Right then....this is a guide on sorting, listing and editing your favourites list of servers. As if the title didn't tell you that anyway....Manual Editing of your Favourites List
I would add that this requires file editing, so if you dont understand file types, editing files in notepad and very basic coding - be careful or dont attempt it at all.
I have made this guide in a response to people claiming that the account server takes a long time to log in and also that their lists are too big.
Also - to share the knowledge
Basically, in BF2, you have two types of "favourite server":
1) Servers that have been added as "favourites" from the main menu or ingame
2) Servers that you have played on, but not added as a favourite "history"
In the BF2 favourites menu, the favourites list contains both favourites and history all in one, long list. This includes BF2, EF, AF and SF servers all together.
The servers listed in green text are actual favourites. The servers listed in white are just servers where you have played games on, but aren't necessarily a favourite as such.
The list is sequentially ordered in date order of when servers were added. Favourites are listed in order, followed by the history afterwards.
This is shown below:
Quite messy, especially with "red" servers too (red means the server hasn't responded).
From the ingame BF2 menus, all you can do is add and delete favourites.
But with a bit of knowledge, you can organise these into some sort of order and create seperate favourites lists for vanilla and SF, and even sort them however you want to.
1) Sorting and organising your favourites listINDEX
2) Seperating SF servers from the rest
3) Adding server IP's
4) Disclaimer and Q&A
Lets take a look at my current list, loaded in vanilla:1) Sorting and organising your favourites list
...two pages worth!!
As you can see, Ive a good selection of vanilla, EF, AF and SF servers in there.
Now, I want to sort these into some kind of order. I will be grouping all of the vanilla servers together, EF, AF and SF too (like whats already in place with the TV2 servers I have) - and also removing old servers.
This has to be done manually, i.e. outside of BF2.
So, to do this, find your "General.con" file. This is located in the following path (by default):
Documents and Settings\NAME\My Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles\
In the profiles folder, you will see folders named 0001, 0002, 0003 (and default) etc. Each of these represents an account which you have logged into BF2 with, once again in date order of when you first logged in with them.
Normally, 0001 is your main account although not always.
(you can check by opening up the "Profile.con" file with notepad and look at the account name in there).
Once you are in the correct account folder, locate the "General.con" file, and open it with notepad (if Windows doesnt recognise the file type, choose notepad as the program from the list).
This list isnt very long, but basically covers a lot of basic options that the game stores. Including your favourites. If you scroll to the bottom, you should see all of the servers from your list.
Notice that there is a "GeneralSettings.addFavouriteServer" and a "GeneralSettings.addServerHistory". This is the difference between an actual "favourite server" and a "history server". They are stored under a different setting.
Also, notice that after all of the "History servers", there is a number? Well that basically indicates how many times you have played there and is indicated in the "Played" column in the Favourites list (I believe that it's the number of rounds as a pose to times played on the server, but im not too sure)
Right. Now to sort the list. Basically, use delete, copy/cut and paste. Simple!
I want to delete all of the now dead servers. So, I will be deleting the following servers from my list:
"70.86.12.58" 29901 "24/7 Great Wall Seal Team 6"
"84.244.131.162" 16567 "-TMP- Iron Gator only"
"84.244.162.160" 29900 "MAD-Pack.de \\Gator-Warlord//" 72
"195.72.152.27" 29910 "[=LW=] Lunatic-warriors.de" 48
"84.244.171.93" 29900 "Arschlochkinder Ranked [Special Forces]" 44
As shown:
Ive also deleted all of the history servers as well:
"85.17.14.183" 29900 "THE FIGHTERS GERMAN RANKED" 9
"84.244.162.157" 29900 ".:[campergravezone]:." 5
"84.244.186.236" 29900 "24/7 Dragon Valley" 2
Right, now Im going to sort the list by simply re-arranging them in order of vanilla, AF, EF and SF.
(Note that Ive left gaps for the seperation of boosters. This is for reference only. Do not leave the gaps and save it.)
Simple copy+pasting has sorted out the list, removed old servers and has ordered it how I want it to be.
And here is the result:
Not bad eh?
Now, we can take this 1 step further.2) Seperating SF servers from the rest
So you have a long list of favourites. You enjoy both your vanilla and SF, and have a lot of servers in your favourites for both. But you get annoyed with seeing them both in the same list right?
Not a problem.
