BF 3 community manager to community "ungrateful people"

When an online game breaks, its the fault of the developers, not 'complainers'. Some developers just lack a strong vision of what their game should be online (the primary reason many games boast online is not because the designers hearts are in it, but because convinces people to buy and not rent and keeps games out of used bins), and thus wind up designing (and redesigning) by committee. Often their game winds up an unhappy mix of whatever their original vision was and Call of Duty.

The Battlefield developers are openly gunning for CoD, so no one should be shocked and horrified when people beat it up for deviating from the CoD formula.

CarnageHeart

Agree with all that, but so do the Community Manager and DICE over at the official forums. The main issue here is NOT that the beta has glitches, it's whether or not the the CM had a right to call out the 1% who were freaking out over these said glitches which have mostly been fixed just 5 days into the beta.

Also, the reason why most people are upset is not because the game plays like COD, it's precisely because the game doesn't play like COD. If you run out in the open solo in BF3, you WILL get shot down immediately. Even with the prone addition, the game is incredibly tough for campers wiht sniper rifles. You HAVE to stick with not just your squad, but four other squads, dropping ammo, med kits, reviving people, providing covering fire, moving up inch by inch. I will try to capture one of my PC sessions tomorrow which boasts 32 players. It was AMAZING watching people play so cautiously and so organized, and this was just a public server.

So I would disagree that DICE has somehow comprised their vision in order to get the COD crowd. In fact, they have made it even more hardcore.

I would love to stick around in the forums. I actually enjoy reading the posts and also sending them around our office for feedback and sometimes for a laugh or two.
Some of the things that come out of this forum is just brilliant and I really do like the fact that we have a forum.

Right now, I am not in the mood to even browse in here and check out most parts of the forum.

The BETA is a privilege, not a right unless if you pre-ordered the game with MoH and Origin. We are not even obligated to send out a Beta yet we do because we want our players to experience the game. The vibe I´m getting now is just that tons of ungrateful people don´t understand how much work we are putting on this game, how many overtime hours we are doing and also how many meetings we are in to ship a game like this.
It´s not just a click and point type of development.

Would like to thank many of our forum users for returning with constructive and good feedback.

To the rest of you - grow up.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2pFkOLyvVNsJ:forums.electronicarts.co.uk/battlefield-3/1426565-thank-you-feedback.html+site:forums.electronicarts.co.uk+zh1nt0+%22Thank+you+for+the+feedback%22&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

seba20007

No, you release a beta to find bugs and stress test servers prior to release. A demo is to allow your players to experience the game. He can't possibly be a community manager and have freaking clue what you are saying, can he?

I have no sympathy for them, or any company under EA. They have insulted the competition, and been childish throughout the year.

Now, when the fans they have exploited for the sake of their game turn on them, they tell them to grow up?

Ha, hypocrites, this backlash is their own doing.

[QUOTE="seanmcloughlin"]Its a beta not a demo.c_rake

Given that it appeared less than a month before its official release, no -- it's totally a demo. They're just doing what every other shooter developer this generation has been doing and putting the beta tag on any sort of trial for their multiplayer component to justify whatever jankiness may be present. It's a buzzword now. If this beta appeared, say, three or four months prior to the game's release, sure -- no problem. It's totally a beta then. But when it arrives this late, I don't consider it a beta anymore.

The whole purpose for betas is to get feedback prior to release so they can make the full game even better. With only weeks to go until the game hits retail, there's very little they can gain from a beta that they wouldn't be able to obtain just from observing statistics and such from the finalized game. They can say all they want about this build being six weeks old or whatever -- that doesn't change the fact that this is a demo, because all it's here for is to give everyone a quick peak at the multiplayer, not gain feedback to help them craft their game. And when your demo has graphical glitches aplenty and some frequent connection issues, that doesn't reflect well on the full game.

The beta was ready a month before it was released. It was held back due to slow progress on XBL and PSN's behalf. The beta would have been released at the start of sept. as planned but Sony and MS were too slow to react to it. The PC beta was ready for a very long time. If it actually came out when it was supposed to people wouldn't give a s*** about the glitches and bugs. But because its so close to release people are freaking out.

Most of the stuff was fixed already by the time the beta hit but they didn't implement them because they are too busy fixing the full retail game. They have stated these things numerous times but people are reluctant to hear them properly just because of how they feel and now its like a conspiracy theory almost with people saying "DICE are just saying that cos they know they failed". One person even said "and you believe everything DICE tells you". It really has gotten out of hand. I know it reflects badly on DICE now because it was so close to release and now people are very skeptical about it. But it seems everyone just jumps to conclusions without doing the research on the situation and learning why things are the way they are. Quit moaning, the beta was to stress test their servers and back end systems. Not to show off the game

By the way, I call this karma. It's EA's punishment for systematically talking smack about Call of Duty all yearBlack_Knight_00

I think its funny how in the run up to the beta all the COD guys just shut up and never said much about BF3 because it was intimidating. Now the fact that the beta has bugs and glitches (all of them do just not as many) now all the COD guys are coming back out of their holes in hoardes and now they are talking back on BF3.

