An Omnilinkit Audio Editorial
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by ibleedv20
http://www.omnilinkit.com

Do you remember when there was a server admin?

Do you remember when there was a modding community?

Do you remember when there was a mapping community?

And do you remember when all three came together to form a crafted PC gaming community that was more than the sum total of it's parts.

Yeah that was just 6 mos ago wasn't it?

It looks as if gaming communities that practice the Craft of PC gaming where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole might be a thing of the past.

It seems that there is a real trend now to eliminate the mapping and modding community from any involvement in future games themselves.

Dice ,the creators of the soon to be released BFBC2 has goneout of it's way to court the cast off COD PC gamers left in the dust by IW.There was some promise of map and mod tools by Gorden Van DykeThe associate producer for Dice. and now there is the unequivacle statement by Gorden himself that There will be NO Tools released for this game,

Quote:Mod Tools: There will not be mod tools for BFBC2. However a majority of the the games logic is controlled by the server and there will be Serverside control options for the dedicated servers.

So no Mod tools for Mapping and Modding to be practiced.More than a little dissapointing for many in the gaming community.

However, it seems that players should be satisfied to have some server side settings to keep them happy.Didnt IW promised the same thing with MW2?

Maybe the server files will be tweakable enough to save the server admins from obsolescence.Uh I don't think so.

Gorden says:Public Server Files: We will not distribute these publicly. There are many factors for why we have decided this with the biggest factor being security & integrity of our game & Dedicated Servers.

This is doublespeak for lockdown.just as IW locked MW2 down to funell all the players through IWNET for whatever monetary reason they wish in the future.

Van Dyke say in a twitter post

Yes, server rentals are available through our partners and on our dedicated servers. Won't release the server code.

So there will be no acess to the server files.And this can only mean server admins will have to be content to tick off some boxes that change the game state or gametype in some way.

Thats not server admin.Thats gamesetup.And we all have seen what that can mean.Just look at what IW has delivered to us as far as tweakables in private matches.

So the hype and excited promise that is alive in the COD community over the BFBC2 release as some substitute for MW2 debacle is now being shown in contrast to what Dice is actually offering.

No control : No competitive community

No Server files: No server Admin Community

No Mod tools:No Mappers and no Modding community.

All in all this game is not much different from MW2 in that you can play it but not much else.You will have to rest your hopes on Dice releasing a damn fine game with excellent support and a promise.

The horrible peer to peer listen server experience of MW2 will be substituted by server partners where you will pay for but have no control over. Or you can play on EA's own dedicated servers where that experience is a crapshoot also.

Now why would anyone pay for a dedicated server with no control over the config except for private gameplay?

I imagine SOME clans might want that.

And as far as an EA dedicated server goes remember that this game has destructible environments and max 32 players for PC.

Those better be high quality dedis and there had better be plenty of them.

This game is no shoe in as a success on PC by any means.The PC gamer is waking up to the awful reality that MW2 is just an awful PC experience.And after talking to the PC community in a direct fashion Van Dyke has set the bar high enough for BFBC2 that voices will be heard and PC sales lost if BFBC2 is a subpar online experience.

OMG, this doesn't sound good.

I guess these PR types are all the same...F.O.S!!

What is wrong with the developers of today?

We really should just all pull together and make our own game, the way we want!! We have the mapping and modding talent in this community to pull off something spectacular. The UDK engine is great fun and easy as chips to use. And the ADS has already been incorporated into it as a mod (sort of).

I think the future is not as bleak as we all think, but I do believe that the main-stream studios have lost sight of the fun in gaming in search of the elusive "$" and it's an area where the smaller studios could capitalize.

Sam you are very misinformed to a point. This is the way it has always been for "Ranked" Battlefield servers. Yes, you will have control of your server. No you will not be able to "customize" it per way of a Mod or Custom Map however it can be tweaked to a point. This part is new.

GVD cleared up a bit of the hubbub. We have a quote on our site from the EA forum. Its exactly how its always worked in Battlefield except with the modding end.

http://thecompanyhub.com/

No worries the game will be bad ass. There really has never been a need for modding and custom content due to the lack of use for Battlefield games. The kiddies nor I for that matter never leave the ranked servers because of stat tracking and the fact it is ranked. Battlefield is not CoD. The competitive Battlefield community will be just fine.

Remember this is not CoD. Been playing Battlefield a long time now. Everything will be just fine.

Misinformed?
This game will not be full sever admin.
This game will not have tools.
Both were promised and recanted only after presales were taken.
We could bandy about with the meaning of what dedicated servers are.These are more controlled and offer less for the COD community.I happen to enjoy the craft of server admin...this is less.
This game is an unknown with a new engine that will be very demanding.
I am no apologist for game developers that hedge their bets until release date.
Nor do I know if this game will perform in a quality way
Neither does anyone else.
I speak my opinion for myself and entertainment. This is gaming.

And.....I have 2 preorders based on faulty information released by Dice.
I expect to receive two beta keys.One for each preorder.Just as Dice and their partner Gamestop advertised in writing.

