Tanks In Battlefield 3

[CommanderA9]

-Blast it. I didn't mean to put this here; this was meant for Ground Zero. Then again...-

Hello, tread heads.

A friend of mine recently asked me to critique a video of some armor combat shown in EA's Battlefield 3 (which I refused to buy).

3 minutes in, and already I had a list of reasons for why the video isn't accurate...at all.

Then again, the common videogame-player doesn't know how tanks truly operate or fight, so no surprise as to why no one cries foul.

Thoughts?

[Hedgehog]

Fucking Awesome!

Was my first thought.

A company of M1A2s advancing across the desert in a manner to make both Monty and Rommel Proud!

Dust clouds billowing off the backs of the tanks cue first visual Orgasm.

Then the rounds start flying, Okaaaaay: Gameplay wise, see points below.

Number 1)

Sounds like the F**king loader is running the tank. Bollocks.

This TC guy is supposed to be a Gulf wars (Plural) veteran.

And all that that implies.

Number 2)

Using the CITV to aim the gun. See above, TC would be scanning with CITV, hand off to Gunner.

Why the hell is the gunner even there if TC is overriding 24/7?

Number 3)

Seriously Degraded FCS as standard. No Dynamic lead, No Super-elevation, this is supposed to be a battle-worthy M1A2 or equiv. dropped the Ball there EA.

Number 4)

Coax MG, about F**king time.

Number 5)

Rail shooter with .50 Cal, See below. Your own little Thunder Run!

Would like the option to hide/take cover behind the gun shield.

Sounds and looks fucking orgasmically good though.

About the only thing EA & DICE does well.

The only thing I miss in Steel beasts is the A-10 Gun Run.

Oh Mr Cmdr A9,

Do you know where I can get hold of those Hi Res Images of those Propaganda Posters for GDI & NOD? The ones from TS and C&C3?

Billboards in SB is the ultimate goal.

I also need a cluster of good fan sites.

[Ssnake]

I think that the BF3 makers know better about the M1's fire control system than what they actually made. No lead and superelevation makes for a better challenge for the player and also for better balance in multiplayer engagements when it is man vs machine. I don't blast them for not being a simulation when they neither intend nor claim to be one.

[Retro]

Plus, given enough time and BF3's (and its ilks) popularity, real FCS (in normal mode) will be like in the games, not the other way round

[Flak]

Here's how they should have made it:

Modern Warfare 3 - The Onion News Network

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMb0ZP6hnkc

;-)

[jazjar]

I agree with ssnake, they made a game, not a sim. They weren't going for arma, therefore they are just doing what they set out to do.

[Werewolf]

It's a freaking shooter.

How else would one expect it play out?

[daskal]

Its meant to be a pop-corn type easy to get in action game, and it does the job well. The mision "Thunder run" in BF3 was not about being realistic, it was supposed to give the player goosebumps + and an "awesum" feel. I just freakin loved it!

[[]_--__[]KITT]

If SB Pro got that kind of graphics....:heartpum:

I don't buy Battlefield 3 too.....nothing less than ArmA 2 for army 'sim' for me. ArmA 3 is coming soon. Even then ArmA 2 is still too arcade for my taste but some superbig mods tried to address this.

That Red Orchestra 2 seems to be tempting too ...

[Guest Killjoy]

I did a Games Design Course a year ago and we actually got to have a conference call with DICE team.

What SSnake said is correct, they had to make it challenging for the players online and offline.

They did however say that they tried to make everything else as realistic as possible without making it too realistic, turning it into a sim or something along the lines of Flashpoint.

They're were really down to earth fellas and I love that game. Really looking forward to the Armoured Kill pack coming out!

[Captain_Colossus]

Yeah, I don't see the point in picking apart an action shooter in order to compare it to Steel Beasts.

