BF2S Forums Patch 1.3, Dice, EA and those who complain....

ashleyhall wrote:

I love this site and the forums, but one thing that seriously irritates me are the number of sad pathetic losers 'dissing' EA and Dice for their obvious poor work on the patching, but forgetting their excellent work in terms of providing the game in the first place!

Have you not considered for one second that without the abilities of Dice and EA, we would not be on this site right now, the game wouldn't exist, and many of you would literally not have a life.

You have no right to criticise their origins, being based in Canada, nor to attack their skill and abilities - yes they fooked up with the patching, but bear in mind just how many operating systems, system configurations, graphics cards and software package combinations are present throughout the worldwide userbase of this game!!

NO ONE asked you to purchase the game, no one asks you to play it - that is YOUR choice, the fact that patches are available so frequently is rather rare in the IT industry, think yourselves lucky - eitherway your purchase, ownership and playing of the game is VOLUNTARY, and also consider the small sum you infact paid in the first place, £25.00 for me personally...£25 WELL SPENT as far as I'm concerned, patching or no patching.

All I ask is that before attacking EA and Dice, consider the above for just one second, then perhaps continue to post your shitty pathetic immature low IQ-level attack on two incredibly talented companies that have produced potentially a 'game changing' standard looking towards the future.

And for those with very little constructive to say in response to this, don't bother responding, instead reread my post and ask someone to interpret it for you.

in a manor of speaking i do agree with you to a certain point but lets be honest the latest patch has made one exploit in general on karkand easier to exploit and use.
and yes i know how to make a batch file i am doing programming a college and it can be a bit complex at times.
but lets be honest when EA bought over dice they pushed for the earlier release and thats why there are more problems in it but in saying that would the game still be as popular if it was released 6 months later.
it is something to think about.

in a manor of speaking i do agree with you to a certain point but lets be honest the latest patch has made one exploit in general on karkand easier to exploit and use.
and yes i know how to make a batch file i am doing programming a college and it can be a bit complex at times.
but lets be honest when EA bought over dice they pushed for the earlier release and thats why there are more problems in it but in saying that would the game still be as popular if it was released 6 months later.
it is something to think about.

Good post and good points, but it severely frustrates me how incredibly rude and abusive some are towards EA and Dice, everyone makes mistakes and some bugs are only apparent on certain systems - I at least don't seem to suffer from half the problems others are, and when CTD occur, I just restart...its not the end of the world!!

Its a great game, I try not to worry about the patches, just look for the positives, and then im happy!

Friluftshund, I appreciate your post and views, I also respect your opinions and accept your apology for the 'porn' thing! About time something constructive and tactful was posted.

If there is a problem with a program it gets patched by the developer real quick or hell lose business. So patching happens in the IT-industry as often as it is needed.
And the DICE who made this game is based in Sweden, and those that patches are based in Canada. Wouldn't you agree that having one guy create the code and another stranger rewriting it is kind of odd?

Yes that is a little bizarre but their way of working and perhaps the root of the problems found with each patch - my frustrations are simply towards those that pay no respect whatsoever and are infact rude towards those slaving away (perhaps at minimum development wage) to correct bugs in a piece of incredibly complex software. Particularly seen as if it were not for those developers, the game would not exist in the first place.

ASH...at least have the BALLS to admit it............EA blew it with this patch....if you ENJOY playing what amounts now to a SUB-STANDARD shell of a game then continue to do so. Thanks to all the whiners and cry-babies who asked for these changes they have managed to ruin what was once a fun game.JUst the same way they ruined BF:Vietnam.

ashleyhall wrote:

Friluftshund, I appreciate your post and views, I also respect your opinions and accept your apology for the 'porn' thing! About time something constructive and tactful was posted.

If there is a problem with a program it gets patched by the developer real quick or hell lose business. So patching happens in the IT-industry as often as it is needed.
And the DICE who made this game is based in Sweden, and those that patches are based in Canada. Wouldn't you agree that having one guy create the code and another stranger rewriting it is kind of odd?

Yes that is a little bizarre but their way of working and perhaps the root of the problems found with each patch - my frustrations are simply towards those that pay no respect whatsoever and are infact rude towards those slaving away (perhaps at minimum development wage) to correct bugs in a piece of incredibly complex software. Particularly seen as if it were not for those developers, the game would not exist in the first place.

We're definitvly on the same page here!
If someone should be on the recvieveing end og criticism it should be the fat-cats at EA who cares little about the pressure kept on developers and too short deadlines. All they care about is making money and looking good on budget.

So complain to EA top-dogs and leave the programmers alone.
The sad part is that I'll bet most of the developers on the BF2 team are really disappointed and sad because they probably have something called ethics, and pride. But when you get a deadline you have to meet it or you'r out.

