Battlefield 1943 servers being added 'around the clock'

As fun as Battlefield 1943 is, EA severely underestimated the amount of individuals who would enlist for battle in the Pacific yesterday on XBLA. If you tried to play, you likely spent a great deal of time staring at menus and found it a real pain to hook up and play with friends. According to a post made by Gordon Van Dyke on the official EA forums, developer DICE is doing all it can to increase the server count for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions.

In the latest update, Van Dyke writes, "We have full support of EA to add as many servers as takes and then some so that everyone can play. This work has already started and servers will be added around the clock with teams working to cover this 24 hours a day so not a moment is wasted. You will be able to play this game and play it lag free!"

While the prospect of a lag-free experience is something we can support, our problem was more with our inability to find matches and join our friends' games yesterday, even when multiple slots were open. ~~But hey, at least the price was fixed!~~ [It appears that the 90000

pricing "glitch" was a temporary workaround to dissuade Xbox Live Silver users from purchasing the online multiplayer–only game. Currently, the game is blocked from Silver account purchasing altogether and has been designated a "Gold Exclusive."]

[Via Edge; thanks to VIP0R, Roger, Ian & Alan for pricing glitch pics!]

Reader Comments (70)

Hey man...shit happens

I'm sure DICE crapped themselves when they saw how many people suddenly jumped online exceeded their estimates by a huge percentage. I bet the call to EA corporate for more servers was not a fun one to make.

At least they owned up to the problem, apologized, and have promised to work 24/7 to get it up and running.

Yup, it cost money to run a business. It also cost me money to buy the game. I love the "you disagree, you must be a kid with no time in the real world".

On the contrary, having worked in the "real world" is why it blows my mind that video games are the only sector that would ever get away with this. If I "underestimated" job completion times or cost EVERYTIME I did work for a customer they wouldn't be my customer for very long.

Yes, I do expect a company to be able to accurately gauge server needs so that a game I buy is playable when I buy it, especially after years of failure, why the hell is that some impossibly high bar?

I can go through a huge list of games that had playable multiplayer the first day they came out, do you know what they all have in common?

They aren't EA games.

It's also telling that EA is the only company that demanded to use their own servers on Xbox live, odd that they are the only company with this recurring problem, but hey, they wouldn't be able farm our emails and account names otherwise.

Anyway, I'm done arguing about it, I've had my say.

I was finally able to play with friends in the same game after 11pm ET. Earlier than that I was lucky if my game didnt freeze on the search screen, forcing me to exit to the dashboard. When it works it sure is sweet though!

Same thing here, but after 1am EST. REALLY fun to play.

The pricing "glitch" is actually on purpose. Because BF 1943 is a multiplayer-only game, then there is no point in silver's playing it. Gold accounts will have the regular price of 1200 points, while silver accounts will see the price as 90,000 MSP.

If you get it at 90,000 MSP, you are seriously retarded because you should have just gone out and bought a 1 month gold card and 1600 MSP and paid about $25 rather than $1000+. LOL

It's pretty dumb that DICE couldn't have had it 'Gold Exclusive' to start with..

I was actually just speaking in general, since I haven't bought it yet. Having spent a considerable amount of time in Gears 2 online I would really appreciate a lag free game.

Also, did anyone notice that its REALLY hard to get kills using the plane's bombs? Ive seen enemys drop bombs on me that were within 15 yards and I didnt even get hurt. Thats pretty unrealistic if you ask me. The air raid is devastating though!

I feel all the explosions are weak. I'll hit a guy dead on with a tank shell and he won't die. Same goes for bazooka rounds. I don't get it.

Yeah, it's the same problem Bad Company had, and I understand the thinking and the reason, and I get the balancing issues, but I still don't like it.

In 1942 you could kill a person with a tank shell, the balancing was still good in that game. It's not a deal breaker but it can be frustrating.

didn't expierence any lag at all. But it did take me about 2 hours of waiting in menus before I could even play once. Then any attempt to get into a game, if I left the one I was in, would take another 15-30 minutes of attempts.. But once I was in it was a blast.

The squad stuff is still broken. 3 of my friends and I joined a game as a squad this morning, it puts us on different teams!! What's the point of joining as a group just to get split up. They need to fix that pronto, the game wasn't even full! 9vs9 at the time.

I have to admit that these issues are surprising to me.. It's an ONLINE only game with no single player element. Considering how hugely successful 1942 & the future one was for PC and how well Bad Company does online... You'd think they'd be expecting this kinda demand.

Can Anyone get the download numbers for 1st 24 hrs? Please post them!

Hopefully we won't see this problem when Battlefield 3 is released! http://enterbf3.com

You will, EA made it. I'll eat my own shoe if BF3 doesn't launch with the SAME problems and the SAME excuses.

This is why EA blows on LIVE. their "dedicated" servers are always a cluster fuck. Game was fun...The one match I got into.

This is a fun game, but it's really tedious getting the game to start, enough so, that I COULD NOT RECOMMEND BUYING the game at this time.

It's that frustrating.

Yesterday morning, I bought it first thing in the morning and could not get on in the morning at all. Sure, I saw message they were over capacity, but I thought, ok, they get this fixed. I tried for hours to get on and could not. Then by yesterday evening, I finally got into a game. Now if you're in a game, it seems easy enough to keep the connection going and continue to play. Also, I didn't notice any lag. The game is enjoyable. And it's pretty much like any other Battlefield game.

But that being said, I still had problems getting into games a day later. This morning it took over 20 tries before I was able to start a game. Totally frustrating. Was able to play for a while. But now I can't get in anymore. There's a new problem. When you start it now says "searching for games" and never finds any nor times out. You're stuck in some sort of loop.

I'm disappointed in EA, in DICE, in Microsoft for allowing a game with such flaws to be released. I haven't been this disappointed in an XBLA release since Mr Driller Live was released and was competely unplayable on Live.

The problem with Battlefield seems to be the result of connecting to external servers for the game to operate. In fact you need an account and password with EA and have to accept a license agreement just to play. I think that fact should have been mentioned before given the opportunity to buy the game.

Fun game, but impossible to play when you want to play. Seems to me that if you pay for something, you SHOULD be able to use it.

No, apparently most people think you should pay for something and then wait a week for it to actually work. Saying anything to the contrary makes you an idiot with no real world experience.

I am with you though, although I would point out that in MS's defense the game itself is not broken, it's the lack of EA severs, however it still comes down to Microsoft's fault because they allowed EA to have the control over the servers, unlike oh, every other Xbox game.

Somehow, since EA/DICE so miserably dropped the ball on server issues... even after doubling server capacity... I think it will backfire on them, and there won't be any trouble getting on servers in a few days, because most who tried initially will be fed up and will have given up and/or read the bad press about getting into games and lag. You'll will be hearing "crickets" on a lot of these servers they just slotted in, because it will be a virtual ghost town, because EA dropped the ball and got a bunch of press about this title... bad press.

Smooth move EA. Thanks for reaffirming your ineptitude at dealing with online servers.

If a silver member is ignorant enough to buy this game, they should be forced to pay $100 per month for xbox live silver.

Does anyone know when Battlefield 1943 releases in India??

Previous 50 Comments

Battlefield 1943 servers being added 'around the clock'

Reader Comments (70)

Posted: Jul 9th 2009 12:43PM Clatu6 said

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Posted: Jul 9th 2009 2:18PM Burritoclock said

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