Hey everyone. This is a very important and essential message/thread that will help me as a community organizer and server owner shape the future of our Battlefield 3 activities.  
I really hope that you read and reply if you own the game on PC because this will help me immensely.
 
It's been four months since I've migrated the community from BC2 to BF3, hundreds of you enlisted and we rented our very own Giant Bomb 64-slot Battlefield 3 server. 
During these months we've reached 390 Giant Bomb members in the Steam group and the ID list on the main thread, occupy four Battlelog platoons, and to this day, four months after release, we still have good numbers of us playing together, tens of us enjoying the chats and the gameplay banter on our Mumble voice server, and we occasionally reach full capacity on the server. 

My aim here is to make sure each and every one of you, who want to join our games and have a good time and a good chat, to be able to do so and for this to be a habit rather than a rarity that only happens when I invite people personally.  

Let's establish a healthy, dedicated and mature Battlefield community here, folks. 

• BF3 thread with server info, voice server info and ID list - Stickied on the BF3 forums.
• PC Hub thread with gamenight schedules for a variety of games and the info to our mIRC chatroom.

I must also stress that the Battlelog/Origin/Platoon systems are way too simple compared to the sophisticated gaming communication Steam provides. The steam group is essential for being in the loop.

I check the server everyday and no one is on, even during the bombing runs. No one! *Shakes Ahmad* I can't shoot myself, can I? Can I?!

Hm...no, that wouldn't help bring my K/D up. Whenever I'm not busy I'll swing by and see if anyone's playing.

I check the server everyday and no one is on, even during the bombing runs. No one! *Shakes Ahmad* I can't shoot myself, can I? Can I?!

Hm...no, that wouldn't help bring my K/D up. Whenever I'm not busy I'll swing by and see if anyone's playing.

Okay, okay. Don't get mad, I'll check those things out when I get some time. *cowers*

This is very curious to me. In my past Battlefield 2 clans which didn't have more than 100-200 members, it was very easy for us to jump on and play on our own servers, pushing the server halfway up the server browser and letting the randoms/regulars do the rest.  
Why is it not the case with this game? 

As I said, during bombing runs, bump this kind of thread so people see!

Honestly giantbomb duders, come along :) it's always a ton of fun.

It's probably because everyone's playing the far superior Katawa Shoujo.

Either that or they're like me and haven't seen BF3 at a low enough price to bite.

It's really hard to play with one hand.

*I mean, everybody (those 200 people who have stopped playing.) is looking at porn. So it's hard to play with one hand.

I don't, but this is neat! Good luck with it.

@AhmadMetallic said:

This is very curious to me. In my past Battlefield 2 clans which didn't have more than 100-200 members, it was very easy for us to jump on and play on our own servers, pushing the server halfway up the server browser and letting the randoms/regulars do the rest.  
Why is it not the case with this game? 

Your clan was formed mostly because of their mutual BF2 connection. GB group. Well most of us are not dedicated BF3 players. Just dudes in GB who wanted to play it. Many of us play other games too, a lot of them. And are mostly there because of the GB connection not their BF3 connection.It's a very simple reason.

THIS is why you should all play.

These are the sort of things y'all are missing out on.

Edit: Goddamnit Alex, I told you I'd post it!

@AlexW00d: COME ON ALEX, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. As we've learned throughout human history, communication is key in any relationship. I hope you don't have to learn this the hard way with Miss Hyland.

I am on Xbox.

Every time I check it's empty, and I don't really want to sit with one or two other players waiting for people. You keep telling me I should, but why? If it's going to take an hour to get a game going when I could just go join any other random server, really what's the reasoning?

Please don't take this as criticism or whatever, cos I really want to play with you guys it's just that I've never seen any of you play.

It's the only server on my favourites and I've never seen more than 4 people, albeit I've never tried joining any organised event.

I would play exclusively on that server, 'cept nobody else does. I live in the UK, and it's empty all day UK time and all day US time, so I'm not even sure if anyone ever joins, so I don't know what a good time to check is.

Also, I am fucking shocking at the PC version of BF3, somewhat due to my graphics card.

EDIT: It's empty right now. 2 people. I would have expected this thread to kick something off...

I got a shout out!

Every time I check it's empty, and I don't really want to sit with one or two other players waiting for people. You keep telling me I should, but why? If it's going to take an hour to get a game going when I could just go join any other random server, really what's the reasoning?

EDIT: It's empty right now. 2 people. I would have expected this thread to kick something off...

Alright then. I don't even fucking play the PC version and i want this to happen, so i'm throwing my support in.

Downloading mumble right now and i'll even dust off my shitty mic headset.

Sucks wearing 2 headsets just for chat :(

I dislike that one of the scheduled bombing runs lands on a Tuesday.It's an odd time for me, can't make myself available. I'd join the mumble, but I lost my headset a long time ago. I should think about buying a new one.

