EA Bad Company 2 Community Support = Fail

[[JFG]Propaganda]

No dedicated server files, no dev tools, nothing. Stick it up your arses, you won't get my money. They know the community weeds out the junk on it's own, they certainly don't need to control it.

When Infinity Ward first announced that Modern Warfare 2 wouldn't support dedicated servers, the PC community was in an uproar. Along with other decisions regarding the game that were seen by the PC gamers as a stab in the back, it ended up with PC sales amounting to only three percent of the total. Be it because it actually felt like the PC had been taken a notch down as far as developer attention went, or because this was just seen as a golden marketing opportunity, DICE was very vocal about its disapproval of the “no dedicated servers” concept.

While trying to not lash out at someone else's product as much as it could, the Battlefield developer made it very clear that its game wouldn't follow the same road as MW2. It promised that Bad Company 2 would be a proper PC experience, with large servers and support for dedicated ones. Now, while talking to Eurogamer, Bad Company 2's Producer, Gordon Van Dyke, has detailed these servers, and the first thing he has revealed is that the files that the community will need in order to build dedicated servers won't be released, in an attempt to “protect the game's integrity on PC.”

As such, the only way to host a dedicated server for BC2 will be to rent one from DICE's authorized hosts. According to Van Dyke, “This does not earn DICE a profit. But we will see where the game goes and support it post launch.” As for the hosts themselves, these have been picked in “all major regions of the world,” so, unless you're in one of them, don't expect to have a perfect, lag-less BC2 multiplayer experience.

Truth be told, this isn't that much of a difference from the previous workings of other Battlefield games. While DICE did offer the choice to host the server in one's own living room, very few players did, and servers were still rented to ensure a constant, quality connection. The problem here would be more of an ideological one. DICE promised to fully support the PC community, but it has already announced that mod tools won't be released for the game, and now it has even restricted the server freedom, in a world where anarchy rules.

The restricted files are bound to be leaked sooner rather than later, and DICE should know this, so we have to wonder just what it is trying to achieve by restricting them in the first place. While it's still far from Modern Warfare 2, BC2 seems to slowly but surely move in the same general direction.

[Dionysos]

All these companies do is make it easier for (indie?) developers who focus on the pc to market and sell their games with proper support. They create a vacuum where good pc games used to be.

I look forward to for instance Red Orchestra on the U3 engine, it's dev game originated from a successful mod which turned stand-alone, and they support and include the community in a great way. Just one example of a dev who I think deserves my money.

[dewkl]

I'm interested to know just how much this could affect sales. I'm guessing not much, not enough for anyone to care. These angry posts/group represent an extremely small part of the customers.

Besides, most of those people end up buying the product anyway (look at the l4d and mw2 "boycott").

[nub]

The L4D2 boycott was retarded because a lot of the bitching had no point other than it being too soon and that it should have been a DLC. But there was a ton of new content in L4D2 for it to only be a DLC, and a lot of Valve's employees jumped on the development which made it release so fast.

MW2 was much more understandable though, but I think the love for the franchise is what lead most of the "boycotters" to buying it anyway. Honestly, it's a total overpriced turd in my opinion. It does not deserve a $60 price tag, especially now.


Anyway, this does seem like a turn for the worse, but hopefully EA and Dice don't fuck this up. Weren't they horrible with patches in the previous BF games anyway? BF2142 was horrible and I heard that the first Bad Company was worse.

[cashed]

You have to look at it in a different light. BFBC2 was mainly their console BF game, on a new engine. This 1 is pretty much to run kinks out for BF3. That's why the no mod tools. Also their rank system doesn't support custom maps so why would ppl want to play them? I mean they could but then it would be maps of mining for kills.

BF i thought never really had the community dod, cs, or tf has. (it may) Releasing custom maps and getting that player feedback is 1 of the reason i still play them.

I also thought bf2142 was a solid multiplayer. A lot more balanced than bf2, and a much better upgrade system

[nub]

I guess. I was never really part of the BF community. I just played BF 1942 and BF2 for short periods of time for fun. Hell I never even played 1942 online, just against bots.

I can't see not having custom maps being a bad thing for the game to be honest.

[dewkl]

I like the multiplayer, but EA is doing a fucking terrible job on making this work.

[trcc]

The server browser is a pain in the ass right now. It is unbelievable how shitty the EA servers are. We can't even connect to our accounts for the whole day and when we can, there is an absence of pings which make it even more difficult to find a good server. I haven't got the chance to play in a server with less than 150 ping. This is a joke. I thought Battlefield 2 server browser was shit, now this is shit x 10. Totally ruining the experience for me.

[nub]

That sucks. It's a good thing the campaign looks incredible though. MP looks really fun, but EA has always been terrible at that kind of shit.

[JLea]

Yeah, this shit always happens with DICE games days after they launch. Give it a month and it'll all be running smoothly.

And from what I've played in the campaign, this game is AMAZING. Better than MW2 in every single way.

[Shr3d]

Shameless edit.

[dewkl]

This game is addicting. I can't stop playing.

[trcc]

My previous post may sound like bad company 2 is crap from start to finish but it isnt. The single-player is very good and the multiplayer is awesome. The sound effects are just... brillant! However I need to upgrade my computer, I don't know why, I keep having terrible fps drops or lag spikes whenever I play.

I have a good PC...

2.67ghz core 2 duo
geforce 8800 gts
6 gig ram ddr2 800
powersupply 700 watts

and I lag with the lowest settings and lowest resolution... It lags as much in 1024x768 low than it is lagging 1920x1080 at medium. What the hell? I don't know what to do I re-installed my drivers. The only thing I can think of is Windows 7. I'm having lag spikes too in ep2 and l4d2.. I didn't have any when running on Windows XP. Looks like I might downgrade to windows xp 64 bit soon :S

[kez.ini]

and I lag with the lowest settings and lowest resolution... It lags as much in 1024x768 low than it is lagging 1920x1080 at medium. What the hell? I don't know what to do I re-installed my drivers. The only thing I can think of is Windows 7. I'm having lag spikes too in ep2 and l4d2.. I didn't have any when running on Windows XP. Looks like I might downgrade to windows xp 64 bit soon :S

It is clearly fault of your software..

I have 9800gt 512mb, 1gb(!) system memory, 2.13 core2duo, and I run this game at 20-30 fps on maxed out settings (apart from aa, 2xAA..) without any problem on windows7.

Maybe you have too much shit in registry and useless 3rd party software ?

Also, if you updated drivers to newer version than 196.21, they were bugged, and I do recommend you to get 196.21. As well as nvidia does ;P

[Psy]

This game is considerably more fun then MW2 will ever be. Yes, the server browser sucks balls and they're aware of it and are working on the issue but otherwise it's a very enjoyable game!