Star Wars Battlefront: impressive trailer

[krzychuzokecia 719]

I've wanted to write a lengthy and elaborated post about how I would like to get on the Battlefront hype-wagon, but I can't, but this pretty much sums up all my thoughts:

The main gripe I have with this Star Wars Battlefront game is its gameplay focus and target audience - A new Battlefield within the Star Wars IP (...)

No campaign, no space battles. What's going to be left of Star Wars are the groundbattles - Battlefield style. Sadly I expect nothing more.

But hell with clarity and compactness of message! Here's my essay. :p

I feel a catastrophy of a Hardline size. I mean: how they had screw up a great idea of cops and robbers multiplayer game? GTA: Online is all about that idea. Heck, even those "Life" mods are all about it. But EA/DICE Hardline is the worst imaginable realisation of such game: essentially a BF4 DLC, priced as a full game, but with police cars instead of jeeps (tanks are left intact).

Now there's Battlefront coming, and even this cinematic trailer doesn't give me any hope. Again: we do know that EA is capable of making great trailers, full of special effects that You won't see in game. We also know that DICE is capable of making very cinematic, action-packed missions that will give chills to every casual player. However, Battlefield in it's first incarnations, wasn't about casual entertainment of linear missions. It was an atmospheric and authentic experience of massive air-land battle (even with naval assets), that let You feel how unimportant You are in a grand scheme of things. But times have changed and people who play these games too: BF now looks like a technically advanced version of Quake III Arena. Nicer models, shaders etc. but it's all about run'n'gun in multiplayer. With a few CoD-like cinematic moments.

And there was also Battlefront, which was nothing more than a Battlefield with blasters in it's first iteration, but evolved in second, with such features like space battles with collosal motherships and fighters all around. And what's left of this idea in new EA/DICE Battlefront? Judging from trailer: nothing much. The first, Endor part is like every other trailer for big budget FPS. More like a movie than a game. There may be a singleplayer mission in this vein in finished game, but don't have high hopes about it - linear, almost rail-shooter of 1980's, that's what it'll be, because everybody does so. One way to kill AT-AT, and don't go behind those invisible level walls because invisible grenade will hit You!

Then we've got second part of a trailer which shows how multiplayer may look: spam of Tie-Fighters and X-Wings. And it's all in atmosphere! Even in movies, which were a works of fiction, we've seen more authentic (realistic?) visualisation of battles between Empire and Rebels. Tie-Fighters and X-Wings weren't do-it-all weapons - they had specific tasks for which they were designed. When Rebels wanted to have air support during battles, they've used different vehicles, like Snowspeeders during battle of Hoth. This shows the level of ingenuity of Star Wars creators - a virtue which EA/DICE lacks.

So - if You liked last Battlefield games and love Star Wars, You'll definately love new Battlefront too. But for people who want something more... Well, we've got to wait and see. I want to believe. Really.

[chortles 263]

Re: the atmosphere part: I guess you didn't hear about Battlefront 3?

[vran. 13]

I'm more interested in seeing Star Wars in ArmA, personally. A full-blown SW conversion is what this series were calling out for since OFP.

[x3kj 1247]

It was an atmospheric and authentic experience of massive air-land battle

Authentic? It was extremely arcade... and it was fun because it was something new. Not because it was the pinnacle of creation ever.

[krzychuzokecia 719]

Authentic? It was extremely arcade...

Authenticity =/= realism. Original Battlefield: 1942 indeed was arcade, or rather simplified (note that even Arma isn't all that realistic, and with A3 it's going more into "balanced content - player friendly" territory). However later games in the series (especially after vanilla BF2) went from authentic simplicity into arcade over-the-top action.

Now there's question of Battlefront and Star Wars in this scheme of things. You can't have realism in a game based on science-fiction space opera. But still You can have authentic gameplay. Let's compare space battles in A New Hope/Return of the Jedi with the one opening Revenge of the Sith.

