Marcus Nilsson: We're not on a quest to have Battlefield dominate the world or anything like that. We just want to make great games that people enjoy playing. If you ask me what we'd like to revolutionise, it would be gameplay and that's pretty much what I think we've been doing in the Battlefield series already. Battlefield was the first game that could integrate infantry and vehicles into a really good online experience - and given that there are going to be more Battlefield products, we're going to look hard at how we can make better games.
So how will you make Battlefield 2142 better?
Marcus Nilsson: Well, I would say that character persistence and community are key factors. It's not just about getting the game "out there" anymore - it's about how we organise ourselves around the game. We need a quality launch, a quality service, good communication - to make sure that the feedback is listened to, dealt with and communicated. Of course it's very easy to talk about it, but the hard part is to prove it, to prove that we are 100% behind Battlefield in terms of post-release support.
Are you saying you've been a bit crap then?
Marcus Nilsson: No, it's not that we are necessarily very bad, we're not, but there is a very vocal minority on the forums who say 'EA is crap' and 'DICE are lazy', but they're all probably playing the game every day already anyway. We have minor problems, sometimes we have big problems, but minor problems are not what people should write about. Maybe they should write about why they're playing Battlefield every day. But that's human nature, I guess - you have a vocal minority and a silent majority.
1942 favoured vehicles whilst BF2 was very infantry-friendly. What about 2142?
Marcus Nilsson: We need to keep the importance of the vehicles in there because that is what makes the series unique. Infantry in BF2 proved to be a very good experience. There were infantry-only maps and we're capitalising on that again. We're making it even more immersive. When a Battle Walker walks by the ground trembles - it's stuff like that that drives the enjoyment of playing as an infantry character. But we're focusing as much on the vehicles. A Battle Walker will own infantry unless you're very smart, in a squad and working together to take it out. In 2142 we're merging 1942 and BF2, but were also having levels that are designed to be for infantry, as well as ones designed around for heavy vehicle use. We have different aims for different levels - the mix is much more varied.
How about the single-player AI?
Marcus Nilsson: That's been quite a lot of work actually, as we now have these vehicles with legs and we've had to get the AI to understand that, it's like having a huge soldier walking around. But the single-player experience is going to be quite similar to BF2 in terms of maps and bots. The only obvious addition is a co-op mode. Single-player will be a lot of fun, and good way of training, and will be more rewarding than in previous games, but it's not a full-blown story mode.
As it uses the same 3D engine, is it fair to assume 2142 be the kid brother to BF2, as Vietnam was to 1942?
Marcus Nilsson: No, that's not fair. First of all this whole same-engine thing is just not true. Battlefield 2142 has an evolved engine. There was code from Codename Eagle in BF2 and there is code from BF2 in 2142. Y'know that's the way it always is. Engines evolve, you don't just throw everything away and start from scratch. We've replaced the rendering, but from BF2 we have the same network engine... Actually, for the gamers that like to play online, this probably the best engine out there. There are highly improved visuals, but it's also much more stable. The code is naturally better because it's been worked on for so long. The server browser is 600% faster, UI navigation is easier, connecting will be a one-screen process....
With regard to Vietnam, if you want to consider it a sort of Battlefield 1.5, that's fine, but 2142 is going to be much more than a v2.5 because so much innovation has gone into it. For one we have a brand new game mode that is more objective-based. Then we have the persistence around the player, which will change how you equip yourself and which changes the momentum of the battle.
I think that they had a good point in saying that the vocal minority of BF2 somewhat took away some of the credit that the game deserved. There will always be bugs in multiplayer games as people are endlessly creative when it comes to exploiting games, but I think that the team at DICE did a fantastic job at making the Battlefield franchise what it is today.
I totally disagree, its fine to look at it from a business POV in that DICE are upping the media hype for 2142, BUT who in their right mind wouldnt complain about the 1.3 patch other than someone who buys the game plays it with 1.3, crashes all the time and decides not to play anymore
I feel sorry for any of those clans etc that paid over Ł200 a month to rent a server that would constantly crash snd everyone would leave when it crashed
"Of course it's very easy to talk about it, but the hard part is to prove it, to prove that we are 100% behind Battlefield in terms of post-release support."
Are you saying you've been a bit crap then?
Marcus Nilsson: "No, it's not that we are necessarily very bad, we're not, but there is a very vocal minority on the forums who say 'EA is crap' and 'DICE are lazy', but they're all probably playing the game every day already anyway."
Ok, so DICE have problems proving that theyre 100% BF post release but feel the need to criticise those in the forums who post bugs, whine, and possibly show their disapproval of nerfing or bug introductions even though those are the hardcore fans, way to go Marcus!!!!!
