Mods? Maps? Where?

[sbn]

Just thought of this after playing After-Hourz mods in COD. Now it did not take long at all for new maps to appear for COD. Soon after some really excellent mods came out, even full conversions. Now if I remember correctly, BF2 has been out for what, 2 years? Yet all I see are the same stock maps.

Not to say I am a little annoyed with Dice to begin with. With each patch from Infinity Ward we got some really good maps for COD. Same for COD2. Now COD2 has been out for less than a year and aside from all the mods I am seeing a lot of new maps show up.

So what has been the bottleneck for BF2? As of a couple of weeks ago I saw none. Suffice to say all we have gotten from Dice is Wake Island, nothing more than rehash from 1942.

[medicfod]

No idea why DICE/EA hasnt given us anymore maps but we do get Road to Jalalabad in 1.4, its supposed to be the next karkand but i doubt it because its not very "Whore" friendly.
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Not very many people play custom maps because you cant run custom maps on ranked servers and well everybody plays on ranked servers

[Luremus]

1. BF2 was released late in june 2005. Thats only 1 year ago where i come from.

2. Dice has released a lot of new maps(15), weapons, armys, vehicles and other content. Most of it cost extra money (apparently they don't work for free).

3. There are a lot of custom maps and mods out already, but the biggest/best mod's don't release alpha's or beta's, and it takes a long time to make a full mod if they have jobs,family etc. BF2 is much more than just infantry fighting, it takes longer to make something when there is so much different content to include.

4. The reason few play custom maps, is the ranking and weapons unlock system. You have to play official maps to get new weapons. And clan matches are played on the official maps, so clanmembers practice on those naturally.

[SciComHam]

There are hundreds of custom maps, and the main reason you hardly see them being played is the RANKING SYSTEM, since EA will not allow custom maps to be played on ranked servers. Thus, people have a choice of
A)Play the same maps over and over again (but have your unlocks)
B)Play new exciting custom maps and not get pretend medals for it

Needless to say, people (on average) are babies and don't want to play bf2 if they cannot have their "important" pretend medals, badges and ribbons.

[sbn]

Thanks for the replies. I did not know that they limited ranked servers to only the stock maps, which is sad. As you have pointed out, most players do want to play only on the ranked servers.

I think the best game to handle these is COD and COD2, where any new maps and mods will show up. No problem if you dont have them as it will download automatically for you. Long before BF2 was released (Cant believe its only been a year, seems longer) I remember seeing on Gamespot an interview with someone explaining how mod friendly this game will be etc. etc..More so they talked about how the user community will be able to really extend the life of the game with all the maps and mods they will create.

Well making a map is one thing, but it is another to get people to play it. Sadly I think unless a map shows up in the general browser only a select few who know about it will play it. Like it or not, agree with it or not, I just believe strongly that unless you have it right out in front, people will not join.

Biggest problem is when some map or mod is released, if it isnt in the general browser, most people do not join. As such unless some clan is having a match the maps are usually empty. At least this is what I have seen in the past with online games. I remember there were a few quite good full conversions for COD that after a few weeks you could not find any populated servers.