We rented a Battlefield 2 Server from artofwarcentral.com (better know as "AOWC") for several months and had nothing but trouble from day one.
We had high expectations as they provide a link from Microsoft.com where they are listed as a provide (but not endorsed) of game hosting services, they have considerable testimonials on their site - though I have learned they prune those regularly, and in general project a positive image online from posts in popular easily searched forums.
The issues began almost immediately, their payment processing system was broken (as is much of their custom tool inventory) and required multiple submissions to get our account setup - continuous SQL errors are found throughout the signup and support process it appears.
After getting the purchase made, the 1 hour game setup we were told would occur via Live Person chat in fact occured substantially later.
Once we understood how to administer the game, since EA prohibits direct access to servers by customers for the purpose of protecting the Battlefield 2 Ranking system, we set off to play.
The game functioned mostly OK for the first 15 days.
The next month, the issues began. Problems with their custom tools and the BF2CC Daemon occured resulted in the daemon not working properly and literally breaking the game.
When the daemon was first installed, the game was taken from ranked to UNRANKED for a full 24 hours! No offer of a credit was made at that point though it was stated it would be referred to "management". The ultimate resolution to the unranked issue resulted in the entire server being resetup, none of our settings backed up (considerable at that point) and the issue reoccuring immediately when the daemon was reinstalled.
Our issue was put off until the next business day where we were told it was resolved, when it fact it was not. Support tickets would be entered, and responded to fast - ONLY problem was the responses were utterly useless. Artofwarcentral.com's (AOWC) staff don't check out their own work, that results in the customer doing the legwork.
Not only did we have to report when our server broke, we had to test it AFTER they "fixed" it which typically resulted in our reporting the issue still existing and receiving a "all good" message then simply going back and reporting it again because of the fact that artofwarcentral.com's staff never check their own work. Issues that should take minutes to resolve turn into hours, or in extreme examples days.
Issues persisted with the BF2CC Daemon making the stop, restart, and start buttons totally useless. If they were used, the game would become dysfunctional - and the artofwarcentral.com staff initially told us the game had to be reinstalled! Typically after 15days suppport tickets would be replied to referencing the issue was resolved, again it wasn't, and the back and forth with us telling them it wasn't fixed.
Then came the lag.
Lag reports came in continually from clans playing in the server, as well as friends and family. I left for vacation, came back to find an email box full of complaints and a game that laid empty for 2 full weeks with people stating they would "never play there again", certainly not something we wanted to hear!
A reboot request via their support system resolved the issue, of course when they said they would reboot it - they didn't - we had to request a reboot several times. 5 minutes turned into 30 minutes.
We were ultimately told to apply a new game patch to resolve the issue, of course, in this case the game itself was not the issue - but rather the host. The server had to be constantly rebooted to resolve the lag issues.
This is where the story ends, I requested credits frequently and during all this time we were credited a small amount of time (not a full month) which in fact doesn't even compensate for the real downtime. I do count the two weeks when I was on vacation, since I the customer should not have to monitor the game server and provide feedback to the host to insure THEIR infrastructure works.
I would also like to point out that their support, billing, and management tools break frequently. I learned fast to COPY AND PASTE all support ticket information before clicking submit to avoid having to retype it all.
I would highly recommend anyone seeking to host a Battlefield 2 or any other game server such as Counterstrike, Medal of Honor, Half Life 2, Tribes, etc, to seek hosting ELSEWHERE. Artofwarcentral.com has absolutely no concern for customer service or support and has a strict no refund, no credit, no nothing policy and legitimate complaints go in one ear and out another. Avoid them at all costs, I know I will.
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