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Battlefield 4 faced a rocky launch in 2013, suffering through severe and widespread issues. Now, developer DICE has come out to say it is hopeful to avoid a repeat of those troubles with this year's Battlefield 1.
Asked by GamesBeat what DICE is doing to ensure a Battlefield 4-like launch won't happen again, lead designer Daniel Berlin said Star Wars Battlefront's smooth rollout is evidence that DICE is improving. He also said he expects Battlefield 1's upcoming beta to help hammer out any issues before launch.
"It's a focus for us," Berlin said about ensuring Battlefield 1 gets off on the right foot. "We know [Battlefield 4] was a difficult launch. We've been working on this for a long time. We released Battlefront, which did really well. We're pushing an open beta to ensure stability. We've taken a lot of learnings from that experience, and we feel like we succeeded with Battlefront. We'll take everything we learned there and apply it to Battlefield 1 as well."
You can read the full GamesBeat interview here.
Battlefield 4's launch problems were attributed in part to "complexity" around the title, including 64-player and the fact that DICE was working with what were new consoles at the time with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Battlefield 4 was a launch title for both systems, so there was never a beta.
The game's rocky launch "absolutely" damaged the trust gamers have in developer DICE's ability to release a game smoothly, producer David Sirland said in 2014. He also said at the time that future installments won't suffer the same fate because DICE has changed its processes.
Battlefield 1 comes out on October 21 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. A beta will be held before launch, but there is no word yet on when it will begin. EA or Origin Access members on Xbox One and PC, meanwhile, will be able to play the full game on October 18.

Battlefield 1 Dev Hopeful Game Can Avoid Battlefield 4-Like Rocky Launch

My remote explosive is causing me serious trouble. As Hitman’s meticulous and well-trained assassin Agent 47, I’m used to getting in and out of tense situations without so much as a suspicious glare. But the guards… they keep finding the bomb, a black circular charge I affixed to the back pillar of a pavilion where my target is meeting a Russian agent. I’m disguised as an elite security member, but my cover is blown if they see me so much as touch the thing.
If I put it out of the guards’ sight, Decker — he’s the Russian — or his bodyguard will find it, and they’re the bait. I need Decker both unaware and close to the bomb, so he can lure Victor Nabokov — he’s the target — out of the Paris mansion where he’s overseeing a high-profile fashion show. So I let a guard find the explosive. The black-clad man scoops it up quizzically and I follow him to a secure location away from prying eyes, where I take him out with a chokehold and steal it back.
THE MUSIC BECOMES SHRILL, AND GUNS ARE BEING DRAWN
Back in the garden, I distract Decker and his guard with a coin toss, providing a precious couple of seconds to replant the charge. The other guard I catch on a smoke break near the Seine and flip him by the legs head-first into the water. Yet I forgot something crucial. As Nabokov approaches, his personal detail does a wide tour around the meeting spot and locates the bomb with ease. Everyone is looking at me now. The music becomes shrill, and guns are being drawn. Nabokov yells out, asking me to stop moving, but it’s too late. With my back turned, I begin to retreat and click the detonator. Challenge complete.
While it may sound like one seamless scenario, the above feat took me close to an hour to carefully orchestrate after countless failures. And I still almost blew it in the end. InHitman, you’re rewarded not for performing signature assassinations quickly, but by exhausting every possible scenario to discover an optimal path. Even then, you must play it out with perfect precision and patience. It’s that formula that makes developer IO Interactive’s new episodic format so much more appealing for the age-old franchise. Instead of trying to follow a linear story, you can enjoy Hitman’s depth as it was always meant to be enjoyed: obsessively.
With IO’s new installment, you don’t have dozens of levels you have to churn through, connected together with an overarching plot. Instead, the new game is being released in chunks, with one of three mammoth stages coming out once a month followed by three additional expansions set in the US, Thailand, and Japan. The series has always created elaborate sandboxes for you to explore, with multiple different assassination styles to take out your targets. But what makes playing the new episodic Hitman different is its more welcome embrace of the achievement-hunting, completionist fanbase it’s always attracted.
Each new level is jam packed with elaborate causal systems, secret conversations, and easter eggs. The first full environment you have access to — the Paris fashion show — costs $15. Yet it easily contains upwards of 15 hours of dynamic entertainment you can’t get from any other Hitman game. I spent that much time, and possibly more, on Paris alone without ever touching the game’s second episode set in Sapienza, Italy.
I SPENT 15 HOURS, AND POSSIBLY MORE, IN PARIS ALONE
In Paris, there are 26 different ways to assassinate the level’s two targets, with dozens upon dozens of smaller challenges and neat discoverables. Instead of filling a standard game with levels some players may rush through and others may love, each episode of the newHitman feels like it has something for everyone. For the diehard fans, these environments are as close to gold mines as the franchise can offer.
The structure also allows for more interesting storytelling. This episodic Hitman treats plots as layers to a real-life event, not as general arcs you’re force fed when you pull the right levers on your way from A to B. In Paris, you have to seek out all the different happenings that occur simultaneously over roughly 30 minutes. That means picking and choosing when to make crucial interactions occur, and exploring the branching situations to their fullest. If you don’t nail the right order of operations, you’ll miss key moments and opportunities will disappear.
You can only drop a light fixture on Nabokov when you know at what point he’ll be giving a speech on the fashion show runway, which you can glean by reading the backstage schedule while disguised as a makeup artist. If you want to take him out by both detonating a heat lamp and using a remote explosive, you have to orchestrate two separate meetings with the Russian agent Decker. (Thankfully the game lets you save at any point, so you don’t have to retread the beginning of the level every time.)
I MADE SURE TO SLIP IN THE CYANIDE PILL BEFORE THE FIRST SIP
And stumbling on some unexpected chain of action now feels more like unearthing a realistic secret. When I took out Dalia Margolis — Nabokov’s wife and partner in crime — in plain sight, that meant her murder was reported to her husband. I got to witness Nabokov's phone conversation five minutes later, in which he tells security not to call the police yet so they can better stage the scene and cover up the secret auction happening upstairs. A moment later, I mixed him his favorite drink, having learned the ingredients by following a member of the bar staff in the basement. I made sure to slip in the cyanide pill before Nabokov took his first sip.
The format is not perfect. These levels are overwhelmingly massive and confusing. So much so that IO had to include hand-holding segments called "Opportunities" just to show players how to get around. However, this new take on Hitman addresses many of the shortcomings of the series’ previous game, Absolution. The latter title came very close to replicating the kind of mind-boggling scale we get with Paris and Sapienza, but confusingly tried to weave a narrative throughout.
HITMAN ABSOLUTION LEFT ME FEELING EXHAUSTED BY THE END OF IT
Absolution was a sandbox game that rewarded replaying missions, yet it’s plot pretended the game was a tight and linear action game experience. The weird narrative decisions made the whole affair feel lopsided even if it did have the main hallmarks of a goodHitman game. I felt exhausted by the end of it, having tried and failed to get the most out of its dizzying number of stages. I also felt like replaying the whole thing would be a masochistic experience, so I put it down and never picked it back up.
The new Hitman, however, both encourages and enables that kind of constant replaying by putting its focus on painstakingly designing just a few environments. I've also found that I enjoy the breathing room in between episodes -- it gives me more room to explore. Each episode functions like a new contract Agent 47 undertakes in an exotic locale, and you can spend hours investigating all the tools at your disposal.
After having completed some of the more impressive challenges in Paris this past week, I felt I could finally boot up Sapienza and get started afresh. Within the first 10 minutes, I was already intimidated by the scale of the seaside town. There are 28 possible assassination styles. That’s not to mention a living, breathing city with its own narrative under the surface, all told through dozens of unique interactions. Even when disguised as a vacationer, Agent 47 never cracks a smile. Yet I’m excited. Where do I even begin?

