Thursday, September 22, 2016

Battlefield 1 Open Beta is a success


Max Charney

The long awaited Battlefield 1 Open Beta (BF1 Open Beta) was finally released for PC, PS4 and Xbox One on Aug. 31. Battlefield Insider members, who were able to sign up for the beta since this year's E3, were able to play a day early, August 30. For the Battlefield Insiders members, the first day of launch was no problem;, connection speeds were was fine. But on Aug. 31, the beta was released to the public, and things took a turn for the worst. Reports of connectivity issues began flooding EA support. EA tweeted that BF1 Open Beta was experiencing server outages, and that they working to resolve the problem as soon as possible. However, later in the day, EA claimed that it had been hit by a DDOS attack (a type of DOS attack where multiple compromised systems, often infected with a computer virus known as a Trojan, are used to target a single system causing a Denial of Service). Although the EA support team did not and has not revealed the official cause of the issue, the online hacking group Poodlecorp later took the responsibility for the DDOS attack. Saying in a tweet: “We are responsible for the downtime of EA & Battlefield.” Poodlecorp was also responsible for DDOSing League of Legends and Pokemon Go!, along with many other big YouTubers.
 Although Battlefield fans had nothing but disappointment for the first day, by the second day things were up and running smoothly - Except for a bug that was later discovered. Players were unable to level up, and progress their classes. Melee weapons, gun attachments, and gadgets were unable to be unlocked. Even if you had the correct number of war bounds (the game's currency earned through leveling up your rank). This made gameplay stagnant for some, some did not mind, and for some the glitch did not affect them. For me, I was affected by this, it did make the game boring for me at times. But on the last day of the beta, EA unlocked everything in a patch allowing players of all levels to use every attachment, gadget and all the melee weapons.
 Besides the DDOS attack, the glitches and bugs that come to be expected with any open beta, the game received great feedback from the community. The menu screen is sleek and clean, the game itself looks nothing less than beautiful. They resemble a lot of how Star Wars: Battlefront looks. The game sounds very realistic as well, the screams and cries sound authentic and really brings you into the game. The Sinai Desert map is an absolutely terrible map and was an awful decision to make it the only playable map for the open beta. It is the biggest Battlefield map ever made, but that doesn’t make it the best. The map is too open, a majority of the map is open desert nobody goes too, and it is a sniper's paradise and does work well with vehicle gameplay. The map lacks good infantry gameplay, and it does not have a good balance. A few vehicles and weapons need to buffed and nerfed, and excusing the connection problems,  the bugs and glitches that come with an open beta. I would personally say, and from what I’ve been reading and hearing, the BF1 Open Beta was a success. The game is still scheduled to release on Oct. 21 for all platforms.   
 Or so EA may have you think. Battlefield 1 may be the first game in history to have three release dates. The standard edition will come out on Oct. 21; this is the game's official release date. If you pre-order the game for an extra $20, you’ll receive the Battlefield 1 Early Enlisted Deluxe Edition and be able to play it three days earlier on the Oct. 18. The deluxe edition will get you get a few DLC packs, some skins and Battlepacks. But if you are dying to play Battlefield even sooner than that, ironically, you don’t even need to pay for the game at all. All you need is a $5 subscription to EA Access, also known as Origin Accesses. But this is only available on PC and Xbox One. This subscription will grant users a 10 hour trial to Battlefield 1 starting on Oct. 13. Ten hours may not seem like a lot, but your progress should be saved and it will allow you to preload the game for when the full game becomes available to you. Depending on which version of the game you bought.