[bf1942] BF2 Server?

[Michael Ressen]

Johan Stålnacke wrote:

>Don't know what you really meant, but if you use ASE you can
>find dedicated windows OR Linux servers, so it's easy to see how
>many dedicated linux server there is out there.
>
>At the moment there is 3158 Linux servers and
>5199 Windows servers running BF42 right now.
>
>991 Linux and 2362 Windows BFV servers.
>
>(Then I don't know if ASE shows the right numbers...)
>
>  
>

There is a difference between sheer numbers of servers, and the numbers 
of servers hosted on commercial-class hosting services.   Any kid can 
fire up a BF server and say "look at me I have a server", but what 
really matters is quality places for people to rent or play on.   The 
more availablity of upper-tier, reliable providers, the better apt the 
gamers are to find a place to play on. 

For example, a few friends and I ran out and bought StarWars Battlefront 
when it was released, and I'd had talked to Pandemic about dedicated 
servers - they said "don't worry, we'll have flavors for everyone".   
Now, they released a borked windows client acting like a server, no 
linux version, and no word on when.   Stability was horrid, it crashed 
repeatedly, has been patched twice so far, and we gave up playing the 
game because we couldn't even find a stable server to play on for more 
than 15 minutes at a time, and I will not put windows on any of my own 
systems.   Plus, the costs GSP's were charging were at 100.00 and up for 
a private server we had to file 2-3 tickets per night just to keep running.

If BF:2 follows down the current path, this could be where it's headed 
as well.    There's enough community support to put some assistance and 
help into doing it correctly, and we all want to see BF:2 do well, but 
when things like this are made public it turns us off the the notion of 
hosting due to the lack of viable options for us.  

Now I don't even rent servers, I host public ones.   For me it's not a 
matter of revenue, but there is a clear difference between revenue 
streams hosting Windows vs Linux.   I don't have to remind anyone here 
which one is more favorable to any of us, but I certainly am not going 
to pay $995.00 for a license fee to host a public box - my bandwidth 
costs are enough as it is.   Therefore, I surely won't promote any game 
I can't run.

/BA