There was a news article on G4TV.com recently calling for the immediate monetization of the Call of Duty multiplayer game mode. They cite "a betrayal of shareholder trust" as the main cause of this call to action (I won't make that pun. No!) On a purely business level, which is really how Bobby Kotick and the analyst in question are looking at the situation, this is a no-brainer. Do it, make more millions (as if Activision Blizzard needed more money), and work on the next way to milk your fanbase. It is good sense to monetize something with as large and fanatical a userbase as Call of Duty, in any of its iterations. What Kotick and our analyst, one Michael Pachter, fail to understand is what that fanbase really is. They are, by and large, ages 12-21 (sometimes younger and older, but that's the average). The lion's share of this population not only relies on their parents for their systems and games, but also the money for absolutely everything else in their lives. With games now reaching what I think is the line where they increase in price again, to sixty five or even seventy dollars, is it wise to charge people to play a game when they can't even pay for their own lunch? I don't particularly think it is.
Now I'll grant you that the parenting in the Call of Duty community is less than stellar. *Soapbox time* The game is rated M, for users seventeen years of age and up. You can't walk in and show a brand new, just out of driver's school license and expect to walk out with Black Ops, or Reach, or any game with rating higher than T. Yet still the parents do it for their kids and let them interact with adults who have every right to be playing the game and saying what they wish how they wish. The children then begin to say these words and use the vernacular, not knowing its full meaning, and end up being lesser human beings because they think saying "Fuck" seventeen times makes them macho, and putting a swastika as their emblem is funny, when to millions upon millions of people it is a sign of the worst memories mankind can muster (We haven't forgotten the Holocaust, kiddies. Parts of Europe are still trying to come to grips with it, more than sixty years later).
*exhale* That being said, most of these kids and young adults, myself included, won't have the funds to pay whatever Kotick shoves at us on a consistent basis. And yes, I know that there would be plenty of kids who could sucker their parents into opening their pocket books yet again, but what I'm trying to get at here is principle. There is not a single first person shooter franchise with a multiplayer side that charges for the use of that service. Battlefield? No. Medal of Honor? No. Halo? No (Microsoft charges you. Not Bungie). Team Fortress 2? No. Counter Strike? No. Assassin's Creed? No. Red Dead Redemtion? No. You certainly can pay for certain parts of the game, the DLC, but you don't have to.
I titled this post "Take a tip from Gabe" for a reason, and I'm finally getting around to what I mean. As some of you may know, Team Fortress 2 was, for a long time, a game with items. You found these items through achievements and eventually through an item drop system (that was exploited and properly patched). Valve always fostered goodwill with its community through these patches, tweaking the game to balance it and make sure that nothing made the game unplayable for a large population. The humor inherent in the game and the fun nature of Valve's interaction with the community meant that, when they recently made certain items obtainable through purchase (and others usable only through purchase), there was a bit of a rumble, but not an explosion. The community was supportive of the new system, and especially those five people who made it work so well, the Polycount winners. Everyone cheered when they saw the items that won, and there was much congratulation, pats on the back and friend requests. Everyone felt that, in the long run, these people had earned every cent of the money they earned, and no one seemed to care that Valve probably takes a huge cut from every purchase made, giving I'd guess only 10-15% of the total profits to the creators. This is the tip Kotick needs to understand: goodwill between the creator of the game, its publisher and the community will fully allow you to charge for Call of Duty multiplayer. If you weren't a total jackass and actually tried to know who you were selling your games to, you'd understand that they want to be talked nice to. Everyone does. If you provide a stellar product, as Treyarch has (with Activision's support), and support it with everything you have over a consistent period of time (as Valve always has), you can make large changes with little fear of reprisal.
But, Mr. Kotick, you have not done this. You see only the dollar signs in the name Call of Duty, Bungie, Warcraft, Starcraft. You are a lucky man that the people in charge of these games love them. Even with this, however, putting in a fee for playing Call of Duty multiplayer will probably not ruin your company, but it will shake the industry like never before. You will lose what I'd say is a full half your Call of Duty player base, your stocks would stumble, and you would be faced with a choice you may not want to make (not to mention a possible fight with Microsoft over the money in multiplayer subscription). Take a tip from Gabe, Mr. Kotick. Become Bobby to those you sell games to. Know what their needs are, what their limits are, both within the game and in their pockets, and foster some goodwill. You'll do better in the long run.
Xiant
Showing posts with label Valve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valve. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Battlefield Marketing: Why Vietnam is Timed Perfectly (Also, Valve!)
This came to me last night and I felt I had to post it before I forgot about it. As I've said, I watch a lot of YouTube, but not just Call of Duty. I play(ed) and watch Battlefield Bad Company 2 from commetators like DCRU Colin, StoneFaceLock, Swordsman75, jayekaiser, mistuhed and Benjisaur among the more prominent. In the past months prior to Black Ops's release, there were rumblings of discontent with the state of the Battlefield scene, and for good reason. EA DICE released almost no truly "new" content. They updated maps for different game modes, but the maps themselves never really changed. For the first two or so months of the game's lifetime, this was a complaint to be sure, but not a damning one. As things went on, though, it trotted closer and closer to that point of no return, when even the dedicated Battlefield players withdrew for what they considered greener pastures (Black Ops and, to a lesser extent, Halo).
What I think DICE was well aware of, even back in the March release of BC2, is that their game was not Call of Duty 4, the game that needed no infusion of new content to remain both relevant and prominent for two years and longer. This led them, or at least it led Electronic Arts, to the following strategy based on their knowledge of their game. They knew they had about six months worth of game life ahead of them if they did nothing, and seven or maybe eight if they released different map types but not new maps. Their calculations put the end of their game's relevancy right at the release of Black Ops and the huge rush that the game would surely (and did) bring. They knew also that Battlefield wouldn't die out entirely, but it would begin to fade. However, the second tier to their plan was the coming Vietnam expansion, placed about a month and a half after Black Ops release of November 9th.
