http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/111189/
DICE on Competitive BC2
@ Spotlights channel
With Bad Company 2 patch news on the tips of most of my peers tongues and with a lot of unanswered questions regarding the competitive future of the game, I felt it was important to try to get some honest answers for the competitive community from developers DICE.
This column is the sole opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Heaven Media Ltd or the opinion of any affiliates.
It's been well known for some time now that Bad Company 2 came out of the box with a number of problems client-side and server-side, and after some investigation it was quickly realised that the game is not suitable for competitive gameplay. Many standardized features such as demo recording and spectator mode have been removed from the feature-set which appeared in previous Battlefield titles, as well as other gameplay related issues which made balanced competitive gameplay impossible.
However, with a number of patches released over the last few months, many competitive BC2 player felt it was high time they knew whether it was worth supporting and playing the game any longer in the hope for competitive support. Partly through a sense of urgency, I went looking for answers.
DICE recently employed a new Community Manager, 'zh1nt0', who came onboard and immediately declared his competitive experiences and aspirations for the Battlefield series. With an approachable style and daily updates via Twitter, the Battlefield Blog and the EA Forums, his appointment has been met with a positive response from all sections of the community.
However, many players still felt that there had to be some solid support for competitive gameplay in the near future to retain the majority of players wishing to take Battlefield to that next level. With ESL already rejecting the game for EMS due to lack of competitive support, some tough questions needed to be answered.
With that in mind, Martin 'nKM' Bowman brings you an exclusive interview with the new DICE Community Manager regarding competitive Bad Company 2:
Hi Daniel, thanks for agreeing to talk to me about competitive BFBC2.
Congratulations on your new job as the Battlefield Community Manager at DICE. How are you settling in on your new role and what are your first impressions of the tasks at hand?
My role at DICE is officially called “Community Manager”. This is a very broad term that includes all aspects of interacting with the community in one way or another. It could be from developing projects from information gathered from the community to posting on forums and interacting with the players. I’m settling in really good. DICE is a very large company with over 200 employees in the very heart of Stockholm. A lot of the Battlefield Community members have asked find out more about you as you’ve mentioned you’re an active competitive gamer. Would you like to tell me a little bit about your background in competition and how you ended up applying for the role?
Well, I started playing actively when I was in middle school. I mainly focused on RPG games but as Q3 was released I was locked on FPS. Shortly after Q3, UT also caught my attention so I played both of these games for a while and still do sometimes. I later began playing the Battlefield games which were BF 1942, BFV, BF2 and also Bad Company 2. What really appealed to me was the multiplayer mode which was absolutely immense. That is also why i decided to compete in the different games in different leagues.
I actually studied to be a social science teacher, and later moved on to Public Relations and also Customer Relations. I felt the Community Manager role would fit me since I know these games by heart and I also have large plans for the BF Community in whole. It's all about having love for the game and the Community. Many BC2 players are intrigued to see a competitive player in a position of responsibility at DICE. What’s your experience on a competitive eSports level and what’s your initial impression of how BC2 performs in that respect? We saw that you were recently in the finals of a tournament on the PS3?
First of all, my experience in competitive E-sports has always been a good one. Seeing as there used to be only a few countries always winning the same ladders, cups or tournaments over and over again, I find it very pleasing that new countries are competing at the same level. Ukraine, Brazil, Portugal, Spain and Estonia are a few countries that have developed into really good teams that I think can give anyone a run for their money.
I actually missed the final that I was supposed to play in. I was lured away by my friends to a cabin on the countryside which I despised from the first sight of it. I returned on Sunday with at least 40 mosquito bites and two ticks on my left leg just to see that the finals had already been played. Bad Company 2 has suffered through lack of competitive functionality. Proper competitive support would revitalise the community, but is it too late for Bad Company 2?
Thanks for that info - Let’s get down to the business of competitive BC2 on PC.
I have recently given you a summary of all the feedback I’ve gathered from competitive gamers, many of whom are largely unimpressed with the lack of functionality and ‘console-like’ bugs which are hampering game play and turning away Battlefield veterans from the franchise.
Many players are disillusioned with DICE and are really looking for the new Community Manager to re-kindle the relationship between the competitive players and the developers. What message would you like to send out to all the Battlefield fans and competitive organisations who are already giving up on the Battlefield series due to a lack of support?
We are sorry that not all competitive gaming options made it into BC2 like we had in previous Battlefield titles. We however bare this in mind and really do evaluate all information sent to us via any branch of the community. The competitive scene is important to DICE and we are currently reviewing all input we are receiving. We also listen to the non competitive community. There’s a general consensus that BC2 has been de-prioritized in favour of other DICE projects like MOH, with rumours that there is just one programmer working on patches. Many players are unhappy that Associate Producer Gordon Van Dyke stated that Bad Company 2 would have the largest post-release support team DICE has ever had in Battlefield, however the opposite seems to be the case.
Can you tell us how many people are actively working on BC2 at the moment and what priorities they are working towards at this stage of development?
There is a team called Operation which deals with Bad Company 2 after it was released. We are a dedicated team that work with the patches, community updates and other things related to the game. There are many different priorities such as technical issues, community managing but also to see how Bad Company 2 develops as a game and how it is received after the release. The Medal of Honor team is a separate team and are not connected to the BF team. Also, BC2 is a highly prioritized game at DICE. You will no doubt know that the latest BC2 patch for PC has been fraught with numerous delays that have upset the community and led to the idea that DICE is not concerned with post-release support. Can you tell us where you stand on this?
Is there anything you can tell us about the frequency and direction of future support for this game as many of my peers have told me that they would happily pay a subscription or fee in return for proper competitive support in this game and future games from DICE?
Well, everyone at the office is working very hard to get the patches out in time. I am actually stunned by the level of dedication towards the game and the community. We must not forget that most of the people working at DICE play Battlefield on a regular basis. Post-release support for DICE is high priority and the support for all BF games are important. Now that that’s cleared up – let’s talk about the competitive aspects of the game itself.
As a player, you will surely be aware of the lack of functionality that most FPS players in many games expect as a standard, including the likes of an end of round scoreboard, round timers, server-side admin functions and other major features to support the competitive game. Many Bad Company 2 players come from BF2 and BF2142 and are accustomed to a certain level of functionality.
Can you tell us if you plan to introduce a scoreboard to the PC version of Bad Company 2 which includes a ticket score, and whether DICE is open to feedback on what kind of support competitive players need server-side (on unranked servers)? I’m referring to basic requirement including a round timer, map restart function and other customizable global variables such as time limits, spawn delay/time, and limitations for kits – can you give a comment on these? Similar variables are standard in other games including Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 which allowed leagues and ladders to iron out competitive rulesets, so can we expect to see similar features in BC2?
Well, some of the features were added into the latest R8 Patch. As I mentioned previously DICE reviews all feedback from the Community no matter what part of the Community the requests are coming from. alguien si puede que traduzca
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