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Star Wars Battlefront 2 - now with lootbox drama

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/04/13/microtransactions-return-to-star-wars-battlefront-2-next-week

Microtransactions Return to Star Wars Battlefront 2 Next Week
Real-world money will only be usable to unlock cosmetic items.
By Jordan Sirani

Microtransactions are returning to Star Wars Battlefront II alongside the Endor Update on April 18.

The revamped microtransaction system brings back Crystals as the sole item that can be purchased with real-world money. Crystals will strictly be used to unlock cosmetic skins, such as Endor Leia and Endor Han, which are two of the 50 new personalization items being introduced in this latest update. For those who don’t want to spend money, these items can also be purchased with in-game credits.


Ewok art from Battlefront II's new Ewok Hunt mode

The update also brings with it a new multiplayer mode called Ewok Hunt, which pits Ewoks against Stormtroopers. Ewoks, armed with Wisties and spears, must wipe out all Stormtroopers to win the match, while Stormtroopers win by holding off the Ewoks for an undefined amount of time until an extraction team arrives. However, fallen Stormtroopers respawn as Ewoks, creating an ever-growing army of furry, little creatures.

Microtransactions were pulled from Battlefront II hours ahead of its launch in North America, reportedly due to Disney CEO Bob Iger’s concern over the intense backlash the original system received from fans. The reimplementation of the system doesn’t come as a surprise, as EA previously said Crystals would return in the first half of 2018.

The effects of the controversy are expected to extend to other EA games, as the unannounced Battlefield V will possibly only feature microtransactions for cosmetic items. "No one’s gonna do any pay-to-win stuff anymore," a source told Kotaku about that game. "We didn’t take any of the loot box controversy lightly."

Ahead of the Endor Update, EA also outlined Battlefront II’s overhauled progression system.

For more, check out IGN’s Star Wars Battlefront II review, which called it a “Star Wars experience that’s stunning to look at and wonderfully faithful to the source material, but it stumbles hard on the delivery.”
 

Sam Ecorners

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
Messages
1,302
Location
Gallbladder of Western Civilization
Wait, are we gonna go for the "Hurrr see how evil EA is?" thing again? I'm no fan of EA, but weren't they pretty upfront with their plan to bring microtransactions back eventually? Nobody ever promised they were gone for good.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
19,113
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
Alienman sometimes dealing with swedes is like having dealings with squids from Galaxy Guest.

Couldn't find that clip where those things explained how they learned concept of lying.
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
EA admits it "got it wrong" over Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot boxes

And "can't afford to make similar mistakes" again.


EA's chief design officer Patrick Söderlund has addressed Star Wars Battlefront 2's highly controversial implementation of loot boxes, saying that the publisher "got it wrong", and "can't afford to make similar mistakes" in the future.

Söderlund's comments came during a conversation with The Verge, in which he offered some insight into the company's original thinking behind Battlefront 2's loot boxes. "We had the intent that was designed for us to have more people play it over a longer period of time," Söderlund explained, "and like a lot of other games on the market, to be able to afford to do that we had an idea of getting returns from that. But at the same time, we got it wrong."

In fact, Battlefront 2's implementation of microtransactions, which many cited as pay-to-win, was so "wrong" that EA directly linked the furore surrounding the game's loot boxes to its lower-than-expected sales during its January earnings call. At the time, the publisher noted that Battlefront 2 had sold 7 million units, significantly below its initial estimates of 8 million.

During the call, EA boss Andrew Wilson described the response to Battlefront 2's microtransactions as "definitely a learning opportunity", insisting that the publisher "never intended to build an experience that could be seen as unfair or lacking clear progression".

To address the significant, sustained of criticism of Battlefront 2's loot boxes, EA disabled in-game microtransactions shortly after launch. Developer DICE, meanwhile, set to work on a new progression system, which was finally implemented last month.

According to Söderlund, that work is netting positive results: "People seem to appreciate what we've done, players are coming back, and we're seeing stronger engagement numbers. People seem to think that for the most part, we got it right".

However, Söderlund is keen to stress that a positive response to Battlefront 2's reworked progression "doesn't mean we will stop. We'll continue to improve the game, we'll continue to push on these things". And crucially, he says, "we'll have to be very cautious with what this means for future products."

"I'd be lying to you if I said that what's happened with Battlefront and what's happened with everything surrounding loot boxes and these things haven't had an effect on EA as a company and an effect on us as management," Söderlund explained.

"We can shy away from it and pretend like it didn't happen, or we can act responsibly and realize that we made some mistakes, and try to rectify those mistakes and learn from them."

To that end, Söderlund says that EA has "taken significant steps as a company to review and understand the mechanics around monetization, loot boxes, and other things in our games before they go to market [...] For games that come next, for Battlefield or for Anthem, [players have] made it very clear that we can't afford to make similar mistakes. And we won't."

EA finally reintroduced microtransactions to Star Wars Battlefront 2 in an update at the end of last week. This adds Appearances - strictly cosmetic character skins that can be purchased using either in-game currency or real-world money.

giphy.gif
 
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Fedora Master

Arcane
Patron
Edgy
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
27,819
Oh wow, looks like EA is jumping ship and leaving the game in the dirt. Why would EA ever abandon a game that obviously failed to live up to their monetary expectation?

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBa...the_plan_for_the_game_in_the_upcoming_months/

e:
[...]Devs are eager to share inofs with you but they are not let to do so. The only way they could say something important is by receiving approvalas by prod and others.
Unfortuantelly the sad story that happened with 2015 will repeat again... the devs are moved to another project due to another big title launch (this time an AAA game with at least the high expectation from the last time) [...]
The two studios that worked for the game (criterion and motive) are not working anymore with the game for a few months already , the only studio that is managing it right now is DICE and only DICE. One of the studioes is already with battlefield 2 for a while. No idea why people are still tweekting them with Q&A. The bugs are usually tried to be avoid with simple "were looking into this" or "aware of the sitaution" wihout a certain fix. Their database is incredible full of unsolved bugs that are since beta stage and are aging well (until they will be probably igorned forever)[...]
 
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mck

Cipher
Joined
Nov 1, 2011
Messages
599
People still playing the original? Gonna buy the GOG version.

people just pretend to play it to stick it to EA. the steam store page reviews for bf2 is filled with people who have 0.6 hours played on record encouraging everyone to buy it instead of the new one.
 

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
So guys, 3 years ago my wife bought me SW:Battlefront for Christmas and we did spend a few merry weeks blasting the Rebellion scum into oblivion. Now she's thinking of buying me the second game. I'm all for my wife buying me games for Christmas. But isn't the game dead? Could any of you guys report whether it makes sense to buy it now (and buy PS Plus just for its sake)?

(Yes, I know it never made real sense to buy it, but we did have a great time with the previous one...)
 

lycanwarrior

Scholar
Joined
Jan 1, 2021
Messages
1,171

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