Splash Damage is now an ironic representation of their injured reputation.

(fearlessfox) #81

What’s wrong with BC2? I’m really enjoying it, I haven’t read a thing about its launch or how it’s a step down from other BF titles, not across the board at least.

And the problem here Chex is that many of us had faith in SD that they weren’t the same as other dev companies and the game they released would be something that would serve as a beacon of sorts.

This is not naive in a general sense as there are many examples throughout history of the norm being disregarded and innovation paving way for brilliance; every now and then someone comes along and produces something that defies expectation.

I pre-ordered Brink because I thought the game would be one of the most full and rich multiplayer experiences available and I was very very excited. I based this mostly from my experience with the ET series and SD’s reputation, and all the bells and whistles of the preview videos were simply bonuses.

The game, as it stands, simply feels lacking to me and /many/ others. You can dismiss this as falling victim to hype all you like, but if the game were as wonderful as many claim some of us are intelligent enough to forget the hype and concentrate on the beauty of a well made product.

Unfortunately, Brink is not well made and the potential it has as a MP is in direct correlation to its ability to retain an active fanbase (on the consoles at least).

We can only hope.

(Chex) #82

I agree, but you won’t “find games that defy expectations” on the top shelf. Not any more at least. With the amount of money being pumped into marketing with the so called AAA titles, the formula is simple: Reduce production cost + invest in marketing = profit. It works because in terms of sales, hype ALWAYS wins over any other factor.
There ARE potentially great titles being produced as we speak, but with almost zero marketing budget, I don’t expect that casual players will even hear about them before they are released. (I’m tempted to name a few, but fear it would derail the topic).
Splash Damage is NOT that “indie” company that made W:ET and we need to deal with it. I’m not saying that SD became greedy or something.
It’s just that they wanted to play in the BIG league while still having features that satisfy the more enthusiastic gamer who thrives on Dedicated servers, SDKs, Dev consoles etc. and, for better or for worse, Brink is the result of that experiment.

(xTriXxy) #83

same here. and i will continue defending it.

+1 for your constructive criticism.

(Crytiqal) #84

Lol Jess Alon

could you whine some more please?

SD did not live up to the hype they created themselves.

Or do you actually think the SP is really worthwhile?
Soundbugs in 2 out of 8 maps, testing the game ONCE would have shown this.
The menus are really weird imo. (You can hover over the map vote, but you have to click on it to enable it, and click again to return to chat (which isnt even working atm))

Customization sometimes randoms the player outfits.
Dedicated servers crashing
Randomly the objective drops (You are no longer able to blabla)
Letters/characters are messed up randomly
A LOT of excellent features of their previous games have been stripped.
(vsays, ingame admin menu etc)

Although they promised clan support, the game doesn’t even feature a clantag possibilty.
VOIP not working.

I really wonder what they’ve been doing during their 1 year postpone of this game.

Gameplay is solid for me tho, just the overal package looks/feels broken and I hope this can be fixed.
Altho sometimes I really hate SMART and wish I could disable automatic smart.

(suho) #85

I can see why people become disappointed, the game definitely did not deliver what was advertised. Coming from a long-time ET:QW background however, the gameplay is pretty much what I expected (except for the slippery controls). I knew the singe player experience would suck, I knew many people won’t get the game, I knew it was going to be class-team-based shooter at heart and not some mixture of Mirros Edge and Call of Duty … I could go on like that.

The only thing that really dissappoints me are the consolish “features”, first and foremost the controls and I expected something much better than what was delivered. But I do not think this game is dead or will die in the next couple of months. I hope the PC issues will be resolved because then we will most definitely see a competetive scene for this game.

Now to tell you what I expected of Brink I am going to compare it to the last objective on the ET:QW map Salvage. It was an indoor objective with basically a big chokepoint which was defensively favoured. Now, if you add more ways of flanking the enemy and ways to get behind them what you get is Brink. Of course it really is a little more complicated than that but in a nutshell this comparison holds.

