Burnout Paradise Announced for PC

[Purple44]

Hmm, seem some people have royally piss off the Devs at Critertions. Bad enough that they shut down their forums!!

Found this while trying to find Burnout Paradise forum:

http://www.burnoutaholics.com/?q=node/1334


Criterion Games Forums are Closed
Fri, 12/05/2008 - 19:43 — ZombieTron

I wasn't aware of the posting going on over there today. But, now I am home I have had a look over at some of the other forums and would like to repost a few quotes.

It looks like this was one of the last posts from Alex (presumably it is from Alex anyway, the quoter doesn't specifically say)

    "OK. It seems there are several members of the "community" who seem to enjoy messing things up for others rather than just enjoying the game.

    Enough is enough. We're done with coming to our forum and seeing a small minority of "members" coming to post offensive and abusive posts.

    And many of you seem to be participants of this behaviour.

    (Yes we do read all of your other forums, and see how you enjoy causing trouble.)

    So here's the deal - either this stuff stops TODAY or WE WILL STOP ALL INTERACTION going forward.

    This means everything - no podcast, no forum, no blog, nothing.

    It really is up to you guys. But we don't need this."

I think it is a real shame that some people behaved so badly on the forums. I really hope the podcasts do continue, as I have thoroughly enjoyed them! And have loved being able to see a bit more about the team that makes the Burnout Series.

I think it is a real shame that Criterion Games reached out to us, only to be treated with such disrespect.

I also want to post ZeroJays last comment as I think it sums up a lot.

    "Paradise is what Criterion's about right now. They are about the social cooperative vibe instead of the competitive one that was in Revenge. That's who they are right now and that's the game they wanted to make. I'm sorry if you're one of those that disagree with their choices, but you've always got the disc to go back and play whenever you get the urge to do so.

    The social vibe that they've been working on extends to the website and the forum here... and it's sad to see that the efforts would be ruined by a few, especially with Paradise being so very successful. Maybe you don't agree with their choices and decisions... and that's fine - just don't ruin it for the rest of us. Everything they've been doing... it's all something no developer has ever done before. They have showed how much they loved their fans repeatedly... and they just get hell for it, either from people who still want Revenge 2 or people abusing the forums and other people. (And believe me, if you think that doing this sort of stuff is going to get you a Revenge 2 any faster, you probably are going to be in for a surprise.)

    And if this is really the end... well, I just want to say thank you to everyone I've met here, both from Criterion and PSN. We may not always have agreed on things, but it was still fun. Thank you to the team for being so open to us and for letting us in and being a part of everything. All the work and effort will never be forgotten."

And I would like to repeat that last point as I agree with it wholeheartedly. Thank you to the team for being so open to us and for letting us in and being a part of everything. All the work and effort will never be forgotten.

I would also like to thank the positive posters over at Criterion Games Forums, for sticking with it and really trying to make it a better place for all of us.


Wish I could of gotten to read some of it before it closed!!

************************************************************

Here couple more posts I found about Criterion cloisng their forums:

Post by strangeplaice

   
        Squidooer wrote:

        Most of the real trouble started on the Burnout forum when they released the trophy patch, not only did they LIE that they were going to be retroactive but they were also an insult to the hardened Burnout players. This totally unprofessional attitude spawned countless negative posts, which Criterion couldn't handle. Their answer to all this was to remove signatures and forum PMing and to set down their Castroite rules - do as we say and not as we do. After this it was only a matter of time before the forum died.


   Nuclearfish wrote:

    I find the trouble started with Cagney when they gave us former 'Elite' members the Rai-Jin... Everyone complained, and really it was Criterion's fault for hyping up the car too much then shoving the fact in everyone's faces that only a few people could drive it at first. Then there was about a month of almost complete silence from them, and everything changed.



I think that Criterion's opinion of what was going on was that certain players who considered themslelves to be "Elite" and above the rules were spoiling it for everyone else and instead of banning said players permenantly, pretended they weren't there at all. They then decided the community needed to be more accessible and released all these new packs. The packs were aimed at exceptionally new gamers and/or rubbish people. This put off hardcore fans. 6 months ago Criterion were probably aiming high with new game concepts and creative online challenges but have since been reduced to cheesy gimmicks which have all but killed of the game. It was one of my favourite games of all time, but now with Criterion melting more and more into the pot that is EA, I am ready to lock up my cars for good. (Aka sell it on Amazon or Ebay.)

