Battlefield 4 Players Are Closing Their Servers To Protest Against DICE

By Chris Priestman . December 31, 2014 . 5:00pm

An organization formed of various Battlefield 4 clans and server hosts calling itself “WeAreBattlefield” is staging a protest against DICE on January 3rd 2015 at 12.00 UTC.

 

The protest takes form as a mass closure of servers which, it is hoped, will get the attention of Battlefield developer DICE.

 

The reasons why these players have come together to stage a protest are outlined in this forum post. A lot of problems seem to stem from DICE not communicating with server admins enough. But it also includes cheaters who can “destroy” servers, what are perceived to be wrongful in-game deaths, and the community being split up due to premium content.

 

See the following bullet points that are outlined as the main problems causing the protest:

 

  • Admins are unhappy about changes.
  • Admins use the CTE forums to communicate issues but are being ignored
  • Dices politic regarding ranked servers
  • Hidden patches and usually without warning
  • Patchnotes arriving too late
  • No consistency in running servers
  • Too many restrictions in server presets (e.g. idle timeout, max. vehicle spawn delay, etc.)
  • Not enough control about amounts of vehicles that spawn or classes/weapons to use
  • Splitting up the community with premium
  • Official preset not administered
  • No admin-only spectator
  • The fight against cheater (why does every client get all data?)

 

The organizers of WeAreBattlefield say that they don’t expect the protest to cause DICE to act on anything soon, although that is their desire. What they are hoping is for DICE to pay attention and to show that it cares about the community by listening to admins and working with them.

 

Anyone who wants to add their clan or server to the protest can do so in the WeAreBattlefield forums.


Read more stories about & on Siliconera.

  • JustThisOne

    Interesting… Whether or not any of these problems are fixed, they should at least be addressed. I hope the devs will at least provide them an appropriate explanation.

  • subsamuel01

    I doubt EA and Dice will do anything about this, their probably too Busy working on other projects to worry about a year old game. Shame though, seems like there’s a huge community who still plays the game.

    • Godmars

      Have to figure that if they’re stupid enough to ignore an action like this, the next thing to happen will be refusal to buy the next game.

      • Lalum

        Sneak preview of the boycott.

        • decus

          I’m pretty sure that image was taken after somebody figured out how to give it dedicated servers. People just use that image to support various unsubstantiated ideas.

          For reference, that group still has 255 members even today. Most people don’t leave groups after joining them, even if they were originally groups for now irrelevant issues.

      • Alex Shadov

        Sorry, but there is a big “maybe” there. You see, consumers are a rare breed of stupid-genius hominid. We know that we are wasting our money and trading our pride for a mere two or three days time (usually is just about 5 hours… top) of gaming experience, we know that it is sad and wrong… but we still do it. And probably we’ll do it again with the next game… companies know all that and they are not afraid to use it against us. Bottom line, companies are for money, not for costumers.

  • Schiller

    Miss the BF2 times. Too bad they closed down the servers. There wasn’t as much drama surrounding it. But at least some BF2 mods still work online.

    • Mar Mar

      BF1942 and BF2 are the only true Battlefield games. The two modern BF games, BF3 and BF4 just killed its identity.

      It’s time to say good bye to FPS or just play those good old FPS games without ADS and sprinting.

      • WeretigerRei

        What about bad company 2?

      • NeoMosko

        No love for 2142?

  • lolcatz6657

    LOL. Give it 15 minutes and they will open their servers again.

    • Linkmstr

      I’ll give it 1 minute. ;)

  • Adrian Duran

    another year, another chance for EA to earn the worst company of the year award

    • Kraken

      even if they deserve it i hope they dont. that jokes getting old

    • Histirea

      Sorry. It’s Ubisoft’s turn.

      • michel

        Well, let’s say that it will be an interesting match… XD

      • MrAptronym

        Can we just nominate the videogame industry as a whole?

        • zeroroute

          Most western devs, FTFY

          • MrAptronym

            Nope, I said what I meant.

    • Bryan

      EA runner up, Ubisoft first place.

  • Lastlight

    PC players be like

  • Why even make anything if you’re catering to asshat, entitled babies like these? I bet there are a lot of people at DICE who ask themselves that question every day now, and no amount of working on Star Wars Battlefront will bring their love of game-making back, because they know once that ships they’re just gonna have a whole new load of babies to answer to who are pissed that things aren’t working just like they want it to

    I mean, ffs, it’s a game. It’s a shooter. Play something else. Go hang out with people. If you take it this seriously – to the point of “staging a protest”, something that’s actually used by people for REAL issues in the world – than you’re living life wrong. The term, “First World Problems” was coined because of people like this.

    smh

    • AkuLord3

      Because standing up to mistreatment and such is being a baby…right. Who cares if its a game, its still a company not listening to its fanbase and not doing anything which will hurt them later. When things like this happen, people should sit with their thumbs up their butts and take it.

    • Blesmi

      Are you serious? Spoken like a true casual who doesn’t feel a true and burning love for a game. If you did you would understand why this kind of stuff is such a huge deal.

    • Bryan

      What you said is quite ignorant. Have you even read why they are doing this? They aren’t doing this for free DLC or money or anything like that. They are trying to keep the game enjoyable for everyone who plays fair and love the game.

