Logical Discussion on Server Rentals
November 24, 2016 5:44PM
edited November 2016
@Braddock512
@Striterax
@TheBikingViking
I would like to have a reasonable and logical discussion on the rental server program, not just a complaint about individual issues.
I pose a single question, "what is the purpose of the rental server program?"
Is it to allow groups of customers to invest in the game and feel as part of the community?
If this is the case, why are you limiting the quick match system? I do not understand why a standard rental server with no settings calling it custom (i.e. not making a single change to the settings, only the name), are limited in traffic. I believe there are platoons (from Battlefield 4 as there is no such thing in Battlefield 1) who can gather up 20 people to start a game, but the reality is most groups do not have that ability. This means, like my group, 9-12 people join a server for it to never start (in conquest). This seems contrary to "investing and feeling as part of the community."
Is it to allow for private games to be played?
If this is the case, why have you not included a way to password protect the server to actually run a private game? Assuming you are able to gather enough people to get the game to start, anyone can join the server just to troll you if they wish. You see this on the Hardcore servers right now. This seems contrary to "allowing private games."
Is it to allow for platoons to build a solid community and safe gaming environment?
Assuming you can actually populate your server on a regular basis with a minimum of 20 people, why are people joining your server over the official dice server? With a lack of administrative control, we do not have the ability to police the server and keep out people who verbally or otherwise harass our members and guests. We do not even have the ability to set a priority list for our own platoon members to join (again assuming you have a populated servers as it currently does not matter), even the owner of the server does not have priority access. So, if we did have administrative control, the admin may have to wait in the queue to get in just so they could take care of a potential issue... This seems to be contrary to the "building a solid and safe gaming environment."
We own 3 servers @ 180 days, and we were voting tonight if we should add a fourth. This can easily be checked as these servers are on my account. Tonight's vote will be changed from if we should move forward with a 4th server to if we should cancel our 3 servers that we currently have. Our group has self funded the ability to have an additional server, and the ability to renew all 4 at the 180 day mark already, this can be seen on our platoon website under the donations tab. This is $1200 total that you guys are about to potentially lose due to us not grasping the original question I have posed, "what is the purpose of the rental server program?"
@Braddock512 I know you have been here answering questions to the best of your ability throughout the beta, early release, and release. I urge you to find an answer to this question and respond as soon as possible to the community. If the developers, program managers, and community relations managers are only going to listen to the "celebrity" youtubers, I fear my group does not have a place in this community.
Thank you in advance,
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://eldergamers.org
@Striterax
@TheBikingViking
I would like to have a reasonable and logical discussion on the rental server program, not just a complaint about individual issues.
I pose a single question, "what is the purpose of the rental server program?"
Is it to allow groups of customers to invest in the game and feel as part of the community?
If this is the case, why are you limiting the quick match system? I do not understand why a standard rental server with no settings calling it custom (i.e. not making a single change to the settings, only the name), are limited in traffic. I believe there are platoons (from Battlefield 4 as there is no such thing in Battlefield 1) who can gather up 20 people to start a game, but the reality is most groups do not have that ability. This means, like my group, 9-12 people join a server for it to never start (in conquest). This seems contrary to "investing and feeling as part of the community."
Is it to allow for private games to be played?
If this is the case, why have you not included a way to password protect the server to actually run a private game? Assuming you are able to gather enough people to get the game to start, anyone can join the server just to troll you if they wish. You see this on the Hardcore servers right now. This seems contrary to "allowing private games."
Is it to allow for platoons to build a solid community and safe gaming environment?
Assuming you can actually populate your server on a regular basis with a minimum of 20 people, why are people joining your server over the official dice server? With a lack of administrative control, we do not have the ability to police the server and keep out people who verbally or otherwise harass our members and guests. We do not even have the ability to set a priority list for our own platoon members to join (again assuming you have a populated servers as it currently does not matter), even the owner of the server does not have priority access. So, if we did have administrative control, the admin may have to wait in the queue to get in just so they could take care of a potential issue... This seems to be contrary to the "building a solid and safe gaming environment."
We own 3 servers @ 180 days, and we were voting tonight if we should add a fourth. This can easily be checked as these servers are on my account. Tonight's vote will be changed from if we should move forward with a 4th server to if we should cancel our 3 servers that we currently have. Our group has self funded the ability to have an additional server, and the ability to renew all 4 at the 180 day mark already, this can be seen on our platoon website under the donations tab. This is $1200 total that you guys are about to potentially lose due to us not grasping the original question I have posed, "what is the purpose of the rental server program?"
@Braddock512 I know you have been here answering questions to the best of your ability throughout the beta, early release, and release. I urge you to find an answer to this question and respond as soon as possible to the community. If the developers, program managers, and community relations managers are only going to listen to the "celebrity" youtubers, I fear my group does not have a place in this community.
Thank you in advance,
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://eldergamers.org
12
Comments
We have now refunded. Will look at renting again when the RSP is out of beta. Paying full price for a beta service is daylight robbery. We can't be found on the server browser and can't even start a game without getting enough people to join through word of mouth, completely ridiculous. I urge everyone else to refund until it is fixed.
Unfortunately, decisions will be made by our platoon (and quite frankly many other platoons) in the next day or so as no one likes to waste money.
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://www.eldergamers.org
Good thing there are other options coming down the pipe. Don't know if I am allowed to mention another title or not but there is one in the work that has everything we are asking for and even will allow mods. It is going to be infantry only but from an admin point it will be spot on.