Unless Criterion somehow pull off a miracle I fear their amazing revolutionary game that was will turn into the cheezy sort of tat they sell in Blackpool. (No offence to any Blackpuddlians.)

 

I've been reading RoadCru and Burnoutaholics and the general opinion there, correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be that the forum had had it's time and that Criterion seems to think we are no longer welcome. Some of the people who I (and themselves) woujld consider to be responsible have effectively gloated in the fact they achieved this and are glad to see it go.

 

CriterionGames.com/forum , we salute thee!

Post by Squidooer 

One more thing about the trophies - I think they were designed by an XBox360 fanboy. ie. The trophies are way easier than the XBox360 Achievements which can translate into Criterion saying that they think the XBox gamers are better than the PS3 gamers (I am not saying this, this is what the trophies say to me). The Burnout trophies were an insult to all PS3 gamers not just the elite.

Criterion Burnout forum shut down??

[ABA]

Wow, Seems Criterion Games took BoP in a different direction than the past BO games. The later were all about racing and looks like Paradise is more about cruising an open map much like TDU.

Guess the hardcore BO racers are POed much like the hardcore Rally fans are about DiRT and DiRT2.

Anyways Burnout Paradise looks like an awesome arcade racer/cruiser though I didn't expect it to look so much like FO2 but FO don't have BIKES 

[Purple44]

Here a podcast of Crash TV you can watch on the PC about the new PC version of Burnout Paradise:

http://www.criteriongames.com/podcast/

*******************************************

Here link to a Frequently Asked Questions about Burnout Paradise page. But this was written for the 360 and PS3 versions, the PC version may be a little different.

http://www.burnoutaholics.com/?q=faq

***************************************************

Not sure I will like Burnout Paradise if I have to finish the offline mode before all cars are available online.

http://www.burnoutaholics.com/?q=node/1273

Posted by ZombieTron:

Paradise is for me, the hardest Burnout game to get into, it is a slow burn.... you really need to know the city before you can have a lot of fun.  There isn't any car customization in it tho, just the paint work. And you have to work through the offline game to get any decent cars to take online. 

[Pavcules]

With Burnout coming onto the horizon and Flatout fading away into the horizon, what do you think of making FOJ support the Burnout game in the future?

Or would you rather have a separate website for this?

This is provided the game doesn't become like what Grid has become.

[ABA]

***************************************************

Not sure I will like Burnout Paradise if I have to finish the offline mode before all cars are available online.

http://www.burnoutaholics.com/?q=node/1273

Posted by ZombieTron:

Paradise is for me, the hardest Burnout game to get into, it is a slow burn.... you really need to know the city before you can have a lot of fun.  There isn't any car customization in it tho, just the paint work. And you have to work through the offline game to get any decent cars to take online. 

 Well I'm sure there will be a cheat around this but I'm glad to see it. MC2 was this way. If you wanted the best car online you had to finish the game and by finishing the game you knew all the tracks and were a better racer for it.

Yeah I know, people don't want to waste time playing a game when they go straight to online to chit chat and piss off the players who paid thier dues and learned the game.

[Purple44]

From what I been reading, ya your going to need to know the layout of the city and know which way is north, south, east and west to race online or you can get lost in a race.

So it could be a good thing players have to do the offline part of Burnout Paradise to unlock all the cars. But the guys that unlock the cars first, may have to wait a while before they see a lot of players online with the same car.

[e30guy]

Burnout Paradise looks like a good game.  I would say Yes to a BurnoutParadiseJoint.com if funds are available for hosting.

[Purple44]

It look like it's little early yet to decide where to go with Burnout Paradise, especailly now that Criterion close their forums so now there no direct way to talk to the Devs.

And the email I sent them, thanking them for letting us test game on PC before buying only got me this Criterion Games Auto-Responder e-mail so far:

“Hi,


Thanks for your email. We read every email but we get so many that we can’t always send a personalised reply.