My problem however is that these games are more like an interactive movie- you play through the mission once, you've seen what it does if you were to play it again a hundred times, enemy placement will be the same, triggered explosions and events will be the same as they must correlate with the story and dialogue. They are rail shooters which make even corridor shooters such as Doom look like open ended sandbox games. It's part of the trend that big developers just put together a very minimal single player game and rely on the multi-player to carry the title, with the SP story more of just a sideshow or to learn the controls.

They seem similar if you recall those 1980s laser disc coin op games, which were games only in a very loose sense- had less play value than Space Invaders or Pac Man, since these games were very little more than a cursor overlaid on top of animation which couldn't have different scenes. Never understood the buzz, frankly. This tank scene looks like that- you are really in a sense just moving a cursor around a screen on top of predefined events and clicking on them. It's like a hi tech version of whack-a-mole, except that the moles aren't randomly generated to pop.

[Ssnake]

Well, developing content in the form of single player missions is time-consuming (and thereby costly), and the marketing pundits claim that a strong single player content is irrelevant to the overall sales success. Yeah, they may lose YOU as a customer, but attract hundreds of others because they put most of their energy into the bells and whistles of the engine itself, and a good (=entertaining) multiplayer environment.

These are mass market titles. They adhere to mass market design principles. That's not inherently bad, but given the fact that a title like BF3 can easily cost an eight digit dollar figure in development and marketing, the investors tend to become somewhat risk averse and concentrate on tried and tested game design formulas.

Chess games are still being made. So it's not a given that all future games will look like BF3. BF3 is the Michael Bay equivalent in computer games - guilty pleasure maybe and about as filling as chewing gum. Steel Beasts is more the hardtack of computer gaming. Yet both chewing gum and hardtack have their place. I wouldn't want to live in a world that offers only one of the two (or none, for that matter).

[Apocalypse 31]

BF3 is the Michael Bay equivalent in computer games.

Oh my god! This is the best description of BF3 I've ever heard!

[Captain_Colossus]

Players opt in primarily for the MP content- the SP component is primarily there to either teach players the controls or to show off cool demos. The strength of the game would never be sold on the SP campaign, these titles would otherwise fade away even faster. In comparison, the SP campaigns don't really contain the same thrills, even a lot of twitch gamers would grow tired of it. Believe that 10 minutes of playing a SP game on the same level or map you played before is an entirely different experience than playing 10 minutes of playing a MP game on the same level or map you've played before- the SP game would wear out faster. Even the most jaded simulation fan would normally prefer to play an MP session of BF3 twitch action, bunny hopping, cheap kills, or whatever as opposed to the game's sterile SP campaign.

You could remove the SP campaign entirely, and likely it would do little to temper the buzz created for these games, particularly since the campaigns tend to be won in a few hours anyway.

If they really intended to create a SP masterpiece, it would logically not look like the way it is packaged in there now- that is, a simple interactive movie on rails that lasts a couple of hours. But that would probably defeat what the core engine does and would knock out the MP part.

So, these are primarily MP games, both because it requires fewer resources to let human players provide all the action, and because that's what appears most consumers have begun to expect anyway- the question that remains is whether it's a chicken or the egg scenario, that is to say, do gamers prefer MP games because the market has engineered the hype, or was the demand there that the market responded to?

[Ssnake]

the question that remains is whether it's a chicken or the egg scenario, that is to say, do gamers prefer MP games because the market has engineered the hype, or was the demand there that the market responded to?

Here's my answer, for what it's worth.

1. Doom showed the world what network games could be like, and to some extent shaped the players' expectation for first person shooter network games
2. Network sessions provided as the easy way out for developers.
   Consumers demand more complex worlds and more complex interaction, and they want intelligently behaving opponents. Making computer-controlled agents (bots) more intelligent requires a vastly disproportionate amount of effort (or, you could argue that the technology for that has not yet matured)
3. To many players it is more satisfying anyway to beat a human opponent

In conclusion, game developers simply adapted to the players' demands in a cost-efficient way. This formed a computer game genre that finds consumer acceptance. That's all I can say about this specific chicken and its egg.

