A first look at Battlefield 4's China Rising expansion
129 replies, posted
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41938447]I don't think you can really suggest that DICE and EA had a bunch of artists laying around and were like "YOU KNOW WHAT GUYS, WHY DON'T WE DO A DLC RIGHT NOW! STARTING TODAY!!!!!"
This is obviously something that was planned from long ago, like with every recent BF and Call of Duty title.
The idea new content cannot be integrated is bullshit too; don't think when you go buy the game you won't have to download a 16 GB update just to get the game working. The game will in no way be identical to what is pressed onto discs.[/QUOTE]
... Do you even know how game development works? The mappers and modelers and artists and shit, they're done. They've been done for a while. It's not smart to have a fuckton of developers sitting around with their thumbs in their asses at the end of the game's development. Right now DICE doesn't need their [I]ENTIRE[/I] studio to do minor bugfixing and polishing. It's better to have them work on future content, so they'll be busy and they can get [I]PAID.[/I]
Looks like I'm "going on holiday to russia" if I even get this iteration of Battlefield
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41938467]... Do you even know how game development works? The mappers and modelers and artists and shit, they're done. They've been done for a while. It's not smart to have a fuckton of developers sitting around with their thumbs in their asses at the end of the game's development. Right now DICE doesn't need their [I]ENTIRE[/I] studio to do minor bugfixing and polishing. It's better to have them work on future content, so they'll be busy and they can get [I]PAID.[/I][/QUOTE]
That is a fair point, but why would start releasing trailers before the game has even been released? Imagine being psyched to go watch a movie like Star Wars, and a week before release they release a trailer for the next Star Wars movie; it'd make no sense at all.
Why they'd even let all the cats out of the bag before release is beyond me.
[editline]23rd August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41938467]... Do you even know how game development works? The mappers and modelers and artists and shit, they're done. They've been done for a while. It's not smart to have a fuckton of developers sitting around with their thumbs in their asses at the end of the game's development. Right now DICE doesn't need their [I]ENTIRE[/I] studio to do minor bugfixing and polishing. It's better to have them work on future content, so they'll be busy and they can get [I]PAID.[/I][/QUOTE]
Actually I have a question, if they have all these staff sitting around doing nothing, why don't they work on mod tools for BF4? Why completely rule out mods from the game?
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41938500]That is a fair point, but why would start releasing trailers before the game has even been released? Imagine being psyched to go watch a movie like Star Wars, and a week before release they release a trailer for the next Star Wars movie; it'd make no sense at all.
Why they'd even let all the cats out of the bag before release is beyond me.[/QUOTE]
Nice awful hyperbolized analogy.
It's a preorder incentive, and it's a DLC PACK, not an entirely new game. It's being released months after release, so you're not being cut out of any content [I]at all.[/I] Why is this bad?
[editline]23rd August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41938500]That is a fair point, but why would start releasing trailers before the game has even been released? Imagine being psyched to go watch a movie like Star Wars, and a week before release they release a trailer for the next Star Wars movie; it'd make no sense at all.
Why they'd even let all the cats out of the bag before release is beyond me.
[editline]23rd August 2013[/editline]
Actually I have a question, if they have all these staff sitting around doing nothing, why don't they work on mod tools for BF4? Why completely rule out mods from the game?[/QUOTE]
Licensing issues, having to render/compile an entire map for several hours, and it's not a priority.
Go check any thread about mod support in BF3 if you want more reasons, I can't be assed to list every one. It's not just "pc gamers are too dumb."
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41938540]Nice awful hyperbolized analogy.
It's a preorder incentive, and it's a DLC PACK, not an entirely new game. It's being released months after release, so you're not being cut out of any content [I]at all.[/I] Why is this bad?[/QUOTE]
I thought you like hyperbole, I mean you sure believed Lucy Bradshaw when she said all those nice things to Sim City buyers.
I guess you're entitled to your opinion, but there will probably come a time that this nickel and diming doesn't work as well as it does.
I still find it illogical that people give PC as a platform shit for costing too much, give the Xboxone shit for costing $100 more than a PS4, but will gladly eat up a hundred bucks worth of DLC.
Don't you find it a bit peculiar that a game that was known for some of its mods just a few years ago suddenly has modding tools cut out? Isn't that kind of like being cut out of content?