 
An excellent source of Burnout information is available at our website www.criteriongames.com and any questions can be asked in our forums http://www.criteriongames.com/forum/. Members of the Burnout team do regularly read and contribute to the forums.

 
Jobs and work experience

 
We don’t handle job applications here at the mailbag, but you can see all our jobs at http://www.jobs.ea.com.  We occasionally offer work experience, but we don’t have any opportunities right now.

 
Game Saves

 
We get lots of requests for save games.  Sorry, we can’t recreate your save game for you.

 
This is for two reasons:

1.            The information we have on our online servers is only a small fraction of that saved in your save game

2.            Save game profiles are encrypted and locked to your PSN id and Gamertag (which means no one can share Burnout Paradise save games)


Bugs

 
Unfortunately we cannot work on any bugs that you send us here at the mailbag, but if you want to report an issue with the game, please head over to Bugzilla .  It’s available here: http://www.criteriongames.com/bugzilla/ and our QA department will get working on them as soon as possible!

 
Updates


Burnout updates download directly to the game!  You don’t need to go searching for them on the PSN Store or within Xbox Marketplace

 
When there’s an update available, just play Burnout Paradise, and you’ll receive a message telling you that a new update is available.  All you have to do is accept this and the game will update automatically.  This is how you get the Cagney and the Burnout Bikes Packs.”

[Purple44]

Here a thread you can read the opinions the consoles guys posted when Burnout Paradise was release back Jan.

Burnout Paradise Review

Look like your going to want to do the Burning routes to get a better versions of some cars:

Posted by harrier_rada:

Time Road Rule is the one where each street had a time to beat. You have to hit up on the d-pad to switch to road rules. Then all you have to do is start at one end of a street, and try to make it to the other end under a specified time. It will automatically start the timer once you start driving on the road from the end. You can do the races in whatever car you want, but you must start from either end of the road, not the middle.

Burning Route is the one where you have to use a specific car. Although some Burning Routes only use one road, not every Burning Route event is tied to a specific road. There is 1 Burning Route race for each "base" car. Whenever you are driving around in one of the base cars a star will show up on the map/mini map indicating which intersection has the Burning Route for the car you are currently driving. Once you complete a Burning Route you unlock a custom version of that car.

Posted by SZer0P:

Burning routes are more like side missions that you can do if you want for your favorite car to get an improved car of the same type. I enjoy burning routes the most actually because they're usually the hardest and you always get a reward for doing them.

**********************************************************

Posted by belden:

I've been playing the game for about two hours now and have to comment on the parts of the review that mention how difficult it is to follow the route initially and how the author had to keep pulling up the map. I have competed in five races so far and won four of those on the first attempt. I have yet to have to check the map once. The game blinks the left or right street sign when it feels you need to make a turn and there is even an audible sound alerting you to the fact. In one of these races I got completely off-course and realized that I was heading for the checkpoint from the complete opposite direction as the other seven racers. This made it even more intense for me as I couldn't wait to see if I could win the race like this and in the end I did by a split second. To me, this is a non-issue and I would really like to know whether the author even knew about the "turn indicators" or not.

Posted by Sceroo:

i never have had a burnout game. i always picked up the need for speed games so this one is my first of the series. I'm very satisfied with the content of the disc it is so fun to race and wreck everywhere. i've done 8 races so far and never lost.the compass is a very useful guide despite what reviewers say. I totally recommend this title if you like racers a lot .this one is one of the best i have ever played.

***********************************************************

Posted by Dollby:

This is one of the best racing games I've played and the ability to quickly hop from playing single player to multiplayer is commendable.

The map is a problem for me, only a slight problem. For example when playing in a ranked game you are at a supreme disadvantage if you do not know each corner or shortcut, which can be slightly frustrating, yet like with any game practice makes perfect.

For me anyway this game is more Test Drive than Burnout, however I'm pleased that the dev's took and are taking the series into a fresh new area, owning this and Project Gotham Racing 4 and you're all set!

*******************************************************

Posted by igaboo242:

I JUST BOUGHT IT BECAUSE I HEARD THEY WERE GOING TO ADD BIKES!! grin CAN'T WAIT!!