The timing of this expansion, and the Map Pack 7, which actually brought new maps, is next to perfect, and ingenious regardless. By allowing the giant push and affair with Black Ops to fade and then shoving a boatload of new content at their faithful consumers, DICE extends the lifetime of Bad Company 2 until the release, or at least the Beta, of Battlefield 3. To encourage their followers to play even more, and this is perhaps the most effective marketing that isn't Team Fortress 2's constant update system and Portal 2's announcement. By asking their players to use 69 million support actions (heal, ammo box, repair, revive, spot) in order to receive a fifth map for Vietnam, they've assured a huge amount of time spent in other things in game. Vietnam has been rumored for several months without a release date, and now that it has a firm December 21st (18th on PC) release, you can bet the dedicated BC2 players will not only be helping their teammates a whole lot more (something that was certainly lacking in the games initial stage), but that Vietnam will get even more orders.
I put Valve in parentheses in the title for a reason: they already do this kind of thing, and the industry is only now catching on. TF2 released and was immediately patched quite a few times in the months following its hitting Steam. Valve has always been dedicated to making their games as playable as possible for as long as possible. But they didn't stop at just game tweaks. They did what more developers need to do, at least from a business standpoint: add new content at all times and take full advantage of their community's own map/content making ability. TF2 as a game on release wasn't really much. Few maps with only two or three game modes and nine classes when a fairly set playstyle, I would have placed a lifespan of around six months at the very most, even with constant game code tweaking and bug fixing. Valve, as usual, knew how to make their game continue thriving for three years and counting: class updates. Placed around four months apart, Valve had 36 months, or three years if they only updated the classes and added nothing else. They also added new maps, game modes, in-game systems to acquire class items (hats included), community maps becoming official, contests and more. This does not even take into the fact that they haven't yet finished the Meet the Team videos and remain coy on both what those clips will contain and which gender the Pyro is (we want to know, dammit!)
I'll end by saying what I've always said outside of this blog to my friends. The video game industry is reactionary to Valve. They innovate, and everyone else clammers to catch up, even Bungie. DICE and EA took the right rout with the release of BC2 Vietnam, and when Battlefield 3 comes out, I think there'll still be players trudging the rice paddies long into the future.
Xiant
What I think DICE was well aware of, even back in the March release of BC2, is that their game was not Call of Duty 4, the game that needed no infusion of new content to remain both relevant and prominent for two years and longer. This led them, or at least it led Electronic Arts, to the following strategy based on their knowledge of their game. They knew they had about six months worth of game life ahead of them if they did nothing, and seven or maybe eight if they released different map types but not new maps. Their calculations put the end of their game's relevancy right at the release of Black Ops and the huge rush that the game would surely (and did) bring. They knew also that Battlefield wouldn't die out entirely, but it would begin to fade. However, the second tier to their plan was the coming Vietnam expansion, placed about a month and a half after Black Ops release of November 9th.
The timing of this expansion, and the Map Pack 7, which actually brought new maps, is next to perfect, and ingenious regardless. By allowing the giant push and affair with Black Ops to fade and then shoving a boatload of new content at their faithful consumers, DICE extends the lifetime of Bad Company 2 until the release, or at least the Beta, of Battlefield 3. To encourage their followers to play even more, and this is perhaps the most effective marketing that isn't Team Fortress 2's constant update system and Portal 2's announcement. By asking their players to use 69 million support actions (heal, ammo box, repair, revive, spot) in order to receive a fifth map for Vietnam, they've assured a huge amount of time spent in other things in game. Vietnam has been rumored for several months without a release date, and now that it has a firm December 21st (18th on PC) release, you can bet the dedicated BC2 players will not only be helping their teammates a whole lot more (something that was certainly lacking in the games initial stage), but that Vietnam will get even more orders.
I put Valve in parentheses in the title for a reason: they already do this kind of thing, and the industry is only now catching on. TF2 released and was immediately patched quite a few times in the months following its hitting Steam. Valve has always been dedicated to making their games as playable as possible for as long as possible. But they didn't stop at just game tweaks. They did what more developers need to do, at least from a business standpoint: add new content at all times and take full advantage of their community's own map/content making ability. TF2 as a game on release wasn't really much. Few maps with only two or three game modes and nine classes when a fairly set playstyle, I would have placed a lifespan of around six months at the very most, even with constant game code tweaking and bug fixing. Valve, as usual, knew how to make their game continue thriving for three years and counting: class updates. Placed around four months apart, Valve had 36 months, or three years if they only updated the classes and added nothing else. They also added new maps, game modes, in-game systems to acquire class items (hats included), community maps becoming official, contests and more. This does not even take into the fact that they haven't yet finished the Meet the Team videos and remain coy on both what those clips will contain and which gender the Pyro is (we want to know, dammit!)
I'll end by saying what I've always said outside of this blog to my friends. The video game industry is reactionary to Valve. They innovate, and everyone else clammers to catch up, even Bungie. DICE and EA took the right rout with the release of BC2 Vietnam, and when Battlefield 3 comes out, I think there'll still be players trudging the rice paddies long into the future.
Xiant
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Longer Delay (Much) and News
This blog let me down, not by any fault of yours, but of my own ambitions. I'd read all the things saying, "You need to stick to it, through the hard and the easy. When it gets good, you'll understand why you worked so hard for so little." Like a typical human, not just an arrogant bastard, I believed them and promptly forgot. I started getting a few who thought what I had to say was interesting, and that rekindled my fires, but then I started posting less and less. It got to a point where I'd reached what was, for me, a cap in viewership, and something inside just wouldn't let me justify continuing. So I let this thing sit idle for full on four months. It was not until tonight, sitting in my editing class and talking about the future (what a thing to do, right?) that something inside me wanted to return, start up the engines again, and get somewhere. And so I write this. What's to talk about, now that I've explained (uselessly) my absence? Well, Halo Reach came out, Medal of Honor all but fell flat, and Call of Duty: Black Ops ensnared the highest preorder stats in GameStop history and got millions (several of them, myself included) playing for inordinate hours. In retrospect, getting that XBOX 360 Slim for Reach was a great idea. I'd never have found out I'm a rusher who enjoys getting in the face of his enemies. In sum, I'm a CoD guy. Halo's too slow, and Battlefield is too sluggish (there's a subtle difference there, but I won't go into that).
So, Black Ops. I'm not going too deep right now, nor will I in the future, just to say that 1) it's my first CoD game, 2) the weapons, for the most part, don't have an overall dominate member (save the G11, perhaps) and 3) Domination is the best game type in the whole game.