I'm really not opposed to DLC as a model for certain games done in certain ways; I just think its a shit tactic to announce it before the game has even hit shelves at all... but I'm just a single person with an opinion, I hope we see more than a few people become fed up with this cycle and stop purchasing EA titles and Activision titles and stop supporting this kind of shit.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41938500]That is a fair point, but why would start releasing trailers before the game has even been released? Imagine being psyched to go watch a movie like Star Wars, and a week before release they release a trailer for the next Star Wars movie; it'd make no sense at all.
Why they'd even let all the cats out of the bag before release is beyond me.
[editline]23rd August 2013[/editline]
Actually I have a question, if they have all these staff sitting around doing nothing, why don't they work on mod tools for BF4? Why completely rule out mods from the game?[/QUOTE]
Because its mostly artists and writers who are doing so. Not the people implementing content and polishing the game.
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41938540]Licensing issues, having to render/compile an entire map for several hours, and it's not a priority.
Go check any thread about mod support in BF3 if you want more reasons, I can't be assed to list every one. It's not just "pc gamers are too dumb."[/QUOTE]
You mean
"we had that feature in our game several years ago, but this year we have decided to come up with a technical reason for why its not possible"
I mean if anyone here would believe such a statement, surely it would be the same guy who thinks Lucy Bradshaw is a chilled out Maxis employee.
[URL="http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/13/battlefield-4-mod-support-ruled-out-by-dice-2/"]This reason doesn't really provide any technical reasons[/URL]:
[QUOTE]Karl-Magnus Troedsson, DICE GM: We get that question a lot. I always answer the same thing, and then the community calls me bad names. We get the feedback, we understand it. We also would like to see more player-created content, but we would never do something like this if we feel we couldn’t do this 100 percent. That means we need to have the right tools available, we need to have the right security around this regarding what parts of the engine we let loose, so to say. So for BF4 we don’t have any planned mod support, I have to be blunt about saying that. We don’t.
But it is something that we are thinking about for the future, where we are going with the product, et cetera. So user-created content is something that’s very interesting to us, but I’m sorry to say that we will not have mod support in BF4.[/QUOTE]
It reads to me that EA and DICE have formed a comfy cushion from the idiot consumers who keep blindly purchasing this shit.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41938586]You mean
"we had that feature in our game several years ago, but this year we have decided to come up with a technical reason for why its not possible"
I mean if anyone here would believe such a statement, surely it would be the same guy who thinks Lucy Bradshaw is a chilled out Maxis employee.
[URL="http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/13/battlefield-4-mod-support-ruled-out-by-dice-2/"]This reason doesn't really provide any technical reasons[/URL]:
It reads to me that EA and DICE have formed a comfy cushion from the idiot consumers who keep blindly purchasing this shit.[/QUOTE]
It's a completely new engine, it's not the one from several years ago. There are a lot of licensing issues because EA/DICE don't own every bit of their engine. It would not be financially viable to distribute mod tools for their game because of this.
Can you please do some research before you blurt out "well they did it forever ago and X game from 1999 has a long lifespan before mods!" rhetoric?
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41938599]It's a completely new engine, it's not the one from several years ago. There are a lot of licensing issues because EA/DICE don't own every bit of their engine. It would not be financially viable to distribute mod tools for their game because of this.
Can you please do some research before you blurt out "well they did it forever ago and X game from 1999 has a long lifespan before mods!" rhetoric?[/QUOTE]
So how come they don't do a paid mod tools DLC?
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41938606]So how come they don't do a paid mod tools DLC?[/QUOTE]
Reread the first line of my post if you want an answer.
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41938612]Reread the first line of my post if you want an answer.[/QUOTE]
Well obviously handing out free DLC is not financially viable, yet you seem to think people paying for this DLC makes it financially viable.
On the other hand, you are claiming that handing out free modding tools is not financially viable, yet you seem to think making people pay for this would not make it financially viable.
Let me guess, you think its a swell idea that you cannot host a custom dedicated server on your own hardware too? because that would not be "financially viable"
[QUOTE=Cabbage;41927704]still don't get why DLC that is made and announced at the same time as the game can't be [b]released with the damn game[/b][/QUOTE]
because it's not a finished DLC and they'll be working on it past when the main game goes gold
people really don't understand the game design process and always cry "but they're just ripping things from the main game and reselling them cause EA is bad!!!!"
[editline]23rd August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41938647]Well obviously handing out free DLC is not financially viable, yet you seem to think people paying for this DLC makes it financially viable.
