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[RooMHM]

This generation is the best generation.

Careful, people will say you troll. Isn't DLC, Console Installs & patches (to make up for unfinished games), Broken architecture, RROD/YLOD, online hacks, preorder exclusives, shit games ... good for everyone? I don't get it. Every year is the best year ever (see the thread started always at the same time), every e3 best e3, etc... And it's been 10 years without a game as big as HL, Starcraft, Q3, Deus Ex or Diablo for example. The coincidence with PC genocide must be totally irrelevant.

 

[Interfectum]

They never said this.

False.

 

[domlolz]

DiceLC.

Still disappointed they don't want to release an SDK or something for the community to have fun with.

but has dice ever done this? yeah it makes things easier but the talented people that make up the mod community won't let something like no proper mod support stop them.

 

[Saige]

-On Twitter when someone asked about why the cover art has a blue soldier with the flame on his chest exactly like BC2, the developer replied with "Which one sold more, huh?".
-The class system is closer to BC2's than BF2's.
-The HUD is more like BC2's than BF2's.

They've only said it once before but this way of thinking is obviously showing through their design. Actions speak louder than words.

For something as minor as boxart I’m fine with them going with the “which one sold more” route, and don’t see how that small thing has anything to do with larger design decisions.

And wouldn’t the class system be closer to BF 2142 since medic and assault are combined and there is now a dedicated support class?

As for the hud, I think it looks like a good mix of both games. BC2 seemed to have a decent hud that was just missing a healthbar, and maybe a compass to give directional orders. Maybe I’m forgetting something but what’s missing from BF2?

 

[Sibylus]

Ok, then name me 5 popular mods for games that were released after July 15th 2004?

I'll give you a lot more than 5:

Moddb
Moddb - MoTYs (2002-2010)

 

[Sidewinder]

but has dice ever done this? yeah it makes things easier but the talented people that make up the mod community won't let something like no proper mod support stop them.

I sincerely hope so! Desert Combat, Forgotten Hope, Project Reality, Point of Existence...without those it wouldn't have been the same.

 

[JWong]

I'll give you a lot more than 5:

Moddb
Moddb - MoTYs (2002-2010)

The key word is popular.

I look at 2010's winners and I don't even know what they are.

 

[Arnie]

-On Twitter when someone asked about why the cover art has a blue soldier with the flame on his chest exactly like BC2, the developer replied with "Which one sold more, huh?".
-The class system is closer to BC2's than BF2's.
-The HUD is more like BC2's than BF2's.

They've only said it once before but this way of thinking is obviously showing through their design. Actions speak louder than words.

Yes but that's to do with audience perception and is a perfectly valid comment, that doesn't mean they're eschewing the Battlefield 2 lineage from a gameplay perspective, in fact they've said the opposite.

No the class system is more in line with 2142 than BC2, which just goes to show how quickly people are to judge and complain. I reinstalled Battlefield 2 a couple of days ago and I can say that my rose tinted glasses were wrong, BF2's class system is a pile of shit. There's simply no need for Anti-Tank and Engineer to be separate classes, it just makes the dynamics of combat that bit less dynamic. Fixing vehicles is such a niche role in Battlefield that to separate that into its own class entirely just means you end up with less people able to fix vehicles. The proportion of people willing to dedicate themselves solely to fixing vehicles is extremely low, and as a result you just get less people fixing vehicles.

Yes the HUD is different but this is mainly cosmetic. The mini map is gone for good reason, because it is unnecessary, intrusive on the screen and doesn't really do that good a job of informing the player where things are. They've since changed that by incorporating the spotting mechanic into the game world itself, whilst a map is always viewable for those who need it. Outside of that it's just colouration of lettering etc, and I don't understand why this would cause an issue. So the words are green and blue rather than red and blue, or yellow, is this a problem? Do you want your sprint indicator to be white boxes in a grey housing like BF2, is anything to the contrary blasphemy and proof that DICE are destroying what good came out of BF2? EDIT: just checked and the mini map is still in, which just compounds my point even more. What exactly is the problem with the UI?