[Purple44]

Here a post that kinda sum up what was happening over at the Criterion forums:

Criterion Close to Closing Forums Completely

Posted by TheHighlander, posted Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:41 pm:

Granted, Zombie, that's what most people are there for. However BP is a social gaming experience, that is the feature that Criterion hung their hat on, it's the feature that really set the game apart. So the social side of it is kinda important as well, you know?

Regarding the Criterion forum itself and Criterion. I'm not sure I feel as extremely annoyed as Yabbas' (then again he got banned, and I haven't - yet), but I am hugely disappointed in the turn of events in recent weeks. The reset was an opportunity, and it has been squandered in my opinion.

It's undeniable that the early days of the forum were different. Maybe it was because the majority of posters there were still very much in discovery mode. The forum was easier going and Criterion team members appeared were viewing/using the forum more like a semi-social thing for them as well. Remember all the kidding on about Matt Websters road times on Angus and Webster? That was pure leisure time for him, nothing to do with work. Over time, we moved out of the discovery phase when posting pictures of new places or new tricks or new 'glitches' (red carbon cars anyone?) was the norm. Even so there was still a lot of activity, discussions about race routes, all sorts of stunt run things, barrel rolls, that sort of thing. There was a lot of discussion of the GCC and DLC, updates were referred to by their code names. The Burnout Team still talked to people. And of course the Road Rules threads.

Life was good, everyone was enjoying the game. Criterion had even felt confident enought o create a group of community leaders, the Elite poster group. The Elite poster was ideal for calling out experienced players willing to help, but that group of posters ald gained sufficient respect among the forum, that it was possible for some peer-pressure moderation to happen. Perhaps that was one of the thoughts that Crtierion had, a self policing forum. It actualy worked - to a point.

But something changed. The Eye of Moron grew stronger and we began to see more negativity, there was a flood of newbies at about the time of the Cagney launch. I think the beginning of the negativity was all the crap about Ranked Racing - the numerous cheats and exploits. When Criterion began to block these exploits it seemed like many ranked racers complained more loudly about other aspects of the racing that they didn;t like. Whether it was the points system, takedowns, traffic, odd geometry, disliked race routes, whatever. The amount of negativity began to grow. I'm sure this was not making friends or influencing people within the Burnout Team.

The Cagney/Rai-Jin thing really was the perfect storm of negativity. During that time, Criterion's involvement dropped to nil, and the newly deleted/demoted/snubbed Elite poster group were left fighting a rearguard action against the Eye of Moron. But the actions in response to the Rai-Jin absolutely killed that concept and drained any legitimacy or perceived authority the now former Elite ever had. from there i't been a pretty rapid slide to the forum reset. Suddenly someone woke up to the fact that the forum was full of crap. Moderation was sketchy at best, and the group was getting spammed. Many of the former Elite posters had moved on, some had left out of despair.

Criterion decided to become rock hard on moderation and enforcement. All the community features of the forum are deactivated (hell, you can't even read the bloody forum without registering). It was said that the moderation would be more active, Criterion would be more involved and everything seemed like it was on the up. For a while, it worked. But then as we settled into the new regime, a few things started to become clear. The new stricter moderation was fairly arbitrary. No additional filtration was happening on user registration. Criterion involvement was primarily locking threads and wielding the ban-hammer. Still, it seemed as though things could still get better. Community events are still happening, Mags league, the Beat the Road Rule events, that kind of thing.

That brings us to the present, In my mind, the present state of the forum is actually perfectly illustrated by what happened with Yabba's Turd and the FoxyFemale thread. An event that cost Yabba's his forum membership over nothing more than calling a spade a spade A new member, FoxyFemale, posts a pointless thread bithcing about people mis-interpretting her screen name. Yabba's Turd and several others point out the bleeding obvious to the poster and she gets all offended by having the truth figuratively thrust in her face. Then out of no where Yabba's get's banned for 'abusing other members'.

Not for the first time the moderation is arbitrary, favoring the Eye of Moron over a long standing poster, and ignoring the context. Perhaps Yabba's response was saltier than the original poster liked, but it was hardly abusive and a ban was uncalled for. However some busy-body evidently thought it was. The moderators blindly issued a perma-ban. Whatever happened to context? Anyone whop moderates a forum for any length of time learns to read situations like this, it was crystal clear to anyone how the issue should have been dealt with.