On the other hand, you are claiming that handing out free modding tools is not financially viable, yet you seem to think making people pay for this would not make it financially viable.
Let me guess, you think its a swell idea that you cannot host a custom dedicated server on your own hardware too? because that would not be "financially viable"[/QUOTE]
"There are a lot of licensing issues because EA/DICE don't own every bit of their engine."
They would have to jump through a million hoops to put out mod tools that barely anyone can use because rendering any sort of good looking map would take fucking millennia on standard computers
This happens way too much these days to still upset me. :(
I hate day1 DLCs regardless.
[QUOTE=Novangel;41928098]Battlefield 2: $49.99
Battlefield 2 Special Forces: $29.99
Battlefield 2 Euro Force: $9.99
Battlefield 2 Armored Fury: $9.99
=$100 omg double price[/QUOTE]
Special forces was standalone, except for the, like... 5 guns it unlocks for retail. -$29.99
[I]On this topic...[/I]
BF2 Complete Collection, which retails for $20 on origin, is on sale for like... $6 right now.
fuck bf3/bf4 premium, that shit meant that i wasted money buying the game and the first xpack.
if you have a brain don't buy this until premium if you even want to buy this
[QUOTE=Antlerp;41939229]fuck bf3/bf4 premium, that shit meant that i wasted money buying the game and the first xpack.
if you have a brain don't buy this until premium if you even want to buy this[/QUOTE]
Im gonna wait until I can get a good deal on the both of them so that I pay roughly retail or less for both BF4 [I]and[/I] premium.
Thats what my brother is doing for BF3 right now, he got the humble bundle for $5 and is gonna gun for premium right afterwards.
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;41938668]"There are a lot of licensing issues because EA/DICE don't own every bit of their engine."
They would have to jump through a million hoops to put out mod tools that barely anyone can use because rendering any sort of good looking map would take fucking millennia on standard computers[/QUOTE]
So none of the other titles on the market have licensing issues when it comes to mod tools? No other companies suffer from this same issue?
What do you think they use to create content at the game studios? A supercomputer of some description?
Look at the Steam hardware survey: [url]http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey[/url]
A very significant number of users do have decent hardware.
I have a better answer than all of the reasons you have provided: its because they don't want to; they know that idiots will buy up this stupid series yet again, and instead of providing a quality community with at least some user created content, EA know they can push a game that nickel and dimes the customers--customers will actually pay for everything from DLC to unlocks to the dedicated servers themselves.
There are still publishers and developers out there who see the value in the community and invest in that instead of aiming for short term goals.
What do you have to say about having to pay EA for dedicated servers? Bearing in mind you already own the game, are contributing to the community by running servers?
I really hope this generation of Call of Duty and Battlefield titles see a drop in sales.
[editline]24th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=lapsus_;41938797]I hate day1 DLCs regardless.[/QUOTE]
Its pretty much as if Disney, after acquiring Pixar was about to release Toy Story 3 and then put out a trailer for Toy Story 4; everyone would be out with accusations of franchise milking.
But there are actually people on here, stepping in and defending EA and DICE and saying this is a 'good thing'.
No, it'd be like Pixar making a short after Toy Story 3 using leftover assets, putting it in the DVD/Bluray versions and fans crying out that they should release it on Youtube for free.
[editline]24th August 2013[/editline]
Hardware is not the main issue in mod tools, it's licensing and propietary software. EA nor DICE owns all the technologies within Frostbite, otherwise they'd license that shit to third parties in a heartbeat. It costs millions of dollars to use, it's not exactly Hammer.
[QUOTE=Novangel;41940499]No, it'd be like Pixar making a short after Toy Story 3 using leftover assets, putting it in the DVD/Bluray versions and fans crying out that they should release it on Youtube for free.
[editline]24th August 2013[/editline]
Hardware is not the main issue in mod tools, it's licensing and propietary software. EA nor DICE owns all the technologies within Frostbite, otherwise they'd license that shit to third parties in a heartbeat. It costs millions of dollars to use, it's not exactly Hammer.[/QUOTE]
With the amount of money they are making and are probably providing in licensing it wouldn't have been a big deal for them to make modding tools available; the undeniable fact is that certain publishers and developers are keen to move away from providing mod tools to the public.
[URL="http://www.gamefront.com/infinity-ward-call-of-duty-ghosts-mod-tools-still-valuable/"]Here is a statement from the CoD devs[/URL]:
[QUOTE]“Much to my chagrin, and I’ve had this conversation — like our lead single-player designer, he’s a hard-core PC guy, that’s all he plays,” Rubin said. “… And we keep talking — ‘we have to put mod tools back in, have to put mod tools back in.’