I think people are far too quick to judge and spit their dummies out, especially when they've ensured all these things we want to see from BF2: 64 players, huge maps, prone, jets etc are all in the game. Secondly I think too many people don't recognise that Battlefield has progressed since 2 and for the better. 2142 gave us an improved squad system which 3 seems to be adopting and Bad Company was the test bed for destruction which again, 3 seems to be adopting. Battlefield 3 is a mix of all the Battlefield games to create the best Battlefield possible with the best things intact from 2 that you love.

Do we really need the Commander back? Similarly in it's current form is the commo rose a hindrance (playing last night was just a constant barrage of orders and jargon, there wasn't enough time to react).

 

[CozMick]

Perfect!

 

[Fersis]

1) Maybe they use third party tools that cant be shared?
2) EA doesnt want to 'give away' they beloved FB2.0
3) They dont have enough time to make a nice user frontend for the mass public.
4) They dont give a damn.

 

[Menelaus]

I really can't believe you guys are still going on about this.

 

[CozMick]

But how will they fit the mod tools onto a 6.8gb dvd?

At least now Consoles and PC are as one.....

 

[Stallion Free]

1) Maybe they use third party tools that cant be shared?

98% of companies do so they just leave the plugins to the engine so that people who do have those third party tools can import stuff as they do.

But how will they fit the mod tools onto a 6.8gb dvd?

At least now Consoles and PC are as one.....

Lol.

 

[Broder Salsa]

I really can't believe you guys are still going on about this.

Why not? It's a pretty big deal.

 

[Sibylus]

The key word is popular.

I look at 2010's winners and I don't even know what they are.

Methinks the large and self-sustaining community at Moddb has a wider perspective of what's "popular" than one forumgoer and his personal tastes. Don't get me wrong: My own perspective is just as limited, and I'm as given to playing a small handful of mods and forgoing a lot of others as any other, but Moddb (and sites like it) show pretty clearly that there's a lot of life in modding because people are still very interested and there's a lot of new faces making things. Even older titles (such as the original Half-Life) have been having a second life the past few years.

 

[Salazar]

I really can't believe you guys are still going on about this.

A developer saying flat out that modders can't handle their tech is ludicrous. And rude. And stupid. When used as an excuse, something ludicrous, rude, and stupid deserves a retort.

 

[Menelaus]

Why not? It's a pretty big deal.

No, actually, it's not. It was one of the very first details confirmed after the announcement of the game. Anyone thinking that EA will allow mods to their brand new cashcow engine is an idiot, quite frankly. The age of mods is over. The age of paid on-disc DLC is here to stay, and mods aren't a part of that formula. Adapt or die.

 

[JWong]

Methinks the large and self-sustaining community at Moddb has a wider perspective of what's "popular" than one forumgoer and his personal tastes. Don't get me wrong: My own perspective is just as limited, and I'm as given to playing a small handful of mods and forgoing a lot of others as any other, but Moddb (and sites like it) show pretty clearly that there's a lot of life in modding because people are still very interested and there's a lot of new faces making things. Even older titles (such as the original Half-Life) have been having a second life the past few years.

But what is modding doing for Half-Life 1 right now? I doubt it's selling any more copies than if a dozen mods released for it.
I'm looking at one of the mods "Eastern Front", which is a CoH mod. About 300 thousand downloads. I doubt that a single one of them didn't already have CoH.

What does modding do for the developer? Because it clearly doesn't make them any more relevant than it was.

 

[Dead Man]

Eh, DICE has never been big on releasing mod tools, or making the game mod friendly.

So the hate is that they don't go through and take the time and effort to make mod tools (time=money) so that maybe someone will make a cool mod some day? But what if that cool mod hurts BF4?

Then there are already several engines out there that are mod friendly and do great documentation and try and make things usable.

Releasing mod tools/sdk is more than just packing another gig of files and a .exe along.

It's a huge cost and DICE/EA doesn't feel it's worth the money.

Mods/Total Conversions haven't been a big deal for the last 7 years or so.

Well, at least we know the leading contender for post of the month.

 

[Stallion Free]

But what is modding doing for Half-Life 1 right now? I doubt it's selling any more copies than if a dozen mods released for it.
I'm looking at one of the mods "Eastern Front", which is a CoH mod. About 300 thousand downloads. I doubt that a single one of them didn't already have CoH.

What does modding do for the developer? Because it clearly doesn't make them any more relevant than it was.