  • idrawrobots

    I started off liking DICE so much.

  • This is pretty LULZ. Good luck but you’re better saving your time and energy and play it anyway.

    • Ferrick

      or not buy it to begin with, saves money as well :P

  • Raine

    When will they learn that if they’re not japanese, or nintendo, their games aren’t worth jack.

    • Shade DMessiah

      “Not Japanese, or Japanese, their games- etc”.

      • Raine

        It is the truth though.

        • Nix da

          Yeah.. right because the only Company that is doing well is BandaiNamco in my Eyes. Else Japanese Gaming is Medicore at best. The Golden Times are are long gone.

          • Pedro Furtado

            Those are dark times for Capcom and Level 5, poor guys aren’t even doing well in Nix da’s eyes, that is real failure right there, better close doors

        • Shade DMessiah

          I meant that Nintendo is also japanese. Just making a joke :p

    • HassanJamal

      What? There are plenty games that arent Japanese or Nintendo games that are indeed worth ‘jack’.

      • TrueJudgeXenos

        Let him be, he’s just a Nintendrone Weabuuz. He thinks everyone wants pokemen, zelduh and mariot. lol, the Almighty mario can’t save Wii Uんこ.

        • Raine

          Maybe I do want it to happen.

          All these recent games that came from triple a titles have left me with bad tastes in my mouth. Recently I’m enjoying Wii U exclusives more than any game released by the westerns.

          So, yeah. I do want everyone to want Mariot, Pokemen, and Zelduh. Because justice, I guess.

          • LDM

            Just ignore him. Anyone who spouts out insults like “Weeboo” and “Nintendrone” has no credibility in a debate. That’s just plain immaturity.

          • MrAptronym

            The debate here is “If you aren’t japanese or a nintendo exclusive, your game is bad.” there is no debate here, its just trolling for more fanboy rage.

      • NintendoPSXTheSecond

        To be fair, 2014 in terms of Western games were either mediocre or borderline crap.

      • Raine

        Yes, I do agree.

        But those “games” you’re talking about may or may not be from the same company that f*cks up today :|

        • HassanJamal

          Oh hell no, whilst there are a miniscule of good games from EA in terms of quality, theres just so much crap they’ve done that should be written down as the book of shitty gaming practices in the industry or something.

          Im more of talking of indies, some Sony and MS titles, the smaller 3rd party developers who make games outside the norm and maybe even Ubisoft.

          • Raine

            …I’ve been soul-searching here.

            And I realized that half my childhood has been with Naughty Dogs. So, yeah, wanna add Naughty Dogs, Telltale and Indies there.

          • HassanJamal

            Good on ya, Western all aint that bad, well except some big named obvious companies out there.

          • Bryan

            Ubisoft in my books is a developer I will never touch again. Terrible optimization for PC, bugs as bad as BF3 (thankfully not as long), making sure the lowest denominator in specs wins, cutting corners after presenting games at E3 to make it worse than what was presented. And of course Uplay…

      • LDM

        You’re correct that there is plenty of Western games that is worth playing and are actually great, but with the over-saturation of shooters in the market, many gamers (such as the poster above) believe that all Western games are just that genre. That is why a protest like this, will mostly fall on many deaf ears. I honestly don’t think the severs will be offline for too long.

        • HassanJamal

          Thankfully the rise of indies and more genres of games are coming back this gen compared to past gen. Seeing as CoD’s sales seem to be decreases with each year, I can only hope gamers are learning to open up their taste instead of just shooty mcbangbangs.

          • Raine

            That would be nice :)

    • Wow -_- im playing dragon age as i type this

  • Stephen Mc Devitt

    I worry what will become of Star Wars: Battlefront. Instead of the fun, strafing-shooter, it’ll be a glitchy FPS.

    • H_Floyd

      Yeah, SWBF was an excellent series. The switch to FPS is a major red flag (unless third person is an available mode). On top of that, we have to worry about stuff like this: fallout from a developer whose reputation is less than stellar.

      This happened with the ORIGINAL SWBF. Started with a really talented and competent developer (Free Radical Design), was scrapped and given to a mediocre developer, then ultimately refitted as a lame incomplete psp downgrade. And we know about SWBF2 being rushed.

      What is it with good SW games? Best Star Wars series for my money, right alongside Rogue Squadron. But both series are cursed, or something. The spectre of a poorly managed LucasArts continues to haunt the IP.

    • Eric Harris

      I think we all worry about SWBF. I haven’t played BF in ages in fact I’m going to buy the original for my xbox 360. The new one just won’t be anywhere near as awesome as the xbox ones.

  • E.T.993

    EA games:ruining everything.

  • icup ✔️

    i sold my copies of battlefield along with cods… fps is just getting dry.

    • crackerjack245

      Play metro games I.e metro redux and Metro last light redux .
      Makes all other shooters pedestrian really.

  • ndjn3979

    If only people took this kind of effort to make the world a better place

    • Bryan

      They are. Just a bunch more people that don’t care about the topics that are preventing it from being as well known.

  • scsinutz

    I have no idea why DICE has always been against more vehicles. That’s where BF has always let me down. Never enough vehicles, too sparse around flags.

Video game stories from other sites on the web. These links leave Siliconera.

Siliconera Tests
Siliconera Videos

Popular