Re: EA says we are a vocal minority.

I think this quote is taken out of the context and I think  DICE isn't completly wrong with this statement. If you don't like that game do not play it. Bitch about every small bug that is left in a game is inmature and not very smart at all.
This is 2006 and not the golden age of Pong. Games do not fit on a single disk anylonger but need an entire DVD. You can't expect a flawless release anylonger nor a year long support. I know Blizzard can do that but Blizzard is like 3drealms out of competition since they made much money at a time where producing games was simple and production costs were low.
The hard core games have become a minority in the last 5 years but they/we do not want to accept this truth yet. The field now belongs to the casuals and casuals don't write on forums that's a fact. There were articles all over the web about this development in the last couple of years. Gaming is hip now and hardcore gamers are a relict of the past now.
The only ability that is left for the hardcore gamers is to promote smaller titles and to keep old games running for a long time but you don't make the big money with us anylonger.
Once you accept that you will feel a lot better tongue

9 (edited by FSDev| Woodrow 2006-10-05 10:25:23)

Re: EA says we are a vocal minority.

If their games were free then I would agree with that statement.  But when they promise a bunch of features then get us to all rush out and buy the game, only to discover that 30% of the features are actually in it and the other 70% you have to pay extra money to get, are broken beyond belief, or won't exist at all regardless of their promise, then you can't help but want to complain a bit.  And when thousands of us complain for well over a year and instead of fixing them they bundle up those promised fixes and features into a brand new game (still ignoring our more-than-minority voice) to make even more money, you definately feel a bit more than angry.

When BF2 came out we were promised full moddability.  When we didn't receive nearly anything we had every right to complain.  I'm not talking about complaining about how a weapon worked or if the blackhawk was overpowered.  No, I'm talking about the lack of a functional Editor, the lack of export tools, the crippled way in which python server scripting was implemented, the numerous missing abilities and features that were either bundled into Special Forces (30 dollars more to get what they promised free before release) or have never been implemented anyway, and finally a huge grep of bugs and problems that prevented or limited mod abilities in addition to BF2.  It took months to get a set of even half-working tools.  And when we (that is, every single mod team out there) continued to complain that EA was not making good on their promises, they kept brushing us off and ignoring us.  Support was a joke, and the mere concept of receiving the features that were the sole reason we bought the game to begin with even more so.  All EA did was focus DICE and DICE Canada on making more products for money and not providing any of the fixes that all of us wanted.

I disagree in that it wasn't DICE listening.  Though DICE had their own flaws and problems I actually was able to work with them on one or two massive problems.  The people stopping it: EA Games.  For my small part of BF2 modding I spent months arguing with EA's mod coordinator, only to have dozens of posts deleted and finally instructions that I was not to post about problems in the BFeditor forums any more.  Three emails to DICE's head programmer later though and 90% of my requests were solved in the next patch.  That's the truest representation of their operation in practice.  And sadly DICE is now owned entirely by EA, so any last hope is now lost.

EA is the company that could care less what the customers think.  All they want is money, and any corner they can cut to make it they will.  They've proven this time after time.  Why do you think BF2 was released at full price near broken but with the (now unfulfilled) promise of it being fixed and updated later?  How much do you want to bet BF2142 will be the exact same way?  How much do you want to bet that our cries will be classified as their "minority" regardless of the thousands of players that demand it?  They don't want to fix our problems.  Once we've paid our money money they don't want to talk to us at all. 

So.  Will I buy another EA game?  No.  Will I be getting 2142 for FS? Only when we've successfully ported it.  And This is a developer talking here.  I'll be doing as much work as possible for as long as possible on BF2 because I'm not going to continue supporting a corrupt organization that classifies the opinions of its customers as "not important enough to listen to."  I can only encourage other players to do the same and boycott EA games until they make good.

Fear the Woodzilla

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y283/Tortel/Woodrow-1.jpg

Re: EA says we are a vocal minority.

FSDev| Woodrow wrote:

sadly DICE is now owned entirely by EA, so any last hope is now lost.

Cheers for that little ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day tongue Now at least people will stop making the mistake of saying 'don't blame EA, blame DICE, they're the ones that made the game'

Yes, but EA were the ones forcing them to release a buggy product on time and drop a load of features they promised. DICE were really in a no win situation. I'd like to believe things will go a little smoother with 2142, but with EA at the helm I seriously doubt it. As you rightly pointed out, EA only care about the bottom line and the sooner the games on the shelves, the sooner they start seeing the greens

http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/2606/siggybxx2.jpg

Re: EA says we are a vocal minority.

So I brought this issue up in class the other day. (I go to school to make video games).

My teacher used to work for EA. Now I know this seems far fetched, at least I think it is, but she says that the branch she worked in was so layed back, and such a fun environment, that they got no work done. Now when a certain deadline came closer, EA started harping down on the devs, making them work a lot more, and becoming more strict. And i'm guessing that they've been using that mentality ever since.

And now every game developer that EA consumes, has to follow those guidelines as well. And the developers deal with that becuase its very hard to get a publisher for your games, and when you get one as big as EA, your making damn sure you keep it.

I mean how many games produced by EA suffer from delayed release dates?

Guarenteed if Valve was bought out by EA, Half Life 2 would have been released a lot sooner, but it would be half the game it is now. Making it Half-Half Life 2. (lol)

Re: EA says we are a vocal minority.

well they already closed DICE Canada, so what's next? roll

http://www.fsmod.com/img/drag_sig.jpg

Re: EA says we are a vocal minority.

Like I pointed out in my first sentence above the quote is taken out of context and does not really refer to modding but to post release support. DICE screwed up the release of BF2 that's true but they really tried hard to fix it although they ended up breaking a lot of stuff. I had fun playing BF2 and all of its booster packs(thanks again to the SF people that picked my map idea at the Euro Force contest) and addons. I do not regret buying it and I think having 1 year of patches is good support no matter what the content of those patches is. Most games these days have worse support

I agree with you on the mod support Woodrow but my post was focused on bug fixes not modding.

I think it is a shame that talented people like you and your team are limited to mod tools and SDKs since I think that you could really do some amazing stuff with "an own engine". 
I would not be surprised if BF2142 has no mod support at all since mod servers do not bring the extra money EA wants from its comercial and ranked server hosting deals.

Well you can always try to win in the lottery so that you can buy your own Unreal 3 engine.
No idea how much money you would need to win but there are 35M € in the German jackpot right now. Maybe this would be a start smile

I think most of the people in this community stated often enough that they want to buy 2142 because of your mod and not because of DICE so an engine change would not really kill this project for most of us smile

Re: EA says we are a vocal minority.

Could make it a Half life 2 mod...but it would lose the large scale battles like the battlefield series is know for. But yeah, definetely buying 2142 solely for this mod. So if you guys dont finish it, you owe me $50. lol