Battlefield 3 Clubhouse

It's console footage again. Watch it for the scenery, not the game play...

By Lawrence Sonntag | 02 November 2011

If you’re one of the many players that have thrown your headset in frustration that Battlefield 3 absolutely refuses to put your party into a squad or keeps dropping you from matches, EA Games’ Executive Vice President Patrick Soderlund feels your pain.

“We understand how frustrating it is not to be able to play the game without interruption,” Soderlund said to Machinima.

Because of that, EA is considering some sort of gift to serve as apology for the game’s jittery performance.

“We are always looking at ways to generate customer satisfaction and we’re definitely considering a gift to thank players for their patience and dedication, but our #1 road to their happiness is to get everyone playing smoothly and ensure 100% stability,” Soderlund said. “We are gamers too and we understand that no gift will match the experience of getting in the game and playing with friends.”

Soderlund admits that the launch-day jitters for Battlefield 3 have been a bit rough, but it’s gotten better since, and they’re working hard to make it perfect for everyone, all the time.

“Though the first day of launch was somewhat volatile, we are happy to report that server support stabilized to roughly 98.9% through our launch weekend and has not dropped since. That said, we will not rest until we’re at 100% . We are committed to supporting the game as a software service, and listening to consumer feedback every day,” Soderlund said. “We are making daily updates and improvements to ensure an optimal online experience for all. Regardless of the cause or platform, our team at DICE and our Online teams are working together, standing by to identify the issues and addressing them as they arise. Every big multiplayer game experiences some instability at launch. The good news is, we’re listening, responding and improving the service every day.”

Unfortunately there’s no easy fix to the infrastructure problems experienced by the game. Personally, I’ve heard many gamers wonder why EA can’t just go out and buy more servers, or why they didn’t have a larger infrastructure ready to go on day one. Soderlund explains that there’s no silver bullet for those problems.

“There are a number of different factors impacting server connectivity. It isn’t just about buying more servers. Capacity isn’t the only factor. Server architecture, data centers, data transfer — it all makes for an extraordinarily complex system that becomes increasingly intricate as we grow from supporting 1M players to 3M players to 5M players and beyond. That is why we continue to invest in servers, infrastructure and people to support the game,” Soderlund said. “We are dedicated to constantly improving connectivity.”

Soderlund also addressed the swirling scorn that constantly surrounds EA’s fledgling Origin service. Just yesterday, in fact, a hack surfaced that removed Origin’s necessity in playing Battlefield 3.

“There is a lot of misinformation out there about Origin. Origin is not spyware, and does not use or install spyware on user’s machines. Consumer privacy is very important to DICE and EA, and we take every precaution to protect personal and anonymous user data. The policies supporting Origin are industry standard privacy protocols employed by many other popular web services, and there is absolutely nothing malicious in the software that should create concerns about privacy,” Soderlund said. “As players become increasingly familiar with the service and its benefits when playing games like Battlefield 3, we believe that Origin will be embraced and appreciated more and more by gamers worldwide.”

Ultimately Soderlund wants Battlefield 3 players to know that both EA and DICE are grateful for their support, and that they’re pledging lasting support for this game. This will come not only in terms of infrastructure and a better play experience, but new game content like the Back to Karkand DLC pack due out in December.

“In two words: thank you,” Soderlund said. “We are overwhelmed by the positive response we’ve received from gamers around the world. The DICE team has lived and breathed Battlefield 3 for the last few years and it’s an exciting time for us to finally share something we are so passionate about with millions of gamers. The best reward for us is the amazing feedback we’ve seen from our fans. They are helping us make the game better every single day.”

If you’re itching to leave feedback of your own, Soderlund provides a few tips for interacting with the team.

“There are a number of ways to reach us. They can submit questions via www.battlefield.com or http://www.facebook.com/battlefield. They can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/battlefield for the latest news,” Soderlund said. “Again, thank you for all your support. I hope to see you on the Battlefield.”

Tuesday, 15 November, 2011 at 18:00 PST | ^Scott^ | Print News
Two Battlefield 3 community events are coming up with the first one starting tomorrow at 11am PT. DICE is hosting a live chat with Battlefield Global Community Manager, Daniel Matros where we might even see some new footage of Back to Karkand.

This Wednesday, November 16 at 11am PT, we’ll be streaming live from DICE headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden as Daniel Matros chats about the groundbreaking FPS, Battlefield 3.

Have a question for Matros or the Battlefield 3 team? Submit your question below using Cover It Live, then stay tuned to see what Matros has to say. We’ll also be mixing a little bit of live play in with Wednesday’s Q&A session, giving you a glimpse of some luscious Frostbite 2-driven action and the upcoming Back to Karkand expansion.

Due to time limitations, Matros won’t be able to answer all questions that are asked. If the chat ends and your question still hasn’t been answered, try checking either the Battlefield 3 forums or the official Battlefield 3 web site.

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EA.com

The second event is a Battlefield community roundtable hosted by FragWorld, which will happen a week from today on Tuesday, November 22nd at 9:30pm ET. Last month's event had a pretty big turnout and Ian 'crash7800' Tornay and Daniel 'zh1nt0' Matros stopped by to talk last time.

What is that you may ask?
Well its basically a moderated Town Hall type event for Battlfield Communities (clans) hosted by us in our Teamspeak 3 Voice Server. We take suggested topics of discussion, which you can post here. We then discuss them as a group with each other and sometimes the developers participate themselves incognito or openly. We record all the meetings so even if you can't make it you can still listen. There are recordings of other events for other games on our site and itunes if you want to hear what they are like.

Who can attend?
The event is open to ALL english speaking Clan founders and officers, esports admins and fansite admins however so there is equal representation we ask that you limit the number of folks from your community to two.
Everyone is welcome on the stream and stream chat. We will try and take some questions from the stream at the end as well.

Tentative Agenda
-Meet and Greet (before meeting)
-Introductions
-How Was Launch?
-What needs to be fixed?
-Servers and Favorite Gametypes
-Back to Kirkland DLC
-Upcoming competitions (tourneys, leagues, ladders etc)
-Plugs from other fansites and other helpful resources

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More Info