I'll put this into perspective using the only other game I've put a lot of effort and time in: TF2 (yes, I'm returning to that too). I've played every game type in TF2, save Arena, because I don't like not getting back in the action, and I can say Payload is the best. The map design, both from Valve and the community, is not at the par of Capture point, but the concept of payload as a game mode is the best one. To qualify, with Payload, more than most CP maps, and similarly in Domination, you know, immediately, exactly where your enemies are. On Payload, your HUD says X players on the cart, and vocal queues tell you to get to it. With Domination, you have a flashing flag and a vocal queue. Those are guaranteed kills if you can get the drop on your hapless foe. While it can certainly become a deathmatch and constant rush for flags, by and large there's one team who takes it to the other team and just keeps hammering. Objective game modes are, I think, my excuse to not play deathmatch modes because I'm not confident enough. There's something to that, and I understand that about myself. My gun skills aren't to par for sheer gun on gun combat, and my mind doesn't work fast enough, most of the time, that I don't need some indicator of where exactly I should be going to get my killstreaks. If I played more, I'm sure that'd change some. The larger reason, or at least so I tell myself, is that I can never find one single bloody person to kill in TDM. I run to where the action is, and I'm a second too late. Ten kills later on the board and I'm still freaking looking for my second kill. If anything, I like some kind of assurance that someone will be somewhere at some point and that I have some chance of killing them. In TDM, for me at least, I'm always exactly where that is not, and if by some chance I happen to be, some situation with contrive to get me out of that groove. IT's usually an RC car.
Let me be clear, however. My most played game mode in Reach was Team Slayer, so my gun skills aren't bad enough that I must stick to objective game modes. I play games to enjoy myself, and I do not enjoy my time in TDM like I do in Domination. And let me be clear that I've gotten several Chopper Gunners and enough kills for Gunship and Dogs (though I don't really ever equip them. That'll change) Hell, I've rushed spawns at gotten upwards of fifteen kills, topped the leaderboard in captures and defenses and had K/D over 5. I can turn on Beast Mode when something inside me really wants to. But I remain the average, above at times, gamer.
That's all for now. I've got other writing to do, and a begging session with That VideoGame Blog
So, Black Ops. I'm not going too deep right now, nor will I in the future, just to say that 1) it's my first CoD game, 2) the weapons, for the most part, don't have an overall dominate member (save the G11, perhaps) and 3) Domination is the best game type in the whole game.
I'll put this into perspective using the only other game I've put a lot of effort and time in: TF2 (yes, I'm returning to that too). I've played every game type in TF2, save Arena, because I don't like not getting back in the action, and I can say Payload is the best. The map design, both from Valve and the community, is not at the par of Capture point, but the concept of payload as a game mode is the best one. To qualify, with Payload, more than most CP maps, and similarly in Domination, you know, immediately, exactly where your enemies are. On Payload, your HUD says X players on the cart, and vocal queues tell you to get to it. With Domination, you have a flashing flag and a vocal queue. Those are guaranteed kills if you can get the drop on your hapless foe. While it can certainly become a deathmatch and constant rush for flags, by and large there's one team who takes it to the other team and just keeps hammering. Objective game modes are, I think, my excuse to not play deathmatch modes because I'm not confident enough. There's something to that, and I understand that about myself. My gun skills aren't to par for sheer gun on gun combat, and my mind doesn't work fast enough, most of the time, that I don't need some indicator of where exactly I should be going to get my killstreaks. If I played more, I'm sure that'd change some. The larger reason, or at least so I tell myself, is that I can never find one single bloody person to kill in TDM. I run to where the action is, and I'm a second too late. Ten kills later on the board and I'm still freaking looking for my second kill. If anything, I like some kind of assurance that someone will be somewhere at some point and that I have some chance of killing them. In TDM, for me at least, I'm always exactly where that is not, and if by some chance I happen to be, some situation with contrive to get me out of that groove. IT's usually an RC car.
Let me be clear, however. My most played game mode in Reach was Team Slayer, so my gun skills aren't bad enough that I must stick to objective game modes. I play games to enjoy myself, and I do not enjoy my time in TDM like I do in Domination. And let me be clear that I've gotten several Chopper Gunners and enough kills for Gunship and Dogs (though I don't really ever equip them. That'll change) Hell, I've rushed spawns at gotten upwards of fifteen kills, topped the leaderboard in captures and defenses and had K/D over 5. I can turn on Beast Mode when something inside me really wants to. But I remain the average, above at times, gamer.
That's all for now. I've got other writing to do, and a begging session with That VideoGame Blog
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Crysis 2 and Dead Space 2 News
Yeah, yeah, no update for two days. Sorry, but life calls first!
Anyway, I just received word, through our friends and GameSpot, that both Crysis 2 is delayed and that Dead Space 2 is coming to every platform to ever exist ever. Meaning, in essence, that it's coming to handhelds and mobile phones and consoles and PC.
For the first part, Crysis 2, I'm not at all perturbed, and you shouldn't be either. The original Crysis came out almost three years ago, and still remains the benchmark for how good your PC is. I say that if it takes three years to catch up with graphics technology on the hardware front, I don't think anyone should worry about a few more months of hardware dev time and releases to help ease the processor destroying monster that will be Crysis 2. Like Portal 2, I'm willing to wait a little more because I know that CryTek wants only to make sure the game will be the absolute best it could be. They received a lot of flak for their handling of the original Crysis, what with its strange premise, cliffhanger ending, unidentifiable island and giant, yet inconclusive, boss fight. For a game as massively changed as Crysis 2 seems to be, not only is a three and a half years reasonable, I'd say that it asks a little much. For the first part, the folks at CryTek are building a whole city from the ground up, in cyberspace. The opportunities for dynamic action, death defying stunts, open world gameplay are endless and the sheer amount of detail that goes into creating a realistic virtual environment take equally endless amounts of time and dedication. Also, like Portal 2, CryTek seems to be expanding not only the environments but also the game mechanics, and, based on the already rather complicated mechanic of Crysis, that is a tall order.
