Gaming News

All the latest Xbox and gaming news. Only TA Newshounds can post in this forum.

EA Shutting Down More Servers

  • Posted on 27 July 11 at 17:24
    i need help with Madden 10
  • LAFTALAFTA568,008
    Posted on 27 July 11 at 19:58
    Beez 808 said:
    At $7.50 (600msp) per course, it kinda feels like money gouging.
    The EA effect.
    www.youtube.com/LAFTA
  • HoffmanHoffman159,481
    Posted on 27 July 11 at 20:24
    Tasty Pastry said:
    Just got my retirement savings plan...nice to have done
    Mind if I chip in and we split it the interest?
    Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?
  • Posted on 02 August 11 at 05:33, Edited on 02 August 11 at 06:02 by Mobius Evalon
    EA is well aware of the pandemonium of achievement grabbing that occurs on the games they decide to shut down, and they're also well aware that these same people will purchase the DLCs if they've been idling on it.

    I'm an example of this group -- I rented Army of Two forever ago (at least before February of 2009), got 12 achievements offline before I had XBL, then took it back. Then, I hear from a friend a month ago that EA is shutting down the servers, so I rent the game again, buy the $8 DLC, and go nuts on gaming sessions.

    That said, though, these yearly sports games are little more than highway robbery. I'm glad I can't stand watching or playing any sports because these en masse EA server closings rarely put me in danger of unobtainable achievements.

    It can't be too terribly hard to implement peer-to-peer connections in lieu of a dedicated server though, can it? I mean, you make it once, copy-paste the code for each game server you shutdown, and release a 5 MB title update following the dedicated server shutdown. You don't completely kill the online aspects and you avoid pissing everyone off.
    Potatoes are friggin' magical. Can you power an alarm clock with a carrot? No, sir.
  • Posted on 03 August 11 at 15:35
    Mobius Evalon said:
    EA is well aware of the pandemonium of achievement grabbing that occurs on the games they decide to shut down, and they're also well aware that these same people will purchase the DLCs if they've been idling on it.

    I'm an example of this group -- I rented Army of Two forever ago (at least before February of 2009), got 12 achievements offline before I had XBL, then took it back. Then, I hear from a friend a month ago that EA is shutting down the servers, so I rent the game again, buy the $8 DLC, and go nuts on gaming sessions.

    That said, though, these yearly sports games are little more than highway robbery. I'm glad I can't stand watching or playing any sports because these en masse EA server closings rarely put me in danger of unobtainable achievements.

    It can't be too terribly hard to implement peer-to-peer connections in lieu of a dedicated server though, can it? I mean, you make it once, copy-paste the code for each game server you shutdown, and release a 5 MB title update following the dedicated server shutdown. You don't completely kill the online aspects and you avoid pissing everyone off.
    im not buying the DLC for Army of Two
  • Posted on 04 August 11 at 20:20
    Oh my god, at least Activision keeps their servers up, fuck you EA. If you didn't make good games, I would hope Peter Moore and all of those assholes fucking dead.
  • tdcobra99tdcobra99256,086
    Posted on 08 August 11 at 16:19
    Does anyone know if the Army of Two servers are also used for co-op campaign? I think if they are offline it only affects the multiplayer competitive portion but a friend says otherwise.
  • Tasty PastryTasty Pastry498,526
    Posted on 10 August 11 at 07:19
    Are you asking if you can play co-op online? If so, yes.
    If you're asking if you'll still be able to play co-op online afterwards, I do not know.
  • tdcobra99tdcobra99256,086
    Posted on 10 August 11 at 10:09
    That was what I was asking. I think I answered my own question, though. Last night I started to setup a Live co-op game and immediately it wants to connect to EA servers...so yeah, it won't work afterwards.
  • Posted on 10 August 11 at 15:26
    What time exactly do they usually close?
  • DrSchlepensteinDrSchlepenstein1,053,892
    Posted on 10 August 11 at 20:35
    Probably at midnight tonight EST.
  • Posted on 10 August 11 at 21:09
    Unfcnbleevibl said:
    Probably at midnight tonight EST.
    I would think it's pacific time since they would only be at 9pm at that time
  • StarshadeFPSStarshadeFPS609,280
    Posted on 11 August 11 at 00:28
    Iceberg082002 said:
    Unfcnbleevibl said:
    Probably at midnight tonight EST.
    I would think it's pacific time since they would only be at 9pm at that time
    7 hours left to boost, where is all the sessions?
    youtube.com/itzstarsrpd
  • Removed Gamer

