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Just noticed the morphing EA/Nazi symbol in some peoples sigs, but can't see any recent threads to do with it.

Is it to do with that EA workers wife blog thing that was around a few months back?

Probably. EA has a reputation for doing their best to make good little workerdrones of their employees.

The proverbial straw which broke the camel's back is that battlefield 2 was released buggy(after all it is an EA game). Then a "patch" was released.

Practically every fucking server got nailed by the patch and when down, hard. In addition the client end of the game was made practically unplayable by the patch and would cause massive problems for the user.

EA actually posted that you should uninstall battlefield 2 and then reinstall to get back to a "working" v1.0, and forget that a v1.1 patch existed.

Not to mention the BF2 video card fiasco.

2000AD wrote:Just noticed the morphing EA/Nazi symbol in some peoples sigs, but can't see any recent threads to do with it.

Check Testing. Spefically for Brother-Captain Gaius' thread testing for his new sig.

Dont forget them refusing until pain of lawsuit to pay for mandatory overtime, and their new monopoly over real life sports teams in video games.

It's because Electronic Arts is evil.

Not like how to a libro-anarchist, all big corporations are supposedly "evil," but because they're actually honestly evil, pure and simple.

I think it has more to do with their real-life sports aquisitions than with anything done in the patch arena. I didn't read up on it, but something to do with acquiring the rights to NFL properties so that they and only they can use the real names of players and teams in their games? Though I hear other companies are scrambling to buy up the rights for other sports. Evil, but profitable... ;P

Every modest game company screws up and releases bad/buggy games or botched patches every now and then.

To preface, EA can suck upon the Wang of Justice. However...screw the 'BF2 video card fiasco.' There comes a time when you stop supporting old gear. The fact that some of the people who own said old gear think it's not doesn't change that.

White Haven wrote:However...screw the 'BF2 video card fiasco.' There comes a time when you stop supporting old gear. The fact that some of the people who own said old gear think it's not doesn't change that.

Yeah, but you don't alienate half the damn gaming population that, like me, are still running GF4 cards...or those that didn't know any better when they bought a pre-built system that came with a POS onboard chipset.

Look...I hate to say it, but I have to respect them for having the guts so say 'Look, I'm sorry you guys are still running four-year-old hardware, but...tough.' It's not popular, and from a BUSINESS standpoint it's rediculous, but it needed to be said. In the final summary, though, given that it was good for the GAMES, and not for the business, I'm somewhat puzzled that it was EA who did it...being, as they are, a business first, and a gaming company a distant seventy-ninth.

ggs wrote:The proverbial straw which broke the camel's back is that battlefield 2 was released buggy(after all it is an EA game). Then a "patch" was released.

Practically every fucking server got nailed by the patch and when down, hard. In addition the client end of the game was made practically unplayable by the patch and would cause massive problems for the user.

EA actually posted that you should uninstall battlefield 2 and then reinstall to get back to a "working" v1.0, and forget that a v1.1 patch existed.

Ouch, and my best friend is currently bigging up Battlefield 2. Looks like when i get broadband back i'll be sticking with CS:S

White Haven wrote:To preface, EA can suck upon the Wang of Justice. However...screw the 'BF2 video card fiasco.' There comes a time when you stop supporting old gear. The fact that some of the people who own said old gear think it's not doesn't change that.

Care to explain why three year old video cards can play BF2 when 2 year old cards can not? Its not about old gear. Right now I can buy a $30 video card that can run BF2. The problem is this card fucking sucks and all my other games graphics quality will suffer.

EA/Dice refused to support shader 1.3 and less then direct X 9 for the PC and gave no valid reason. Whats pitiful is BF Modern Combat is the BF2 port to the X-Box and its using standards that would make the game playable on Geforce 4 cards.

White Haven wrote:Look...I hate to say it, but I have to respect them for having the guts so say 'Look, I'm sorry you guys are still running four-year-old hardware, but...tough.' It's not popular, and from a BUSINESS standpoint it's rediculous, but it needed to be said. In the final summary, though, given that it was good for the GAMES, and not for the business, I'm somewhat puzzled that it was EA who did it...being, as they are, a business first, and a gaming company a distant seventy-ninth.

Read this article to see how absurd the EA/Dice decision is

Alyeska wrote:Read this article to see how absurd the EA/Dice decision is

The most absurd part of it is that the game is being made to work on the X-Box's card, while the exact same card mounted in a computer is incapable of playing the PC version. It sounds almost like some video card companies gave EA a big sack of money to make their game incompatible with older cards.