As for Dead Space, not much to say beyond, "Wow." I didn't play the original, due in large part to lack of funds and interest, so I can't speak to the game itself. I may have to do what I've done with other game series and play the second game quickly to follow the first, to see what they improve. Then again, I don't really care for horror games, so maybe not. I applaud EA for pushing it so hard, since the response at E3 was so positive.
More tomorrow as I crawl home from my pre-GenCon gaming.
Xiant
Anyway, I just received word, through our friends and GameSpot, that both Crysis 2 is delayed and that Dead Space 2 is coming to every platform to ever exist ever. Meaning, in essence, that it's coming to handhelds and mobile phones and consoles and PC.
For the first part, Crysis 2, I'm not at all perturbed, and you shouldn't be either. The original Crysis came out almost three years ago, and still remains the benchmark for how good your PC is. I say that if it takes three years to catch up with graphics technology on the hardware front, I don't think anyone should worry about a few more months of hardware dev time and releases to help ease the processor destroying monster that will be Crysis 2. Like Portal 2, I'm willing to wait a little more because I know that CryTek wants only to make sure the game will be the absolute best it could be. They received a lot of flak for their handling of the original Crysis, what with its strange premise, cliffhanger ending, unidentifiable island and giant, yet inconclusive, boss fight. For a game as massively changed as Crysis 2 seems to be, not only is a three and a half years reasonable, I'd say that it asks a little much. For the first part, the folks at CryTek are building a whole city from the ground up, in cyberspace. The opportunities for dynamic action, death defying stunts, open world gameplay are endless and the sheer amount of detail that goes into creating a realistic virtual environment take equally endless amounts of time and dedication. Also, like Portal 2, CryTek seems to be expanding not only the environments but also the game mechanics, and, based on the already rather complicated mechanic of Crysis, that is a tall order.
As for Dead Space, not much to say beyond, "Wow." I didn't play the original, due in large part to lack of funds and interest, so I can't speak to the game itself. I may have to do what I've done with other game series and play the second game quickly to follow the first, to see what they improve. Then again, I don't really care for horror games, so maybe not. I applaud EA for pushing it so hard, since the response at E3 was so positive.
More tomorrow as I crawl home from my pre-GenCon gaming.
Xiant
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Story in Multiplayer Games
This idea came to me when Valve, the creators of Team Fortress 2, began giving a story to that game. On the face of it, a solely multiplayer game like Team Fortress 2 or Blacklight Tango Down don't really need a story. Team Fortress Classic didn't, and there aren't that many actual wholly multiplayer games out there. Sure, games like CoD, Battlefield and MoH are mostly multiplayer, but there's a story behind the maps you play on. If you had the audacity to play the single player and enjoy it, you'd recognize some of the maps as set pieces from the game. Not so for fully multiplayer games. The maps you play on were built, ostensibly, for players with no regard for background or flavor. As long as they functioned for death match of CTF or territory control, who cares?
That misses the point, though. Every game out there has an art style unique to it and it alone. What informed the decisions the artists and level designers made was not simple ergonomics. There are ideas and stories that go with any one of the maps you can think of. The dark, war-torn world of Blacklight and the strange pseudo America of TF2 came into being because someone thought there was something to say with the environments, the way buildings stood, their colors, the color of the water and the sky, the action around the maps. All of this has some tale to tell, but no one seems to care, so long as the maps are balanced and fun to play.
When Valve began implementing a cannon to TF2, I was ambivalent, but I realize now how important all they're doing is. Sure, we don't stop playing to examine the environments around us in these games, but maybe we should. If we don't, all the work hundreds of people put into making those environments is for nothing. You end up with a map like Orange_X3 and all its variants. There is nothing to say about these maps. They are functional. That's all.
But there's life in the real maps, just like their is in a book or a comic or graphic novel. The question that follows, therefore, is why we appreciate multiplayer games versus why we appreciate the work of art that is literature? If we value one far more than the other, as is actually the case, why is so much work put into the games to make them feel like there are words to write about them when almost no one plans on writing? What if we didn't read books, but merely used them as page turning simulators without the simulator. Every page is blank. It's just turning pages. That's the same idea as bland multiplayer maps. When you play them, you're just going through the motions of play. There's no consideration to the artistic value of the surroundings.
We enjoy a lush setting for books and movies and art, why not for games? They're games, we say. There's nothing in them, let alone multiplayer games. Valve, in their unending quest to break boundaries, sees that there is a value in the story that surrounds a game where no one cares about the surroundings. Stunning vistas no one looks at carry just as much, if not more, weight than those examined in detail. They are all the more sweet to enjoy when you finally look at them, or when someone decides you should take a little time and view them.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
That misses the point, though. Every game out there has an art style unique to it and it alone. What informed the decisions the artists and level designers made was not simple ergonomics. There are ideas and stories that go with any one of the maps you can think of. The dark, war-torn world of Blacklight and the strange pseudo America of TF2 came into being because someone thought there was something to say with the environments, the way buildings stood, their colors, the color of the water and the sky, the action around the maps. All of this has some tale to tell, but no one seems to care, so long as the maps are balanced and fun to play.
When Valve began implementing a cannon to TF2, I was ambivalent, but I realize now how important all they're doing is. Sure, we don't stop playing to examine the environments around us in these games, but maybe we should. If we don't, all the work hundreds of people put into making those environments is for nothing. You end up with a map like Orange_X3 and all its variants. There is nothing to say about these maps. They are functional. That's all.
But there's life in the real maps, just like their is in a book or a comic or graphic novel. The question that follows, therefore, is why we appreciate multiplayer games versus why we appreciate the work of art that is literature? If we value one far more than the other, as is actually the case, why is so much work put into the games to make them feel like there are words to write about them when almost no one plans on writing? What if we didn't read books, but merely used them as page turning simulators without the simulator. Every page is blank. It's just turning pages. That's the same idea as bland multiplayer maps. When you play them, you're just going through the motions of play. There's no consideration to the artistic value of the surroundings.
We enjoy a lush setting for books and movies and art, why not for games? They're games, we say. There's nothing in them, let alone multiplayer games. Valve, in their unending quest to break boundaries, sees that there is a value in the story that surrounds a game where no one cares about the surroundings. Stunning vistas no one looks at carry just as much, if not more, weight than those examined in detail. They are all the more sweet to enjoy when you finally look at them, or when someone decides you should take a little time and view them.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Patches, Time and Vegas
Tomorrow I leave for Las Vegas to celebrate mine and my parents' birthdays. Posting will thusly be a little bit shorter, and since I need to get to work packing and sleeping, this will also be a rather short blog.
