Official DICE servers disappear from Battlefield 3

By CentralDogma
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CentralDogma

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Console gamers are reporting that the official DICE servers for Battlefield 3 multiplayer have been completely withdrawn, with the game now largely playable only on private rented servers.

Publisher Electronic Arts and developer DICE recently made the bold move of introducing a server-rental scheme to console versions of Battlefield 3. At $30 for 30 days, these servers don?t come cheap, but this hasn?t stopped the Battlefield community from signing up in droves.

Initially there were plenty of official DICE and EA servers running concurrently with the new private servers. Over the past week, however, console players have noticed the official servers disappearing, to the point where DICE-managed servers are no longer visible on either PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

Running a search on the PS3 version of Battlefield 3 this morning ? by looking for the prefix P24 and the letters PRGM ? I managed to track down just 17 EA-run servers. I could not find a single official DICE server. Compare this to the hundreds of private servers that were up and running, with names such as ?Heaven & Hell,? ?Guerilla_hilbily?S SERVER? [sic], and ?Just 4 Fun 24/7? ? most of which were completely empty. Anything with the word DICE in the title was simply a rented server with the official name dropped in by the host.

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Grand Master

threetonesun

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Not surprising, the DICE servers were the ones most people played on. Now they get all their money from rentals.

I learned my lesson, last EA game I buy.

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Farchord

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Well to be fair, console gamers wanted to rent their own servers...

Can't please everyone XD

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Singh400

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How does this affect the PC version? I can't remember if BF3 offered dedicated server tools.

It doesn't. There weren't any official DICE/EA servers to begin with.
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S00N3R FR3AK

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Just making me happy I didn't cave in and buy BF3 for consoles. now I may not even buy it when i upgrade my PC. Can't believe I went from waiting on a real BF3 for a few years to pre-ordering a CoD game 2 days another announcement.

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DirtyLarry Veteran

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It doesn't. There weren't any official DICE/EA servers to begin with.

???? For awhile it was the only servers I played on, there were definitely official DICE/EA servers in the first few months of release.

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Paul Ferson Veteran

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It doesn't. There weren't any official DICE/EA servers to begin with.

I remember some servers on the Xbox 360 version of the game tagged as "-DICE- Soldier Skirmish" or something to that nature, and they had no server information so I assumed they were DICE's own servers. They also always had normal map rotation and ticket counts. Perhaps there were some for console but not for PC, or something?

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Singh400

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???? For awhile it was the only servers I played on, there were definitely official DICE/EA servers in the first few months of release.
I remember some servers on the Xbox 360 version of the game tagged as "-DICE- Soldier Skirmish" or something to that nature, and they had no server information so I assumed they were DICE's own servers. They also always had normal map rotation and ticket counts. Perhaps there were some for console but not for PC, or something?
You fellas need to pay more attention. I was replying to a question about official servers for the PC. They weren't any.

Only console gamers had official servers. But they shafted themselves royally with that now!

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Paul Ferson Veteran

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You fellas need to pay more attention. I was replying to a question about official servers for the PC. They weren't any.

Only console gamers had official servers. But they shafted themselves royally with that now!

Ah. Never registered with me at all. Whoops. I haven't played Battlefield 3 in a while now, but I might have to take a look. It really does seem they've done a bait and switch on the console community with that, if it's true.

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Singh400

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Ah. Never registered with me at all. Whoops. I haven't played Battlefield 3 in a while now, but I might have to take a look. It really does seem they've done a bait and switch on the console community with that, if it's true.
IIRC console gamers were moaning about the fact that PC gamers could rent their own servers. So EA/Dice seeing an opportunity to make more money (ontop on their online pass system) gave you guys rent-a-server options and took away the official ones.
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Paul Ferson Veteran

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IIRC console gamers were moaning about the fact that PC gamers could rent their own servers. So EA/Dice seeing an opportunity to make more money (ontop on their online pass system) gave you guys rent-a-server options and took away the official ones.

Fair point. To a degree we did ask for it. The console community really doesn't know what it wants sometimes! :p

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DirtyLarry Veteran

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You fellas need to pay more attention. I was replying to a question about official servers for the PC. They weren't any.

Only console gamers had official servers. But they shafted themselves royally with that now!

Actually I was paying attention, I only own the PC version of BF3, and my comment still stands, there were no doubt Official servers on the PC version. Had a few for NY, I remember one for Chicago as well. So yeah, as I said, maybe they stopped it awhile back, I have not played the game for months, but I am 110% sure they existed on the PC version initially.

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Singh400

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Actually I was paying attention, I only own the PC version of BF3, and my comment still stands, there were no doubt Official servers on the PC version. Had a few for NY, I remember one for Chicago as well. So yeah, as I said, maybe they stopped it awhile back, I have not played the game for months, but I am 110% sure they existed on the PC version initially.
Are you 100% certain it was an official server? And not a third party masquerading as an official server to get server traffic?

I've never seen one, and nor have any of my friends. AFAIK they only exist for console platforms, well did.

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DirtyLarry Veteran

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Are you 100% certain it was an official server? And not a third party masquerading as an official server to get server traffic?

I've never seen one, and nor have any of my friends. AFAIK they only exist for console platforms, well did.

Yep. Conquest Mode. PB Enabled. Ranked. Those are always the parameters I use, and no doubt there were official servers at launch that used those parameters. Not a whole lot of them, maybe like 10-15, and they were always hard to get into, but no doubt remember them. If Battlelog kept better track of server history I would be able to confirm it, but it seems to just stop for me a few months back, with no listing of servers I played on the first couple of months.

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