Black Bag Ops

BlackBagOps.com authored the SWBF2 (Classic) Server Manager (SM) and SWBF2 (Classic) Remote Server Manager (RSM), enabling online multiplayer gameplay for the game Star Wars Battlefront 2 (Classic). The software enabled the ability to track online sessions through the log file that was created, "statistic.csv". This file created enabled our website to track online multiplayer gameplay for the SWBF2 (Classic) game, and this file is what was uploaded to our website to keep our leaderboards current.

If you held an account here at our website, as a server admin you had access to this Black Bag Ops page where you could download the latest version of the BBO SWBF2 (Classic) Server Manager and BBO Remote Server Manager and then the server documents for them both. All these downloads and documents were originally from BlackBagOps.com (BBO) but placed here at our website for easy access for our admin contributors. Then when the BBO site went down, we continued to host these files at this website for the SWBF2 community.

SWBF2stats.net staff were regular contributors at BlackBagOps.com, and as such we had an open board for questions and support here at our website. We would then go and raise the issue at BBO. This page here was a support page for ONLY the admin that were contributing their community's server data to our database. If you were not contributing your server data to our website then you never saw this page that you are NOW seeing.

Some History

When the SWBF2 (Classic) game was initially released, the online multiplayer community used to "somewhat" communicate with Lucas Arts (LA) through a now defunct website called "BlackBagOps.com" or BBO for short. If you played SWBF2 (Classic) online through multiplayer mode, you were inundated by a global message in the global chat directing you to the BBO website for support.

Essentially, if there was a problem with the online gameplay in regards to how the SWBF2 server was performing, you could go to that website. There were downloads of the current versions of the SWBF2 Server Manager (SWBF2 SM) and the SWBF2 Remote Server Manager (SWBF2 RSM).

The author of these programs was the admin of the website and was a third party contracted by Lucas Arts to handle the SWBF2 online server management of their game. The admin of the site had also done some multiplayer server managers for some other online games and supported those games there at his site as well. SWBF2 was his latest endeavor at the time.

In the beginning, when gaming started becoming multiplayer online, games had to be setup with a server program for that game on a dedicated server box. That server program allowed you to host that game online, on the dedicated server box separate from the people playing the game. Today multiplayer online happens in a variety of ways but in 2005, multiplayer was provided mostly THIS way. BlackBagOps was the author of the SWBF2 (Classic) Server Manager (SM) and Remote Server Manager (RSM) that enabled multiplayer for SWBF2.

Support?

There was a support Bulletin Board (Forum) at BBO for issues and support of the SWBF2 server manager programs. The support wasn't the best. However, that BBO website was the closest the SWBF2 (Classic) community could get to "Lucas Arts" and make a direct impact on how the SWBF2 Server Manager and online multiplayer gameplay was developed.

Lucas Arts was listening to our requests as a community through this avenue at that website. We saw real results from LA and BBO with an update from the SWBF2 game and the SWBF2 server manager 1.0 to 1.1 update. Many issues were addressed, albeit, not everything.

A Betrayal to the SWBF2 Community

SWBF2stats.net staff were REGULAR contributors at the BBO forum for support issues. We relied heavily on the "statistics.csv" file produced by the software he (the admin) had authored, so we were there at the website regularly. Even though we were major contributors there, we were never told when the BlackBagOps website shut down.

As the end was getting close, we had a couple foreshadowing events to what was to come eventually. The admin at "BlackBagOps.com" stopped communicating with us. A couple months after that, without any warning, the downloads, the forums, and the entire support site there at BlackBagOps (BBO) were gone. A total shock and a terrible blow to the SWBF2 (Classic) community. The entire community would go there for help with issues having to do with multiplayer gameplay.

As mentioned, BlackBagOps was the SWBF2 community's closest avenue we had to Lucas Arts so this was looked at as not only a tremendous betrayal by BlackBagOps and its admin but by Lucas Arts as well. Both companies were to blame in the opinion of the SWBF2 community. Repeated attempts to reach out to BlackBagOps.com were not returned. We reached out to Lucas Arts, and they never responded to us about the issue. We would have hosted the BlackBagOps forums here at SWBF2stats in a heartbeat. The problems that the SWBF2 community faced after BBO and LA support dropped for the SWBF2 server manager were HUGE.

