Website News - =ADK= Gaming Community Website

BF3 - Rush/Karkand Server Update

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:06:05 +0000

Just wanted to let everyone know that our Rush and Karkand server will be moving to a new machine later this evening or early in the morning. Hopefully just when they are empty.

For those of you who don't know though about the issues happening, those 2 servers are on the same box. Well there was another server who was constantly being attacked, which would cause people to lose connection in both of those servers.

That will no longer happen after I contacted Branzone and they said they would be moving our servers for us!

BF3 - Karkand/Rush Kicking Entire Server

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 04:34:35 +0000

Just recently, for the past 2 nights at the SAME time our Karkand and Rush server has kicked everyone in the server. It's not the server crashing, and normally we only expected this once in a blue moon due to EA/DICE issues and the connection to their servers gets lost.

I'm not so certain that EA/DICE is the full blame here since it has happened two evenings in a row, since it was rarely happening to us with our Branzone servers. With that being said I have a request out to Branzone to look into this issue. I will keep you all updated on this issue with whatever it might be EA/DICE or the Data Center and I apologize for any issues this has caused for you.

Thank you for supporting the =ADK= Gaming Community

::EDIT::

We got a response back from Branzone. They informed us that both of these servers are on the same machine in which there is another IP being DDOS'd which is causing the issues. That being the reason why 2 nights in a row around the same time this issue has occurred and caused the connection issues. The IP has been null routed by the data center which is why we are able to access the servers again.

BF3 - Maintenance January 31st

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:49:53 +0000

Unfortunately our populated servers will be coming down here in about 7 hours so it seems. They haven't told us what exactly they are doing yet, but once they release the notes we will let everybody know. Below is the current information that we have from EA/DICE.

Quote

There will be some downtime tomorrow during a regular maintenance period at

12:00 AM PST - 3:00 AM PST
03:00 AM EST - 06:00 AM EST
08:00 GMT - 11:00 GMT
09:00 CET - 12:00 CET

This will affect online connectivity on platforms PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

During this downtime, Battlelog will be updated. More information on this tomorrow.

STEAM Releases Apps for iOS and Android!

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:51:37 +0000

So according to the Android Market and kotaku, Valve has release'd the popular gaming platform "STEAM" on Android and iOS.

The app, currently available in the appstore, is in Closed Beta, but you can still get access and download the app.

In order to be in the beta, user's should try to log into their account from the application.

From the android market:

Quote

Steam: chat and participate in the Steam community, catch unbeatable Steam sales
With the free Steam app for Android, you can participate in the Steam community wherever you go. Chat with your Steam friends, browse community groups and user profiles, read the latest gaming news and stay up to date on unbeatable Steam sales.

from the press release:

Quote

With the Steam app, gamers around the world may chat with Steam friends, browse community groups and user profiles, view screenshots and user-generated content for their favorite games, read the latest gaming news, stay up to date on unbeatable Steam sales, and more.
"The Steam app comes from many direct requests from our customers," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. "Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale - these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone."

Now only if Battlefield and League of Legends used STEAM's Chat system.

Android Market: https://market.andro...steam.community

Apple AppStore: http://itunes.apple....ile/id495369748

Official Page: http://store.steampowered.com/mobile

Battlefield 3 - R19 Patch - 1/24/2012

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:04:02 +0000

This new update is supposed to fix some more server crashes as well as expanding the ban list to prevent crashes that way. Seems as though they are finally stepping up and realizing how many hackers are truly out there! Thank you EA/DICE!

Listed below is the changelog

Quote

Fixed the most common server crash. The story behind this one is fairly convoluted:

When a player begins the process of joining a server, the server will begin buffering some kinds of information in anticipation of the player completing the loading & joining phase. However, players sometimes get stuck in the loading screen. This makes the server buffer more and more info for that player. A side effect of this is a temporary resource leak in the game server. The leak is immediately restored if the server changes map, or the player completes loading, or the player shuts down the game client. However if a player manages to remain stuck for 30+ minutes in loading on a server with lots of activity and the server doesn’t end the round, then the server could run out of the particular resource – it would then crash.

The new server version will forcibly disconnect clients which are threatening to exhaust that particular resource. With this change in place, we do not know of anything that would make high-ticket servers less stable than normal-ticket servers.

Long banlists will not crash the server.

The banlist supports up to 10.000 entries now. This limit can be raised in the future.
The banList.list command has been modified to return at most 100 entries at a time (similar to how BC2 PC’s banList.list command works).
Any administrative tools will need to be updated to be able to see more than the first 100 entries.

