Launch day woes are unavoidable. Pre-order figures can help, but predicting server load is always going to be just that–a prediction. This problem stands twofold when you’re one the most highly anticipated games of the year, boasting multiplayer worthy of tackling one of the best selling franchises of all time. Everything won’t go smoothly, but with enough support hopefully nothing will be broken long enough for fans to light their torches, grab their pitchforks, and raid your offices.
To look at a console-focused game like Call of Duty as direct competition, Battlefield 3’s PC alternatives should have been competent. Instead, players were witnessing extreme amounts of lag, matchmaking issues, animations out of sync, squads getting split up, and worst of all the inability to simply connect to a server. The game’s campaign wasn’t performing up to standards either, although the experience was considerably better than the multiplayer. Maybe staying up until midnight to buy Battlefield 3 for the singleplayer wasn’t such a perplexing idea.
On the PC side of things, DICE’s lead platform for Battlefield 3, EA’s darling digital service Origin caused more than a few headaches. The amount of hoops that must be jumped through to get into a match is baffling, leaving a bunch of room for error. Just like its console counterparts, the PC version of Battlefield 3 suffered various mishaps with crashes and lag. You could quietly accept it having a hard time on consoles, but on the essential platform that is capable of running the stellar Frostbite 2 engine at its best? I’m sure more than a few people felt like screaming.An official EA forum user maps out the problems occurring on consoles.
Clearly, even Battlefield 3 isn’t inherently immune from messy release days. While EA scrambled to appease the millions of players aching to fly a jet into something, the internet was abuzz with complaints, excuses, and apologies. I sought out some fellow journalists’ opinions to see how they felt Battlefield’s numbered return went, and their opinions on a larger discussion regarding what’s acceptable and not on launch day.
I asked each of them two questions.
How do you feel Battlefield 3’s launch went?
What is your stance on day one problems, are they acceptable?
Andrea Rene, Clevver Games:
“I think their launch was very successful as far as publicity goes. We won’t know for sure how well it went until EA reveals their sales numbers, but I personally know a lot of gamers that were very excited to finally have BF3 in their hands. A lot of major titles involving online multiplayer will have technical snafus on launch day. No matter how much “stress testing” you do, online traffic is still difficult to predict. However, I do think it is a little tragic that we almost have to expect a “Day 1 Patch” for games now. But, better patched than broken right?”
Jim Sterling, Destructoid:
“It’s been problematic, but it probably won’t matter. Games this big can have bumpy rides, and Battlefield’s had issues with the servers going down on 360 and the PS3 freebie not existing. As I understand, it’s been fine on PC, which is the really important one. Either way, nobody will be talking about that in a few days, they’ll just be focusing on the game, so I don’t think DICE has anything to worry about.”
“It’s one of those things, like a lot in this industry, where it shouldn’t be acceptable, but has become banal enough to the point where it’s increasingly hard to get angry about it. We definitely shouldn’t be willing to stand for any issues with a $60 product, but so many other gamers will that a small handful of angry consumers won’t make a difference. So, in my mind I’d say they’re unacceptable, but in reality, we’ve already accepted them.”
Ben Gilbert, Joystiq:
“Like Bad Company 2 and 1943 before it, the launch of Battlefield 3 was messy. Leaving aside the near-hostile marketing campaign that EA launched surrounding the game (“Above and Beyond the Call!”), the game’s online multiplayer — arguably its most important feature — was unplayable for the majority of the game’s launch day, at least on Xbox 360. With EA forcing gamers to play multiplayer via EA’s own private servers, it’s especially frustrating to buy a game on launch day for full price and not be able to play it — even a private match or online co-op!”
“At this point, in the context of the past two Battlefield launches (BF:BC2 and 1943), it’s entirely unacceptable. Both games had similar launch issues, and I was hopeful that EA and DICE would’ve finally fixed said issues for the launch of BF3. It looks especially bad when you compare the past launches of Battlefield’s competition — Call of Duty — given that EA/DICE is hosting fewer players in BF3 on dedicated servers and still can’t make things work.”
Patrick Klepek, Giant Bomb:
“Launches for games with ambitious multiplayer hooks are always rough. Based on how Electronic Arts handled the review process for press, it was clear the game was coming in hot from Sweden, and while most people appear to have written off the game’s campaign, the multiplayer is being received really well. Given Battlefield’s bread and butter is multiplayer, that’s probably good news for DICE and EA.”
“They happen, and it’s up to the companies involved to maintain constant communication with players. Those complaining have most likely already invested their $60 into the game, but if they want to keep them coming back and buying downloadable content, it pays to keep them in the loop about the issues coming up.”
You’ve heard what their thoughts are. Now, what are yours? Leave a comment below and let us know how you feel that this launch was handled.
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