Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

[eggman]

Am a lil desperate to see if we cna get EA's attention to this issue... but am not very hopeful....

Hrm .. ya know..... it is something like this that is really making me wonder about continuing to mod on the BF2 platform.

With Project Reality a huge part of our energies and roadmap has been around mixed game modes. With the release of 0.3 we have 3 different game modes and another fairly substantial new game mode in development.

We also spent a bunch of hours fixing our game modes so they would not hose the server when switching between modes, and we got that to work (which somehow EA was unable to do, with the introduction of co-op they locked out game mode switching).

Here's a post from one of our server side developers about BF2 1.3 server:

BF2 1.3 eliminates mixing game modes

Major problem with 1.3

From what I can tell, the 1.3 server does not allow for maplists with mixed gamemodes:

> maplist.load
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:gulf_of_oman gameMode:gpm_sobj
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:strike_at_karkand gameMode:gpm_xtract
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:strike_at_darkand gameMode:gpm_xtract
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:mashtuur_city gameMode:gpm_sobj
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:mashtuur_city gameMode:gpm_xtract
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:mashtuur_nite gameMode:gpm_sobj
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:dragon_valley gameMode:gpm_sobj
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:sharqi_peninsula gameMode:gpm_xtract
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:sharqi_nite_sobj gameMode:gpm_sobj
could not add to maplist. game mode must be the same:sharqi_nite_sobj gameMode:gpm_xtract
1
> maplist.list
0: "muttrah_city" gpm_cq 32
1: "jabal" gpm_cq 32
2: "zhanjiang_security_area" gpm_cq 32
3: "road_to_kyongan_ni" gpm_cq 32
4: "cp_abadan" gpm_cq 32
5: "gulf_of_oman" gpm_cq 32
6: "operation_nightshift" gpm_cq 32
7: "jungle_fever" gpm_cq 32
8: "strike_at_karkand" gpm_cq 32
9: "strike_at_darkand" gpm_cq 32
10: "mashtuur_city" gpm_cq 32
11: "mashtuur_nite" gpm_cq 32
12: "dalian_plant" gpm_cq 32
13: "dragon_valley" gpm_cq 32
14: "sharqi_peninsula" gpm_cq 32
15: "sharqi_nite_sobj" gpm_cq 32
16: "steel_thunder" gpm_cq 32
17: "strike_at_karkand_2" gpm_cq 32
18: "the_oasis" gpm_cq 32
19: "el_alamein_xxl" gpm_cq 32

As you can see, it refused to load gpm_xtract and gpm_sobj maps since it already had gpm_cq maps in rotation at that point.

My speculation: EA is aware that their gamemode switching doesn't work. Now they took the shortcut of disallowing mixed modes (since they've now added more than one) rather than fix gamemode switching like we did.

Looks like ABR wasn't the only community casualty of 1.3 (they have a fix, btw, as you can read on their website).

I hope somebody proves me wrong.. Has anybody else tried this?

WTF?!?

Beyond this kick in the nuts... we've also got ABR stats, which was part of PR, that no longer works properly.

And .. just another little - ok HUGE - annoyance has been us sinking dozens of hours into trying to work around the 1.03 lockout of the unlock system. We had designed a "meta class" and "sub class" based system that we've been unable to implement as easily as we would have liked due to the 1.03 patch preventing use of the unlocks. So instead of developing compelling content for our player base, we have coders spending time on this .. which should have been as difficult as changing some 0s to 1s.

I dunno where the hell CKMC is, but .. uh .. dude..... DO YOU EVEN READ THESE FORMS ON A REGULAR BASIS TO KNOW WHAT YOUR MOD COMMUNITY IS UP TO?

Pretty demoralised.... hating this modding experience atm... hoping for some answers, but not optomistic.

I suppose this is the kind of business management that nets you a $16 million dollar loss :evil:

Absolutely ****ED!

egg

[Jacky]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

:wall::wall::wall::wall::wall::wall: EA + Patches = 0 :wall::wall::wall::wall::wall::wall:

[Sevigon]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

Beyond this kick in the nuts... we've also got ABR stats, which was part of PR, that no longer works properly.

