Some Microsoft-run beta servers for the multiplayer-only, always-online game Titanfall have been down for at least three hours and counting on this, the first day of widespread access to the beta for the much-anticipated marquee next-gen first-person shooter. This, perhaps, is what betas are for!
We don’t know how many servers are down, but Kotaku readers, two editors and many people online are all reporting that attempts to log in to the game are leading to the following screen:
This has put plenty of people excited about playing the much-ballyhooed game on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. They’ve gone from excitedly redeeming beta codes to staring at screens that aren’t letting them play. They might care less if, by many accounts including ours, playing Titanfall wasn’t so damn entertaining. The game takes Call of Duty-style first-person shooter combat and adds agile robot suits called Titans, parkour and lots of AI-controlled minions to create an impressive, fun multiplayer experience.
The game’s beta worked smoothly on Thursday when access was limited mostly to press and people close to the game’s creators. The beta was opened to many more gamers today.
The problem today seems to be that the game can’t create new servers to let more players in. “Some of our Beta servers are currently offline and our team is working with Microsoft to resolve,” one of the game’s community managers wrote online earlier today. “Stay tuned for updates.” It’s actually unclear if the problem is that servers are down or if it’s that the game can’t create new servers.
While Titanfall is developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by EA, it’s neither the ex-Call of Duty creators nor the Battlefield company who are responsible for the game’s servers. Microsoft, who have Titanfall exclusive to the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC are handling the servers. The company’s online infrastructure tends to be pretty good, but something has gone awry today.
The official Titanfall Twitter account and top people at Respawn have been doing their best to keep people updated:
Microsoft is still working to resolve the connectivity issues to the Beta servers. Stay current here: http://t.co/0EWL08ImYB #Titanfall
— Titanfall (@Titanfallgame) February 15, 2014
Titanfall Beta is unable to allocate more servers right now. This is a bug, not a limit. Microsoft is aware and working on it.
— Jon Shiring (@jonshiring) February 14, 2014
In the Titanfall Beta you’ll see “No servers found” at the main menu. This is the bug I just tweeted about. MS is working on it. #betawoes
— Jon Shiring (@jonshiring) February 14, 2014
@JGDWani Can’t create new servers at the moment, being worked on. Any servers that are still going are fine
— Vince Zampella (@VinceZampella) February 14, 2014
We’ve asked EA and Microsoft for any more information they can share about the nature of the problem, an estimated time for a fix and whether this will result in an extension of the beta, which is currently planned to end on Wednesday, February 19.
UPDATE: A rep for Xbox directed us to this Tweet from the head of Xbox support:
We’re aware of the issues w/ #TitanfallBeta. Betas let us find the bugs. Thx for your patience. We’re on it, we’ll be back soon!
— Eric Neustadter (e) (@thevowel) February 14, 2014
END UPDATE
It’s been popular in recent years for companies to release betas of major games, especially significant shooters, shortly before release. Those betas have, at times, seemed like marketing ploys. But if any beta, including this one, can expose problems in a game’s online infrastructure before the game actually comes out, that’ll lead to good results. Hopefully that’s happening here.
Titanfall will launch on Xbox One and PC on March 11 and will be out two weeks later on Xbox 360. The game is so important to Microsoft that the company is issuing an Xbox One system update in early March to improve aspects of the console’s multiplayer infrastructure.
Comments
41 responses to “Titanfall Server Problems Keeping Many From Playing, Microsoft Fixing”
Somehow i feel i should like this game… but I just don’t.
Edit: yes, i have the beta.
I’m worried that it’s furthering the CoD trend of big and easy rewards for little effort. I’ve already seen screenshot results where people are easily killing up to 30 “minions” and will propably make people think their some pro for doing so good.
Uh not really. Minions offer less points compared to humans. Sure there are challenges that provide additional XP for killing minions using X etc. But it’s way more advantageous to always be killing a pilot. A players stats can also be viewed as a combined total or broken down by minions / humans.
