Slashdot Mirror
EA Ending Online Support For Dozens of Games
Last month Gamespy announced it would be shutting down at the end of May. Many game makers relied upon Gamespy for all of the multiplayer and online services related to their games, and there was a scramble to transition those games away from Gamespy. Now, Electronic Arts has decided it's not worth the trouble for older titles. They're terminating online support for a huge number of games. The game list includes: Battlefield 2, Crysis 1 & 2, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, and Star Wars: Battlefront 1 & 2. EA said, "As games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level - typically fewer than 1 per cent of all peak online players across all EA titles - where it's no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running."
Well then can we get the code for the server-side so we can run our own private servers to play the games we bought?
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
That's why non-MMO multiplayer games should always allow users to run their own servers. I still play the original Unreal and Quake 3 online because of this.
Amen. If they are going to end support, they should release the source to both game and servers, that way the community could continue to host servers and the ranking system of they want.
I agree that play has dwindled to almost nothings. Some hugely popular games like JKA have fewer than a dozen players on at any one time over dozens of servers sitting almost empty, but fun times are still had. One the other hand, there are still a lot of people playing Tribes and Tribes 2 mods, so community support for some games could be quite large. I would think it would be that way for Battlefield 2.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Except these are offline games with a multiplayer component, which is rendered useless without the servers to host it. This is very different to the licensed MMORPG-type games.
Can I still play Skate or Die on my C64?
Mostly random stuff.
The official servers for at least Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 have been offline since last year, so this recent announcement won't impact them. Community run servers have taken over for those games (e.g. http://www.nwnlist.com./
"Thank you for playing our fine line of rental games. If you wish to continue playing, please upgrade to our latest game and continue paying your subscription fees in a timely manner."
--Regards,
Electronic Asshats
Good people go to bed earlier.
"As games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level - typically fewer than 1 per cent of all peak online players across all EA titles
So every EA online game will die when the figure on a spreadsheet drops below a certain threshold. Why not open source the server software rather than abandon it?
Trolling is a art,
This is where I see a niche market. A company that provides multiplayer access for legacy games... stuff like older C&C games, NWN, and many other games that are still playable, but may not be worth it financially to keep the servers up.
Given the choice, I'd go with a paid subscription model because one is paying for the servers, not the game, so the multiplayer access is for all the games. One could also add stuff like the NWN/NWN2 vault for easy download of player-made content as well as FPS maps/scripts.
However, I don't know if a sub model is viable, so what might work is getting newer indy games to use it, perhaps adding a couple dollars to the price of the game in order for it to use the multiplayer functionality for a couple years.
Maybe this might be something for gog.com to make? GogNet anyone?
> If they programmed it correctly
As a server admin, if this is your standard for correct server side programming, I've never seen a correctly programmed application in my entire 30 year career.
In my experience, server application migrations rarely function flawlessly across OS versions. Most of the time, major application modifications need to be made.
I agree with you on the server code, however. If they're going to abandon it, they might as well open source it.
Except that they are shutting down because gamespy is shutting down. They made the games with gamespy based matchmaking, so they would either need to change the games to use a different matchmaking service or get the source for the servers from gamespy (lol yea right).
No they aren't stealing. They paid for the game upfront. There is no theft involved.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
...better than to buy or play and EA games. They were cool back when it was Larry Bird vs. Dr. J 1-on-1, or Pinball Construction Set. EA has sucked for so many years now, I'm baffled that any nerd or geek would ever give them money for a game. And that's WITHOUT getting in to all the labor offenses.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
The support I needed wasn't about the game really.
It was the problem many users had running the game once EA made ME a "phone home" game.
I think this was in ME 2?
I would start up the game, get to the login screen and it would show I was connected but would then throw a variety of errors...
I eventually figured out a sort of "dance in a circle backwards during a full moon on a Tuesday" workaround that some on the forums had suggested.
It was bullshit that I couldn't just play the game, that I paid for, because of their ridiculous "always on" krap.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
the only reason why MMO games DONT let players run their own servers is that they make no money from them. im sure blizzard wouldnt mind letting people have private servers as long as they still paid for the content and the subscription... but generally speaking, they are stealing.
You can't steal an intangible, you fucking idiot. I know that's not very diplomatic, but for fucks sakes, this is "News for Nerds", not the bloody short bus.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If they programmed it correctly, migration to a new server would involve "rsync *.tar.gz . && tar xfz *.tar.gz" or something similar. There is no reason that needs to be complicated, so maintenance time should be minimal.