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/theJOURN3Y/

This is my profile! Add me as a friend if you see no one playing in the server or want someone to play with. My life is to entertain you. Someone is always ready to play. I joined this group because i love GB and this group of people that plays all the time is the sweetest, dumbest, most offensive group of people (and swedes) and Battlefield is one of my favorite games ever. Thanks for the shout out Metallic :3

Are you the only one who can send out the gb notifications over steam? I just don't play battlefield 3 because I just don't feel there is no reason for me to play. It's like when I finished the main quest of skyrim and then tried to do the side quests I had lined up. I knew once they were finished my fun was over =( you can only go in and teabag some noobs so many times, yada ya. Battlefield 3 needs a real fucking intervention to bring me back to arms. I am available as a sit in alienware summer tournament series player for my clan and that's the jist of my battlefield 3 playing at the moment. My favorite aspect of the game was flying air vehicles and they somehow managed to make that something I hate and I've become an infantry only player and that can only entertain one for so long. When they patch the game I'll see if the thing has improved but their server rollouts fucked both of my clans servers, crashes, etc, etc. Now we cancelled both of our dead servers (used to be 100 in the world, to 43294032490284932092th) Just depressing man. =(

i used to play on the UK server and attend as many bombing runs as i could. the ping is to high for me on the US server ( 300ms+) basically its a spawn and die scenario. then B2K patch/expansion came out and i started getting the loading/saving error loop, so whenever i play and the server changes maps i have to reload the game from battlelog, it gets annoying every time the server changes maps, so i have to quit my game then go into battlelog and join the server again and wait for it to load up the level.

i haven't played BF3 in months just because of this issue . i tried whatever i could but to no avail , so until Dice does something about it I'm out.

and trust me i miss playing :(

@AhmadMetallic: Title of thread should have mentioned that this is PC-specific.

i keep the giant bomb server in my favorites, but i only play hardcore so i have never really joined the server before.

Well, I don't own Battlefield 3... but my brother and I thought of picking it up once the price drops a little bit, and this looks like a lot of fun so... Who knows, once I have finished ME3... ;')

@AhmadMetallic: I'm new to the PC version of BF3, so I am eager to play as often as time will allow me. That said, when I do find the time to play, I will use mIRC and Mumble to try and get a game together if the server is empty.

I really like playing with fellow GiantBombers, they're just not jerks like the randoms you tend to find online. I actually got to play a few hours this week on Tuesday and Wednesday night on the GB server. It was a good time.

Edit: Anyone feel free to add me to their friends list. I am Grimey1982.

I want to tell anyone that's on the fence about BF3 to give it a try as Origin has it for 50% off until the end of the week.

Yeah, I kicked in a big chunk of money for the servers from the beginning and had a blast for the first couple of weeks. Then Skyrim came out and it was an immediate drop in server population (literally, it went from almost always full to always empty overnight on the Skyrim's launch). I kept dropping in as much as I could, but both the server and mumble are completely dead every time I try to swing by. Even if I just sit idle for awhile waiting for people to show up. I think a lot of that just has to do with the luck of the draw, as far as my availability and schedule being inconsistent and incongruous with everyone else's (I almost never am able to make the arranged game nights, due to other obligations). That's why the server was so great in the beginning. There was *always* stuff going on, so you could just drop in.

I'm not sure what will really get it back to that. On any other server out there, a population of 300+ would ensure that it would be full 24x7, pretty regularly. From what I'm hearing, this isn't unique to GiantBomb, though. It seems to be that - except for a few servers like EVGA and Reddit, the BF3 population supposedly dropped significantly and quickly across the board. And, since I'm only really interested in playing with other duders, I've literally not played a single Karkand map with another human being since it came out. :)

With some memory problem debugging having just recently finished, I'm planning to get BF3 installed again this week and will be buzzing around the server in anticipation a little more, again. (I've basically field stripped and rebuilt the entire primary gaming rig, which took most of the past month).

But, seriously, it's definitely strange, because back in the day, CS servers never had this problem. If you had regular members, that server was always full and you had people refreshing for an hour dying to get an open slot. I'm baffled.

PS: Part of the reason Mumble has had a hard time, it seems to me, is that there are always 800 fucking different channels and we're all split up among them and dicking around force-moving people into one room or another. There aren't enough people in it to really facilitate splitting shit up so much, beyond just "TEAM A" and "TEAM B".

@AhmadMetallic: I just got BF3 yesterday from the Origin sale. I'm playing the campaign right now, but I'll jump on multiplayer one I get myself settled with playing an FPS again. Once I do get settled in, I'll jump on Mumble (even though I hate voice chat) and get try and make the GB server my main server to play on. I'll get on the IRC chat too later today.

When I finally got around to playing BF3 every time I logged in the server was empty. I always wanted to sit on the server to entice more people to play but all I could do was sit frozen in the game because it needed 2 people to start. So my choices were either go play on another server or sit idle and hope other people joined. I tried that several times, no one ever joined, then I eventually moved away from the game. Lately I have been working through my single player backlog but I would like to eventually start playing BF3 again. The few times I have managed to play it was a lot of fun.

