EA/Bioware servers are...

Just for reference, I have a 25/25 connection.

 

I'm sure their servers are getting hammered. Did you expect anything else?

 

I'm gonna be a BUT, EA can definitively afford proper servers. No excuses. It is their conscious decision to not give a crap. They could but don't want to. EA is simply abusing the fact that they know they can get away with it.

 

Points and laughs....


no origin games for me... not even the free copy of burnout that I have...

 

EA has always been like this, like downloading BF3 a week after it came out at a tenth of the speed that I normally I get. That's unacceptable, EA is just being cheap in that sense.

 

Until just last year, that was about a normal download speed for me

Although in all seriousness, with all the interest in SWTOR, I'm not surprised their servers' load is extremely high.

 

I'm guessing they don't do this because it's expensive, and they need to match their server capacity with a more normal load.

Find me an MMO that had great server performance on launch day.

 

Where's the sound business sense in spending millions of dollars enlarging their server bank and upping their bandwidth to allow you to get a faster download when bottlenecks like this only happen for something like 15 days a year?

Not that I want to skip an opportunity to take a leak on EA and Origin, but I would call this a sketchy opportunity at best. After all, Steam often gets slammed during holiday sales as well, it's just part of the business.

 

Agree.

The same stuff happened on Blizzard servers when it was patch day for classic to Bunring Crusade WoW.

Thankfully i preloaded my BF3 so i dident get hit on launch.

 

I don't understand how this is a "point and laugh" kind of thing? Congratulations to you for missing out on a bunch of good games?

 

Gaming servers are not under that heavy load anyway, at least not from a file transfer perspective, there are others out there with much heavier loads, and they many of them are smaller, and they can handle the load.
But yes, from a business point of view it makes sense. Same as ty customer service from steam, DRM regulations, SOPA and many more things... anyway, way too early to get upset about consumer raping - got a work day ahead and gotta go consumers myself

 

These are probably problems on your ends, fellers. I live halfway round the world from their servers and I managed a solid 2 Mb/ps downloading the entire game on launch day.

Server queues are a bit of an issue, especially if you want to play on -the- single "official unofficial" Oceanic server. Actual performance of the servers and the game itself, however, appear to be top-notch. No significant latency issues or serious bugs, and no crashes so far.

 

SOPA and DRM are in a totally different ballpark than steam's lengthy customer service and EA and other companies having inconsistent server performance during highest load. Totally different ballpark.

With one, you have companies trying to save money by matching infrastructure to expected normal-peak load (not release-day peak load). Similarly with steam customer service, their queue system saves them some money. It would be great to see these companies develop better compromises to these INHERENT issues.

On the other, you have COUNTERPRODUCTIVE regulatory action via government (SOPA) and private companies (DRM). These systems are implemented in the name of stopping piracy, and yet they fail to do so. At the same time, they end up harming legitimate users. This is obviously totally different.

 

The ballpark always depends on the lens you chose to look through. My point is simply that consumers are more and more willing to take a beating.
Small things from unsatisfying customer service to more important things such as DRM or even incredibly crucial things such as the SOPA.

Consumers chose ignorance ever more often these days, and that is the worrying aspect. Companies or the government on behalf of companies, then after all, SOPA only exists because of lobbying, are legally bound to generate maximum value - let's not get into shareholder value discussions though

Customer service, insufficient servers, DRM, SOPA, they are all means to generate more money for companies, which is absolutely legit from a company's point of view. Why consumers are not complaining more, that wonders me at this point.

 

my point is that DRM and SOPA are regulatory in nature and are also counterproductive. Even though corporations are greedy, these problems exist because of ignorance more than anything else. DRM doesn't increase game sales, and neither will stop piracy, but both damage the rights and usability of legitimate users.

Slow downloads on launch day exist because of inherent issues with software launches. It doesn't make sense to build the infrastructure for super-fast downloads for everyone on launch day when you only need a fraction of that every other day for the rest of time. It depends on the scale, but for a game like SWTOR, that infrastructure is expensive. It's the same as trying to walk into an Apple store on iPhone launch day. They aren't going to buy out all the adjacent stores for launch day. This is why companies have shifted towards preloading software pre-launch, so the launch can be relatively smooth, especially for people who preorder. This whole thing is a compromise for an inherent issue with the internet. It's actually quite reasonable. It has more to do with practicality than greed. Businesses are in the business of making money. That includes not wasting it.

No comment on poor steam customer service. I think they just aren't very good at it yet. I'm not sure they are saving much money by having poor customer service... I think it's just not set up too great.

 

Why? Servers are being overloaded with the masses of people running the game
Could this have been avoided? Yes, which is why I lost respect for EA.
How could this have been avoided? By them not being greedy and investing into better servers that could handle the crowed which was expected by everyone. Just a simple "If we can save some money here and get away with it, why not?"

 

The infrastructure cost is not a few bucks. The game was developed up until this point on a set, finite budget. They can either put that money into servers for launch day, or engine optimization, launch content, models and animation and effects... you choose

If they didn't offer a preload, then I will raise the ? flag. Otherwise, no foul in my book.

 

I agree with you. I am, again, just surprised that not more people complain.
Experience problems such as server load or connectivity issues has proven to be actually beneficial for communities. Blizzard has realized this. Server crashes and things like it build stronger communities. Not saying they do it on purpose, but they certainly understand all dimensions of it.

 

It kind of turned out to be just an issue for one of my computers, I ended up downloading at 2.3-2.5 MB/s on my MacBook Pro.

 

Please report back the Mbp performance. Thanks.

 

Playable with framerate drops at lowest settings with v-sync on and at native resolution.