News Ask Battlefield developer your questions!

Will there be another Battlefield Vietnam?

 

Question

As a PC Gamer, I expect New games on the market to be able to take advantage of the vast improvements in technology for the home PC gaming consumer.
The average Pc Gamer has a broadband connection and enough PC performance to support a 64 player experience with the best graphics and VOIP running.


# 1 Will the new Battlefield Bad Company2 title we have been hearing about for the PC take advantage of these advances by creating the LARGE 64 player environments we have come to enjoy with Battlefield2 ?

This is how you want the questions to look I know.

 

My questions = win

 

Some more thougts:

General:
- What does DICE think of developers like VALVE, STARDOCK, RELIC and thier practices? Would they aspire to be as respected (loved?) as them?

- How do they feel about people not really careing for anything but BF2 and its sequal? Most of the (less then helpful) questions posted in this very thread mainly about 1943 are about BF2 (and its bugs)! Me included...

Sales pitch:
Battlefield 2 - Joint Forces Edition:- BF2 with all the boosters and Special Forces intergrated into one game with;
-all the current maps plus a few more, some with Special Forces and some with vanilla factions.
-redesigned menu that does not hang / give stupid pings / better filters / intergrated friends list.
-optimised netcode to fix hit registration issues.
-all known bugs / glitches fixed.
-revised anti-cheat.
-tweak graphics options so that lower settings do not effect the gameplay (a dark shadow is a dark shadow for all players). Most PC's nowdays should handle this.
-SLIGHT balance adjustments (F35, G36E, Surface AA, 2 Grenades per player, Crouch past claymores, Vehicle destruction points).

Should not be too hard to put together as a stopgap and appease the mob. Hell I'd buy it! And I'd bet lots of other would too. As they say "Make it and they will come". BF2 was in most respects perfect and will be a very tough act to follow... you guys have you work cut out for you.

Few... that it for now.

 

Is that because people seeing 1943 as a pre-cursor to a BF3? I hope EA sees it that way and realises (and acts upon) that.

 

DICE seems so confident that the BF2 fanbase is going to embrace this new road they are taking with the Battlefield series. If they don't release Battlefield 3, the BF2 fanbase will move over to better things. Operation Flashpoint 2 > Battlefield Bad Comedy 2.

Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
http://www.codemasters.com/flashpoint/language.php

This game will be the Battlefield killer. DICE is shooting themselves in the foot by going casual.

 

Now that is something that they need to be aware of, not a question for them but a statement to them.

The BF2 fanbase that I'm aware of (from my clan and others we dealt/deal/play with/against) were divided regarding 2142 (like Marmite), some loved it and moved on to SciFi type games (or stayed on 2142) whilst others hated it. Those who found 2142 from outside the BF franchise aren't an issue here, expecting the fanbase to blindly follow is.

Questions then (some repeated from my previous posts):

• Are EA going to accept that PC users are vital to the BF franchise
• Are PC users of the game (1943 or BC) going to have their gaming experience 'dumbed down' to a consoles 'lowest common denominator'
• Are widescreen users going to be treated like cheats again (with no native widescreen support)
• Is there at least a possibility of a decent BF3 in the near future (ie announced this year)
• Will they accept that 1943 is a retrograde move by removing BF2 elements (commander)
• If a serious bug is found in the future that kills servers, will it be patched straight away or will we have to wait for minor changes on something else until the patch is released (like the 1.3 patch I think it was - they said they'd sorted the server fault but were waiting for something else... 3 month wait )

 

I want to add on this. As I have been a loyal BF fan (I have all bf's with all expansions and haven't doubted to pay for booster packs, eventhough bf2 booster packs were a major letdown for me). It's very nice to see a perspective like Valve's when it comes to PC game developing, their games have climbed the charts in such an insane matter, games like L4D, Portal and TF2, all built around the same engine. Do you know why it is that they have this great success?

here's an article I found at Games Industry dot biz
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/valve-pirates-are-under-served-customers

it titles "Valve: Pirates are "under-served customers"" which is another perspective to what EA has done with their DRM stupidness.

To summarize to the point I want to get to on that article, he(Holtman@Valve) made a special note on extra content for games that went like this:

"He also questioned monetising additional game content, an area Valve has historically made a firm stand on. By giving away extra content, Holtman said the developer had seen resulting sales spikes across several products rather than just one. "

So there it goes. And DICE charges for those silly maps they made for ME recently which kind of pissed me off after delaying the game to put a technology that only half the userbase(nvidia users) where able to enjoy.

So my final question is: What do you think of Valve's point of view on DLC, seeing that they sell so many copies with such a different, less capitalist approach? I mean, I know things in sweden are expensive, but do you really need to monetise on that bit of sand you're developing for games.

 

Do we even ask if EA know this?

Here's an interesting bit (my red, bold hint to EA):

 

what happened to the interview?

 

It's coming.

 

CardJoe I don't know if u have a written interview already or if it already happened but there's a nice question nobody has asked and it just occurred to me.

Will Battlefield 1943 and BC2 for pc feature PhysX? as an ATI card owner myself I'm really interested in knowing if they will feature it, because in ME, I didn't miss not having the PhysX but in Battlefield... I will!!!

Strange that no other interview that I've seen has asked that question. Let's hope they don't. 4870X2 Cheesecake!

 

Just an update on this for all you guys who might be waiting for it. I've just heard back from EA, who say that they've decided to delay the response to your questions after seeing that a lot of you were after specifics about the games which haven't yet been nailed down because design work is still on-going. They've promised to return to your questions once they've got some actual answers to give you, rather than just explaining what they think they might want to do but are unsure of.

Disappointing, I know, but I think it's a reasonable reaction as long as long as the answers come along eventually.

 

Damn, that's a shame.

 

On the bright side, it could mean they read the questions, went "oh ****, we're doing it all wrong!" and are madly trying to remake the game in our image before they answer the questions.

 

True, but I'll make sure we get answers eventually...one way or another!

 

I'd love to think that...

 

I hope they don't read my physX question and say "oh ****, we can use physx on the pc version!" T_T, I missed out on that beauty in Mirror's Edge, I don't want to have to buy an nVidia card for my precious battlefield games!

or ****! release physX for ati already! my 4870X2 would own physx like if was his b.................. brother... yeah... brother

 

Shame, but not entirely unexpected TBH. Inclusion of physX is another good question if it could be added.

We can only hope!

 

Naval Considerations for 1943

Some consider the absence of Naval battles a setback for the franchise. Implementation of this aspect for inclusion in future map packs for this updated version would be a positive step in the right direction. It would be a welcome addition to see some select battleships and select ships from all warring factions.

EL Alamein should be a staple of the desert component if an expansion is being worked on. This map is especially useful when modding for modern warfare scenarios.

Cost. Hopefully the cost will be reasonable for such small content. Anything above $9.99 for three relatively small maps would be detrimental to your efforts.