That's even worse tbh. I hope DICE and EA actually say something useful about the inner workings of how things are going. For example, Ubisoft Montreal on R6 has discussed multiple times about inner workings of the engine, their processes internally, discussed how networking issues and other stuff appeared. I understand the need to prevent the dirt slingers but they will always been there, but your fans that are patient and waiting can't just sit wondering what's going on until you drop something or drop the game entirely.
In all of my years of following DICE, I can honestly say they are one of the most shut-in developers out there. The odds of them just coming clean and being upfront about what is going on in graphic detail are near zero. The people they pay to interact with the company aren't even based at the studio. Braddock, for example, is a continent away and basically has to ask on discord/slack/whatever what is going on, rather than being truly informed. BFV is an example of how compartmentalized DICE can be when it's time to point fingers after a bad release. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or what, but it's really, really bad. DICE LA is renowned for saving BF4 because they basically went out into the community with their defenses down and asked what's wrong. It seems like a problem with the Stockholm studio in particular. People end up filling in the blanks and just attributing it to arrogance when I think it's just shyness. They need to learn to be extroverted in a hurry.
Siege and Overwatch are out here leading the way with transparency and even CoD is being pretty open about future features and their overall vision for the game. With BFV, we got some terrible trailers and the worst reveal event that I can remember. It's a confluence of EA being EA + a bewildered and stretched thin DICE.
Like at some point you'd think it'd kick in that
"hey, we can do this live service thing too. We did BF1943 and our company was founded on BF1942, why not invest in our WW2 game long term?"
Even if an eastern front trailer comes out tomorrow, it won't matter. They aren't putting in the time with the community to address even the most basic issues. The community that remains is so loyal and thirsty that a minor patch that simply uncapped levels sent them into complete jubilation.
I feel bad for the PR people that have to stand in front of an angry buzzsaw of a community and give non-answers or duck legit questions outright. Every day this ticks over and continues does damage to the franchise. Casuals that came in with BF4 and BF1 have already departed, they're not going to magically come back if you give them one of the worst live service games in recent memory.
As an example: Al Soondone is either the most fucked, ill-conceived map ever made in Frostbite or there just aren't a lot of people working on the game at this point and they fix it when they fix it. It definitely feels like the latter. Most people would be cool with an honest "we're doing what we can with what we have" come to jesus moment but I don't think it's in the cards.
/rant