I always put my money where my mouth is and am doing it again .But what I don't do is create content in any of my editorials by using individuals in the community to chide or condescend to.That would just be cheap.

I want nothing more than for this game to be an outstanding MP experience and I don't expect it to be COD.

My rhetoric (although cynical at times) is based in fact and I believe the only divergence is the comparison to MW2. And I don't apologize for taking license there.Mainly because GVD has courted the COD community to some extent and many have based their interest in BFBC2 from that.So I think that's fair.

Now, clearly I fit into the category of being a traditional COD gamer.And I am an advocate of the Community as it has been.
And I will tell you that I value and enjoy server admin along with running maps and mods.
I believe a strong cohesive community needs those tools as much as they can get them.
In fact I just threw up a LFD2 server to get acquainted with my other love zombies and mods.CS style

I hold no sway in this community but I do believe that some of the other rhetoric sounds as if BFBC2 will be the second coming .Your compatriot jag_50 said "I have lit a fire in the community" with my editorial.A fire to what? To be descriminating? I would bet a 100.00 donation to the Company Hub that GVD believes in his product so much that he would welcome a gamer like me to play it. A gamer of over 35 yrs of descriminating play.

My next editorial is For Whom The game Tolls: COD7 It Tolls For Thee....Not available in paperback.

And now my misinformation.A bit dusty though.Peace

Sam, they never promised mod tools, all they said is it was a possibility. Even when GVD came on BASHandSlash, he said he wasn't sure we were ever going to see mod tools...

I posted this on my blog http://pccommunityvoice.blogspot.com/ and I think its an acurate repersentation of the mood of the PC Community.

Josh’s State of the PC Community

To my fellow members of the community. In light of recent developments of a PC beta for Battlefield Bad Company 2, some members of the community have become outraged and blinded by the fact there will be no publicly released server files. To you I say “why are you making such a fuss…” you have talked up and praised BFBC2 for coming out and saying there will be dedicated servers, you never asked what type of servers, you only assumed. On November 25th, 2009, Gordon Van Dyke of DICE posted a blog at http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com stating only that “Dedicated Ranked Server - Everyone gets non-stop action with no connection penalties based on some other player's internet. Ranked Server Provider program will give players opportunity to rent their own server(s) located in professional grade datacenters, ability to modify settings like map rotation, create reserved slots for friends or clan members, kick & Ban players, and custom name your ranked server. Clan Support & Private Servers - Independent Clan Tag, and ability to rent servers for hosting and controlling private password protected competitive servers with expanded control over the settings from public ranked servers.” To read that, it says clearly “RANKED SERVER PROVIDER” and “ability to RENT SERVERS for hosting and controlling;” nowhere did it state that we would be able to upload the dedicated server files to our own dedicated boxes.

To which I now ask, did any of you ever read that when it was posted? That blog was posted a month and a half before we hear more from DICE about the PC beta. When the officially said their deal on dedicated servers via their blog http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com on January 7th 2010, they said “Public Server Files: We will not distribute these publicly. There are many factors for why we have decided this with the biggest factor being security & integrity of our game & Dedicated Servers.” Now, we haven’t had any confirmation from DICE whether or not this applies to the full game or just the BETA, but it seems reasonable to assume that during the beta, they want to make sure they fully grasp how servers handle the game and engine. Big deal, it’s their game, they can do with it as they please… like I said before at least we are getting dedicated servers in some form or another.

What I see the most though, is that the people that are upset and complaining that they have turned their back on the community, are those people from the Call of Duty community that got shafted by Infinity Ward when Modern Warfare 2 came out. They have to remember it has been 5 years since the Battlefield 2 came out on the PC (I’m leaving out 2142 for a reason), and that game still has so much traffic on it. The mod tools came out a year or two after the release of BF2 (which is another thing people are mad about… give me a paragraph and I’ll get to it…) and it has held strong since, 5 years. The life span of a Call of Duty game is between 1 and 2 years, because it depends on which developer you like more, TreyArch or Infinity Ward.

On the subject of mod tools, it took a few months after BF2 was released for the mod tools to come out, and then finally updated another 5 months after the tools were released. For those of you up in arms about no mod tools (for now at least), you’re mad because you’re the same people that got done by MW2 and you feel that every game to be released after should have full dedicated servers, ones you upload yourself, and mod tools. Please, look at this from the developer point of view, it’s their new engine, they want to make sure they get everything right with it before they release anything that will enable us to modify the game that has to run off this new engine. So please, take a second to step back and look at the reasoning behind their decscion for it, eventhough they have not come out themselves and said that this was the reason, you could probably bet that that’s the real reason, not that they don’t want you to modify it; if that was the case then DICE would never have hired those that worked on the Desert Combat mod for BF1942 to help them make BF2.

So to all of you still angry with DICE for not giving us the server files to install ourselves and the mod tools so we can make our own mods, think, are you mad because they have betrayed you, or is it because you thought when they said in October, after the BASHandSlash show with Robert Bowling, that they were going to have dedicated servers that they meant install it yourself and mod it all you want? We assume too much and when we assume these things we get mad, so please, for the community stop assuming and just be thankful there are dedicated servers and that they are focused on helping the PC community have a good game, regardless of no mods.

