Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Servers Still Crashing and Down for some

Posted on Oct 29 2011 - 8:25pm by Richard Sharp

Battlefield 3 launched in the UK yesterday to a huge welcome from fans of the franchise and first person shooters on the whole. Despite widespread acclaim for the single player campaign aspect of the game many have reported difficulties connecting to the Battlefield 3 multiplayer server.

Some have reported errors when connecting, with the most common error reading “Failed To Connect to EA Online Please Try Again”. Other gamers have reported server crashes mid game, a big disappointment and source of frustration to say the least.

The errors seemed to have cleared up this morning but more have began to pop up this evening as more people login to play. Inevitably gamers have been voicing their frustration on forums and Twitter.

One Tweet by RevJB said “Great! So Battlefield 3 has decide its going to repeatedly crash my video driver and culminated with a BSOD 🙁 not fun.” whilst another read, “@Battlefield I’m more looking forward to stable servers that don’t crash every 3 or 4 maps into the cycle. #fail”.

It’s clear that the unprecedented demand for online gameplay has put strain on the Battlefield 3 servers. But surely they should have expected that? It seems a little naive not to be prepared, especially when Modern Warfare 3 is so close to being released.

Both gamers, and myself, will be hoping that these initial teething problems will be quickly ironed out. In the meantime at least we can revert to good old single player gaming, is this enough though?

Let us know your thoughts and experiences, has it been plain sailing or are you experiencing downtime or crashes on your Xbox or PS3?

20 Comments so far. Feel free to join this conversation.

  1. Dan October 29, 2011 at 8:55 pm - Reply

    Multiplayer is unplayable to me. My game crashes ~30% of the time when trying to join a multiplayer game and about 50% of those games crash during the session. It's very disappointing to say the least. I contatced EA support and they checked my system and the verified that its not a problem on my end and I was essentially told that there's 3 million players trying to connect so I shouldn't expect it to work reliably for at least a few weeks. I don't understand that response at all, I assume the preorder count for the PC version of the game was at least on that same order of magnitude. Is the idea to see how many people buy the game and then subsequently setup the necessary servers to accommodate that number of players after the fact? I love the game, but between having to use Origin and the shoddy server support I'm contemplating already giving up on this game.

    • Guy_Fly October 30, 2011 at 9:37 am - Reply

      Agreed… shoddy service from EA Games.. with only 8 weeks away from the holiday season, dark winter nights closing in, even the most hair brained employee statistician ( which I'm sure they don't employ – no argument then) would see new titles , why haven't they ramped up the capabilities for a new title to become successful.. … Sharpen your pencils EA games.. I would strongly recommend not buying this until these poor service posts subside.. by that time the big online retailers and shopping giants will be discounting it..

    • Paul October 31, 2011 at 6:02 am - Reply

      i got the game on the day of release n till now i cant enjoy it at all,i agree with u,it keeps crashing,i have already repaired the game(advised by some post),updated my punkbuster and the game keeps crashing,i have to use task manager to end the program,seriusly im so disapointed and from wat ea support said to u,that is not an excuse..i never had problem with COD.

      From Asia.

  2. cptaargh October 29, 2011 at 9:50 pm - Reply

    its 1:49 PDT and servers are still down. This is bullshit.

  3. Jay October 30, 2011 at 1:02 am - Reply

    Ahahahahaha bf3 BLOWS bring on the true fps MW3!!!!

  4. Guy_Fly October 30, 2011 at 9:30 am - Reply

    Damn it,,, can only play for 2 minutes before it crashes to the origin screen menu.. The game looks amazing but I'll be returning it today for a refund and wait for MW3

  5. anon October 30, 2011 at 11:45 am - Reply

    lol i dont think you can return it after you have used the cdkey… 😛

    I wish i could play solo op, my copy crashes after the first level and i cant use it 😛

  6. AleOlao October 30, 2011 at 5:45 pm - Reply

    I am currently not able to get on. This has been happening on and off since the release. It's very upsetting. The game is very awesome and I want to play it!

