@Anobix wrote:
@LawOfQne_YTAs much as I'd like it, I wouldn't bank on it. Converting the maps isn't just a copy/paste/convert button sequence, so requires some actual work to be done. And with there being [by many non-internal reports] a small team still working on 2042, I wouldn't bank on more than the single map for a season + a rework of an existing.
That is exactly right!
Bringing even an old well tried and tested map into the BF2042 environment is not just a simpel copy & paste exercise.
I recall this was also a question being asked to the EA design and leadership team when BF2042 was within the last 6 months or so before launch, where they were asked exactly that question, when they had revealed the option with the BF2042 Portal to play on some of the classic maps.
Think it was actually our old BF guru Oskar Gabrielson that went first on answering that, and then supported also by Christian Grass, DICE LA, who did their magic with BF4 after launch! (think Christian was maybe already then announced to be GM for Ripple Effect Studio group then?).
But they concurred that adding a new map, even when using old maps as master blueprint, it would still take a full team between 6 to 12 months to make it complete, all depending on the full size of the map. And especially if they are big and also have many players on it at full capacity.
Its the full content that needs to be cared for down to minutia detail. Then tested and re-calibrated again and again, to make the game flow right, to ensure the angles and covers for the two teams are there, that the content enables variations of strategies on how to play the map.
So a lot of work and considerations to ensure the balance is right and that the map works from- and for both sides.
It doesn't sound fishy at all @DPsx7 ,
The overarching map idea and rough placement of congestion areas and content is of course there from the original map and game from the past.
But all the people who made all that work in the past are no longer around. Neither are all their work considerations and learnings they made during all their many map design iterations and tweaks until they got the final version right.
Moreover the 'teleportation' of that old map design into a whole new game engine and game mechanics environment takes that all again needs detailed design works again from scratch to get it right. Aka the coordinates from the old map can no longer be used in the new environment, every nugget on the map needs new placement and considerations, every building, what its made of and its destructibility, and every window and gate opening, etc. Reasons are many, like soldier speed, weapon speed, damage ratio and impact radius, vehicle speed etc etc all are now having a new setting and setup of parameters in the new game platform, and that all changes the fundamentals if something works still in the new or not versus the old.
So do they save some time vs building something entirely new? Yes.
But there is still a very substantial amount of design work, testing and reiterations involved to make it work on the new game platform vs the old. Evidenced also when you play aka Caspian Border in the BF2042 Portal vs if you take the old version of the game/map for a spin. The sensation is simply just not the same at all. So why is that?
There is near an endless list of parameters that all plays a part in how the final game feels like when played by the gamer.
Solid practical experience in doing such map design work is a special demanding science in itself. And for what we have seen with BF2042, the EA DICE department is running short on these experts.
I really wish they had done more with portal
