2013-03-21 16:09

On nearly every running Battlefield 3 server, the message/description includes some variant of those words. It's a problem... one that DICE has worked extremely hard to overcome. Frostbite 2 an extremely complicated engine and we understand that the game isn't going to be perfect, by any means, but it can be close. I'm sure we all want to play the best game that they are capable of making. The QA team at DICE has went through a pretty dynamic restructuring during the evolution of Battlefield 3 from Back to Karkand battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/credits/xp1/ [battlelog.battlefield.com] to End Game battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/credits/xp5/ [battlelog.battlefield.com] which has been a learning experience on both ends.The corner that we all have been backed against, is the communication barrier. We had getsatisfaction.com for a while. It didn't work. Namely because their company is geared toward single instance complaints ( "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!" ), rather than mass occurrence complaints ( "Wait, there's an invisible boat under the map." ). When that went away, we still had the Twitter and Facebook, but let's face it... some of the things that happen are extremely hard to explain 140 characters at a time. A cooperative effort was put into enhancing Battlelog to give it a "Hooah" up-voting system to increase visibility of comments on news posts, which is a valiant step in the right direction, but it's going to take a lot more work with it.Some of us say that they don't patch often enough. Others say the updates are puking up their hard drives to the degree that Battlefield is the only game they can play. With the possibility of Battlefield 4 launching on NextGen consoles, some of the looming concerns of storage consumption should be alleviated. Only time will tell. I'm not here to discuss hypothetical situations. The Beta launch for Battlefield 3 had its complications and a few hard lessons were learned from it, on both ends. Bottom line? We're a community, banding together, with a common goal to have a great time playing the best game possible.- The Alpha -QA Testers should work in teams. Most of the glitches we have documented took more than one person to complete. It baffles me to this day that there was a gaping hole in Metro that people could just leap out of, which remained there through a couple of updates. If you give us flying salad shooters, we're going to ride them. If you give us boundaries, we're going to test them. This could have been avoided. You're gathering data from a limited group, so make the most of it.- The Beta -If there is going to be a beta, which I would certainly hope so, implement an accessible reporting system that is completely segregated from other posts (i.e. OP guns, boosters, wishlist, etc...) that overshadow well documented report. Give us a starting point. We understand that there is a difference between what is in the Beta and the version that you're working on. Perhaps making a visible patch note to help us disregard things you've already fixed would remove confusion. We don't do it for fame or money, we do it because we believe in the brand. Help us help you.- The Launch -Don't toy with us. If there's going to be an Über Premium Pro Sw4g Elite edition, just get on with it. The Limited edition did just that... limited the people who backed you from the get-go. We get it. You like money. Give us an opportunity to give you a butt-load of it upfront without being treated like a peasant when the package deal comes out. I don't mind giving you $15 for each DLC. As a CompSci major, I understand how much work goes into making them, and I'd say you've earned it. However, making us wait 2 weeks to give you that money is a complete crock, and it almost makes me want to stop playing Battlefield entirely.- Post-Launch Support -The heavy cost of releasing a patch via console (in excess of $100K a piece) could be alleviated if beta servers were implemented to a limited number of registered PC players to test games and downloadable content (DLC) before sale and release to the public. This could increase identification and reproducibility of “bugs”. This will also allow for a proper time in which players can voice their opinion about other concerns that they have for the game, content, or feature.-Community RelationsDefine your roles and open lines of communication in appropriate spaces. We all love Ian (@Crash7800) and think he's done a fantastic job as a CM. Gustav (@gustavhalling) has been a pretty good guy about the work related tweets he receives, and drops the occasional favorite on a dirty glitch or two we've submitted. Though, as Daniel (@zh1nt0) has made pretty apparent through his proclamations of what music he and his cat are listening to, those accounts are for their personal musings and are in no way affiliated with what they do at work. A simple department based forum may do the trick. We're not asking for one-on-one face time with the Devs. We're just looking for the designated space streamline our efforts into the appropriate hands.Thank you all for your commitment to making a better game,~HoudiniINDgamers.com