In original movies spaceships were flying in formations, attacks were carefully planned and executed, there was visible order of battle. But there was also chaos, just like it is in real life. Fictional war, fictional weapons and even fictional physics but it was authentic. And thirty years later, when we don't have expensive film stock, but we have powerful CGI, what's on the screen? Colorful chaos of firing lasers and explosions that makes Your eyes wide open.

But RotS opening battle have no sense from what one can call militaristic point of view. When watching the movie another time, when You know all the special effects in this scene, You start to think where's the point? Why all those ships are flying frantically across the screen, what they're doing? And then You realise that all of this have only one purpose: to look cool. It's great from perspective of filmmaker's excellence but is not authentic.

And this comparison IMHO is applicable also for BF1942 and BF4. And probably for Battlefront 2004 and 2015.

[chortles 263]

Then we've got second part of a trailer which shows how multiplayer may look: spam of Tie-Fighters and X-Wings. And it's all in atmosphere! Even in movies, which were a works of fiction, we've seen more authentic (realistic?) visualisation of battles between Empire and Rebels. Tie-Fighters and X-Wings weren't do-it-all weapons - they had specific tasks for which they were designed. When Rebels wanted to have air support during battles, they've used different vehicles, like Snowspeeders during battle of Hoth. This shows the level of ingenuity of Star Wars creators - a virtue which EA/DICE lacks.

The Hoth comparison doesn't fly (no pun intended) because the snowspeeders came down to them being modified for cold weather unlike the starfighters -- which on both sides were perfectly capable of flying and fighting in atmosphere, so that wouldn't be out of place on Tatooine, Jakku, or Endor. As for the gameplay aspect... TL;DR: Free Radical tried and failed so badly at "seamless space to ground combat transition" (as opposed to the prior games' separate ground and space battles) that EA presumably elected not to attempt that despite presumably greater resources, especially if what they heard of Battlefront 3 from former developers was that "seamless space and ground combat in the same match" was a fundamentally flawed vision to attempt in the first place.

A:They are stupid/gullible

B:They have a very vivid imagination (wich means they will be really dissapointed at release)

C:They are young and don´t know better, or they are new to gaming.

D:They are starved for a good Star Wars action game (Could SOMEBODY (other than EA or Ubisoft) make a good Jedi Knight game again? Please? Anybody?)

Who ever get´s hyped by that Trailer is one of those things.

EA can't help A and can definitely take advantage of B, but C is almost certainly the main reason because it meshes the most with Disney's strategy for Star Wars... don't expect the "SOMEBODY other than EA or Ubisoft" part though, especially if Disney holds to the same rule that LucasArts did with The Old Republic: make the developer/publisher foot the bill for damn near everything.

[nodunit 397]

Space battles are nice and all but we've seen aircraft so clearly there will be some present ( I just hope its not a shit slinging fest like what I saw from BF3 and 4's fixed wing 'combat') and honestly the one odd space battle against several ground based maps would seem a bit..eh? I'd opt for land first then expand to space later where it can be a focus all its own rather than attached on the side.

I just hope we don't see some god awful perk system and a ton of unlocks, I really don't understand why people enjoy that stuff these days but then perhaps its my pessimistic view of not so much working to unlock something but rather a hook to keep you playing rather you enjoying the game for itself entirerly.

[chortles 263]

I just hope we don't see some god awful perk system and a ton of unlocks, I really don't understand why people enjoy that stuff these days but then perhaps its my pessimistic view of not so much working to unlock something but rather a hook to keep you playing rather you enjoying the game for itself entirerly.

The sad part is, EA probably has internal data purporting to prove (to their number-crunchers) that mass unlocks do work in keeping player counts up.

[nodunit 397]

Perhaps I was too harsh on the idea, I can see unlocks being okay to an extent when they offer some variety, BF2 had unlocks after you got so far with your class but that was one primary weapon per class (two if you count special forces).

What BF3 and 4 did was just insane with the numbers of unlocks, variety is nice and all but it also means more time spent on balancing and creating more weapons when you could be focusing on environments and things of that nature.

It just seems like artificial padding and I wonder how many people would be playing the game regardless of the unlocks.