FYI – This game is fucking awesome!
Yeah, i have the beta too. Still not liking it. Going to wait for full game before ruling it out completely.
As far as close-quarters arcade shooters go, it hasn’t done much wrong in my books.
The game does start off showering you with praise and gold stars (my first game I joined near the end and killed one enemy and ranked up) but it peters out and becomes more realistic. Killing an AI minion gives you a single point towards your tally, kinda not worth it even if you farm them. They take less damage to kill and they don’t put up much of a fight. They’re just filler but they’re kind of fun.
Also, in regards to our very legitimate server worries, I played about 5 hours last night and I found it pretty adequate, I had a few laggy games but overall it felt really great.
You don’t always need constant exp points and succeeding challenges every 5 seconds to get that reaction. Sometimes just allowing people to get high killstreaks can invoke that feeling. Like how in Firefight matchmaking for Halo: Reach, most people select Arcade for easy rocket spamming and trying to beat the other players for K/D ratio.
As for servers I say you should still wait and see. I’ve experienced this in the past. I remember when Ghost Recon: Future Soldier came out the connection was fine and I was always matched up with Australians. But when the game came out it just bombed.
Even so, I’d still prefer local servers. While you won’t notice it at first, eventually when you get the point where everybody understands how the game plays (or which OP weapons to spam) you’ll see a fraction of a second difference between action and reaction. Eventually that starts to really annoy me.
It allows you to select a server, which is a plus. I was rocking 90ms on the Honk Kong server.
And as far as awards and rewards go, I usually skip that bullshit. You got bars ticking up everyhere, everyone gets a gold star! For me the reward is doing badass parkour and scrambling/wall running up building to quickly get the high ground. I play bumper jumper in Titanfall so I have complete control over my looking and movement without taking my hand off to press A to jump. So I can do some sick free running. I feel like the free running adds an almost unlimited skill ceiling. In Cod, everything, including the players, is nailed to the ground. But in Halo you watch the way MLG players navigate the maps through lots of practice and they earn huge advantages. And you’d see people in Halo learn new trick jumps to bypass standard routes and it kept adding depth to the game. Well in Titanfall it’s like that, but cranked to 11. The map to me is like a skate park.
I traded the cloak ability for speed boost and I chose the enhanced parkour perk and I’m scooting all over that place like nobody’s business. It’s like Trials HD/Evolution. I think the boundaries of what is possible in that game will still be being pushed years from now.
Oh, and there’s no BR style dominant weapon. It feels balanced. Give it a shot man, I think you’ll jive on it.
Also, to elaborate on the weapon balance aspect, it’s great, very rock/paper/scissors. Every gun has a strength and a weakness, it’s all about the role you want to play. And the humans v titans thing is great. You can spec your loadouts to be anti-human or anti titan or a mix of both. And the Titans can be tailored to be more effective against titans or humans. Every time you increase one area of effectiveness you reduce another. So if you work together as a team you’re a lot stronger.
The Titans are powerful, but they’re each like a death star with an exhaust port. They’ve got several weaknesses, they are stuck on ground level (while people on foot are acrobatic wall climbers), they can be hijacked and killed but it takes time and you’re vulnerable. You’re like a killing machine wandering the streets but every rooftop is potentially crawling with enemies. You gotta really have an escape plan in mind at all times if you get ambushed. It’s a really good mix. You never feel like either way of playing is under or over powered. It’s like a two-toned type of gameplay, you spend time on foot, you spend time in a Titan, you go back and forth, it runs at a good pace and gives you something new to do.
The ability to select servers is great. Still, I prefer waiting until local servers are up and after the initial server overload these games always have at release.
I’ve been keeping an eye on it and it does seem interesting to play. Familiar but fresh. Kinda like what Reach was. Kinda the opposite of what Halo 4 was.