Changes to Donations - Coming Soon!

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:03:51 +0000

Currently we have a "Donor Status" set up for those who chose to donate for one of those Statuses. Well that worked for us while we were a smaller community, but with us growing like we have been, we need something that is more feasible for those who donate.

We aren't sure exactly what we will be doing, but it will include a few different things like being able to listen in on meetings, join in on discussions in meetings, and more info to come soon. So what it comes down to is, we want to give back to those who give to us, and it's just a matter of figuring out exactly what we will be donig.

All of the admins who joined in the last meeting agreed this would be a good change, so we hope you are looking forward to it as well. If you haven't noticed as well, everybody who donates will be able to be a part of the Monthly Raffle.

Thanks for supporting the =ADK= Gaming Community.

[COMING SOON] Weekly Articles from the =ADK= pA...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:33:34 +0000

Have you ever wanted to know some information from the guys on the top of the scoreboards and how they do it? Or what type of equipment they use and why? Well now is your chance to ask questions and find out.

LethalWMD, Elegy, 9091NE and kmk01 will be writing articles responding to questions and giving some tips and tricks of how they do what they do so well. We will be opening up a section of the forums later this afternoon to start asking some questions that you'd like to have answered.

Make sure to let your friends know to come and register on the website because not all of the articles will be available to guests who aren't registered. As well as they won't be able to ask questions without registering!

Be looking for these articles to start in the coming week!

BF3 - Server Updates - 1/12/2012 (2 pm PST)

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:09:57 +0000

So many of you got online and were wondering why the servers were empty.

Well after getting kicked off of Origin and not being able to login, I decided to go and look at the issues.

I looked in the Battlelog forums, and sure enough many other people were having the same issue. Checked the EA Server status HERE and sure enough the servers were listed as "Stressed" and that was why I saw literally tons of people trying to connect to the TDM server and nobody was able to get in. Then hopping on Team Speak to find out Elegy and many others were having the same issue.

As I finish writing this it looks like after many hours the PC servers are no longer stressed and people are able to join. I will keep you guys updated if there are any more issues! And I do want to thank those of you who came on the site and on the Chat this morning asking about what was going on. I appreciate the fact that people care, and support the community and our servers. Stay tuned for more info about the removal of our NFo servers and possible gaining of 2 new servers.

Metro and Rush to be shut down. (Please Read)

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:47:04 +0000

After much deliberation we will be removing the 24/7 Metro and 24/7 Rush server in the next few days if not sooner than later.

Those of you who have been on Team Speak while the multitude of issues have occurred with the Metro/Rush servers know I am fed up with NFo. They have and will always blame all the issues that have occurred on EA/DICE. While that's understandable, it's happening way too often on NFo servers, where as Branzone has not had any of these issues since the first few patches. So that only leads me to believe that there are some issues that NFo could take care of in some way, but won't.

All of our BF3 Servers are in Chicago, and yes there are multiple data centers in every state. But when a customer says they aren't experiencing this issue with another provider, you'd think they would look into the issue. No, in fact they won't. And rather than trying to figure out a way to prevent the issues from occurring, they just put the blame elsewhere constantly. I'm fine with issues being EA/DICE related, but when they continue to occur multiple times with just these 2 servers.

Also, when these issues started occurring multiple times a day/week we were told that we were being DDOS'd. I didn't believe it and neither did my friend who was getting us the servers at a discounted price on his dedicated box. So we asked to change the IPs of the servers, after a bunch of grief saying that would take a while to do they did it. Well what's the reason now for the same issues occurring? They didn't say anything about DDOS, but instead they say it's an EA/DICE issue. So what one is it?! DDOS or EA/DICE? I don't think they know, especially because they will take 16 year olds to "volunteer" for them to answer support tickets. And then the tickets always get pushed to the Owner anyways since the support techs can't do anything.

Nuclear Fall Out is not what I once remembered it was supposed to be. NFo is not a place for a growing gaming community, but rather young gamers who are looking for a start. Here at ADK we need reliability and top notch support, and NFo definitely doesn't have that.

We are terribly sorry to all of you who have found us through our Metro and Rush servers, but we will be taking them down. While they were cheaper for us than the $80 - 90 a month that we have to pay for our Branzone servers they were nowhere near the quality.

We would love to get those servers back up and running, and if we do end up purchasing 5 servers from Branzone, we can get a discount of about 1 free server. So the total would be about $350 a month for all 5 servers, plus High CPU Priority, and then the 6th server that we currently have for our Scrims/Matches. So 5 servers with High CPU Priority would be around $450 dollars a month, and that doesn't include the 6th match server.