At least DICE had a beta. COD doesn't use one because they are already set up for the millions that flock to their servers from MW1 and fair play to them they had to learn too during those times,if im not mistaken MW2 had awful server problems at its launch too and the number of hacks that were going on when it released was criminal. but I don't think as many people have ever flocked to a BF game at once to try it out before. DICE even said its like 6 times more than BFBC2 and BF2 was only PC. So now they have a Multi plat that has a huge number of people playing at once. Its better they released a beta to test out these things and find the ways of cheating etc. so they can fix for the final game. I know its hurt their hype a lot but its better this way than to not have had the beta at all and just release a glitched and bugged retail version.

Battlefield 3 lost 34k preorders

http://www.thetechgame.com/Forums/t=2289296/ouch-battlefield-3-lost-34k-preorders-numbers-rising.html

seba20007

This was proven to be a fake tweet

The war, ea loses 30.000 preorders, but ea spokeperson says stuff them all, whle gamer looks idal thinking hmm what's that game called again ahhhh! modern war fare 3.

LOL

The war, ea loses 30.000 preorders, but ea spokeperson says stuff them all, whle gamer looks idal thinking hmm what's that game called again ahhhh! modern war fare 3.

LOL

lorddaggeroff

[QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"]By the way, I call this karma. It's EA's punishment for systematically talking smack about Call of Duty all yearseanmcloughlin

I think its funny how in the run up to the beta all the COD guys just shut up and never said much about BF3 because it was intimidating. Now the fact that the beta has bugs and glitches (all of them do just not as many) now all the COD guys are coming back out of their holes in hoardes and now they are talking back on BF3.

At least DICE had a beta. COD doesn't use one because they are already set up for the millions that flock to their servers from MW1 and fair play to them they had to learn too during those times,if im not mistaken MW2 had awful server problems at its launch too and the number of hacks that were going on when it released was criminal. but I don't think as many people have ever flocked to a BF game at once to try it out before. DICE even said its like 6 times more than BFBC2 and BF2 was only PC. So now they have a Multi plat that has a huge number of people playing at once. Its better they released a beta to test out these things and find the ways of cheating etc. so they can fix for the final game. I know its hurt their hype a lot but its better this way than to not have had the beta at all and just release a glitched and bugged retail version.

[QUOTE="seanmcloughlin"]

[QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"]By the way, I call this karma. It's EA's punishment for systematically talking smack about Call of Duty all yearBlack_Knight_00

I think its funny how in the run up to the beta all the COD guys just shut up and never said much about BF3 because it was intimidating. Now the fact that the beta has bugs and glitches (all of them do just not as many) now all the COD guys are coming back out of their holes in hoardes and now they are talking back on BF3.

At least DICE had a beta. COD doesn't use one because they are already set up for the millions that flock to their servers from MW1 and fair play to them they had to learn too during those times,if im not mistaken MW2 had awful server problems at its launch too and the number of hacks that were going on when it released was criminal. but I don't think as many people have ever flocked to a BF game at once to try it out before. DICE even said its like 6 times more than BFBC2 and BF2 was only PC. So now they have a Multi plat that has a huge number of people playing at once. Its better they released a beta to test out these things and find the ways of cheating etc. so they can fix for the final game. I know its hurt their hype a lot but its better this way than to not have had the beta at all and just release a glitched and bugged retail version.

I agree that Metro is more CODesque which is probably why we got it for beta.

Also these debates tend to drag out and get very stubborn so I am gracefull just gonna say I will wait till the release to see if there are changes. Its the most logical thing to do.

The beta was ready a month before it was released. It was held back due to slow progress on XBL and PSN's behalf. The beta would have been released at the start of sept. as planned but Sony and MS were too slow to react to it. The PC beta was ready for a very long time. If it actually came out when it was supposed to people wouldn't give a s*** about the glitches and bugs. But because its so close to release people are freaking out.seanmcloughlin

Which just further proves that betas should be conducted months in advance of a game's release. Let them actually serve their purpose for a change and still manage to go live at a reasonable time. (As a side-note, Sony and Microsoft really ought to work on speeding up their processes for getting these things ready for download. They're not doing developers any favors by making them wait so long.) I applaud Dice for being transparent with the circumstances leading up this point, but they still should have had the foresight to know better than to get a beta out this late.

Most of the stuff was fixed already by the time the beta hit but they didn't implement them because they are too busy fixing the full retail game. They have stated these things numerous times but people are reluctant to hear them properly just because of how they feel and now its like a conspiracy theory almost with people saying "DICE are just saying that cos they know they failed". One person even said "and you believe everything DICE tells you". It really has gotten out of hand. I know it reflects badly on DICE now because it was so close to release and now people are very skeptical about it. But it seems everyone just jumps to conclusions without doing the research on the situation and learning why things are the way they are. Quit moaning, the beta was to stress test their servers and back end systems. Not to show off the game.seanmcloughlin

I get that they weren't able to fix things here. They're priorities were well placed. Getting the full game done should always take precedent over a beta.

