EA & BF2 rant

Soldato
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Firstly let me say up until a few years ago EA did good games. Some very good ones but the slow and awful decline of comercialism and profit over quality has begun in earnest. You only have to look at the ammount of FIFA rendeitions that come out that are essentialy the same with some tweaked game play. Best is they got the FIFA License for another nine years or so

Now onto my real beef is with Battlefield 2. I make no apologies for the charges I bring against them. I love games. I have been playing them since the days of attic attac on the ZX Spectrum 48k. All the way through VIC20's, Commodore 64's Amigas, BBC Model B's Acorn Electrons. You name it I had it. The I got a PC and realised you could play Doom & Quake on line against someone on the other side of the world on compuserve via dial up. Dont worry im getting to the point. Anywho the though of playing games online got me hooked. The biggest one for me was Desert Combat which is a MOD for Battlefield 1942. I loved it. Graphicaly it was no masterpiece. Gameplay it was in a word FUN and I would say is still better now than it ever was with BF2

Ok some people will say that it has the ranking system yadda yadda yadda. Let me put this to you. BF2 Should never have been released in the state it was. At best it was an Alpha albeit a pretty one. Graphically its good but the thing that spoils it is the whole points and ranking system. Not to mention a pretty damn poor interface to browse for servers. Given the example of tonight. After four crashes to desktop when joining a server I managed to join a ranked server with a few of us playing on it. Two guys had pretty amazing scores. Then you work out how they do it. Sit in a tank and a helicopter and spawn kill from distance. I dont blame these sad saps who put points scoring and ranks above the enjoyment of the game play and god forbid actually using skill to compete in a multiplayer arena. Well done you are now a Seargant Major of the corps and you have your distinguished flying medal Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz oh and we have unlocked a new spud gun for your efforts

The other thing is that the ranking system is actually stopping the development of decent mods coming through. It's stifiling creativity. Why because the community has bought into the ranking system above gameplay, stability and quality. The bottom line is EA wont allow ranked servers for mods

With the patches that are coming out and making the game worse I wonder why bother. Its like returning a your new car because the air bag is faulty and it comes back to you with three wheels.

My other gripe is the price point of EA Games. If you look at any of the major publisher s of games. on various on line stores, every single one reduces prices after time. Not EA. Is this because they have to pay for developers to continually produce patches for sub standard games ??? Not to mention paying for more weapons and maps and costumes through add on packs like Eurforoces.

As far as I am concerned Desert Combat was more fun and it had a better community. This isnt me looking through the nostalgia goggles. I look forward to a lot of titles and get them if I think the demo is good.

So tonight I decided I will continue to play BF2 not because I like it but because my mates play it and thats the fun part of it. The game is too clinical. Given the choice I would send the disk back to EA as I am disapointed that they cant seem to iron out the bugs in their own code after twelve months. We were promised a massive step up from games like DC and BF1942. Other than the eye candy I am waiting to see it
 
Soldato
Joined
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13,779
I'm not defending EA here, I hate their guts as much as anybody does, but I do have to be the first to step-up and say that I adore Battlefield 2. :p Sure, the server browser is crap, and the teamwork on the public server is non-existent, but you can still have a lot of fun.

You should try playing on some (reputable) clan servers or the BF2S servers, there's always decent folks to play with who like to work in squads. I'm not sure if TPF (Team-Play First) and Tactical Gamers are still around, but look for those guys if you can, as I've never had a bad experience with them.

As for people spawncamping in tanks and helicopters, I've found that anti-tank and anti-air rockets seem to work wonders. ;) Tell some of your team-mates to switch to a useful kit, or just blow them up yourself. :)
 
Soldato
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Middlesbrough
You've said nothing new that's already been said over at EA forums. I feel the same tho. I think it's disgusting that they released booster packs (that you had to pay for) for a game that isn't even complete. The fact is that EA/Dice know all this already yet they haven't done a damn thing that was productive for about 6 months.
 
Soldato
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Kent
Exsomnis said:
As for people spawncamping in tanks and helicopters, I've found that anti-tank and anti-air rockets seem to work wonders. ;) Tell some of your team-mates to switch to a useful kit, or just blow them up yourself. :)
The airplanes are even more exclusive now, and Ive tried shooting them down on gulf of oman, they are either out of range or your searching for them and find your dead again. Its not something I have been able to emulate, I got the lock-on sound as soon as I leave the end of the runway it seems.