But hey no battlelog and browser requirement to launch the game so woohoo for that, hopefully it'll be good old fashioned double clicking the .exe and poof game comes up.

Oh yes and a word of caution to fellow Arma players, if you have never played a battlefront game before, it has both first and third person camera modes and is said to have it in battlefront 3.

On a sort of topic note, a word of caution for anyone thinking about pre-ordering or even buying it first day rather than letting it simmer a bit.

Edited April 21, 2015 by NodUnit

[chortles 263]

Oh yes and a word of caution to fellow Arma players, if you have never played a battlefront game before, it has both first and third person camera modes and is said to have it in battlefront 3.

First/third-person views were confirmed for Battlefront, as per the prior games (albeit the third-person is probably "shooter standard" over-the-shoulder without the infamous "corner peeking" whenever sticky cover isn't involved).

Incidental notes: No, there won't be some indie dev coming in to save the day with a Jedi Knight game -- the "core" (non-mobile) game license is exclusively EA's, and apparently Battlefront 2 wasn't even supposed to have SP to begin with:

Another LucasArts employee remembers a particularly divisive decision made by executives for Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that was already in danger of quality issues due to LucasArts only giving it one year of development time. “It was originally being designed as a multiplayer-only game,†this staffer recalls. “It remained that way for most of its development cycle. New people who came in after the game was in development basically said, ‘No, we’re not going to make money off of a multiplayer-only game, you have to put in a single-player campaign.’ Pandemic screamed bloody murder and said it couldn’t be done, but [LucasArts] said that they had to figure it out. Battlefront II’s producer at LucasArts basically had a breakdown bringing the game in, but the team made their deadlines and the game sold like crazy. It was probably a bad lesson for Ward to learn, because LucasArts was successful at doing something that everyone thought was impossible.â€

[Tonci87 163]

Apparently Battlefield Star wars won´t have destructible environments because it doesn´t fit the theme. BS excuse if you ask me. I guess they want to save on programming costs and optimise their netcode that way.

[negah 26]

Well im ok with non destructible environments, if it helps improve other parts of the game.

I always thought it to be a non-essential nice-to-have feature.

And I cant remember any scene in Star Wars where stormies would make a hole in a wall to get those rebel scum :D

Lets just pretend that the buildings in the galaxy far far away are built of some very resistant materials.

[froggyluv 2136]

"Promo it -and they will buy...."

Seems to be the motto of every contemporary awaited AAA title these days. The above lets me know that this (yet again) will be a flashy looking game with very little substance that I would play for less than 3 days. Just about every major release in the past couple of years has a huge awaitment factor followed by massive disappointment or worse apathy with the horde just shrugging and running off after the next big promising.

How inspired can the SP campaign be when it's literally shoved down the programmers throats who don't even want to do it?! How creative and pushing of the envelope will the AI be?

"Destructable environments?! Hell no desync will be a nightmare and we might not get our 10/10 Gamespot score!!!"

AAA titles no longer have the capability of producing breathroughs of any kind in any category whatsoever. "They have 100x $ than _x developer! They could kick their ass in AI, physics or any category if they really wanted!". Yeah right, just like Miley Cyrus has more bank than 1000 creative muscians put together therefore has 1000 times the potential talent 'if she really wanted to..'

Know this is kind of a rant but it's just depressing to see formerly great producers that I grew with like EA (Seven Cities of Gold, Bird Vs Johnson, Adventure Construction Set... et al) degrading themselves like this. Imagine if one of these titles actually added a few sim elements rather than BF guys dressed up like Star Wars guys? Exactly why I'd back 10 star citizens over this tripe -at least they're going for it or bust balls be damned.

[bangtail 0]

"Promo it -and they will buy...."

Seems to be the motto of every contemporary awaited AAA title these days. The above lets me know that this (yet again) will be a flashy looking game with very little substance that I would play for less than 3 days. Just about every major release in the past couple of years has a huge awaitment factor followed by massive disappointment or worse apathy with the horde just shrugging and running off after the next big promising.