The big hold up, however, is the time involved with making the mod tools for players to use. Rubin said the time required was significant on the last CoD title to include mod tools, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
“Honestly, for CoD 4, it took our guys, it was basically a designer and a coder, mixed up but four to five, maybe six months of work, just by themselves, just doing that,” Rubin said. “And if you remember with CoD 4, they didn’t come out when we launched, they came out afterwards. It’s just so much investment of time.”[/QUOTE]
It sounds like the same shit that the BF4 devs said--providing a reason without really providing a reason...
Keep in mind this is the among the top 3 profitable games on Earth; and they can't afford two people for six months to allow the community to contribute content? They could kickstart that amount and probably make it in 2 days.
Lets face facts here: [B]Activision and EA don't want mod tools in games because DLC is big business.[/B]
[QUOTE=Juniez;41929441]because it doesn't get developed within the game's budget[/QUOTE]
Or maybe because it's not fucking finished.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41940572]With the amount of money they are making and are probably providing in licensing it wouldn't have been a big deal for them to make modding tools available; the undeniable fact is that certain publishers and developers are keen to move away from providing mod tools to the public.
[URL="http://www.gamefront.com/infinity-ward-call-of-duty-ghosts-mod-tools-still-valuable/"]Here is a statement from the CoD devs[/URL]:
It sounds like the same shit that the BF4 devs said--providing a reason without really providing a reason...
Keep in mind this is the among the top 3 profitable games on Earth; and they can't afford two people for six months to allow the community to contribute content? They could kickstart that amount and probably make it in 2 days.
Lets face facts here: [B]Activision and EA don't want mod tools in games because DLC is big business.[/B][/QUOTE]
Yes let's grab another dev's take on why they wouldn't release their mod tools (Which didn't spawn much mods anyway fyi) and plaster it for two whole publishers. How the fuck do you even condense 6 months of work into 2 days anyway? I don't think you really comprehend how a development team works.
I don't understand why people are bitching about them advertising China Rising when they've literally only showed one 3 second clip from one map w/o any new features in it.
This article is terrible too. It's just one quote and screenshot about china rising then talks about levelution the entire way.
EA's just saying "Yeah, this will be a thing eventually, so preorder to get it for free."
You guys are jumping to conclusions WAY too fast, just because it's big bad EA with its big bad DLC
[QUOTE=Novangel;41940628]Yes let's grab another dev's take on why they wouldn't release their mod tools (Which didn't spawn much mods anyway fyi) and plaster it for two whole publishers. How the fuck do you even condense 6 months of work into 2 days anyway? I don't think you really comprehend how a development team works.[/QUOTE]
I poorly worded that, I meant to say they could probably kickstart that amount in 2 days.
And yes let's grab another dev's take on the idea because they are competing;
I hope you understand that[URL="http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/23/ea-q1-fy14-digital-makes-up-76-of-revenue/"] DLC is actually a selling point for these companies on their quarterly reports...[/URL]
[QUOTE]EA executive chairman Larry Probst said on the call to investors this evening the strong digital sales reported were attributed to Battlefield online offerings and the firm’s mobile games sector. $177 million was contributed through free-to-play and DLC via PC and consoles.[/QUOTE]
So yeah, I'm still saying there is financial interests for EA and Activision to kill off any modding ability in games.
[editline]24th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Cuon Alpinus;41940642]I don't understand why people are bitching about them advertising China Rising when they've literally only showed one 3 second clip from one map w/o any new features in it.
This article is terrible too. It's just one quote and screenshot about china rising then talks about levelution the entire way.
EA's just saying "Yeah, this will be a thing eventually, so preorder to get it for free."
You guys are jumping to conclusions WAY too fast, just because it's big bad EA with its big bad DLC[/QUOTE]
Its probably because its not just EA doing this and it has become a trend of sorts lately. It's turning what used to be a $50-60 game into a $100++ game all up if you want 'everything'. I guess people want to feel they're getting a complete product and not being pushed into buying other things just to be able to play multiplayer properly.
The best people can do if they don't like it is to vote with their wallets and not purchase the game (I don't purchase EA titles at all), but seeing how most gaming boycotts go, most of the people bitching here will probably buy the game anyway and all associated DLC.
