Little hard to find but via twitter a way to sign up for beta without paying (cannot copy @splashdamages signup link, some voodoo behind it methinks) - https://twitter.com/splashdamage/status/298832066018156544


So everyone knows that Brink was a complete failure and handled extremely poorly by splash damage. (edit for fairness - bethesda obviously share in the blame for bringing up the games release date) Now they are working on 'Dirty Bomb' - a game that looks exactly the same (which is awesome because splashdamage has managed to imprison a bunch of really talented artists) and are touting their analytics system.




Which is nothing new - valve publicly used the same thing for tf2, fixing choke points revealed on heat maps. Even treyarch included the same kind of heat map analysis in black ops 1 - whether or not 3arc used the information to improve the game is beside the point because splashdamage have only a 50/50 chance of doing so, if history means anything.

Maybe they are trying to improve on areas they have failed previously? Brink did have a lot of potential and maybe they just had no idea how to improve it and froze up... hopefully this much analysis will make it easy for them to make a good game and show how they have changed their ways.

oh.



You have to pay to get into the alpha to have a chance to 'shape the game'. The least they could do is offer discounted instant access to those screwed over by Brink so they have a chance to help them not fall short on the areas they so miserably screwed up last outing.

edit: forgot to include their best deals

Well I'm a little bitter about brink, sure. But not so much as shocked at the balls on splash damages management.

Charging people to play lab-rat and run around their maze so they can collect statistics is pretty poor form given their history.
Charging to play the alpha of a free2play game does not set a good precedent for their pay structure on release.
Not acknowledging the failures of Brink or trying to get back the loyalty of past supporters on a PC only game with the size of the PC community compared to console also seems kind of dumb.

edit: well its no different to mechwarrior at all



because they either copied it wholesale or have contracted the same company to handle that side of the product.

List of good games Splash Damage has made:

Haha, and just how many hours of ET have you logged reso?

Sensing much sour grapes. Personally still have plenty of respect for Splash Damage. Agreed that the analytics features they are touting aren't nothing particularly new, but my understanding is that they're part of a toolset that is being created by a sister company called Fireteam that appears to be hoping to become some kind of middleware alternative to Gamespy.

I per-oredered Brink. Biggest let down I've played in a long long time. More so than Diablo 3.

I no longer pre-order games, apart from a few Kickstarter games developed by very talented people.

Splash Damage are great at marketing, poor at Game development it seems. We shall see.

I feel like I should know who splash damage is, but I don't. Should I? Wasn't someone on the qgl forums or irc channel called that?

It kinda looks like disney trying to make BF3.

Brink was shit. So much hype then so much fail. Steam says 69mins played and it was a clusterfuck of bugs and whatever that retarded free running system they used.

I dont see the appeal in paying for lame ass in game superficial shit like gun tags, dog tags, character models etc but i swear heaps of these free-to-play games prey on gamers that love that shit.

Ive said it before but i work with a console gamer and he loves the stupid preorder shit. Biggest lol i remember was the water pistol he got with bulletstorm.

I loved Q4 but wished you could have carried more ammo per weapon. Back then was early gaming days so i was easily impressed.

As for COD, i always hated their climbing system. Far too many times i would want to jump to shoot an enemy but instead the dumbass would slowly vault the object in front and get killed.

What the hell is brink