Here's the problem with DICE: they absolutely refuse to answer questions in any way other than "we are aware" (with no follow up, just that they are aware and that's only if the stars align and you are super fortunate to get that) or "here are the patch notes for the update tomorrow".
everything is super top secret at dice and they give us the mushroom treatment: feed them * and keep them in the dark. they have zero respect for us and it appears they don't feel we DESERVE any sort of road map or information
@Psubond wrote:Here's the problem with DICE: they absolutely refuse to answer questions in any way other than "we are aware" (with no follow up, just that they are aware and that's only if the stars align and you are super fortunate to get that) or "here are the patch notes for the update tomorrow".
everything is super top secret at dice and they give us the mushroom treatment: feed them * and keep them in the dark. they have zero respect for us and it appears they don't feel we DESERVE any sort of road map or information
Pretty much this...I do not however lay the blame at any of the CMs feet. I'm sure they wake up every day and eat their Fruit Loops dreading logging into the boards for another day of endless complaint threads about the same issues for a year. I'm sure that they pass on our feelings/complaints/observations and get told NOT to give out anything other than, "We are aware of your issue". I personally wouldn't want to do it.
The fault is 100% executive, either Dice or EA and my vote is EA...
Communication and transparency are anathema for DICE, or at least DICE leadership.
There are a lot of things DICE could be doing to restore goodwill and earn back the trust they've shattered over the years, especially with 2042. I look forward to them continuing to do absolutely none of them while continuing their current behavior/strategy instead, as they think that everything is still fine.
DICE as a studio seems incapable of growing, improving, or learning.
@edgecrusherO0 wrote:Communication and transparency are anathema for DICE, or at least DICE leadership.
There are a lot of things DICE could be doing to restore goodwill and earn back the trust they've shattered over the years, especially with 2042. I look forward to them continuing to do absolutely none of them while continuing their current behavior/strategy instead, as they think that everything is still fine.
DICE as a studio seems incapable of growing, improving, or learning.
I tend to agree, but again I think this is EA. I get that the point of developing a game comes from some passion to do a good thing and be able to make a living doing it. Then it starts to get good and a developer "buys out" a portion of your product or company. Now THEY start calling the shots and leaving you little room to do anything but complain that it won't work. And if you do it loud enough, they just fire you and get someone who'll toe the line for the money and forget the passion to make a good product. At the end of the day, the developer will always push toward what's going to make the most money and any "enjoyment" you get out of it will be squashed in the name of the all mighty dollar.
@Echo6Echo wrote:
@edgecrusherO0 wrote:Communication and transparency are anathema for DICE, or at least DICE leadership.
There are a lot of things DICE could be doing to restore goodwill and earn back the trust they've shattered over the years, especially with 2042. I look forward to them continuing to do absolutely none of them while continuing their current behavior/strategy instead, as they think that everything is still fine.
DICE as a studio seems incapable of growing, improving, or learning.
I tend to agree, but again I think this is EA. I get that the point of developing a game comes from some passion to do a good thing and be able to make a living doing it. Then it starts to get good and a developer "buys out" a portion of your product or company. Now THEY start calling the shots and leaving you little room to do anything but complain that it won't work. And if you do it loud enough, they just fire you and get someone who'll toe the line for the money and forget the passion to make a good product. At the end of the day, the developer will always push toward what's going to make the most money and any "enjoyment" you get out of it will be squashed in the name of the all mighty dollar.
It's not EA, EA doesn't usually bother with that granular level of control.
This is simply DICE, and it's the same way DICE has historically acted when they had good enough games that they didn't need to really do much with community. Now they don't, and they're way outta their depth.
Their current strategy closely mirrors the usual "STUFF IS STILL ON FIRE!" strategy of closing down communications, keeping everything very limited to prevent risk, and hoping that by ignoring the problems they at least won't fan the flames. Which is true to a certain extent, but it's the lazy, cowards way of handling this kind of ongoing situation.
Given the reporting on how little EA was responsible for the disasters with Anthem and ME:A (both of which were overwhelmingly the fault of internal leadership at BW and, if anything, EA failing to engage in sufficient oversight and management which is uh...a weird thing to write) I'm very disinclined to believe that many, or any of 2042's problems are mostly to blame on EA. At most EA forced the launch date, but that's possibly as much EA's fault as it was internal BW's fault for - much like ME:A and Anthem - spending tons of time accomplishing nothing as internal leadership struggled to find direction and was weighed down by internal drama.
It's just frustrating because being more transparent with their community is within DICE's power. Engaging honestly, and regularly, and actually sharing information is within their power. Apologizing to the community directly for the terrible launch and first 6+ months of the game is within their power. And usually, when big studios show some humility and willingness to admit mistakes and failures, players respond fairly positively.
But I guess this is all strategy that either DICE leads have never considered, would require too much actual work for them, they simply don't care, or everything is an ever bigger internal dumpster fire than we believe even right now which is arguably the worst-case scenario. But why should we think it's anything other than the worst-case scenario if DICE are not communicating and not giving us any reason to believe otherwise?
@edgecrusherO0 I don't think you're giving EA enough credit. They bank roll all of this, and buddy let me tell you from exp., a company that bank rolls you will very much subtly tell you how to run operations. Providing funding for projects, or overruns, or update, or enhancement or by "suggesting" the run and gun bunny hopping BR style with stupid hero players with "abilities" over the time tested slower objective based team play. Why do you think this title looks so much like OTHER titles that have come out recently. You seriously think EA had no hand in that? And then "damage control". Do you think the bank roll doesn't tell you how, when and how much to respond to criticism and feedback? And then you think they won't lie on the other end that "they had no control or oversight"? Sorry, but when you front millions in research and development dollars, you don't NOT have control and oversight. They tell those lies to save the other franchise dollars they are funding.
