Retail game prices SUCK BALLS, especially high profile ones. I'm under the impression that retail games in the US are a fixed $50, while the really popular titles are $60, is this correct?
Well, the same price in Euro ( 1 €uro 1,4 $ ? ) so don't complain... it could be worse
Origin has BF3 for £40; what is the point of that? I know everyone's pointed this out 100 times but really, why does digital distribution cost more?
Amazon has it for £30, that's 25% cheaper than the guys who actually made it AND are not selling you physical stuff.
Digital distribution isn't much cheaper because the price of the distribution is very small compared to the cost of development (and marketing).
And EA can't be cheaper than the regular price, because this will pi** off small and middle sized retailers who sell the game for the regular price.
Big retailers like Amazon, Wal Mart or Media Markt get huge price reductions because the volume of their orders.
On the long term IMHO EA will drop the small and middle retailers or sell DVDs copies of the game only as more expensive Collectors Edition with memorabilia and give-aways ( to make the higher price more acceptable ) and make the digital distributed Copies cheaper.
Gamespy is wrong, ingame VOIP is always terrible and it's why we have vent/mumble
Ingame VOIP is terrible because almost no game does it right:
-> No sensible way to test the VOIP ( like recording and replaying ) and tweaking it.
-> No possibility to use the VOIP to talk to buddies outside of the game ( the main benefit of Teamspeak, Ventrillo or Mumble )
-> No filters to mute players with a different language (I understand English, German and Italian, but I don't understand Speakers of French, Scandinavian or Slavic Languages and would like to mute them)
Right done Ingame VOIP has some benefits:
-> No need to select a VOIP Server and Channels
-> Possibility to send the VOIP from the correct ingame-direction of the speaker
-> Possibility to show the Ingame Nickname of the Speaker in the Hud and his position on the Minimap
-> Works also for causal gamers who don't are member of a clan
And BF3 seems not only to lack the VOIP of BF2 / BF 2142, also the Comm Rose lacks some commands like "Need Medic" "Need Ammo" "Jump Out" ect...
Even if those orders works like in BF Bad Company 2, it's still below the standard BF 2 has set in 2005.
Because in BF2 you don't have to target a Medic to tell him that you need a Medpack, it was possible to keep the aim on the target area and call a Medic / Support ect...
