Pandion Knights

Yesterday an article went up at VE3D stating that DICE has asked all GSP’s to turn off idle servers and it caused a bit of a stir in the community. While there is some truth to the article it also has a number of inaccuracies which we’ll explain here.

This was not asked of all GSP’s but only to one of our closest GSP’s, Multiplay.co.uk. We approached them with the idea of shutting down servers that have had no players in the server for 8 hours with the option of opting in or out for the server owners.

We did not make this decision lightly but as an attempt to temporarily lower traffic on EA servers that is caused by the game server browser while we work on a client fix for the browser here at DICE. After previously shutting down all EA Public servers which accounted for approximately 40,000 player slots we have actually gained approximately 50,000 more player slots from new rental servers. We currently have enough server capacity to allow over 150,000 players to get in a game server at once and that is just on PC.

As those who have servers at Multiplay will be aware you can opt out of your server being shut down during times of inactivity, however if you aren’t aware of how to do this and you would like to opt out of allowing your server to be shut down when idle you can do so through your account at ClanForge.

If you chose to opt in to allow your server to be shut down during times of inactivity you can start your server again at any time and as often as you like.

Other server hosts may offer a similar option on their servers. Please contact your server provider directly to see if they have any plans and if so how you can opt in or out.

This temporary solution will help reduce the server load until we can release a client fix to help reduce server browser load while keeping enough game server slots running for everyone to be able to get in game. Once our client update is complete, Multiplay will not use the idle server shut down setting and we will start up all of the EA Public servers again.

Source

EA are upgrading the hardware for the master server which started at 8:00am GMT this morning and will be the same 2moro morning.

Q+A:

Q. How Long is the server upgrade?
A. DICE_Bazajaytree: It wouldn't be a full 48 hours down, and likely would only take 3-4 hours.

Q. Will i get my M1?
A. DICE_Bazajaytree: I do not know, I couldn't use the gun either, I'll find out when I get it to work.

Q. When will the new public servers be allowed?
A. DICE_Bazajaytree: Next week at the earliest, still monitoring the hardware.

The Pandion Knights BC2 server has been up and running for the past few days now and has had every slot filled on average 16 hours every day with numbers dropping off during the late night hours.  PK players both old and new are advancing quickly through the game ranks and are showing the team spirit and tactical gameplay that we became reknowned for during the BF2 heyday. 

The BC2 server has been a huge success and we aim to start recruiting from the public players that frequent the server regularly.  A  recruitment message will be added and displayed on entry to the server in the near future.

During the next few weeks, we will be fine tuning the server settings to find a happy medium that appeals to all our players, be they hardcore or vanilla fans.  Paying member preferences will be taken above non-paying members for obivious reasons.  At present the server is set up in a hybrid mode with crosshairs and minimap set to off but without the extra damage that basically voids the medic and engineer classes, this is a problem that has arisen in the full hardcore mode that is known and acknowledged by Dice and is something which they are addressing. The admin team will be happy to hear any ideas that members may have regarding the server.

We also aim to run special Battlefield weekends from time to time as the server is bundled with all the previous BF games so dust off all the old BF games you have lying around, be it BF1942, BF Vietnam, BF2 and 2142 and join us every so often for a trip down memory lane. 

Its finally up.  The PK Battlefield Server details are as follows:

Multiplay.co.uk :: Pandion Knights | 85.236.102..67:21167

This is a fully public servers however there are some member priorities.

PK Members : PK Members have priority over public members for access to the server.  If a PK Member wishes to join a randome person will be removed at the end of the current match.

Paid PK Members : As above however the public member will be removed immediately.  Paid members can be seen in TS with their rank next to their name.