<3

I'd love to play more often, I really would, but the Tuesday run always clashes with a podcast I do, I'm not sure when the other weekday one is and on the weekends I sometines go to football on Saturdays, and/or see my girlfriend on Sundays. I really, really enjoy the runs Ahmad and appreciate the effort you put in, I just find it hard to be around to come on!

My friend picked this up for the both of us on sale last night, so if I ever see the server has some people in it, I'll definitely join.

The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.  Well, nevermind.  The birth of my son has impeded greatly my ability to play PC games (not xbox games, for reasons that are difficult to explain succinctly).  In any case I'll see about making more time to log onto battlefield and play.  I prefer playing full servers but I'm not above logging on solo or with 5-10 people.  So I'll do better man.

Even if I just sit idle for awhile waiting for people to show up.

I think a lot of that just has to do with the luck of the draw, as far as my availability and schedule being inconsistent and incongruous with everyone else's (I almost never am able to make the arranged game nights, due to other obligations). That's why the server was so great in the beginning. There was *always* stuff going on, so you could just drop in.

I'm not sure what will really get it back to that. On any other server out there, a population of 300+ would ensure that it would be full 24x7, pretty regularly. From what I'm hearing, this isn't unique to GiantBomb, though. It seems to be that - except for a few servers like EVGA and Reddit, the BF3 population supposedly dropped significantly and quickly across the board. And, since I'm only really interested in playing with other duders, I've literally not played a single Karkand map with another human being since it came out. :)

PS: Part of the reason Mumble has had a hard time, it seems to me, is that there are always 800 fucking different channels and we're all split up among them and dicking around force-moving people into one room or another. There aren't enough people in it to really facilitate splitting shit up so much, beyond just "TEAM A" and "TEAM B".

I remember having a great time when the game first launched. And then it kinda died off when I was trying to get into a game. Now that I've refreshed my that I've got a refreshed PC and am currently installing battlefield, I find I can't join the Mumble server anymore? It has never asked me for a password before so maybe something has changed that I'm not aware of?

Edit:Nvm, guess I just can't use the same name as before. Bummer.

I don't play the server for two reason.

The maps are the wrong size, put them to 32 player so it's actually fun to play with a lower number of players and it's also directly linked to my second reason which is it's no fun at all to be raped by a chopper and other vehicles on a low pop server. What's the point in trying to play when the other team has a good chopper and 2-3 vehicles, there isn't and it's about as much fun as being kicked in the nuts.

I'm pretty busy between school and... other video games, but I may jump on the server every now and then. Do you guys play on the expansion maps?

Well, as you know Metallic, I'm quite busy at the moment. But after the finals, damn I'm gonna play with you guys.

//G-Snutten

@Extreme_Popcorn said:

I don't play the server for two reason.

The maps are the wrong size, put them to 32 player so it's actually fun to play with a lower number of players and it's also directly linked to my second reason which is it's no fun at all to be raped by a chopper and other vehicles on a low pop server. What's the point in trying to play when the other team has a good chopper and 2-3 vehicles, there isn't and it's about as much fun as being kicked in the nuts.

No-one ever plays seriously when it's so few people though, if you were in the mumble with us you'd know that.

And as soon as you rage-quit, the round ended, and I changed it to a rush map, which suited the numbers, and got it to fill up. You just need to nut up and persevere like the rest of us.

I recently updated my PC so I can finally play the game but I couldn't find the GB server in server browser. Also I'm from Russia so I don't know if the ping will be bearable. Can I join you guys though?

@ZagZagovich: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/servers/show/009489c6-7c0f-4180-947d-a6972b3a541c/Giant-Bomb-Vanilla-maps-B2K-Admins-present/

I play from the UK and the connection is fine for me, although I've seen others complain. Try it out next time people are on :)

@AlexW00d said:

@Extreme_Popcorn said:

I don't play the server for two reason.

The maps are the wrong size, put them to 32 player so it's actually fun to play with a lower number of players and it's also directly linked to my second reason which is it's no fun at all to be raped by a chopper and other vehicles on a low pop server. What's the point in trying to play when the other team has a good chopper and 2-3 vehicles, there isn't and it's about as much fun as being kicked in the nuts.

No-one ever plays seriously when it's so few people though, if you were in the mumble with us you'd know that.

And as soon as you rage-quit, the round ended, and I changed it to a rush map, which suited the numbers, and got it to fill up. You just need to nut up and persevere like the rest of us.

I don't play a game to persevere, I play it for fun. It was 45 minutes after the Bombing Run started that I left with 6 people on the server.

Hey my name was mentioned. Now I have to post in this thread!

Done.

ps. the bombing runs are great fun, show up and find out. May I also add that being on mumble makes the experience much better. You don't have to have a mic or talk, you can just listen in to the amazing banter we produce.

Hey. I've been MIA but will make an effort to show up at least once a week. So many games to play and then there is work and other responsibilities. But looking forward to meeting some of you guys.