Where I am it'd cost $80 for the base game and $60 for the season pass; that's $140 all up...
I purchased ARMA 2 for like 5 of my friends for less money than that just so we could play on shitty RP servers together.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41940698]I poorly worded that, I meant to say they could probably kickstart that amount in 2 days.
And yes let's grab another dev's take on the idea because they are competing;
I hope you understand that[URL="http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/23/ea-q1-fy14-digital-makes-up-76-of-revenue/"] DLC is actually a selling point for these companies on their quarterly reports...[/URL]
So yeah, I'm still saying there is financial interests for EA and Activision to kill off any modding ability in games.
[editline]24th August 2013[/editline]
Its probably because its not just EA doing this and it has become a trend of sorts lately. It's turning what used to be a $50-60 game into a $100++ game all up if you want 'everything'. I guess people want to feel they're getting a complete product and not being pushed into buying other things just to be able to play multiplayer properly.
The best people can do if they don't like it is to vote with their wallets and not purchase the game (I don't purchase EA titles at all), but seeing how most gaming boycotts go, most of the people bitching here will probably buy the game anyway and all associated DLC.
Where I am it'd cost $80 for the base game and $60 for the season pass; that's $140 all up...
I purchased ARMA 2 for like 5 of my friends for less money than that just so we could play on shitty RP servers together.[/QUOTE]
your entire argument is
1. other devs have done it
2. its a corporate conspiracy
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41940698]season pass[/QUOTE]
You just said it yourself, Premium is a reworded season pass. Are you implying all season passes be free? They're not in the base game development, therefore has value outside the base game, hence why you have to pay for it.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41940698]ARMA 2[/QUOTE]
You're really comparing the cost of five 4 year old games to a modern AAA shooter with it's season pass?
[QUOTE=booster;41927728]Wasn't Back to Karkand announced before BF3 was released?[/QUOTE]
BTK if i can remember correctly was bundled with BF3 premium packs as an added bonus, also if you preordered it you'd get it
Because when I bought my copy which was a Russian CD key and speaking to EA customer support about it I was told that I was entitled to BTK for free as my game came with it.
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;41940812]your entire argument is
1. other devs have done it
2. its a corporate conspiracy[/QUOTE]
Its hardly a conspiracy; I just said that their motivations are financial. It's pretty obvious too. That's fine for them, as I also said, I won't be purchasing their games. If you enjoy purchasing things from companies who go out of their way to nickel and dime you, then I wish you all the best.
But I forget we're dealing with someone who believes what PR spin people like Lucy Bradshaw have to say.
[editline]24th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Novangel;41940834]You just said it yourself, Premium is a reworded season pass. Are you implying all season passes be free? They're not in the base game development, therefore has value outside the base game, hence why you have to pay for it.
You're really comparing the cost of five 4 year old games to a modern AAA shooter with it's season pass?[/QUOTE]
I bought them a while ago, not recently.
Feel free to spend $50 on a season pass then. I just personally think its a ludicrous concept.
[editline]24th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=fruxodaily;41940871]BTK if i can remember correctly was bundled with BF3 premium packs as an added bonus, also if you preordered it you'd get it
Because when I bought my copy which was a Russian CD key and speaking to EA customer support about it I was told that I was entitled to BTK for free as my game came with it.[/QUOTE]
AFAIK you get the Chinese expansion everyone is talking about here with the premium pack; the season pass is for the other 62 DLC packs EA will put out.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41940889]Its hardly a conspiracy; I just said that their motivations are financial. It's pretty obvious too. That's fine for them, as I also said, I won't be purchasing their games. If you enjoy purchasing things from companies who go out of their way to nickel and dime you, then I wish you all the best.
But I forget we're dealing with someone who believes what PR spin people like Lucy Bradshaw have to say.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41904260]And this relates how to the fact that Lucy Bradshaw was installed into Maxis by Electronic Arts in the year 1997 in a plot to try and pass draconian always-online schemes for shit heap games?
[/QUOTE]
pack up your bags and leave, everyone, he's not going to budge from his position because he's convinced that ea has some sort of elaborate conspiracy to steal your hard earned gamer money since the 90's.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41940889]AFAIK you get the Chinese expansion everyone is talking about here with the premium pack; the season pass is for the other 62 DLC packs EA will put out.[/QUOTE]
So you're arguing against this DLC content without even knowing what's in it, not even reading the article to see China Rising is only part of the Premium package? Okay thanks.
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