Please mention the game, there is nothing against it in the forum guidelines, would be happy to take the wrap if there is. Im over this crap, have stopped playing BF1 until this is sorted.
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://www.eldergamers.org
Why you bought 20x battlepacks lol
Because I can? I wanted to see what I would get for $26 bucks. I got 3 EXP boosts and 2 Legendary in 20 Battlepacks. As I rarely get them anymore at level 85, and I can afford to do so; I thought I would try. I was hoping to get more like 5 EXP boosts to help our platoon members who are just now buying the game under the Black Friday sale.
With that said, I do not think it was worth $26 for 3x 1 hour squad boosts. I would have been happy with 5 to be honest, but it is what it is at this point. Gaming is a hobby and I dedicate a certain amount of money to my hobby. A better question is, "why do you care what I do with my money?"
If anything, it shows how upset someone is to ask for a refund when they are so willing to spend money on irrelevant things such as Battlepacks...
@Striterax
@Braddock512
@TheBikingViking
For the record, I also wanted it to be known that @Striterax twitter posts are what the group decided was the tipping point to cancel. He stated that the quick match system was only ever intended for use with Official servers in response to JackFrags. Until we see something official to counter that, it makes no sense to have a server.
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://www.eldergamers.org
If you are renting only to get QM traffic you may as well just play DICE servers and save your money, not only does that seem to be broken, the gamers joining your server will not know that it is yours due to lack of branding. Save your money folks.
Agreed. But quick match is what will drive random people to your server so that you can start a game. Moving forward (assuming branding, admin functions, and the ability to favorite from in game...) you will be able to build a reputation as running a quality server. There is no reason a vanilla RSP should ever not be in the QM system. If they want to make it so mixed modes = custom, we are cool with that. But a vanilla conquest server requires 20 people to start. No QM = multiple hours on a server with 9-12 platoon members last night waiting for a game to start. This is unacceptable and why I refunded. We are not going to pay for something we cannot use. No one has a reputation on BF1 for people to even search for you at the moment. There are no platoons, no platoon tags, no messaging, or anything else to bring people to a server except the QM system.
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://www.eldergamers.org
Thanks for the feedback. So, the meaning of the feature is for communities to form and evolve around their dedicated servers that they can run and operate (with the settings available) and to some extent admin them.
Now, you ask why the matchmaking system arent using the RSP or Custom Servers into account. The honest answer is that there is a bug that is preventing this, if I could I'd gladly share screens of the intended designs that clearly states that Custom Games and RSP servers are supposed to have their own quickmatch options.
So I understand your frustration in not getting enough traffic on your server, that is not the intended design and we are lookimg into a potential fix.
Im also looking into lowering the limit to break pre-round to 6 players.
I hope that helps you understand the situation, I truly understand yours and believe me when I say that i'm aware and looking into these things on a daily basis. Unfortunately we cant patch the game as often as I would like due to different external dependencies.
Best regards
Alex
This is what lead to the decision. You can look back though my posts, I am quite reasonable and spend a lot of time giving feedback in detail to you guys. I have spent a lot of money on this game and will more than likely continue to do so. But I have just linked to your own words that counter the post you just made.
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://www.eldergamers.org
Any update when this bug might be fixed?
@Striterax
Yes sir, I understand what you are saying. But you removed the QM system without replacing it with anything else. Now paying customers cannot populate their servers on a holiday weekend. I also, very humbly, would like to request that you post some information on these official forums rather than twitter. I had to create an account just to get your attention and that is not right. You have been posting on twitter all day and as I do not use it, I was unaware until a member pointed me to it, I had no visability on your progress or opinion. I believe we may have 3 servers at this moment if an official (we are fixing it) response on these forums were posted.
If anything you purchased stopped being usable, you would also be very upset. Expecially if it were an unintended and unneeded change just before you had time off to enjoy said purchase.
It seems to me that rolling back the change that disabled QM until you have another system in place would be the best option at this moment. I know you can only make so many changes and you can only do them so often after QA has approved them. If I am being honest here, you are now in a position of losing money, and I am not the only one canceling.
-lindsay [Girl-In-Pigtails]
[ELDR] Elder Gamers
http://www.eldergamers.org
Well the community appreciate that your trying to help the community by giving info with the RSP issues.
Thank you for informing us!!
There was another bug that we found that allowed ANY Custom Game to be part of the regular quickmatch, you can imagine the kind of issues this created.
Not to good so, So we disabled it.
A side effect was that Vanilla RSP servers was removed as well (not intended) so we are working on adressing that. The proper fix might take some time to implement, but I hope we can get there soon! Its on our high prio list.
I will try to visit the forums more often and make it part of my daily work routines, I hope that helps with communication.
On a side-note - I loved the Elder Gamers servers on previous Battlefields!
Regards
Alex
I work for a company who does software development, I am sure you can look me up if you so choose to, and I have some experience here. In most companies, there are several requirements before posting a live patch.
1. There has to be a need; bug fix, feature addition, etc...
2. It has to go through QA for testing and approval.
3. Someone in authority must approve; VP or Director of Engineering, VP or Director of Product Management, etc...
May I ask what major needed change took place that cannot be rolled back until the full system is in place? If I were losing revenue through refunds due to an unnecessary change, I would order it to be rolled back immediately. After all, businesses exist because customers can use the product to a minimum standard.
Raymond Tayse