How inspired can the SP campaign be when it's literally shoved down the programmers throats who don't even want to do it?! How creative and pushing of the envelope will the AI be?

"Destructable environments?! Hell no desync will be a nightmare and we might not get our 10/10 Gamespot score!!!"

AAA titles no longer have the capability of producing breathroughs of any kind in any category whatsoever. "They have 100x $ than _x developer! They could kick their ass in AI, physics or any category if they really wanted!". Yeah right, just like Miley Cyrus has more bank than 1000 creative muscians put together therefore has 1000 times the potential talent 'if she really wanted to..'

Know this is kind of a rant but it's just depressing to see formerly great producers that I grew with like EA (Seven Cities of Gold, Bird Vs Johnson, Adventure Construction Set... et al) degrading themselves like this. Imagine if one of these titles actually added a few sim elements rather than BF guys dressed up like Star Wars guys? Exactly why I'd back 10 star citizens over this tripe -at least they're going for it or bust balls be damned.

I want to get excited about this but you said it (and Jim Sterling said it as well), EA will cut this up and sell it to us piece by DLC piece.

Want Space Combat? CHa CHING

Want a gold X-Wing CHa CHING

Want a rubber Ewok cock? CHa CHING

The 'whole' game will end up costing $150.00 (like Hardline) with the ubiquitous 'Season pass', 'Premium Edition' and 'Pre Order Bonuses'.

This whole industry needs a goddamned enema :(

/rant off

Edited April 22, 2015 by BangTail

[Tonci87 163]

Well the next video game industry crash sure is on the way with how things are going when you look at big publishers.

[dontknowhow 33]

It is impressive how the appearance of the word "EA" in a thread can generate such a big amount of hate.

I was wondering how EA can, in such a situation, sell a shitload of copies. The most obvious answer is that EA is selling a lot more on consoles:

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefield+3

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefield+4

They did so bad with BF4 that even the console version didn't do very well. But I'm afraid this won't keep the "casual" players (to not use a less flattering definition) from buying the next games.

Things won't change I'm afraid. EA has no real reason to do different.

But, to be honest, it's not always like that. There are some good decent developers, and Steam is helping. There is no point in getting so mad at EA, everybody knows how it works.

[nodunit 397]

Well it's nice to see that BF4 didn't sell as well after 3 and given that horrendous launch, though we can blame the industry day in and day out, but people still buy things each and every time.

Just look at call of duty, plenty of griping about that, people saying its the same thing over and over again, and yet every release millions of people buy it, ever. single. time.

The first time I heard consumers labelled with the term "whales" in regards to the video game industry I thought it was pretty rude, but as time goes by and the pattern repeats, I'm finding that it fits more and more.

I want to get excited about this but you said it (and Jim Sterling said it as well), EA will cut this up and sell it to us piece by DLC piece.

Want Space Combat? CHa CHING

Want a gold X-Wing CHa CHING

Want a rubber Ewok cock? CHa CHING

Space combat will likely be an expansion-like DLC, the rest don't really matter because they are asthetic and if people waste their money on it then...well that is on them but at least it is a gameplay element.

Edited April 22, 2015 by NodUnit

[Tonci87 163]

It is impressive how the appearance of the word "EA" in a thread can generate such a big amount of hate.

I was wondering how EA can, in such a situation, sell a shitload of copies. The most obvious answer is that EA is selling a lot more on consoles:

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefield+3

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefield+4

They did so bad with BF4 that even the console version didn't do very well. But I'm afraid this won't keep the "casual" players (to not use a less flattering definition) from buying the next games.

Things won't change I'm afraid. EA has no real reason to do different.

But, to be honest, it's not always like that. There are some good decent developers, and Steam is helping. There is no point in getting so mad at EA, everybody knows how it works.

They will stop selling when the world runs out of new 12 year olds.

[dontknowhow 33]

They will stop selling when the world runs out of new 12 year olds.

