Patrick Bach, executive producer at Battlefield 3 developer DICE, has admitted that he feels "ashamed" about the games that he has been involved in at the company.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the producer explained that, while he believes the developer makes great games, he thinks it could do so much more.
"I don’t know why, but I always feel ashamed about the games I’m involved in making," he explained. "I can’t even bring myself to start up Battlefield: Bad Company 2, our last game, because I feel so ashamed."
"I know it is a great product but still I only see the things we could have done better," he admitted.
"Many [DICE employees], including me, are feeling that if they only had one week more, we could have done so much more. People seem to focus on what they could have done, rather than on what we have already managed to achieve."
Should be more ashamed of the BF3 PC Portal interface they created to launch the game. Ugliest, most unfriendly and broken game experience I have had in a long time. I can't even configure my keybinds without sitting in a match taking up competitive space.
I tried the demo yesterday. I loved the action but I agree man do they make getting in the game hard. Install Origin, install the game, install a web plugging, then use origin to redirect you to the most unfriendly web interface possible. I havent found what the user gain by using either origin or the web portal.
Someone at DICE had a brain meltdown when having the idea of creating the web client immersion destructor field. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? -Worst idea ever! And someone in the office needs to test this on a nVidia 460, it's a Flickering nightmare. This is also the first game I've played since Mechwarrior where you could unload a mag in the belly of an enemy, and still having the enemy walk away unscaved. I am seriously concerned about the end product. If this is the end product then COD just won, and I really want DICE to win this one.
It's admittedly pretty buggy, but there's no serious, unfixable problems with the game. It's a pretty standard Battlefield Game. Once they iron out the handful of glitches it'll be fine.
It's just a shame that it looks like those glitches will be ironed out post-release, rather than pre. It won't do well for their sales, and that's too bad. Because I think the final finished product will be very clean.
The beta is very rushed and very buggy (PS3 player.) I like some things about it, but I think its going to run into the same problems every type of shooter attempting squad based play has run into. Too much solo action by teammates and not enough team coordination. No Team rewards, only KDR matters at the end. Also allowing someone to change class at any time of death unbalances the teamwork that is suppose to produce specialist in their field. Maybe they will fix some to the problems in the final product, or maybe when the vehicle become a factor then things will feel more squad like and less every man for his own points.
EDIT: in the whole I do like that the spawn points are fair. It makes thing less chaotic and makes the battle more focus on the meeting in the middle. The only thing I encounters while playing the defending team is that my squad members didn't understand that the point of defending was to camp out your defense spots and not rush the attacker.
I also played the 360 version last night and it was a rough experience. I'm sure the demo is not indicative of the final product and the obvious bugs will be fixed by then.
For me, one of the biggest difficulties I had with the game were the player names. I know they existed in previous games, I just don't remember them being so annoying. I think most of the time, especially in the tight areas in the subway, I found myself trying to pick out the enemies down my site because the names would get in the way. This often got me killed which was a little frustrating.
However, I do like the fact that you can go prone now. I think the gameplay also discourages the run and gun type tactics. Although you can still do it, chances are you won't last very long.
I will have to give it another chance. I don't think I was too fond of the level they used in the demo. Also, I'm not too sure about the UI as well. I must admit, I had high expectations from BF3 and I think the demo kind of tainted those expectations a little.
I will still buy it because they have a good history with making the gameplay fun. I am confident that things will improve when the game is released.
PS3 and PC versions are great. Plus it's not a demo it's a beta. It's also most likely an old build. Every bug i've seen so far can be fixed before launch. So far it's a great product IMO
It is not true that there is no team rewards or that only KDR matters: You get ranking score for spotting, suppression, supporting teammates, being a member of the best squad, being on the winning side, you even get major points for obeying your squad leader's orders.
Of course this being a beta everyone is kinda new to the game, but in a few hours of play Ive seen nice coordinated action. In the subway, a flashlight-equiped engineer rushing with two assaults is very nasty.
Mathieu MarquisBolduc if this is true then I didn't witness this in my first hours of play through, well not on my teams anyway. It could have been do to the fact that most of the players in the game where old CoD hats and where trying to play the game like a CoD match (I know one person on my Friends list was a person I played in both CoD and Killzone 2.) However I did recognize the extra points for suppressing enemy fire, saving a persons life, triple killing in a single gun clip, etc, but at the end of a game you do not see a scored bored for your extra points, you see a score board for your amount of kills. So who cares if you deployed a medic pack and saved a life, or laid down some ammunition for others to replenish because at the end of a game only the killers get the glory, and not the support.
I guess I'm just looking for more of a MAG scoreboard model, and less of a CoD scoreboard model. Maybe its there or maybe they didn't put it in the beta. I only played a few hours and did start to get the hang of things.
Im playing on PC, I wonder if the game is THAT different on console... My end-of-match scoreboards were *always* ranked by total score, not by kills, and the players with the highest total score gets the medals (and glory, I guess). Could be that PC has more of the old-school BF1942 crowd, too.
@ AW - With regards to the score...the total score that gets applied to your progress is made up of both in-game performance and team based tasks. It's not obvious but when you look at the score tally, you'll see the two scores added up together.
