f13.net

From PALGN:

EA to release new Battlefield game
For free. But with ads.

EA have revealed plans to release a brand new entry into the Battlefield series - and it will be free. Battlefield Heroes will be headed by developers DICE, also responsible for the other games in the series.

The game will utilise EA's trademarked 'Play 4 Free' system - basically, users don't have to pay anything, and EA still makes money through in-game advertising and micro transactions. Just what exactly those transactions involve remains to be seen.

As well as the unique business model, helping set Battlefield Heroes apart is a new cartoon theme visual style, which is reinforced by the game being rather accessible to newcomers. Players will be able to customise their character to great detail, and can also build up their character's abilities. Helping out here is the matchmaking system, ensuring players only play other players of roughly equal abilities.

“We put a different twist on this Battlefield game going with the cartoon-style graphics and gameplay,” said Ben Cousins - not the footballer, but the Senior Producer at DICE. “There's something here for all types of players - be it our core Battlefield fans or casual gamers. With the new online model, we will continually add new content to keep the game fresh and keep players engaged, while integrating player feedback in real time. As a game developer, it is such a cool new way to make games.”

Battlefield Heroes will be available to download at some time later this year. While there are no screenshots as yet, you can still check out the game's official website here.
http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/


Looks.. not so good.

I love how the magazine cover has an inset pic of TF2 with the guy looking almost exactly the same except without a helmet.

Somewhere in EA's Fortress of Evil there's a bar graph showing "Daily Ad Impressions from Battlefield 2100", and on October 10th last year it started dropping.

Yeah, that was something I picked up on as well from their site, even before noticing the TF2 guy there...

Why the fuck would they cartoon everything up? Arrgh. EA can even make a free game I won't play. Well done, boys.

I wanna play it.

I'm emailing you a slap.

i liek gamez.

Shit, I'll play it unless it sucks ass. It's FREE.

Fucking copycatting microtransaction piss-brained dickbaskets. Now I'm gonna shit blood for weeks. Take your thrice-new World War bullshit and cram it up your collective asses, bitchwigs. ablooooorhrargh

I'll bang Carol Channing unless she's old

dickbaskets?? really?

I played Lineage 2 because it was free (beta). I think it's pretty clearly demonstrated that I'll almost any game once for free.

Boy, have I got the game for you. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11839.0)

Spend some time thinking about what sort of people you will be playing against in BattleFree Heroes.

Ever dance with the Dickbasket in the pale moonlight?

I ask that of all my prey.  I just like the sound of it.

They're going to copy the graphics from TF2 and add vehicles. Hey, look, new game!

Meanwhile, when you hit escape it'll switch to an 800x600 60hz 16bit menu. And they won't copy the fun from TF2, either.


People will still eat this shit up, just like they have all the amazingly bad Battlefield games.

I'm not sure i would instantly go the "They are ripping off" route. For one, we don't how long its been in development, and its not like the TF2 style is wholly unique.

Well done, fresh, pleasing to the eyes. Yes. Absolutely original, not even.

I loved BF1942.  I R DUM  :ye_gods:

1942 wasn't that bad. I'm pretty sure he's referring to Vietnam, 2 and 2142. They were all equally shitty.

The BF1942 demo was better than the actual game.

I get the feeling that this game is going to be for kids or something.  I.e. no gibs or blood.

As long as it's fun and has a mute button, I don't care.

I still play BF2. It's fun.

I seem to remember all the Battlefields sucking in a well-worn, evenly distributed suckfest.  Wasn't BF1942 the game where Lum was in the beta test, chatting about it over IRC?  TAXI TO VICTORY?!

By the gods no. That was World War II Online.

Ah ok, I found it (http://wiki.onlinegamers.org/index.php?title=TAXI_TO_VICTORY!).  WWII Online, I'd forgotten.  Oh well ... I'm still not playing this new Battlefield game, too many other good games without ingame advertising, yech.

