Battlefield Producer Thinks Most Sandbox Games Are "Boring"

[SinisterGehe]

I spent ~2hrs on HL2, bit over 1hr in HL:EP1 Less than an hour on HL:EP2.
I spent 78hrs on Fallout 3 ~50 on Fallout:NW, at the moment playing Oblivion thus far 26hrs, Minecraft A LOT of hours... Hmm oddly enough I seem to be more interested in sandbox games which offer lot of quests free exploration and freedom to complete main story when I feel like. I wonder why I buy sandbox games instead of Linear shooters that focuses on Multiplayer...


Seems like I wont be buying that game...

 

[Slim-Shot]

I have a question... why can't Battlefield 3 simply resemble Battlefield 2?

Why does it even need a campaign mode with predictable set pieces? I'll tell you why - to pander to console players. Battlefield is a multiplayer game, period. 1942, Desert Combat, Vietnam, BF2, and 2142 were all without a single player campaign, and each was my favourite game of its period.

It seems that DICE is hell bent on rooting all of its fans over. The gaming market does not need ANOTHER generic contemporary military style shooter!

 

[Goody]

Hardly. Here's how DICE deals with those fucking quickscopers.

As long as they don't put stupid amounts of aim assist on, quickscoping isn't a problem as it then requires actual skill not aim assist abuse.

 

[TacticalAssassin1]

I think this is a good thing.
The single player is probably going to be like this: you go around doing specific missions in specific orders, like in cod. BUT IN A VERY BATTLEFIELD 3 WAY.
Come on, have faith in them. It's going to be fucking sweet, who cares if you can't wander around and have massive battles on sparce maps. That's not what this game is about.

 

[Tsaba]

WHY?! Battle field has always played a hell of a lot better than COD, if they decide to have a class, perks, weapon unlockables/attachments, I can handle that, but, please, for the love of God, don't fuck the way the game plays to be more like COD!

EDIT:

Spoiler: BTW best game ever as far as customization for the weapon and character.

 

[m72_ar]

The only thing different between the BF and CoD is map size and vehicles

Which are incidentally two of the best things about Battlefield, as in, some of the many reasons I don't play COD.

And you will get that in BF3, since i don't hear anything about them removing vehicles and we PC players still got 64 man.

The whole comparison with it being CoD is stupid to begin with. CoD is BF without the vehicles and smaller map size. Since they pretty much guaranteed that we will get 64 man, vehicles + destructo scenery I fail to see how people in the forum start hating the game.

SP wise yes, if they can make it like CoD sure. MW2 SP is way better than BC2 SP and i really hate MW2.

Multiplayer wise It's about as close to BF2 as we'll ever get si no problem there

 

[Jumplion]

I like sandbox games every now and again, but most of the time I prefer a more linear sort of game. I think the hardest thing to do in a sandbox game is to deliver a consistent story, especially in sandbox games like GTA4. Its story wanted to go with a serious The Godfather route thing, but the crazy explosions and wacky-ness of the gameplay completely contradicted it. Also, the pacing was terrible, even if you went directly for the story missions.

It'll be interesting to see what Battlefield will come up with. I hope that it will deliver a better told story overall than most shooters (*coughcoughHomefrontcoughcough*), though I somehow doubt it.

 

[m72_ar]

WHY?! Battle field has always played a hell of a lot better than COD, if they decide to have a class, perks, weapon unlockables/attachments, I can handle that, but, please, for the love of God, don't fuck the way the game plays to be more like COD!

BF2 did CoD before CoD existed.
Class selection exist in all battlefield games since BF1942
All unlockables based on rank are arguably pioneered by BF2 (granted killstreak bonus is a CoD thing)

Multiplayer wise in BF you got vehicles and bigger mapsize which you don't have in CoD. Other than that what exactly is different between the two game?

 

[Eleima]

Well, sure, no one wants to see a *Battlefield* sandbox game, but some of them are quite fun...
This guy should stick to what he knows before making ignorant comments.

 

[Devious Boomer]

He's only referring to the single player, in that it's in need of a more guided experience.
In a quotation from the article itself:

"I don't see it as an absolute goal for all games to be sandbox games. We've been building sandbox games for quite some time and we've got pretty good at it, but I don't see that as the only way of building games, because then we wouldn't build campaigns at all."

I think the best playable approach to linear games is what Crysis 2 did - linear game but flexible level design. Whilst both brilliant series, STALKER was always more about the exploration of a fallen world, planning and survival than the emotional and physical immediacy of focused military shooters such as CoD and the Bad Company games.
Just as you can tell a story through the environment, a linear experience allows the composer to guide the player through a series of events that they wish to exhibit. For example, Metro 2033's train stations were linear, but gave you just enough room to explore and peer into the emotionally charged and at times, bleak lives of ordinary people. If it had been a sandbox experience using the same storytelling techniques, the presentation of the game's human elements would surely lose much of its potency due to a lack of focus.