There is one more thing I like to get of my chest. I dont understand people who have more fun playing BC2 than Brink. After having played QW for about 2 1/2 years with a friend, we wanted to try seomthign new. BC2 has this class-based rush mode which seemed to be a bit like the obj-based mode in QW. It is only blowing stuff up and every class can do it but we did not care about that. However after playing the maps a couple of times they got boring soooo fast you coudlnt even imagine. It was exactly the same every time. There was no real need for teamplay other than sticking together most of the time. Nothing like in Brink for example: Soldier plants a bomb and medic gives him an adrenalin shot at the right moment, same goes for diffusing. Of course it is a lot of “sticking”-together but there is much more involved in doing it right than there is in BC2. For example when you were capturing a command post and you someone got you from behind but you are just incapacited you teammate can quickly switch to medic at the command post throw you a syringe and switch back to being soldier or engineer. Same goes for buffing. Just switch so enginner for a short time, buff you teammate and switch back. All these small little things, there is much more teamplay in Brink then there is in BC2. And god I hated those stupid lone-wolf grenade launcher soldiers. Not because they killed me but because there was just no skill involved whatsoever.

(sirius89) #86

[QUOTE=suho;322919]I can see why people become disappointed, the game definitely did not deliver what was advertised. Coming from a long-time ET:QW background however, the gameplay is pretty much what I expected (except for the slippery controls). I knew the singe player experience would suck, I knew many people won’t get the game, I knew it was going to be class-team-based shooter at heart and not some mixture of Mirros Edge and Call of Duty … I could go on like that.

The only thing that really dissappoints me are the consolish “features”, first and foremost the controls and I expected something much better than what was delivered. But I do not think this game is dead or will die in the next couple of months. I hope the PC issues will be resolved because then we will most definitely see a competetive scene for this game.

Now to tell you what I expected of Brink I am going to compare it to the last objective on the ET:QW map Salvage. It was an indoor objective with basically a big chokepoint which was defensively favoured. Now, if you add more ways of flanking the enemy and ways to get behind them what you get is Brink. Of course it really is a little more complicated than that but in a nutshell this comparison holds.

There is one more thing I like to get of my chest. I dont understand people who have more fun playing BC2 than Brink. After having played QW for about 2 1/2 years with a friend, we wanted to try seomthign new. BC2 has this class-based rush mode which seemed to be a bit like the obj-based mode in QW. It is only blowing stuff up and every class can do it but we did not care about that. However after playing the maps a couple of times they got boring soooo fast you coudlnt even imagine. It was exactly the same every time. There was no real need for teamplay other than sticking together most of the time. Nothing like in Brink for example: Soldier plants a bomb and medic gives him an adrenalin shot at the right moment, same goes for diffusing. Of course it is a lot of “sticking”-together but there is much more involved in doing it right than there is in BC2. For example when you were capturing a command post and you someone got you from behind but you are just incapacited you teammate can quickly switch to medic at the command post throw you a syringe and switch back to being soldier or engineer. Same goes for buffing. Just switch so enginner for a short time, buff you teammate and switch back. All these small little things, there is much more teamplay in Brink then there is in BC2. And god I hated those stupid lone-wolf grenade launcher soldiers. Not because they killed me but because there was just no skill involved whatsoever.[/QUOTE]

Cause most players these days just want to shut down their brain while gaming.
It’s sad but it’s the truth.back in the days,when gaming was not so mainstreamy like today players wanted the challenge,players wanted a difficult game which is hard to master.

Today players just want to put a CD in,start the game and start shooting each other.

Look at CoD,simple run and gun without any real objective,SO POPULAR that it’s ridiculous to see for oldschool gamers.

Look at WoW,it gets easier and easier everyday,cause the majority of people wants it like this.
It’s just a “little group” of players who still want HARDCORE RAIDS,with bosses,so difficult that you could ragequit EASILY.

People say these days many gamers are degenerated and every game which is a bit more dificult to master is TRASH and i must say,there is truth in it.

(Jess Alon) #87

[QUOTE=Crytiqal;322902]Lol Jess Alon

could you whine some more please?

SD did not live up to the hype they created themselves.