"We need a quality launch, a quality service, good communication - to make sure that the feedback is listened to, dealt with and communicated."
Quality like the one we have witnessed in BF2? A year and a few months after its release and it still feels like a beta.
"Good communication"? With who? You clearly made your point that the ones who communicate belong to the vocal minority and have no importance, so who will you communicate with? The silent "majority" who likes the game but doesn't say a word?
I've got much more to say, but visiting EA's BF2 forum will explain alot. I was once a hardcore BF player which was addicted to every game in the series. Don't you dare buying BF2142. They don't give a s**t about their customers and their community. http://forum.eagames.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=6
It's fair to say that he's largely missing the point. BF2 is a great game and nobody is disputing this, but it has been marred by totally avoidable problems. These are problems that have not (generally) beset other premiere developers/publishers because they actually some measure of respect for their paying customers.
Examples of huge problems caused by Dice & EA's (mainly EA's) lack of respect for their customers:
Game shipped and wouldn't run on certain people's PCs (like.. mine) until the first patch. My PC was well above the minimum spec, had the latest drivers installed and so forth. The game wouldn't run out of the box. This is the first (and I hope last) time this has happened to me.
Most of the bugs reported from the demo were still present in the released game (plus some new ones). In fact, the demo actually runs faster than the current release.
The first patch had a huge memory leak.
Allowing booster pack weapons to be used in the original game, basically forcing people to keep up with the Joneseseses and buy the booster pack so they had the same weapons & options available to them as others. Got shot by a medic with a G-36E from half a mile away? Tough. Buy the booster pack.
Initial patches required huge amounts of space free on the C: drive despite the patch being fairly small. It didn't let you choose which drive to extract to. A lot of people retain the C: partition for their OS and nothing else, hence it wasn't possible to install the patch for quite a few folk.
The 1.4 patch. I installed the incremental update, started up the game and crashed in an entirely new way within ten minutes of joining a server. Also, the incremental 1.4 patch doesn't update the localisation files.
And the main one: 1.3 crashes as a result of them rushing it out so they could flog their new expansion pack. EA let ranked server owners shell out hundreds of pounds per month on servers that didn't stay up for more than a few rounds on average. This is nothing short of contemptible. There is no excuse for such a decision. It was a problem caused by aggressive scheduling resulting in the QA process being totally bypassed. If a 'vocal minority' of people who were actually financing a significant amount of the ranked BF2 servers aren't important to EA, then I think that just about says it all.
Oh and the server browser is still bug-riddled after a year. It's a server browser. Server browsers have existed for decades. How can you mess it up so badly? How can QA fail so spectacularly? Again, I can only point to aggressive scheduling.
Some major flaws still exist in the game. For example: The F35B versus J-10 debacle. The F-35B cannot shake missiles while the J-10 is coated in teflon. I have a Win/Loss ratio of something like 2+ on the chinese team because it's so easy to win due to air dominance. My ratio on the US and MEC is something like 1.5, so I think that tells you something about the impact it has. However, instead of fixing it, they have spent time elsewhere on things like vehicle drops (hugely bugged initially but remained unpatched until 1.4) and infantry only (sorry medic only) combat. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that it infuriates gamers when new and buggy features are added when existing issues haven't been taken care of, moreso when expansion packs are in the works while the original games is neglected.
Blarg. Yes, it is true that it is a vocal minority, but the majority of people don't participate in discussions. Furthermore, if the minority actually has some valid points, then it should not be ignored or chastised for speaking up. I've tried to contribute in the past and posted huge lists of bugs & (non cack-handed sledgehammer) fixes that could be applied to solve them, but they are always ignored. When forums are left to stagnate with no acknowledgement of the input being received, what do you expect to happen? It's hardly going to turn into an EA love-in, is it? People won't keep posting constructively if they see little feedback from where the rubber hits the road. This is especially the case when you see the Dice developers posting on unofficial forums and neglecting the EA forums.
The 'solution' of appointing a community manager sounded good until everyone realised the guy barely actually interacts with the community (I've seen a handful of posts on the boards from him) and he appears to be powerless to actually implement any changes in BF2. So far he seems to be a punchbag for the community and everyone focuses their discontent on him while he says "yeah that'd be cool if we could fix claymores, jets, punishing, spamming etc. but hey, we can't". The EA UK forum mod guys are nice to have around and far better than the US forum I initially participated in (where there didn't seem to be any feedback mechanism in place whatsoever), but ultimately this is mainly a problem caused by chasing the dollar, neglecting QA and screwing your existing customers.