The Battlefield forums have a real history of trolls and flamers (look it up) always looking for something to complain about. DICE wisely remained out of the war on their own forums, knowing that if they chimed in, the flames would only grow hotter and the trolls tougher. With the recent patch to BC2, long awaited, they addressed many issues the community had, while instituting a whole slew of new ones. There are those who are just happy the patch came out, myself among them, and I hope that the issues stay in minority of players and are addressed quickly.
Of course, however, there are those who are still complaining, some even more vehemently than last time. The question becomes: what do you want from them? Either they get as much done as they can and release, testing again and again for any bugs they can find, or they release small patches with less testing which may cause even more issues than a sweeping patch. DICE has no way to win here, and I pity them. To a point. I do think that if they release a large number of small patches over a short period of time would, in the long run, be a better policy. Feedback would be quick and the testing crew is several dozen times larger than DICE could ever hope to field. Valve follows this model, to a degree, addressing two to four issues at a time and occasionally putting out a sweeping patch that changes the game dramatically. What I've come to realize is that big patches carry with them far more danger than small patches. This is obvious. With the huge difference in computer power from person to person, as well as different operating systems, graphical software and so much else, going big or going home brings more problems than it's worth. Every major update to Team Fortress 2 brought with it so many problems, glitches and exploits that in a thousand years the Quality Assurance people at Valve had any hope of finding.
That being said, there will always be people who want to not see the forest for the trees, as they say, and they'll complain about something. I suppose that's just a fact of life.
C'est la vie,
Xiant.
The Battlefield forums have a real history of trolls and flamers (look it up) always looking for something to complain about. DICE wisely remained out of the war on their own forums, knowing that if they chimed in, the flames would only grow hotter and the trolls tougher. With the recent patch to BC2, long awaited, they addressed many issues the community had, while instituting a whole slew of new ones. There are those who are just happy the patch came out, myself among them, and I hope that the issues stay in minority of players and are addressed quickly.
Of course, however, there are those who are still complaining, some even more vehemently than last time. The question becomes: what do you want from them? Either they get as much done as they can and release, testing again and again for any bugs they can find, or they release small patches with less testing which may cause even more issues than a sweeping patch. DICE has no way to win here, and I pity them. To a point. I do think that if they release a large number of small patches over a short period of time would, in the long run, be a better policy. Feedback would be quick and the testing crew is several dozen times larger than DICE could ever hope to field. Valve follows this model, to a degree, addressing two to four issues at a time and occasionally putting out a sweeping patch that changes the game dramatically. What I've come to realize is that big patches carry with them far more danger than small patches. This is obvious. With the huge difference in computer power from person to person, as well as different operating systems, graphical software and so much else, going big or going home brings more problems than it's worth. Every major update to Team Fortress 2 brought with it so many problems, glitches and exploits that in a thousand years the Quality Assurance people at Valve had any hope of finding.
That being said, there will always be people who want to not see the forest for the trees, as they say, and they'll complain about something. I suppose that's just a fact of life.
C'est la vie,
Xiant.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Battlefield Bad Company 2 Updates and New Game Mode
This is something of a point of contention among the BC2 community. That is, of course putting in lightly. In reality, the flame wars in the community are rampant and widespread, with DICE/EA being the brunt of many insults and expletive filled comments. On release day for BC2, the EA servers dedicated to making the game run were completely overfilled, and only a fraction of the players had the ability to even join a game. Granted, game launches are hard to get right, but the degree to which the launch failed surprised and angered many. I myself couldn't play for about a week and a half, though once I started, I didn't feel like complaining. After playing for a while, there were some very specific complaints that I shared with many other players. Namely, overpowered M60's (a medic weapon) and grenade spam. The latter of the two was such a problem that players grabbed their assault kits and used the 40mm grenade as a primary weapon. The M60's damage killed in 4-6 hits at any range and it had dead on accuracy from any range. Add to this that there was very little falloff while moving and run and gun medics became a real issue.
DICE, in response to community outrage, responded with a huge update that balanced weapons, reduced damages and kill ranges, decreased accuracies and buffed weapons otherwise unused. This and many other things went into that first update, and the community was happy. For a time. New problems then began to pop up. First, knifing was now all but obsolete as it was only completely reliable when done from the front. Knifing from the back now did absolutely nothing except on a glitch or when the enemy was moving. People, like myself, who enjoyed sneaking up on enemy snipers (recon kit players) and knifing them in the back now had to actually shoot, hoping no one else heard the death and bullets firing. Secondly, and this was the only other in game complaint, rather than the 40mm grenade being a primary weapon, now rocket launchers took that mantle. In DICE's defense, they did decrease the kill radius of the rocket launchers, but did nothing to the damage against human targets. Why decreasing the kill radius increased the usage I cannot fathom, yet there you have it.
The other two large complaints came in the form of a lack of private servers being completely private. Currently, and the patch is coming out today or Monday on Steam, you need eight players for a private match. If you don't have that many friends, or friends that own BC2 and regularly play it, it really isn't great to be you. The second complaint is one that constantly evolves, as the consoles, PS3 and 360, received several updates while the PC got nothing. Add to this that a promotion and addition to the game, the SPECTACT kits, comes with the update, and you have a recipe for hatred and flame, which is exactly what DICE has.
What really exacerbated the whole problem is that DICE announced the update in early May, and it is only now, on June 23, that we actually get it. The huge delay, coupled with very little feedback till lately, and the continuing, lamer growing excuse of problems with Quality Assurance, did nothing to help DICE's case.
Now, one has to remember that when the update does in fact go live, a good portion of those people who wanted nothing more than proclaim DICE and EA as the worst game developer/publisher combination the world has ever known will undoubtedly shift their position completely around. DICE and EA, to them, will be the greatest community responders the world offers, and when called on their change in viewpoint will deny and circle the point until someone finds themselves banned.
