyone has a chart of servers crash for each version of the patch. There's another thread that shows a server crashing like clockwork with the 1.30 patch.

Perhaps seeing a side-by-side comparison of at least a 24 period for each patch would give more credience to the argument?

[dEaDi]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

No need lol. ITS A FACT!!!! Servers are unstable. THey are crashing on average of 6 times a day. Some are having problems more severe. Worst ive read about was 6 times in 1 hour!!!! 6 in 1 hour!!!!!! lol

And if the server doesnt crash, It's pretty certain your game will lol.

You wouldnt accept it from a car dealer, why should we for a game!!!

[*FMJ*Bird]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Theres no argument. All the top servers are seeing the same performance. Constant crashes from 4-15 per day.

The provider im with has been debugging a number of the top 20 servers and they are ALL jacked. Mine crashed 6-7 times in the last 12 hours.

Go to game-monitor and look at all the top servers





I

[Harmor]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

No need lol. ITS A FACT!!!! Servers are unstable. THey are crashing on average of 6 times a day. Some are having problems more severe. Worst ive read about was 6 times in 1 hour!!!! 6 in 1 hour!!!!!! lol

And if the server doesnt crash, It's pretty certain your game will lol.

You wouldnt accept it from a car dealer, why should we for a game!!!

Has anyone suggested it might be some of the hacks that are sending malformed packets that used to work in 1.22, but now crash? I've heard rumors that EA/DICE were not happy with PB taking 3 months within their last update and that they may have allocated resources to put countermeasures in.

I know they said that they fixed an overflow bug that allowed anyone to crash a server. Maybe they didn't or they introduced another vulnerability?

I can't fathom the testers would have not noticed servers crashing so frequently - there's probably something else...perhaps its this?

[*FMJ*Bird]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Has anyone suggested it might be some of the hacks that are sending malformed packets that used to work in 1.22, but now crash? I've heard rumors that EA/DICE were not happy with PB taking 3 months within their last update and that they may have allocated resources to put countermeasures in.

I know they said that they fixed an overflow bug that allowed anyone to crash a server. Maybe they didn't or they introduced another vulnerability?

I can't fathom the testers would have not noticed servers crashing so frequently - there's probably something else...perhaps its this?

Ive seen a number of the errors broken down and I can assure you its not related to this. They are errors that should not be fatal and they reset the server. These faults should be logged and the server should continue to run.

From what I learned about it today its just a mass of faults in the code and its not getting better its getting much worse. They are taking input from outside sources now trying to get the issues identified.


As far as "testers" there is no way they are testing this software in real world conditions, with a full server of humans playing under normal gameplay conditions. They would crash for sure. Its not like some servers dont crash, if they dont they arent getting used or the operator is telling tales.


I got second hand word today on the problems with 2142 and its exactly what everyone knows and is predicting.

[imported_Deliverance]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

I can't fathom the testers would have not noticed servers crashing so frequently - there's probably something else...perhaps its this?

The 'testers' (i use the term loosely) would never know about it though, they probably only tested on a maybe 5 different test server under their own test conditions. There would be no way for them to realise the extent of the problem until there were more populated servers giving feedback (and this is why they should have been doing open Beta testing)

Beyond that, i suspect that the 'testers' arent all that great at their job. Infact, i doubt thats the case, i suspect many of these bugs HAVE been reported and the (money hungry) powers that be decided it wasnt economically viable for them to fix them.

[Harmor]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Now this is interesting:


The red line is the Total available slots (max), while the green line is the Total number of players.

Seems like there's alot of servers that are not being used. Only about 30k of us play the game according to Game Monitor.

Problem with the above is I'm not sure if its only showing ranked servers vs. ALL servers - I suspect its all servers.

[*FMJ*Bird]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Thats all bf2 servers ranked and unranked

[lmimmfn]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

The 'testers' (i use the term loosely) would never know about it though, they probably only tested on a maybe 5 different test server under their own test conditions. There would be no way for them to realise the extent of the problem until there were more populated servers giving feedback (and this is why they should have been doing open Beta testing)

Beyond that, i suspect that the 'testers' arent all that great at their job. Infact, i doubt thats the case, i suspect many of these bugs HAVE been reported and the (money hungry) powers that be decided it wasnt economically viable for them to fix them.

Well im a developer and i maintain server code. server stability is paramount, every organisation( thats decent organisation ) performs function/integration and performance testing and load performance testing is a must.
Remember EA are still making a fortune from renting servers, so if the powers that be knew about this there is no way that this patch would have been released.

I blame designers( who should desk check code and have load performance bit tests ), testers( who should regression test and perormance test in real world scenarions ) and product management for creating this mess, and to be honest from experience they should have rolled back the day after the patch was released, both clients and servers. It will only hurt EA and dice in the long run.

Its obvious theyre running a skeleton crew to maintain this product with all resources thrown at BF2142. To be honest with you, i love the BF series, but if there is any decent alternative and they dont get their act together in the next few weeks ill jump ****.
The reason i say this is that BF2142 is based on the exact same engine, when its complete, it will go to the same maintainence crew in Canada, which in fairness must be surfing the web all day

[imported_Deliverance]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Well im a developer and i maintain server code. server stability is paramount, every organisation( thats decent organisation ) performs function/integration and performance testing and load performance testing is a must.
Remember EA are still making a fortune from renting servers, so if the powers that be knew about this there is no way that this patch would have been released.

