VIDEO Dark Times for Star Wars gaming...

And the Pandemic Battlefronts were what exactly? Star Wars Battlefront always had the depth of a paddling pool.

As I already said, EA Battlefront was developed from the ground up in two years. I do not excuse its content dryness while they're demanding money for add-ons, Overwatch and Splatoon prove you can make a profit by releasing a bare bones game at a premium price while delivering the DLC for free. However these problems can be understood when you acknowledge the game was tied to out of date business models and an incredibly short development cycle. The rest of the Star Wars slate that we know of have been in development alongside Battlefront, so their gestation periods will be longer. If they come out and are just as content barren EA will not have an excuse. Until then we can't pass judgement off of one title rushed out to meet the same corporate desires lucasarts had been desperate to appease for over a decade now.

You'll still be seeing canonical games, just they'll be developed under EA rather than Disney. Disney aren't going to develop Star Wars games in house, namely because Disney do not develop games anymore. It hasn't been a profitable side to their business, with the likes of Turok and Split/Second losing them a lot of money. Not even Disney Infinity turned their state of affairs around, which is why they cancelled the brand and are closing Disney Interactive as a branch.

Third parties can still develop for EA. It just means that they will publish the final result. Whether anyone is willing to freelance for a juggernaut like that though, that's completely unknown.

 

The problem is, Battlefront was based on Battlefield to a certain extent, but DICE Battlefront somehow managed to include even less depth than what Pandemic did, despite the fact they made Battlefield. Battlefront was already casual to a certain extent, but removing reloading and even entering and existing vehicles made DICE Battlefront casual on a whole new level.

 

Are you trying to argue that Doom is casual? Because that's a can of worms you might not want to open when arguing over which shoot shoot was less arcadey than the other.

Besides, I never mentioned the comparison between Battlefront and Battlefield. What I said was that a modern day AAA Star Wars title was built from the ground up in two years. There was no pre-existing code or art assets, it was all brand new. It was also clearly rushed out to be released alongside The Force Awakens. So we can't judge EA's entire slate from what could just be one title mired in the same corporate garbage Lucasarts got bogged down in. Now if the next Star Wars game comes out and its just as shallow and barren, then sure, press that panic button.

 

I am arguing DICE Battlefront is more casual in comparison to Battlefield and Pandemic Battlefront.

 

I don't mind the casual nature of Battlefront. It's just that it's casual nature allows for try hards to exploit the game in a fashion that creates a very off putting new player experience. Crafty FPS vets have exploited all the things that were intended to make the game accessible for FPS newbs or returning vets. And thus the NPE is awful for many people.

This is a quote from a new player over at the Official Battlefront forums, It made me chuckle, but I felt his pain for sure. "the overall lack of players has turned this game into a Star Wars death simulator, since the people still playing it are the diehard fanatics who feed on new players like a whale sifting krill."

He also called the NPE excruciating, as everything he attempted to do from getting a vehicle token, to hiding from strafing space craft resulted in a quick death. Just too many experienced players 6 moths in, and little to no balance regarding who you play against.

How much it must suck to be a newb, log in for the first time and find an auto turret and a hero waiting in your spawn zone to instakill you within 1 second. Then to be spawned to the same spot again 2 more times before the game decides to move your spawn. Lol..

 

Except it's not. At all. It's content barren for sure. However mechanically it's just fine.

That's pretty much every multiplayer community after a certain point in time. Should Battlefront have died down to just the die hard by now? No, of course not. But that's down to the scarcity in content in the core game, not the casual nature of it. Counter Strike is just as dense for a new player to get into, with a far more toxic community. It's also an extremely hardcore, skill based game to master. So if you're just starting out and trying to get a feel for how all the guns handle then you have to bring your asbestos underwear, because your ass is going to get toasted.

 

Not to me, all I see is an arcadey run and gun third person pew pew fest, where the guns barely even matter, the vehicles are random pick ups, and no space combat, not at all what I wanted or expected from a new Battlefront.

 

I don't disagree, there's always going to be newbs. But I would say the fact that BF specifically aimed for nostalgic fans/non gamers/former gamers, etc..and tailored a more casual game for them, in a way made things worse for those folks. The simplified systems for load outs, and on filed pick ups, was rife for exploitation from experienced players.

 

I don't necessarily disagree, though I'd make the argument that the game just didn't have the time for proper balancing before launch to sand away any unfair advantages. If it wasn't for the beta, released just months before the final product, then Walker Assault would have been a stinking hot mess of spawn killing, and where the Rebels never stood a chance of winning. My main argument with Battlefront is that it just didn't have the time it needed, it came out of the oven undercooked.