I wish it was only 12 year olds

[chortles 263]

How inspired can the SP campaign be when it's literally shoved down the programmers throats who don't even want to do it?! How creative and pushing of the envelope will the AI be?

Battlefront2.txt

[nodunit 397]

Fact is nothing is going to change, droves of people will buy it either because they saw their favorite youtuber playing it, they genuinely want to play it, or they just want to throw money around for some reason. The internet is full of people to take advantage of, companies and common folk know this alike, just look at some of the things people spend money on or send money for, you can make just about anything. A phone app that literally does nothing, flappy bird, certain life mods, people that buy content for the sake of having it regardless of where it came from, people that will buy a game simply because the devs were of the same nation even if it is a blatant ripoff and horrid one at that. People give people money for unboxing videos, or hell even opening kits.

I know this sounds more like a youtube rant than a video game rant but after seeing these things I've come to realise, its all fruitless, people will throw money at anything these days and even defend it, people talk big about ethics and business practices but then go out and buy the things that they said they hate, they talk about boycotting and then buy and play the game without a thought, people will buy games just because their friends have them.

Even when some of the most watched people online say "Hey guys this is bad, don't buy it" what happens? Bought in droves, if bad is the new good then how can anything fail? Hell just look at steam green light and all of the literal junk people buy from there.

Edited April 23, 2015 by NodUnit

[bangtail 0]

Fact is nothing is going to change, droves of people will buy it either because they saw their favorite youtuber playing it, they genuinely want to play it, or they just want to throw money around for some reason. The internet is full of people to take advantage of, companies and common folk know this alike, just look at some of the things people spend money on or send money for, you can make just about anything. A phone app that literally does nothing, flappy bird, certain life mods, people that buy content for the sake of having it regardless of where it came from, people that will buy a game simply because the devs were of the same nation even if it is a blatant ripoff and horrid one at that. People give people money for unboxing videos, or hell even opening kits.

I know this sounds more like a youtube rant than a video game rant but after seeing these things I've come to realise, its all fruitless, people will throw money at anything these days and even defend it, people talk big about ethics and business practices but then go out and buy the things that they said they hate, they talk about boycotting and then buy and play the game without a thought, people will buy games just because their friends have them.

Even when some of the most watched people online say "Hey guys this is bad, don't buy it" what happens? Bought in droves, if bad is the new good then how can anything fail? Hell just look at steam green light and all of the literal junk people buy from there.

QFT

/5 Chars

[ProfTournesol 956]

Agreed. Too bad Rogue One is going to be "undoing" it most likely which is a shame because Kyle Katarn is probably my favorite SW character.

Please tell me someone remembers how epic xwing and tie fighter were all those years ago???

Two bundles on GoG today :

Dark Forces + Dark Forces II + Jedi Knight II Outcast and Academy + Knights of the Old Republic I and II + Empire At War + BattleFront II + Republic Commando + Starfighters for 21,70 €

XWing Alliance + Galactic Battleground + XWing vs Tie Fighter + Rogue Squadron + Tie Fighter Special Edition + Rebellion + XWing Special Edition for 36,93 €

[dontknowhow 33]

Maybe it's not so unrealistic after all. Looks like DX12 does wonders. This is from Square Enix:

Overclocked machine with a 4 way SLI. Not bad. I wonder what it takes to do good physics and AI

Edit: 4 way GTX Titan X, that is. Not a joke

[jblackrupert 14]

Maybe it's not so unrealistic after all. Looks like DX12 does wonders. This is from Square Enix:

Overclocked machine with a 4 way SLI. Not bad. I wonder what it takes to do good physics and AI

Edit: 4 way GTX Titan X, that is. Not a joke

But that's a tech demo, doing that in a full game is different.

DICE has already admitted all their trailers are not created in realtime and Patrick Bach himself stated many of the lighting effects are not currently possible

to create in Frostbite game at playable framerates.

Promotional "screenshots" and trailers are rendered at extremely high resolutions with stupid amounts of AA and then downsampled to 1080p.

Someone from Gamespot was brave enough to state that demo they saw does not look as good as the "In engine" trailer.