1942 was great. The Desert Combat TC for 1942 was also great.

The Road To Rome expansion pack for 1942 was ok, but no servers ran it.
The Secret Weapons expansion pack for 1942 had some good things in it (FG-42, BMW Motorcycle with Sidecar) but also some stupid things like jetpacks and clazyplanes so overall it had too much suck. No servers ran it anyway.

Vietnam was not good. The Eve of Destruction (Vietnam) TC for 1942 did it far better.

BF2 was quite decent. Quite good in fact, though short of brilliant.
Special Forces expack for BF2 was ok, but also kind of useless.

2142 was again decent to good, and had a better unlock method then BF2, but somehow didn't hold my attention nearly as well as BF2.

None of the series have had quite the same insta-gib speed of CS, UT or even CoD4. I prefer the slightly slower game, and vehicles (along with ways to take them out).


So yeah, one awesome game. Two good games. One below average game, and several useless expansion packs.

=======
From PALGN:

Battlefield Heroes not coming to Australia
As we shed a tear.

Only a few days ago, it was revealed that a new Battlefield game was on the way called Battlefield Heroes. Battlefield Heroes is a free to play game which is currently in development at DICE.

Despite our optimism for the game, EA has confirmed to Kotaku that the release of Battlefield Heroes is restricted to Europe and the United States. Considering the game is available to download for free, we’re not too sure how EA will restrict those from other nations from downloading the game, but we’re disappointed anyway.

=======

I'm thinking this is somehow related to the fact that the government here made them release a modified version of 2142 without the ads in it. It probably uses the same kind of spyware technology which is illegal here.

I wonder if it will still have an obnoxiously bad menu system and matchmaking service?

Maybe we'll never know.

But good point, they never did finish the fucking multiplayer menus in BF2, and 1942's was terrible even after several patches.

I can't remember much about 2142's.

Ditto. At least once a week. I am less than 2000 points from my last two unlocks, dammit.

1942 was great. I loved the slower pace of the game. The game rewarded shooting in controlled bursts from prone and aiming for the head, and at the same time punished bunnytarding and run-n-gun. The planes were jalopies that took a lot of skill to fly but were easily balanced by flak guns...you could even take one out by shooting at the engine with an MG. Wake Island BF1942 was maybe the most visceral game experience I've ever had. RtR was a decent expansion, but the limited tanks were odd. Never played Secret Wars.

I guess I'm alone liking Vietnam. I think it did the populated areas quite well in contrast to the jungles, and having the radios blaring was a cool touch, I played it quite a bit.

BF2 was ok, but I hated the jets (I used to fly for my clan in 1942) and it did treat bunnytardeds much more nicely. Not sure if it was because the game was more mainstream or the production was shoddy/rushed, but there were a lot more exploits (dolphintards). Could've been great, but I was spoiled by clan playing and private servers with 1942, pubbing bothers the shit out of me (TF2 was fun for a week while F13 was playing, no interest in playing anymore, frinstance). First time my fiancee watched me play, some tard knifed me when I was going for a zodiac under the ship...then his buddy revived me, he knifed me, revive, knifed, revive. She was shocked, but it made a pretty good example of how fucking retarded the general internet public is.

Skipped 2142. Fuck your ads.

Yes. I just picked it up at Xmas, and I'm hooked on it, despite quite possibly the worst menu and matchmaking system in existence. Maybe it's the weapon unlock grind... which is being added to TF2, BTW. I do wish they'd shut down the dolphin diving in BF2, but I use it and still enjoy the game and TF2. I've actually played it more than TF2 lately, but I blame that on my addiction to leveling curves fed by MMOG's.

BFH should be fun. Hopefully, they will skullfuck the retards working on the menu system.

bingo bingo, fuck you DICE.

Oh wait Matchmaking, I'm still doing BGs in wow that are 14 versus 9 AB, or 10 versus 4 WSG. No real developer cares about matchmaking its all smoke.

