Topic: Star Wars: Battlefront II (from DICE)

[MysterD]

NEW - 4/17/2017:
PC Gamer - Lead writer for Specs Ops: The Line (Walt Williams) will be doing the writing for Star Wars: Battlefront 2's Campaign.


OLD:
Youtube - Trailer for SW: Battlefront 2 from DICE - which this time around, this also will have a SP Campaign.
PC Gamer -- Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (DICE) First Look: Everything We Know.

[MysterD]

YongYea on Youtube - "Star Wars: Battlefront 2 Loot Boxes are still Pay-To-Win Despite Adjustments".

[Cobra951]

I don't think there's a way back from this.  Pandora's (loot) box has been opened, and it can't be closed again.  Voting with dollars is a thing, and enough dimbulbs are throwing money by the truckload at these predatory practices that even if all the righteously indignant refuse to pay $60 apiece for the game, it won't make much difference. 

Yesterday, I watched a talking-heads video on IGN discussing these developments, and nearly all of them admitted to being "part of the problem" (verbatim quote from one of them).  It's hopeless.  So-called "AAA" games--meaning highly funded games under a public-corporation's control--will mostly get corrupted in this fashion, or similar.  I can't even blame them for this.  It is the fiscal duty of the officers of the corporation to grow profits for their investors, not to make good games.  They've found a so-far-legal exploit in human nature to tap into enormous new revenue streams.  Bleak outlook, I'm afraid.

Edit:  Found the IGN conversation video.  Skip ahead to 11:40.

Edit 2:  Another new Yong Yea video, linked on the youtube sidebar to D's posted video.

[scottws]

Yeah, just as we knew it would be, microtransactions are a problem.  Just look at the free-to-play crap on mobile.  I remember speaking to a teenager who admitted to spending over $300 on Clash of Clans gems.  He said he was given a bunch of iTunes gift cards and didn't know what else to spend them on.

I asked if he would spend $300 up front for the game.  He said no, and went on to say he knows it's stupid but sort of shrugged his shoulders about it.

[MysterD]

YongYea on Youtube - EA's Defense of Battlefront 2's Locked Heroes is now the most downvoted post on Reddit.

There's a handful of hero characters (i.e. Luke, Vader, Rey, etc) and EA does plan to add more.
Right now, it takes about 40 hours to grind a Hero Character out without buying any LB's/MT's.
If you drop about $80 real money, you'll get enough Credits to unlock ONE HERO. Do the math, if you want them all.
173 hours or so to grind out to get ALL the Heroes currently in the game.

EDIT:
EA has cut the cost of Credits needed to unlock Heroes by 75% off.

[MysterD]

Here's Yong on EA cutting the cost of Credits by 75% off to unlock Heroes.

New update incoming soon from EA, b/c of the backlash - where Heroes' unlock cost has been cut by 75%.
Luke and Vader will be 15,000 Credits each.
Emperor Palpatine, Chewbacca, Leia Organa will be 10,000 Credits each.
Iden will be 5,000 Credits.

[MysterD]

Polygon - They look at Loot Crates and in-game economies; and how those items seem to impacting their reviews (i.e. causing games to be scored lower b/c of LB's/MT's are hurting the in-game experience).

They point it on these games - SW: BF2 from DICE, NFS: Payback, and SoW.

[MysterD]

Youtube - SW: BF2 (from DICE) limits the amount of Credits you can earn in Arcade Mode (i.e. offline mode).

[MysterD]

YongYea - EA pulls MT's (MicroTransactions) from SW: Battlefront 2 temporarily.

[PyroMenace]

I'm glad to see the outrage it received actually made a difference. They seem to want to come from the angle of "well every other game is doing it now!" when in fact its all about the way its done, which in this case is some pretty crazy bullshit.

[MysterD]

Key word = temporarily.

We're still not sure how long the pull will last; and what exactly changes they'll make to the MT's, LB's, and progression system.
We don't know if changes will be very small, minor, big, huge, or what yet.

These systems are coming back, but not sure in what form.

[Cobra951]

The backlash actually worked (for now at least)?  I'm guessing they're going to redesign their approach, wait for the fury to die down, then do it again, less objectionably (if that's possible).

More importantly, other publishers have taken note, I'm sure.  There is a limit to the milking that buyers will accept.

[MysterD]

PC Gamer - Belgium investigates LB's, decides LB's are gambling and wants Europe to ban them.

[Cobra951]

And now Hawaii too.

Your buddy YongYea sums it all up.

To borrow from him, shit just got real.  Wow.  Totally unexpected.  I still doubt this will add up to more than a big scare for the publishers, who will end up dodging any major consequences somehow.  At the very least, there will be less flagrant exploitation in full-priced games.  That seems like a sure victory now, and much quicker than I expected.  Hell, I had no expectations at all as of my post from the 13th.

[Quemaqua]

Well this is all very heartening.

[MysterD]

YongYea on Youtube - EA loses $3.1 billion in stock value b/c of the Battlefront 2 fiasco.

[Quemaqua]

[MysterD]

More YongYea on Youtube about DICE's Battlefront 2:

EA says BF2 Loot Boxes don't focus on LB's to preserve canon.
Hidden Customization Menu Found in Battlefront 2 After EA's Canon Preservation Excuse.

[MysterD]

YongYea - DICE's SW:BF2 is only 20% of COD:WW2's sales.

[MysterD]

Just finished the Single Player Campaign up for Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017) [PC/Origin].

Took about 10 hours, in total. It was very good.

Pretty much: all killer and lots of action, but no real filler. While the story & character development isn't always spectacular, since this is a DICE game - the Iden stuff (your lead character, voiced by Janina Gavankar, who steals the show, by the way) is actually good.

The problem is....a lot of the fan service. It's a double-edged sword - or double-edged lightsaber, in some cases - as the fan service stuff is often (of playing other characters) is good fun, awesome, and ties right into Iden's journey - but it doesn't really expand much on these characters. It does, however, give more gameplay & variety to the game and all, which is great. You will play as Legendary characters, use iconic vehicles, and partake in different types of combat - and this stuff is a blast; all of it. Star Wars fans will really love the fan service and gameplay stuff, which is given to them.

The game on mostly Medium at 1080p with 60fps at almost all times here runs great, looks great, and plays great. Can't really complain about this stuff. DICE with Frostbite again delivers the technical performance and technical graphics quality goods here, as usual. When it comes to action, shooting, combat, vehicle-driving, and graphics quality - it's just really hard to top what DICE's Frostbite can often output; and it shows here plenty in Battlefront II (2017).

You know, it's really a shame a Campaign like this will probably get overlooked b/c of the horrible launch issues from the Grind-fest of a P2W MP that the game originally launched with. When cheap enough, if you have no interest in the MP - get this game for the SP Campaign. Get it cheap, if you're only in for the SP b/c...for most, it'll take 5-10 hours to get through the campaign (depending on your skill as a player, difficulty chosen, and also how often you run into poorly placed auto-saves not helping matters).

If you have interest in the MP...well, when I tackle the MP (Multiplayer), I'll speak on it, let you all know if it's worthwhile...or not.