Yeah, good luck finding *anything* that's that simple.
Even moving the simplest possible website (just static files, nothing dynamic) to a new host is more work than that. (You could move the content itself with rsync or tar (though not with the command lines you gave), but the new server needs to be configured, the web server still needs to be set up, etc.)
If your definition of "programmed correctly" is that migration to a new host is as simple as you think it is, let me give you a hint ... by that definition, almost nothing of any value is programmed correctly. And modern systems, with clustered setups with failover across multiple nodes, multiple databases, connections to billing systems and the like are several orders of magnitude more complicated than you seem to think they should be.
In any event, this is moot. It's Gamespy that's shutting down, not some server that EA runs that's currently sitting under somebody's desk. In order to fix this, EA would need to dig the source for their old games out of storage, make sure they can still build it (for a game that hasn't been touched in a decade by them, this is real concern), pay a programmer to replace the bits that Gamespy uses to use something else, build it, run it through some minimal testing and release it. All this for a game that may not have made EA any money in years, and it needs to be repeated for a large number of older games.
It's a business decision. To update every game ever made by them would cost a bunch, so EA is wisely deciding to only support the more recent games or the games with sufficient demand. We could argue that they're not using the ideal criteria in deciding what should be updated, but ultimately they do have to draw the line somewhere.
My guess is that Gamespy has had very little development done in a long time and mostly just sits in a room of servers somewhere mostly running on autopilot -- costing money in hosting and power costs. I'm not sure how it is about making money -- do game publishers pay to use it? Advertising? In any event, if it's costing money but not making money, they probably told the developers if they didn't pay up they'd shut it down, and the developers didn't pay up sufficiently, so ... shut it down.
So buying a game and not continually paying the company to be able to continue playing the game is stealing?
Imagine how much I'm stealing by not buying the game in the first place! Not as in pirating it but as in refusing to deal with a game where I need to pay for a subscription just for the "privilege" of playing the game I purchased.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
What a combination of naivete and FUD... the mind boggles!
First of all, the case law on this topic was in fact Blizzard v. BNetD, where Blizzard objected to people running their own servers despite the fact that there was no content or subscription associated with it. That pretty much blows your claim that "Blizzard wouldn't mind" out of the water. Second, it is entirely unreasonable, and perhaps even slanderous, to claim that "generally speaking" people must have committed copyright infringement based solely on the fact that they wanted to host their own multiplayer games!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've seen way too many internets-enabled things get orphaned and made inoperable when various service providers decide to end support. Some not even all that old.
They either need to guarantee some period of service (which will also call attention to the fact that support will one day be lost along with the ability to use whatever program or device), or allow users some alternative for when they do retire something.
I think it is unreasonable to demand that products be supported in perpetuity, but companies need to also understand it isn't right to orphan and render software or devices unusable. They need to open it up, remove DRM with a patch, or do whatever it takes to allow products people pay for to continue to be used. Or state very clearly (not in the fine print) that said device or software will likely cease to work past some date, but is guaranteed to work until that date.
There is precedence for this in DVD digital downloads. They clearly state the download is available until some time or other, and the buyer knows when that date is (if they read the package).
All of these complaint posts are ignorant. Several of the games there have no DLC (BF1942, BF2, MOHAA, etc). They also allow dedicated servers.
Would be nice if those most vocal about complaining about abuses would actually take the 3 seconds to see if an abuse is happening, but then this is the internet and ignorant outrage reigns supreme.
They bought EA games. Aren't there enough reasons not to buy EA already?
God spoke to me
They should be forced by law to release that source code. The only reason the public granted them copyright in the first place was so that the work could eventually become Public Domain. If they're going to lock it away instead, then they've violated the social contract and no longer deserve the privilege of holding a monopoly on it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
short bus
If anybody wants to throw money at purchasing shortbus.org and repointing it at Slashdot, I'm in.
Maybe this might be something for gog.com to make? GogNet anyone?
That's quite cool idea, actually.
Why would you need the source code?
I do not need some special "right" to host a game using my own equipment; that's absurd.
Besides, how is it theft? I doubt even our insane legal system considers it theft to host it yourself, but I wouldn't be all that surprised if I was wrong.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Seriously? There's still an active Doom community. People play games because they're fun, and they don't become less fun just because they're old.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Now that's just plainly overly generalized; "theft of services" is an entirely real thing and may not involve anything tangible; the most obvious business example is refusing to pay a consultant. In the case of private MMO servers, this isn't happening: the client, protocol, and server content are already paid for, after all, so what is done is definitely infringement, but there are definitely still kinds of intangible theft.