However for an EA/Dice product it was impressive on several levels, namely it featured surprisingly little of EA's most egregious practices and it actually worked on all systems. If the game had more time, or just didn't have the nerve to charge for its extra content, I think it would have been a fine release that I would still be playing.

So I think the games that went into development side by side with Battlefront actually have a chance of turning out pretty good, as they'll have had that extra time to cook. Until then I just don't think it's right to judge EA's leadership of the Star Wars gaming brand, especially given the dreadful state it was in before they took over.

 

I wanted say "by Disney/EA", not Disney, excuse me.

But DICE has developed BF because it is an EA controlled. If another publisher or developer would buy a Star Wars license and make his games (canon or legend), would that be possible?

 

Other developers could in theory work under contract for EA, and EA would then publish the product in the end. Considering the number of in-house studios EA has under its wings, though, it's more likely that they would put one of those on the job.

 

Let me just chime in and say the Golden Age of SW gaming for me was when I played XW:A , JKutcast and JtL-era SW:Galaxies

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Star Wars Galaxy of heroes is fun


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Your nostalgia argument is as fallacious as it could possibly get.

 

How so? How was the last Battlefront game any worse than the old ones outside of being content barren?

You seriously can't tell me that the older games were deep. They weren't. As far as shooters go they were bare bones, arcade style shooting. Just like the EA battlefront. Yes there was the Galactic Conquest meta-game, yet all that was was a different method of rotating the map order.

You can't poo-poo the new game for being 'an arcadey run and gun third person pew pew fest' and hold the older games in high esteem, because 'arcadey, run and gun, third person pew pew fests' have literally been the point of the entire sub-franchise.

 

Not to me, I never ran around and mindlessly sprayed or played in third person in the old games, but that unfortunately seems to be the entire point of the DICE game. The differences with the originals continues to be ignored.

 

I don't see that that as a valid excuse for a game having less content than its predecessor from a decade ago. Its 2016 now, we have better technology than before and a triple A studio, and instead of expanding on battlefront and adding new features, they made it even more bare bones. Just because past games lacked in certain areas does NOT give a future a pass from devolving a better game, that's a sign of laziness and lack of care for the license. Battlefront 2 did what it was supposed to, expand from the previous game such as adding new features as well as improving existing ones, its story mode was fun and even added new lore to its franchise despite its lack of content. What did the battlefront EA do besides have better graphics, how many features did it add like the DIORAMA MODE.

 

I've never excused the new Battefront for having less content. Read what I have had to say, I've been pretty damning about it. However I've been willing to accept that an entire game has been built from the ground up in two years and that it had been rushed out to meet a set deadline by Disney's decision to get The Force Awakens out by 2015.

Dice simply did not have the time to release a fully functioning, polished AAA title. The fact that it was released in a working state is a minor miracle for them. The fact that the console versions ran at 60fps means that, performance wise, it was superior to the original games.

The fact remains that, at their core, the mechanics are the same. Any hatred towards the new Battlefront for its mechanics is entirely misplaced. It's the same thing, it's third person arcadey pew-pew action. If you think that you never did the same with the original games then you are certifiably wearing rose tinted lenses.

Personally I don't even care about Battlefront, I think all three games are trash. They are weightless, bland shooters without an ounce of depth or strategy. The only appeal that they have ever had is the Star Wars license.

 

Really, with overheating instead of reloading the various guns hardly even matter, vehicles, heroes, and other stuff are just random pickups instead of spawning or earned on the battlefield, and I switched to first person almost immediately with the original games. I still have Battlefront 2 on both PC and PS2, though I haven't played the PC version in a while because my hardware isn't what it used to be, so there aren't any rose tinted glasses here. Framerate, graphics, and audio are the only thing the DICE game seems to offer.

 

I'd like to add the complete removal of a class system to that growing list of flaws.

 

sounds like they are making some big time star wars games right now. TFA lego was great. Visceral has a great new game coming. I think we are on the cusp of a golden age for Star wars gaming, We just have to wait a couple years

 

Exactly, this year is the only year we won't get a new SW game, then starting in 2017 we'll get a new game yearly, with BF2 next year, then Visceral's game in 2018, Respawn's probably in 2019, or BF3 in 2019, or both. And BioWare is working on something new, too, besides SWTOR.

 

I am still so surprised there still isn't at least a PlayStation game for TFA (like there was for TPM and ROTS).

 

I just hate shallow, soulless mmo games. battlefront has become a joke.