    Removed Gamer

    Posted on 11 August 11 at 01:11
    I will never understand the mindless banter that goes on with these posts and shut downs. Read the press release. The games online features are under 1% of their players. For example. 100 people are playing madden 11 online and one guy is sitting in a lobby in madden 10. So waste money for the one guy and maybe 10 on a Saturday. Or how about cut it, use that "saved" money to improve next years title or even keep alive the servers now. It's funny because so many people say fuck ea and they are just money grabbers. But gamers are the culprits. If you would play the games that you don't play. They wouldn't shut them down. If achievements weren't apart of a game. Why would most of you be angry? Hell with there closures you are actually finishing games because there's a time limit now. So you should be thanking them for getting these old games off your shelves.
    SHOTGUN!
  • Tasty PastryTasty Pastry498,526
    Posted on 11 August 11 at 01:24
    UGotta Check It said:
    I will never understand the mindless banter that goes on with these posts and shut downs. Read the press release. The games online features are under 1% of their players. For example. 100 people are playing madden 11 online and one guy is sitting in a lobby in madden 10. So waste money for the one guy and maybe 10 on a Saturday. Or how about cut it, use that "saved" money to improve next years title or even keep alive the servers now. It's funny because so many people say fuck ea and they are just money grabbers. But gamers are the culprits. If you would play the games that you don't play. They wouldn't shut them down. If achievements weren't apart of a game. Why would most of you be angry? Hell with there closures you are actually finishing games because there's a time limit now. So you should be thanking them for getting these old games off your shelves.
    What makes you believe that the money is used to improve next year's title?
    I see you think 1% is an acceptable amount of population to not justify the server anymore. Is 2%? 3%? When is it no longer acceptable for them to turn off the servers to "use that "saved" money to improve next years title"?
  • NeoSm0keNeoSm0ke240,670
    Posted on 11 August 11 at 04:47, Edited on 11 August 11 at 04:50 by NeoSm0ke
    great, today ... my account got banned for an unknown reason so far... (i have to contact Microsoft to find out what i've done wrong, in what way and if it can be restored)*

    sucks they shutdown the server of the game i wanted to complete again... there's not single chance that i can get the icon achievement in less than a couple hours of time... so there we go again, a game that never can be completed again...

    EA sucks bigtime!

    * For those interested: I was idle on my dashboard, texting a friend of mine over xbox live... all of a sudden i get disconnected, i reconnect... everything's fine. I txt my friend back, about 10 minutes later i get disconnected again... i reconnect again only this time to see myself get a warning that i'm banned... GREAT!
  • RhyoliticRhyolitic598,667
    Posted on 11 August 11 at 07:18, Edited on 11 August 11 at 07:21 by Rhyolitic
    UGotta Check It said:
    I will never understand the mindless banter that goes on with these posts and shut downs. Read the press release. The games online features are under 1% of their players. For example. 100 people are playing madden 11 online and one guy is sitting in a lobby in madden 10. So waste money for the one guy and maybe 10 on a Saturday. Or how about cut it, use that "saved" money to improve next years title or even keep alive the servers now. It's funny because so many people say fuck ea and they are just money grabbers. But gamers are the culprits. If you would play the games that you don't play. They wouldn't shut them down. If achievements weren't apart of a game. Why would most of you be angry? Hell with there closures you are actually finishing games because there's a time limit now. So you should be thanking them for getting these old games off your shelves.
    And yet, games like Rumble Roses XX and Halo Wars can still be matchmade just fine using Microsoft's servers. Funny how games with populations that are miniscule, yet aren't EA-based, can continue to operate just fine. And that is exactly what our XBL Gold fees are going towards...servers for matchmaking.

    The problem with using a "bottom 1%" metric is that it's always a moving target. There will ALWAYS be a bottom 1%, no matter how many servers and games are shutdown.

    Game companies can have it one of two ways...either cheap but they lose control of the servers or expensive but have complete control on shutdowns. You can't have it both ways. EA has apparently chosen the latter method. When you chose to go the control route, you lose the right to bitch about how much it's costing you when there is a perfectly valid and acceptable way of minimizing your outlay for costs, but you lose the ability to force obsolesence on the people who have purchased your product.

    It's the same thing as current production models for any number of products. If manufacturers can sell you a product that'll last for 20 years, their profits drop. So instead they sell you crap that'll break within a year just to force you to buy another to artificially inflate their profit margins. The trick is to make the items in question just difficult enough to repair that it costs as much, if not more, to fix the busted item than to buy a new one. For example, take rechargable drill batteries. We can get about a year (or less) out of them. But guess what? Buying a new battery is more expensive than buying a whole new drill set. But the catch? That "new" battery is incompatible with the old drill. Meaning that old drill, which could be perfectly usable, is now rendered useless.
  • DrSchlepensteinDrSchlepenstein1,053,892
    Posted on 11 August 11 at 11:42
    I don't hate EA, its there games and there servers they can shut them down if they want to. And in all honesty the majority of EA games that have multiplayer are all Sports Titles anyway, there are a few non-sports multiplayer games, but not many. And EA is known for releasing a new version of its sports game every year. And by shutting down the servers to their old titles it forces you to buy the new version if you want to keep playing with people online.

    EA has made some good games and thankfully they are Singe Player. But other than EA, who else ever shuts down the servers for their games? The only other company I can think of is Sega and I think the last one they shut down was Chromehounds over a year ago. (I'm not entirely sure if that was the last one they closed, but it was the last one I was playing that has been closed). But i'm just glad that a lot of other companies don't follow EA's business model with server shutdowns when a new version of a game comes out. I mean there are a lot of games out there where the online is pretty dead except for a small amount of hardcore gamers (and boosters), but yet their servers are still online.

    So another EA sports title is shutting down, unless it has online achievements, does anyone really care? I think more people would be pissed off if games like Gears of War or Halo would start shutting down servers when a new version releases. Could you imagine if Gears 1 and 2 closed when 3 comes out? Or if Halo 3 and Halo Wars closed when Reach released?
  • StarshadeFPSStarshadeFPS609,280
    Posted on 11 August 11 at 12:48
    Army of Two (EU) server is down now.
    youtube.com/itzstarsrpd
  • Posted on 11 August 11 at 16:08
    lets not forget that as the other guy said there will always be a 1% especially when they flood the systems with games. eventually that 1% will be like 1,000,000 people and they will still shut down that server
Want to join in the discussion? Please log in or Register For Free to comment.