[Ssnake]

Well, maybe one more thing. Just like Doom showed the world what a first person shooter could be like, and what it could be like in a multiplayer network game; just like Command & Conquer defined the RTS genre, like every smart phone today was sculpted in the image of the iPhone - as a game developer you can't just ask what the customers want. SOmetime you have to try something new. If you're up to something, you will know it, and the world may eventually recognize it too. At which point the highest form of flattery will happen - being imitated by other developers. And thus new product categories and computer game genres are born.

[[]_--__[]KITT]

The surest key to success is setting the trend not following it.

But often companies like to play it safe than take a risk. Afterall they are to make money not indulge in their passion even if they have passion in what they do.

But I must say those who set the trend indulge their passion first and foremost and think about money second even if some might start with money returns first and foremost at the start but in the end it was the passions that made them big. From Enzo Ferrari to Steve Jobs to every succesful designers of every kind to Colonel Sanders whose recipe is now famous around the world thanks to KFC and to many other personas around the world including those who didn't get rich out of their ideas and products yet contributed much to society like Tim Berners Lee.

[Ssnake]

_--__[]KITT;218497']The surest key to success is setting the trend not following it.

No' date=' it's not.

Working against the trend can occasionally yield spectacular successes, but they are spectacular because they are rare. Most innovations that do not follow a trend simply fail. Sometimes, decades later, they are recognized as being way ahead of their time. More often they simply aren't as good as what the trend has established.

Therefore, working against a trend is a high risk strategy. It may pay off, and sometimes pay off big time, but the surest key to (moderate) success is by following a trend. That's why Hollywood loves sequels to successful movies, that's why many game developers often used to generate a clone of a successful title in the 1980s and 1990s. This is less of a trend now due to a professionalization of the games industry (can you spell "IP lawsuit"?), but mostly because just because you can clone a game principle you still don't have a game. You also need to develop content for it, which almost always is the most time consuming part of the work.

But I must say those who set the trend indulge their passion first and foremost and think about money second [...] in the end it was the passions that made them big.

Yes, if you look at the success stories only. Stories of failure are less popular, but vastly more numerous. And for every combo of Wozniak/Jobs there are thousands of others who also set their passion first and money second, and they go down in history as crazy nutcases that wasted their money in the fruitless pursuit of an invention that the world didn't need.

[[]_--__[]KITT]

I never said it was easy.

But if anyone succeeds in setting a trend they'll be surely hugely rewarded. People(consumers) are irrational (in my view), so theoretically speaking if someone could convince them that some absolutely worthless object to be highly valuable for some reasons then that completely worthless object could be sold at some ridiculous price tag. That is setting the trend. To give the perception that the offering, products or services, are more or much more valuable than what they really are.

Setting the trend may not necessarily mean going against the current trend.

I'm very much aware that sometimes despite brilliant products or services people don't succeed for many different number of reasons. Even those who are now recognized as successful people most of them had been rejected many many times. The [business] world is one that is very subjective, most people are just unable to judge objectively the value of innovation or innovative product or appreciate good or brilliant ones. Most people are subjective.

Always saddening to see a business to shut down despite their brilliant offerings....meh especially a few of my favorite dining places :biggrin:....great food, reasonable price, but somehow they couldn't make it.....There are a few good ending stories though like a near failing Chinese restaurant that once was a successful business making a big comeback. Would ache me seeing them going down because they have excellent food compared to the other current businesses. Maybe that man found a business partner that injected some capital.

What's ridiculous is seeing average dining places(or business) becoming hugely popular eventhough in my opinion they don't have anything special even the food(and service) are generally bad(or just mediocre) in my opinion .... The world is a strange and unfair place to conduct business. Being brilliant alone often is not enough. You need luck too. By luck I mean the things that have nothing to do with the value that the customers are getting, directly and indrectly, yet contributing to its success.