I really wonder what they’ve been doing during their 1 year postpone of this game.

Gameplay is solid for me tho, just the overal package looks/feels broken and I hope this can be fixed.
Altho sometimes I really hate SMART and wish I could disable automatic smart.[/QUOTE]

There’s all kinds of weird crap in the game that needs to be fixed even though I think the core gameplay is brilliant. I don’t like that I can still get randomly one shotted across the map through walls by the bots. Or that when I incap someone and then melee them they turn into a different character wearing different clothes. Last night I got to play full teams with my friends and we steam rolled everyone we played against but still more people kept joining to play against us even when people would leave. But at one point when I was trying to use remote control turret I got this weird glitch where the screen was strobing and it was like I was spinning really fast. I couldn’t get out of it. At one point I started flying in the air doing this until a teammate knocked me back down with a well timed frag and I returned to normal.

Crit. I’m not whining I’m saying it’s stupid to act like SD is not doing anything at all about the problems. I myself was kind of expecting it to be perfect after waiting so long. I’d kind of like an explaination from Paul himself how short of sabotage this could have happened. But I’m not going to say a good company like splash damage is doomed because I purchased the one game they made that could “POSSIBLY” be a dud. Even though I think it’s a blast to play glitches, lag, and stupid bots aside.

So no they didn’t give me everything I thought I was gonna get. But then again for what brink appeared to be I would have paid 100 bucks for the damn game. I’m happy enough with it. All this whole debacle is going to do is make them actually kick ass on their next game imo.

(DissapointedCustomer) #88

You sadly must not play that many games if you’ve not had one defy your expectations in a while. I had quite a few last year and a handful already this year. Brink sadly didn’t live up to the expectations I had from watching and reading the previews over the years. It’s great in theory but very poorly executed.

(shango1963) #89

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322227]Well there ya go fearless fox. You got a couple pats on the head. Keep in mind that Brink is having technical issues right now. And BC2 is not. Also Brink is a NEW IP. So you can’t really compare Brink to the big boys yet. It may very well be a sleeper hit once it gets the issues resolved.

And NOTHING can take away Splash Damage’s achievements in the industry as being a studio that makes games for gamers who LOVE team based gameplay. And if anything they’ve at least achieved that with brink. Even though everyone wants to point the finger at all the other bells and whistles and forget that fact.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, Jess. The game has just released and people are already expecting it to bomb horribly. I also don’t remember any game dev. anywhere, with any title, “promising” the gaming community anything. They state their diection for a project and that’s that. I can’t believe the short memory of people either. Seems to me folks have selective memories. Not one tiltle mentioned here, or elsewhere, has been bug free. I remember the Beta for the first Bad Company (don’t get me started on the bugs for Bad Co. 2) was so bug laced that it negatively affected my PS3 for weeks before it began working correctly again.

Killzone 3 has had its share of problems, as has the Halo franchise (for those who like that title). COD has been no different.

Some of the things the OP mentioned are just subjective, like the suggestion of an engaging story. The stories of Medal Of Honor and the upcomong MW3 and BF3 are almost the same. Heck, the atmosphere seems strangely similar (if not the same-right down to some of the art themes). Halo and Section 8 Prejudice are practically the "same " experience, though I love Section 8.

Graphically speaking, while MW (COD) has great character models/graphics, in multiplayer especially, the environmental graphics (grass, edges of buildings) are blah to say the least. To much hype there. The best graphics to date for me has been in Killzones 2 & 3. Brink’s graphics are certainly not horrible the way some here make it seem.

Do people really think what we have now in Brink is it; that this all that is planned? Give the title room to breath. Not even out a month and complaints come crashing in.

(DissapointedCustomer) #90

[QUOTE=shango1963;322958]Agreed, Jess. The game has just released and people are already expecting it to bomb horribly. I also don’t remember any game dev. anywhere, with any title, “promising” the gaming community anything. They state their diection for a project and that’s that. I can’t believe the short memory of people either. Seems to me folks have selective memories. Not one tiltle mentioned here, or elsewhere, has been bug free. I remember the Beta for the first Bad Company (don’t get me started on the bugs for Bad Co. 2) was so bug laced that it negatively affected my PS3 for weeks before it began working correctly again.

