As a long time player of the Battlefield franchise from DICE, I've always wondered what has been going on behind closed doors.What kind of wacky people work there, and do they have drunk beta testers?
Before I dig in, let me tell a short story. Back in the day (1999), the LAN Party Crew and I would always partake in prolonged sessions of Codename: Eagle. For those of you who don't know, it was the grandfather of Battlefield 1942. It had all the cool features that BF does, planes (zeppelins), tanks, buggies, and crappy physics. It was always pretty awesome to jump in a zeppelin and ram it into your pal who was trying to ride his motorcycle through "No Man's Land," or try to load a tank into the back of it. After many, many hours of playing you discover that there are obvious flaws in the game. After a while, we all migrated to Counter-Strike, and Codename:Eagle slowly faded into distant memory.
Fast forward to 2002. We came back for a big helping of Battlefield 1942 when it appeared on the scene. Devoting hours to online play, driving the carriers, submarines, and tanks was pretty much all we did for a year or so. Desert Combat Mod took over our play list once that was released. BF1942 shared that same wacky game play style it inherited from Codename:Eagle. The game never took itself too seriously. Mixing the right amount of "arcadey-ness" with history/quasi-realism. So, we were able to over look its shortcomings. Some of the same physics glitches CE suffered from. If you parked your car, even on the slightest of hills, the car would slide down sideways like it was on rolling casters or ball bearings. Or the fact that If you tried to stand on a moving boat, you'd eventually shuffle off without even hitting W, A, S, or D. Apparently, relativity doesn't apply to this video game.
Some time in 2003 maybe early 2004, the news of Battlefield 2 hit the streets. Offering a new mix of modern combat weapons, squad warfare and RTS-like battlefield commanders. We were excited to say the least. A chance for nerdlets to exercise their M1-Abrams driving skills and fly choppers in the quasi-real middle east environment. BF2 was released into open arms, wholly accepting the game play changes. Again, we played hours of this shit. Running over pesky snipers with the FAV was our favorite thing to do. However, if you tried to shoot down a chopper while parked on a hill, Good luck! Your car would eventually slide down the hill out of cover until it reached flat ground. How obnoxious.
Now, for most games this would have been a happy "end-of-story." The game is released to a loving community. Waste hours flying, bombing, driving, and hiking around these maps. However it wasn't. Here comes my questions for DICE. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"
I will admit, while DICE was still a separate entity, they were dedicated to patching the game, trying to make it better. Subsequent patches to the game tweaked game balance. As Shawn Elliot pointed out in his posting DICE had some trouble to say the least. This could be overlooked because of the fact that patches were out on a monthly basis. That is, until they were acquired by EA. Then BF2 became the red-headed stepchild, and was dropped like a rock. They took BF2, slapped some candy on it, and called it BF2142. In my opinion, this game was a mod sold at full price with their expansion-happy overlords pushing crap on gamers daily. Like any other BF fan, I bought into the propaganda and picked it up anyways.
I think DICE released one BF2 patch after 2142 came out, and pretty much let it die just about a year and a half after release. With 1942, the game's longevity came from its modding community. People played 1942 even past the launch of BF2. BF2 was left to rot in the online pit of hackers and cheaters, while 2142 suffered from "beta patches" and horrible testing problems.
Now, what the hell was DICE thinking? Why would you abandon one of the most popular online shooters in the world, almost over night. Why would you release patches for a game that break online play, that cause gamers to have to reinstall the entire game. What drugs do you have that we don't? I can't answer those questions. I can only speculate that EA's corporate culture contributed to the pollution. Pressing the devs to push out games to meet a quota of "cha-chang" and bilk gamers out of their hard earned money. But I really want to know is why, after almost 10 years, is there still the damn glitch from Codename:Eagle in BF2. Why can i park my car on a hill and it slides sideways? In my circle of friends, we always joke that DICE never actually made a new game engine. They just kept piecemealing shit over the top of C:E and slapped a new name on it. The physics always feel kind of clunky compared to other games. I can't back that up, but I would really like to know what is under the hood of BF2/2142.
I don't own an Xbox360, but I would guess that if you park a car on a hill in Bad Company, that it rolls sideways. I'm praying to a deity that DICE is actually making improvements to BF:Heroes while in beta phase. Hopefully, this isn't just some marketing strategy to show advertisers that they have a willing base of sheep players to subject to their new business model. Time will tell and lets hope history doesn't repeat in the Battlefield universe.
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