First of all, we can seperate them and create an "SF list" and a "Vanilla list". To do this, do the following:
1) Go to the "Documents and Settings\NAME\My Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles\0001" profile (or whichever profile you used) and copy+paste your existing "General.con" file, basically creating a duplicate file of it.
2) Rename the duplicate to "SFGeneral.con" and open it up in notepad.
3) Find your favourites list again and delete all of the vanilla, EF and AF servers. (if you have already sorted it like I did above, then this is a very easy task!)
Save the file and exit.
4) Open up the "General.con" file in notepad and delete all of the SF servers from the favourites list.
Save changes and exit.
You will now have 2 lists of favourites. 1 for vanilla/AF/EF servers and 1 for SF servers.
BF2 will ignore the "SFGeneral.con" file since it is not read by the game and is hence ignored. So it just sits there doing nothing.
However, whenever you want to play SF, just rename the existing "General.con" to "VANGeneral.con", and the "SFGeneral.con" to "General.con".
You will now have switched favourites lists, whilst still retaining all of your favourite servers for all the boosters/expansions etc.
Once it is setup, you just have to remember to switch over the "General.con" file for whichever game you wish to play.
The other advantage of this, is that if there are less servers in the list - then the account server takes less time to log in. So having 2 seperate lists is actually better for login time.
This also allows you to have a lot more servers in the list for SF and more for vanilla whilst still having quick account login time.
We can also take this one step further. We can add new server IP's into the list as well. This is useful if you use http://www.game-monitor.com a lot for checking up on active servers running maps you want to play.3) Adding server IP's
Just copy an existing line of text and edit it.
Here, I have added a few other SF servers that I (used to) regularly play on and I like to have them in the list just incase theres a good game going.
All I have done here is to take the IP's and names from game-monitor and put them straight into the file.
Note that I have actually realised that game-monitor doesn't report the ports for the servers correctly (compare HBD Ghosttown on my list above to what it displays on game-monitor). So just beware of this sometimes.
Since the favourites list doesnt update when a server host changes the name of a server, this is more useful for keeping it consistent with the servers. This can be seen in here:
Look at TV2 32 - Euro Force. It is playing an AF map. Looking here:
http://www.game-monitor.com/search.php? … p;game=bf2
We can see that TV2 32 is now "AF ALL MAPS" (and the EF server has moved to TV2 35). So by simply editing the name of the server, we can keep it consistent. This is useful when your favourite servers suddenly go from 24/7 karkand to say karkand/sharqi/jalalala (horrible rotation imo) and you wana keep it up to date.
And this is the final result for my favourites lists:
Vanilla/AF/EF:
SF:
4) Disclaimer and Q&A:
I hold no responsibility if you damage/corrupt or delete any core game files or break the game itself.
I am merely providing an insight into what you can do. This is not a definitive method, but it does work for me.
Q: My servers have gone red. What does this mean?
A: The server is offline, hasnt pinged correctly, is part of another mod or has been shutdown. Dont remove it until you are sure which one it is and then action accordingly.
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Q: Why does having less favourites make the account server log in quicker?
A: When you log in, it automatically pings all of the servers in your favourites. That is why your favourites are always green/red/white when you log in - because it has already determined this for you. Also, having servers from the other side of the world affects this too.
Having less servers = less ping time = quicker log in.
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Q: All of my favourites are not appearing in BF2!! WTF HAVE I DONE? YOU BASTARD!
A: First of all. Calm the fuck down. Unless you deleted all of your favourites or the General.con file, then you have nothing to worry about.
You probably have just left it as "SFGeneral.con" or have changed the file extension. Make sure the file is named (including the file extension) as "General.con"
If the file was deleted, then restore it from the Recycle Bin. Simple.
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Q: I changed my list, but the list ingame hasn't changed. Why?
A: This could be 1 of many reasons.
Firstly, you may have edited the General.con file for a different account. If you have multiple accounts, yet play on the same servers - you can copy+paste your edited General.con file to the other profiles so that each account you use has the same list.
Also, if you load up BF2, minimise and edit the files IT WILL NOT WORK. You will end up editing the files, but BF2 wont update. Then when you go back to the favourites list - it hasnt changed, and BF2 will then update the General.con file. I.e. you lose all of the editing and it hasnt changed.
You must make all, and any changes without BF2 running.
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Thats my little guide for y'all!
Hope you like it, and if you are picky/fussy like me, you might find this useful.
I find it very good for the SF/vanilla server seperation and also clearing out old servers.
- Snake