Bloody menu, UI.....*waves hello to UT3 and your big suck to*

From the official EA site:
http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/dev-blog/hello-heroes

One quick ‘rumor squashing’ comment: A few news sites seem to be reporting that Battlefield Heroes™ will not be available in Australia. This is most certainly not the case. Battlefield Heroes™ is available as a free download from the web, and as such would probably be available even if you connect to the internet via a satellite dish from a small unheated hut on the steppes of Uzbekistan.

I bet the ads will be for space heaters in Uzebekistan.

Oh god i slay me.

As long as it's jam-packed with Spyware, all will be good.  :ye_gods:

Dolphin Diving.

EA's solution? Remove prone. Remove accuracy bonus for crouching.

Thanks, assholes. You have now pretty much eviscerated everything that was good about BF 1942.

So Joystiq and Game Trailers now has a trailer video with some gameplay footage up of this. I like it (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/29/see-the-battlefield-heroes-debut-trailer/).

That was my most hated feature. You MUST go prone to hit anything... It was lame.

I enjoy the art style of this game.

I'm torn on the art style. My fiancee LOVES the BF2 style. She wants me to play more, but understands why I don't. She hates the new style, I think it's ok.

On prone: you could do well with crouching in 1942. I'd rather have had them fix the ability to dolphin dive (I dunno, not being able to jump/prone/jump or whatever, I never got the whole thing because I don't play like a moron) than remove the tactical play element. The series has been on a move from slower, more tactical play to a more quake-like action game. This pretty much completes the transformation started by the DC mod.

Some folks prefer the faster pace run-n-gun style, and that's cool. I like it, too. But BF1942 was almost unique in providing the slower tactical experience where the ability to jump and aim wasn't as important.

Bunnytards win.

Dont get me wrong, i hate bunny hopping as well ( I loved that they drastically changed that in the ENEMY TERRITORY : QUAKE WARS, compared to Wolfenstein, but gave a very limited alternative in the form of a vehicle). I just didn't like the fact that prone was so godly compared to the other states. I like crouch, leans, and the like... But a lot of that was pointless in the BF series. Prone was almost mandatory to fire.

Ok, we'll disagree. Prone was very useful for certain rifles and at certain ranges. Crouches worked for pretty much anything but sniping, though. Had to aim for the head, though.

We used to spend many hours training and learning the best methods in 1942 when I was playing at the clan level, we were involved with a couple leagues and a ladder. So I'm mostly using 1942 as a reference.

In BF2 I mostly used the grenade launcher, so anything goes. Rifle was just a backup.

Dolphin diving in BF2 sucks, but since it's the way the game plays, you pretty much have to do it. I'd have preferred if the 3 positions were toggles... i.e. you don't go from standing straight up to laying prone without crouching first. I hate that I have to hold down a key to crouch instead of just going into crouch position. That's the reason going prone is so preferred, it takes one keypress and you're done.

I'm still excited for it.

Don't let my lamenting the loss of the best slow-paced tactical shooter take away from the fact the new battlefield looks cool. Two different yet related subjects.

Last quarter of this trailer actually shows in-game footage.

http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/video

Looks like it might be at least somewhat fun if you need to pass time here and there.

--edit: Actually, it's the same as above from Joystiq, except on the official site.

That's how it works in Call of Duty 4.  You have to hold crouch to go to prone, and while you can Dolphin Dive, it won't save your ass in most cases.

"Free to download and play"



Makes me ask, whats the catch? There has to be some way of them making money.

Ads, lots of ads. Presumably. Also I wouldn't be suprised if there was some sort of RMT system (buy new costumes, weapon models, etc.).

Yeah, but thats the part i can't find any info on.

OMG!  WWIIonline done right, well or fun I should say.

This is DICE. They can screw the pooch with anything.

Not as bad as 90% of the companies out here. I'll take above average over what most of the market offers.

Sure, it'll likely be buggy as fuck on release, and have the shit shit shittiest menu system on the planet...

but it will still be fun.

