DICE will be able to deliver faster updates linked to community needs

May 8, 2014 07:02 GMT  ·  By

The development team at DICE and publisher Electronic Arts are getting ready to launch an entirely new Community Test Environment for Battlefield 4 in order to allow the most dedicated players of the first-person shooter to offer faster feedback on the experience, which could be then be used to improve it.

The information comes from an inside source quoted by The Escapist, who says that the main idea behind the new game feature is to make it much easier for the developer to talk to the players and listen to their response to various game changes.

It seems that initially, the Community Test Environment for Battlefield 4 will only be offered on the PC and will be introduced at first to those who are paying for the Premium service for the shooter.

It is currently unclear whether DICE plans to expand it to home consoles or if there are any plans to introduce different versions of it.

An official announcement from Electronic Arts could come as early as today.

An e-mail quoted by the inside source states, “Among the first things we will work on is the ‘Netcode’, which is what the player experiences with the game world including player-to-player interactions like damage registration. This involves tweaking to the ‘tickrate’ servers and networking in general.”

Electronic Arts has designed a special version of Battlelog that will be used by the gamers who join the Community Test Environment and it seems to be made to show service specific information.

Battlefield 4 was in pretty rough shape when it launched and it took the team at DICE working on the title a few months to make sure that the multiplayer experience was satisfactory for the majority of the player base.

Since then, the company has introduced major changes via both patches and downloadable content packs.

It’s unclear what impact the introduction of the Community Test Environment will have on the two DLCs that are set to be delivered for Battlefield 4 before the end of summer.

Electronic Arts has not offered any kind of comment on the leak so far.

Gamers suggested that Battlefield 4 should get a set of test servers as far back as the fall.

EA has repeatedly stated that concerns over the multiplayer quality of the title have not affected sales of the shooter and that the future of the long-running series is at the moment secure.