But again, stress testing their serves could have easily been done with a demo. At this point, they should have dropped the beta tag entirely and just gave the usual "the following demo does not represent the final game" message. I know -- the beta tag pretty much implies that already, but hear me out. People were already gonna treat this as a demo from the start. You make something like open to the public this close to the full game's release, that's just gonna happen no matter what you do. The way Dice should have handled this was getting the alpha build out in May then had the beta out by late July. That would have given them enough time to get plenty of data to apply to the final game. At this point, there's nothing truly helpful they can learn from it, so why bother?

somebody can tell me if this game is more like barttle field badcompany remake of battlefield 2 remake???

*or

But again, stress testing their serves could have easily been done with a demo. At this point, they should have dropped the beta tag entirely and just gave the usual "the following demo does not represent the final game" message. I know -- the beta tag pretty much implies that already, but hear me out. People were already gonna treat this as a demo from the start. You make something like open to the public this close to the full game's release, that's just gonna happen no matter what you do. The way Dice should have handled this was getting the alpha build out in May then had the beta out by late July. That would have given them enough time to get plenty of data to apply to the final game. At this point, there's nothing truly helpful they can learn from it, so why bother?

c_rake

Thats one way of seeing a beta, I personally believe that most Beta's are launched to check wether the supported hardware is actually supported.
Different cards, different drivers, different amount of cores. It's bound to give different results and they can't check these results themselves as they don't have every hardware system combination available.

A example would be the connection issues, these issues came from the network settings of the client side.

somebody can tell me if this game is more like barttle field badcompany remake of battlefield 2 remake???

gino_pachino

[QUOTE="CarnageHeart"]

When an online game breaks, its the fault of the developers, not 'complainers'. Some developers just lack a strong vision of what their game should be online (the primary reason many games boast online is not because the designers hearts are in it, but because convinces people to buy and not rent and keeps games out of used bins), and thus wind up designing (and redesigning) by committee. Often their game winds up an unhappy mix of whatever their original vision was and Call of Duty.

The Battlefield developers are openly gunning for CoD, so no one should be shocked and horrified when people beat it up for deviating from the CoD formula.

S0lidSnake

Agree with all that, but so do the Community Manager and DICE over at the official forums. The main issue here is NOT that the beta has glitches, it's whether or not the the CM had a right to call out the 1% who were freaking out over these said glitches which have mostly been fixed just 5 days into the beta.

Also, the reason why most people are upset is not because the game plays like COD, it's precisely because the game doesn't play like COD. If you run out in the open solo in BF3, you WILL get shot down immediately. Even with the prone addition, the game is incredibly tough for campers wiht sniper rifles. You HAVE to stick with not just your squad, but four other squads, dropping ammo, med kits, reviving people, providing covering fire, moving up inch by inch. I will try to capture one of my PC sessions tomorrow which boasts 32 players. It was AMAZING watching people play so cautiously and so organized, and this was just a public server.

So I would disagree that DICE has somehow comprised their vision in order to get the COD crowd. In fact, they have made it even more hardcore.

EA has been loud about the fact they want Battlefield to eat CoD's lunch. Having successfully drawn many CoD fans into the beta with their boasts/attacks, it shouldn't have come to a shock to the community manager or anyone else that CoD fans want a game that plays like CoD.

[QUOTE="seanmcloughlin"]

[QUOTE="Metamania"]

Don't know what you mean or are saying, but it's not the people's fault whatsoever. All they've been saying is that they are unhappy with the result and demand change.

Metamania

The battlelog forums are filled with guys saying "DICE you have let us all down I want an explanation" and other things like this. "Piece of crap game, not going to buy" and very immature statements like these

I wouldn't call statements like those immature in the slightest. If gamers are not happy with the way things are, they have every right to demand it and hope for the best. And if it still doesn't happen, the voices still need to be heard. And plus, companies will eventually listen when the game isn't being sold that well if the game doesn't turn out to be good. Sales matter in the end and if BF3 doesn't sell because people didn't buy it; that's not the gamer's fault, that's the developer's fault.

If the part about Xbox & Playstation dragging their feet is true, then my guess would be that DICE would have skipped the open beta altogether on consoles if it wasn't already promised to people who bought the Medal of Honor LE. If this is the build that was ready over a month ago and it was released then, the backlash would be much less. I am convinced that Operation Metro was designed specifically to try appeal to Call of Duty players, and that's why it happens to be the Beta map we got.

What I personally have gotten from the beta is a feeling of great hope, as it plays similarly to Bad Company 2, but with virtually all the issues I had with that game already addressed (the ability to refuse a revive is great- no more popping up in a hot zone just to get gunned down again, the need to hold your breath for steady sniping, and the ability to go prone).