There's a disturbing pattern here in Indonesia. It is well understood to property developers here that if they sell their products(housing) below certain price tag it doesn't matter if the value is fair and reasonable or even excellent to potential buyers the properties won't sell well. But if they put a much higher price tag to them the same properties will sell well SIMPLY due to the reasoning that buying them increases the buyers' sense of prestige. It is an INSANE phenomenon. Consumers are stupid and they are being exploited right and left.

[Ssnake]

_--__[]KITT;218499']I never said it was easy.

No. You wrote that it was the safest method for success (and then you wrote that it was a risky strategy in the next sentence).

But if anyone succeeds in setting a trend they'll be surely hugely rewarded.

True. It may be rewarding, but it is risky. These two things are not the same. Plus, people tend to underestimate the risk because successes are overreported. Everybody talks about Steve Jobs and his successes, nobody talks about Joe Schmoe and his dismal failure to set a trend for edible underwear, or Yoshi Kawabutzi's smell-o-phone. They may have been just as passionate, and they ignored the trend because "they knew better". There are far more failed attempts at trendsetting than successful ones.

[Guest Killjoy]

Oh my god! This is the best description of BF3 I've ever heard!

I like it! I like it alot!

[jazjar]

Yes, it is this spirit of entrepreneurship that has created almost everything we know today, from computers, to smart phones like the one I use now, TV, and many many other things. KITT, I am unfortunately not surprised at the property value phenomenon going on in Indonesia. People don't want to be seen buying inexpensive property, because it's all about the mental image. People think about what they want to be seen like, and make decisions off of that. I personally believe it is immature behavior and is as smart as dumping petrol on paper money and setting it alight.

[SeanPatrick]

I'm just glad I live in a world where, for the most part, we have a free market of ideas. I enjoy both "games" and "sims" immensely. On many levels and for different reasons. The fact that I have choices is not something I take for granted. And that there are others who share my interests who come together to form a very real (international) community...well that's just mind-numbingly cool in my opinion.

[[]_--__[]KITT]

No. You wrote that it was the safest method for success (and then you wrote that it was a risky strategy in the next sentence).

True. It may be rewarding, but it is risky. These two things are not the same. Plus, people tend to underestimate the risk because successes are overreported. Everybody talks about Steve Jobs and his successes, nobody talks about Joe Schmoe and his dismal failure to set a trend for edible underwear, or Yoshi Kawabutzi's smell-o-phone. They may have been just as passionate, and they ignored the trend because "they knew better". There are far more failed attempts at trendsetting than successful ones.

Well I didn't say the safest but the surest. I was trying to say if you set a trend you'll be surely handsomely rewarded even if it's just recognition. There's an if there.

Yeah I know I know there are a lot more failures than success story. We all are aware of that I'd think . Even those who made it most of them had at some point in their life almost failed or have failed many many times before in one way or another. The world tends to squeeze the wannabes and the small people. It is especially hard for people to be successful building their business but once they are, things get easier, the money, recognition and people start to come in asking to help out or join in.

KITT, I am unfortunately not surprised at the property value phenomenon going on in Indonesia. People don't want to be seen buying inexpensive property, because it's all about the mental image. People think about what they want to be seen like, and make decisions off of that. I personally believe it is immature behavior and is as smart as dumping petrol on paper money and setting it alight.

Indeed.

Edit:

Just to avoid misunderstanding let me clear it that in my opinion no company can set the goal of setting the trend. Setting the trend is NOT up to the company but up to the market. If market appreciates what is offered then it becomes a trend.

So no one can really strive to be a trendsetter as a goal as that's up to the market reception, all that can be done is to offer the most perceived value to the market. Being the trend simply means the product is valued much higher than expected or in other words becoming popular which is seen by the combination of sales volume, hype(awareness) and sometimes high or increasing price tag and increasing brand power(brand's leverage or attractiveness/added perceived value derived from the brand's power).

Edited August 24, 2012 by []_--__[]KITT