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My pc is working!!!! :))))))))))))))))))))))

Today I downloaded and participated in the Star Wars Battlefront II Open Beta and after about three hours of playing the game, I can say with certainty that I will not be giving EA and Dice any money for this particular release. Ignoring all the other feedback I could have given in regards to this game, there is really only one thing that I feel is worth talking about as it unfortunately overshadows everything good they've done with the new Battlefront II. The "Star Card" system. In Battlefront 2 you have access to four different classes when playing the multiplayer. Assault, Heavy, Specialist and Officer. Each of these classes are different in terms of how they appear, the weapons they use and their class abilities. The Assault for example has the ability to throw a thermal grenade, to change his blaster rifle into a shotgun configuration and to shoot a marker that reveals enemies in a small area. The Officer class on the other hand has access to a stun grenade, an activatable aura that gives nearby allies damage reduction and decreases the time it takes for them to start healing after receiving damage and a deployable sentry turret. Sounds fine, right? What isn't fine is how the Star Card system interacts with these classes. Star Wars Battlefront II has gone the way of Overwatch and lets you earn loot crates in-game by playing and leveling up your classes. The game also lets you straight up buy them with real money from an in-game store. These loot crates contain fun little things like victory poses for your characters, weapon unlocks that you'd otherwise have to wait for a certain level to unlock (not necessarily upgrades mind you) and other little things. They also contain Star Cards. Now comes the part where I try to explain the Star Cards to the best of my ability in a way that will make you see just how disgusting they are in their implementation. Each class in the game can ultimately equip a total of four Star Cards. You start out with one Star Card slot in the beginning and unlock more as you put time into the class. These Star Cards are essentially passive buffs for your class. The Assault class for example, can equip a Star Card called "Assault Training" that allows to regain health every time they land the killing blow on an enemy. The Officer class for example can equip a Star Card called "Battle Command: Fortitude" that causes their aura of damage reduction to affect a larger area. The Heavy class has the ability to spin up their gun, increasing its rate of fire greatly at the cost of reduced movement speed. They can also get a Star Card that reduces the spin-up time for that ability. Not only that, but each Star Card also comes in four different rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare and Epic. The effect of the card is depending on the rarity of it. Take the Assault Training card for example. A Common Assault Training Card would give you 15 Health Restored on Kill while an Epic Assault Training Card would make that 30 Health Restored on Kill. Battle Command: Fortitude is another good example. A Common version of that card would make your aura extend to 10 meters from your character where an Epic version would extend 16 meters from your character. Ultimately what it boils down to is that EA and Dice have managed to turn Battlefront II into a P2W gacha where a player who is unwilling to dump money into the game, a player who is unlucky with his loot boxes or just a brand new player will be at major disadvantage compared to a player with a full deck of Star Cards. I personally find it disgusting and wholly unacceptable that there is any sort of P2W aspect in a $60 game and will not be supporting this release. I've seen some people on the internet argue that the Star Card system is OK because there will be no paid DLC for Battlefront II and to those people I say they're missing the point.

At about the same time that you posted this the radio played Metallica's cover and I was thinking "man this version sucks." Here's another mashup that I think is legitimately quite a lot better than any of the component songs:

So... I'm now back, I guess. It really has been a long time. God damn real life stuff, sucking away all my free time. Add to that, that I've been trying to insulate myself from more and more prop. software. But... the call of FTL and, well, TF2 were too strong and so I just reinstalled steam. Hopefully I can start becoming a regular on these fair SPU Forums.