Battlefield 4

[Yskonyn]

What fix of rented servers do you mean? If you mean the fix is to get rid of them, then no, it will not be fixed. ;)

SoM, thanks for trying the clients. Must be something caused by my X-Fi soundcard then. My sounds are truely pronounced and full in the 32bit client...

[Grimnirsson]

What fix of rentes servers do you mean?

Ys,

she means whether the quick match button will lead you to official DICE servers with default rules, or not. In BF3 DICE rented all available servers so hitting "quick match" sent you straight away into all kinds of nonsense matches (no shotguns, no RPG, vehicles only for the admin, kicked when better player than the admin or his friends etc.). Having rented servers in the game is not the problem, having no quick way to join a game with default rules is however...

[Hiimori]

Exactly, as Grimnirsson said: people may rent as many servers as they like, but is became annoying on XBox live when they rented away almost all servers and you had to do 10+ minutes research and to scroll down endless server lists before you found one of the few official servers and could start a game.

There were a few good rented servers, but most were hosted by idiots who banned you when you were too good, who constantly switched sides or who set ridiculous rules like "pistols only 5000 tickets conquest Metro" or something like that.

In the end, we spent more time searching for an OK server (the official ones were so hidden that they were almost always emtpy), and when you hit the "quick match" button, it was like playing Russian roulette... and I don't like to play a match with so many tickets that completing it would take 1 hour, only to be kicked five minutes before game end because I dared to used a "prohibited" weapon.

My only concern for BF4 is: will I be able to get into a "normal" game when I hit "quick search" or will I be randomly dropped into bizarre and completely unentertaining freak servers? I want to spend my valuable leisure time playing the game, not searching for one.  8)

[Yskonyn]

Ah I see. I got a bad form of bias there because of the continued discussion about rented vs private servers (not only here). I am sorry. :)

The issue you describe is actually annoying and is a problem on the PC version as well. The way I circumvent this involves some research, but once you have several servers that are fun to you I just flag them as favorite server.
Still, quick join does not take favorites into account, but joining a server from your fav list is as quick as joining a quick game.

I have no idea wether this is also possible on the consoles?

Hah, the idiot banning on some servers is very familiar! :) There is so much anxiety about cheaters among the BF community, that oftentimes if you are just playing well people start calling you a cheater.
I think with the reporting tool since BF3, staying away from Russian servers and Punkbuster cheating has become much less of a problem.
The community now has tools to report and I find people actively using those.
Of course, when you are being falsely accused of being a cheater you will probably also get reported as every idiot can press that button.
Our Squad never had any issues though, so either DICE does nothing with reports or they look at each case quite well.
Point is I find the general opinion about the BF community being full of cheaters far overstated.

[undercovergeek]

I'm almost positive there is a 'official servers only' tick box on the ps3

[Hiimori]

I'm almost positive there is a 'official servers only' tick box on the ps3

That would be entirely sufficient  :) I always wished I had such a simple tick box in BF3, it would have solved all my problems...

@Yskonyn, yes, the fav list was also available on the BF3 XBox version.

[JudgeDredd]

A word of warning.

I don't know how "big" this is, but my friend (IT Manager at my work) had his Origin account hacked by someone in Russia apparently and it turns out not only has he played the entire campaign, but he's made quite a few levels. Seems someone has been playing under his account details.

He had the text option set for if logging into the account from a different source...but didn't receive anything. He says Origin was hacked and it was kept quiet.

I don't know how true that bit is or how he came about the info - what I do know is when he let me know, I went to login to my Origin account and it was saying my username/password was invalid. I KNOW for a fact I was typing the correct details in but it wouldn't let me log in. I had to opt to change the password and I got an email and followed it to reset the password. I'm not saying my account was hacked, but I do think it's possible because of the hack that Origin may have reset passwords. I don't know how "global" it is or whether it's regional...no idea.

Just a warning.

[RooksBailey]

This is what I feared:

Battlefield 4 dogged by major launch issues: connection errors, glitches, dodgy netcode

Where to start? That must be the big question facing DICE right now as they try and wrangle Battlefield 4 into a stable state. Players have been reporting disconnection errors, freezes, crashes and a smattering of bugs. DICE have tabled a list of fixes they're working on on the Battlefield 4 forums, which includes a bug that stops server queues from working and various client instability problems.

Glad I waited.

[Grimnirsson]

All Battlefield games I played (all on console) had serious problems for quite some time before everything went smoothly so I'm not surprised. I think when I get the PS4 and the game in 2014 everything will work ;)

[son_of_montfort]

This is what I feared:

Battlefield 4 dogged by major launch issues: connection errors, glitches, dodgy netcode

Where to start? That must be the big question facing DICE right now as they try and wrangle Battlefield 4 into a stable state. Players have been reporting disconnection errors, freezes, crashes and a smattering of bugs. DICE have tabled a list of fixes they're working on on the Battlefield 4 forums, which includes a bug that stops server queues from working and various client instability problems.

Glad I waited.

Just to note, I have only had a few connection issues and never gotten dropped from an active game. My only minor annoyance is that the loading times are very long and it seems like you have to wait as the game downloads a lot of data from the servers before you can play. I was actually impressed at how smooth my experience was, so YMMV.

[Yskonyn]

Loading times are long indeed, especially the first time the game is started for the day. What seriously helps here is an SSD.
My squadmates are running around on the map for about a minute / minute and a half before I can with my regular HDD.

[JudgeDredd]

There was this article about the hack

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/11/14/ea-origin-accounts-hacked-time-change-your-passwords/

[son_of_montfort]

There was this article about the hack

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/11/14/ea-origin-accounts-hacked-time-change-your-passwords/

JD, I remember that hack last year. They sent us a big email and then forced all users to change passwords. So needing a new password does not indicates you were personally hacked. But scammers and phishing schemes are still fairly prevalent for all these major retailers.

[JudgeDredd]

There was this article about the hack

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/11/14/ea-origin-accounts-hacked-time-change-your-passwords/

JD, I remember that hack last year. They sent us a big email and then forced all users to change passwords. So needing a new password does not indicates you were personally hacked. But scammers and phishing schemes are still fairly prevalent for all these major retailers.

MY account wasn't hacked - but my password had been reset - and I suspect by Origin/EA as a precaution.

But my pals account has been hacked. Be aware.

[Hiimori]

My account appears to be ok and my password has not been reset so far  ???