To avoid legitimizing the complaints of any smartarse that wants to cry "tl;dr, wall of text", the topic of discussion is at the bottom of this post in bold. Now, on to my rant...
When I bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for the 360, I wasn't expecting much. At most, I expected a competent shooter that would be mildly entertaining to kill a few hours with online. However, I was completely taken aback by just how much I ended up loving everything about this game. Single player was a blast, and multiplayer (obviously) was absolutely incredible. I'd never enjoyed a game quite as thoroughly as BFBC2, and I've currently got every single achievement except for one (I think you know the one). I'd spend 24-hour stretches of my time playing the game, becoming so dedicated to mastering it that I eventually wound up consistently scoring several thousand points more than the players on either team. It was months of smooth sailing and pure fun. But then, out of nowhere... the lag.
[HEADING=1]Oh my dear sweet god, the lag.[/HEADING]
I have never, ever seen a game rendered so unplayable by latency. The games I joined were usually only half-full, and it took me about five minutes on average to put ten meters between myself and my spawn point due to rubberbanding so bad that it has inspired me to invent entirely new obscenities. Attempting to drive a vehicle of any sort would lead to marrying the front of my tank/humvee to the nearest immovable object, and don't get me started on suicidal you'd need to be to get in the pilot seat of any of the helicopters. I've been trying for several days to find a game without crippling lag, to no avail.
Initially chalking it up to a failing on my end, I immediately ran extensive tests on my connection, only to find that my connection was flawless. For comparison, I ran several other multiplayer games with absolutely zero latency. So, finally, I decided to turn to Google for answers: why the hell was this one game lagging so much? Apparently, you're lucky to not have this problem. The general consensus that I've seen thus far is that EA stops giving a shit about server maintenance a while after its release, preferring to spend the money that would've gone towards it, elsewhere. Normally, I'd be pretty passive to the "screw the customers, we've got profits to make" routine that I'm quickly becoming accustomed to seeing in the videogame industry, but this... this was a stab in the heart. If EA doesn't solve this problem (and I'm guessing they won't), I'm never buying another game from them, no matter how enticing it may be.
Now, as for the discussion: Have you ever fallen in love with a game, only to have it fall apart before your very eyes due to a gross lack of support from the companies responsible for maintaining it?
When I bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for the 360, I wasn't expecting much. At most, I expected a competent shooter that would be mildly entertaining to kill a few hours with online. However, I was completely taken aback by just how much I ended up loving everything about this game. Single player was a blast, and multiplayer (obviously) was absolutely incredible. I'd never enjoyed a game quite as thoroughly as BFBC2, and I've currently got every single achievement except for one (I think you know the one). I'd spend 24-hour stretches of my time playing the game, becoming so dedicated to mastering it that I eventually wound up consistently scoring several thousand points more than the players on either team. It was months of smooth sailing and pure fun. But then, out of nowhere... the lag.
[HEADING=1]Oh my dear sweet god, the lag.[/HEADING]
I have never, ever seen a game rendered so unplayable by latency. The games I joined were usually only half-full, and it took me about five minutes on average to put ten meters between myself and my spawn point due to rubberbanding so bad that it has inspired me to invent entirely new obscenities. Attempting to drive a vehicle of any sort would lead to marrying the front of my tank/humvee to the nearest immovable object, and don't get me started on suicidal you'd need to be to get in the pilot seat of any of the helicopters. I've been trying for several days to find a game without crippling lag, to no avail.
Initially chalking it up to a failing on my end, I immediately ran extensive tests on my connection, only to find that my connection was flawless. For comparison, I ran several other multiplayer games with absolutely zero latency. So, finally, I decided to turn to Google for answers: why the hell was this one game lagging so much? Apparently, you're lucky to not have this problem. The general consensus that I've seen thus far is that EA stops giving a shit about server maintenance a while after its release, preferring to spend the money that would've gone towards it, elsewhere. Normally, I'd be pretty passive to the "screw the customers, we've got profits to make" routine that I'm quickly becoming accustomed to seeing in the videogame industry, but this... this was a stab in the heart. If EA doesn't solve this problem (and I'm guessing they won't), I'm never buying another game from them, no matter how enticing it may be.
Now, as for the discussion: Have you ever fallen in love with a game, only to have it fall apart before your very eyes due to a gross lack of support from the companies responsible for maintaining it?