Give the developers more time EA, and you'll have a community that gladely pays for the next game. EA should further get in touch with the clan-community about touranments and mods and... yeah pretty much whatever happened to CS since people are still playing it!

I feel sorry for the developer of BF2, lets hope they can finally rest when 2142 comes out since it's on the same engine they are bound to have straightened out most of the wrinkles.. I hope so atleast

ashleyhall wrote:

Its low-lives such as yourself that has turned this thread into a mass of personal attack - I didn't set out for it to become such a thread. Some very rude posts were made in response to my first post, one of which I notice was removed by the moderators, things have gone downhill since...

ashleyhall wrote:

Good post and good points, but it severely frustrates me how incredibly rude and abusive some are towards EA and Dice, everyone makes mistakes and some bugs are only apparent on certain systems - I at least don't seem to suffer from half the problems others are, and when CTD occur, I just restart...its not the end of the world!!

For someone who insists so vehemently that they dislike rude and abusive people you do seem to be very rude and abusive. I assume you aren't intentionally being such a hypocrite, but please don't wonder why the tone of the thread is as it is. You started it, you have the most posts in it, so perhaps you could sit back and wonder if it is in fact your fault.

Friluftshund wrote:

EA is the owner of DICE which does the programming. DICE have no choice but to follow deadlines. Shame, but reality.

May be a stupid question, how do you know that? I could believe it, but it could just as easily be the case that DICE have screwed up repeatedly here and caused problems, maybe they have missed deadlines for releasing code, maybe they have written shoddy documentation for the patchers to follow... If you aren't involved in the project I don't see how you can put across this point in the style of a fact instead of the opinion that I am sure it is.

Friluftshund wrote:

BF2 is a complex game running on a complex motor. Do you expect DICE to sit around their crystal balls and dream up every thinkable combination of software/hardware to see if it might create problems?

His point was that lots of other developers mange to make games compatibile with thousands of hardware and software combinations, so why can't EA? Firstly this is a moot point because hardware configs are not causing the problems and so cannot be used as an excuse, secondly if it were hardware problems, BF2 is alot more sensitive than most other games, this means it must be something EA/DICE have done wrong. Finally, quite frankly I do expect DICE to sit around trying many combinations of software and hardware before they release a patch or a game. They do not need a crystal ball, it is standard software testing, testing should take as long as the rest of the development process put together.

I am not attacking DICE or EA but I am also not defending them, they are responsible for BF2, BF2 has problems, they are therefore responsible for the problems, I can quite easily see how people would be upset with them.

Friluftshund wrote:

About your/my second point. I'm not writing ashelyhall's posts - I'm giving my thoughts on why so many people are experiencing problems. And if I say: "it's a complex motor" and you say: "DICE did something wrong" then those two argumemts doesn't actually have anything to do with eachother.
BF2 is a complex motor with groundbreaking work. (groundbreaking as in never done before) You have to agree that testing every possible solution of something that hasn't been done before is difficult, and if we return to my assumption about deadlines I arrive with the conclusion that if DICE did infact have more time for testing the game might be a better game.

Groundbreaking? The engine is pretty much the same as in BF1942 with fancier graphics. Graphics which have zero effect on server crashing because servers are running in text mode. Even with nasty bugs like red/blue tags the game was still playable but this patch is horrendous. How can you play if clients and servers keep crashing?

Deadlines? Armored Furries as the only reason why the patch was needed could be delayed for a week or two or four more. If it weren't for greed. Maybe that would give them enough time to test the patch effects on more servers and over the internet. But no, it seems like the big company has one test server, running on a LAN. In coop mode with bots.

graag wrote:

Friluftshund wrote:

About your/my second point. I'm not writing ashelyhall's posts - I'm giving my thoughts on why so many people are experiencing problems. And if I say: "it's a complex motor" and you say: "DICE did something wrong" then those two argumemts doesn't actually have anything to do with eachother.
BF2 is a complex motor with groundbreaking work. (groundbreaking as in never done before) You have to agree that testing every possible solution of something that hasn't been done before is difficult, and if we return to my assumption about deadlines I arrive with the conclusion that if DICE did infact have more time for testing the game might be a better game.

Groundbreaking? The engine is pretty much the same as in BF1942 with fancier graphics. Graphics which have zero effect on server crashing because servers are running in text mode. Even with nasty bugs like red/blue tags the game was still playable but this patch is horrendous. How can you play if clients and servers keep crashing?

Deadlines? Armored Furries as the only reason why the patch was needed could be delayed for a week or two or four more. If it weren't for greed. Maybe that would give them enough time to test the patch effects on more servers and over the internet. But no, it seems like the big company has one test server, running on a LAN. In coop mode with bots.