There's an opportunity to get a great deal here, but currently we don't have enough revenue for $350 a month. We are probably about $100 short. Donations are greatly appreciated. We can take donations of any amount, starting at $2. All donations go directly towards the game servers. And everyone who donates will also be entered into our monthly raffle.

Thank you for your support and understanding of the current situation. We look to bring back those 2 servers as soon as possible.

Passive Aggressor (pA) joins =ADK=

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:02:07 +0000

In a recent discussion with the members of Passive Aggressor, they have now joined the =ADK= Gaming Community, and will be taking part in all tournaments as 'ADK'.

For those of you who don't know those at Passive Aggressor, they are some great guys with tons of talent! If you've been on the =ADK= Servers, I'm sure you know who they are. This is great news for both parties and we are glad to have them on board. We will be supporting them throughout the rest of their competitions in the current TWL as well as their upcoming and future competitions.

The members of pA who will be joining us are:

90N1NE
Elegy
kmk01
LethalWMD

We are in the process of getting a scrim server set up for them as well as for those in ADK who are looking to take part in Competitive GamePlay. There will be more information in the member section of the forums regarding the competitive aspect. So members please be on the look out for that.

So we hope all of you are as excited about this sponsorship as both the guys from pA and I am. This is going to open up many opportunities for us, and is definitely something I've been looking to do for quite a while, and was quite happy when they brought this up to me. Be on the lookout for more information that might be posted.

Thanks for your support of the =ADK= Gaming Community!

BF3 - Vote kick/ban REMOVED

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:46:44 +0000

Alright,

So yesterday I added the Vote Kick/Ban feature to all of the servers, despite having doubts about it and what it will do to the @report and @admin feature in our server. Which is the BEST feature we have and allows us to be ontop of all the hackers.

Well this evening, 2 servers emptied because of the Vote Kick/Ban feature being used and not being successful. And because people were too busy using that feature they didn't use @report or @admin, which is exactly what I knew was going to happen, even without announcing that I added it. Because once 1 person tried it, everybody and their mothers followed along and didn't contact the admins.

With all that being said Vote Kick/Ban is now removed from all of the servers. I'm sorry but I'm not going to risk servers emptying while admins are at our computers because people won't use a feature that will get the player removed quicker than Vote Kick/Ban. That should be used in case of an emergency and admins can't be there.

I hope you all understand, and PLEASE make sure you tell everybody in the server to use the feature. I don't care if I get 30 emails at a time while one hacker is in the server. I would rather have that than 2 64 man servers completely empty because of a feature people say is needed, when truly it's not.

So while I am frustrated that the servers emptied because of that feature, I know we can get them populated again, so I hope you will all join us in the morning to fill them.

Thanks for your support of the community!

BF3 - Server Technical Difficulties

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:14:50 +0000

Just want to give a little update to everyone who visits our servers frequently.

If you have been on either our Rush or Metro (Conquest) Server you have been noticing a bunch of crashes/disconnected/things along those lines. Well there could be many different things wrong. We've been talking to the server provider (Who is not our normal provider for the TDM, Mixed, Karkand Servers) and it kind of seems like we're getting the run around. So we are doing whatever we can to take care of these issues.

For now though we have changed our Karkand Server to 24/7 Metro Conquest. Please let your friends know and hop on that server if you'd like to get those points or just have tons of fun! And we ask that you let all of your friends know as well for the time being!

Thank you for your patience and support during these issues. We never like having these issues, but like any successful community, there are always bound to be these issues.

Merry Christmas From =ADK=

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 08:58:04 +0000

From all of us here at =ADK= we'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas. We hope you have a great time with your family or anyone else you are spending the time with.

And thank you to everyone for you support of the =ADK= Gaming Community!

New =ADK= Links make things easier!

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 05:11:52 +0000

Just wanted to let everybody know that to make things easier for you we have decided to change a few ways to connect to certain parts of the =ADK= Community.

Our new Team Speak link is now: TS.ADKGAMERS.COM:3796

And

Our new Stats Page link is: http://stats.adkgamers.com

We did this just to make things easier for those trying to connect to certain parts of our community, whether that be team speak or looking up your stats. Let us know what you think about this and make sure you update any links that you had previously!

Thanks for supporting the =ADK= Gaming Community!

Battlefield 3 - 32 Players in Queue for ADK Ser...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:06:20 +0000

Check this picture out! Never thought i'd see 32 people in queue for the =ADK= Server! That was epic!