Most of the major problems (like the 1.3 patch) were caused by trying to get the patch out fast so you could sell a new booster pack. I guess nothing I have said is worth reading or valid, though, as I'm part of a vocal minority.
You guys have sold over one million copies. I'm sure you can spend a few more beans on QA.
Well, said! I wish that EA (DICE was bought by EA) would listen to you and others and fix their games before making expansion packs for Battlefield 2142. The game's features seem kinda short (2 Game Modes, 10 Maps?), which means they are going to make an expansion pack for it.
I have had the luck to not even realize that BF2 had so many bugs. I never had problems with the Battlefield 2 Demo. With Battlefield 1942, I remember the first demo had a problem with my video card and the next patch fixed it right up.
I never bought any the Battlefield series until now with 2142. Since I have had positive experiences with the previous demos and the current 2142 demo, I expect this purchase to be satisfying. My friends with ATI card have been having problems though with the demo crashing. It seems they favor nVidia cards from the logo on the Pre-Order box. That it not fair to ATI owners. I want to be able to play with them online and not have to worry about the game crashing. We all Pre-Ordered the game and expect to battle together with no crashing. One of my friends also had graphical issues with an ATI card.
Okay, let's be realistic...Battlefield 2 was a buggy piece of s**t that was obviously not fully completed when released (what a surprise, it was an EA game)...it rewarded cheats and tosspots (didn't everyone love the two dickheads who played on opposing teams - one continuously killing enemies while the other revived them?!?)...last, but by no means least, it didn't have the all-important co-op mode that made BF42 the masterful game it was... BF2 made such a big deal of squad tactics, but I rarely saw any evidence of anything approaching that. I also loved the way that PCZone (a mag that I still trust...just) waxed orgasmic about the game, but managed to sidestep the lack of co-op, even though they trumpeted how good that game mode was before BF2 came out. Is co-op available for BF2142? Nothing mentioned about it in the review in this month's PCZone, just endless blathering about the new game-mode, which is just a knock off of game modes we've all seen before. Come on 'Zone - are EA/Dice paying the bills all of a sudden or have you just lost your balls?
The only thing I liked about the 2142 demo was the class customisation. The rest of the game was a bit of a stinker to be honest. The game engine feels flimsy and the gameplay just feels wrong. I really can't explain it, so best try it for yourself.
Class customisation though, I like that bit.
Aircool
btw, anyone got a sub copy of PC ZONE yet? I'd love to know what score BF2142 got. Anything over 70% and I'll suspect there's a huge roll of EA banknotes in the reviewers back pocket...
Battlefield 2142 has no player competancy matching system. Let's get that out there straight away. That alone is the reason I won't be buying this game.
Consider my situation: I'm a total n00b to the BF series, I like the look and of the game and the reviews are good... So I get the demo. Then realise that all the pwning players who have honed their oily spot stricken 1337 pwnage skills in other Battlefield games are already in the know, and are really really p**sing me off. It seems everytime I join I'm going up against a secret service crack commando stealth death squad.
As gamers we argue to aging politians that games don't induce violent tendancies in people, yet after playing BF2142 for a few hours I have an urge to find the little s**ts who were just jumping on my digital corpse and beat them senseless with their lan party pc carry cases. The bastards.
If only there was a way to play with people who are around the same skill level as myself, if a player competancy matching system had been introduced I would have jumped at the chance to buy this game rather than jumping around the room in frustration.
It looks to me as though they're advertising this game to newcomers but have designed it soley for their already existing fan base.
It is seemingly (and unfortunately) the way of the BF world for the more exeperienced players to prey on the lesser ones...and boy are they k**bs! Bunny-hopping, team-killing, so-called squad playing tossers. Which is why I was so peeved when I found out that there was no dedicated co-op mode on BF2. At least with co-op you could get together with your mates and play as a team against the bots, therefore avoiding the dickheads who actually seemed to think that ratings mattered. Okay, so someone came up with a way around EA's shameful omission, but it wasn't a dedicated co-op mode and it suffered from similar Singleplayer problems that bugged everyone playing it. By the way, thanks to Gargantua for sort-of answering my question, but is there a co-op mode or not?
"Yes, from a preview I read. You mean to play with other human friends against AI bots in singleplayer mode?"
NO - I mean a dedicated co-op mode, like there was in the original game, and not the cobbled together compromise mode we were forced to use to play co-op in BF2
PCZone just ignored the fact that co-op had been dropped from BF2 and they've not mentioned anything about it for BF2142 in their review.
As for buying BF2142 or any other EA game for that matter...it'll be a cold day in hell before I shell out my hard-earned shekels to a bunch of corporate s**tbags who treat" their customers with contempt.
