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PC Games (Games)

No More Battlefield 2 Expansions 36

Posted by Zonk from the five-easy-payments-of-$9.99 dept.
1up reports that (at the moment) there are no further plans for any Battlefield 2 expansions. Instead, EA and DICE will be releasing 'Booster Packs' with smaller amounts of additional content. Each pack will retail for $9.99 and be downloadable from EA's site. From the article: "Due to the expansion pack cancellation, though, DICE has told investors of slightly lower project revenues for fourth quarter 2005, but they plan on recovering through higher royalty rates through the first half of this year. The packs themselves are fairly substantial; Euro Force contains a new primary weapon, four vehicles (including the Eurofighter) and the Operation Smoke Screen, The Great Wall of China and Taraba Quarry maps. "
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No More Battlefield 2 Expansions More

No More Battlefield 2 Expansions

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  • The actual article says "It's not known if the packs are a permanent replacement for any possible expansion packs in the future." All this article says is that the plan for a current exapansion pack has been scrapped, and DICE's efforts have been focused into two Booster Packs, which are "fairly substantial."

    I play a ton of Battlefield (too much, probably) and I think these are a great idea. Not only are they cheap ($10 US) but they are offered through the EA Downloader. EAD may not be as mature as Ste
  • EA is a bunch of money whores.

    PC gaming really is going to die if all anybody does is release overpriced expansion after overpriced expansion. Come on, EA, can't we just get some new games?
    • Its actually the opposite. Normally, they'd put two of those packs together, call it an addon and charge $30. This is a smaller and easier to deal with plan. I think if this is successful, we won't be seeing many major expansions and, instead, get small expanses really cheap. And they have to make something 'special' in each one, cause you can get quality maps and mods for free.
      • this is exactly my opinion - i bought the special forces 'expansion pack' and, while it's fun, the simple fact that it's a whole new 'game' is a bit thin. what would be cool instead is if they had the core 'bf2' game, and then had these new roles, weapons and vehicles integrated into the game so that it expands the core game without requiring that you have every single add-on to play with the same online community.

        with expansion packs (at least done like spec forces), you end up fragmenting your existing p

    • Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Edgewize ( 262271 )
      As a PC gaming fan, you buy new games. You'd be surprised that many people do NOT buy new games. They only buy the games that they have heard other people say good things about over a long period of time.

      John Q Public is too dumb or apathetic to find out about what new games to buy for his 10-year-old son. But he might recognize an established name that's gotten positive word-of-mouth, see a new edition of it, and buy that.

      This is why Madden is successful. This is why Tiger Woods is successful. This is
      • It's also what ruined EverQuest, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Star Wars: Galaxies, not to mention a MUD I used to play. Creating a base game and then endless expansions is a business model that often ends up fundamentally changing good games into piles of gimmicks, used to sell the new expansions.
  • Or just download them for nice easy payments of nothing....

    On the whole though, I quite like BF2, except for the fact that it needs a graphics card about $200 out of my price range. Actually the specs for it confused me ever since it came out, what exactly is so special about the game that it requires all this new stuff to play?
    • "what exactly is so special about the game that it requires all this new stuff to play?"

      Inefficiency.
    • I've played 64 player games using an Ati Radeon 8500 (of course, minimum detail and not very great performance but playable). What's your price range?
  • I wasn't too impressed with Battlefield2 anyways because it was eternally buggy and wreaked of poor implentation all the way through.

    I pretty much gave up on it when all the game news shifted to the first expansion, rather than on how they were going to fix the original problems.
    • The BF2 engine is a work of art to behold.

      The BF2 game is a naughty limerick scrawled inside a public restroom.

      Unadvertised features of BF2:
      • Server Browser doesn't understand why PING! values matter, so it guesses (999 for a server down the street?)
      • Server Browser is sensitive and doesn't take kindly to rough handling. Poke it a few times, or change its filters, and it just stops working
      • Damage feels random. Drop any two players in a jar; shake them up: I honestly couldn't predict which would win
      • Virtually im
  • These booster packs are the kind of thing that another company would offer for free. Some have said that these sorts of add-ons used to come free in BF1942, when EA had less control. Might as well download free custom mods which offer more than those booster packs.

    BF2 is a fun game, but its had far too many bugs, a number of poor design choices and an awful menu design. The Special Forces expansion pack was met with a bit of disappointment. Good old EA... At least they're consistent, you can expect them to

    • Re:Good old EA. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by quantax ( 12175 )
      Its funny, with any other decently made game, Id be jumping at an opportunity for more content but while BF2 is very fun to play, the stuff that happens ouside of the actual game really drags it down. Like as you mentioned, the TERRIBLE menu system which somehow is worst than BF1942's menu system (1942's wasnt too bad, but aren't interfaces supposed to get better, not worst?). The most glaring and sad of these problems is the fact that the server browser is essentially broken and needs to be coddled to work
      • Well written post, I agree with all of your points.

        Companies like EA really do stand to benefit from making their games cleaner. Most of what makes games sell is word of mouth, not marketing or space on retail shelves. When I've played a great game I tell people about it, when I see a potentially great game ruined with cheesy design decisions and abysmal quality control I tell people about it.

        The best way to advertise and thus boost sales for a game is to take pride in quality! EA should listen to their
        • That's probably the most annoying part of it all: the problems I mentioned aren't like Star Wars Galaxies level balancing issues in which by making a single change, you automatically piss off a couple thousand people. No, its a simple matter of making the menu system and server browser work which I figure is several orders of magnitude lower in complexity than the game engine itself. Assuming they couldnt fix it for the games release, it should have been dealt with on the first patch. Disappointing to see s
  • Is it just me or does it sound like EA is simply trying to goad people back into buying expansion packs again simply by renaming and repackaging them?
  • When a company gets as big as EA, if it doesnt make big enough profit on low budget products.

    Doing smaller packs downloadable only from the web might be their only solution.

    This is why I like indy products more, usually better quality, cheaper, and more innovative.

  • I bought BF2. Put it down after a bit for the same reasons others have listed in this discussion. I'm not gonna restate the problems with BF2. I'd rather ask you people this: What games are you looking forward to in 2006?

    ET:QW is the only game on my radar for 2006 so far.

    Basically, ET play mechanics (which I like) set in a sci-fi Quake universe. Humans vs Strogg.

    So far what I think makes it stand out to me:

    -Unlimited draw distance, no fog or pop-up

    -Asymetrical, yet balanced factions. Meaning,
  • BF2 is a travesty. The gameplay is sluggish, most of the weapons aren't acurate...the recoil algorithm is ridiculous, even with the MG in prone position...the interface is atrocious...it's still full of unaddressed(read ignored) bugs. The game has more problems than I care to list. Instead of focusing on new and better ways to take cash from their customers, these jokers should be fixing the broken product many paid good money for.

    DICE and EA will get nothing more from me.
  • This pretty much marks the end of the BF2 game... what DICE and EA has done here is an interesting innovation, though. Sell a basic game where the weapons suck and sell expansion packs where you get access to better weapons (the SF unlocks are quite nice, I expect the boosterpack guns to be even better). So, unless you like playing public at a disadvantage you are forced to buy their packs. Then, the only reason to play public is to keep up your aim between the matches and in the matches no unlocks are

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