As Seyu said that was quite a while ago and the Bad Company spin offs all have single player campaigns and additional modes of play. Isn’t BF3 also going that route?
BTW - Not saying Brink is going to suck because of this. I’m just saying people’s very reall expectionations and past experiences are going to bang head on with what Brink is doing. Of course that’s not saying they won’t like all that change and being out of their comfort zone, gamer’s are really adaptable. 
Even if it’s 10 small maps. Let me tell you about quality over quantity.
My favorite map on BFBC2 is Oasis. I know it like the back of my hand. I know all the buildings and that little hill. I know that snipers try to camp on the beach across the water way. I know which windows to avoid. I know how to approach the flags in conquest. I love that map. I could play that map over and over all day. It’s a good map. It’s a demo map too.
If the brink maps have been 3 years in the making I think 8 or 10 or even 4 will be enough.
Asking 60 bucks for a quality product is not asking too much. I’d rather 4 great maps and a great game then 40 suck maps and a sub-par game.
I hope people aren’t put off by the lack of death match, tdm, ctf, headquarters… domination, etc etc. All of those different were fun in Black Ops, but I eventually got so tired of the game for a variety of reasons I quit. All of those different game modes didn’t cover up some very really flaws with Black Ops. There are some fundamental problems with Black Ops-- sporadic at best net code, second chance, ghost, the obsession with k/d leading to everyone playing “support” and noone working together to complete objectives, the cheap ass kill streaks and grenade spam…
Hopefully Brink has the fundamentals down. From what I have seen and read, it does.
I think I will be content with the main game, challenges and stopwatch mode. I don’t know if everyone will tire of it after a few months.
I just hope Brink doesn’t have any memory leaks like Black Ops does!!
My biggest concerns are net coding too. That’s a make or breaker with online FPS, and although I haven’t really seen it I hear its a problem with the idTech engine. The maps I think will be more than sufficient for quite some time. COD generation kids will be crying for DLC within the first 3 months probably though :(.
But it isn’t about teary eyed nostalgia or reality. If people buy into a game with nothing more than expectations then a small number of maps is going to be a small number of maps. L4D2 sees similar criticism for lack of content when I’ve had no problem putting in 250+ hours.
And I’m not saying they should try to satisfy these people. But what Bethesda/SD should have been doing for a long time during all those interviews is emphasise the depth of the maps and the replayability of them. Instead we’ve have some rather cheeky attempts to spin map counts as per side, which again builds a poor expectation.
I’m no fan of Epic but their whole CoD piss take is exactly what Bethesda needs to be doing. Selling Brink as something above the normal shooter. Get Bill & Ted to bring the greatest minds in history to the present and play Brink because it’s so damn deep. Cut to a bunch of chimps flinging poo and playing CoD.
Expectations.
I think SD would totally capable of fixing them. Would still like to know if the PC is going to get patches quicker via steam and not be held back for mega patches on the consoles.
My biggest concerns are net coding too. That’s a make or breaker with online FPS, and although I haven’t really seen it I hear its a problem with the idTech engine. The maps I think will be more than sufficient for quite some time. COD generation kids will be crying for DLC within the first 3 months probably though :(.
Maybe it’s just familiarity but I’ve always found idTech netcode to be very smooth and lag free. And I starting online with Q3 and a modem.
Problem is SD have gone a long way to appeal to the CoD generation. I don’t see how you can do that then turn up your nose and say “oh grow up” when they demand something they’re also used to.
Sockdog you bring up a great point mentioning left4dead2. The great thing about that game is not massive amounts of content. It’s that you find yourself attempting a level over and over again and every time it’s different because of that AI director. And because you can do VS and try your luck against human controlled special infected. And then try to take that rival team out.
I think there will be a bit of that spirit there in Brink. Where you can focus on the mission and the objectives and the game itself and not just killing some guys. Because you can only run around like a rat in a maze shooting and respawning for so long until it gets boring. It gets boring to me anyway. That’s why I prefer games like bc2 over cod mp and I’d rather play l4d2 then crysis mp. Sometimes I do like to play gears 2 mp for some reason.
Sorry back to my point. One of Brink’s wonderful qualities is it appears you will be able to enjoy it via “playing it”. I know people like to be competitive and it is a competitive class based shooter but it’s a breath of fresh air in the fact that it’s not only about killing the crap out of everything sometimes it’s about juking past the other team and getting to that objective when in other games you are just running for cover or trying to push people back with a wave of fury. Or it’s about outsmarting another player and faking towards an objective and then running the other way to revive a teammate and coming back to mow him down.
