[bf1942] Petition for BF1942!

[Nick Ryan]

The fact remains that at this moment 66000 people are playing HL
compared to 7800 for BF1942 and 3400 for BFV. EA/Dice made a mistake
splitting the BF userbase with the inferior BFV; if they had put that
effort into continuing to improve BF the user community would be larger
and healthier and I bet they would have made more money with the extra
copies of BF they would have sold anyways. I even think BF2 is being
released too soon, and this will split the user base again (we have
Desert Combat already, fer chrissake). EA/Dice have PLENTY to learn from
Valve.

Rick Thompson wrote:

> We had a steam CS server running with 14 people connected using 70% of a 
> cpu on a dual. Right next to it was a BF server with 32 people connected 
> using 60%. Granted, that was an aztec map but even the most efficient 
> maps went well over 50%. We tossed that client off the network and 
> discontinued all support for HL games, not only because of the 
> horrendous cpu usage but also because of the asinine weekly update 
> requirements.
> 
> Yes, pre-steam versions were fairly well maintained with an update every 
> 3 to 6 months but who wants to update a server every week? The last 
> three weekly updates from valve  had such severe problems they had to be 
> rolled back and that is nothing new. Since steam was implemented there 
> have been many, many weeks with rollbacks because they dumped untested 
> code on the masses.
> 
> What about their pathetic anti-cheat system that has never worked? They 
> effectively and quite intentionally disabled all of the third party 
> anti-cheat systems that *did* work so they could have a monopoly on it 
> with their useless VAC only then to all but abandon it while cheating 
> remained rampant.
> 
> What about the last 4 exploits available for HL servers? They sat on a 
> root exploit for over three months even though they knew about it and 
> only took corrective action when it became public knowledge. That 
> exploit was fixed by someone in the community long before they released 
> code to fix it. Same with every exploit as far back as I can remember, 
> they were all fixed by a community member before Valve got around to 
> releasing a fix.
> 
> Valve has never been as responsive to the community as Dice has, not 
> even in the good years.
> 
> The BF nix port we have is from user demand. Initially it used about as 
> much cpu as a steam server does now but Dice made it their first order 
> of business to reduce that dramatically because their userbase asked 
> (begged) them to. Punkbuster was implemented because of userbase demand 
> also. I have no doubt that BF1942 will continue to be supported with 
> maint releases... why... because their userbase wants them to.
> 
> I am not crazy about BFV either, disappointed more than anything. Since 
> there are still a lot more people playing BF than BFV, I am obviously 
> not alone in that. None the less, I would much rather have them 
> introduce another game than screw around with an old one like Valve 
> does! We have 5 BF clients and only 1 BFV client, what Valve is doing 
> with steam would be the equivalent of Dice forcing all those BF clients 
> to run BFV even though they hate the arcad'ish chopper controls, etc., 
> etc., etc.
> 
> I don't want Dice to make the game "better". Maint releases should be to 
> fix bugs and exploits, nothing more. Leave the old game alone, put a new 
> game on the market and let it stand for itself, that is how it should 
> be. If people don't like BFV, they will continue to play BF.
> 
> Rick
> 
> Steam is a sickness, Battlefield is the cure.
> 
> 
> At 06:15 PM 7/27/2004 +0200, you wrote:
> 
>> I've been running HL servers for a long, long time. I do indeed agree 
>> that
>> Steam is not what I'd like to see. Actually, wasn't it for the WON 
>> servers
>> to be disabled this week, I wouldn't be changing at all. I liked the 
>> way it
>> was.
>>
>> However, saying Valve should be screwed is dead wrong. They had their
>> reasons to change to steam, and though many don't like it, it's a fact of
>> gaming life. Valve DID something I don't see happening with Dice here
>> though: Eversince the initial release of Half-Life, there were updates an
>> patches, over and over again. Some were good, some should've been better.
>> The reason why Valve's game was a solid success, was not only its 
>> terrific
>> support on the linux platform (something BF had to do without for 
>> quite some
>> time) but most importantly the continuous improvements of the engine.
>>
>> Nowaday's most people don't even recall the struggle with voice
>> communication and all... it was put in there with a simple update.
>>
>> I can agree with the petition here, simply because I bought a game, 
>> BF1942,
>> to see how I could support a good server running it. But most of the 
>> players
>> I had decided to hop on the next game BFV... And when that sorta 
>> runs... the
>> next game is there.... But will Dice or EA commit itself to new 
>> patches and
>> improvements of old games, or can we just plain accept that this is 
>> what we
>> have, won't get any better and thus if we want improvements on a 
>> gameserving
>> box we simply run the next game? I sure hope not.  I subscribed to 
>> this list
>> for 1942... I haven't seen a post about '42 in months. Seeing support 
>> of the
>> original Battlefield, I don't even think about buying BFV... as soon 
>> as it's
>> up, support is dropped in the benefit of the next version. I'd rather say
>> Screw that then blaming Valve for the next step in HL-evolution (which 
>> - as
>> opposed to BF - is a free update instead of an entirely new game.)
>>
>> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
>> Van: Rick Thompson [mailto:fortweb at fortweb.com]
>> Verzonden: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 5:23 PM
>> Aan: bf1942 at icculus.org
>> Onderwerp: Re: [bf1942] Petition for BF1942!
>>
>> Well said!
>>
>> We also have tried most games out there and BF is as easy on the cpu 
>> as any
>> of them, much better than many. (Steam is a sickness, BF is the cure! 
>> Screw
>> you Valve)
>>
>> The idle cpu issue is insignificant, so what if it runs 15% when it is
>> idling or with 10 people connected? We sell games to cover the max amount
>> of load they can generate anyway so if every server was maxed out, the 
>> box
>> can still breath... they can sit there and run 15% empty all day long if
>> they want, we don't care. People not planning their bandwidth/cpu that 
>> way
>> are gouging their customers.
>>
>> Rick
> 
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-- 
- Nick Ryan