Battlefield Tri-hard

[Amit]

Rudeness was not implied, apologies if it seemed that way.

Oh, not at all! I guess with this community's attitude it's easy to discount many things as sarcasm. And I don't blame you.

[Higuy]

http://www.moddb.com/games/battlefie...-battlefield-3

Dunno if that was posted, but, WHAT THE FUCK?

[Ifafudafi]

I can see three reasons for this:

1. DICE genuinely believes the engine is too complicated for modders to handle.
2. FB2 is so terribly coded and put together that DICE could not release a relatively stable, workable public toolset when or shortly after the game ships.
3. DICE is under orders from EA not to include mod support in order to ensure that gamers hungry for new content must purchase paid DLC.

To which I would respond:

1. That notion is both exceedingly arrogant and insulting. DICE would be telling its fans "sorry, you're not smart enough to use our tools."
2. Release it anyway. If you can work it, we can find a way to work it.
3. Oh dear god why

[ODX]

Here, a guy talks about all the hurdles with modding the engine:
http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/b...-modtools.html

[Mr Buckshot]

I can see three reasons for this:

1. DICE genuinely believes the engine is too complicated for modders to handle.
2. FB2 is so terribly coded and put together that DICE could not release a relatively stable, workable public toolset when or shortly after the game ships.
3. DICE is under orders from EA not to include mod support in order to ensure that gamers hungry for new content must purchase paid DLC.

To which I would respond:

1. That notion is both exceedingly arrogant and insulting. DICE would be telling its fans "sorry, you're not smart enough to use our tools."
2. Release it anyway. If you can work it, we can find a way to work it.
3. Oh dear god why

Are they doing a paid DLC model for BF3? In BC2 the PC version has free DLC while console players also get it if they have a brand new copy of the game (otherwise they pay an extra $10).

But yeah community-made maps > DLC :/ BF2 had such a strong modding community too. But looking at Activision, I guess you could be doing much, much worse than this.

tbh I don't mind paying for DLC if the DLC is a true and proper expansion with much more actual new content than the average mod. Remember all those superb expansion packs we had in past RTS games? Or even Crysis Warhead? BC2 Vietnam was a bit small but still felt new enough that I didn't mind shelling out $5.10 for it. But if the DLC is literally just new level geometry, as is the case with BO and MW2, then fuck that shit.

Anyways, still no word on a Steam release so far. I'm all for digital distribution, but I'm not ready to trust Origin just yet so I might have to buy a disc version for the first time in years.

e: http://www.ea.com/news/demar-at-ea-we-believe-in-choice

so it looks like it is Valve's issue after all. Looking forward to the results.

[Amit]

This was a post I made in this thread at the Bash and Slash forums on this very same matter:

It's no surprise, really. It's not like they said they'd ever release them. They always implied that they wouldn't. They probably don't want to put in the effort to create a workable set of tools for the community. From information we've gathered so far about the engine, it's pretty damn complex and I don't blame them for not wanting to take the time to cut it down to something that a select few in the community will be able to grasp.

I don't understand why people are demanding mod tools. The tools that most people used for BF 1942 were fan made, came out long before the official tools, and was better than the official tools by miles. The following article explains this better than I can:

Many fans in the Battlefield community of late have been upset about what appears to be DICE walking away from their historic support of modifications. I, as someone who has been in the Battlefield modding community since October 2002, and have seen it all, would like to set a few things straight. I would also like to present what I think the community should be asking for, instead of what they have been demanding.

Much of the community talkback has revolved around two things: decrying DICEs walking away from their ‘roots’ by not supporting mods the way they used to, and a demand for an editor. This line of conversation ignores what those of us around at the beginning know: DICE mod support has always been sketchy at best, and the release of an editor with Battlefield 2 was an exception, not a rule.

DICEs first official map editor was the editor they released for BF1942, called BattleCraft. But BattleCraft was actually a community map editor, being worked on by a community member during a time when we had no tools at all. DICE hired the person making BattleCraft early in its development and we didn’t hear anything of it until late in BF1942’s life cycle. This was a time when anything we had was software intended for other uses (like Daylon Leveller) or made by the community, like the RFA Extractor without which we could not have done anything.

