BF 2 Community ardor wanes

BF 2 Community ardor wanes

OPINION

Visit any community forum listed on Entertainment Art's official Battlefield 2 homepage and you will find a fountain of frustration and woe. It seems a much anticipated patch, which promised to fine-tune a game that was met with overwhelming excitement

Visit any community forum listed on Entertainment Art’s official Battlefield 2 homepage and you will find a fountain of frustration and woe. It seems a much anticipated patch, which promised to fine-tune a game that was met with overwhelming excitement on its first release less than a year ago, not only didn’t meet expectations, it failed to even keep the promises made by EA itself. Where once gamers (who had tackled the game with a ferocity unrivalled in video game history) were posting words of optimistic praise, there are now rumblings of abandoning the game altogether.

Several problems have plagued the game which was apparently released without the quality control normally expected in manufacturing processes, some of which have in a short time become legendary in the BF 2 community. Among these are a bug which identified a player’s teammates as enemy players, resulting in “team-kill” point penalties which negatively impacted the players’ plethora of game statistics, or accrued points. A fix for this was specifically promised by EA on its own official BF 2 homepage, yet was not addressed in the newly released patch. Other game adjustments bringing angst to the BF 2 community include the ratio between damage done and weapons used to inflict the damage. The game offers a wide-array of weapons from which a player can choose. Some were said to be wildly inaccurate and virtually useless, while others were said to cause far more damage than acceptable for a fair and balanced playing of the game. Certain adjustments to this ratio were made for EA through DICE, the game’s developers. However, the gist of the feedback from community members seems to say this adjustment made no meaningful changes, and in some instances created further imbalances where none existed before.

What makes this a subject of concern for players is that EA/DICE intends to produce expansion packs for the game, with one to be released only days from now, which design is predicated on the changes in the game’s programming by the patch in question. The European Expansion Pack offers several new maps, and weapons to players. This, too, has been awaited with great anticipation. However, the release of the European expansion was delayed while EA/DICE held-up the release of this patch citing last minute problems with its programming as the reason. Also in the works, and announced for release soon are two “booster packs.” The release of these “booster packs” was delayed, as well, until “the patch” was ready for release, according to EA. The community consensus is that these “booster packs,” which will be sold for $10 U.S., are merely patches in disguise which EA is selling to repair a game they now have come to feel was integrally flawed at the outset. Further casting a shadow of doubt upon the video game producing industry giant is the “EA Downloader” recently offered to their customers. EA intends to distribute its future changes to BF 2 through this software, yet did not offer “the patch” through it. Oddly enough, when EA announced the release of “the patch”, a link to download it was available on their official game website, but the link only opened a EULA whereupon accepting the terms of release, no download appeared. It had the distinct air about it that EA was testing the waters before stepping-in themselves.

What had once promised itself as a highly imaginative and well-coordinated development and introduction of a highly-advanced and frontier shattering game has now become fraught with suspicion and mistrust. Gamers are running back to older, tried and true first-person shooter games in droves. Even the two most prominent on-line gaming leagues, Cyberathletic Amateur League (CAL) and the 500,000-member strong Team Warfare League (TWL) have asked for a user and clan feedback before deciding to integrate the patch into league play. Both organizations have adopted the patch as the standard for league play, but against an uproar of objections from at least one-third of their members. Despite the huge success of the BF 2 initial release, it’s questionable if the game’s highly-touted sequel Battlefield 3 will receive as much support. It’s doubtful EA games will feel much of a pinch with the unrivalled popularity of its stable of sports simulators. However, a giant shadow has been cast on its once promising Battlefield series.

Entertainment Arts has placed this announcement on their official game website, which is accessible through an in-game popup:


“Community Update - 2/20/06


Listen up Troops,

Although patch 1.2 included several fixes that we know were eagerly awaited, it unfortunately introduced some new issues. These are being addressed immediately and we are working around the clock to resolve those. Patch 1.21 (coming soon) will be tested in a limited beta with select Battlefield community members starting as early as this week. We’re doing this to ensure a clean release of 1.21. In addition, we have decided to postpone the Euro Force Booster Pack until sometime after the release of the updated 1.21 patch.

Stick to this web space for additional information soon.

On a more pleasant note, Battlefield 2 hit somewhat of a milestone last night with over 52,000 simultaneous players. This is the highest number of players we’ve seen at one time for Battlefield 2 and almost 4 times more than the peak number of Battlefield 1942.

Thanks in advance for your patience.

The team at DICE and EA”