Theft of service is something tangible. What are you stealing? My electric service? You're stealing my tangible electricity (try not to kill yourself if you touch it). If you steal my internet services then you are stealing the physical capacity I have to transport bits across the internet. If you copy my data, I may not be happy with you, but I still have a copy of it. I'm not saying that it should be legal to do so, I am just saying that it's not really stolen. Some other law has been broken (for instance copyright violation or unauthorized computer access).
All that argument does is further prove that EULAs are unconscionable.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I oppose the very idea of "professional entertainment", be it musicians, athletes, actors or games programmers.
Let me get this straight: you oppose all forms of compensated entertainment? So you consume no music, no movies, no fictional books, no games of any kind (electronic or otherwise), view no works of art...nothing at all? Or do you consume these things but just presume that people should never be paid for providing them to you?
I'm not about to shill for the copyright-manipulating media conglomerates, but IMO your viewpoint is either hopelessly extreme or ridiculously hypocritical. If people choose to entertain someone else, that effort has intrinsic value. Now exactly what that value might be is debatable and purely subjective based upon the value it has to those consuming said entertainment, but it surely has value to those who consume it, otherwise they wouldn't. You pay for people to fix your food at restaurants, or to build your computer components, or any number of other trades that require someone with a particular skill to perform a particular service. Why should entertainment alone be considered a pro bono profession?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Computer game: published creative work.
Medical records: private papers.
They aren't the same thing. The only thing anyone views them as the same is the fact that a certain contingent of corporate lobbyists has convinced everyone into equating every worthless scrap of paper with something scribbled onto it as the equivalent of Dickens or Shakespeare.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It takes a special brand of twisted logic to conflate a PAYING CUSTOMER with a "freetard".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The Star Wars Battlefront (SWBF) games aren't affected in single-player mode or LAN play. Yes, the PS2 versions support LAN play.
You see how some are saying "this is why users should be able to run their own servers" comments?
Well that's how the SWBF games have always worked! You can host the game either by:
1 Using freely downloadable software provided by EA, on a PC to host game servers for PS2's (Dedicated PC)
2. Hosting a game on a PS2 in "Dedicated" mode (PS2 Dedicated)
3. Hosting and playing on a PS2.(PS2 Non-dedicated)
The problem is....while the game servers are hosted on PS2's and PC's...the matchmaking/server lists are handled by Gamespy, which is shutting those down, not EA.
Course the SWBF games are 9 and 10 years old so I think there's a little bit too much whining about this. The server for the PS3 version of Freerealms ()released in 2011) gets shut down and it's ho-hum from Slashdot. But the matchmaking/server list service for a 2004 multiplayer shooter gets shut down and it's the end of the world.
US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8:
(emphasis added)
Also, this article quotes and discusses correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that shows their reasoning behind the issue. Jefferson eloquently defined the essence of the Public Domain:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
BF2 64 man Karkand Infantry Only probably the best PVP game ever, and I doubt it will ever be topped on the sick trajectory PVP shooters are on.
Sad to see it go, though there is only one server left. Big E, and the Big E admins suck so it was effectively dead already anyway.
All of EA's lame COD knock offs since simply don't capture what makes multiplayer PVP intense and fun, nor does COD:
A. Teams need to be evenly balanced
B. Teams need to be in a confined space so there is immediate contact
C. Needs to be some tactics and strategy but not a lot, versus aimless COD styling circling, killing and being killed
C. Weapons need to be equal, simple, skill based. No air, no armor
D. No stupid gimmicks
E. No excessively dense, expensive graphics. Simple graphics is actually better and you aren't forced in to a constant hardware upgrade just to play games that are immensly fun even if the graphics are simple. Excessive graphics also drive up costs needlessly.
If EA had just kept fixing the bugs in BF2, spent more effort controlling hacks, did new maps occassionaly, did minimal refinements, someone like Twitch promoted a competition system around it, someone provided some professionally admin'ed servers to get away from clan based bias, it would've gone on forever like Starcraft.
@de_machina
I'm thinking they should be on the hook for supporting them for 95 years: the length of their copyright terms.
