My thoughts on BF3

Slayer5227

Everyday that I see some new Battlefield 3 information I get excited. Sometimes however I see information that seriously dampers my enthusiasm. A few days ago EA confirmed there will be no in game server browser and everything must be done manually from EA's "Battle Log". People who played the alpha said this was a horrible system and I would believe it. Who at EA decided it would be good to give the console people server browsers yet not the PC crowd? Then I see the jet game play and I get excited again. There are really a lot of things with this game that put me through an emotional roller coaster. One day I see incredible game play that display how gorgeous the game looks then they tell me it won't be on steam (an example of disappointment). This game is gonna be something special if EA doesn't keep screwing over the PC community. I understand that the consoles are the main chunk of the market, but not catering to what you developed this game for seems odd if not out right stupid. All in all I will most likely clock a lot of hours on BF3 from what I've seen so far, however if EA keeps treating us PC players like 3rd rate citizens (behind PS3 and Xbox) it may be sitting in my origin library, untouched. Sorry if this article was all over the place as it was the first I've written for Icrontic. Let me know your thoughts on this game and what EA is doing to the PC community.

NiGHTS

I don't really follow what EA is doing to actively destroy either this game or the PC community as a whole. I don't understand the Steam loyalists, either, when buying from origin and adding a link to Steam can be done to the same effect. The internet's become increasingly jaded and grabs their pitchforks for increasingly asinine reasons, IMO. Everyone seems to join in since it's the popular opinion. The damn game isn't even out, yet.

The battlelog was different, I'll give you that. But at the same time once you get over the 'the hell is this' moment you begin to realize how much nicer it is to bookmark your favorite server and let the browser remember the details. It's pretty damn innovative and intuitive - click the link and you're up and running right away (no ingame movies, splash screens, etc.) Done playing? Exit the game and you're closed down within 3 seconds. It's different, yes - but refreshing.

Did you play the Alpha, or are you just shooting from the hip here?

fatcat

I played the Alpha. You will want this game even if it only comes on a Macbook Air from GameStop

as far as EA..well

Thrax

I think forcing it to Origin is shitty, but I know why they did it. It's extra margin for them. I just infinitely prefer Steamworks. I'm also heavily invested in Steam, to the point where it's not worth it to me to leave that platform.

If there's any one thing that I will complain about, it's definitely the Origin/Steam drama. To boot, Steam is just a better delivery platform and system, and I'm not fascinated with the idea of putting money on "maybe it'll get better some day." I didn't do that with Steam, and I won't do it now.

Slayer5227

My buddies played the Alpha and I talked to him while he was playing and he said battle log was abysmal. You do make a solid point though about linking Steam. I've just grown fond of Steam and don't like the change that EA is putting forward. From what I'm told you can't even set resolution in game or video settings it's all done through battle log. However this is from my friend who did indeed play the Alpha.

fatcat

Steam WAS shitty when it came out though...

Thrax

Yeah, and many of us warded it off like the plague until it wasn't.

Slayer5227

I've only been PC gaming for a year and Steam is one of the main reasons I PC game. I have a difficult time playing games off the disk because I can't link it to Steam.

NiGHTS

Thrax wrote:

If there's any one thing that I will complain about, it's definitely the Origin/Steam drama. To boot, Steam is just a better delivery platform and system, and I'm not fascinated with the idea of putting money on "maybe it'll get better some day." I didn't do that with Steam, and I won't do it now.

Aside from the fact that Origin is EA distributed games only, what is it about the system that is so terrible? As a content delivery system alone, I'm not sure what they can do to improve - it works great, IMO.

I'm genuinely curious... I can't figure out what it is about Origin everyone seems to hate outside the fact that it isn't Steam, and therefore is somehow inferior.

Bad-Mr-Frosty

I don't think people think it's inferior, just a lot less convenient. Which can pretty much mean it's inferior actually, if they're about the same in all other regards.