It sure as hell makes them less relevant though, to those 300,000 who downloaded mods for their last game.

 

[Dead Man]

But what is modding doing for Half-Life 1 right now? I doubt it's selling any more copies than if a dozen mods released for it.
I'm looking at one of the mods "Eastern Front", which is a CoH mod. About 300 thousand downloads. I doubt that a single one of them didn't already have CoH.

What does modding do for the developer? Because it clearly doesn't make them any more relevant than it was.

I guarantee I would not have bough FO:NV if it wasn't for Bethesdas attitude on mods and mod tools, same for Skyrim when it is released. Mods sell games. Many? No idea, but if they spend as little as possible on the tools, and don't actively prevent them, then that is enough for most. The only things mods cost are DLC sales, maybe.

 

[Stallion Free]

I guarantee I would not have bough FO:NV if it wasn't for Bethesdas attitude on mods and mod tools, same for Skyrim when it is released. Mods sell games. Many? No idea, but if they spend as little as possible on the tools, and don't actively prevent them, then that is enough for most. The only things mods cost are DLC sales, maybe.

I bet mod tools have like zero impact on the DLC sales for the Fallout games. If you release real quality DLC, the fans will be happy to pick it up to go with their mods. Bethesda is a boss and they put those mod tools out and don't try to remove competition for their DLC.

 

[Sibylus]

But what is modding doing for Half-Life 1 right now? I doubt it's selling any more copies than if a dozen mods released for it.
I'm looking at one of the mods "Eastern Front", which is a CoH mod. About 300 thousand downloads. I doubt that a single one of them didn't already have CoH.

What does modding do for the developer? Because it clearly doesn't make them any more relevant than it was.

I wouldn't have sales numbers on hand, but the amount and quality of mods available for games like HL1 and 2 definitely provoke public interest and purchases. The presence of mod tools also leads to purchases, because it gives those so inclined a workshop and an audience for their creations. For my own part, I buy for both reasons (as well as the game). Those two bullet points aren't empty to people.

Call it "mind share", call it turning customers into repeat customers, at the end of the day it creates a tighter-knit community around games, more dependable customers, and it keeps interest in a title alive for far longer than the alternative. Nothing turns off the people who love to work with modding tools and the people who play mods more than to see a dev decide that they're going to nickle and dime everyone and restrict mod development, because it sends the message that said developer no longer cares to reconcile community with profit. A contingent may remain to slap together ad hoc solutions, but the bulk of your modding audience will divert their energies elsewhere (and potentially to competitors' titles). As it should be. If you're going to be wholly mercenary with regard to your game and content, your community's going to return the favor.

You're free to believe that none of this matters, but I don't find that assertion credible in the least.

 

[fabricated backlash]

No, actually, it's not. It was one of the very first details confirmed after the announcement of the game. Anyone thinking that EA will allow mods to their brand new cashcow engine is an idiot, quite frankly. The age of mods is over. The age of paid on-disc DLC is here to stay, and mods aren't a part of that formula. Adapt or die.

No offense but you're a sheep.

 

[subversus]

DICE has no interest in licensing their engine = no mod tools for you people. Please adress Epic, Crytek and Valve with all your modding needs.

 

[domlolz]

But how will they fit the mod tools onto a 6.8gb dvd?

At least now Consoles and PC are as one.....

The same could of been said about BF2, that didn't have proper mod support

 

[NinjaBoiX]

I don't get all the hate for this decision. It was possibly a little patronising to suggest that people wouldn't be able to use the mod tools properly, but as far as I concerned, any dev willing to let you tweak their game is offering a sweet bonus. No need to rail on DICE for not allowing it, I'm surprised as many dev's do allow it to be honest.

 

[Stallion Free]

I don't get all the hate for this decision. It was possibly a little patronising to suggest that people wouldn't be able to use the mod tools properly, but as far as I concerned, any dev willing to let you tweak their game is offering a sweet bonus. No need to rail on DICE for not allowing it, I'm surprised as many dev's do allow it to be honest.

PC devs in tune with their communities do it.'

Dice is getting railed for calling mod communities too dumb and for lying straight to our faces. Which means they just think everyone is dumb and believes PR shit.