In it's current state the forum is not bland, it's broken - probably beyond repair IMHO. There is no point for anyone to be there. None of the more experienced players will stick around (assuming they aren't already banned). It makes the whole thing kind of pointless since the exchange of ideas and experience between new and old players was supposedly the point of the forum. The forum is flooded with the same inane threads over and over, because there are no stickies and threads are culled on a weekly basis there's no way for any of the newbies to even know if they're asking a question that's been asked and answered 50 times already. Apparently there is a zero tolerance policy in place for forum veterans who call a spade a spade. I'm actually surprised I wasn't banned for my "Eye of Moron" comment.

Solutions? I don't know. At this point, I just don't know. There are so many new and good games arriving that I suspect that we will all move on to other games with Burnout just being an occasional toy in future. Criterion had captured lighting in a bottle - as they say, but someone took the cap off and allowed it to escape. I look forward to the next Burnout game and DLC/GCC such as the Island. But, in the meantime, I'll be playing LBP, MotoroStorm 2, Eternal Sonata, Valkyrie Chronicles, and whatever else that takes my fancy. I'm glad Burnout Paradise and the forum/social aspect of the game began so well, I have a well populated friend list. A pity it couldn't be sustained.

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to try to continue the Beat the Road Rule events. Pretty patchy participation in the last one.



This is a 48 page thread, I found this post on page 27. I'm over half way reading through all 48 pages.


I would not be happy about seeing this happening to important threads:

"I tried to delve back in there but the likes of Spoilt spamming the site is just too much for me. It's just too much like hard work now! Christ Plur had to revive his liveries thread as it was deleted due to inactivity (probably because no one looks that far down delow the shit!)."



********************************************************

Well it look like this guy logan was the straw that broke the camel back after Criterion posted this last post:

OK. It seems there are several members of the "community" who seem to enjoy messing things up for others rather than just enjoying the game.

Enough is enough. We're done with coming to our forum and seeing a small minority of "members" coming to post offensive and abusive posts.

And many of you seem to be participants of this behaviour.

(Yes we do read all of your other forums, and see how you enjoy causing trouble.)

So here's the deal - either this stuff stops TODAY or WE WILL STOP ALL INTERACTION going forward.

This means everything - no podcast, no forum, no blog, nothing.

It really is up to you guys. But we don't need this.


Post by ZombieTron:

I'll be the bad guy then. Logan you are an asshole and you are responsible for Criterion Games closing their forum. How dare you ask them to kindly eat a **** sandwich after being banned from the forum for the previous shit that you posted.

That is pure disrespect, not just to Criterion Games, but to the whole Burnout community. We were warned that the forums would close if any further abuse was received, and you posted anyway.

I don't know you personally and you don't know me personally, but you attacked me on a personal level on the CG forums, and you attacked CG on their own forums. You need to take responsibility for that. It wasn't just immaturity, it was hurtful unprovoked attacks.

Grow up and take responsibility for your actions. Words hurt, use them wisely.

[Zenomart]

Been a while again and seems I got a hell of a lot to reply on XD bear with me please.

Hi Zenomart, it's been a while since you have made a post. Have you tried the FOJ Community Mod yet?

Just wondering what you thought of it. We are always looking for ways to improve it and make it better.

Good to see your still around. 

I'm sorry I fell quiet again then and didn't reply to you Hed, but don't you worry I have been dropping by now and then just to see what you guys have been doing altough I didn't have time to try the FOJ CMod for FO2. I did play every mod for FO 1 and the custom car mod for FO2=D
Good to see you m8.

lol zeno... x16AA@1600x1200 is greater than x2xHDMI w/e it is... idk but ps3 looks like crap when hooked up to a normal tv... O yeah ps3 cant do real 3d, or atleast not that I konw of (3d glasses)

Whatever not like I care.

O yeah unsure about reliability but Gamestop says that burnout wil come to PC sometime January. Not really sure because they were off on FOUC to PC date by about a year.

