http://www.eagames.com/official/battlefield/battlefield2/us/editorial.jsp?src=expansion_071405
<insert fix-your-damn-game rant>
An expansion pack that the vast majority of the online community won’t buy and therefore there will be little or no online servers for those of us who do want to play the expansion.
I don’t like how they say its infantry focused.
The market has plenty of fps war based multiplayer titles. What made the battlefield games stand out was its huge amount of vehicles. One of the reasons I think Desert Combat may be better than BF2. In DC it was fairly common to have a decent amount of vehicles fighting with one another, such as attacking a base with 3 abrams tanks, a bradley and helicopter all in the same area fighting a couple T72, bmp and a bunch of defending infantry. Maybe even some jets will show up. And this is just around one capture point with plenty of vehilcles available fighting in other areas of the map.
In BF2 its pretty rare to see more than 1 on 1 or 2 on 1 fights with vehicles.
Still undecided on if I like BF2 more or less than Desert Combat. In many ways BF2 is alot better, better graphics, the whole squad system/teamplay, better infantry combat, etc. But it just lacks the heavy vehicle battles that were so fun in DC.
Wow, this game went very quickly from one of the most promising titles of the year to potential half-baked scam.
I agree with the earlier poster; good that they have their priorities straight with regard to fixing existing problems versus making more money.
EDITOR PLZ.
Fix your damn game before giving us the content that you cut to make your deadline.
Man every forum i’ve seen this posted people keep saying the same thing. You people do realize that the expansion is being made by a different team, Dice Canada.
Even if it was the same team, the people working on the expansion would be artists, map makers, etc. While the people working on the patch would mainly be programmers.
That’s 'cause we’re irritated at how poorly they’ve done at fixing the existing problems (uninstall to remove the patch? please!). Announcing more stuff they expect me to buy, when I’m still waiting for 'em to fix the stuff I already bought, just pisses me off.
Making the announcement now, instead of waiting until, say, they release a patch that actually fixes some stuff, is a stupid, stupid PR move.
Although the guys doing the expansion can’t turn around and work on patching instead, I think people can still be annoyed that DICE, the company, is spending money on content developers for a retail expansion, rather than spending money on more programmers (or more programmer time) to fix the current game. And Andrew is right that this is a totally idiotic PR move.
On the expansion itself, though, I’m not sure I get it. This is going to be an all-special forces game? Because that seems weird. Games focusing exclusively on spec ops are generally single-player, because it’s usually portrayed as one spec ops team (or lone wolf) vs. a bunch of regular-army enemies. This is going to be SO vs. SO? Are we all going to be laying trip-mines and sneaking around and using low-light goggles? I don’t get how the gameplay is supposed to work.
I read game description as Battlefield 2: Counter Strike edition.
It’d bad PR yes, in truth the development of either project probably has little to do with one another and the expansion was in the works before the game was even released. Gamers frequently take the easiest approach when thinking about these things - A to B to C - without really thinking about them.
Used to run into all that with WW2OL. How can you guys be building new vehicles when I can’t capture buildings properly? Probably because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other? Natch.
That being said, the PR/marketing department(s) should know better. Or maybe they’re just ignorant.
— Alan
Or glib.
OK, let me rephrase-
EA you have a hell of nerve of announcing an expansion just days after you made your fanbase reinstall the game because of a ‘quick fix’ that was more of a ‘quick break’.
I don’t blame Dice at all. I’ve been on the ‘rush it out before the end of the quarter’ projects. I also know that it is the Dev team that gets screwed by that because you still have to basicly keep developing, but management doesn’t schedule time for the patch time, which is then bleeding into your next project.
Is that better?
Of course you have no idea who made the decision to release the patch and what kind of development it went under. It could just as much be a DICE decision to kick it out the door with minimal testing, quickfix style, rather than EA. Ultimately EA bares some responsibility no matter what, however.
— Alan
For my own part, the infantry combat is pretty goddamn fun, and I can’t wait for some Ghost Recon-style mods to pop up.
I see that one of the great features is night combat. Why do developers think it’s such a cool thing to play a game in various shades of green with a very limited view distance?
I would have been happy if they made an expansion featuring different theatres and other major players besides the US invading everyone else.
I’m still debating if I’ll buy the expansion. I bought Road to Rome and had some fun with it but the servers didn’t stay full for long. My feeling is that the expansion will lure the elite players away for about two weeks. Hmmm, maybe I’ll be able to get some more medals on the vanilla servers at that time.
I would have been happy if they made an expansion featuring different theatres and other major players besides the US invading everyone else.
They are adding six new factions. And ten new vehicles. And new weapons/items. Still playing mostly in the desert, which is kind of disappointing, but whatever. Despite the existing problems with the game, I think that this expansion will be for the better.
Will the expansion fix the server browser?
I can’t believe anyone bought the game, the server browser was murder in the demo. I really don’t care about any other problems, as soon as they fix the server browser(or allow ASE/Gamespy/whatever) they get my money. I was not holding back because there weren’t enough vehicles.
Battlefield 2 is a great game. The expansion might not be your cup of tea, but the way PC gamers react to this stuff is just insane. Chill out. Go play something else if this bugs you so damn much. There are a hell of a lot of people playing BF2 online that seem to have no problem with the game like the folks on this board, or they just shut up and have fun instead of crying a river, maybe?
It sucks that some people have encountered bugs. I’ve seen one that caused a problem with the video on my computer but a reinstall of drivers fixed it. It sucks that people dislike the server browser. It gets me in a game with minimal fuss so I’m happy. Once I’m in the game, I spend two hours at a minimum blowing shit up. That’s a hell of a lot of fun. I don’t even remember if I have a problem with the server browser by the time I’m done playing.
I’m all for easy and console-like experiences, especially on the PC where playing games is often “hard to do”. This game isn’t even close to as broken as many, many PC games I’ve played and/or reviewed in the last twelve years yet those posts up there make it sound like it’s just an awful, awful game.
–Dave
Well for me
- The gameplay is good if somewhat unbalanced (ie. air)
- My video problems are fixed after a driver reinstall
- The game loads better now that I defragged the harddrive
- I use ASE so don’t have to use the ingame server browser
I have no really bad complaints about the game and having just made Lance Corporal and got my good medics weapon the game is a lot more fun. As Dave said the sound and effects in BF2 really complete the whole war experience and it is definitely worthwhile buying/playing.
I don’t think people are really saying that, exactly. I think are mostly just pissed off about what a fubar the first patch was. I’ve heard so much bad stuff about it that I’ve been afraid to install it, and haven’t played the game in a couple of weeks. Now that a new patch appears to be out, I’m hoping to get back into the game.