I make a concerted effort to:
- consume no music that wasn't published freely by it's creators
- amuse myself instead by jamming with my friends, or hanging out with my friends who are jamming and aspire to nothing more
- read books that are published free of any copyright, or are no longer governed by copyright, or are available at the library
- publish my writings free of any restriction
- build software only for hire, and only on platforms that are not restricted to those who pay for a license, never for those who would profit through copyright
- avoid playing video games
- avoid television and movies that were created for profit
- purchase used clothing from boutique stores, or have clothes made for me by someone I know
- avoid purchasing anything that I've seen an advertisement for
- eat only at owner-run restaurants where I can introduce myself to the owner and the cook and get to know them
- volunteer my time to creating abundance by involving myself in urban gardens, distributing parts for RepRap's, etc
- avoid working for companies whose profits come from advertising or copyright enforcement
- never loan money at it interest, but give it away to freely to those who need and deserve it if I can afford it
- give away my material possessions when I have no further need of them, rather than selling them
Have I held to these principles like a rock? No. I'm a human trying to get by in a culture whose values are diametrically opposed to my own, and it's proving very difficult to leave, though I am trying my best to get the hell out of North America. When every scrap of material and every square foot of land is someone's private property, you have to make compromises in order to survive. But these are my principles, and I do try to live by them.
At the end of the day, I am opposed to profit, and to private property. I consider both to be crimes against mankind. Which basically puts me in opposition to every signatory to the United Nations, because private property is one of their core shared values.
I've brought a lot of good to a lot of people with my deeds and my creations, and I am not a greedy person, so even though I've made some compromises that I'm ashamed of, I feel pretty good about it all at the end of the day. I'm not God's gift to mankind, but I know I am one of the men who carries other men on his shoulders.
The point of this isn't to toot my own horn. You wouldn't recognize me on the street, what would be the point. It's to assure you that, while you may or may not agree with my views, they are GENUINE. I have been described as inspiring by people who didn't think I was within earshot, and that's all the reward I need to carry on.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
You can't steal an intangible
Actually you can, your rights are not tangible but you can have them taken from you.
I think it is unreasonable to demand that products be supported in perpetuity, but companies need to also understand it isn't right to orphan and render software or devices unusable. They need to open it up, remove DRM with a patch, or do whatever it takes to allow products people pay for to continue to be used.
No, they don't need to do that. I certainly agree with you that it is preferable that they do that but the market has decided that they don't, until people start supporting companies that do it in place of companies that don't then those companies don't need to do anything.
That's the fundamental problem, you need to convince people that they should not buy from those companies but ultimately most people are fine to just upgrade when the hardware/software goes EOL. It's a similar issue with the whole DRM content thing where freedom advocates go after hardware/software/device makers when really that's attacking the problem at the middle, either convince content producers to change or convince users to change but trying to strip DRM at the distribution platform level will achieve nothing, content producers will move to different distribution platforms and people who want that content will follow.
But if the game is so DRM'd and requires an active service that goes belly-up so the game isn't even playable - why does everybody think the distributor gets to keep the money just because you "broke the seal" to find out you can't play the game?
Who do you think is suggesting that?
You're saying I can't demand a refund because I've already driven the car
No, I never said anything of the sort. Take a deep breath and try reading what is written and then taking some time to make sure you actually comprehend it. I don't know where you get the idea I was suggesting anything of the sort, I explicitly stated that you should take action against the merchant, which you somehow managed to not read or misinterpret so I even restated it for you that you take action against the merchant. I don't see how that can be so difficult for you to interpret.
you're FURTHER stating that I can't manufacture my own fuel for the car because that violates the manufacture's "intellectual property rights."
Yes I am stating that, because that is a fact. I'm not saying it's a great situation and I don't agree with it being right but it is a fact regardless of whether you like it or not. You disagreeing with it doesn't make it any less of a fact. Now for the third time - try to understand it this time - you should take action against the merchant for breaching the implied merchantability, if a country has such a law then it has methods for remediation and those are what you should turn to.
But it's nice to know you're paying attention ;)
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
So what you're saying is that people who create something should donate their time and creative abilities for free.
Would you be willing to go to work tomorrow and tell your boss that you'd like to give up your paycheck, because people ought to work for free? Then what right have you to say that authors should work for free?
(Yes, I realize I'm tilting at windmills here, because the bottom line is that you want to steal people's creativity and time, and instead of just owning up to it, you want to try and justify it through some pseudo-intellectual "information wants to be free" tired old cyberpunk crap, but hey, it's worth a shot).
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."