ENTERTAINMENT

“Helldivers 2 Suffers From Success”

Arrowhead Studios released their newest game, Helldivers 2, to a level of success they weren’t prepared to handle.

The game, a third-person cooperative shooter, requires a constant online connection to play, and Arrowhead designed their servers to comfortably host 250,000 players. On the day of the sequel’s premier, Helldivers 2 struggled to host nearly a half-million players logging in at once and ultimately failed to do so. People purchased the game, priced at $40, only to be kept from playing by an error screen reading, “Servers at capacity. Please try again later.”

The server issues were so prevalent that, despite critical acclaim, the game was advertised on PC as having “mixed” reviews. Players were giving the game a “Not Recommended” vote on Steam (the leading market for PC games) when faced with being unable to login.

Many of these negative votes claimed that the gameplay was fantastic when they could play but that queue times were beyond unacceptable; some players had to wait up to six hours to play. Many resorted to leaving the game running while they were at work, school, or even overnight to play later.

Players lucky enough to get in left the game running after playing so they wouldn’t have to wait in line again next time. However, the developers hadn’t implemented any systems to disconnect absent players, which only compounded their server capacity issues.

Arrowhead Studios' CEO, Johan Pilestedt, tried to apologize to the community with a weekend where all in-game rewards are doubled. This “Double XP” weekend only encouraged already frustrated players to redouble their efforts at logging in to take advantage of the limited-time event. The community began mocking the poor decision, venting their dissatisfaction to Pilestedt’s official X account.

Pilestedt responded to these tweets with, “Yeah, in retrospect maybe this was not the best idea.” As of February 23, Arrowhead announced via X that the Helldivers 2 servers had been upgraded to hold 700,000 players.

Even then, the developers said, “Unfortunately, we expect the [concurrent players] to reach that level.”

Arrowhead Studios admitted that they were woefully unprepared for the popularity of their game. The developers believe the surprise success came from the game’s marketing campaign. The advertisements relied on heavy-handed satire of American ideologies while also bringing attention to their non-traditional technique for keeping the game fresh.

The cooperative aspect of the game has players fighting to liberate planets around the galaxy from various foes, such as the “Socialist Automatons” and “Undemocratic Terminids.” Controlling these factions is a single employee only ever referred to as “Joel.” His job? To observe ongoing missions and directly change the game’s world.

Joel injects a deeper sense of realism into the enemies by controlling them directly rather than leaving it up to a program.

In an interview with PC Gamer, Pilestedt said that Joel “had to get up in the middle of the night to give the Automatons a bit of reinforcements.” Joel believed the liberation of a planet the Automatons attacked wasn’t challenging the players enough to provide a satisfying balance between danger and accomplishment.

While the game was plagued with connectivity issues, Pilestedt believes the worst of it is in the past. While he hasn’t claimed to completely fix the connectivity issues, the game’s ratings have been on the rise since the latest patch.

Most consumer reviews on Steam claim that the worst of the problems have passed. Of the 182,000 customer ratings, Helldivers 2 now rests at a rating of “Mostly Positive.”

Helldivers 2 is available now on PlayStation 5 and PC.

LIFESTYLES

“New Department Head Shares Plans”

Dr. Cyndy Hall is ABAC’s new head of the English and Communications department and aims to get the number of majors up during her stay.

Hall’s long-term goal is a focus on commuters.

“We pull in a lot of students from surrounding counties, and I think that sometimes they get lost in the shuffle,” she said.

However, Tifton locals remain an invaluable piece of ABAC and the WRCM program.

“For the immediate, we’re focusing on the campus and the students already on ABAC,” Hall said.

She went on to say the department’s efforts in the two months since her arrival have been “trying to enlighten the general studies students who aren’t sure what their major is yet, or what their opportunities could be.”

“People have misconceptions about writing and communication,” Hall said. “They think, ‘you can’t do anything with that degree except teach.’ But we have [faculty] doing amazing things with students and creating skills that can get you jobs right away.”

Hall’s biggest fear with the student body is they may not realize the facilities available to writing and communication majors.

“People tend to just go to their classes and don’t look around,” Hall said, “If they’re going to the library, they mostly go to the second floor, and if they go to tutoring, they may not bother to look down the hallway.”

She worries students do not wander into The Stallion’s newsroom, the radio and podcast booths, the post-production media center, and the complete television and broadcasting studio, which are all open to students in and out of communication programs.

When asked if she has experienced any difficulties performing the duties of her position, Hall said, “The budget, but that is always a hurdle wherever you go in academia.” With a touch of hesitation, she added, “and the budget for English and communication in rural areas? It’s even more difficult.”

But how does Hall decide which issues are most important? “The English and communication department doesn’t have as much control or decision-making over that as most people think,” she said. “You have to do what they tell you from top, but people at the bottom are also telling you what they need.” Hall pinpointed this as one of the biggest challenges of her position, saying she has to “make not-so-popular decisions” handed to her and to make them “as palpable as possible.”

While Hall does not believe she has been in her position long enough to have a large impact, she believes that will change when she has finished settling in.

“All of our faculty are stretched beyond what they should be,” she said. “Advising, extracurricular groups, and taking students on trips to study abroad… I don’t think the faculty in the English and communications department get the credit they deserve.”

Hall said her goal when she took over was “to shine a light on what [the department] is doing. It really is remarkable.”

Any student interested in pursuing writing and communication will find a plentiful community of open doors. Hall encourages students to “come ask questions!”

Hall said, “Talk to other students, talk to students who work for The Stallion, talk to students working for Stallion TV.”

She mentioned her experience with various events held on campus, saying, “The students were so… happy. They were having a great time! It was a community, and if we didn’t have this department? That community wouldn’t have anywhere to go.”