Battlefield 3 Servers - Down for R3/R11 Update

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 08:48:50 +0000

Just want to let everybody know about the current update. The downtime is scheduled to be between 12 am - 4 am Pacific time. They have been pretty good about updates and hopefully battlelog will be up before the 4 hour time period for us PC users.

The =ADK= Battlefield 3 Servers should be ready to go by the time Battelog is up as well, so get ready to hop in the servers and have some fun!

Thanks for your support of the =ADK= Gaming Community!

You can view more details of this update HERE.

Battlefield 3 - New Admins

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:07:41 +0000

We would like to announce our new Battlefield 3 Admins. As you all know there have been a lot of hackers joining the server, and just a lot of people causing problems. Whether that be base raping, trying to make the entire server rage, disrespecting admins or even just those people playing in the server.

These people that we have chosen are people who have been very active on the servers, the website and team speak. Those 3 things are all something that we ask for from our admins, on top of the level of maturity to put certain things behind them while still creating a fun gaming environment.

So listed below are the 3 members who we will be promoting to Battlefield 3 Admins. We feel that they will be a great addition and will fit in well with the rest of the admins.

ez-nick
Desdiinova
Dozer

If you do have any issues don't hesitate to ask any one of these members for help in our Battlefield Servers.

Thanks for your support of the =ADK= Gaming Community!

Half-Life: Origins (Live Action)

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:08:20 +0000

Check out this video of Infectious Design's latest HL Video/short film! Pretty much Half Life's opening credits. It's pretty sick.

Battlefield 3 - Looking for Admins

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:30:00 +0000

We are currently looking for admins to help admin our Battlefield 3 Servers. As any of you who have played on our servers know, there have been plenty of hackers and people who have caused problems. Like base raping on our Conquest server when asked not too.

While we do have admins for the server, we feel that we need more admins, especially during the late evening and early morning hours for us here in the United States.

Anyone will be able to submit an application but there are a few requirements before you are able to become an admin. The requirements are:

Must be an =ADK= Member. (You can apply to submit the member application and then submit the admin application)
Must wear the ADK Tags in BF3 at all times.
Be active on not only the servers but MUST be on Team Speak, as well as visiting the website frequently to respond to any issues that might occur as well as posting about bans or other problems in the server.
Mature and level headed. (Meaning not kicking/banning people who might be better, or someone you have a personal grudge with, etc. . )
Following the rules/requirements that have been set for admins

As you can tell there aren't many requirements, but the requirements that we do have set in place are ones that we set for all of our servers. We want to keep our reputation as a fun, laid back gaming community in all of our servers. And we want to be able to have people of all skill levels to be playing together and having a great time.

We do not have a set number of applications that we will be accepting so if you feel that you fit the job for this, than fill out an application that we have posted. You can view that application HERE.

Thank you all for your support of the =ADK= Gaming Community and we look forward to seeing those of you who are interested in helping make the =ADK= Battlefield 3 Servers even more popular than they already are!

=ADK= Battlefield Admin Application

(Click the link above to be taken to the Admin Application)

Battlefield 3 - 11/21 - Patch (11 PM PST)

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:19:23 +0000

A much needed Patch is finally going to be released for Battlefield 3! Below is the change log for the patch. As you can see it's going to be a big patch. So be prepared to download a large file!

We should all be happy about this update and lets hope it brings some good changes to the servers!

Major client update for the PC version Battlefield 3 as well as a server-side update for all platforms.

The update will be made on Nov. 22nd 7:00 AM UTC / Nov. 21st 11:00 PM PST.

We’ll share release timing on the console patches as soon as we are clear on the timing, these take a bit longer due to console certification process.

---- Client-Side Changes:

-- Visuals, Stability and Performance Fixes:

• General performance and loading time improvements
• “Black Screen” fix for an issue occurring on some PC Configurations
• Stereo and Rendering Support for Nvidia and AMD Graphics Cards
• Adjusted the “stuttering” encountered on some PC configurations.
• Fixed several Crashes when joining MP and Co-Op sessions
• Fixed multiple problems when using multiple monitors (Eyefinity / Surround).
• Fixed visual corruption issues on certain Nvidia Cards
• Improved loading times for certain textures
• Added console command “GameTime.MaxVariableFps” to limit max FPS
• Added console command “UI.DrawEnable” to hide UI for screenshots / videos

-- Balance and Gameplay Adjustments (PC)