On a more recent topic, BC2 Onslaught mode. On the surface this seems like a really novel idea. Four player co-op against AI opponents until the entire squad is overwhelmed. New and interesting, except Valve did it with Left 4 Dead two years ago. What saves DICE from being just ripping off Valve is the uniqueness of their class setups. In L4D, each player has exactly the same skills, whereas in BC2, there are medics, assaults, engineers and recons, each of which bring something different to the table. As I understand it, Onslaught mode has no goal, only survival. You keep going until each and every one of you dies with no hope of revival. If this means that entire squads will be medic and constantly revive one another remains to be seen, but somehow I think the game will make players chose one of the four kits and stick with it, making a team of four using all kits.
Either way, it'll be interesting.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
DICE, in response to community outrage, responded with a huge update that balanced weapons, reduced damages and kill ranges, decreased accuracies and buffed weapons otherwise unused. This and many other things went into that first update, and the community was happy. For a time. New problems then began to pop up. First, knifing was now all but obsolete as it was only completely reliable when done from the front. Knifing from the back now did absolutely nothing except on a glitch or when the enemy was moving. People, like myself, who enjoyed sneaking up on enemy snipers (recon kit players) and knifing them in the back now had to actually shoot, hoping no one else heard the death and bullets firing. Secondly, and this was the only other in game complaint, rather than the 40mm grenade being a primary weapon, now rocket launchers took that mantle. In DICE's defense, they did decrease the kill radius of the rocket launchers, but did nothing to the damage against human targets. Why decreasing the kill radius increased the usage I cannot fathom, yet there you have it.
The other two large complaints came in the form of a lack of private servers being completely private. Currently, and the patch is coming out today or Monday on Steam, you need eight players for a private match. If you don't have that many friends, or friends that own BC2 and regularly play it, it really isn't great to be you. The second complaint is one that constantly evolves, as the consoles, PS3 and 360, received several updates while the PC got nothing. Add to this that a promotion and addition to the game, the SPECTACT kits, comes with the update, and you have a recipe for hatred and flame, which is exactly what DICE has.
What really exacerbated the whole problem is that DICE announced the update in early May, and it is only now, on June 23, that we actually get it. The huge delay, coupled with very little feedback till lately, and the continuing, lamer growing excuse of problems with Quality Assurance, did nothing to help DICE's case.
Now, one has to remember that when the update does in fact go live, a good portion of those people who wanted nothing more than proclaim DICE and EA as the worst game developer/publisher combination the world has ever known will undoubtedly shift their position completely around. DICE and EA, to them, will be the greatest community responders the world offers, and when called on their change in viewpoint will deny and circle the point until someone finds themselves banned.
On a more recent topic, BC2 Onslaught mode. On the surface this seems like a really novel idea. Four player co-op against AI opponents until the entire squad is overwhelmed. New and interesting, except Valve did it with Left 4 Dead two years ago. What saves DICE from being just ripping off Valve is the uniqueness of their class setups. In L4D, each player has exactly the same skills, whereas in BC2, there are medics, assaults, engineers and recons, each of which bring something different to the table. As I understand it, Onslaught mode has no goal, only survival. You keep going until each and every one of you dies with no hope of revival. If this means that entire squads will be medic and constantly revive one another remains to be seen, but somehow I think the game will make players chose one of the four kits and stick with it, making a team of four using all kits.
Either way, it'll be interesting.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Heavy Update and More E3 News
Having made a great deal of noise about the Medal of Honor beta, not putting up first impressions of it seems to me to be a betrayal of words. And it is, but I do of course, have a reason (some might call it an excuse). First off, the beta didn't actually go live on Steam when everyone expected it to, though it did go up on the appointed day. That said, it was already rather late by the time I finished downloading, and as I considered booting it up to try it out, a friends of mine, TheDakon, who plays Battelfield and TF2 with me on occasion, already had it going. I asked him how it was, but soon realized he spent perhaps three minutes in the actual game. When I pressed him as to why, his response was quick and to the point. Because the beta had just gone live, everyone and their dog was in game trying it out, and the Steam servers were overloaded, as were the EA servers hosting games. Furthermore, several key functions were malfunctioning, so I decided, rightly I hope, to wait the until initial rush ended and the start up kinks began to work themselves out. I know that the consoles are also having trouble with occasional freeze-ups and other game-cracking things, so my patience, I'm sure, will be rewarded in the end.
With that out of the way, I think I'll get to talking about TF2 some more, this time on the Natasha. Because he heavy loves his guns, he names them, and Natasha is his updated weapon (he calls the regular gun Sasha). Sasha's main selling point is its bullets' ability to significantly slow down the movement speed of its targets. Every bullet causes the enemy to move at 75% their total speed for a little more than half a second. That being said, because four bullets come out of the heavy's gun per one unit of ammunition spent, this makes the falloff much more dramatic, so much so that it seems like you come to a near complete stop at all but long range. The tradeoff, for all valve update weapons have a tradeoff of some kind, is a reduced damage output, to the tune of 25%. Again, with the amount of ammo the heavy puts down range with each pull of the trigger, he still takes out enemies very quickly, put up against a heavy with Sasha, the one who wins is either whoever shot first or whoever has a medic. All things being equal, the Sasha heavy wins.
Natasha went through several update phases, as most times, when Valve updated the gun it would lose the slowdown quality. Valve fixed this only recently. As for me, I don't use Natasha as a rule, though I don't play heavy that often (the servers I play on often having a goodly number of skilled spies). However, when I encounter one, I find my teeth grinding, since I feel, and I think others do as well, that the slowdown is too much and makes heavy a much easier class to play, almost cheaply so. Plus, with even the moderate damage reduction, in crowded areas the heavy loses out to the constant assault of rockets, bombs and bullets quicker than with Sasha. His effectiveness dropped, the medic usually goes with the soldier or the demoman or, if he wants to just clear a room, a pyro, while the heavy sits back and eats a sandvich.