There probably won't be as many bugs since they are dumbing a lot of stuff down.  Plus most bugs are graphic issues and they are actually scaling those down for this so they won't encounter anywhere near the problems like before when they were trying to push the envelope.

I also hope that since this is aimed at a much wider, less savvy audience that they get a competent person to do the menus...

Does DICE even HAVE a competent menus guy?

But it has tanks!

Here's something that'll make you shoot yourself: It'll launch out of an internet browser. The "menu" is a website.

oh that's just horrible. Let's hope they don't force us to use internet exploder.

That's also where they're putting the ads.

Motherfucker.

That does not necessarily mean that it will RUN in a browser, just that it may launch (As in, execute the EXE) from a browser, there are lots of programs that work this way.

From what i can see, this is the case, there is a big "Play now" button on the website.

EDIT: there is also some kind of Myspace like profile site planed as well. I am sure it will have things like "Online now" and "Join friend on the server" ETC..

Being tied in closer with intarwebtards is my own personal gaming ragnarok. GIT OFF MAH LAWN!  :geezer:

Given DICE's track record with menus, that'll be a fun ride.

Good overview of Battlefield Heroes from the EA summit:

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/04/25/ea-games-studio-showcase-battlefield-heroes-presentation-and-one-on-on-interview-–-streaming-audio-new-shots/

I'm really curious about the social stuff. it sounds neat.

New trailer

http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/26829/PC/Battlefield-Heroes

Wow!  Damnit why do they have to make it look so good...

My son and I are turning into groupies for this game (almost as bad as my sister and her daughter are over Hanna Montana).

Love the Spitfires doing a ground scrape attack.  :drill:

It's so over the top and I love it. Can't wait for this to come out.

Man, give the thread a few months and everyone's turned  :heart: :heart: :heart:

Funny that I read this thread from Post #1.

It looks like TF2 with vehicles. Meh.

But I love me some vehicles, so we'll see.

See, that in itself would be made of win. Thus, my love for the project, especially knowing it will be free to play.

I am still drinking Haterade by the gallon. Cartoon graphics = clownshoes.

I still dislike the stupid social networking aspects, and the ads. But it's free and looks like some goofy fun. And they incorporated some stuff we used to do in 1942, like wing walking and buzzing infantry with planes. And it's free.

If it was TF 2 with vehicles I'd be dancing with joy, but Dice has yet to prove to me they can pull off infantry combat worth a damn. I loved BF 1942 vehicle fights, but the infantry varied wildly from too floaty to too plodding. I really hope they manage to get the infantry combat right finally. Maybe they'll do better with it not being first person.

I liked BF2142 a lot and thought the infantry mechanics were great.

I loved BF2's infantry mechanics, and the vehicles weren't bad either.

The series peaked at BF1942 for me.   This new one looks like it might get back to that sweet spot.

I also admit to being excited about the social/dress-up bits.

I haven't tried that one, so maybe they finally figured it out. I didn't like the feel of BF2 at all.

Well, there's yer problem right there. The beauty of the original BF franchise was slower infantry combat.

BF2 infantry mechanics are awesome. Much better than The silliness of TF2 imo.

I'm ok with slow, but I was slow moving and floaty all at the same time. That said, I'm more of a Q3/UT kinda FPS player, so I certainly have a bias. The new BF games will still be awesome; I can just be a plane whore.

Slow infantry make baby jesus cry.

Baby jesus was a rocket-jumping, bunnytarded bitch.

Anyway, yeah. There should be room for both styles of game in the fps market. Apparently not, since most things trend toward methamphetamines.

So, you're saying you're bad at twitch. I'm OK with that, are you?

 :awesome_for_real:

Eh, there is plenty of twitch in FPS gaming even without rocket jumping and bunny hopping.

I tend to prefer the feel of DoD infantry over the BF1942 infantry.  If they ever made DoD with vehicle combat as good as 1942 I would never leave my computer.

