Opposing Fronts

Oppressive Fronts might be a more accurate title for this expansion pack. I participated in the open beta and was thrilled at what was coming out for the game. I put off purchasing it due to its high price point at release - $39.99 – and continued playing COH.

Then one day I get a patch notification of 1.8 gigs, so I download it only to discover that my stock COH has been morphed into a neutered version of OF. I have the complete OF game – maps, equipment and soldiers from both new factions, but I cannot use them (except for the maps).

They are conveniently stored on my machine so that I may join an online MP game with those who have the expansion pack and play as my stock game units only. While this concept may have looked good on paper, it is a heavy handed tactic that was forced on the buyers of the original game by a developer who either ignored or did not care that not everyone who plays COH plays it online.

Not only that, but they reworked the game launch to force you to log onto their network even if you want to play SP or skirmish. To do so without logging on requires the original game DVD in the drive.

For a game that allowed users to play it for over a year with no DVD in the drive and without a forced log on, this is a completely unacceptable route for the developer to take. And forcing people who only play SP and skirmish to have all of the file data for OF on their machine is completely over the top.

The Relic Forums are filled with trolls who accuse those of not wanting to be forced to log on or have the DVD in the drive as pirates who have stolen the game, such as in this brilliant thread (which to the credit of the forum moderator, one of the trolls trashing my post was banned from the forums for his continued harassment in PM’s).

Relic completely ruined COH for SP and skirmish players by the following actions:

1) Forced additional content on the player assuming that everyone plays online.
2) Forced an auto log on which requires the DVD to play the game if you don’t want to or cannot log in.
3) Eliminated the ability to delete wire, which now creates countless situations of engineers being stuck forcing you to upgrade to wire cutters.

In all, I have uninstalled COH and reinstalled it as well as patching it up to 1.40 through the in game process, until I hit the point of a 1.8 Gig patch, to which I declined. I am collecting other patches up to 1.71 at the moment through a file service, and will be happy to have my COH game back in the state at which it most shined.

Relic ruined COH for SP and skirmish players by making some wild assumptions on their customer base. It remains to be seen how they will fix this (and this does not even take into account the myriad of issues they are having with the game once “patched” up to OF standards).

AWM = F

1MC: Stay away from this expansion pack, even when it hits $9.99.

The Good: The beta.

The Bad: The released product.

The Ugly: As related above; forced auto log on or DVD; placing OF content on players’ machine when they may never use it.