Hey, I'm new here, (duh) though I tend to be a pretty active forum member where I make my presence.

This being one of very very few games I look forward to that is currently announced, this will likely become a lurking zone for me

Any Bad Company out there players may know me from the EAUK, EAUS, or BFBC2 Community forums, in which I frequented all of them.

I read through the great Info Compendium and I have 1 question that appears answered... without much reason... and this is bothering me.

No server browser on console... I'd like to know why?

Sure, MOST consolers prefer teh simple "put me into a match" option... however there are a LOT of us ex PC gamers who like being able to pick from our options.

They are CODING the server browser for PC, so I can't imagine porting the browser to console would really be all that difficult.

This is one of the things that annoyed me about BFBC2, being multi-platform they made server browser for PC and left us consolers out in the cold.

Please Devs, I implore you... Add a server browser for consoles. It's not that difficult for you to add, and just make it an option below "quick match" or something so that the majority won't be bothered by it.

There are a lot of us ExPC gamers on console these days.... don't forget us

Alas, the humble server browser tends to be ignored for console releases, for the sole reason that most games use company servers for the console. I really hope that the team has the time to add a server browser to the console versions. My PC just isn't up-to-date any more.

Me neither.

I play with the wife, so run on 2 360's... there is no way I could afford PC gaming with 2 of us LOL

The problem I have often with matchmaking is when I join a game, it's horribly imbalanced, so I quit, find another, and it puts me back in the same game?

That's just bad news IMO.

Plus, I think it would be better to have a list for other reasons... say you've played through the whole game with a character... being able to look at a full, sortable list of servers would let you pick and chose what missions you'd like to go back and do.

Sure, quick match could have a "what mission?" option, but that's not the same... it never is.

Server browsers ultimately let the players play in the game they want to play in.

Also, isn't it going to be p2p anyways? all they need is 1 server that tracks hosts... which a matchmaking server would already be doing, so just make it multipurpose.

I thought that this was because consoles use Peer to Peer connections, not because they used company hosted servers. (Aside from the company hosted servers using the algorithm to match players together)

Many P2P games sport "server browsers"

or really "Host browsers"

2 Examples:
Lost Planet 2 (a very very poor one though)
Hasbro Game Night
but most notably.... BORDERLANDS

They need to have a server that is tracking active games and hosts, what stage, ping, etc etc anyways in order for matchmaking to work

All a server browser is is taking the collection of games, and displaying them to the user to pick from in a sortable list.

IMO the reason they are leaving server browsers off of console games is so consolers can't see how few games there are

Yeah, I may have my info incorrect

That was the impression I was under as well.

I'd think the automatic matching would be much better for a non-dedicated game. Because each person would be pinging each other (I think it works like that, not 1 person is hosting for everyone, I may be wrong, or it may depend on the game?) it would be hard to give an accurate representation of ping, which would make it so the server browser would essentially picking which map you wanted. This could be accomplished while taking into account pings with an automatic matchmaking service.




That is a pretty "conspiracy theorist" theory, I'd think it is either because of it not being the standard that consoles have sported so companies don't feel obligated to spend the funds, or people just don't see a reason to add a server browser.

As I posted above...

P2P doesn't prevent server browser

Case in point: BORDERLANDS

One of the best P2P server browser examples

Other, less ideal browsers include: Lost Planet 2, Hasbro Family Game Night

I'm sure there are more, but I don't play that many games TBH, I'm really really picky.

LP2 I happened to rent looking for a good co-op game (it's browser/matchmaking was SOOO bad though I couldn't bear it) Game Night I got for the wife, Borderlands was awesome though.... almost just right...

A few issues with it, but Brink looks to mostly surpass

@Decon: The Matchmaking server already has you ping each host to get ping values in order to pick where to put you.

Basically, the Matchmaking server ALREADY collects all the data needed for a server browser. It then takes that data and anolyzes it and picks a game for you. A browser would simply hand the data for YOU to review and anolyze to pick which game for yourself

So no additional processes would be needed, and it would actually LOWER the load on the matchmaking server since it wouldn't need to run the matchmaking algorithms... just pass off a structured object to the client in the form of XML or JSON

Ah, assuming that information is correct I can only assume that a server browser isn't included because the developer doesn't see a need for a use of resources to create one.

Socom is a Playstaion only game but has an awesome sever setup but they use dedicated severs

I believe Brink is going to be using P2P for consoles, which is stupid as i believe it will end up being a MASSIVE lag fest and everyone outside the US region will end up quitting and selling the game unless they add dedicated severs or a very very good region filter. i am proberly seeing my self get the game play though the campaign twice and return the game because online will be unplayable due to lag.

except they create one for PC right?

I'm not sure on the specifics if the PC one could be easily implemented as a console server browser. :shrug:

Server browser REALLY isn't that hard to create from scratch anyways....

Honestly, it's about one o0f the EASIEST pieces of programming for a game... one of their lackeys could slam it out in less then a day easy.

ALL it is, literally, is taking the ALREADY EXISTING DATA that the matchmaking collects, and then, instead of running algorithms to determine the "best" server for the player, INSTEAD send that data as a structured object to the client, which can view the data in a number of easy to sort methods, and then the USER picks the best game for them.


Seriously, that is ALL it is.

One of the simplest portions of programming a game...

Only thing easier is the main menu.

but given the lack of need for high quality gfx/FX to make it flashy, actually less dev time (if you count the artistic dev time of the main menu)