Killzone 3 has had its share of problems, as has the Halo franchise (for those who like that title). COD has been no different.

Some of the things the OP mentioned are just subjective, like the suggestion of an engaging story. The stories of Medal Of Honor and the upcomong MW3 and BF3 are almost the same. Heck, the atmosphere seems strangely similar (if not the same-right down to some of the art themes). Halo and Section 8 Prejudice are practically the "same " experience, though I love Section 8.

Graphically speaking, while MW (COD) has great character models/graphics, in multiplayer especially, the environmental graphics (grass, edges of buildings) are blah to say the least. To much hype there. The best grpahics to date for me has been in Killzones 2 & 3. Brink’s graphics are certainly not horrible the some here make it seem.

Do people really think what we have now in Brink is it; that this all that is planned? Give the title room to breath. Not even out a month and complaints come crashing in.[/QUOTE]

What game breaking bugs were there in any of the Halo releases? Been playing them since the first and have yet to experience anything comparable to Brinks unplayability.

I understand the point of your post but that just worries me further, seems these days people are actually content with buying an incomplete game which might get fixed in the long run, sad really that it’s come to this. :frowning:

(fearlessfox) #91

[QUOTE=shango1963;322958]
Do people really think what we have now in Brink is it; that this all that is planned? Give the title room to breath. Not even out a month and complaints come crashing in.[/QUOTE]

You don’t think it’s okay to complain when:

Lag and engine optimization ruin the experience for many people.
The graphics and animations in the previews are superior to the release.
The previews show strong story based OBJ play and the game is lacking that too.
VOIP is lacking in a MP focused game.
There’s absolutely NO way to communicate with your team mates on consoles, which is absolutely astounding for a TEAM focused MP game.
No stat tracking.
etc…

Now, many of these things can be fixed, but when SD has already taken a year out to smooth over final issues and /this/ is what we’re given then we have the right to be disappointed and to use the forums to feedback complaints.

Now, before you start, I don’t necessarily mind the absence of most of the above as I’m more than aware of the way the gaming industry operates these days - run and patch - however, I /am/ worried about SD’s reputation and their ability to patch and improve Brink in time for the online communities to remain/regain substance enough for the game to truly shine.

Yes, other games are released with issues these days (it’s rare that they’e not) but that doesn’t excuse the fact that Brink is currently lacking a great deal. It is low in content, badly optimised, /and/ has poor netcode at present. It’s rare to see a game released perfectly, but it’s also rare to see a game released in the state Brink was.

[QUOTE=DissapointedCustomer;322971]What game breaking bugs were there in any of the Halo releases? Been playing them since the first and have yet to experience anything comparable to Brinks unplayability.

I understand the point of your post but that just worries me further, seems these days people are actually content with buying an incomplete game which might get fixed in the long run, sad really that it’s come to this. :([/QUOTE]

Halo doesn’t get released with game breaking bugs. The company are lucky enough to be successful enough to afford a team to cover all bases. They’ve always been diligent, however, and even back when they were independent their work was pretty damn great.

And yes, it’s a sorry state of affairs. People are willing to accept so little these days with the promise it /might/ get better.

(Hurlbag) #92

Just what bothers me, for a game that looked somewhat polished in the 2009 demonstration videos, I can’t understand how TWO years of developtment could result in the countless issues the retail version is plagued with.
That said I still love this game, but for me the issues vastly outweigh the enjoyment to be had from the game, especially having played for 6~ days to find i’ve already done every map, class and got the max rank - that said I don’t care too much about being max rank, it should have taken alot longer though. The game just feels claustrophobically small now.

Such a waste of £30 in the state it is, it feels only 50% complete. I do hope they get this game in gear soon - although I find it hard to see it happening, I still hope.