If you want to get a decent game, buy the original BF 1942 and download Desert Combat...tons better than anything EA/DICE have come up since they sold the first iteration.
The more I play the demo, the more I dislike it and the more BF2 seems forgivable for it's faults (of which is has many). Factor in previous skill (I have a bit) and time online and within a few months teams and individuals are going to be incredibly unbalanced.
This game has not been thought through at all. Nilsson is tearing his bottom off with the PR at the moment to counter the negative press. Wait, it's not negative press, it's negative comments from people playing the game and the previous title. As for the press, I've never looked forward to a review as much as I'm looking forward to the PCZ review tomorrow of BF2142. Each magazine that I read is putting their credibility on the line for me when reviewing this game, there's nothing in this game worth spending money on.
Will the magazine's tell it like it is? Or is their integrity being compromised?
Yeah, I may sound like I'm over reacting, but BF2142 is generally a poor product and a cynical release. If they come away from this launch unscathed then it's sets a precedence for releasing, unfinished, buggy games and no-one brave enough to point out the flaws and prevent us wasting money on turkeys.
Don't even get me started on the rip off that is 'episodic gaming'. It's of no benefit to the consumer whatsoever. All the risk is on the consumer and none on the developer/publisher. Contrary to popular opinion, that will stifle creativity rather than encourage it.
Don't even get me started on the rip off that is 'episodic gaming'. It's of no benefit to the consumer whatsoever. All the risk is on the consumer and none on the developer/publisher. Contrary to popular opinion, that will stifle creativity rather than encourage it.
Sorry but what has episodic gaming got to do with BF2142?
Also, the good points of episodic gaming seem clear to me and most others: Developers can innovate without a publishing company restraining them to a rehash of concepts they know sell. Developers can get feedback from the gamers and drop things that didn't turn out well while reinforcing things that did. Episodes can be released quicker than full games without the worries of distribution. No distribution costs mean lower prices for consumers and all the money from episodes goes to the developers to help them make future realeases better.
Those are just a few good points from the top of my head, would you care to reinforce your opinion with a list of bad points?
Don't even get me started on the rip off that is 'episodic gaming'. It's of no benefit to the consumer whatsoever. All the risk is on the consumer and none on the developer/publisher. Contrary to popular opinion, that will stifle creativity rather than encourage it.
Sorry but what has episodic gaming got to do with BF2142?
Also, the good points of episodic gaming seem clear to me and most others: Developers can innovate without a publishing company restraining them to a rehash of concepts they know sell. Developers can get feedback from the gamers and drop things that didn't turn out well while reinforcing things that did. Episodes can be released quicker than full games without the worries of distribution. No distribution costs mean lower prices for consumers and all the money from episodes goes to the developers to help them make future realeases better.
Those are just a few good points from the top of my head, would you care to reinforce your opinion with a list of bad points?
Yes.
1. Games won't be cheaper (eg BF2142) 2. Episodes will only be made as long as the interest level is comercially viable. Therefore, you may never reach the end of a game because not enough people are interested. 3. Episodic gaming and downloadable games vice hard copies sold by the retailer was created not to reinvest in more gaming, but to recoup the ever increasing costs of gaming. All the risk is on the gamer and none on the developer. 4. I like playing games that last longer than the download. 5. Once I've finished a game, I might want to give/lend/sell it on. Can't do that with digital distribution. 6. You'll end up paying more in the long run. 7. No choice, perhaps I prefer a hard copy of a full game, not afternoon sized chunks where I have to wait months for the next installment. 8. Developers can get feedback anytime they ask for it. However, if they don't like it, they call you a 'whinging minority'. Don't they Mr Nilsson? 9. Developers can innovate anytime they want, they just don't have the balls to take risks (like concentrating on gameplay vice shiny GFX). 10. Whether a dev is making episodic content or not, they still need to get their own distribution software up and running and have to do a publishers job until they are set up & running and firmly established. It takes a lot of money, time, effort and expertise to set up something like Steam. Just look how s**te the EA downloader is, and EA can spunk money for fun. 11. How big are the files? Not everyone has >1Mb broadband (location is usually responsible) and lots of broadband packages have download limits these days. 12. It's quicker for me to get in the car, and pick up a new game when I have business in town, which is generally twice a week. I've seen nowhere near enough savings to justify digital content over a hard copy with a nice manual etc... 13. Some off the stuff sold on Steam is cheaper in the shops. See benefit 12. 14. Episodic gaming is only commercially viable once you have done all the hard & expensive work of building your game & game engine, therefore, to recoup costs, you're going to have to make the first episode quite expensive. 15. To counter 14, lo and behold, here come the online publishers to help you out, immediately chucking several of your points out of the window.
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