I think it's safe to say a lot of us came from Battlefield 2.
Battlefield 2 was a masterpiece in strategic, team based first person shooters. It really had everything I ever wanted. But, even when it first came out it was littered with bugs and problems. Most of us tend to forget it because the last patch that made a difference came out in 2006 (1.41) and then they were nice enough to throw the 1.5 patch at us in 2009.
I think having 5 solid years with a wonderfully working BF2 has made us forget that some games ship 'unfinished'.
When I first got Battlefield 3, I was wowed by the graphics and the control but a few things made me angry:
Reduction in classes
No Commander Mode
no VOIP
stupid Battlelog interface
smaller squads
The absolute WORST mini-map I've ever seen.
After a while, I actually didn't mind about the reduction in classes. I felt like they actually did a reasonable job balancing the classes and making some work better.
Commander mode is still a sore spot for me. I enjoyed getting my orders from a commander. I enjoyed requesting UAVs and artillery. In fact, I still think that it's BS that there's no way to call for UAVs. I understand that the user controlled MAV and Mortars are supposed to be a replacement for those things, but here's the problem:
No VOIP. This is still inexcusable. Without VOIP, you can't ask someone on your team as a whole to work a MAV to help spot people... you can't shout to a mortar person that you need support on an objective. It's 2012... and they thought it was ok to release a team-based PC game with no VOIP!? It's just ridiculous.
Luckily, we have Team Speak. Though without having a working OSD for Team Speak, we're relegated to using squad-only chat. It would be brilliant if there was a plugin that allowed for 'squad', 'team' and 'all' and also had a working OSD so you could tell who was talking (you know, like Battlefield 2 did in 2005...)
But I digress... despite all these shortcomings, the game is sufficiently enjoyable. When I'm actually playing the game, I'm not really thinking about these things. I'm playing the game for what it is.
I've noticed a distinct lack in players and I wonder what that can be attributed to. I've noticed a majority of CoD players are switching to Battlefield after another disappointing (to them) release of what some people refer to as MOTSOS or "more of the same old shit". You know... like Madden and Guitar Hero and now Call of Duty.
I do think the majority of the gripes in this game can be handled with a simple VOIP installation with an OSD and both team and squad based voice targeting. Though it has not been even acknowledged by DICE at this point... it will be eternally frustrating.
Despite these setbacks, I think we all need to just 'get over it' and play the game.
Either that or agree to abandon it entirely and go back to BF2.
This article was originally published in blog:
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