Mmhm. They even said that they are putting a stop to Alternative Ranking from the beginning.

[jilted]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

Gammode issue confirmed.

:middlefingerflip: thanks dice/ea

[wolfi]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

Ouch, that sucks Best of luck to you repairing this :/

[AP_piano295]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

ARE YOU FCUKING KIDDING ME

Theyre probably trying to deystroy your META classes because theyre putting those in the "new" game BF 2142.

[Fullforce]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

Mmhm. They even said that they are putting a stop to Alternative Ranking from the beginning.

Not quite: http://www.battlefieldranking.net/in...tion&Itemid=50

[Guest]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

ARE YOU FCUKING KIDDING ME

Theyre probably trying to deystroy your META classes because theyre putting those in the "new" game BF 2142.

EA, in the past, with other games, has taken ideas from popular mods and released them as costly content.

As long as the planet still buys their games, nothing is going to change. Trust me, nobody's going to stop buying. We all said the same thing with Command and Conquer, when they bought out Westwood Studios, but we still bought Generals and tried to mod it (I've got horror stories from that game too).

[Eden]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

A sad day for the BF2 mod community I would say. Lets hope they dont continue to lock anything out.

There is a lolution mind you, probably not the bast and there would be a lot less players playing mods (untill EA drops BF2 which I expect will be soon) revert back to the origonal game, version 1.00

[Uber:Jagermeiter]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

MAn that really sucks and I'm sorry to hear it-MAybe they are put off by the fact that you and other modders can do more with the game than they can.All they are good for is putting out patches that degrade the performance of the game even further. I guess they don't have the aptitude to realize that successful mods indirectly contribute to the sales of their products

[wolfi]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

Maybe a solution has been found.
They are "investigating" this right now in the editor forums, stay tuned

[Eden]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

Maybe a solution has been found.
They are "investigating" this right now in the editor forums, stay tuned

As are EA i am sure. Lets just hope they lack the programming skill to release another patch :)

[Guest]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

I guess they don't have the aptitude to realize that successful mods indirectly contribute to the sales of their products

As I said above, they don't make money off of modder's releasing mods, they make money from stealing modder's ideas and releasing them in a "booster pack". People very RARELY go out and buy a game because of a mod.

[eggman]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

As I said above, they don't make money off of modder's releasing mods, they make money from stealing modder's ideas and releasing them in a "booster pack". People very RARELY go out and buy a game because of a mod.

Huh.. ok er... not totally sure I agree. Should talk to Valve or id heh.

A more intangible, but still very real, aspect of mod impact on revenue is that people get more value out of the franchise. Pay $50 for a game, get bored in 3 weeks... pretty typical mdoel for many shooters. Pay $50 for a game, get bored in 3 weeks, mods release... you fire it up and enjoy it all over again... more mods release... you are still playing a game you paid $50 for a year later. And the publisher can move the player base to the next release in the franchise because they really feel like they got good value out of it.

If EA had thought through the whole ranked server business model and how it affects the mod community, they would have had a set of criterion for the mod community to meet to be considered potential candidates to be made "official" mods.

You could then submit your mod that meets those criterion to some sort of review committee .. ideally made up of player representatives and EA representatives .. and some mods would get selected to be made "official" and part of the ranked server business model.

The same process could be set up for maps so that custom mappers could see an outlet for their creativity and efforts.

It might even be plausible to relase "mod packs" as part of a larger commercial model instead of booster packs.

Not saying that's a perfect scenario... so don't debate the merits of it in specific detail... it's just an example of an alternative view on their post sale revenue model.

They had a good couple of years to think this through... and it ain't rocket science. I don't believe they got it right.

egg

[Guest]

Re: Ugh.. BF2 1.3 screwed our mod

I was hoping we wouldn't compare it to Valve.

My point was mainly based on about the fact that mods aren't the impetus for sales for a game.