(Jess Alon) #93

[QUOTE=fearlessfox;322973]You don’t think it’s okay to complain when:

Lag and engine optimization ruin the experience for many people.
The graphics and animations in the previews are superior to the release.
The previews show strong story based OBJ play and the game is lacking that too.
VOIP is lacking in a MP focused game.
There’s absolutely NO way to communicate with your team mates on consoles, which is absolutely astounding for a TEAM focused MP game.
No stat tracking.
etc…

[/QUOTE]
Lag is practically fixed. I’ve been playing 8vs8. And its rare to get lag now.
People were complaining about the animations in the previews…
When did the previews show that? Story based? It’s always been about the mechanics. That’s still there.
XBL join a party. PSN i guess you’re screwed. PC there’s like a million options.
Buy a headset and select OLD SKOOL voip on by default.
Stats tracking will probably be here in 5 days by end of the month.

The only problem I have is that a lot of people are complaining just because they don’t like they set up or they don’t know there’s an option for what they want. There’s an option on 360 where voicechat is on by default.

They will probably add lobbies too with the outcry from everyone. Even though I don’t really love lobbies because I have to wait for everyone. I’d rather my friends just jump into the game with me casually instead of having to wait in a damn queue to play the game.

Obviously BC2 isn’t THAT entertaining or you wouldn’t still be on the Brink boards night and day.

(shango1963) #94

[QUOTE=DissapointedCustomer;322971]What game breaking bugs were there in any of the Halo releases? Been playing them since the first and have yet to experience anything comparable to Brinks unplayability.

I understand the point of your post but that just worries me further, seems these days people are actually content with buying an incomplete game which might get fixed in the long run, sad really that it’s come to this. :([/QUOTE]

Games are more complicated than when the ealier titles noted first featured. New software is being employed that devs. are just starting to fully master, so bugs can be expected-that’s life. In a perfect world no bugs would exist. But then that wouldn’t be the human exerience either.

Aside from the lag issue, I have experienced no “game breaking” bugs in Brink. Most of what complainers are classifying as such (except, again, the obvious bugs like character models not loading up initially, lag, etc.) are simply subjective taste issues.

No one, I believe goes about accepting bugs as something which is supposed to come prepackaged, but it’s simply immature to expect that, as I’ve noted, with the newness of software packages, like the ANT tech used in the upcoming BF3, no glitches are to be occur. If memory serves me right, this is SD’s first major foray into the console market. Mistakes are to be expected.

It could also be, relative to the supposed lack of feedback, that the Company is attempting to figure things out themselves before opening up to the community. We’ll see.

(DissapointedCustomer) #95

[QUOTE=shango1963;323005]Games are more complicated than when the ealier titles noted first featured. New software is being employed that devs. are just starting to fully master, so bugs can be expected-that’s life. In a perfect world no bugs would exist. But then that wouldn’t be the human exerience either.

Aside from the lag issue, I have experienced no “game breaking” bugs in Brink. Most of what complainers are classifying as such (except, again, the obvious bugs like character models not loading up intially, lag, etc.) are simply subjective taste issues.

No one, I believe goes about accepting bugs as something which is supposed to come prepackaged, but it’s simply immature to expect that, as I’ve noted, with the newness of software packages, like the ANT tech used in the upcoming BF3, no glitches are to be expected. If memory serves me right, this is SD’s first major foray into the console market. Mistakes are to be expected.

It could also be, relative to the supposed lack of feedback, that the Company is attempting to figure things out themselves before opening up to the community. We’ll see.[/QUOTE]

Just because failure is a part of human life and experience does not mean it has to be experienced when purchasing a game from a seasoned dev :confused: You’ve still not pointed out a game breaking glitch in any Halo game :stuck_out_tongue: The only one that comes to mind would be super jumping in Halo 2 which only the long time players knew about and BXR again in Halo 2.

It’s good to hear again that you’re having a good experience with Brink as when it goes well for me it is a very fun game. Shame most of the time i’m playing in bot filled games that still lag like crazy and fighting against irritating glitches that usually stop me from playing more that two games in a row. http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27417

And Im sure BF3 will have its fair share of glitches, but I can accept that as it’s going to be pushing systems a fair bit more than Brink does.

