Just one year after release, EA has cancelled future content updates.

[SquidGeneral10]

Quote

"As the leaves start to change, September’s Fall Festival will be our last Festival and our final game and gameplay update will be at the end of the month. But, as we all know, the battle for brainz never really ends! With this in mind, each month, we’ll be bringing back our previous Festival, complete with Prize Map. Every Festival Prize Map that you weren’t able to complete will have your progress saved so you can continue right where you left off that month. 

 

Did you have your eye on October’s Doom Rose customization but lost track of time constructing your homemade Peashooter costume? Or, what about when you were busy decking your halls and missed out on Engineer’s Legendary Inspiration Elf costume in December? Now’s your opportunity to complete Prize Maps that you weren’t able to finish to earn every sweet ensemble, Legendary Upgrade, Victory Slab, and emoji. Plus, you can always explore PvE free-roam regions to complete missions and earn unique customizations, delve into Private Play to personalize the game for you and your friends, and so much more."

PvZ: Battle for Neighborville update post.

Well, this is a bit shit. The game released just last year and now they're announcing that after September there'll be no more updates. Servers will still be up (for now, anyway) so the usual advice goes - better get this one done sooner rather than later while the servers are still populated.

Oh, and they're adding two new characters permanently, so that's... something. More info in their update post.

Edit: (Patch notes from final update)

Noteworthy changes in the patch notes:

• Added in a multiple vanquish XP event.
• Fixed Levelling Up upgrade not working
• Vanquish Streak XP event grants 500 XP for every 5 vanquishes against players
• Decreased multikill window from 2->1 seconds
• Assist XP event triggers for any amount of damage dealt
• New characters; TV Head and Wildflower can be fought for 500,000 coins (or 1,000 rainbow stars) each at Rux.
• Shit-ton of balance changes (too many to list here) that you can read at the link above.

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by SquidGeneral10
Added patch notes for final update.

[Raveniteh]

I'm shocked! Shocked! Well, not that shocked. It's EA.

[twothumbedfist]

What have they cancelled? Isn't a year of post launch content about right for games of this budget? 

[KingGuy420]

14 minutes ago, twothumbedfist said:

What have they cancelled? Isn't a year of post launch content about right for games of this budget? 

 

Yeah but shhh, people need to find reasons to take shots at EA. Don't take that away from them lol.

 

Also, the servers ain't going anywhere. EA rarely shuts games down for the most part. PvZGW1 is still going... On PS3.

[SquidGeneral10]

5 minutes ago, twothumbedfist said:

What have they cancelled? Isn't a year of post launch content about right for games of this budget? 

 

• A new character, Iceberg Lettuce, was found in the files near-finalised, will now never be released. (Along with plenty of other datamined content)
  (I know things in files aren't guaranteed to release, but the Wizard character was also datamined and is now in the game - IL will never release, yet looked 90% complete.)
• Seasonal battle passes create the obvious expectation that the game will be getting updates for more than a year to keep people paying & playing.
• Most similar games (Paladins, Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, even Garden Warfare 1 & 2) get updates for at least 2 years, it's unusual for a game to stop getting content updates in 12 months.
• Certain things missing; not all characters have 'Legendary Upgrades' which were being added in roadmaps - the implication being that support for the game would continue to add them until every character had one.
• Discussion (and a lot of complaining) can be found here, the general consensus among the game's fans is that the announcement came out of nowhere - EA never said they'd discontinue support after a year, and most of their games are live service anyway so you'd expect it to be getting updates for longer than that - unless it wasn't making enough money to keep around.
   

12 minutes ago, KingGuy420 said:

Yeah but shhh, people need to find reasons to take shots at EA. Don't take that away from them lol.

Also, the servers ain't going anywhere. EA rarely shuts games down for the most part. PvZGW1 is still going... On PS3.

 
I'm not one to take potshots for the sake of potshots, but you have to admit, EA does have an unfortunate habit of shutting down studios after a game they make is unsuccessful. It doesn't look great for Popcap if their latest game stops getting updates so soon. You make a good point about servers though, so I hope they'll stay up regardless.

