[m2s] Gaming Clan

Hi all! This is Karl Magnus Troedsson with an update on the Battlefield 3 launch. It has been an amazing first week for all of us at DICE. It’s incredibly exciting to ship Battlefield 3 globally, and to hear the feedback from our fans.

This has been our largest launch to date! Thank you all for turning out in record numbers at midnight launches across the globe. It’s great to know you’re all as excited to play Battlefield 3 as we are. Even so, the overwhelming response has been as humbling as it is appreciated. Battlefield 3 is the fastest selling game in EA’s history, but is not without its ups and downs.

You make the game come alive
Everyone at DICE has put their heart and soul into Battlefield 3. We take an incredible amount of pride in what we’ve built. Many of us were Battlefield players even before we became developers on Battlefield 3. So we take great pride in the positive feedback and revel in the Battlefield moments captured by the community. Here is just one of the thousands of awesome fan videos that are popping up everywhere, showing us what Battlefield is all about:
Mid-air helicopter pick-up

Key issues and how we are fixing them
Despite the fact that millions of people are online playing Battlefield 3, some of you are experiencing issues. The DICE team, as well as the many EA groups that support this historic launch, have all been working around the clock. We’ve deployed a number of server-side updates in our first week that have solved a number of the primary connectivity challenges, and have accelerated our rollout of the number of Hardcore servers. Below is an update on five key issues for us and how we are addressing them.

     * Quick Match functionality
While Quick Match has been working well for PC and PS3 players, the Xbox 360 Quick Match function has not been working properly for all players. This is due to a variety of issues, and we’ve rolled out a number of fixes. The latest one is deploying as I write this, and we are hoping this will fix the issue shortly. Please continue to give us your valuable feedback. See links below for sending us your feedback.

     * Joining squads and staying there
At the heart of Battlefield 3 is the ability to play in squads. So that fact that this feature is not yet working flawlessly has top priority. Without going into too much detail, we can say this is related to the Quick Match functionality. Until we have it working properly, please check out the tutorial on how to join as a squad using the Server Browser. Please continue to provide feedback so that we can continually improve this feature.

     * Origin authentication
We know some of you have encountered authentication and other related issues to our new Origin platform. While the authentication issues have been fixed, we have increased our customer support services exponentially to ensure a smooth experience going forward. See below for the best way to contact customer service.

     * Dealing with cheaters
If you’re like me, you take a lot of pride in your stats. So when people abuse the system it can ruin the fun. Although cheating is a fact of life for many great games, we take great efforts to ensure Battlefield remains cheat free. We have updated Punkbuster and will continue to roll out anti cheat fixes. Again, please leave feedback via the link below.

     * Server maintenance
A big part of what makes Battlefield great is our dedicated server structure. We’ve spent a lot of time and effort developing this service. Despite having some of the best engineers in game development, unpredictable problems occur. This requires server maintenance from time to time, some of it unplanned, and may result in you losing connection to a game you have in progress. These issues occur more frequently during the early stage of the game launch. But the outages have been limited and very short. The Battlefield 3 service is on track to be our best ever. Thank you for your patience and feedback.

We have dedicated support staff for you
We wouldn’t be here without the support and passion provided by all of our fans. Thank you again for turning up in record numbers, for being honest with your feedback, and supportive of our efforts to deliver a multiplayer experience that we can enjoy together for years to come. We’re very excited to show you what’s around the corner and truly appreciate your being on this journey with us.

Go here to get in touch with our support staff. Or, if you are already logged into Battlelog, click the support tab on the left hand side of the screen. You can also reach support by clicking the question mark in the top right corner of the Origin application itself.

See you on the battlefield!

Karl Magnus Troedsson

General Manager, DICE