Pokerface

Dear EA,

I have been thumbing through your site in the wake of the Battlefield 2 release, and I came across this gem of a community update at http://www.eagames.com/official/batt...yupdate_060305. For reference, I have reproduced it below.

Now that we are post-release, we can more thoroughly assess your claims from June 3rd. And in that assessment, I find that you have misled the public, shown a great deal of ignorance towards Unranked servers, and shown a great lack of foresight with regards to your Ranked servers.

The Ranked server situation is chaotic at best. The overflowing population of BF2 competes for precious server space in a quest to legally unlock weapons for themselves (as unlocking via Python earns a delisting). The teamplay and squad action promised is lackluster at best, as most players are passersby hoping to get a better sniper rifle on their favorite "Allow Global Unlocks 1" Unranked server. Those who are not hoping for a mere unlock -- "the most competitive players" -- seem rarely to identify with the concept of team, instead taking actions that improve statistics instead of gameplay. These are not the things promised with Ranked server play.

Hand-in-hand with this misrepresentation is the implication that Unranked servers are beneath Ranked servers, and beneath contempt. "The one thing these will all have in common, however, is the lack of pressure to meet the high standard of play we will expect on Ranked servers (i.e. don’t be a nuisance, don’t break EA’s Terms and Conditions and strive to be a team player)." To lump a group of servers together like that simply because they aren't EA-controlled is at best laughable, at worst despicable. As a counter-point, I offer the Battlefield 2 servers at www.tacticalgamer.com, where night after night one can bear witness to organized squadplay, a functional chain of command, and the high standard of play promised (and noticably lacking) from the Ranked servers.

I believe you owe the Battlefield 2 audience -- particularly Unranked server operators such as those at TacticalGamer -- an apology for your community update of 6/3/05. You also owe it to the community to find a way to make the Ranked server gameplay quality match what can be found in places with ostensibly lower standards of play.

Thank you for your time.
pokerface

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Budo7 USM

Well said, I agree!

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Wyzcrak

I feel rather vindicated.

Well said, Poker.

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><JohnGalt><

What fools, I have played on ranked servers, and I have yet to hear another person use a mic. Is it possible that a mod will come out that allows "unranked" servers to keep track of their own players stats and award unlocks in much the same way as EA?

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Arf

I hate the ranked servers so much. They're so overcrowded players are AFKing in them so they don't loose their place. Where do they AFK? In the Commander position because nobody can tell if he's AFK or looking at the map. Now smacktards can screw over their team without the all the effort of TKing and gain rank at the same time. You can try to mutiny but most players don't care enough to even put themselves in a squad.

So what are you going to do? You can try to bring in your own squad but good luck with that. There's usualy only one open slot on a server at a time and even if there were more what are the chances you'd get 6 people on the same team?

Then there's the smacktards that are everywhere. They don't want to TK you anymore because it's just so much more fun to kamikaze on someone elses vehicle and then punish them for the TK. The few good Commanders I've seen have all been booted because a smacktard punished them after he ran under the artillery barrage or over a landmine.

The only reason I ever play on them is because I want to unlock the weapons. It's like they're trying to punish me either by not letting me use the unlockable weapons or by forcing me to play with smacktards.

A little off-topic but I had to get that off my chest and I agree about their policy on the unranked servers.

Andrew Myers

Heh -- I hit Lance Corporal a couple days ago (1000 points), and unlocked my first weapon; guess how many points you need for Corporal (and your next unlock)? 10,000! Yeah, right -- at the rate I'm going, it'll be September before I rank up again, sheesh.

Banksy

Right on point Pokerface.

IAmCrazy

Le Pwnt

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Wulfyn

Well said Pokerface.

Hopefully the unlocked weapons on the private server will go some way towards allieviating the unlocking issue (which is the only issue as far as I see it becuase I personally don't want a little 'I'm a high rank kill me first' icon by my name).

asch

Very well said poker. Like I said before, you're making it very hard for us admins to allow you back into the game with all this work you're outputting.

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RandomGuy

I was pretty sure even before the demo release that things would happen this way. What I wasn't sure was how good the game actually was going to be.

The gamedesign for BF2 by DICE is well done. The game distribution and management by EA has been bad. It's EA, what do you expect?

Telorn

Be sure to post their reply (if you ever get one). I'm curious as to what they would say.

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TG_Rizzo

You get a treat for this.

*reaches into his green dot treat bag*

Rincewind

Well said and keep us informed

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morose

If I could sign in support, I would.

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