ScratchMonkey

As I said, I decided to skip 2142. I found BF2 frustrating in the deployment of the 3rd party server manager. The BF2CC guys reported that they had a lot of trouble getting support from Dice. I don't recall all the details as this was a few years ago, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

What I perceived was that all the admin support went to those running ranked servers, and those of us running community servers were largely ignored. (At the time I had a colo'd server with 8 Mbits of bandwidth, and we ran quite a few BF1942 and a few BF2 matches on it.)

It may be that 2142 presented a different experience. I'll leave it to the TG admins here to report if that's the case.

I'm also now remembering that BF1942 had a Linux admin mailing list with active Dice involvement, and it was only after the EA acquisition and the end of that list that I became so disenchanted with Dice.

For comparison: The last server I deployed was an ETQW server on Linux, and I had a dialog going with the Id developer responsible for the Linux port. There was an issue with the server authentication system that he was able to get resolved for me. (I think it was some 3rd party matchmaker library and its central server causing the problem.)

Now if things have indeed changed and Dice has technical people supporting non-ranked admins, I'll go fire up a 2142 server for match play and go buy the client.

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ScratchMonkey

I really enjoyed all the mods and custom maps in BF1942 (I played a lot of Desert Combat, for example, and had both expansions). I think the ranked play of BF2 really ruined that ability for 3rd parties to leverage the system and innovate.

I'm not so much against ranking as I am against centralized ranking by the vendor. Put the machinery for it in and let others do the actual ranking. (I have the same objection for ETQW. This isn't Dice/EA-specific.) I can easily see TG and leagues running rank aggregation servers, and a trust system that allows legacy ranking data to be disavowed if a community server proves to have violated its trust with a league rank aggregator. (This is similar to PunkBuster locking a player out of a server.) With community-based ranking, frequent custom map and mod deployment becomes compatible with ranking.

Early in BF2's history the web-based machinery for ranking and unlocks was discovered but EA actively discouraged hooking into it to provide public unranked servers that provided full access to all features of the game. I want a game that lets me use all of it on the terms of the community admin, not the game's vendor.

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Towuaway2

How Do We Know If U Actually Work At Dice, Or Are Just Making This Up?
Its A Bit Suspicious That U Pick This Forum To Post In Instead Of All The Thousands Of Other Communitys. Dont Get Me Wrong Tg Is Great, Im Just Saying Anyone Can Google Sh*t Like That. Any Proof? Not Encroaching, Im Just Suspicious...
:?

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Razcsak

Don't see why its so odd. The Sir.Community found us, after all.

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GlobalWarmin

This must be an internet record for the most posts about DICE and EA without any negative comments.

ScratchMonkey

And even if it were a smurf, what harm is there in asking for admin features? I'd love it if all the game devs came here to learn what admins want in a multiplayer game.

And with the possibility of talking to a dev, let me ask for another feature: 3rd party matchmaker support. Let the guys who write the games focus on the games, and add hooks to let independent matchmaker software (like GameSpy, All-Seeing Eye, and open source stuff) send server-join commands to a running game binary. Most such programs are forced to spawn the game, which results in significant delay from when a server is chosen to when the connection is attempted. By allowing the matchmaker to command the running game client, you eliminate the startup delay. You can even add reservation logic (similar to that in the current ETQW client) to hold a slot while the game begins the connection attempt.

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Towuaway2

i agree with scratch. SIR found us as more of a gaming community. So it makes sense they would find us, we are a huge gameing community as they are. But an actual member of the DICE team, not strange...? I think so of all the other communities they find us?
anyway wat does it matter?

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Sir. AAK625

Ask yourself this. Would someone trying to impersonate a DICE employee really name themselves DwarfPron?

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Specterr

Well...Fred did inform them of our topic, so it was brought to their attention...and it's not like he came in here promising to include us in the next phase of BF or anything extraordinary like that, he just came in to say hi and thanks...very plausible, not to mention classy if you ask me.

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Towuaway2

good point, you have finally gained my trust lol

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marstein

FWIW, I don't play 2142 because it refuses to start on my Vista machine. I tried everything except incense and prayer. It was a great game while it worked...

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Reaperassault

There are many people who run the game in vista here, I for one and I don't have any problems. you may try posting in the tech forums to see if we can resolve the issue

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[DICE]DwarfPr0n

I could prove who I am by giving my email address but thats just not going to happen.
You could ask the admins of the site to check the email address in my profile and verify I am from DICE too

AAK, nothing wrong with my Gamertag you cheeky b******

Sir. AAK625

Try these:
Vista Virtual Address Fix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105
SLI support for DX10 cards: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710
Vista Compatibility Update: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935280

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Uranium - 235

Not to mention I recognize the name - seems unlikely someone just happened to 'remember' a DICE developer's name and flew to create a fake account.

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