Good news/Bad news

Well, I’ve spent a few hours with Far Cry 3 and my reaction is mixed.

Let’s start with the good news:

• Map editor is solid.  A bit different from FC2, but still very solid.
• Map objects collection is HUGE! 
• Multi-level water, while a bit restrictive, is a welcome addition.
• WATERFALLS!  ‘nuff sed.
• Tigers and sharks… oh yeah!
• Real tunnels and the ability to pierce the land – we’ve been wanting that since FC: Instincts.  And it works well.
• Solid gameplay.  The guns no longer feel squishy.  Very Call of Duty feeling.
• Lots of gameplay options when hosting multiplayer matches.
• Map downloads are FAST.
• Punishment animations FTW!

And now the bad:

• ROOM HOSTS CANNOT BAN PLAYERS!  This is a major issue since we can’t boot out annoying people/children/no mic/unintelligible speakers.
• No ready-up in the multiplayer lobby – if there are enough players, the room starts the match.  This will make hourly humanity breaks difficult to manage.
• No free-for-all death match?!?!?!?!?
• Vehicles are banned from multiplayer.
• Weapon spawns are banned from multiplayer.
• AI actions are banned from multiplayer.  (Not a great loss, but it could have been cool.)
• Custom maps not made by the room host are restricted to ONE MAP.  Switching to a new map requires a new room, even if the host has downloaded other people’s maps.

They’ve basically destroyed our ability to provide a quality, hosted multiplayer experience like we have had in the past.  I have some ideas about how the room will be run in spite of this, but it’s going to be a bit of a pain.  Lots of dropping and recreating rooms, I’m afraid.  And not being able to ban people is going to force us to go to invite-only rooms if people don’t cooperate.

Friday will be a test-run with the factory maps and a few user maps.  We’ll see how it goes.