The point Loki was making about mod community, I totally agree with, I like to feel my time is being tracked and reflected in my stat page which is why Ive never bothered to try any mods. The mods where the best thing about many games, including bf1942 (dessert combat), unreal tournament (tactical ops), even red orchestra started out as a ut2003 mod which is now a steam game and a pay for standalone rather than free mod.

I dont know how many players the mods get but I know I would be more willing if they were tracked.
 
Caporegime
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Norrbotten, Sweden.
no the ranking system destroyed BF2 and "weapon unlocks" if its a good game people will play it you dont need stupid hoops to jump through to unlock the "uber" guns. look at me i have played 120,000 hours and knifed 41 people im general 3rd class, i rezkilled and revied an afk guy for 60 hours, or sat in a chopper flying from flag to flag for 30 minutes.

score whoring pathetic rubbish game


you know the demo was good, people played to kill each other not avoid eachother to cap flags for mega points.

maybe im upset cos i unlocked the G3 and it was the biggest sack, with no ammo. ;)
 
Associate
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I agree with Loki 100%, not so much because of the mods, or lack there of, but the state the game itself is in. I can deal with people tank-whoring, or plane-whoring, those vehicles are there to be used, and that's what people do. What i cant stand is the damn bugs. Too many CTD's, and now we have to deal with the team colour bug (your own team appearing in red) too.

The server browser hasnt been an issue for me, but i can see why people are annoyed with it, it's rather clunky to say the least. And i TOTALLY agree that EA should atleast FINISH the damn game (iron out all the bugs) before releasing crap expansions, just to make money.

I've pretty much given up on the game as a bad joke, the bugs have taken away all the fun for me, and i seriously doubt i'll even try to play it again untill EA pull their fingers out and fix what should have been fixed long ago.
 
Associate
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I still only have the orig bf2 and bf2 sf I cant realy be bothered with all the add ons especialy when you have to pay for each pack at least with the old school UT you would get a load of free mods that would spice the game up a but but now its all pay for this pay for that grrrrrrrrrrrr :mad:
 
Associate
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Give PRMM (http://www.realitymod.com/) a go as this forces you to play as a team if you wish to complete objectives. The Mod is more challenging and requires more skill to succeed. It also has ABR on most servers (alternative battlefield ranking) although the points system is very different to vBF2.We (.:iGi:.) have an infantry only 50 player server that's very popular at the moment. The mod is still being developed and still has some balancing and new content that will be added but I much prefer it to BF2 ;)
 
Associate
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I agree with the points made about all this damn mods they have brought out. I think its disgusting that they keep shoving £5-£10 mods out to be dl'ed when there are still countless bugs to be removed from the original game itself.

I also agree with the point made about them releasing a game that wasn't finished. If EA had spent a little more time on the actuall development and testing of the game rather than hitting the shelfs there might not have been this mess.

Personally, I havn't baught a single one of their booster packs simply out of hate for the way BF2 has been treated. I mean, almost a year after release and they still haven't fixed some of the original problems...

As for tank whores and Jet whores, they don't bother me too much except from it being another example of EA's screw up when it came to Jets. They really lost the whole balance idea in that department. Any good Jet pilot can pretty much dominate a map without being stopped.
Although I don't play the official servers anymore because they are dominated by kids with no respect what so ever. Better to play a reputable clan server with good admin attendence.

J
 
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Hawklord said:
Give PRMM (http://www.realitymod.com/) a go as this forces you to play as a team if you wish to complete objectives. The Mod is more challenging and requires more skill to succeed. It also has ABR on most servers (alternative battlefield ranking) although the points system is very different to vBF2.We (.:iGi:.) have an infantry only 50 player server that's very popular at the moment. The mod is still being developed and still has some balancing and new content that will be added but I much prefer it to BF2 ;)

Seconded ;)

Try the mod with a few of your mates for a couple of hours.

IMO it's a refreshing change from Vanilla
 
Associate
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I'm probably the last person to work this out, but for those getting CTDs immediately after hitting join game, just let the game time-in on its own (auto ready has to be on of course). It takes about 30s but I haven't crashed in a few weeks now.
 