This has been your PC State of the Community for January.
Josh “The Voice” Peckler


I really don't see how everyone can assume things about this game. IT IS NOT FOR THE COD COMMUNITY, its a game for the BF COMMUNITY and those who want to try it. Its our own fault we put it on a pedestal... but we have to remember... its a BF game, and its a sequel to a CONSOLE ONLY BF game...

There will be admin "tools", as there has been in the past.

When we assume, we make an a$$ out of ourselves, and us as a CoD community have to realize that BF/MOH is not CoD!

PS: It takes a load of money to create MOD tools, and when they don't want us to mod the engine (since it is new) then so be it, it takes money away from them working on BF3 which should be the PC king.

-Josh

Sam, no reason to vent with anger. Damn your long winded... You did a whole show of your own with two forum post. lol!

Yes, you have a few old dusty copies of BF games. Have you ever run an Official Ranked BF server...?

This is the way it has always worked since BF2 that is. Sure GVD will welcome the CoD community. He would be terrible at his job if not. JP's statement above is absolutely the fact... Listen to the show you took part in again. Nothing was official in his statements. There were only the statements made that things may be possible.

Yes you will have full admin. Jump on my ranked BF2 server and I will show you all of our admin powers... Once again, this is not CoD. GVD never said it would be.

If your so upset call your credit card company and tell them you have been duped and ask to be refunded. Simple...

I personally think that DICE and EA have done a brilliant job with this product and their PR campaign to date. They have been very consistent and very public about everything. A stark contrast from IW reps...

Have you taken a gander at all the changes made from the PS3 beta? IW would have just waited until after release. 7 patches later they don't even update you on what detailed changes have been made...

Looking forward to BC2 and CoD7 to be done by Treyarch... Still enjoying World at War. Anyway, no one ever really nows 100% until release. IW proved that. I can say one thing for sure.... Damn happy I was not one of the sheep lead to the slaughter with MW2. Its actually been very relaxing knowing this.

I think that would be a great idea, lets make the linux of multiplayer fps games
All we need is the MP part we dont really need a spectacular single player campaign.

With UE3 the maps can be a bit bigger than with q3 based engines like the cod engine.

But then again how do you ensure a good design?
A lot of people working in their free time will like to have a say and "too many cooks spoil the food"


I think having to rent the servers from somewhere will be more expensive than getting the server binaries and uploading them to your own box.
This will hurt the game.
COD4 or CS servers still exist today because you can run them with a pocket money on your own server.
And you can mod them easily, why would you want a server that is like everybody elses server and pay money for it?

Dedicated ranked servers for BF2 onwards have always been "rented," this is nothing new... As I said above, this is not a CoD game, this is not a CS game either... so stop expecting BFBC2 to fall in suit with the way those games have been run... And no it wont "hurt the game" because renting servers like this is only a slight change on the way the last couple of BF PC games have been run. BF2, you could upload an unranked server to a box, and I think the same with 2142...
You guys need to realise that this game is NOT Call of Duty and is NOT CS...

Plus, the reqs to run the game on your computer at home usually out weigh those of your standard dedicated box that you put your game severs on. Thats a big reason they "make" you rent a server from a trusted provider...

Come on... we knew this in November, why are you all making such a big fuss about it...

Yeah, well, Dice also could have clarified their statement back in october.

If people were mad, because mw2 took sooooooo much away from teh dedicated server angle, to then jump in and say, "hey, we will have dedicated servers on our game," and leave out the rest, is a bit disingenuous at best, and outright lying at worst.

I mean, what DIce posted last week was known to dice last october. They could have said it then. They didn't. They made their little "oh, come to us, we love you, pc gamers" statement, and then voila, it isn't the same as before.

After Bowling and IW, which are in it to make as much $$ as possible, I'm assuming that ALL companies are like that. The burden of proof is on them to convince me otherwise. And they'll stick it to us every chance they get, to get more $$.

I don't know if it's because the "journalists" that cover this stuff, aren't really journalists or what. Most of them are gamers/nerd/geeks/whatever, who manage to somehow get an audience. As you can see from the fact that how many industry "journalists" were bought off by IW's little press junket and goodies, getting some sort of objective at worst, cynical at best, type of reporting and questioning of these clowns, is now near impossible. Too many of the "writers" are starstruck by the mere fact Developer X is talking to them to ever question them seriously on anything.

They did in November... http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlef ... g-not.aspx

They are dedicated servers... what they left out was pretty much common knowledge amongst people that have played BF on the PC

They did... see above...


I'm gonna ask this question, but have you ever played BF2? Because other than getting the unranked dedi files, not a thing has changed... Except for the fact this is a sequel to a CONSOLE BF game...

I'm not trying to be all "they have not lied to you" ... I'm trying to make a point in saying that all of the information you find new is really old.