Apophis

As most of you are already aware, Battlefield 2 was released today. Quite a number of Tactical Gamer members have already recieved their copies and others will be getting them at various points today and tomorrow.

Due to the overlap of some members having the retail and some being limited to just the Battlefield 2 Demo, Tactical Gamer is going to be running two Battlfield 2 servers for the next week.

The existing BF2 Demo server is going to be moved over to a new IP and will be restricted to 48 players. The Battlefield 2 Retail server will take over the IP address of the old demo server. For a list of those IP addresses, see below.

The next few days will be a bit rough with the community being split up. But hang tight, we'll all be over in the Retail server soon enough. Expect a TG Members-Only night sometime this weekend for us all to flex our collective team-oriented muscles!

Battlefield 2 Retail Server #1 (64 Player) IP: To Be Announced
Battlefield 2 Retail Server #2 (48 Player) IP: 67.19.26.150
Battlefield 2 Private Server (48 Player) IP: 70.84.146.202

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The_Fist

Very Nice. -OIJ- will be there is full force.

bman1972

-OIJ- all the way

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JediPilot

So, wait, are there going to be subscribers-only servers? Or is it jsut the one BF Retail server. I mean, if its just the one open to the public, anyone can join in and it won't be as fun as it could be.

I know you guys have password-only nights, but are there any dedicated subscriber servers for BF2?

Apophis

There are no dedicated subscriber servers for BF2 as of yet. That is not to say we won't roll one out as soon as the subscriber base dictates a need for it.

In the grand scheme of things, I could put up a subscriber-only BF2 server right now. But unless there is a critical mass of players that want to play on this server, it will sit largely idle because the supporting members will want to play on the public server where there is a greater number of players available.

I hope we get to the point where the supporting members would rather play on their own private server. That would alleviate a lot of the admin issues we have and allow all the players to devote their time to playing a solid tactical game rather than having to worry about dealing with, kicking and banning the smacktards that show up from time to time.

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Mateo

Funny, it sounds like you answered your own question as to whether there is a need for it.

Apophis

Yes and no.. History has shown us that just because players WANT to have a 100% smacktard free game, they won't necessarily play on a private server when they have the option of playing on a packed 64 player server with a few smacktards thrown in.

Just look at CS and Server #2 as evidence. I think we're well on our way to getting this, but I don't think we're there quite yet. Not to mention, the retail game has only been out for a day. So we can give it a little time and see where it takes us.

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Wyzcrak

Experience makes me estimate that as many as 120+ BF2 supporting members would be required to keep on a supporting members-only server the kind of activity levels which we expect and enjoy on our present server. You can't just give 64 players access to a 64 player server and expect it to stay full all night, much less during the day.

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Apophis

This is correct. In fact, it averages 57% active population for a new game and 22% for a game 6 months old. Meaning, 57% of supporting members that signed up for BF2 will be active during the average gaming evening.

But we also wouldn't need to run a 64 player server for the supporting members. 32 players might be more in-line until the player base builds up more.

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Mateo

We probably do not need a seperate server at this point. Maybe later.

What we could do, however, is pick a night (Thursday?), and password the Retail server. Other than the inevitable flood of "what is the password" threads, there is no real downside to it, and the once weekly Joint Ops and SWAT4 community get togethers are always fun.

TG_JBRanger

I'm for this...

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Mateo

I'm thinking we may need that second server after all. Since the demo, we have, what, 250 new members?

Add that to the existing player base, and the pubbies, and we have what we call in MBA terms a "bottleneck."

How about adding a second pub?

asch

I'm not sure I'd add a 2nd server until we at least get reserved slots working along with some of our other mods (i.e. kick non-squad players, etc.) I think it would be more difficult to admin two servers at the same time, especially with many TGers wanting to be on the same server.

With the playerbase growing and the players actually playing by the TG standards, I can definitely see the need for additional servers. Of course more servers means more money (especially to handle the bandwidth requirements) means a need for more supporting members.

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Mateo

I'm not sure that the reserved slots will be enough, but I see your point.

The issue remains one of capacity.

If on any given night, 1/3 of the newcomers show up, we don't have slots for them, not if the 20-30 (40?) SM and CM regulars show up.

I suppose we could institute other, less tasteful protocols, like time/round limits for pubbies and perhaps even CMs.

Is it fair that someone stays 9:00PM-2AM, and prevents someone else from playing that night? I'm not saying it happens, but I suppose it could.

We all want to play together, but one server is a real scarce resource.

CingularDuality

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying...

Do you mean that only having one server will limit our recruiting?

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