The new Hitman is the perfect episodic video game



Team USA hadn’t seen a challenge at the IIHF World Under-18 Championship through the first five games of the tournament, outscoring opponents 38-4.
    

The cakewalk ended Saturday afternoon, and so did a shot at a gold medal.
Finland’s Aapeli Rasanen scored two goals in the third period to upset the Americans 4-2 in the semifinals at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Team USA won’t play in the championship game for the second time in 13 years and for the first time since 2008.
Finland, which also won the World Junior Championship, hasn’t won a U18 title since 2000.
“It’s a great feeling when you beat USA, and you head to the final,” said Finland coach Jussi Ahokas, whose team’s only loss was 3-1 to Canada during pool play. “But this isn’t enough for us. We want to win the gold. It’s good to have the early game and have a little more rest time. Now we have to prepare for the final.”
With less than five minutes to go, Finland took a 2-1 lead with a shorthanded goal by Rasanen.
Rasanen took a shot on a rush and collected his own rebound as it was caught in the skates of American defender Chad Krys.
The Americans, however, still capitalized on the power play. One minute, 22 seconds later, USA’s Kailer Yamamoto tipped a Luke Martin shot into the net to knot the game at 2-2.
But Finland thwarted the momentum when the Americans took a penalty with 62 seconds left as USA star Clayton Keller was called for a trip on Finland’s Jesse Puljujarvi, a possible Top 5 pick at the NHL Draft.
Finland netted the game-winning goal on the resulting power play when Puljujarvi garnered attention on a rush on the left side. He passed cross-ice to Kristian Vesalainen. The shot from Vesalainen produced a rebound for Rasanen to put home with 37.9 seconds remaining.
“All the positive feelings you can imagine,” Rasanen said. “I just screamed and screamed. I screamed my voice out. I don’t really have a voice right now.
“We have believed in ourselves, and we believed we can beat USA and we did it.”
Puljujarvi iced the game with an empty-net goal as he fought off a hard slash by Krys as time expired. Krys was called for a game misconduct penalty and could be facing a suspension for it.
“They slashed the whole game,” Ahokas said. “There was no calls. He’s a tough player. It could have broken his wrist. That’s a big problem. He needs lots of ice right away. It’s good that he can play (in the gold-medal game).”
The Americans now have to bounce back for Sunday’s bronze-medal game.
“You know what, it was a good hockey game,” USA coach Danton Cole said. “We knew coming in Finland was a good hockey team. They played well and hard. I thought our guys did too and battled back and forth and it went down to the wire.
“You always have to give the other team credit. It’s not just you do this, this and this and you win. That’s the facts of hockey and life.
“You come and you’re Americans and you want to win the tournament, not just do well. It’s important now to finish the right way. They have a chance to finish with a win and a medal and they should be proud.”
Finland kept pace with the Americans, with shots narrowly favoring USA 28-26. The teams traded goals in the first period from Finland’s Urho Vaakanainen and USA’s Kieffer Bellows.
“I think in the end, we outchanced them but we didn’t get the bounces,” Krys said. “It’s tough to see but I’m proud of the effort. It just didn’t go our way. I think immediately after it’s a tough time. This has been a goal of ours for a couple of years now.”

U18 HOCKEY: Finland stuns Team USA 4-2 Latest By Shaharyaracademy.blogspot.com

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