I to am a developer, tho im only a web developer the logic of code, and the principles of testing are universal regardless of what your coding.

And this isnt Every organisation, this is EA....our dedicated box (which costs us over £2.5k a year) has crashed a total of 5 times in the space of 6 hours. We rely on donations from people who play on our servers to keep them running, and if they cant play they wont donate.

Your right, they should have rolled back, they are by now aware of the problem (and supposedly fixed it with whatever it was they did with Gamespy) but they havent even acknowledged it as an ongoing problem. We've heard nothing from EA, and as far as i know neither has anyone on this issue.

[Jobby McJobby]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

All good points well put, I couldn't agree more with Craig's letter and follow up.

I think he's just summed up how a lot of disenfranchised BF2 players and server admins feel right now.

So basically it's big **** sandwich and we're all gonna have to take a bite?

Great.

GET IT SORTED!

[Linus]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

It's quite obvious that this patch was not ready to go. I know for a fact many of the GSP's advised strongly against releasing it just yet as it was not at all stable and/or ready to be distributed to the public.

Yet you (EA/Dice) insisted pushing this out the door. And for what? Coop? Humvee air drops? Squad jumping? While the server builds have been unstable since day one and the red name bug has yet to be solved you give us this patch that could very well be the end of BF2 for our community?

Meanwhile, GSP's are reporting mass cancelations of public ranked servers due to server instablility (read: CRASHES), CAL teams are disbanding over the squad jumping fix(which in our opinion is an exploit and SHOULD have been changed a long time ago) and seem to look the other way and talk up BF2142 at every opportunity (anyone notice the E3 coverage?).

I have a very strong opinion that we may see a hotfix for this patch but that EA is about ready to wash their hands clean of BF2 in any way, shape or form of support and continued patches and turn all of their efforts over to BF2142. What else can we assume given this turn of events? How does the past 6 months worth of patches make it look like you at all care about the game server hosts and providers when you have yet to fix the biggest issue on everyone's box...crashes.

Before you assume I'm just some random intraweb troll who just wants to vent (which I may be I guess but I digress...) take a look at the servers we host @ strafeRight. Our 24/7 Karkand is the #1 ranked server in the world according to Game Monitor and our 24/7 City Maps is ranked #9 as of this morning (click on 'server list' in my sig). We're serious gamers and have proven that we have a formula for building and maintaining great communities and server atmospheres across game platforms and gametypes (CS, CSSource, WoW, CoH/V). But it is our only choice if we don't see some serious support, and soon, to discontinue supporting this game...and completely abandoning BF2142 before it even happens.

Now that's not a threat...we're just a blip on the radar, I understand, but if I'm willing to take such measures (and believe me, I'm a very patient man) it is a safe bet so are many, many other hosts/communities. If you turn the hosts against you by lack of server support you're going to turn away a vast majority of FPS gamers that rely on said hosts to have servers up to play on.

I hope this finds its way to the right people because when it works, BF2 is a great game, possibly one of the 10 best FPS games in history given the vast gameplay experience and competitive feel. We'd love to host servers for this game for years to come but at this rate, we cannot justify the resources to support a game that makes our servers look bugged and our community wanting more from their experience...especially with things like UT and Quake Wars around the corner.

-Craig
straferight.com
craig -at- straferight dot c0m

I couldnt agree more.. its like they never tested (REALLY TESTED...)
the original game release... sooooo many bugs... obvious ones too..
and they dont test their patches either...

If EA spent 1/10th the time in fixing the games bugs, biggest of which is
the HORRIBLE server browser... I could write a better one myself in 2 hours..,
as they did in trying to release expansion packs, we'd have a much better
game..

BATTLEFIELD 2 will NEVER be considered the greatest game to-date FPS..
Nor in any category at all.. because of the lack of TRUE support, and their
horrid code writing.. its pathetic..

They will never see another dime of mine, ever. Not BF..not MADDEN, not
any EA product will ever be purchased in my household again.

[Lin]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

The 1.3 test was never anything like this. The servers didn't crash. Now they do.

EA rolled a patch back before and so have other games. They haven't announced that yet but let's remember, this is the Memorial Day weekend. Did you read Soup Nazi's linked story? Chances are it's being worked on.

I, for one, hope the employees got a long holiday weekend like I did.

We have 60, 54 and 32 player servers. I did notice the 60 player was crashing more often then the 54, so we have cut the large one back. It'll still crash, just not as much as the larger size, hopefully the players will get a little better game.

[sR Craig]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Some of our guys tested with you Lin. They also were very hopeful to see more server stability as the build they tested seemed sound. Yet the problem seems to be that they can never get a fast and furious 64 man server going with the limited number of testers RS is able to get anymore.

btw...Dice canada is who works on BF2 right now. I don't know if they celebrate Memorial day up north so mayhap we'll see a fix sooner than later.

[whoster69]

Re: An Open Letter To EA/Dice From StrafeRight

Well said Craig, thank you.

Exactly. Thank you.