You say there’s no dominate weapon but give it time. I still remember thinking MW2 was balanced until everybody started unlocking that 1887 shotgun. If they’re planning on keeping an eye on the game and regularly updating it then there shouldn’t be a problem. Although, with EA breathing down their neck I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already working on the next Titanfall game.
Oh, and MLG Halo sucks 😛
Give it a look and a try, the Beta is open now. 4.5 GIG if you can spare the bandwidth.
I do, but I don’t have an Xbone 😛
I was talking about on the 360, but it just occurred to me that the beta might not be available on the 360.
All news have been about the current consoles, with PC betas coming out soon. Nothing about the 360 has come out. Only World of Tanks.
Even so, the 360 version will probably be the lame version that won’t recieve any updates or even have a player base.
You’re such a glass half full guy aren’t you 😛
Actually I am.
Well, I’m more of a “which way you’re using it” kind of person. If you’re filling it up and stop, it’s half full. But if you start drinking it and stop, it’s half empty.
But yeah, usually an optimist.
and people said that always online consoles was the future.
Good thing it is a free beta designed to get things like this sorted out before the actual launch of the game.
Yeah I don’t know what hes on about, EA is well known for squashing issues before releasing the games to the public.
They probably have top men going through all the bug reports right now to guarantee a smooth launch.
When you really think about it EA has the best track record for working games under their belt.
The power of the Cloud(TM)!
Servers are spinning up now. Been playing for the last 30mins. Anyone else getting fairly decent ping from Aus to SEA data centre? My ping from Melbourne on ADSL2+ is 107ms surprisingly. Very much playable as far as I’m concerned.
Im getting about 130 from Melb. Seems to play fine.
Its about 80 from WA…..very happy 😀
If you can’t see servers, you haven’t updated your Xbox One with the Feb update yet. Shut down, turn it back on and let it update. There you go, fixed.
I’ve been playing it since lunch time today in a party of 6, no problems or bugs to report…..also a ping of 80ms to south east Asia…..very playable 😀
Its good we finally get to look down on those suckers in the eastern states for a change.
It will change in Aug when they get their Azure servers though 😐 I’m gonna enjoy it while it lasts 😀
Anyone know when that will be ? The game is laggy at 130ms. (im on 100mbs 15ms qld)
Aug i heard
wow i cant believe i got downvoted, everyone I play with and people on the official forums all say the exact same thing. Why do we always have to settle for crap when were paying nearly double the prices then the rest of the world? Sorry but last time i checked, 17-30ms (which is what the US are on) is better then 100ms minimum
I find BF4 and COD more laggy than titanfall
Have been playing the Beta and while it is quite fun, nothing has really WOW’D me, i wish there were bigger maps with 32 vs 32 multilayer, don’t understand why an only online game couldn’t provide that option for people who wanted it, even 16 vs 16 would be nice, and also a little dissapointed the environments aren’t destructible, probably still buy the full version anyway though…
It would be so unbalanced like 32 titans running around, been in matches were we just pound them with like 4 on 1
You can easily limit the amount of titans at any one time. Even CoD games limit what killstreaks are running at any one time.
Than how many people would actually be able to get to play as titans, would be a mad rush to try and get yours out before everyone else
Rushing to get a titan could be a fun game mechanic e.g. 16 v 16, 3 titans in the middle of the map, go! would be fun
6 titans exposed to 16 anti titan weapons …
I seriously think that people are whining about the 6v6 because the game was states as ‘6v6’. Heck MW2, MW3, Black Ops 2 and even Ghosts, all of which had 6v6 as their main game modes yet nobody said anything, and that was ALL it was, just players vs players. Titanfall on the other hand is almost as hectic as a 32-64 player BF4 map with 6v6 players, some in titans, some having them on auto, around 10-20 ai controlled bots all shooting at you, the game does not need more than 6 players per team with it’s small-medium sized fast-paced combat. It would be way too crowded otherwise.
Shut up, and play Titan vs Titan. ＼（Ｔ∇Ｔ）／
This game is fucking awesome, and this is coming from a hardcore Halo fan.