Where are Sierra and Valve these days?EA blows monkey chunks

[Homerlovesbeer]

After playing online games for years I can truly say that EA are a complete bunch of wallies with little respect for the customers that drive their business. I look fondly back on the days when Half life came out, where Sierra in conjunction with valve, gave us all a FREE addon called Team Fortress Classic. Valve and Sierra did a fantastic job of continually upgrading TFC constantly striving to make a great game better. New patches were frequent in comming, the net code was constantly being rewritten to make it fairer between 56K modem players and LPB. They reduced the number of Bombs a demoman and HW guy could carry from 4 to 2 to reduce spam etc. New maps were produced, new skins created, boy it was paradise! It STILL has a player base of around 60000 and is only now starting to loose it's popularity.

Now look at MOH. first it's published by EA, who seem to focus on consoles rather than perfecting pc games. BOO! Then the multiplayer has bugger all maps. Infact new maps are made by enthusiasts. You cannot easily play say omaha beach landing in team player deathmatch. oh no. One must install mods created by a 3rd party to do that! Then there are all the cheats being used. What does EA do about it? Bugger all cause who cares anyway? The public has already parted with cash so why spend time and money fixing something that should never have been there in the 1st place? The net code is poor compared to TFC. When I snipe I have to aim infront of a player and hope I've allowed for latency correctly. And thats pinging 30-40ms! With TFC the netcode was such that u aimed crosshairs where u want to hit and it did the rest! WAY BETTER! Then the addon appears which we PAY for...no freebies from EA ....for what is essentially the same game with new maps and different skins/weapons. Gameplay still is dodgy, people hop around the place....heads run around on the floor, the twisty shaky dance is going strong and dammit....people are invisible. What crap is this? Time goes on...no patch. no patch no patch. Either they don't give a toss or there are so many problems that they are having to rewrite the whole gamecode anyway. Now the game sucks resources like a gaping black hole.....server prices go through the roof and we STILL have cheats. Is there a future for this game? can it be saved or is it doomed?

I love the game and have a ball playing it but enough is enough. The only decent server I can play on is in the US where I ping 180+ and runs 30/30. I'm happy to report it runs great though..must be one hell of a machine! In the UK they are damn scarce. I might just have to switch to battlefields 1942.....crap...another EA game. WHERE THE HELL IS VALVE AND SIERRA????? Give me Half life 2 PLEASE!!!

I hope game delelopers start to listen to the gaming community and give EA a wide berth in the future. Go to Sierra or something. They were fantastic with TFC...always updating and great communication with the gaming community. Just look at what they did with NOLF 2 ....Fantastic.

Any other thoughs here?
Phew! I needed to get that off my chest argie
Homerlovesbeer

[SNYPE]

I vote that we move this and some of these other posts to the General Chit-Chat forum, thanks guys.

[kdja]

Some flaws in your logic.

2015 made MOHAA
Dice made BF1942
EALA made Spearhead

EA publish all of the above.

EA simply release franchises , Its our fault they release games in a half complete state and sometimes release them as a full version instead of an upgrade that it should (EA Sports FIFA ,F1 series anyone who has played these knows what im talking about).

Now you ask how is it our fault simple we buy them.
Look at the charts how many EA games in the top 10 ????
If we keep buying these products they will keep releasing them.
Only ourselves to blame.

Counter Strike 2 is what the others are working on and Tribes 3.


kdjaC

[Homerlovesbeer]

Sorry I'f I wasn't clear. I was referring to EA releasing games then not ensuring that there is continual support after the initial release. I thought that EA would have something in the contract stating that the developer must continue to improve the game as is needed up to a certain date etc etc. Maybe they do..who knows but the gaming community isn't seeing it. And yes EA are to blame because they release a game that has flaws in it which in todays world is unacceptable.

Unfortunately the gaming public doesn't know the state of the game unless they have bought it and played it......at which point it is too late a time. Gaming mags don't always give the full story either. In all the game mag reviews of Spearhead I've read there isn't ANY mention of the terrible flaws of the multiplayer version. Which is what I got it for.

Oh and then there is the ASE issue too ;)
And it'd be nice to have a Linux server available at the time of release too as it is generally agreed that it is a far better platform to run on.

Ah well
Homerlovesbeer