Ok, here is what is happening with the server situation. While it IS possible to get a private, ranked server, and there ARE passworded ranked servers out there, none of the official server providers are selling them that way. The reason is because EA has issued a statement to all server providers informing them that any password protected ranked servers will be delisted, and the stats generated from them ignored, and the players that played on them perhaps even penalized.

Some people were using private ranked servers for cheating. All of those people you see at the top of the in-game leaderboard? They logged into a private ranked server, logged in a dummy account, and sat there for the entire round capturing all of the flags, and spawn camping the one dummy character on the opposing team. This got their score way up, really fast. Because of exploits like this, EA is not allowing private ranked servers. Figures that a few jackasses would ruin it for the rest of us, eh?

So here is what we’re doing. We are going to rent two 32 person private servers with passwords, and one public ranked server.

Along with our current 32 person private server, that will be three servers that the people who chipped in their $5 will have access to. They will be unranked, but you are guaranteed a good game with fellow fans.

Obviously there is no way to prevent outsiders from jumping into the public server. At least no reliable way. However, even though I won’t have the power to prevent non CAD/8BT fans from playing on the ranked server, I WILL have the power to kick them off.

I propose (and this is only a suggestion) that you put [CAD] or [8BT] in your profile name. By no means is this mandatory to play on the public ranked server, but I cannot guarantee you won’t be kicked off the server. I will, on occasion, scan the player list and boot anyone I think is an outsider, in order to make room for CAD/8BT fans.

This is the only conceivable way to manage a public server for our community. It’s unfortunate that we can’t use a password, but we have to respect the rules of the game. If you don’t want to put the tag on your name, or you don’t care about the ranked play, there will still be private servers for you to play on (provided you chipped in for the cost of rental).

I am told that our public ranked server will be online tonight. I’ll post to let you know.

Furthermore, once we organize a clan, we will have certain evenings where only people in the clan are allowed on the public server, and everyone else will be kicked. Nothing personal.