Well if you know all the answers then - how is it that people can glitch inside buildings? Why don't they fix it? And the ultimate question - could you do it better?

And as for your second point - I agree, but as i have previously stated: stop blaming DICE, and start blaiming EA.. Do you believe programmers working on the BF project don't want their product to be perfect?

Friluftshund wrote:

Well if you know all the answers then - how is it that people can glitch inside buildings? Why don't they fix it? And the ultimate question - could you do it better?

And as for your second point - I agree, but as i have previously stated: stop blaming DICE, and start blaiming EA.. Do you believe programmers working on the BF project don't want their product to be perfect?

Tech stuff first, because it's easier (and I'm in a tech happy mood): the glitching is caused and made possible by the collision detection implementation. The walls in the game are a simulation of the physical world. A bad approximation because the computers are currently too slow to compute external and internal side of the wall and the space between them that is filled with concrete. The wall is instead simulated with a 2D polygon (thickness = 0) placed in a 3D space. Everytime you try to change your position, shoot a bullet etc. the game code checks if those polygons (and there are plenty of them) interfere with the trajectory and stop you or the bullet. This method uses basic math instead of physics and because of it is much faster than simulating real objects. Still to slow though. So another approximation is needed. Hey, if the polygons are closed and the player can't get inside the closed space only the 'outside' area (the side where the polygon normal is facing) has to be checked for collisions and drawn. It works twice as fast but you need to make sure that the player won't enter that empty space and exploit the game engine mechanics. You have to check maps first - if the polygons composing an object don't touch each other you have an aperture that can be used to get inside. And you have to check the game engine - a player shouldn't be allowed to exit a paradropped jeep 1 meter to the left of it if the vehicle is almost splitting a wall with it's left side.

Uh oh, a lot of words. Since the tech stuff is over I'll be shorter.
- As for fixing it: the maps are getting fixed, there are some corrections in every patch. The game mechanics too - you can't glitch with a tank anymore, they'll probably fix the vehicle drop glitch in the next patch. Or remove it from the game.

- As for doing better: maybe, given enough time. Or maybe not.

- As for blaming: DICE Sweden did a fine job with BF2, DICE Canada didn't do bad with SF. A bit rushed maybe, but it's because of EA, their publisher. Moving the support from DICE Sweden to DICE Canada is IMO a big mistake. And getting acquired by EA an another. I don't blame programmers (I'm a programmer too and I produced a ton of bugs), I blame managment.

graag wrote:

Friluftshund wrote:

Well if you know all the answers then - how is it that people can glitch inside buildings? Why don't they fix it? And the ultimate question - could you do it better?

And as for your second point - I agree, but as i have previously stated: stop blaming DICE, and start blaiming EA.. Do you believe programmers working on the BF project don't want their product to be perfect?

Tech stuff first, because it's easier (and I'm in a tech happy mood): the glitching is caused and made possible by the collision detection implementation. The walls in the game are a simulation of the physical world. A bad approximation because the computers are currently too slow to compute external and internal side of the wall and the space between them that is filled with concrete. The wall is instead simulated with a 2D polygon (thickness = 0) placed in a 3D space. Everytime you try to change your position, shoot a bullet etc. the game code checks if those polygons (and there are plenty of them) interfere with the trajectory and stop you or the bullet. This method uses basic math instead of physics and because of it is much faster than simulating real objects. Still to slow though. So another approximation is needed. Hey, if the polygons are closed and the player can't get inside the closed space only the 'outside' area (the side where the polygon normal is facing) has to be checked for collisions and drawn. It works twice as fast but you need to make sure that the player won't enter that empty space and exploit the game engine mechanics. You have to check maps first - if the polygons composing an object don't touch each other you have an aperture that can be used to get inside. And you have to check the game engine - a player shouldn't be allowed to exit a paradropped jeep 1 meter to the left of it if the vehicle is almost splitting a wall with it's left side.

Uh oh, a lot of words. Since the tech stuff is over I'll be shorter.
- As for fixing it: the maps are getting fixed, there are some corrections in every patch. The game mechanics too - you can't glitch with a tank anymore, they'll probably fix the vehicle drop glitch in the next patch. Or remove it from the game.

- As for doing better: maybe, given enough time. Or maybe not.

- As for blaming: DICE Sweden did a fine job with BF2, DICE Canada didn't do bad with SF. A bit rushed maybe, but it's because of EA, their publisher. Moving the support from DICE Sweden to DICE Canada is IMO a big mistake. And getting acquired by EA an another. I don't blame programmers (I'm a programmer too and I produced a ton of bugs), I blame managment.

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