It needs to be free and here is why.
I absolutely love and hate (maybe more so) expansions or sequels for every multiplayer game I have ever played. They add more content, but in the process they split the community and no matter what the community always loses. People buy the expansion and play it for a couple month and then the amount of servers declines and you end up having to stick with the game or expansion that has more people playing since most of the time you can't find a server with enough people playing to be fun.
One example would be Desert Combat Mod for BF1942 (yes I know it's a mod but in it's own right it was an entirely new game). When BF Vietnam came out it was a decent game, but it was buggy and unbalanced. There were some good bits however and I know a lot of people loved it, but they are a small minority. After about 4 months the amount of servers at least in my area went from I think over 350 down to about 150 (I really can't remember how many servers there were so don't take this as fact) and most of those were admin'ed by total dicks. Three months later even more servers were gone. The last time I tried to play BFV was back in 05 and it just felt like a waste of hard drive space and my time. Anyway, within the first 3 months of BFV being released most people were back playing Desert Combat. Want to know why? It was because Desert Combat didn't split the BF community since everyone who had the base BF1942 game could play, it's a better game than BFV, and it's FREE.
I want DICE/EA to do three things for at least the PC players of BC2.
1. Release the Bad Company 2 Vietnam expansion for free to everyone with BC2.
2. Limit everyone who didn't buy the expansion to only the starting weapons and gadgets and no custom kits.
3. Allow people who didn't buy the expansion to pick up the kits of people who have bought the expansion so they know what they are missing out on.
This would allow the entire BC2 community to play together so as not to be split up and also give people incentive to buy the expansion so you can use all the other weapon unlocks and gadgets. EA would probably get way more sales since people would want to use the better weapon and gadget unlocks.
There are way fewer people playing the PC version of BC2. When they come out with the expansion maybe 10-20% of the PC community will be playing it exclusively. Right now there are only about 1250-1400 servers with people playing (when someone reads this it will be different, currently as of this post there were 1301 servers with people playing) and on weekends it goes up to maybe 1600. There is close to 6800 servers total.
1600 x 32 = 51200 This is being generous because not all the servers people are currently playing on have 32 player slots and 1600 is a peak number of servers with people playing.
1300 x 32 - 25% = 31200 That is a more reasonable "estimate" of how many people are actually playing world wide. If you subtract 15% of community that will be playing the expansion only, you have only 26520 people left playing BC2 worldwide.
There is a chance the expansion could bring in more people or people who stopped playing, but without any real data on the size of the community except for how many populated servers there are it's hard to speculate how large the PC community really is. If you estimate how many people are actually playing you will see why the expansion really needs to be free so it doesn't split the community.
I absolutely love and hate (maybe more so) expansions or sequels for every multiplayer game I have ever played. They add more content, but in the process they split the community and no matter what the community always loses. People buy the expansion and play it for a couple month and then the amount of servers declines and you end up having to stick with the game or expansion that has more people playing since most of the time you can't find a server with enough people playing to be fun.
One example would be Desert Combat Mod for BF1942 (yes I know it's a mod but in it's own right it was an entirely new game). When BF Vietnam came out it was a decent game, but it was buggy and unbalanced. There were some good bits however and I know a lot of people loved it, but they are a small minority. After about 4 months the amount of servers at least in my area went from I think over 350 down to about 150 (I really can't remember how many servers there were so don't take this as fact) and most of those were admin'ed by total dicks. Three months later even more servers were gone. The last time I tried to play BFV was back in 05 and it just felt like a waste of hard drive space and my time. Anyway, within the first 3 months of BFV being released most people were back playing Desert Combat. Want to know why? It was because Desert Combat didn't split the BF community since everyone who had the base BF1942 game could play, it's a better game than BFV, and it's FREE.
I want DICE/EA to do three things for at least the PC players of BC2.
1. Release the Bad Company 2 Vietnam expansion for free to everyone with BC2.
2. Limit everyone who didn't buy the expansion to only the starting weapons and gadgets and no custom kits.
3. Allow people who didn't buy the expansion to pick up the kits of people who have bought the expansion so they know what they are missing out on.
This would allow the entire BC2 community to play together so as not to be split up and also give people incentive to buy the expansion so you can use all the other weapon unlocks and gadgets. EA would probably get way more sales since people would want to use the better weapon and gadget unlocks.
There are way fewer people playing the PC version of BC2. When they come out with the expansion maybe 10-20% of the PC community will be playing it exclusively. Right now there are only about 1250-1400 servers with people playing (when someone reads this it will be different, currently as of this post there were 1301 servers with people playing) and on weekends it goes up to maybe 1600. There is close to 6800 servers total.
1600 x 32 = 51200 This is being generous because not all the servers people are currently playing on have 32 player slots and 1600 is a peak number of servers with people playing.
1300 x 32 - 25% = 31200 That is a more reasonable "estimate" of how many people are actually playing world wide. If you subtract 15% of community that will be playing the expansion only, you have only 26520 people left playing BC2 worldwide.
There is a chance the expansion could bring in more people or people who stopped playing, but without any real data on the size of the community except for how many populated servers there are it's hard to speculate how large the PC community really is. If you estimate how many people are actually playing you will see why the expansion really needs to be free so it doesn't split the community.
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