Thrax

It's inferior because it's a vendor-specific store. It's inferior because the EULA continues to be aligned against the consumer. It's inferior because it's being used as a tool by EA to reduce the amount of choice consumers have in their purchase.

Three strikes for me.

CB

It's not so much that I'm boycotting Origin, as a game has to be super excelent for it to be worth it to me to buy it any other way than Steam. Other than review copies, I only have one non-Steam game in my collection: Minecraft. All of my other non-steam games have long since aged out of my active collection or been purchased also on steam, so I can throw the disk away.

Canti

I'll admit that I have a poor opinion of EA in general due to several problems I've had with their services in the past and am inclined to distrust Origin from the start but here's what bothers me about Origin concerning BF3. EA has claimed that they want to make BF3 available on Steam but part of Valve's policy says that any game on Steam must also have all DLC available on Steam. If this was true it means that EA is only willing to offer DLC for BF3 through Origin and they are blaming Valve's policy for their unwillingness to sell DLC through other services. I don't believe this because DLC for Mass Effect 2, Alice: Madness Returns, and likely many other games published by EA is not available on Steam yet the main games still are. Something doesn't add up here.

RyanFodder

I have a poor opinion of EA as well... BF2, BF2142... I always had all kinds of issues getting punkbuster (A and B, and don't forget to check which services are running!) and other of their little programs to work. EA updater always failed for me.

I had so many issues with these things, that I decided I'd just rather not own an EA game. I haven't bought one since BF2142.

That being said, this game looks fantastic, and if I can swing it with my antiquated Core 2 Duo, then I will probably try out Origin, Battle Log, and BF3.

They only get the one chance from me though.

RootWyrm

The main reason I stay away from EA, is right here in BF3. They've proven quite well that their commitment to games basically goes something like: Build PR cheap with beta, ignore feedback, release game, release one patch, announce $60 "sequel" that is the same engine with bugfixes. The short or long term popularity of the game is irrelevant except as a metric for how many copies of the "sequel" they can get people to pay for.
So why again, would I want to buy a game when I already know that development will stop and move to the sequel within a few days of release, and I'll have to buy said sequel or expansion for the bugfixes? If I was going to support this scheme at all - which I don't - I'd just wait for BF3:The Search For More Cash.

pigflipper

RootWyrm wrote:

The main reason I stay away from EA, is right here in BF3. They've proven quite well that their commitment to games basically goes something like: Build PR cheap with beta, ignore feedback, release game, release one patch, announce $60 "sequel" that is the same engine with bugfixes. The short or long term popularity of the game is irrelevant except as a metric for how many copies of the "sequel" they can get people to pay for.
So why again, would I want to buy a game when I already know that development will stop and move to the sequel within a few days of release, and I'll have to buy said sequel or expansion for the bugfixes? If I was going to support this scheme at all - which I don't - I'd just wait for BF3:The Search For More Cash.

Hi there, that entire paragraph was one big, rage fueled fail of ignorance and stereotyping EA games. Yes, some EA games have had that issue, but if you had played BF:BC2, you would know that they updated for a whole year before abandoning work on patches (insert sarcasm that you are too rage fueled to get). Or what about the years of BF2 updates in order to fix issues that continually cropped up? Well, except for the PKM of Death update, screw that one.

Also, whats so bad about a company using planned obsolescence in order to generate a revenue stream? Absolutely nothing. Everybody does it, in almost every industry, why shouldn't EA or any other publisher? EA has a right to make/publish games as they see fit, yeah, we bitch about their methods, but, tell me again, what were their revenues last year? Oh yeah, a FUCKTON more than you made.

Canti

I'm not attempting to completely invalidate Piggeh's post because it's not all bad but here's my experience with several EA published games.

Battlefield 2 - I bought the complete collection (BF2, Special Forces, Euro Force, Armored Fury) at retail way back when. All of the expansion pack codes printed on the insert in the box came up as "invalid" when I tried to register them on the EA download manager. Resulting in never being able to play 3/4 of what I paid for.