Thinking about it, I'll stick to a single class update weapon, since there's cool news coming out in the industry right now that some might not know about. First is Infamous 2, the game where you have electrical super powers the likes of which send ordinary citizens fleeing in terror and cars effortlessly flung into enemies. Infamous (the original) became a favorite among sandbox game enthusiasts for the ease of getting into the game, the story and unique method of its telling and, most of all, the superpowers, something not often seen in a complete sandbox. Cole McGrath, the main character, always seemed the reluctant hero, forced to battle forces for the reason that no one else would. Assuming you played the good side of things, Cole truly did follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's journey, with a few modifications. It was a story of growth and transformation from ordinary person to true hero. By the end of the game, Cole, while still somewhat reticent about his status as super hero, has no reason not to follow the destiny he begins to see before him, and while the city of the game's setting might be safe, there is a whole world that needs saving. With his powers only in their infancy, what Cole comes up with next is anyone's guess.
All that aside, there is one piece of trivia that bugs me a little bit about InFamous 2. Cole's voice actor and character design are completely different. In the first InFamous, Cole' voice was gravely and his head shaven. In InFamous 2, his hair is full and black and his voice is more southern, more relatable. While Sucker Punch, the makers of the game, have purely practical reasons for doing this (their vision of Cole's voice and the actor didn't match up, and the actor couldn't make it to face modeling from where he lived) I find it against the spirit of the game. The voice and appearance of the first game acted as a strong indicator as to both the kind of person Cole is but also shone a light on his internal conflict. His voice, a low, rough sound, mirrored his mental state and reluctance to hear the call to action. His yellow apparel and rucksack showed his link to humanity while still subtly separating him from it. He remained somewhat above and beyond the normal person, while still maintaining his humanity. With the blue t-shirt, the southern voice, Cole is now still more human that he was before, and seems much more casual with the whole idea of having his powers. Now, I don't want Cole dressing up in tights and a cape, but retaining some degree of separation, at least for me, should have been tops on the list. Cole is no longer part of the population. He is a man apart, a man above and beyond so many. I think his appearance should reflect that. His reluctance should be fading as the world heats up in danger and chaos, but I know that to be a room with Cole, a man within whom a huge electric charge always sits, would be uncomfortable to say the least. I don't, therefore, want to feel like I could let him into my house and have a drink with him. If he is to be the savior, make him seem, first visually, the savior.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
With that out of the way, I think I'll get to talking about TF2 some more, this time on the Natasha. Because he heavy loves his guns, he names them, and Natasha is his updated weapon (he calls the regular gun Sasha). Sasha's main selling point is its bullets' ability to significantly slow down the movement speed of its targets. Every bullet causes the enemy to move at 75% their total speed for a little more than half a second. That being said, because four bullets come out of the heavy's gun per one unit of ammunition spent, this makes the falloff much more dramatic, so much so that it seems like you come to a near complete stop at all but long range. The tradeoff, for all valve update weapons have a tradeoff of some kind, is a reduced damage output, to the tune of 25%. Again, with the amount of ammo the heavy puts down range with each pull of the trigger, he still takes out enemies very quickly, put up against a heavy with Sasha, the one who wins is either whoever shot first or whoever has a medic. All things being equal, the Sasha heavy wins.
Natasha went through several update phases, as most times, when Valve updated the gun it would lose the slowdown quality. Valve fixed this only recently. As for me, I don't use Natasha as a rule, though I don't play heavy that often (the servers I play on often having a goodly number of skilled spies). However, when I encounter one, I find my teeth grinding, since I feel, and I think others do as well, that the slowdown is too much and makes heavy a much easier class to play, almost cheaply so. Plus, with even the moderate damage reduction, in crowded areas the heavy loses out to the constant assault of rockets, bombs and bullets quicker than with Sasha. His effectiveness dropped, the medic usually goes with the soldier or the demoman or, if he wants to just clear a room, a pyro, while the heavy sits back and eats a sandvich.
Thinking about it, I'll stick to a single class update weapon, since there's cool news coming out in the industry right now that some might not know about. First is Infamous 2, the game where you have electrical super powers the likes of which send ordinary citizens fleeing in terror and cars effortlessly flung into enemies. Infamous (the original) became a favorite among sandbox game enthusiasts for the ease of getting into the game, the story and unique method of its telling and, most of all, the superpowers, something not often seen in a complete sandbox. Cole McGrath, the main character, always seemed the reluctant hero, forced to battle forces for the reason that no one else would. Assuming you played the good side of things, Cole truly did follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's journey, with a few modifications. It was a story of growth and transformation from ordinary person to true hero. By the end of the game, Cole, while still somewhat reticent about his status as super hero, has no reason not to follow the destiny he begins to see before him, and while the city of the game's setting might be safe, there is a whole world that needs saving. With his powers only in their infancy, what Cole comes up with next is anyone's guess.
All that aside, there is one piece of trivia that bugs me a little bit about InFamous 2. Cole's voice actor and character design are completely different. In the first InFamous, Cole' voice was gravely and his head shaven. In InFamous 2, his hair is full and black and his voice is more southern, more relatable. While Sucker Punch, the makers of the game, have purely practical reasons for doing this (their vision of Cole's voice and the actor didn't match up, and the actor couldn't make it to face modeling from where he lived) I find it against the spirit of the game. The voice and appearance of the first game acted as a strong indicator as to both the kind of person Cole is but also shone a light on his internal conflict. His voice, a low, rough sound, mirrored his mental state and reluctance to hear the call to action. His yellow apparel and rucksack showed his link to humanity while still subtly separating him from it. He remained somewhat above and beyond the normal person, while still maintaining his humanity. With the blue t-shirt, the southern voice, Cole is now still more human that he was before, and seems much more casual with the whole idea of having his powers. Now, I don't want Cole dressing up in tights and a cape, but retaining some degree of separation, at least for me, should have been tops on the list. Cole is no longer part of the population. He is a man apart, a man above and beyond so many. I think his appearance should reflect that. His reluctance should be fading as the world heats up in danger and chaos, but I know that to be a room with Cole, a man within whom a huge electric charge always sits, would be uncomfortable to say the least. I don't, therefore, want to feel like I could let him into my house and have a drink with him. If he is to be the savior, make him seem, first visually, the savior.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
The Demo Update and Portal 2: A Briefing
Again, apologies for the late hour. Life gets in the way, and habits need to form. Because tonight is still yet later than last, this will be the shortest blog so far, and I feel awful for it. Tomorrow will be better.
