12/11 - 2nd Patch/Title Update in Development (Release date 27th Jan 2pm)

[ze german]

If they want to rescue this game they need to make the MP working on a respectable level.

With stable game play this game can easily dominate because of the complexity and good gameplay it offers.

But the bottle neck is the ping and server room issue.

You also do not buy a porsche with a 50 horse power engine.


If you compare the sales of MW2 compared to OFDR2 you might notice a small difference.
MW2 as a game won all sales records for a reason.

[Pure.Krome]

I've been quietly waiting in the fringes for this game. Before it was released, I heard/read that there's no Dedicated Server support. err- ok...

So I never bought it.

Now, I'm quietly stalking the servers, waiting for some information about an official patch which will include Dedicated Servers.

Reading this thread - it's obvious that there are none OR CM are failing to tell us that they want to do it, have planned to do it but cannot confirm it will work or not because of whatever reason.

As such, I think it's time to stop stalking these forums and give up -- time to eye off BF43 and BadCompany2.

What is so sad about this is that i strongly feel they have failed to see the power behind MP with Dedicated Servers. I'm not going to buy this game (that's 1 sale - a drop in the ocean of total game sales for DR). All my team mates (nearly 40 of us) will now NOT purchase this game, now also. (also a drop in the ocean of sales .. but a bigger splash than before). Now they will ALSO pass this intel onto their non-team mates or mates from other teams they are in. See the picture, forming? From small things, big things grow.

I'm from Australia (mate). There's a pretty large BF2 comm down here and a bucket load of us have been itching for the next big thing in MP. None of this crappy script kiddie 6v6 CS crap. *spits*. Well, now we have an entire community that will sigh (for what could have been) and keep playing tired, old games.

-------

One thing people fail to remember is that it costs CM (and other development companies) to have Dedicated Servers running. How? The login process, master browser lists and for some games, recording achievements. So a company like CM might say :-

1. If we have Dedicated Server support, how much does that cost (per user) over .. say 6 months. and 12 months? and 2 years? if the game is $50 (don't worry about the currency...) and they determine that it costs CM $1 a month or $5 a month or whatever, per unit sold .. they might do the numbers as see that it's not feesable.

I expect the numbers game to be a sliding scale type of thing. The more players, the more expensive it becomes BUT the less expensive _per unit_ sold. So if 100 people play online only, then it could cost CM $5 per unit -- that's the sum cost for bandwidth, keeping some servers online, power, buying / renting the servers, bug fixes, etc...

If 10,000 units played, the price per unit might be $1 .. even though the maintenance cost is higher. Their end profit is greater, though.

I'm trying to play devil's advocate here.

Don't forget to add in the cost of development -> actually getting the Dedicated Server code, to market.

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IMO, MP is where it's at on the PC. Console is for SP generally (I'm being very careful not start the age ole' pc v console religious war). Why is BF2 still one of the most popular online FPS's to date? Especially in this 'genre' ?

a) cause it's not tooo hard to pick up.
b) it actually works, on the internet
c) they have a working (note: i didn't say 'great') MP model
d) they didn't spend any time on an SP game. In fact, this was one of the FIRST games that was MP only! (think back to BF1942, that is). SP == MP with AI only.

... and it's still being played. This will translate into sales for the next game by DICE.

Look at MW2 - everyone knows it's been the biggest selling ENTERTAINMENT item ever for and opening day! Why? people have been playing it constantly in MP mode since they finished the SP mode .. and have been enjoying it .. so when MW2 was announced, they new it would be better than MW1 (which they were still playing/enjoying, thanks to MP support) ... and here we are .. biggest opening day product sale ever. Thank you MP - u had a massive impact into that, IMO.

---

Anyways, i'm preaching to the converted.

Sorry CM. U nearly had me at Hello .. but nae. No money for you right now. Even worse -> i'm feeling that i'll also be LESS likey to make a purchase for a CM game in the future also because of the lack of disrespect for us. I've not bought MW2 because of the same arrogance.

I know a business model can be made to offer the ability to have dedicated servers up (and all the maintenance and suppot required in the background which 99% of the script kiddies playing these games don't know about == a cost to CM) .. but until you guys start to think outside the box, u're killing your business.

This place will soon be an indie developer with a handful of diehards - with no money to be made to keep it running.

I wish you all Luck.

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/me goes back to his (computer) programming. yes, i too am a djork and program all day long.

-PK-

[TemplarGFX]

as far as I can tell, right at the beginning, before they had decided how to go about doing the MP in this game, dedicated servers were on the table. then some "smart" guy suggested for them to use the Quasal service, as this one license enabled them to give multiplayer login services to all 3 platforms. Of course, integrating this service into there game immediately removed the possibility for dedicated servers to be established in the future, as it would require a complete re-write of the MP section of the game.

[Dedicated Berber]

Two great posts that nail the issue.

It seems to have come down to laziness.

...and, yes, multiplayer is where it's at on the PC; and makes or breaks a game's community. Meaning that even those players who have no interest in multiplayer get a totally borked game with a measly-short life without it.

I can't believe that Helios posted such dramatic news on a thread that then died so quickly. We now have people coming on here all the time who missed the, there will be no dedis, sorry (ahem), announcement. Another thing handled very badly by the company and leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

Man up, CM.

[SierraCharlie]

So when will Sion be on next to try make us feel better? or has he already got the sack for this joke of a game?

[Cernunnos]

Originally Posted by Pure.Krome

All my team mates (nearly 40 of us) will now NOT purchase this game, now also. (also a drop in the ocean of sales .. but a bigger splash than before).

My entire clan - 50 of us - were going to purchase this game.

All on pre-order, ready to get it together and have a war...... but then the dedicated server bomb got dropped and EVERY ONE OF US cancelled.

So, your 40, my 50... makes a nice round 90.

Add to that the rest of the unhappy campers - that's a lot of revenue from the pc community gone POOF! Poof in the magician making something disappear sense of the word, not the other meaning

Game's dead in the water - NEXT!

[TemplarGFX]

I can see it now, OFP 3 will be a console only game

[NS13VDog]

Originally Posted by TemplarGFX

I can see it now, OFP 3 will be a console only game

Kewl...I can save my money. PC is my entertainment.

[RhinoNeil]

Originally Posted by TemplarGFX

I can see it now, OFP 3 will be a console only game

You think there will be an OFP 3?

This Saturday night (UK time) I went onto the multiplayer at a peak playing time. there were 4 games running with 14 people in total.

I don't see there being an OFP 2 for much longer.

Straight after, went onto MW2 and there were 94K+ playing. Not saying it is the same game, but look at how MF2 has its multiplayer setup - different league.

Not too worried as I have plenty of other FPS games to play at moment but I have been looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution getting released and who is involved - CM? . Very, very worried. I will not be rushing to get a subscription to JGE until I hear how much CM have cocked it up first.

[RhinoNeil]

And as a PS to my earlier post, just to show you how CM think things through so badly. I created an account in the Jumpgate Evolution forum and have posted quite a few times there (I was looking forward to it but am now worried that the stain of CM will ruin what looks like a perfectly good Netdevil game).

Now for my post here the avatar is from JGE, the signature is from JGE and the number of posts is from JGE (less 2 here).

There is no way to have settings per game or change anything without it affecting my JGE forum postings.

I wonder if CM only expect people to play one of their games and then never return to any of their forums?