PC Gamers Beat Console Crowd to Bad Company 2 Vietnam Map Unlock

[PeePantz]

Black Ops is indeed more popular on the consoles.

Possibly because it doesn't work in the PC.

I like turtles.

Being released to the PC a few days before obviously gives them an unfair advantage. By the time the challenge date of the console release, PC gamers have already gathered enough steam and had more people come back to the game. New players have also had three days prep. Also, they've had a chance to get the feel of the game such as maps and weaponry.

Wow, so they added 'new' team actions with Vietnam, one that those 2-3 extra days really helped them get the hang of? Funny, because I'm pretty sure that everything they where tracking was already implemented in the game, and is for the most part easy as all hell. Does the map really affect your ability to mark a target or heal a team-mate that much?


I don't think that they had 'more' people come back to the game. I think that this game's PC community has always been larger and stronger, partly because the aforementioned 10-year-old-ritalin mules mostly exist on consoles and have moved onto other games (like Modern Warfare 2). I remember seeing news about how the initial numbers for the size of the player bases, that the PC trumped the combined totals of the 360 and PS3 player base. I also imagine that part of the cause of this was the cold shoulder (if not an out-right 'fuck you') that the PC FPS community had just received from Modern Warfare 2, and we where a lot 'hungrier' for a game that adhered to the standards and conventions that PC gamers expect from a competitive online shooter.


Once again, driven team-oriented communities built around dedicated servers. Wise up developers/publishers, there's a reason Team Fortress 2 and Valve's other online games still have strong online communities.

First off, huh? Secondly, yes they did. Each day that this expansion is out, more people are going to download and start playing again. That was the whole purpose of it. Pique interest in the game again and get people to spend more money. People tend to shake off the rust when they've had a little bit longer to play.
Also, if you don't think it's an advantage to know a map longer or get familiar with new weapons earlier, then I'm at a loss. It may not be that huge, but it is certainly an advantage.
To wrap things up, this game was made being console focused, and I'm pretty sure that console players, in general, out number those who are playing it on PC.

 

[wiredk]

heheheh

PC gamers are more organized than consol gamers as we don't make fun of each other as much, and don't make rude comments nearly as often. (maybe that's just a fear of being hacked though... Also, no offense to those who do that.)

What PC games have you been playing? Ever third comment on BBC2 and TF2 is either a racist remark or some shithead 12-year-old threatening violence or sexual abuse against me. (granted, it's because i'm owning the idiot, but still.)

Seriously. Am i just playing on the douche-bag servers or something? Hell, it happens even on my gaming community's server.

We are, however, more organized than the console crowd. And we don't have matchmaking to contend with. I almost feel sorry for them. But they made their choice, so they can live with all the poorly balanced consequences.

You forgot the fact that many PC games have community supported servers, and often times the admins tend to kick 12 year olds. And people they don't like. But it balances out somewhere in the middle.

 

[PeePantz]

I like turtles.

Pfft. Tortoise is where it's at, fool!

The term turtle encompasses tortoises, so I think we might be in agreement. I'm waiting for pigs to fly (just kidding).

 

[duchaked]

huh...haven't touched BC2 since I rented it a ways back when it first came out :/

the Vietnam pack looked cool tho. bet they coulda done a better job with it as a campaign mission than BO did

 

[Jagji56]

Is anyone surprised by this? Larger teams and the generally more organized teams on PC would logically dictate more "team actions."

You don't get it. The hole idea of the game is TEAM WORK. If you go medic, you put shorting second, and healing and/or reviving first. As an Assault you, every time you get the chance, you drop an ammo box. as an Eng, you repair tanks and the like as much as you can. As RECON (yer, its called RECON, not SNIPER) you should be spotting before shorting (tho with one of the unlocks you auto spot) there by giving your team information on the movements of the enemy. BFBC2 is about TEAM WORK. It wont matter how many people are on your team, if your doing all that, you can rack up a TON of points.

On PC team work is put, for the most put, first over your own kills. On console, this dose not happen so much. It is a more 'Rambo' style of play on 360 and PS3.