Dice could easily have coded the game to run on both the newer and older Shader standard. Infact, they did. The X-Box version is going to run a standard that my computer is compatible with. Make the game playable for older cards but have good graphics on newer cards. Restricting a game only to the best cards is a hurtful business practice. Valve recognized that not everyone can get brand new machines so they made the game scalable for graphics.

I hate BF2. Only played the demo and was pissed off by the fact that there were no graphics controls for brightness, contrast and gamma, meaning on my craptastic monitor, I either had glaring sunlight (and almost pure white) or complete darkness on screen depending on where I was with no way to tweak or change this, even through external applications.

Add to this the amount of times I've bought an EA game, had a BIG problem with it and they have refused to patch or provide ANY tech support. Or indeed, just removed all references to a particularly buggy game from their website and archives.

And of course, on top of this, there is the fact that the are absolute fucking cock-jockeys.

ggs wrote:EA actually posted that you should uninstall battlefield 2 and then reinstall to get back to a "working" v1.0, and forget that a v1.1 patch existed.

Hah; that killed off more player goodwill than sticking to Pixel Shader 1.4 ever did.

Alyeska wrote:Restricting a game only to the best cards is a hurtful business practice.

BF2 runs on my brother's GeForce 5600 quite well, and the 5600 isn't exactly
"the best card." I fail to see what is so upsetting about a company no longer
supporting obsolete standards. We do not see people in an uproar that GLIDE
is no longer supported by modern video cards.

5600 is inferior to Geforce 4 cards.

Alyeska wrote:5600 is inferior to Geforce 4 cards.

It is newer, and supports many new standards. It is not my fault you
stick with obsolete hardware, instead of upgrading. Next you're going
to say that every game should support GeForce 4 MX.

MKSheppard wrote:

Alyeska wrote:5600 is inferior to Geforce 4 cards.

It is newer, and supports many new standards. It is not my fault you
stick with obsolete hardware, instead of upgrading. Next you're going
to say that every game should support GeForce 4 MX.

Are you saying this just to be a dick? Everyone knows that adding support for the 4xxx line would be a trivial thing. The fact that support wasn't added points to malice (getting paid/pressured not to support) or stupidity (look at the shit server browser and ridiculous RAM usage)

MKSheppard wrote:

Alyeska wrote:5600 is inferior to Geforce 4 cards.

It is newer, and supports many new standards. It is not my fault you
stick with obsolete hardware, instead of upgrading. Next you're going
to say that every game should support GeForce 4 MX.

Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that the 4xxx series are actually superior pieces of hardware performance wise to most of the midrange to lower end 5xxx series (that includes your 5600).

The GeForce 4 MX analogy is false since the core is actually an NV15, not an NV20 or later (in other words, it's two generations older).

The Kernel wrote:Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that the 4xxx series are actually superior pieces of hardware performance wise to most of the midrange to lower end 5xxx series (that includes your 5600).

They're not being manufactured anymore, and are becoming obsolete
with every passing year; as they can't support the newer standards
put forth.

For example, it isn't fully DX 9 Compliant, a major problem as DX 9
is required for many new games, such as Silent Hunter III, while
the GeForce FX series, for all it's faults, is fully DX 9 Compliant;
making programmers lives easier as they don't need to write
workarounds for people who stubbornly stick to their three year old
card designs.

The GeForce 4 MX analogy is false since the core is actually an NV15, not an NV20 or later (in other words, it's two generations older).

GeForce 4 MX is still sold Link

Should EA cater to people who just spent $60 dollars on a brand
new GeForce 4 MX, no matter how shitty the damn thing is?

MKSheppard wrote: They're not being manufctured anymore, and are becoming obsolete
with every passing year; as they can't support the newer standards
put forth.

For example, it isn't fully DX 9 Compliant, a major problem as DX 9
is required for many new games, such as Silent Hunter III, while
the GeForce FX series, for all it's faults, is fully DX 9 Compliant;
making programmers lives easier as they don't need to write
workarounds for people who stubbornly stick to their three year old
card designs.

LOL, you are aware that there is a difference between being DirectX 9 driver compliant and being a DirectX 9 hardware part? Almost every new game that comes out requires a DirectX 9 compliant driver, but virtually none require DirectX 9 hardware. Hell, the vast majority don't even require DirectX 8 hardware.

GeForce 4 MX is still sold Link

Should EA cater to people who just spent $60 dollars on a brand
new GeForce 4 MX, no matter how shitty the damn thing is?

486 processors are still sold moron. The fact is that the GeForce 4 MX is based on a six year old design and it wouldn't be ridiculous to drop NV10 codepaths from games. Doing so for a part that is 1/3 of the age is different.