GamingNexus: How are
you going to combat cheating on both platforms?
Marcus Nilsson: We
take the online play very seriously, and use the online demo and beta tests to
identify areas where cheating can occur. We then fix those areas. Also, in the
game the team has the option to kick a player if they get enough votes, so the
community can also regulate itself in this regard.
GamingNexus: Battlefield
2 has been pretty beat up for the bugs that are in the game. With the delay
from the 2004 release, talk about how you confident you are in releasing a
relatively bug free and balanced experience and how the extended time has
helped.
Marcus Nilsson: Our
target from the very beginning was to release a game with zero bugs in it. We
are happy to report that we reached this goal on both platforms. Will there be
something that we missed? Perhaps. However, we have been working on this game
for almost three years now, so we’ve had a lot of time to deliver clean and
balanced code.
GamingNexus: Are there
any thoughts about a next gen (Xbox 360, PS3) version of the game?
Marcus Nilsson: We
have an Xbox 360 version in development now, and we’ll be releasing more
details on this very soon. We’re going to be doing some new things with the
Battlefield franchise, but of course staying true to its roots.
GamingNexus: Given
how popular Battlefield 2 is are you expecting people to migrate over from the
PC version or is this game more aimed at bringing new people to the franchise?
Marcus Nilsson: It’s
a little bit of both, actually. We know we have PC fans who are going to pick
this up to experience hotswapping and the deep single player campaign. They
also will want to try out the 13 completely new maps, as well as the new
vehicles and weapons. However, this is also the most accessible version of
Battlefield, so it will attract new people who either don’t play on PC, or want
a deep offline experience.
GamingNexus: The demo
for the game quickly became one of the most popular games on Xbox Live
(according to the stats posted semi-weekly by Major Nelson), did this catch you
by surprise at all? Did you get a lot of
feedback from the demo and were you able to incorporate any of it into the
final game?
Marcus Nilsson: We
expected the demo to be popular, but we were surprised by how popular it was
right off the bat. At one point we were the #4 Xbox Live game in the world, and
the demo was only available in the US at the time. We’re still in the
top 10 almost 4 months after it released. So again, we’re very pleased and it
just goes to show how addictive the multiplayer is. We were able to implement
some of the feedback we received in the early stages, but we actually didn’t
get too much. We received a lot more feedback from out online Beta test early
in the year, and that let us make some very good adjustments to the gameplay.
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