The Loss of the SWBF2 Knowledge Base

Before the end, the lack of support got so bad there at BBO that the forum members were solving all the problems for anyone coming with issues while the actual admin for the site was AWOL. WE had an interest in making sure the SWBF2 community could get online, so we and many others were helping with issues from other members in the community while the actual admin there at BBO went AWOL. The admin at BBO literally wasn't helping with any support and then when we all picked up the ball in the forum and started helping everyone with issues, the admin at BBO shut down the whole BBO site.

There was a running list of issues for the Server Manager and a HUGE "common issues" support forum for the SWBF2 Remote Server Manager. We SWBF2 server admins had collected and helped answer topics upon topics of issues there. All gone. BBO never responded to our emails.

Totally Screwed Up the Rollout of the Patch

The SWBF2 (Classic) community was left in disarray because now the default SWBF2 server program that major server hosting companies used (companies who hosted SWBF2 servers) was the SWBF2 Server Manager 1.0. The SWBF2 community had already switched to the updated SWBF2 Server Manager 1.10. Lucas Arts and BlackBagOps never pushed the patch to the pnline server companies. It was left to us in the SWBF2 community to push THEIR official patch out.

This presented a problem for the online SWBF2 community as a whole because if you go to a server hosting company and tell them there's an updated server manager program for the SWBF2 game, the first step for them is to go to the official website for the that program, BlackBagOps.com, WHICH was no longer there.

Lucas Arts did not supply the SWBF2 Server Manager 1.10 through their official website at the time (even though it was an official patch to the SWBF2 Server Manager). At the time the official game files (if you wanted them) actually came from a now defunct Lucas Arts SWBF2 forum for the game. Lucas Arts started migrating their old forum to a new system. Links, programs, and format never made the migration and server files for games never made it back to the NEW forums.

Lucas Arts forums always had problems being updated back then and the SWBF2 Server Manager patch (or program) was never added to their new list of files to download. Eventually it was available if you tracked the program name and patch down through their main website (now also gone), but it was hard to find and navigate to. No forwarding in the forum for anyone who came looking for the server files either, unless you went searching for a topic and someone answered with a link.

A Return of the Old Issues

This problem compounded because there were MANY issues with the first SWBF2 Server Manager 1.0. Many issues that were corrected with the 1.10 patched version. More importantly, at the BlackBagOps website there was a Bulletin Board. A forum that had accumulated a whole support section for the BBO 1.0 version of their SWBF2 Server/Remote Manager BEFORE the patches. Many of the problems and issues that many new server admins were now having with the SWBF2 Server Manager 1.0, could have easily been solved with a topic question that had already been answered in the OLD BBO forum by the SWBF2 community contributors there.

Most SWBF2 communities started hosting the SWBF2 Server/Remote Manager 1.10 programs at their own websites so SWBF2 admins in the community could have easy access. That didn't help when it came to server hosting companies that kept installing the original SWBF2 Server Manager 1.0 as the default for anyone wanting an SWBF2 online server.

If you had a dedicated server for your SWBF2 server and you could host your own server files then hosting the updated version wasn't an issue because you would just install the 1.10 version of the SM and use the 1.10 version of the RSM... and you were good to go. If you had the 1.0 version of the SWBF2 server manager installed and had to use the 1.0 version of the Remote Server Manager, you were dealing with old server issues and had no tools to deal with trolls and chat hackers.

To complicate matters even further, if you had the 1.1 version of either the SWBF2 Server Manager or the Remote Server Manager, they were not backward compatible with the 1.0 version of the software. As a server admin, you had to have the 1.10 Server Manager running if you wanted to connect to it with 1.10 REMOTE Server Manager. Because the updated versions weren't' pushed out by Black Bag Ops or Lucas Arts, BOTH versions of the softwares were equally distributed throughout the SWBF2 community. At one point there was a 1.09 version of the server manager floating around as well. SWBF2stats.net never distributed this version.

Pandemic

Black Bag Ops, together with Lucas Arts, fumbled the ball time and time again when it came to their support of the SWBF2 (Classic) game after their initial contracted one patch. Absent from the conversation thus far has been the game developer that Lucas Arts used to develop the game, Pandemic. While there is PLENTY to say on how Pandemic could have done better concerning this issue, the SWBF2 community as a whole never blamed Pandemic for the pitfalls and flaws of the online server manager rolled out by BlackBagOps.com and Lucas Arts. If you had been in the mix of the SWBF2 community during this time (2005-2017), you knew who dropped the ball. It wasn't Pandemic.

Pandemic had made an EPIC game.