Spore - Anti-piracy DRM made it hard as shit to install the game I legally paid for and limited me (and everyone else) to 3 installations. Again involving EA download manager.

Dragon Age: Origins - Pre-ordered the deluxe edition with the Stone Prisoner, Warden's Keep content, and some other Steam exclusive pre-order items. Because you had to enter a code again through EA download manager and some problem with the Dragon Age: Origins updater service I never managed to get access to the content I paid for (again). EA support forums acknowledged the issues and essentially said, "We know and that sucks, deal with it."

EA download manager gets re-skinned as "Origin"

Alice: Madness Returns - Bought at retail, made an account on Origin and registered the game. The next day tried to log into Origin and "my username and/or password are invalid".

I haven't been able to log into Origin since and hope to god I never have to even if I decide to get BF3 which is becoming more doubtful daily.

TL; DR - Do they hate me or can they just not do anything right?

pigflipper

They personally hate you and just you. Sorry.

Slayer5227

EA ELUA says they're allowed to scan our hard-drives not just our game folders, all of it. It's an invasion of privacy and they just recently changed it because they got caught red handed. If we wanted to play BF3 before they changed it, we would have had to let them scan our hard-drives whenever they want.

pigflipper

Slayer5227 wrote:

EA ELUA says they're allowed to scan our hard-drives not just our game folders, all of it. It's an invasion of privacy and they just recently changed it because they got caught red handed. If we wanted to play BF3 before they changed it, we would have had to let them scan our hard-drives whenever they want.

They didn't change it, just changed the wording and said, "like, totally, we do what we want and you like it!"

Slayer5227

Yeah I'm disliking EA more and more everyday

Fearmyblink

I am going to agree with Fatcat, I am going to play this game no matter how dumb of an idea not putting it on steam is or how dumb of an idea not having a server browser is purely based off of how much fun i have had with BF2 and BF:BC2 and what I'm seeing from the game play side of things.

Canti

If you pre-order the game you can have ALL of it! Brilliant

RWB

Slayer5227 wrote:

EA ELUA says they're allowed to scan our hard-drives not just our game folders, all of it. It's an invasion of privacy and they just recently changed it because they got caught red handed. If we wanted to play BF3 before they changed it, we would have had to let them scan our hard-drives whenever they want.

Long ago I cared enough to read EULA's but not anymore, plus I don't really play games(as of now I don't even have steam installed after doing a clean install of windows a few weeks ago). But I am curious if steam has anything like that in their EULA as it seems every piece of software out these days simply want ALL THE ACCESSES.

I've been a fan of steam myself and 99.9 of my past game purchases have been through steam for mostly the reason that I don't want any other programs running in the background than needed. But I have plenty of resources available now compared to long ago so that shouldn't be such a big deal I suppose. Though EA has always been shady in my opinion, BF3 looks soo sweet. I still may have to pass it up and maybe even *sniff* ME3.

pigflipper

I don't care what EA does/does not do, I want to play this game. Plus, you only have to worry about the damn scanning if you are using illegal copies of their games or if you are somehow ignorant to how marketing and data acquisition is done in this "modern" age. Sticking your head in the sand and screaming does nothing but deafen yourself.

Canti

pigflipper wrote:

Sticking your head in the sand and screaming does nothing but deafen yourself.

I'm pretty sure it makes you invisible too.

NiGHTS

pigflipper wrote:

I don't care what EA does/does not do, I want to play this game. Plus, you only have to worry about the damn scanning if you are using illegal copies of their games or if you are somehow ignorant to how marketing and data acquisition is done in this "modern" age. Sticking your head in the sand and screaming does nothing but deafen yourself.

FWIW, the idea of "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" is a terrible way of looking at privacy, IMO.

Would you poop with the door open at the next IC LAN where all 80 participants can see you?

Edit: That should suffice as far as derailing this thread.

primesuspect

(of all people to ask, you choose pigflipper? Him and I are about the only two people I can think of that WOULD poop in public)

pigflipper

I'm pretty sure I did this at St. Pattys...