In conclusion, I put it down to console gamers being more casual, and playing it for there own fun, rather than team sizes. Not that that is a bad thing, its just a difference between the two sides of gaming.

huh...haven't touched BC2 since I rented it a ways back when it first came out :/

the Vietnam pack looked cool tho. bet they coulda done a better job with it as a campaign mission than BO did

Thing is, the Battlefield games have always been about the on-line stuff. Even with the first one (BF1942 for any one who dose not know) the single player was basically multilayer with bots. So the fact that they made BFBC and BC2 with a story at all is something you have to consider.

 

[Cvstos]

Does the game still run like crap on normal PC's? Ran like garbage on mine because of the particle effects and I will not play unless I can turn the damn dust effects down so I can play without lagging horrifically every time a grenade goes off.

Define a "normal" PC...

How about an HP in the $900-$1100 range.

The problem is just stating how much the computer costs doesn't really tell us much on why you are having these issues.

Lag can be caused by your internet connection and/or your graphic card abilities, bad drivers and etc.

If you can at least give us the model number of your computer we might be able to help. Pre-made computers are notorious for having bad to average graphic cards and/or chips.

My internet should be fine. I can play Team Fortress 2 without any lag and the times the game would lag in BFBC2 was when stuff blew up. My Chipset is an ATI mobility Radeon 4200 series with an M520 series CPU at 2.30 GHZ according according my system information on control panel. All of this is running on a one year old pavilion. I had gone on forums and there were numerous complaints that the game ran poorly on mid range computers and that it would probably be better after a few patches but I have yet to check if performance has improved at all on my machine. System requirements labs says I should be able to run it fine if I turned down the graphics and it would have too if I was just able to turn down those damn particle effects. They are a nasty resource hog and I honestly do not mind if a dust cloud looks a little unrealistic if it means my game runs smoothly.

Waaaaaaait a minute. "Mobility" graphics card. "Mobility" CPU. And you're comparing BC2 to TF2?

Hate to brake it to you, but that's... crazy. TF2 needs only a 1.2GHz CPU, BC2 a *dual core* 2Ghz CPU. TF2 can run on any card from the GF5 series or better, while BC2 requires a 7800GT, which way outclasses the GF5 series. The system requirements for BC2 are way higher.

Also, and this is KEY, take a note on the back of the BC2 box. "Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported."

"Mobility" chipsets ARE laptop versions of those cards. They sacrifice *substantial* processing strength for much, much greater power efficiency.

And your CPU is ALSO a "mobility" variant. Less processing strength, higher power efficiency. But that also means less performance on games.

Is this a laptop? That's the only reason I could see you having spent $900 (USD) on that machine. If it's a desktop, you got hosed, BAD. $900 can get you all the parts you need for an actually-fairly-powerful gaming computer these days. There's no excuse for a $900 desktop system having a mobility card short of that price including some stupid-huge monitor, which would defeat the purpose of having a stupid huge monitor since you need a more powerful GPU to drive gaming graphics on that! I mean, look here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-recommendation-upgrade,2803-2.html

$100 can buy you a decent GPU these days. Moving up to around $170 nets you something in the GeForce 460 class, which should run just about any game you want buttery-smooth.

Remember: Laptops are significantly less powerful than their desktop counterparts. They are like this to consume less power and have better battery life. As such, they don't run games very well. Dollar-for-dollar, a desktop is always going to be substantially more powerful than a laptop. It's not mobile, but that's the trade-off. There's a reason these gaming companies put that "not supported" warning for laptop chipsets on the system requirements: they're just not powerful enough to run some of these games as they're meant to be played.

If you're running a desktop, I'd say at least upgrade that GPU (remember to make sure your system can run it! these strong GPUs need a strong power supply!). But also consider getting a new system, and this time talking to a gaming geek or, shoot, this community on what kind of computer you can get for your money. They'll lead you down if not the best path then certainly a better one than the path that got you mobility hardware for $900. Sheesh.

If you're running a laptop... hate to break it to you, but you really can't complain as long as it runs. Remember, your hardware isn't even officially supported, it's a relief it runs at all. If you really want to run it well, get a desktop. Even if you gave me just $600, I could build you a system that would utterly smoke anything with a "mobility" graphics card.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Yeah, I figured this would happen. Battlefield has a way bigger community on the PC compared to the console. Still, good for them.

 

[Fenring]

Is anyone surprised by this? Larger teams and the generally more organized teams on PC would logically dictate more "team actions."

