Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

[megawhompertoo]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

So folks, especially you guys that dont play them, what would make you play a mod? What is it your after that would drag you away from vanilla, and populate the mod servers? And do you think the PR efforts are adaquate and if not, how could they be improved to spread the word?

1) Plenty of folks expect their pc's to behave like an xbox, and installing/enabling a mod isn't always an intuitive process. A good readme.txt and a self-extracting polished install package would fetch more folks. The other reason is the fragile nature of installed software--your BF2 starts spitting out "memory not sane" (no kidding, do a search), so you reinstall BF2...and then start looking for your d/l mod files...or d/l another 1.2 gb over the next 4 hours...now, do I patch first, or patch later...etc. Gamers can be lazy when it comes to reinstalling software.

2) Second question is a classic catch-22: "I don't play mods because there aren't enough people who are downloading and playing them."

3) Third question--money. If I *buy* a program in a little cardboard box and a cellophane wrapper for $50 from EA, I tend to value it and tend to view it with a more personal stake. Mods are free, and conventional wisdom tells us that you get what you pay for. Conventional wisdom, we should point out, is often incorrect.

4) Battleracer was a fun mod. As was POE2. I was really looking forward to trying out the Warhammer 40K one, but...alas... I hadn't heard alot about PR.

And part of it is our fault as consumers. We pay EA for a program that requires 7? 8? patches to make it stable, to put in a decent server browser, to address fundamental bugs (yay, red name bug is gone!...after a year!), but we rarely consider paying to support the folks that make really great mods. Which makes them have a greater potential tendency to suck, because they're free, and we're humans, and we *know* that free stuff is "worthless".*

*I'm typing this in a firefox browser, on a lappy running linux (ubuntu dapper drake), so you don't have to lecture me on how great open source can be, human nature and conventional wisdom be d4mned! :)

[Kapukluk]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

*cries at this thread*

[BZBuzz]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

Well all I can say is, take a look.

First, it seems that, whatever interest they have in doying it, some have
a great concern for making good quality mods, easy to install , for free .

[Sir_Tossalot]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

I've been playing Rome Total War mods for a loooong time and would NEVEr go back to the vanilla version - but that's single player. For a game like BF2 that relies on online multiplayer (or you just can't play), I don't want to end up in a siutation where I can't just jump into any server because they are not running the same mod. The risk (and this happened in RTW) is that you end up in a world of deleting, reinstalling, switching between clean vanilla and modded installs - unless I know having a mod installed won't stop me getting onto a vanilla server 'cos of incompatibility, I won't do it.

[[21CW]DWillis]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

Stats, and the long tail of BF2.

The community isn't as big as people think it is, and with all the various mods it's become a more niche community, with 100 people here and 100 people there playing 40 different mods because that's what they like. Then you have the larger masses that have the game but have no idea about the modding community and are not technically inclined enough to figure out where to get them, where to find support and how to go about installing and using them.

[Valenski]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

1. PoE2 is not only the best mod ever made but it makes vanilla BF2 look like crap!!!

2. If you dont want to play PoE2 cause there is no ranking system you are a F-ing noob that doesnt need to be playing anyways.

3. The amount of work and caring that the PoE2 team does over shadows Dice/Ea and ANY of the sorry efforts/patches they have made over the past year to try and make BF2 work the way it should.

4. The PoE2 dev team actually cares about what its fans think and take input from its fans and players and actually implement the ideas as well as play along side the general public.


PoE2 > than all.......................

Once all the noobs realize how bad 2142 SUCKS they will make their way over to PoE 2!!!! Spread the word PoE2 has ALOT of new stuff coming out in future releases!!!!

WE also have a PoE2 Pug night every friday night hosted by the East Coast Raiders. You can get more info on it on our website at www.eastcoastraiders.org or at these below links.....If you like playing PoE but hate playing on a server full of non teamwork having NOOBS then join us on friday nights for organized PoE2 teamwork!!!

http://www.pointofexistence.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11394

http://forums.caleague.com/showthread.php?t=77244

[[21CW]DWillis]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

1. PoE2 is not only the best mod ever made but it makes vanilla BF2 look like crap!!!

2. If you dont want to play PoE2 cause there is no ranking system you are a F-ing noob that doesnt need to be playing anyways.

3. The amount of work and caring that the PoE2 team does over shadows Dice/Ea and ANY of the sorry efforts/patches they have made over the past year to try and make BF2 work the way it should.

4. The PoE2 dev team actually cares about what its fans think and take input from its fans and players and actually implement the ideas as well as play along side the general public.


PoE2 > than all.......................

To be straight forward, this attitude is precisely why mods don't get as much play or recognition as they should.

POE has put together a solid mod. Good playability, great graphics, good mix of new components. But as soon as people start saying "we are the best. Everyone else is inferior." There are none that are better than the other. They all bring different ideas to the table. They all present different target audiences and visions. What they are is choice for the community. Providing that choice is what counts. The attitudes simply drive people away.

[0wn4g3]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

Ok Ive been waiting for a thread like this. I'll talk about mods and more specifically POE2 since I'm a big fan.


First of all I think that the stats/medals/unlocks has become the biggest problem is transitioning from vanilla to a mod. It would appear as though most people that play bf2 mods ended up getting sick of vanilla and wanted to try something new, or were just tired of the ranking system. Battlefield Vietnam never had this ranking system and the players managed to do well together.