I think about some of the scenarios that could happen within brink and I literally get excited. I can’t wait. It’s like a month away. Do you guys realize it’s a little more then a month away? Man.
The maps are all laid out to work with the smart system too so they aren’t just going to plop it down and leave it. Every thing in the game is going to be meticulous. I hope anyway.
L4D2 campaign are quite long though, I didn’t see many player complaining about the lack of content once the game was out. And before release, they was whining cause they were expecting something like TF2 from Valve, like free maps and all, and instead they announced a new game paid full price.
I played ETQW at ~110 [central america vOv] and never felt I was at an disadvantage or that I had to compensate for it, unlike some other shooters.
[QUOTE=LyndonL;275928]
My biggest concerns are net coding too. That’s a make or breaker with online FPS, and although I haven’t really seen it I hear its a problem with the idTech engine. [/QUOTE]
the “vanilla” version of idtech4, meaning doom3, had some mayor network issues. i think it was the first (and probably only) manshooter that introduced per poly hit detection.
also, “normal” guns in shooters are hitscan weapons. cant go into deep detail here, but it means that there are no flying bullets actually. theres just a simulation where the bullet might fly where your crosshair is. in doom3 there was actually flying bullets. so that took a lot of calculating time and bandwidth.
i think those are the 2 main reasons why the networking code in doom3 was crap.
etqw in comparison which is based on the same tech had hitboxes. so that saves a lot of bandwidth. etqw runs smoother than doom3 thats for sure. etqw had different issues. its optimized for 30fps. also, the animations are done in 30fps. so, if you unlock this 30fps to play in full 60fps the animations look “weired”. it had something to do with some interpolating stuff, but i dont remember really.
somewhere here on the forums or on the official etqw forums there is a huge discussion about that, but i have no idea where exactly.
thats one of my main concerns with brink. i hope the animations dont look as “sluggish” as etqw. watching the gameplay videos im afraid though, it just might be the case. 
I think it would be more accurate to describe MP as SP with humans. Since, I mean, most of the basic storytelling elements will still be there, to the best of my knowledge.
[QUOTE=Herandar;275727]10 minutes would be one side dominating the other. But seriously, 3 hours?!?!! I’ve got better things to do than play one stage for three f**king hours, And I’m much more patient than your typical caffinated teen gamer. A three hour match will kill Brink much faster than unbalanced gameplay.
Where have you been? SP is identical to MP. Bots or other humans is the only difference.[/QUOTE]
I think having options is always good. Imagine a no respawn mode with a 1 soldier limit. The game could end after the first objective. You’d have something similar to SOCOM 4’s Bomb Squad mode (it’d be better if the soldier was a heavy). Options like this is what I want from Brink. It’ll make it a lot more replayable.
Besides, 3 hour games are quite satisfying with balanced teams. It’s usually enough to last me a day. *?:]
@OP: yeah, there’s not a lot of maps. Hopefully a batch come out a few months after release as free DLC (I think it’s a good chance to snare the guys whol would otherwise buy the game used at that point).
SD has always done a very good job using different heights in their games. Also, their indoor levels tend to be very well done. So yes, I agree with Tok that the over-all quality (at least in the past) has been much better than your average FPS. SD maps are for the most part fantastic (especially the ones they do themselves and don’t farm out).
I still play Shadowrun which only has 9 maps. When I consider that I only ever favor 2 or 3 maps, I realize 12 is just fine.
Yeah, if the other maps are of a similar quality to the ones we have seen, I think Brink will get a lot of play-time.
That could end in three minutes.
Not all of us have the luxury of (or the desire to) playing games all day. I typically play no more than three hours a night.
Seems clear that many people here have a clear expectation of what Brink is bringing to the table. The point however is what do people expect who aren’t following Brink or previous SD games? I suspect it’s a map, gametype and single player campaign similar to that of other “AAA” titles out there. If Bethesda/SD don’t prepare these people for that, or alternatively, make such an awesome game that people totally forget, then there is going to be a backlash.
I’m trying to underline a subtle point made in the OP that there is an expectation for Brink to offer similar content to other games. Those kinds of subtleties tend to need to be extrapolated and spelled out, so yes there is some speculation on my part for that.
[QUOTE=Herandar;276163]That could end in three minutes.
Not all of us have the luxury of (or the desire to) playing games all day. I typically play no more than three hours a night.[/QUOTE]
Well it would have rounds. But that was just an example of what you could make with really good customization. I doubt this’ll be possible but I want it. If you play 3 hours a day then you’d be able to play 1 game of this type. But you don’t have to play it at all. You would always have the option to though.
No, he’s speculating how uninformed people might react. His point is very valid.