Battlefield 3, Back to Karkand and Origin

[neonordnance]

Hi all,

Just wanted to let the internets know that EA has dropped the ball yet again on a high-profile PC release. Back to Karkand, the rather awesome-looking BF3 expansion, was slated to come out today. Unfortunately, Origin appears to be completely locking a huge portion of the playerbase out (including me). The issue stems on people getting a "wrong password" error, even when typing the correct password, and trying to go to the "forgot your password" box gives a server error.

According to the BF3 forums, the whole system is rumored to be down, and in one post a player complained about being locked out for seven hours (!). I've personally been trying to log in for the past hour and a half or so, with no luck.

This is really a shame, considering how good BF3 is, and how much nostalgia I have for the old BF2 maps that are in Back to Karkand.

So what does the RPS crowd think?

[BwenGun]

I was able to play this morning and early afternoon, been locked out since. That said, what little I have played has been very good. I particularly like Karkand, feels like they've done a very good job on recreating the old map and reconciling it with the new engine. If anything actually the map works better than it did, as the destructible terrain makes holding the US at the Hotel Flag rather difficult, leading to a much more fluid and interesting game.

[Kadayi]

Patience is a virtue?

[Estel]

It reports incorrect password incorrectly.

Origin having been down for 6+ hours is pretty awful though (and frustrating).

[Megagun]

Yep, Origin is currently down.

Origin is down. Why do we have to be kicked out of our games when battlelog or Origin goes down?
"We're aware of the issues accessing Origin. We’re investigating the cause, and will provide updates ASAP. Thanks for your patience."
I can login to Battlelog, but not Origin?
"Game disconnected: you are missing content from the game" I bought a pre-order from a store.
"We're also aware some users are experiencing issues launching Back to Karkand. We’re investigating this and hope to have it resolved ASAP."

So, yes, Origin is down, they're working on it. Your password is actually not wrong, it's a bug (I get it too).

I played a few rounds on some of the new maps a few hours ago, and it seems that Origin went down about three hours ago.

[Kadayi]

Time for a class action lawsuit surely.

[neonordnance]

Yeah, it's pretty poor. Imagine going to the store, picking up a brand new game, taking it back home, installing it, and being told you're not allowed to play it indefinitely. That's just bad business.

It's not that I'm super impatient, I would just like to play the game that I paid good money for. And failing that, I would like an ETA, or at least a response from EA, both of which have been lacking.

Finally, I know it's been said a million times, but this wouldn't happen on Steam.

[Megagun]

It's not that I'm super impatient, I would just like to play the game that I paid good money for. And failing that, I would like an ETA, or at least a response from EA, both of which have been lacking.

There was an official statement on Battlelog earlier in that top bar (actually, there still is: "We are performing maintenance on the game in general at the moment. We will keep you updated on the progress.")

Finally, I know it's been said a million times, but this wouldn't happen on Steam.

Oh, please. This happens every time Steam has a major release, too. Back in the day of Half-life 2's release, many people couldn't play the game for a few days until the Steam servers settled down. That said, there are enough "Steam versus Origin" threads on these forums, so let's not dwell on that, eh? :)

[neonordnance]

I agree it's been debated to death, but might I point out that we are no longer "back in the day of Half-Life 2's release?" 5 years later, gamers expect more.

EDIT: You're right about the official statements though, both BF3 and Origin twitter accounts have posted that they are "working on the issue:"

http://twitter.com/#!/origin_EA

[db1331]

I wonder if it has anything to do with all those SWTOR activations on Origin today as well. Seems like they should have probably spaced these two things out just a little bit.

[Megagun]

Hey, you're right, but shit happens when you're releasing heavily anticipated software that makes use of an activation server. It's a problem that many digital distributors have, and one that can perhaps only be solved by throwing more (virtual) hardware at it, unless there's a fault somewhere with the core servers/services that has to be patched for things to run smoothly again.

Worst-case scenario is one where your virtual hosting provider (Amazon, Google, ...) also fails whilst you're seeing a peak, at which point you can't really do anything other than hope for the best and try to deal with things in an appropriate manner.

[TixyLixx]

Been locked out for 6 hours :( Even more proof why DICE need to ditch EA.

[TixyLixx]

There was an official statement on Battlelog earlier in that top bar (actually, there still is: "We are performing maintenance on the game in general at the moment. We will keep you updated on the progress.")


Oh, please. This happens every time Steam has a major release, too. Back in the day of Half-life 2's release, many people couldn't play the game for a few days until the Steam servers settled down. That said, there are enough "Steam versus Origin" threads on these forums, so let's not dwell on that, eh? :)

Bit of a difference.

That was 7 years ago and Steam was a Pioneer.

Why pick a lacklustre service when something better is out?

[Kaira-]

Finally, I know it's been said a million times, but this wouldn't happen on Steam.

Hahahaha. Haha. Ha. Ha- you serious?

[neonordnance]

Yup, dead serious. Steam has had some rocky launches but I can't remember Steam eaver having a launch as rocky as BF3. When it first came out, it barely worked, and there are numerous threads about Origin errors on launch.

When I bought it on Black Friday, I had to fiddle with the game for 8 hours after buying it just to play the darn thing, just because Origin wouldn't install it correctly. Then, after it finally worked, I had to to deal with Origin occasionally crashing and/or booting me out of games. Then on top of it all, after they've had a month to clean up their act, this crap happens again with the first expansion pack.

The UI is ok, but doesn't work as well as Steam. The overlay is broken and crashes the game often. The one nice thing I can say is that the download speeds are quite fast, but Steam has fast speeds too. Oh, and the other nice thing I can say is that it's not Games for Windows Live.

Other than that, screw Origin.

[Nalano]

I've had about a one in three success rate at getting in a game, but I can say that the maps are good.

However, all the servers are grossly under-populated and the Origin forums are filled with angry, angry people.

[jp0249107]

To those who said that this wouldn't happen on Steam. I distinctly remember hating Steam with a passion because it wouldn't work on my computer half the time and the other half was eating up my bandwidth with updates every day.
More recently however, I was locked out of Killing Floor this weekend (and heard some other Steam server games were locked up too) because of Steam. This isn't something that is isolated to just Origin.

[Megagun]

That was 7 years ago and Steam was a Pioneer.

My apologies for my poor choice of wording. The example of HL2 was an overly hyperbolous example of why this has definitively occured in the past, and I was using the most prominent example around to put weight to my point, which I shouldn't have done due to the time that has passed since the incident. I was actually referring to recent problems with Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 (and IIRC Alien Swarm). Both of these games had issues for me at launch, at least one of which was due to download-related issues which were only solved by changing my download location to Ukraine and accepting the 100KB/s download speeds. I think I couldn't play some of my games either back when Valve did the ARG that required people to play games, but that could've been related to generic Left 4 Dead 2 lobby failures rather than Steam being down/annoying. My memory of some of these incidents is vague, so take 'em with the usual grain of salt. :)

However, all the servers are grossly under-populated and the Origin forums are filled with angry, angry people.

Good. Playing on a 64-man server earlier proved to be quite the clusterfuck! :P

[Nalano]

Good. Playing on a 64-man server earlier proved to be quite the clusterfuck! :P

There are 32-player servers, y'know!

[PeteC]

I was able to play for a couple of hours earlier but Origin went down mid game and haven't managed to get back in since. Pretty annoying as I was enjoying the new maps a lot and actually had all night free for gaming which doesn't happen often.