The editor which made modding for BF1942 easier and to which many BF1942 mods owed their life was called Editor42. It was superior to what ended up being BattleCraft in every way, it came out early, and most of all – it had nothing to do with DICE. It was made by a French Canadian named CoinCoin, and beta tested by another community member, named AudioGod, and myself (then known as Augustus). Editor42 was so good in fact, CoinCoin changed the license terms to say commercial use required payment, due to suspicions he had that EA and DICE were using it themselves (based upon approaches EA had made to him to offer ‘helpful advice’). Editor42 was always the preferred editor in the community, even after BattleCraft was released.

None of the most important tools had anything to do with DICE. Battlefield modding started out with people making maps entirely using notepad for object placement and 3dsMax for terrain texturing (and most other tasks, thanks to RexMan, later a Desert Combat developer).

By and large, DICEs mod tools had come out long after the community had already worked everything out for themselves, and had made software and 3dsMax scripts to do it all (DICEs Mod Tool download was actually a collection of MaxScripts made by RexMan, repackaged). DICE also consistently underestimated what the community was capable of; never believing the community could make a working helicopter with the existing code. This trait is still evident today with their patronising claims they can’t release their Frostbite 2 editor because their engine is too complicated for us.

Criticising DICE for not releasing mod tools ignores the history of Battlefield modding, which is a history of doing it ourselves, with only a little help from them. That is after all, the spirit of modding. What we should be campaigning for are two simple things: a custom game menu item so that mods can actually be used (no one seems to have even bothered asking for this!), and some kind of extractor tool to enable us to decompile their files. From there, we can do the rest. Our community is chock full of smart people who love the challenge, and if BF3 is as big a game as we hope it will be, there will be even more of them.

So get the word out – stop whingeing and ask for something DICE might actually see as a small thing that won’t cost them anything to give us. We’ll do the rest.

Source

[Ifafudafi]

Because one shitstorm is never enough, let's add some fuel to the proverbial assfire

"Battlefield 3 may not come to Steam, according to EA's list"

[jcap]

That guy you quoted, Augustus, doesn't know shit.

The biggest issue is that if dedicated servers aren't released to the public (as in not restricted to rental hosting companies), you will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER EVER see a multiplayer mod. The map files aren't even accessible by the end user for dedicated servers, so you can't modify even the stock maps, not to mention it being impossible to even add custom maps. Secondly, although I don't know DICE's security, if they have any sense they probably hash and sign their map files and the dedicated server executable probably checks both on map load. So, without any official mod support from DICE, there's zero chance in fucking hell of any mod tools ever even being planned.

[Mr Buckshot]

They won't release dedi servers to the public because it potentially allows pirated copies to play online on cracked servers.

I know quite a few people who pirated BC2 on PC, and while the SP worked fine they simply could not go online even after trying for months. So finally they bought the game for $5

Can't really blame EA/DICE for this, and it's still better than intrusive DRM. They're the first multi-platform developer (other than Valve) in a long time to make the PC version the showcase.

as for steam, it's funny how so many people are butthurt even though they're also claiming how they want BF3 to beat MW3. Seriously people, it's not like this is the only high-profile PC game that doesn't use Steam. As long as I don't get overcharged, I'm fine with non-Steam. Besides the game wouldn't actually integrate with Steamworks (i.e. let you directly join a game a Steam friend is on), so a native Steam version really isn't too different from having a shortcut to the executable as a non-steam game.

[Amit]

That guy you quoted, Augustus, doesn't know shit.

That's your opinion.

The only thing DICE needs to do really is just allow to the game to be moddable. They don't have to provide mod tools. The community isn't as stupid as DICE is implying and it's an insult to the intelligence of it's dedicated fanbase. I've played few mods in BF 1942 and BF2. 1942 had some pretty amazing ones like the Modern Warfare mod that was being developed at the same time as BF2 and BF2 had excellent ones like Project Reality and AIX 2.0. While those were fun, they didn't feel necessary. I've never felt the need for significant modding to battlefield games. BC2? Hell, it never crossed my mind to mod the game until a month ago. I just have that much fun playing with what they've given us.

EDIT:

Hooray! Wake Island won't get flattened: http://news.tgn.tv/battlefield-3-des...etting-nerfed/

One thing that confused me in that article is how you can't bring down whole buildings anymore, but Destruction 2.0 is still in the game.