  7. annon October 30, 2011 at 5:48 pm - Reply

    was really hoping this would be a MW slayer but BF3 doesnt even come close. Its literally unplayable, im so pissed off, especially as they promised split screen and failed to deliver that. Mulitplayer has been utter crap, iv had the game for 4 days now and iv played about 3 games, its bullshit. thinking about returning it for a refund too.

  8. jujujujikels October 30, 2011 at 5:57 pm - Reply

    Amateur mistake, but it'll settle after a week or two. EA does this with every battlefield, but honestly it's worth it. Seriously with the MW3…I'm a COD fan from way back, like I bought the original on PC before it was a bandwagon game, and they really did some great things, but their multi-player is like to me the equivalent of listening to a boy band or something. It's just being played because it's popular. Ridiculously fast paced, zero thought required. Person that consumes the most caffeine before the match gets the most kills, anyone attempting any sort of strategic maneuver or teamwork gets destroyed. I like the campaigns, don't get me wrong. For a shooter COD really is on to something, but watching MW3 trailers made me understand that people are just trying to stay popular. It doesn't even look good, the plot looks like they took MW2's plot and re-used it only MORE EPIC BIGGER BOMBS blah blah blah… rant over.

  9. Scarface October 30, 2011 at 6:04 pm - Reply

    Crappy error "Failed to Connect to EA online, its very unstable connecting in Multiplayer mode, compared to Black ops etc,
    I'm considering taking it back tomorrow. Looking forward to MW3 release date.

  10. JOLOSOSS October 30, 2011 at 9:16 pm - Reply

    battlefield 3 I keep gettin connection to ea online was lost……keeps me locked in loading ..
    THINKING OF ASKING FOR A FULL REFUND 2MORROW VERY DISAPOINTED!!!!

  11. R. Astley October 30, 2011 at 9:49 pm - Reply

    Perhaps the author should investigate more the fans who, like me, cannot play either the single player OR multiplayer for more than five minutes, since it turns out the drivers that nVidia realeased "specially for battlefield 3" are bullsh*t, and make even some top end cards crash out. F*cktards, get your act together, andnot just you DICE, or nVidia, but all big games studios, and release products that are actually release quality, rather than just patching everything AFTER it is released.

  12. Matt October 31, 2011 at 3:46 pm - Reply

    @R. Astley – Definitely a good idea to investigate the issue minus the teen angst!

    BF3 got such great reviews and had so many promises in the build up but its performance is letting it down. They have real potential to take on the MW series, but this is definitely going to affect their assault!

    • Dan October 31, 2011 at 3:48 pm - Reply

      Also, I wouldnt give up all together and ask for a refund, there was always going to be teething problems. They should have stress tested their servers but maybe they didnt anticipate this many people.

  13. Jess November 2, 2011 at 2:31 am - Reply

    Its 10:30 Eastern time on the November 1st and I cant connect arghhhhh….. Was playing this morning for hours now this.

  14. A Pissed of BF fan November 7, 2011 at 2:59 am - Reply

    Guys, I have the exact same problem. but since EA made it a tradition to do this with every battlefield. I am gonna enjoy Skyrim which comes outfriday november 11 on Steam, which is a million times betrer then origins, I can wait for battlefield 3 to work. Cuz Skyrim promises over 300 hours of gameplay and I can do what I want, and no website launch whatsoever, only steam launch which is 200% reliable with worldwide servers, dedicated servers. So take that EA, ur Origin SUCKS! YOU SHOULD OF STAYED ON STEAM!!!!

  15. jimmy hendrix November 27, 2011 at 2:52 pm - Reply

    ive never been more pissed off by a game before, this really is the worst piece of shit ive ever had the misfortune of spending money on

  16. MoodyTub January 3, 2012 at 7:17 pm - Reply

    I got mine 4 xmas and im having problems with it, keeps crashing since i got automatic 2gb update on xbox live, im going to delete and see how that works!! Big fail but what i played so far is amazing!!! FIX PLEASE ?

  17. MoodyTub January 4, 2012 at 10:16 am - Reply

    I got my single player working again, i deleted the 2.07 gb multiplayer update and it hasnt crashed so far, i cant play online as i never got a code inside my box (stupid ASDA uk) my girlfriend cant find reciept so i doubt they will give me a code!!

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