"EA in a nutshell."

#21

I am in absolute agreement.

I will never get BF3 for extra reasons, though: It’s not moddable !!!

After wiping my computer and replacing Win2K with Tiny7, I decided to reinstall Battlefield 2. I also the final client-update which includes the booster-pack content they were selling for it.

I played some online, but then took more of an interest in modding it to my whimsy (and using bots as cannon-fodder). I torrented a russian package of the default 32|64-player maps which were given AI support (since the stock game only supports bots on the 16-player map types). Gotta love those russian modders.

I have now made these customizations:* I took some vehicle tweaks from an old mod I remembered, AIX, and implanted them into my BF2.[list][*]Nanjing now has a 5th passenger slot, in the passenger seat.

  • Humvee seats passengers 5 and 6, in two empty passenger seats.
  • Vodnik seats passengers 5 and 6, one in the cab and one in the back. (There used to be another in the back, but it felt crowded, and BF2 doesn’t draw the HUD’s passenger-dots beyond 6 seats)
  • The MBTs all seat 2 extra men, who ride on the sides of the turrets, tank-desant style. (They’re vulnerable in vehicle-to-vehicle combat, but it makes it fucking impossible to sneak up and C4 the vehicle.)
    [/:m][]I copied Highway Tampa to tweak it:* Added lots of attack helicopters
  • Raised most spawns 80m so you (and the bots) have to parachute into control points
  • Figured out how to put custom vehicles vehicles into a map without needing to customize the BF2 base[list][]This is key. A single level for BF2 can feature any customization. A total-conversion mod could exist in the form of a level for vanilla BF2. That’s how modular and moddable BF2 is.
    [/    :m][]Ripped the BMP-3 from the Special Forces expansion pack, and put it into Highway Tampa so that the high number of tank-like vehicles doesn’t feel repetitive.[/:m][]Reactivated some unused helipads.[/:m][]Added two new control points.[/:m][]Replaced the classes (“kits”) with my own selection. With these, every bot/player is always capable of either healing troops, repairing armor, or restocking ammo. Infantry are [overall] less deadly from afar. And I took out hand-grenades since bots love to spam with them. Assault-Rifle Medic
  • Shotgun Medic
  • SMG Engineer (with C4)
  • Shotgun Engineer (moar C4)
  • Rocket Engineer (AT-mines) who lacks a slot-3 weapon)
  • Sniper Support
  • Machinegun Support
    [/:m][]Shortened respawn-delay.[/:m][]Made it quicker to neutralize CPs but slower to conquer them. When a flag gets neutralized, the defenders have 45 seconds to respond and keep the enemy from capturing it. (It’s easier to win/lose with a side getting wiped off the map. I prefer games to end dramatically rather than with a slow trickle of tickets.)[/:m][/list:u][/:m][]I imported the Carpathian Mountains level from the Point Of Existence 2 total-conversion mod, getting rid of some PoE2 custom-props to reduce the filesize. Exchanged all the vehicles for their equivalent cars from vanilla BF2.
  • Ripped the MTLB APC vehicle from PoE2 into this standard-BF2 level.
  • Added some attack helicopters… (I will be importing an Mi-24 from another mod shortly)
  • Carried over my special assortment of kits.
  • Made the sides MEC-vs-China.
  • Renamed control-points. (Sorry, PoE2 team, but “North Farm” “East Farm” “South Farm” was really boring.)
    [/*:m][/list:u]Carpathian Mountains is sooooo much fun to drive around on. The Nanjing is especially enjoyable on those roads.
#22

Fable 3. DLC makes me think I’m not buying the whole game, therefore I do not buy it. (Also, I would only buy it for PC which it hasn’t been released for. Their attempts at gaining more money seem to have backfired).

#23

I’d have to agree, but only if it’s Day 1, overpriced, and/or affects multiplayer gameplay. That sort of thing just ain’t right. However…if you buy a game you like, and later on they make some reasonably-priced single player DLC for it, it’s just giving you more of what you like. I don’t see a problem with that.

#24

Holy hell that’s a lot of work. Tell me you can make a mod out of that, it sounds awesome.

#25

It’s basically a mod, yes. A mod which exists in the format of a level.

It would be very easy to distribute the level and play it online with others using vanilla-BF2. I might consider that when I run out of things I want to add (and find friends capable of playing with me). It would also be easy to take my vehicle additions, kit changes, etc. and turn them into a proper mod. The problem with doing a proper mod is that maps specify which kits and vehicles get included, so my biggest changes would only be noticeable if I replaced the existing kits/vehicles (or slightly edited every map to include my customizations).

Anyway, BF2 is a lot of fun to mod. All you need is Notepad and a way to edit ZIP files. Running BF2 in windowed mode (+fullscreen 0 shortcut parameter) is helpful, too, for detailed error reports.

I played the game (and its demo) a long, long time ago… so when I came back to BF2 at its final version, 1.50, I was very pleased to see it had fully matured. Now, the booster-packs are included, there’s no more CD-check, and “Co-op” mode is now supported (meaning bots from “Singleplayer” may exist in a server online).

#26

Regarding my experiments with BF2, my download-history is hilarious:

Edit: I accidentally 10-gigabytes :fffuuu:

#27

I curious about the thing on the bottom of that list.

#28

Considering the words, the number 118209 looks scary to me.

Btw: My all time favorite EA game is this one .

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.