You don't get it. The hole idea of the game is TEAM WORK. If you go medic, you put shorting second, and healing and/or reviving first. As an Assault you, every time you get the chance, you drop an ammo box. as an Eng, you repair tanks and the like as much as you can. As RECON (yer, its called RECON, not SNIPER) you should be spotting before shorting (tho with one of the unlocks you auto spot) there by giving your team information on the movements of the enemy. BFBC2 is about TEAM WORK. It wont matter how many people are on your team, if your doing all that, you can rack up a TON of points.

On PC team work is put, for the most put, first over your own kills. On console, this dose not happen so much. It is a more 'Rambo' style of play on 360 and PS3.

In conclusion, I put it down to console gamers being more casual, and playing it for there own fun, rather than team sizes. Not that that is a bad thing, its just a difference between the two sides of gaming.

I think you're agreeing with me, but okay...

 

[Cowabungaa]

Hang on, don't you have to unlock repair tools, ammo boxes, health kits and defibrillators? You did in Bad Company 2. So doesn't that mean that PC gamers were still at a huge advantage for having the game a few days earlier? The only other explanation that seems logical to me is the same reason people can get achievements so quickly on TF2 .

I'm not getting sore about this since I don't own the game on any platform, but I find it hard to believe that there's such a huge discrepancy purely because PC gamers are 'more team friendly'. Especially if the statistic that PC gamers have less time clocked on the game in total is true.

In Vietnam it carries over your rank and stats. So if you have all the medic gadgets unlocked in Bad Company 2 you'll have them all unlocked in Vietnam.

Actually, and this I found quite entertaining, I had a lot more gadgets in Vietnam. While my Medic in the original was still struggeling with a crap machine gun and no medpack, the Vietnam version had everything.

Except 'perks', I didn't get any of those in Vietnam.

 

[PeePantz]

I like turtles.

Pfft. Tortoise is where it's at, fool!

The term turtle encompasses tortoises, so I think we might be in agreement. I'm waiting for pigs to fly (just kidding).

Tortoises have 'feet'. Turtles have flippers.

I promise you on this. Tortoises are land turtles, so yes, they do have feet. Sea turtles have flippers. However, both are turtles. It's like squares and rectangles.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Actually no, my point wasn't really built around the statistics used previously. I mentioned them here because I was arguing there's probably more to this than 'PC gamers are teh 1337', an argument that 'hardcore' (ie. insecure) PC gamers will leap on at the drop of a hat, like Nintendo fans leaping on a successful Wii game as an argument that they can still play their console. I wasn't really all that sure of the stats myself, and I didn't look at the web page itself because that wasn't really my point.

So... you did pull fake numbers out of your ass. That's a pretty lousy arguement.

What part of 'my point wasn't really built around the statistics used previously' confuses you? No, I probably shouldn't have used statistics I was uncertain of, but since it wasn't the main point of my aargument I thought it didn't really matter. I admit I didn't really make that clear in my first post but I thought I'd cleared it up in my response.

My point is this: What are the chances that PC gamers are such significantly better team workers that there is such a significant difference in number of team actions? Compared to all the other possible reasons that they would have an advantage?

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Well, in the consoles' defense, the PC version came out a couple of days before the console version. But then again, it really shows you who are actually team players. I really hate to insult the intelligence of the console crowd (I am a console gamer as well as a PC gamer) and make generalizations, but I've always said that PC gamers are more likely to help each other out and work as a team...

 

[icyneesan]

To me this just shows that everyone on consoles are DICKS. That and maybe there really is no one on PSN

 

[JeanLuc761]

What a fucking dumb idea locking content that i've paid for is.

That's like saying it's stupid that in *insert game of choice*, all the levels aren't available from the get-go.

You want the map, then earn it! That's how it is for...well, basically every game I've ever played.

 

[Sassafrass]

Okay guys, the whole PC vs. console thing is all in good fun but remember, the important thing is, QQ MOAR, BUTTON-MASHERS!

Button mashers?
It's actually a refined ballet of the finger tips, my good sir. ;D

Anyway, good on the PC players.
It's just weird they smashed the mark so much quicker then the PS3 and 360 crowd did. Ah well, just proves we prefer being lone wolves on our console FPSes.

[sup][sup][sup]Y'all believe that lone wolf thing, right? Good.[/sup][/sup][/sup]