[StressEater]

1 hour ago, Raveniteh said:

I'm shocked! Shocked! Well, not that shocked. It's EA.

 

Exactly, thats EA for you.

 

I really enjoyed the first PvZ game but that is where my adventure ended. I really enjoyed it to be honest. It was a fun game. But I didn't have the time to play anymore after that.

[Fish613]

They took what was originally a Tower Defense game and led it down the wrong path. I'm not surprised they're cancelling the future for the game.

[twothumbedfist]

1 hour ago, SquidGeneral10 said:

 

• A new character, Iceberg Lettuce, was found in the files near-finalised, will now never be released. (Along with plenty of other datamined content)
  (I know things in files aren't guaranteed to release, but the Wizard character was also datamined and is now in the game - IL will never release, yet looked 90% complete.)
• Seasonal battle passes create the obvious expectation that the game will be getting updates for more than a year to keep people paying & playing.
• Most similar games (Paladins, Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, even Garden Warfare 1 & 2) get updates for at least 2 years, it's unusual for a game to stop getting content updates in 12 months.
• Certain things missing; not all characters have 'Legendary Upgrades' which were being added in roadmaps - the implication being that support for the game would continue to add them until every character had one.
• Discussion (and a lot of complaining) can be found here, the general consensus among the game's fans is that the announcement came out of nowhere - EA never said they'd discontinue support after a year, and most of their games are live service anyway so you'd expect it to be getting updates for longer than that - unless it wasn't making enough money to keep around.
   

 
I'm not one to take potshots for the sake of potshots, but you have to admit, EA does have an unfortunate habit of shutting down studios after a game they make is unsuccessful. It doesn't look great for Popcap if their latest game stops getting updates so soon. You make a good point about servers though, so I hope they'll stay up regardless.

Ahh OK. Like you said, any expectation for unused content in the game files is just speculative, but if previous games in the series had two years of support I suppose it's reasonable to be annoyed that this is only getting one.

 

A publisher like EA can budget for this kind of thing before the game is released without depending on income from the game itself. I don't know why they can't say before launch "this game is getting 12/24 months of content post launch" instead of just letting customers speculate or get their hopes up. 

[DavySuicide]

The thing is, I haven't expected that much but some things won't get into my mind. For example, why haven't the added some new maps?? There were SO MANY amazing maps from PvZ 1 and 2. They simply could have added them to the other maps with some minor challenges and stuff and so on to keep the game alive. WouldN't been that much work but just a super cool idea. It's just sad to see this franchise being left alone to die since I really really love this game a lot. Still missing a lot of xp for the platinum but since I fucking hate PvP I am stuck at farming tacos on the maps. 

[Lord-X-S]

Thanks for the info @SquidGeneral10. Great update!!

[DiegoMolinams]

On 2/9/2020 at 10:03 AM, Fish613 said:

They took what was originally a Tower Defense game and led it down the wrong path. I'm not surprised they're cancelling the future for the game.

I really wish they just focus on releasing a new REAL plant vs zombies game

[blkburn123]

This was in my opinion the worse game out of the three.  After playing garden warfare 1 and 2 it felt like so much was stripped or cut out of this game. The actual game play is fun but the lack of content made it boring quick.

[GUDGER666]

I hope they lost a lot of money on this, they ruined this franchise. Lazy devs. 

[Caesar Clown]

39 minutes ago, DiegoMolinams said:

I really wish they just focus on releasing a new REAL plant vs zombies game

 

Plants vs Zombies 3 was released earlier this year on Android. I don't know if it's limited to certain areas though.

[You]

I'm still waiting for a proper Plants VS Zombies 2, not that shitty phone version.

It's also a dick move that they delisted the Vita and PS3 versions of the first game, as if they're embarrassed by the original game or something. Even though it's the best version...