 

[Mr. B Natural]

Mods are a big deal. It's what makes PC gaming PC gaming. Not the keyboard and mouse, not the specs and framerate, it's the mods. It's the person that says "I like this but I wish it was a little different" or "ya know, I think I can do something with this..." and actually makes it and allows the world to enjoy the difference. That's the real core defining factor between PC gaming and Console gaming that doesn't break down to personal preference and nit picking.
If you're gonna make a game FOR the PC, you need to embrace that just like if you're gonna make a game FOR the Wii, you better embrace motion controls or you're missing the point and have to ask yourself why you chose the platform as your main platform.

 

[Emitan]

But what is modding doing for Half-Life 1 right now? I doubt it's selling any more copies than if a dozen mods released for it.
I'm looking at one of the mods "Eastern Front", which is a CoH mod. About 300 thousand downloads. I doubt that a single one of them didn't already have CoH.

What does modding do for the developer? Because it clearly doesn't make them any more relevant than it was.

Great argument! "300 thousand downloads of this mod? I'll just say that all of them owned the game before and completely ignore the fact that a huge important mod keeps a game relevant and gets its name out to people so they might buy it." If you truly believe mods are worthless you should just stop arguing because you're only weakening your position with nonsense.

 

[Menelaus]

No offense but you're a sheep.

Not at all, but good on you for trying!

 

[Anton Sugar]

No offense but you're a sheep.

Menelaus isn't a sheep, he's just an asshole. And I wouldn't be surprised if he's right in the coming years. DLC ain't going nowhere.

 

[AzureNightmare]

Not at all, but good on you for trying!

Nah, he's right, you're a sheep.

 

[Menelaus]

Menelaus isn't a sheep, he's just an asshole. And I wouldn't be surprised if he's right in the coming years. DLC ain't going nowhere.

All killer, no filler, baby. I guess if I was 10 years younger and still pouring thousands into my gaming PC I'd be more butthurt, but now that I'm a sensible adult that understands how money works, I can't fault EA (from a business perspective).

 

[Stallion Free]

I can't fault EA (from a business perspective).

How is Bethesda still rolling in dough from Fallout and Oblivion? They let modders have their mod tools and they eat their DLC cake too. Everyone is happy and money keeps flowing in.

 

[Menelaus]

If Bethesda didn't support mod tools, no one would buy their janky, half-baked, broken-ass games.

Not really an apples to apples comparison IMO.

 

[Stallion Free]

If Bethesda didn't support mod tools, no one would buy their janky, half-baked, broken-ass games.

Not really an apples to apples comparison IMO.

Lol, their " janky, half-baked, broken-ass games" seem to do fine on consoles without mod tools.

And Dice doesn't exactly have a stellar record for launching games in a polished/blanced state.

So yeah, my comparison works just fine.

 

[Menelaus]

And Dice doesn't exactly have a stellar record for launching games in a polished/blanced state.

Has nothing to do with mods.

All of this discussion is irrelevant. EA's gameplan has been obvious for years now.

 

[spicy cho]

I sincerely hope someone at dice has the balls and takes a stand by leaking the level editor, if it's possible. DLC doesn't belong on the PC.

 

[Stallion Free]

Has nothing to do with mods.

Yes it does. We could have had a tremendously better balanced, feature packed BC2 if it had mod tools. Which is no different from Bethesda games.

 

[subversus]

Yes it does. We could have had a tremendously better balanced, feature packed BC2 if it had mod tools. Which is no different from Bethesda games.

well, at least we could have some new vehicles, big maps and weapons.

I agree, mod tools would be awesome, but DICE have already said multiple times (even in the form of a very big forum post from one of the programmers) that they're very difficult to develop and there are no big financial gains from them to justify this kind of development.

I may dig this post up...

 

[Cheech]

The fact of the matter is that we have an embarrassment of great games to choose from. This is not the 1990s when AAA multiplayer experiences only came out once every couple years.

I really don't think this is a big deal. BF3 is shipping with tons of maps.

 

[subversus]

and here it is:

You folks have asked about it, so here’s a piece on the modtools situation for BC2 PC.

Frostbite 1.5 consists of these components:

The game runtime
The editor runtime
The content processing runtime (aka “the pipeline”)
and some plugins for Maya
The game runtime is distributed outside of EA, but the editor + pipeline + Maya plugins are not.