Quake Wars is a good compromise solution with it being slower than Quake/Unreal but faster than BF2.

Go go Rainbow Six - any of them!

Lern2twitch, bitches. I will get pwned until the cows come home on CS, but can hold my own (and a little of theirs) in BF2. It doesn't take super fast motor skills- it is a combination of knowing what your weapon is going to do, where to aim/shoot, and staying cool enough to take a good shot with it while your opponent jumps around like a methed-out gazelle. Nothing more satisfying than shooting some fucktard just as he lands from his jump (before he can use his weapon). Bonus points for humping his dying corpse afterwards.

It's really about playstyle preferences. I can switch between TF2, BF2 and UT2k4 pretty easily, but it takes a bit of time for my reflexes to catch up to each type of play. I did find that playing TF2 helped my shooting in BF2 tremendously. OTOH, I hate the Quake games, but found Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory great fun.

What about quake wars?

It's the best FPS most people will never play!

I guess it's out on the 360 now too.

I'd still be playing Quake Wars if it wasn't a pain in the fucking ass to get to Lv. 4 in a discipline over a campaign even if it rolls on for full duration on the 3 maps.

Also, I think they haven't updated their maps since the game came out?

Never played Quake Wars, since I didn't have a computer that would run it worth a shit.

http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/27851/PC/Battlefield-Heroes

Man, my excitement went way down watching that.

I'm hoping it's just the lack of players but the pacing of that gameplay looks hella slow  :uhrr:

And it looks like they learned nothing from Valve about the advantages of that art style, such as silhouettes to make it easy to show classes and simple things like making it easy to determine who an enemy is and who isn't an enemy.  I don't see the difference between friendlies and enemies in that vid.

You didn't notice the guy bring down the player list?

(http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7213/40984444ko4.jpg)

Somehow I think that map was a fair size too big for 10 people.

Also, allies names show up and enemies don't. It's hard to see in the video, don't know if it's the resolution or not.

Still reserving judgement until the playtime happens. Given the whole 'moar customisation' aspect of the thing, silhouettes are hard to make as cut-and-dried, either in terms of side or class. I see some hope in that vid that class-specific things that matter (i.e., medic) get big-ol animations, and as far as side goes, let's cheat and have an IFF weapon cursor. If I want OpFlash, I'll play that; If I want a pegleg, I'll play this.  :grin:

Fuck it, fast fun, cartoony whatsit. Well, presuming some more people show up than in that vid. Which would neither surprise nor alarm me.

And I was thinking it was nice that it slowed down gameplay a bit. Actually, I'd say removing crouch and prone probably speeds up gameplay a bit too much.

Looks fun. Odd the planes are very resilient, bouncing off the ground and no damage from tree branches.

I'm not certain if this is real. (http://qaboss.com/index.php?option=com_qaboss&project_id=7&project_name=Battlefield%20Heroes)  Beta sign up.

Personally I dislike vehicles. BF2142 would be 100% better if they took every last one of them out. I'm so tired of rock-paper-scissors in games where I'm required to play one of the 3. Keep that shit in the strategy games, I don't play to be rock's bitch just because I'm scissors.

(http://www.pennwellblogs.com/sst/eds_threads/uploaded_images/cash-cow-783681.jpg)

Well, it isn't like anyone predicted when EA bought DICE that they would be slaved to create sequel after sequel to Battlefield.

Oh wait, yes I did.

Oh yes, you were the only person in the world who thought that. I bow down to your mastery of the fucking obvious.
 :roll:


Don't sprain your shoulder when taking the opportunity to pat yourself on the back.

When it comes to stroking my ego, I am double-jointed.

Battlefield Heroes was on full display at PAX. They've moved from really tight Closed Beta testing to liberal Closed Beta Testing. I have 9 Beta Keys to give away to those that want them. First come, first serve.

Also, can we like rename this thread Battlefield: Heroes?

ZOMG WANT

That game will be much more fun in beta than in releasetardation.