• Fixed a problem with high speed mouse movement
• Added back some missing Growlers on Kharg Island Conquest Large
• Added back EOR sound for SQDM and TDM
• You should no longer be able to damage a friendly vehicle when sitting in an open position
• Grenades now drop to ground if you get killed while attempting to throw it(note the affect this will have on Hardcore mode!)
• Spawn protection now should work in Conquest. You should no longer spawn on points too close to enemies
• You should no longer spawn too close to enemies in TDM and SQDM
• Combat areas on Kharg Rush tweaked in order to disallow defenders to access the carrier ship after 1st base is taken and being able to enter the AA gun
• Fixed a problem with revived players not suffering suppression
• Fixed a problem with the camera when being revived in COOP
• Added joystick deadzone setting
• Fixed sound for when climbing ladders
• Fixed an issue with some weapon sounds in first person
• Fixed a swim sound loop error
• Increased the damage of Helicopter Miniguns, AA guns, and Jet Cannons against infantry
• Increased the damage of Helicopter Miniguns against jeeps.
• Reduced the physics impact of AA guns and Jet Cannons, players under attack from these weapons should no longer lose control.
• Increased the damage of the 44 Magnum slightly.
• Increased the range and minimum damage of the .357 Round from the MP412 Rex.
• Increased the range of all .45cal and 9mm weapons.
• Slightly increased the range of the P90 and MP7 and PDW-R.
• Slightly increased the range of the 5.56mm PDW-R and decreased the minimum damage at long range.
• Slightly increased the minimum range of the Mk11, SVD, and M39 EMR 7.62mm rifles.
• Decreased the maximum damage and maximum range of the G3 and SCAR-H 7.62mm weapons.
• Reduced the damage from FIM-92 and SA-18 IGLA missiles against aircraft.
• Increased the damage and range of the 40mm BUCK rounds.
• Reduced the damage .50cal weapons do against Helicopters.
• Updated T90 canister shell tweaks to match Abrams canister shells
UI Changes (PC)
• Added round duration and ticket summary at EOR
• Advanced squad polish – should be more intuitive
• Significant changes to the Join Squad functionality (see below)
• Fixed a problem regarding keybindings while playing
• You should now get a better error message when being disconnected via Battlelog

---- Server Update Highlights

• EOD Bot exploit fix
• Several crash fixes
• Anti-stat padding measures taken, disallowing ranked servers to run obscure settings
• Improved team kill kick configuration
• Support for unranked servers. Unranked servers do not report players' scores to Battlelog, but server administrators can freely control all settings

-- Share your profile and stats with new Battlelog functionality

• Ability to share your Profile and Stats pages to Facebook, Google+, and Twitter
• User Profile and Stats pages on Battlelog can now be accessed without being signed in to Battlelog if you know a user's URL
• Single sign on from Battlelog to Origin. If you're not logged in to Origin and join a game server, Battlelog will automatically sign you in to Origin in the background and join the game server

-- Quick notes on Squad changes in the Nov 22 update

• Removed FIND ME A SQUAD option
• Allow players to join empty Squads alone, thus having 1/4 squad members
• Change order of options to LEAVE SQUAD, INV A FRIEND, SWITCH TEAM
• Disable Privacy flag when 1 man squad
• Reset Privacy flag from Private to Public when squad drops to 1 player
• All occupied Squads will now show up colored blue on the Squad Selection screen
• Players who choose not to join squads will also show up as Blue in the "Not in a Squad” line
• Squads that are currently empty will display as white -- if you wish to join an empty Squad, you can choose the first one marked with white text

-- A detailed look at Squad refinements

A detailed look at Squad refinements

Today's PC client patch features numerous tweaks to Squad functionality and is part of our ongoing efforts to make it easier to play with friends and Platoon mates. These changes will also be implemented for consoles when we release the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 updates shortly. Stay tuned for the exact date of the console updates.

First, we need to look at how joining with Squads and Platoons affects the balance of teams. Initially, servers are commanded to equal out each side, so joining with friends can impact that balance while joining with Platoons further hinders this. As a result we have made some adjustments to the in-game Squad management screen.

For PC, you are now able to highlight the various Squads and select which one you wish to join by selecting a Squad and then clicking the Join Squad button. Please note that the Squad Privacy option still allows 2 man Squads which, during 64 player sessions, can lead to players with no squad position –- the number of people with no Squads will be shown at the bottom of the Squad selection list.

After the patch is applied to consoles (in the near future) you will be able to join Squads by cycling through the list and selecting which Squad you wish to join.