Here are a couple of other reasons for the lack of players. School. Monday – Friday most of the gamers that play these mods go to school so chances are you won't find a populated server until the evening hours or on the weekends. It's not like DC where there is a full server waiting for you at all times of the day.


Lack of U.S. Army. POE had a huge following in BF-Vietnam but that is not the case with POE2. Most of the US based POE servers remain empty and only 1-3 of them are populated well enough to join and have a good game. However if you look at the Japanese and other eastern country servers, they seem to be full all the time. I think because POE2 lacks the US army it is keeping most Americans from playing it. I'm personally sick of playing as the US so I welcomed this change.


The mod/mods are being released too late into the life cycle of the game. I feel that most of the mods including POE2 were late for the show. POE2 was in development for over a year and even though launch day was by far the greatest day in POE2 history, the players have dwindled down to merely nothing. Because these mods are so hard to develop it takes an incredible amount of time to get one to version 1.0 and while many mods have yet to release any client files, Ea/Dice has released a brand new game called 2142.


The launch of 2142 has seemingly taking players sick of modern combat and thrown them into what is supposed to be futuristic warfare. A lot of people have claimed that 2142 is just a BF2 mod finely polished, however who pays 50-60$ for a damn mod? Apparently quite a few people.


I also want to mention Ea/Dices mod support from the release of Bf2 has been crap. They never really provided mod developers the same tools they themselves used to create the game which they stated they would do. They also locked down a lot of important cool features from mod developers which pretty much hindered a lot of creativity. The sad thing is that most bugs reported on the POE forum end with a developer stating “Thats a limitation with the BF2 engine” or “Thats not our fault, thats the engines” or “Thats a known BF2 bug that we can't fix” I know even with 1.4 BF2 is still not a shiny product and the problems from vanilla merely transfer themselves over into these mods creating blemishes that the developers have no way of removing. Thats some real good mod support right there. And don't say anything about the mod spotlight. That isn't doing a damn bit of good.


At least back in Vietnam POE was seen as a major advancement with the BFV engine. We were going from vietnam war to modern combat. POE reminded so many folks of the good ole Desert combat days. BF2 is a modern combat game that I feel many who played POE1 thought was going to be like POE for BFV but instead turned out to be an arcadish crapfest. POE for BFV also did not have a lot of competition in terms of quality or any other mod set in a modern combat era. Now adays theres Forgotten Hope, Project Reality, Rising Conflicts, BF Apocalypse and of course EA/Dices expansion packs which hurt the mod teams more than they helped.


It's a minor point, but it doesn't help that the POE client file for a new person is around or more than 1 gig. Although this should be a clear indication of the amount of content within the mod. They performed an almost total conversion from vanilla into something not entirely different.


There are more reasons that I just can't think of right now but I wanted to finally get that off my chest.

[[21CW]DWillis]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

Excellent post there Own4g3 with a lot of good insight with the EA FPS/Battlefield industry.

[Valenski]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

I didnt say WE are the best I said PoE 2 is the best thing out there....and its true.....BF2 was good but PoE2 makes up for all the things BF2 was lacking and missing......Just my opinion.....

[[21CW]DWillis]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

I didnt say WE are the best I said PoE 2 is the best thing out there....and its true.....BF2 was good but PoE2 makes up for all the things BF2 was lacking and missing......Just my opinion.....

You missed my point. My point wasn't aimed at you personally, just that part of the allure is everyone saying their mod is the best of the best. That's all. Nothing at all personal Valenski.

This is a very interesting conversation, especially considering that BF2 is fast approaching the end of its life cycle, especially with all of the limitations is has for improved performance, moddability and appeal.

[0wn4g3]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

I have seen the likes of the POE team praise EA for their excellent work on supporting them and other mod teams. I wish they would come here and state just how supportive and helpful EA/Dice has really been. Pretty disgusting to see a mod team thanking EA. Sure without them they would;nt have a platform to mod but for christ sake.

In the span of Battlefield 2's life I can think of a couple of things just off the top of my head as to how EA/DICE could of improved their relations with mod developers. But I think I would be going off topic.

[RW-RogueWolf]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

Ohh For F Sake, Can You Just Let The Thread Die! Its Laggin On And On And On And On And On, You've Totally Gone Off The Topic.

[|D|-Jaws]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

Lack of U.S. Army. POE had a huge following in BF-Vietnam but that is not the case with POE2. Most of the US based POE servers remain empty and only 1-3 of them are populated well enough to join and have a good game. However if you look at the Japanese and other eastern country servers, they seem to be full all the time. I think because POE2 lacks the US army it is keeping most Americans from playing it. I'm personally sick of playing as the US so I welcomed this change.

Not true. It's lack of a compelling BAD GUY!!!! Jesus, it's like people just started playing this series....FFS, 42 had the NAZI's....BFV had the VIET CONG....BF2 has what? MEC LOL????? Chinese pretty boys????? LOL

POE2 didn't capitalize on that mistake by EA.....for a war game, you have to have a clearly defined good guy vs bad guy environment. The UKR has not been demonized enough by the POE PR guys....and the Germans are supposed to be our good guys?

If the UKR is supposed to be the bad guys, then let's show it in-game. Let's show some mass graves, let's see heads on pikes....let's make it true to life. Show me some leech pits with dead women and children in them...make me hate the UKR or make me want to play as them. People sure did love playing as the Nazi's in '42.

[jameslcross]

Re: Mods - Why are folks not playing them?

I've tried playing a few, there either stupidly buggy, no servers/players or a combination of the two