Associate
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Loki said:
Firstly let me say up until a few years ago EA did good games. Some very good ones but the slow and awful decline of comercialism and profit over quality has begun in earnest. You only have to look at the ammount of FIFA rendeitions that come out that are essentialy the same with some tweaked game play. Best is they got the FIFA License for another nine years or so

Now onto my real beef is with Battlefield 2. I make no apologies for the charges I bring against them. I love games. I have been playing them since the days of attic attac on the ZX Spectrum 48k. All the way through VIC20's, Commodore 64's Amigas, BBC Model B's Acorn Electrons. You name it I had it. The I got a PC and realised you could play Doom & Quake on line against someone on the other side of the world on compuserve via dial up. Dont worry im getting to the point. Anywho the though of playing games online got me hooked. The biggest one for me was Desert Combat which is a MOD for Battlefield 1942. I loved it. Graphicaly it was no masterpiece. Gameplay it was in a word FUN and I would say is still better now than it ever was with BF2

Ok some people will say that it has the ranking system yadda yadda yadda. Let me put this to you. BF2 Should never have been released in the state it was. At best it was an Alpha albeit a pretty one. Graphically its good but the thing that spoils it is the whole points and ranking system. Not to mention a pretty damn poor interface to browse for servers. Given the example of tonight. After four crashes to desktop when joining a server I managed to join a ranked server with a few of us playing on it. Two guys had pretty amazing scores. Then you work out how they do it. Sit in a tank and a helicopter and spawn kill from distance. I dont blame these sad saps who put points scoring and ranks above the enjoyment of the game play and god forbid actually using skill to compete in a multiplayer arena. Well done you are now a Seargant Major of the corps and you have your distinguished flying medal Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz oh and we have unlocked a new spud gun for your efforts

The other thing is that the ranking system is actually stopping the development of decent mods coming through. It's stifiling creativity. Why because the community has bought into the ranking system above gameplay, stability and quality. The bottom line is EA wont allow ranked servers for mods

With the patches that are coming out and making the game worse I wonder why bother. Its like returning a your new car because the air bag is faulty and it comes back to you with three wheels.

My other gripe is the price point of EA Games. If you look at any of the major publisher s of games. on various on line stores, every single one reduces prices after time. Not EA. Is this because they have to pay for developers to continually produce patches for sub standard games ??? Not to mention paying for more weapons and maps and costumes through add on packs like Eurforoces.

As far as I am concerned Desert Combat was more fun and it had a better community. This isnt me looking through the nostalgia goggles. I look forward to a lot of titles and get them if I think the demo is good.

So tonight I decided I will continue to play BF2 not because I like it but because my mates play it and thats the fun part of it. The game is too clinical. Given the choice I would send the disk back to EA as I am disapointed that they cant seem to iron out the bugs in their own code after twelve months. We were promised a massive step up from games like DC and BF1942. Other than the eye candy I am waiting to see it


Ranking is here to stay, nearly every multiplayer game will be using it soon. BF2's ranking system is the one to follow and definately the best in any game. No complaints here. Regarding bugs most people dont get the bugs save for the server browser which everyone does(blame Dice canada).

BF2's price has dropped and is £15 in many places. I dont think it will cost more than £20 anywhere which is an amazing price given the game. You also have a good choice of mods and maps to play on now.
 
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Soldato
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fdxd said:
Ranking is here to stay, nearly every multiplayer game will be using it soon. BF2's ranking system is the one to follow and definately the best in any game. (blame Dice canada).

BF2's price has dropped and is £15 in many places. I dont think it will cost more than £20 anywhere which is an amazing price given the game. You also have a good choice of mods and maps to play on now.

Disagree totally. BF2 is pretty much the only game with a ranking system certainly for FPS anyway. Ofcourse MMORPG's have them as well but at least you have to do something in order to achieve them. Even some of the regulars of the OcUK clan have been kicked off ranked servers when they are Commander to make way for an admin who sits there looking at a map and dropping arty for three hours whilst getting 500 or so points for his trouble. Yeah real skill that is :rolleyes:

Other than Project Reality and Nations at War this is very little in the way of good mods out there. Chcek out http://www.moddb.com and you will that BF2 has very little in the way of mods compared to HL2 and other games

Maps come down to personal preference but when you check through the servers you find that Karkand only servers are the biggest number for servers that only run one or two maps. So in essence you pay the £30.00 when it's new. You then pay for the addons to get other maps and guns. Now we are expected to purchase Planetside 2142. (oops sorry I meant Battlefield 2142) Which I have been assured will suffer from the same issues in terms of ranking as BF2. The license for ranked servers are only going to be offered to Game Server Providers who currently supply BF2 ranked servers. No other companies are going to be offered them. So EA continues its little Gentlemens club. Imho It takes a lot from the gaming community and gives very little back
 

XPE

XPE

Soldato
Joined
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5,530
Loki i totally agree with you, but consider your self lucky ive had EXTRA problems, I loved BF2 when it first come out, but with every patch my preformace (FPS) in the game has droped to the point were the game has became unplayable and the server brower just doesnt word for me :(
 
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