ok thought I'd get around to 2 important announcements...

1. Bad News:

Our server has once again been under attack by the hacking noobs. This time they've developed a hack that allows them to remotely mass disconnect (or more often than not mass Crash-to-Desktop) (on youtube)

I'm afraid at the moment this is an issue with the code of BF2 and not touched by PB and evenbalance. Therefore at present there is no way to stop this. It means that some of the nooblets we've banned from the server in the past are causing this disconnect when the server is getting busy (hence why the server has been mysteriously dying recently) - from connection IP's its also possible that people who are currently banned are able to instigate this attack without actually connecting to the server (therefore the banlist does not work)

This is a global problem - all BF2 servers are potentially effected and are at the mercy of the hack kiddies. If you wish to read more there are several threads on gamespy, the EA UK forums and the Main US EA Forums.. google away...

2. Good News

EA are finally announcing the 1.5 patch (which should have been out by now after repeated delays) - 1.5..

For those that don't believe me, there's an annoucement on the EA website: clicky here

This should go towards fixing the above mentioned hack and the spate of PID spoofing thats going about. It also fixes some of the bugs that have been mentioned for the past few years.
Aside from code updates and some bug fixes there will also be a new map (although obviously the bug fixes are much more important)

Also it appears they are not going to withdrawn the master account server - so the stats system is still safe

When it goes open beta, I'll see if we can get it on the server, or if there's any more news on either of the above subjects I'll post again

In the meantime we've just got to hold our breath and wait (...and I'm off for a bit of karkand style 'shanghai showdown' )

any changes in weaponary related stuff like the ak jump/shoot thing? would be a shame to see that sort of thing go

is there a set release date for it?

The last date I was given was last january (so am not going to say again, because they will undoubtedly run overdue)

As for details, annoucing details of patch before the official announcements would breach any non-disclosure agreements.. so basically no-one will.. publically