By all accounts, Battlefield 1943's launch on Xbox Live Arcade got off to a fairly rough start. If you go by the mood of gamers across the internets, you can see high amounts of player dissatisfaction, as attempts to start or join games were met with lag or total inability to connect. The good news is, Electronic Arts and DICE were well aware of the situation, and a message from a DICE staffer on the EA forums in Europe tried to reassure players that help was on the way. In his first message, which was posted not long after the game became available, Gordon Van Dyke, a producer at the developer, noted:
Good News, the game is incredibly successful beyond even my expectations. We have reached server capacity, but the bad news about this now some people can't join unless someone leaves. But don't worry, we are adding more servers ASAP to Xbox and in preparation PS3 that should start going up ASAP with priority on Xbox 360."
Van Dyke updated that same message a number of times in the time since it was posted to explain the status changes that came in that time, with the fourth of five updates saying:
We have full support of EA to add as many servers as takes and then some so that everyone can play. This work has already started and servers will be added around the clock with teams working to cover this 24 hours a day so not a moment is wasted!"
His fifth update gave even better news, saying that around the time this news story is being posted, players should have fewer problems accessing servers:
Xbox 360 will have around double the servers we have now by 4:30 PST (00:30 GMT)! This will be done in stages so please bear with us. We also increased PS3 servers before release and will keep increasing both the Xbox 360 and PS3's capacity until needs are met with enough extra for peak playing times!
His message also added that BF1943 servers are currently located in Amsterdam, Miami, Fremont, California, and Tokyo, and that they are"adding more locations as we [need] to spread the load of players." Also, EA and DICE wanted to remind everyone that the challenge to rack up a community total of 43 million kills will start on Friday, and when that count is achieved, the Coral Sea map will unlock as a new map on which to play. They also passed on two new screens of this map to give you a taste of what's at stake.