So let’s take a look at some things that would need to be solved before we’d be ready to distribute the editor + pipeline.


Pipeline operation

Let’s say that you tell the pipeline to build level MP_003.

MP_003 is represented by an XML file, which references a bunch of other files. These in turn reference other files. If you follow this graph of references, you will find the level layout, heightmap, characters, weapons, vehicles, and all the content that you can see in-game. (The in-game HUD and related stuff might also be in the graph.)

When the pipeline is about to build MP_003, it will first perform a consistency check on all content, and yell if any file that is referenced by any other is not present.

If all files are present, the pipeline will attempt to convert all files referenced by MP_003. It uses the file system journal to determine which files have changed on-disk. Also, and any files that have already been converted have info on which files depend on it (so it has info like: “if file X changes, then files Y,Z,W will also need to be rebuilt”).

Building all content for BC2 from scratch takes something like 48-72 hours on a normal workstation. Half that time is spent building common content (such as character animations), half builds level-specific content.

In addition, there’s a caching mechanism: if the pipeline wants to build a specific bit of content, it will first check if the pre-built content is already available on a cache server and take the result directly from the cache server instead. The pipeline can also populate the cache if it builds something new.

Pipeline issues

So how does this work in practice? It’s not ideal, but it’s good enough for us to ship games on it.

The pipeline is a bit overzealous with regards to rebuilding assets – sometimes it rebuilds stuff that it shouldn’t need to.

The pipeline will normally crash about 2-3 times during a full rebuild.

You need to have Maya 8.5 (32-bit version) installed in order to convert any meshes.

Any content in the cache expires after 3 weeks. After 3 weeks have passed, that content will need to be rebuilt and re-uploaded by a machine running the pipeline. The effect that this has on day-to-day development is minimized by having one or two machines dedicated to running the pipeline every time any content change is done. By running the pipeline, those machines will populate the cache, thereby speeding up the build process for everyone else. (The output form those content build steps is discarded.)

In short: the pipeline + cache setup works better the more people are using it simultaneously.

If there are content errors, you need to know a lot about the internals of the game engine to figure out what’s wrong.

Finally, in its current form, the pipeline + editor expects some specific IT infrastructure in place (most notably the cache server and a Perforce server).
If it’s not there then the pipeline + editor will behave strangely.
The first time I tried, it took me about one week to get the full editor + pipeline setup to work properly outside of the DICE office. And that was when I had the option to call any of the other developers to ask for help.

… does this sound bad to you?

Truth be told, this is approximately where the industry average is at for game studios’ internal game engines. One of FB 1.5′s weaknesses is specifically that its content processing is flaky, and the flakiness gets more problematic as the amount of content goes up. FB 2.0 is much improved in this regard, but FB 1.5 is what we’re using for BC2 and that’s what relevant in the current discussion (or monologue if you prefer).

Content

Both the pipeline and the editor takes in all content in its raw, original form. Anyone who is to build any content needs the full 80GB of raw data on their machine. We are not comfortable giving out all our animations, meshes etc in raw form.

We are comfortable giving out the processed data – after all, that’s what on the game disc – but that data does not plug into the editor/pipeline at all.

Licenses

The game, editor and pipeline all use commercial middleware. It is developed by Havok and several other companies.

The licensing agreement for the middleware allows us to use that code in specific products, on specific platforms.
If we want to release editor + pipeline, we need to license the middleware specifically for this. How much would that be? Perhaps $1M-$3M. I’m guessing wildly here.

Stripping out that middleware would seriously hamper the functionality especially of the pipeline. We use Havok Physics, for instance. Without Havok Physics, the pipeline wouldn’t be able to convert any of the physics meshes. We also use Granny. Without Granny, the pipeline will not be able to convert any of the character animations. Etc.

Re-implementing the necessary functionality of the middleware ourselves (“let’s make our own physics engine / let’s plug in an open-source physics engine”) would take literally man-years. Licensing is cheaper in pure $ cost and faster (it works now instead of by 2012).

The pipeline also uses some code that is under GPL. Given that we do not want to release the full source code for the editor + pipeline, we would need to replace the GPLed code with other implementations.