On that note, the Demoman's only actual ranged weapon from his update. The Scottish Resistance. The newest weapon, along with the Direct Hit, discussed two blogs ago, it is perhaps the most tactical weapon in the entire game. Remote detonation of sticky bombs with just the press of a button, long a staple of demoman strategy, does not apply with the SR. Valve's design philosophy for their updates seems to be, "How can we make our players play differently, and play smarter?" Their case in point is the Scottish Resistance. Because you have to be directly facing, and in some cases looking directly at, groups of SR bombs to detonate them, placement and detonation takes a great deal of memory and battlefield finesse, something most demoman players, so used to the original launcher, either do not possess or do not wish to learn. This, coupled with the increased amount of sticky bombs allowed on the field of battle at a time, makes the SR the hardest weapon to use effectively. Something that I'll touch on in the future, rocket/sticky jumping, is also made a good deal harder, since the SR requires directional detonation. Therefore, the demoman must look down to detonate the SR bomb, whereas with the regular launcher he need only click a button.
As for myself, while I play demoman only to wear the really sweet hat and get a few laughs, I don't particularly care for the SR. I tax my brain enough with the strategies of TF2, especially playing demo, that I don't need to think any more than I already do. On forums I've seen people say that a skilled SR user can singlehandedly hold down any objective with little trouble. This argument, however, turns stale if you take a moment to look at any class played skillfully. Search YouTube or PLDX.com and see that scouts, soldiers, snipers, demomen without the SR, pyros even, defending the objective with nothing more than their starting weapons, and allowing their team to push back.
While I can't say too much about Portal 2, having seen only scant details (along with everyone else save Valve), I noticed this during the examples of play I did see. Note here that this is more a personal interpretation and critical stance on the game, rather than a review, but it bears speaking to. In Portal, and its sequel, there are sentry drones voiced by the voice of the main villain, indeed the only character to speak at length during the first game at all. These bots add some black humor to the already horrendously dark and funny game by trying to murder you with twin machine guns, then saying, if you defeat them, "I don't hate you." In the original Portal, they seemed little more than drones sent by your nemesis to test and, more than likely, kill you. There were moments, and these were mere moments, where their pleas to be put down before being deactivated seemed somewhat genuine, but, of course, you know better.
In Portal 2, on the other hand, there are many more ways to torment and destroy these sentry bots. Fling them into a high energy wind tunnel, down a bottomless shaft, send them into an infinite loop ending only when you decide to laser beam them to death, or just do it yourself. Fun and merciless as this is, as I watched the demo being played, a disturbing side of me began to feel pity for these little machines. Put in front of us only to serve a very simple purpose, I looked back and realized that their statement "I don't hate you." Is a true one, fully honest and devoid of deception. Programmed with only one action and response, they are innocent casualties in the war between the player character and the antagonist. What makes this yet more powerful for me is that their responses to the laser beams and the wind tunnels now seem to involve pain and distress at their situation. Not robotic any longer, they seem to truly lament the state you put them in for your own survival, and just a little bit, I feel for them as less robot killers but instead beings whose feelings and bodies are tortured only for my and my captor's amusement. It is a sad state, I think, one worth lamenting, if considered in this way.
With this, I leave you.
Good night.
Xiant
On that note, the Demoman's only actual ranged weapon from his update. The Scottish Resistance. The newest weapon, along with the Direct Hit, discussed two blogs ago, it is perhaps the most tactical weapon in the entire game. Remote detonation of sticky bombs with just the press of a button, long a staple of demoman strategy, does not apply with the SR. Valve's design philosophy for their updates seems to be, "How can we make our players play differently, and play smarter?" Their case in point is the Scottish Resistance. Because you have to be directly facing, and in some cases looking directly at, groups of SR bombs to detonate them, placement and detonation takes a great deal of memory and battlefield finesse, something most demoman players, so used to the original launcher, either do not possess or do not wish to learn. This, coupled with the increased amount of sticky bombs allowed on the field of battle at a time, makes the SR the hardest weapon to use effectively. Something that I'll touch on in the future, rocket/sticky jumping, is also made a good deal harder, since the SR requires directional detonation. Therefore, the demoman must look down to detonate the SR bomb, whereas with the regular launcher he need only click a button.
As for myself, while I play demoman only to wear the really sweet hat and get a few laughs, I don't particularly care for the SR. I tax my brain enough with the strategies of TF2, especially playing demo, that I don't need to think any more than I already do. On forums I've seen people say that a skilled SR user can singlehandedly hold down any objective with little trouble. This argument, however, turns stale if you take a moment to look at any class played skillfully. Search YouTube or PLDX.com and see that scouts, soldiers, snipers, demomen without the SR, pyros even, defending the objective with nothing more than their starting weapons, and allowing their team to push back.
While I can't say too much about Portal 2, having seen only scant details (along with everyone else save Valve), I noticed this during the examples of play I did see. Note here that this is more a personal interpretation and critical stance on the game, rather than a review, but it bears speaking to. In Portal, and its sequel, there are sentry drones voiced by the voice of the main villain, indeed the only character to speak at length during the first game at all. These bots add some black humor to the already horrendously dark and funny game by trying to murder you with twin machine guns, then saying, if you defeat them, "I don't hate you." In the original Portal, they seemed little more than drones sent by your nemesis to test and, more than likely, kill you. There were moments, and these were mere moments, where their pleas to be put down before being deactivated seemed somewhat genuine, but, of course, you know better.
In Portal 2, on the other hand, there are many more ways to torment and destroy these sentry bots. Fling them into a high energy wind tunnel, down a bottomless shaft, send them into an infinite loop ending only when you decide to laser beam them to death, or just do it yourself. Fun and merciless as this is, as I watched the demo being played, a disturbing side of me began to feel pity for these little machines. Put in front of us only to serve a very simple purpose, I looked back and realized that their statement "I don't hate you." Is a true one, fully honest and devoid of deception. Programmed with only one action and response, they are innocent casualties in the war between the player character and the antagonist. What makes this yet more powerful for me is that their responses to the laser beams and the wind tunnels now seem to involve pain and distress at their situation. Not robotic any longer, they seem to truly lament the state you put them in for your own survival, and just a little bit, I feel for them as less robot killers but instead beings whose feelings and bodies are tortured only for my and my captor's amusement. It is a sad state, I think, one worth lamenting, if considered in this way.
With this, I leave you.
Good night.
Xiant
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