How could DICE agree to this??

[Jon Wolberg]

Did anyone else see this interview?  A former customer of mine showed it to me.

http://www.realityfriends.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=573

 All this sounds great, but a few more details have come out that are of concern: 
1. Higher ranks get access to exclusive 'unlock' weapons 
2. Higher ranks are the default choice for 'commander' 
3. Only EA servers (offical and those rented from EA) will be 'ranking' servers (eg: players can only earn rank when playing on EA servers) 
4. Ranks will still be visible on unranked servers and therefore ranked players can get access to the unlocked weapons on unranked servers (and potentially a factor in determining who is commander) 
5. Unranked servers can 'turn off' unlockable weapons, but cant universally unlock them for all players 

As you can imagine this creates a series of issues: 
1. Inbalance between players with access to unlocked weapons and those without (especially for casual gamers or those late to the game) 
- plus will regular players on unranked (nonEA) servers get have to hand over 'commander mode' to anyone who has a rank (which he carried over from the EA servers) 

2. Inbalance between EA servers and private servers (such as the ECGN public servers or those rented from ECGN) 
- Are the 'unranked' servers going to become 'ghost towns'? 


Personally I think giving ranks anything more than bragging rights is a mistake (eg: special weapons). And I think only providing them on EA servers and EA rented servers is blackmail.  They did this with Americas Army and it didnt work out that well.

thoughts? 

Jon
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