LINKY

Please do not compare a console to PC, there is no defeating a good pc with a console, they are only up to 1080p/i and the pc can reach a whole lot more detail. That's the main reason why BP on PC is going to be one to buy! PS3 is getting stereoscopic 3D support but that only gives me headaches, never been a fan of that tech.
I think you all know about the release date by now?

Check out one of the new cars that they are coming out with. 

http://www.criteriongames.com/packs/legendary_cars.php

Here is a nice video to watch.It starts with BurnOut and works it's way through previous games ,up to BurnOut Paradise and that this where you see the action.

Kinda reminds me of FO2 and what Ultimate Carnage should have been. 

http://www.criteriongames.com/intro.php

There's alot of awesome DLC comming like the new island and more, I've already played alot with the bikes and they did a sweet, I tell you, a sweet job doing the handling. It's not half-assed carlike driving like some racers, it's real roll-over-lay-down-cornering ^^ love it alot!

Hmm after watching video, I think a may of found a replacement for Flatout next year.

I like what I saw in video about Burnout Paradise and Criterion seem to be a game maker that care about keeping it fan base happy. Free DLCs for the consoles and releasing early PC demo of Burnout Paradise.

Got to love em don't you?

Guess the hardcore BO racers are POed much like the hardcore Rally fans are about DiRT and DiRT2.

You could say that but then again I'm a hardcore BO racer and I still love Paradise!

***************************************************

Not sure I will like Burnout Paradise if I have to finish the offline mode before all cars are available online.

http://www.burnoutaholics.com/?q=node/1273

Posted by ZombieTron:

Paradise is for me, the hardest Burnout game to get into, it is a slow burn.... you really need to know the city before you can have a lot of fun.  There isn't any car customization in it tho, just the paint work. And you have to work through the offline game to get any decent cars to take online. 

 Well I'm sure there will be a cheat around this but I'm glad to see it. MC2 was this way. If you wanted the best car online you had to finish the game and by finishing the game you knew all the tracks and were a better racer for it.

Yeah I know, people don't want to waste time playing a game when they go straight to online to chit chat and piss off the players who paid thier dues and learned the game.

You don't need the best cars to drive online since you'll have race classes like C, B and so on. If you have no car the basic car of every license type will be available for you to drive. I stopped until I found a nice car in the B license, the montgomery GT 2400 (http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/9382/montgomerygt2400yk8.jpg). I beated alot of races with it but then finished the game and used some other cars. I've reached the 5th world rank on PS3 with that GT 2400 but then I just had to quit, didn't have the time to keep it XD.

Knowing the map is important since most people follow the GPS but there are much shorter ways!! So in the end the more knowledge, the higher chance at a podium finish =)


Now guys, we've survived that. If you ever want more info about ingame stuff or anything else, let me know I'll be happy to enlighten

Greetz,
Zenom

[Purple44]

Here a new podcast with the new car they are working on:


http://www.criteriongames.com/podcast/index.php?episode=18

[Purple44]

Here link to pics of the other 3 cars that are part this Legendary Cars pack:

http://www.criteriongames.com/index.php

I like the stationwagon.

And here link to new podcast about the new Legendary Cars pack:

http://www.criteriongames.com/podcast/index.php?episode=20

Also in the works for 2009 is:

BURNOUT PARADISE - BIG SURF ISLAND PACK

This will be a paid DLC. Not sure how this will be handle on the PC version of Burnout Paradise and if it will be release at the same time as the consoles versions.

[Heddly]

I found this on Amazon.com. it says:

This item will be released on February 3, 2009   

This is a time limited Full Demo and I was thinking that we could get together during the Demo period and test together as much as possible and get a good idea of what everybody thinks of it. Share both our positive and negative thoughts before purchasing the game.

[Purple44]

I don't know if I would pre-order Burnout Paradise for $40. Might wait to get hands on demo and make sure it run on your computer first.

Hopefully Critertion did some could beta testing with different PCs and game will run fine on most players computers, but lately, racing games on the PC running well out of the retail box has been iffy lately. GRID got off to a rough start and GTA 4 got off to a horrible start on the PC.

I was hoping this demo would get release in time to find the bugs and fix most of them before releasing final version of Burnout Paradise. Look like that not going to happen.

And with no official forum to post problems with the game, don't know where we will go to post problems with the game!!