I've only spent a few minutes with the 360 version of the BF3 beta, but I came away concerned about the final product. I realize it's a beta, but there's only 15 days between the end of the beta and the game's release - that doesn't seem like a lot of time to fix problems. The overall experience was baffling - I couldn't tell friends from foes reliably, and I never got a good grasp on what I was supposed to be doing. A big part of that is not knowing the map, and the final version will almost certainly have some kind of in-game training that will probably clear things up quite a bit, but my first impression was not positive. I loved BF2 and BF2142 on the PC, and I've got high hopes for BF3, but I think the beta is not putting the game on the best initial footing.
What you're saying just sounds like any players first experience with a game they've yet to get to grips with. For me, that's the fun part. I found the beta pretty buggy, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with an update and I have a lot of confidence in DICE in that regard.
As for this article, lets not get carried away here. I've got the feeling we'll suffer a "Chinese Whispers" effect and word will get round that a DICE producer thinks Battlefield is a bad game when in reality it's quite a normal sense of perfectionism he's getting. I'd say it's quite common among game developers and after all, if there was no room to improve we wouldn't be getting sequels in the first place.
If I worked at DICE I'd be ashamed about the fact that they banned women from attending a BF3 launch party rather than being ashamed about the quality of a previous game, but I have this weird thing where I'm more concerned with real people than fictional ones.
EDIT: I misunderstood the story, see correction below.
Are you sure it's a Dice/EA event? The only BF3 LAN party I see that bans women is held by Powersgaming. It doesn't look like Dice/EA have any say in the matter since the event isn't officially sponsored by them.
My mistake on the banning, the original article I read was worded so that it sounded like it was either Dice or EA that was organising the party, so I was a bit off-base. I still would have liked to have seen them come out against the decision, since it was a promotional event for their game.
I think this article is being interpreted the wrong way. It looks like Patrick is speaking to the general feeling any artist gets that their work is never done. When you finish a product you get time to reflect and review all the things you could have done. In your mind you know that a good product has been created in a reasonable time frame, but you still wish you could have added that one last feature.
This is a common sentiment that any creative person with a hint of perfectionism might have. I think its more about being your own biggest critic than saying your work is bad (Comparing the potential in your mind, to the final result; the final result usually falls short in most realistic situations).
Unfortunately, the quote has been blown out of proportion and shown as a news item across many sites.
Too much room for interpretation. Why exactly or rather of what exactly is he ashamed of?
Of course you can always do better, but hardly anyone is *ashamed* of their products and don't want to think about it or remember it as this guy told The Wall Street Journal.
This just raises further questions but doesn't allow any conclusions, only assumptions...
-C. out.
It's just a shame that it looks like those glitches will be ironed out post-release, rather than pre. It won't do well for their sales, and that's too bad. Because I think the final finished product will be very clean.
EDIT: in the whole I do like that the spawn points are fair. It makes thing less chaotic and makes the battle more focus on the meeting in the middle. The only thing I encounters while playing the defending team is that my squad members didn't understand that the point of defending was to camp out your defense spots and not rush the attacker.
For me, one of the biggest difficulties I had with the game were the player names. I know they existed in previous games, I just don't remember them being so annoying. I think most of the time, especially in the tight areas in the subway, I found myself trying to pick out the enemies down my site because the names would get in the way. This often got me killed which was a little frustrating.
However, I do like the fact that you can go prone now. I think the gameplay also discourages the run and gun type tactics. Although you can still do it, chances are you won't last very long.
I will have to give it another chance. I don't think I was too fond of the level they used in the demo. Also, I'm not too sure about the UI as well. I must admit, I had high expectations from BF3 and I think the demo kind of tainted those expectations a little.
I will still buy it because they have a good history with making the gameplay fun. I am confident that things will improve when the game is released.
It is not true that there is no team rewards or that only KDR matters: You get ranking score for spotting, suppression, supporting teammates, being a member of the best squad, being on the winning side, you even get major points for obeying your squad leader's orders.
Of course this being a beta everyone is kinda new to the game, but in a few hours of play Ive seen nice coordinated action. In the subway, a flashlight-equiped engineer rushing with two assaults is very nasty.
I guess I'm just looking for more of a MAG scoreboard model, and less of a CoD scoreboard model. Maybe its there or maybe they didn't put it in the beta. I only played a few hours and did start to get the hang of things.
As for this article, lets not get carried away here. I've got the feeling we'll suffer a "Chinese Whispers" effect and word will get round that a DICE producer thinks Battlefield is a bad game when in reality it's quite a normal sense of perfectionism he's getting. I'd say it's quite common among game developers and after all, if there was no room to improve we wouldn't be getting sequels in the first place.
EDIT: I misunderstood the story, see correction below.
Unfortunately, the quote has been blown out of proportion and shown as a news item across many sites.
Of course you can always do better, but hardly anyone is *ashamed* of their products and don't want to think about it or remember it as this guy told The Wall Street Journal.
This just raises further questions but doesn't allow any conclusions, only assumptions...