The GPLed code is less of a problem than the proprietary middleware.

Editor

The editor itself is reasonably stable and well-behaving. It is far from obvious how to set up the game logic for a level, but that is easily covered by releasing some example levels which contain the logic setup for the common gamemodes.

Test-running levels

First the level needs to be successfully processed by the pipeline. Then you’d want to be able to test it locally. That involves having a listen server around. We don’t have a listen server neatly packaged. There’s probably a piracy angle here too but I’m not going to discuss that.

Distribution of levels

Getting levels onto the RSPs server machines would likely not be any problem. However there’s need for checksumming levels, so that game clients can know whether or not they have the correct version of level X on their machines. There’s a whole bunch of other things (mainly UI-related) which will need cleaning up as well. Not difficult to do, just takes time and I’m listing it for the sake of completeness.

Also, there are some complications wrt when we release patches that affect the base game’s content. Whenever we release a patch, all existing levels will need to be rebuilt with a new set of original data. This is because some level-common data is stored inside of the level archives. I’m not sure at the time of writing, but that probably means that the only manageable way for us would be to invalidate any user-made levels when we release a patch of that form.
Then creators of any user-generated levels would be required to run their levels again through the pipeline with the new base content supplied.

So how about just a map editor?

If it doesn’t plug into the ecosystem above, then getting it to work involves some serious wrangling. Either it is a light-weight replacement for our existing editor – in which case all the challenges with the pipeline still remain – or it is a separate mode (think Forge for Halo). Developing an extra mod-layer that is sandwiched into the game would easily take 6-12 months.

Synergy effects between FB 1.5 and FB 2.0

So let’s say that we would go through the procedure of making mod tools for FB 1.5. How much of that work would be reusable for FB 2.0?
I don’t have any firm figures, but the differences between FB 1.5 and FB 2.0 are pretty large by now. Given this and the fact that a fair bit of the FB 1.5-specific problems (where the devil often is in the details) don’t apply to FB 2.0, I’d guess that less than half of the work would port over to FB 2.0.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my recommendation to the rest of DICE is not to develop mod tools for BC2 PC. There are too many hurdles to overcome. That energy is better spent elsewhere, be that on BC2 or other titles.

I guess no questions should be left after this.

Cryengine uses proprietory stuff, Epic are pushing their engine and are obscenely rich.

 

[Emitan]

WTF DICE. No wonder their games are glitchy as hell.

 

[Blizzard]

and here it is:



I guess no questions should be left after this.

Cryengine uses proprietory stuff, Epic are pushing their engine and are obscenely rich.

Thanks, that was interesting. The pipeline sounds crazy but I guess if it works internally for them, then whatever...the UDK crashes too which makes the Frostbite crashes during builds sound less entertaining. I'm kind of surprised the programmer was even allowed to be that open about the internal situation there.

It will be interesting to see how much "source code" Crytek releases since I seem to recall they mentioned "full source code" support or something to that effect in their upcoming free engine/editor project.

I do understand it can make some degree of business sense not to spend the extra time trying to develop, support, and license the stuff your engine and/or editor requires, especially if it wasn't designed with that in mind to begin with. If you can spend 6 months with a small group of employees to develop a robust editor that MIGHT get you some extra purchases or fans down the road, as opposed to selling $10 maps/map packs that (maybe) hundreds of thousands of people buy, I'd say the paid DLC is almost surely a better bet. Are any lost fans/sales from not having an editor going to match up to the money you gain with paid DLC? I rather doubt it.

 

[Frankenstrat]

weak. I was looking forward to dinosaur mods.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

unfortunate. Will they give me access to a command console so I can turn stupid effects like dust and snow off while I snipe?

 

[subversus]

unfortunate. Will they give me access to a command console so I can turn stupid effects like dust and snow off while I snipe?

I hope not.

/shudders

 

[JWong]

unfortunate. Will they give me access to a command console so I can turn stupid effects like dust and snow off while I snipe?

You mean, will they let you cheat in multiplayer?

 

[les papillons sexuels]

You mean, will they let you cheat in multiplayer?

wow... I didn't know people hated realism in bf so much. Maybe if they spent more time designing better levels and mechanics they wouldn't need to fall back on a stupid smoke screen to balance out an entire class.