People need to stop fretting too much about their suspicions that BF3 will be cut down to size. I'm sure that the multiplayer will allow for a lot of freedom - the maps are larger on PC than on console and will support twice as many players (read: 64) as well as being more detailed overall, jets are returning (you need maps larger than the BC maps to effectively use jets) and the improvement upon BC2's environmental destructability is a definite welcome over the indestructible maps of BF1942-2142.

 

[Hungry Donner]

While I love sandbox games I can understand his sentiment.

Every time a developer restricts some element of the character or story they're given an element they can work with but at the expense of player options. So if you want strong story-driven gameplay it's difficult to also let the player do whatever they want and go wherever they want.

When Hunted: The Demon's Forge was announced a lot of people were unhappy that they couldn't make their own characters. However since the characters were created by the developers they were able to . . . well develop the characters: they can use eachother's names, reference eachother's abilities and history, and it looks like the banter between the two will be the highlight of the game. None of this would have been possible with two completely customizable characters.

Mass Effect is a good example of trying to maintain this while introducing player options and more freeform play. There are some character restrictions (you must be human, you last name must be Shepard, you must be in the military, etc.) but your abilities are up to you. There is a central story but some options in how to pursue it and if you really want to go off the beaten path you can. However the 'main quest' as it were is still the focus of most of the weighty gameplay.

If a more freeform game like the Elder Scrolls isn't his cup of tea then he shouldn't play them. I know sandbox games have been gaining popularity lately they're still a minority so I'm not sure why he's complaining about them - have there been lots of people calling for Battlefield to be a sandbox game?

 

[Frostbite3789]

I don't give a toss about quickscopers because I don't play multiplayer

Then why would you even care about any Battlefield game ever? They've been strictly multiplayer affairs until Bad Company came along and even then, that was their big strong point. Unlike CoD, they're actually good at it though and every game mode doesn't devolve into TDM.

 

[Frostbite3789]

I have a question... why can't Battlefield 3 simply resemble Battlefield 2?

Why does it even need a campaign mode with predictable set pieces? I'll tell you why - to pander to console players. Battlefield is a multiplayer game, period. 1942, Desert Combat, Vietnam, BF2, and 2142 were all without a single player campaign, and each was my favourite game of its period.

It seems that DICE is hell bent on rooting all of its fans over. The gaming market does not need ANOTHER generic contemporary military style shooter!

Yeah! God forbid they add anything while taking nothing away from the multiplayer experience! Grrrrr!

I really don't understand this mindset. This in now way is going to affect the precious multiplayer that I too so want to play. Being a huge fan of 1942 and 2 (meh, Vietnam was ok and 2142 was very imbalanced). I'll probably play the campaign, but it's by no means why anyone will get the game.

If it's good, awesome. If not, oh well, the multiplayer is still going to be great.

 

[RaikuFA]

A producer of a shooter finds sandbox games "boring". There is a joke in there somewhere.

mayabe something involving walking into a bar...

 

[DazBurger]

I was sooo looking forward to this game! I loved Battlefield 1942, 2142, Battlefield 2!.. And I quite liked BC2!
But... Just YET ANOTHER COD clone!? NOOOOOOOOO!!!


What shall I do now? Go back i WoW?.. Take up ludo?

 

[Kilo24]

Bach said that with a few exceptions, sandbox games were "hardcore, boring, hard to get into, [and] not very popular."

I'm not aware of any sandbox game "Hardcore" and "hard to get into" would apply to beyond Dwarf Fortress. There's a few open-ended games that I'd call that, but Gothic 2 and Daggerfall aren't sandbox games. The rest of the genre is typified by games like Will Wright's SimCopter, Simcity, and the Sims games. The GTA series post-2, its ilk, and Bethesda's RPGs after Daggerfall could also be construed as sandbox, but they all have a main plotline and are not "hardcore" or "hard to get into."

With Minecraft and The Sims out there, "not very popular" doesn't apply.

"Boring" is a rather subjective judgement (even though it is one I'd agree with, in general.) For me, it's more an issue of the lack of gameplay depth of most worlds rather than a fundamental problem with making a game open-ended (the two are related, but only in the sense of that they both compete for development time.)

Is he talking about wargames, not sandbox games? That'd be a characterization I could at least see the origin of.

 

[Irridium]

More like CoD eh?

Well, fuck this game then. I don't mind Call of Duty. In fact, I like it.

What I don't like is developers trying to be like Call of Duty instead of doing their own thing, which is just infuriating when you play and see all the potential they waste.

Like with Crysis 2. There's so much they could have done, and instead they go for Call of Duty with cloaking and jumping high.

Now this. Just... god dammit.

I hope they were referring more to the story, and not the multiplayer.