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UPDATE: July 14, 2010
Looks like I have had my answer on this straight from BFBC2's community manager Zh1nt0, who tweeted that PCGamer's slam-dunk confirmation of Onslaught for PC was "not accurate". Looks like the technical issues faced by DICE in getting Onslaught for PC, as we alluded to below in our original post yesterday, are just slightly more complex than those encountered in deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. So, for that reason: no Onslaught for PC in the forseeable future.
Also note that PCgamer has removed their original article. A big booya! to them.
Yesterday's Article
Onslaught, a 4-player co-op gameplay mode that has been available to console gamers for some time has now been supposedly confirmed for the PC by PCgamer.com (Source).
BFBC2 Onslaught, theoretically, would be BFBC2's first paid-for-DLC on the PC,
though as of today, there is still no official details on the new mode (nor whether we would be paying for it).
PCgamer.com quotes Patrick Bach, senior DICE producer as follows:
“We’re thrilled to bring something new and fresh to Battlefield: Bad
Company 2 while still keeping Battlefield’s signature gameplay intact. We want to consistently support the over 4 million fans playing the game with new
ways to get into multiplayer and also challenge the elite players with
new experiences to improve their performance online. Effective squad
play is the key to success in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer and
this new mode will provide players with a dedicated environment to test
their team skills and rank against the competition.”
Note that the quote is somewhat misleading, given the fact that Bach said it way back on May 12th, though PCgamer.com, by quoting in yesterday's article, gives us the impression that he said it recently. Source.
So far, the PC community has been getting game enhancements for free.
That has currently included patches and slightly re-designed maps for
multi-mode play (maps can be played in Conquest mode or in Rush mode,
for instance). If DICE offers Onslaught as paid-DLC, gamers would
directly be asked to pony up cash for content which other franchises,
like CoD, provide as basic features in their game.
RockPaperShotgun.com is quoted on Steam as saying that DICE will be converting four of their BFBC2 maps for this new mode: Valparaiso, Atacama Desert, Isla Inocentes and Nelson Bay.
More good news: PC beats other platform rivals in sales
The late arrival of Onslaught in the PC scene flies in the face of the fact that our platform has provided more sales than either XBox or PS3 (Source).
If this story is true, and please note we still have not seen
DICE confirm it, why has it taken so long to get Onslaught on the PC...after all, we're doing so good in sales, you would think we'd be prioritized above the console guys?
Bazajaytee, a DICE dev put the problem this way:
The question of "What about PC?" is coming up
in the comments quite a
lot already so this is what the situation is.
No, we haven't signed away rights to console on this.
The problem we have on PC is that all our servers are dedicated with
providers. Changing a server from Conquest 32 players to Onslaught 4
players cuts out 28 player slots from the total amount available. This
could have a dramatic affect on the PC online environment if enough
servers changed to Onslaught.
The news that PC sales led console sales (though not total sales) is both unusual and welcome news! Couple this information with
Bobby Koticks rant last week regarding the fact that Activision may be
exploring new gaming PC's with Dell and HP make me think that maybe PC
gaming has some life left in it!
Server Files
Many PC gamers have remarked recently about DICE's slow customer service: slow patching, the relatively late arrival of DLC. Some have suggested that the community would have been best served if DICE had released their server files to us. Server files would have allowed the community to run co-op on their own servers and thus this would not impact the world-wide pool of ranked servers.
Potentially true, but another option open to DICE would be to simply give us listen-servers (local hosting co-op on your own computer, CoD:WW/MW2-style). Having said that, I'd hate to see DICE open that Pandora's box: just look what happened to CoD.
Speaking of server files, a simple Google search will reveal that about a month ago a few hackers released server files that would allow you to set up a Ranked server, without actually getting an official Ranked IP from EA.
The hacked files appeared to be genuine and have so far been ineffectual at altering community behavior.
In fact, I have grown accustomed to the uniformity provided by Ranked Servers. I thought I would miss the diversity found in the CoD-world, but I have found that I like the relatively limited choices in BFBC2. In fact, it seems to keep the community cohesive, unlike the fragmented one found in CoD.
A date?
Conspicuously absent in all this is the lack of official word from DICE and
thus no date for Onslaught's arrival in the PC domain. So stay
frosty...
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