[MAUSZX]

1 hour ago, enaysoft said:

I'm still waiting for a proper Plants VS Zombies 2, not that shitty phone version.

It's also a dick move that they delisted the Vita and PS3 versions of the first game, as if they're embarrassed by the original game or something. Even though it's the best version...

Keep waiting that's never gonna happen

[DiegoMolinams]

10 hours ago, Caesar Clown said:

 

Plants vs Zombies 3 was released earlier this year on Android. I don't know if it's limited to certain areas though.

Yes, but it is F2P trash and it hasnot been properly released yet. PVZ 2 mobile was quite good I must observe but still, I don't like the F2P aspects of it 

[SquidGeneral10]

Updated main post to include some stand-out patch notes. That's the final update for this game, unfortunately.

[ScintillaWolf]

Kind of glad this game bombed. They did numerous players dirty by dropping support for Community Events and the Town Hall with no prior warning, only making a statement after they'd already screwed people over. Lot of people now have an unobtainable 100% thanks to them, so it does somewhat please me to see that Neighborville failed in comparison.

[its_ArchroniX]

On 3-10-2020 at 2:55 PM, ScintillaWolf said:

Kind of glad this game bombed. They did numerous players dirty by dropping support for Community Events and the Town Hall with no prior warning, only making a statement after they'd already screwed people over. Lot of people now have an unobtainable 100% thanks to them, so it does somewhat please me to see that Neighborville failed in comparison.

 

Wait why do people have unobtainable 100%?

 

To my understanding the game is still running, sure they patched some XP exploits out and most matches are filled with more bots than actual players but you can still get the Platinum trophy/ 100%. So I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.....

 

Or am I completely missing something here, I started playing the game again yesterday but saw nothing unusual? ?

Edited October 9, 2020 by its_ArchroniX

[ScintillaWolf]

48 minutes ago, its_ArchroniX said:

 

Wait why do people have unobtainable 100%?

 

To my understanding the game is still running, sure they patched some XP exploits out and most matches are filled with more bots than actual players but you can still get the Platinum trophy/ 100%. So I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.....

 

Or am I completely missing something here, I started playing the game again yesterday but saw nothing unusual? 

 

Community Events have ended, officially. Therefore the two trophies tied to the events are now unobtainable. 

 

Unofficially, the boss hunt & cats/dinos trophies are also as good as unobtainable, as neither have shown up in the town hall rotation since the back end of 2019.

[its_ArchroniX]

1 minute ago, ScintillaWolf said:

 

Community Events have ended, officially. Therefore the two trophies tied to the events are now unobtainable. 

 

Unofficially, the boss hunt & cats/dinos trophies are also as good as unobtainable, as neither have shown up in the town hall rotation since the back end of 2019.

 

Wait are you talking about Battle for Neighborville or one of the older games (Garden Warfare)?

 

Since I don't see any trophies in the BfN list that require an event of some sort. Most of the trophies in there are either for 200 vanquishes as a certain hero, some quest completions (which to my understanding aren't connected to any event whatsoever) and some random trophies like spwaning NPC's, getting medals and levling everyone to master rank.

Edited October 9, 2020 by its_ArchroniX

[Revolution_9306]

He talking about PvZ Gw2

[its_ArchroniX]

Just now, Revolution_9306 said:

He talking about PvZ Gw2

 

Then my sincere apoligies. I thought he was talking about Battle for Neigborville.

 

Got a little jumpy there as I started playing this game again yesterday and I DON'T want another uncompleted/ unobtainable in my list.

 

Thanks for clearing that up ?

[ScintillaWolf]

3 minutes ago, its_ArchroniX said:

 

Then my sincere apoligies. I thought he was talking about Battle for Neigborville.

 

Got a little jumpy there as I started playing this game again yesterday and I DON'T want another uncompleted/ unobtainable in my list.

 

Thanks for clearing that up 

 

Yeah my original post was making a comparison and why I'm glad they've not had success with Neighborville, sorry for not being clearer.