8 hour inactivity = server shutdown?

[Newman]

Not sure how much truth there is in this but still sucks.

At DICE's request, all GSPs will switch off Battlefield: Bad Company 2 servers after eight hours of inactivity, in an effort to reduce load on EA's crash-happy master server:

Due to the continued issues with the EA master servers, DICE have requested we turn off servers which aren't actively being used by players.

As we want you guys to enjoy this excellent game with as little problems as possible, we are going to be turning off all servers which have had 0 players for over 8 hours.

Please note that this is a temporary measure, which we hope everyone will support; however we also appreciate that some of your may not want your servers turned off.

Just to confirm this will only effect servers if they haven't seen a single player for over 8 hours so there is no need to worry that your server will be turned off when its full.

This follows the shut down of public servers, accounting for around 40,000 player slots.

[Newman]

I asked our game server provider and they haven't gotten any messages from EA/Dice about this, I'm thinking someones making shit up.

[Stephen]

maybe low end server companies, but they would be having to refund so much money it would be rediculios.

if true so many servers will be screwed because not many play during the early morning.

[hulkvsspawn]

right it depends on when the 8 hours starts and stops

[Bullwinkle]

Looks like that is incorrect. EA/DICE only asked that of one of their UK server vendors, and server owners CAN opt-out of the shutdowns. I've found the best way to get updates is via the battlefield blog.

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/