I'm sure Dice had some culpability in this disaster, but I'm betting most of it was in the joint boardroom.
@edgecrusherO0 I think you're overstating my intent a bit. I never said EA is the worst company in America. I never said they haven't done some good things. You're right, it's total nonsense. What I'm saying is, my belief is the game is crappy because they tried to make it something it wasn't. Frostbite was developed a decade ago and while I'm not a coder, I'm sure it doesn't work well with "Modern" advancements. Trying to make BF a run and gun, solo player shooter with Specialists probably was not Dice's idea. They were influenced by those that pay the bills. Dice has it's culpability too, and your maps statement is not what I'm talking about. IMO BF maps have been too large anyway. That aside, that's not what's breaking this game. It's the bad mechanics, the change of play style, the addition of Specialists and all the broken code which I'm betting was caused by all the "enhancements" to game play that EA wanted. Ever hear of the latest BR that's been around for a few years now and how much money it's making? You can't shove that sort of game easily into Frostbite I'm betting and it's caused issues and I'm also betting EA had a huge part in wanting to grab some of that money and probably NOT wanting to spend any on a new, badly needed game engine. And then there's the lack of comm and lack of server support, again, you guessed it, EA.
I'm not a coder, but I do know how to run and have run large server farms that service users from across the world on "live" desktops. I know what networks do and how they work along with how servers deliver information. I'll tell you that IMO a large portion of what is wrong is server related, the rest is coding related based on a decade old game engine. AND THOSE ARE ALL EA. You realize the iPhone was in version 1 when Frostbite came out? I'm not mad at you, rather debating, I think the same thing. They are both at fault, but I just believe the bigger fault lies with EA due to the path the game is taking and the lack of financial support from EA in supporting it.
Please guys do not derail this into an EA/DICE bashing thread cause all that will happen is that it will get shut down by the peacekeepers.
@UP_Hawxxeye wrote:Please guys do not derail this into an EA/DICE bashing thread cause all that will happen is that it will get shut down by the peacekeepers.
either way we will not get any answers from dice. i would love to have an open and honest Q and A from dice but idk about you but i haven't seen ANYTHING from dice in the past that would indicate that is even remotely realistic for us to get. they treat everything as top secret and anything that does get disseminated is scripted and carefully controlled
@UP_Hawxxeye wrote:
@PsubondI do hope that all the people who are really vocal about that also put their money where their mouth is next time
I won't be putting mine there, if you catch my drift. I WILL NOT be pre-ordering as I usually do, simply because they haven't and won't respond to any issues we are having with real facts or conversation. I know the first Q&A will turn into a moderation nightmare, but you played the music and now it's time to dance. Take the lumps and it will get better...
@UP_Hawxxeye wrote:
@PsubondI do hope that all the people who are really vocal about that also put their money where their mouth is next time
If I get the next one, I'll wait 'til it's on sale for a fiver or something. DICE lost my money with the launch and how they continue handling 2042.
Some kind of Q&A's or literally any meaningful engagement with their community showing that they care and want to improve would go a long way in countering that. Why the leads at DICE think this current strategy is a winning on is beyond me, but I guess I'm not a product lead at a AAA studio so what do I know.
@UP_Hawxxeye wrote:
@PsubondI do hope that all the people who are really vocal about that also put their money where their mouth is next time
As per usual, whatever ends up being next, I won't be pre-ordering [as I haven't done that for well over a decade]. The only reason I even had this game at launch is getting a discounted [about 50% off] code from a friend that got it with their video card. And this is coming from someone who has played almost every single BF game that has come out on PC.
Q&A = maybe having to be honest not a word DICE understand.
We will only get a pre recorded video from the smug ones again.
@Echo6EchoThey don't answer 98% of questions on the forums already. Why would they answer questions in a Q and A? The questions they do answer would be filtered through EA PR and contain buzzwords and BS or just be 'we have nothing to comment at this time'.
This game is on life support. It's a take what you're given situation, they aren't interested in doing anything but the minimum they're legally required to do.
@MortalitasWolf wrote:@Echo6EchoThey don't answer 98% of questions on the forums already. Why would they answer questions in a Q and A? The questions they do answer would be filtered through EA PR and contain buzzwords and BS or just be 'we have nothing to comment at this time'.
This game is on life support. It's a take what you're given situation, they aren't interested in doing anything but the minimum they're legally required to do.
You're right! That's why I said they played the music and now it's time to dance. They owe us answers that aren't coming...
@UP_Hawxxeye wrote:
@PsubondI do hope that all the people who are really vocal about that also put their money where their mouth is next time
my money is staying in my wallet when the next game comes out. i bought every bf game from 2 to 1. i skipped V because of sonderlund running his mouth. i'm not buying the next game regardless of how good it is. until they can release a proper game and not have the launch be a complete disaster i'm not buying another BF game. i will buy the one AFTER they get their * together
Agreed, I'd love a bit more transparency into the internal process.
There's times I'm just dying to know "What was the thought process behind decision X?", "How does Y fit into your list of priorities?"
I'd honestly be willing to pay to hear some questions answered, I'd happily buy some sort of 'Back stage pass' microtransaction that'd allow to me to get answers to a few questions.
I don't see the point.
They already put out regular patches/patch notes. Those are the answers to your questions.
@trip1ex wrote:I don't see the point.
They already put out regular patches/patch notes. Those are the answers to your questions.
Patch notes are patch notes, not answers to questions. They also only come shortly before patch updates, with little in terms of meaningful communication between patch drops.
Do you want to know how out of touch they are with reality, here is the BF2042 Tech Lead with jokes AND 5+ years GameDev experience!
https://twitter.com/darkosupe/status/1560285076855967745?s=20&t=oMT7TR3dHTn69zXzH-X0tA
