I’ll always remember jumping on Battlefield 4 for a little 24/7 Operation Locker mayhem back in the day. If you were looking forward to having the same control over a server in Battlefield V, it’s not looking so good.
DICE’s Global Community Manager Dan Mitre mentioned RSP (Rent Server Program) in a Reddit thread this week. Here’s the gist of where DICE stands with renting servers right now:
“In regards specifically to RSP, I’m going to keep it simple. You haven’t seen an update in our direction with RSP because we haven’t made a full decision internally whether or not we can deliver it.”
Mitre goes on to explain the obstacles for renting servers. Basically, it’s about the dev and monetary resources that go into developing and keeping them running. From Mitre:
“RSP needs to meet standards and your expectations with the tools we provide – that takes development resources. It also needs to make economical development sense – we can’t introduce a feature that ends up costing more to keep maintained than it returns (I know that statement will open up more debate, and I encourage that, but this is the reality of the situation). In other words, we don’t want to impact development resources of main game Quality of Life commitment and upcoming content by routing team bandwidth to RSP development. There’s also financial implications here that go well beyond my remit. Let’s tackle the former before we tackle the latter.”
Mitre did end the comment with a little bit of hope.
“That said, is RSP off the table? Not at all. Our teams need to weigh this carefully and either commit fully to the service or not provide it at all – and you need an official statement on what that decision is once it’s been made.”
Reddit users weren’t too receptive to the news with Mitre’s comment getting downvoted. And I’m on Reddit folks side here. I get that RSP takes up developer resources and costs money. But that’s what it’ll take to build a community that’ll stay with Battlefield V for more than six months. Maybe the RSP community is small, but they’re also the most loyal bunch.
I also get DICE has a lot going on with Battlefield at the moment with the upcoming launch of the Firestorm mode (battle royale). Still, the diehard Battlefield community is used to running their own servers. Battlefield 4 had it, and so did Battlefield 1. Not having it in Battlefield V is a tough pill to swallow for fans after it seemed like a none issue for previous Battlefield games.
Hopefully, RSP ends up getting the green light from DICE.