(Dormamu) #96

I think Bethesda made it clear to SD that if they don’t make Brink for console, bye-bye, multiplatform game or no game. Did i expected this? YES! As i know Zeni/Beth i knew them to make some demands from SD, for the money, “A pact with the devil”: dlc, sdk when we say so, in-house beta testing, cut some stuff from the game to reach the deadline, release date moved forward, watch what you are saying, etc. Is like they are trying to make SD a subsidiary of ZeniMax. Let’s hope they don’t succeed.
Bought the game, for 49.99Eu, never expected to be RTCW, W:ET or ET:QW, after Wolf2009 i have very low expectation for a game, i play Brink every day and that is something good as i get bored very quickly these days. From 13May i only had 1-2 crash with Alt+Tab,the no sound bug and the invisible people, other than that no problemo, played on Nvidia (440) and ATi(5730), maybe i was lucky. As a RTCW/ET player i am happy with this game :slight_smile:

P.S. I have faith in SD/Bethesda. Need to take out my Kross and spread some faith among the unbelievers :smiley:

(fearlessfox) #97

I have 20mb down and 2mb up and I get a constant muddy feeling online. On ps3 atm, moving to pc in a month or so.

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
People were complaining about the animations in the previews…[/quote]
The animations in previews look more interactive at times: better ragdols, etc…

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
When did the previews show that? Story based? It’s always been about the mechanics. That’s still there.[/quote]

All the cutscenes and in game interactions between squadmates that the previews showed as evidence of a very strong story based SP. SD hyped this too. And there are people out there who like SP more than MP. And SD convinced us that this would be strong on both counts.

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
XBL join a party. PSN i guess you’re screwed. PC there’s like a million options.[/quote]
PSN, I guess we’re screwed.

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
Buy a headset and select OLD SKOOL voip on by default.[/quote]

/No one/ playing old-school on psn. Limiting VOIP in this way is purely detrimental. If people don’t like VOIP in pubs then have an option to simply turn it down/off.

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
Stats tracking will probably be here in 5 days by end of the month.[/quote]

Why are you telling me what I already know. I already acknowledged this. I was making the point about people who have been and gone because it wasn’t here at first. And no, other games lacking on launch is /not/ a valid defense.

And is the mode populated, honestly? Because I’ve yet to find a single game on these modes on psn.

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
They will probably add lobbies too with the outcry from everyone. Even though I don’t really love lobbies because I have to wait for everyone. I’d rather my friends just jump into the game with me casually instead of having to wait in a damn queue to play the game.[/quote]

Makes no sense. Currently you have to find a server that isn’t full based on pot luck, invite friends, and hope they get there in time to secure a place.

It’s not so much a problem now with the dwindling fanbase… but still, it seems that you’re trying very hard to make any improvement based on feedback by players seem unneeded, that this game is somehow a paragon of MP FPSs.

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
Obviously BC2 isn’t THAT entertaining or you wouldn’t still be on the Brink boards night and day.[/QUOTE]
I post here from work in between having jobs to do. My days are split up into frantic few hours of work and then a few hours of nothing. Trust me, if I could I’d be playing Brink or BC2 right now.

(system) #98

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;322991]
Obviously BC2 isn’t THAT entertaining or you wouldn’t still be on the Brink boards night and day.[/QUOTE]

Second time I see this kind of comment : so, I don’t know for FearlessFox but for me, I’m at work, with a tab opened on the forum and read what’s new from time to time.
So I can’t be playing “instead” : we don’t have to be at home doing nothing but sitting in front of our PC instead of playing all day long … glad you “obviously” can do it!

Edit : saw FearlessFox’s post and was right : maybe when Jess grow up and find a job he’ll understand …

(neks) #99

had you any previous experience with SD’s previous games you should have known what to expect but I take it you played more BC2 than W:ET/QW so I guess it makes sense that you don’t really get it.

so am I

(fearlessfox) #100

Nope. I played the demos of BF1942 and BF on pc very briefly years ago, and I’ve been playing BC2 for about 4 days now.

Played ET games extensively.

Cheers.