Battlefield Heroes developer EA DICE announced that it will take the Battlefield Heroes beta offline starting tonight, so they may focus on polishing the backend.
Senior producer James Salt has said that the studio is entering the next phase of development and will work on polishing the title’s website and “parts of the beta that aren’t the game.”
These parts he speaks of may seem trivial to most of us, especially those of us who are solely console gamers but when you take into account what EA plan to do with Heroes it makes a lot of sense. In order to forge a solid comunity behind the game the backend will need to be as solid as rock.
“The backend does a lot of things. From running the website’s features and looking after the items you have, to collecting the results from each Heroes game and matchmaking players into games.” he continued.
Heroes will be the first title in the Battlefield series released under Electronic Arts’ new Play 4 Free model, which provides the game for free but generates revenue through advertisements and micropayments for character customizations. And so if you plan to have people invest in their characters there had better be something to make them hang around right?
I don’t know anyone that has got into the beta but from what I’ve heard on the international podcasts, from the guys that have played it is that it’s not exactly the casual shooter EA may want it to be. But regardless of that it’s great fun and a title that will hopefully do well from the extra effort being put in and be well worth the wait.
Source: Gamasutra
Last Updated: November 17, 2008
