Hooo boy where to start...

I gotta say you just have to love how DICE takes the one thing that builds up their communities, craps all over it, then tries to use it to eek a few bucks more out of a title before it disappears. BF3 and 4, and to some extent earlier versions, still have active player communities specifically because of the player run servers. I've considered reinstalling BF4 or 3 and at least playing the campaign modes again.

I have to say DICE is not the same group that won me over to the FPS genre. Not long ago I would have never considered buying a CoD title and have now done so even though I never really got into it like I did BF. I mean really it baffles me how they can look at the numbers and not see that the direction they are going is not the correct one. I mean even with all the bugs BF4 had at the beginning people stuck with it because it was a awesome title and the ability to have your own server, fully customized to your liking, were the main selling points.

I gave Hardline, BF1, and BF5 a go and while they were somewhat enjoyable they lacked that certain something that the private servers (Hardline just wasn't really designed for the private servers but they had them) gave. I can see where they saw a potential revenue stream with BF1 but it should have been abundantly clear that they did not utilize the resources they had correctly nor did they listen to people who really wanted to make the program work like it should.

Will I get the next BF? Maybe but it will really depend on the opinions of people I trust (looking at you guys) as to the perceived value in it. I preordered Cyberpunk simply because I loved the PnP version of the game back in the day and the fact that they brought on the guys who worked on that version to help develop the systems in the game. It looks amazing and hope it lives up to the hype. I just really haven't found the game that "does it" for me like the older BF titles did and DICE doesn't seem willing to look back and develop what history tells them the fanbase wants. It's sad really because for me at least I would gladly hand over buckets of cash to the group that can develop these types of games.

I realize that there are folks out there who dont actually care about these things and that's fine but dont do away with something that a lot of folks really enjoy about your game because some wont use it. Its not like the player run servers in BF4 were costing them anything. They still made money from them and retained a lot of players for a long long time.

Just sad to see the game being downgraded in the player experience area like it is. Seems games these days are being tailored to the player base that buys a title, plays it for a few weeks and then moves on. I guess in some strange way it does make some financial sense to produce a game, sell a ton of them, then drop support for it and move to the next title but geez its just sad to see.

/rant