I mean.....I look forward to testing and making it a great game  :why_so_serious:

I would love a Beta key if you still have one left. I've been wanting to check this out.

I'd like to try it out if you have an invite available.

I would also like a key if there's some left.  Thanks much!

/Raises hand!

Want want want.

Same here! If ya have any left I'm game!

Two left.  :oh_i_see:

Maybe I should run a... "social experiment"... to see what people would do for the last one.  :why_so_serious:

Oh. I want one. Didn't notice your post.

Umm, I'll quote you for one.

I'll take one if there's any left.

Sorry, schild got the last one. =\

so, what did you get him to do?

I sucked dick for it. You ever suck some dick for a beta pass?

You can get beta passes for that kind of thing now? 

Damn, I've been missing out!  :ye_gods:

Is that what you did? I was asleep.

That's radical. Not loading properly in Vista 64.

Can't create my hero. Also doesn't load the installer right in Firefox 2. NICE.

Does it install in Chrome? I hear it's fast.

And darn I missed it!

It's a decent game. Classes seem balanced. I don't know if I like the map design. I'll play more this weekend. I also didn't see an NDA, but then, half the shit wasn't loading I was just pressing whatever button I could to get in.

Eh, I'd hoped a browser game would run on Safari/10.5  :why_so_serious:

Got a character created, but I'll have to wait to play it.

I admit I didn't read the stuff to see if there was an NDA, either. Woops.

Is the client relatively small?

DAMN YOU!  I spent all morning getting it the account set up, finding the fix for firefox (some kinda of 3rd party utility that makes firefox run it), and then playing all morning...  How the hell am I supposed to do my homework  :headscratch:  oh well, someone needs to see what is NDA for it.

Oh and thanks btw  :thumbs_up: for the beta key.

It was on public display at PAX with all questions answered by the Devs. I say go hog wild.

Are all the invites gone?

I might be able to get more. Stay tuned.

My cat will sleep with you if I get one.

Man, I was even on the website earlier today!

EDIT: Oh, you were giving them out, not the site.

I'd be interested in one if you are able to get more... I've been watching it for months, but there are 500 replies before I get there every time they have a contest.

I got more keys and will be taking care of everyone who replied after Schild in this thread, but I won't accept new ones until I figure out how many keys I got left.

Very interesting. Didn't play very much at lunch, but the customization is fucking awesomeness. Created a German Ascot Wearing Commando Named HaemishVonKilt. Going to have to fuck with the customization some more just to see what goofy looks I can come up with.

Gameplay seems very odd.

Having problems installing... Some dude on the forums has the exact same problem I have (no mod reply yet), so that makes me hope there might be an easy fix.

Try using another web browser just in case.

I'm having issues that sniping seems pretty damn effective and easy in this game, along with stealthers not losing stealth if they are struck by bullets in combat. Also, doesn't appear to be any skill matching. My Lv. 6 dude looked like he was facing off against some uber teams.

Yeah, I tried both of the varients that were supposed to work... IE7 and ff3 with IETabs, neither worked. I'll wait and see if the post is replied to, I'm patient.

What's the issue? If it just doesn't show a progress bar, then it could very well be working.

The window comes up, but it doesn't load, just has the perpetual hourglass.

(http://i33.tinypic.com/2wp1dz5.png)

That isn't my pic, but the other guy that had the same problem. No clue what is up, there is no reply yet.

Oh wow. Someone uses the default XP theme.

I have no tech support to give, sorry.

Also, holy crap are you at 800x600?

I just use the "classic" view in XP with black colour options, I'm not into all that bubbly shit. Also I'm at 1280x1024 (I have a shitty 17" monitor).

Edit: I think I've posted pics of my desktop in the various desktop threads before, but I might have just posted the original background.

Let it run. My roomie had the same problem with his. It showed that window, but when he checked the folder it was downloading files.

I had the same thing and it was installing fine. "It's beta."

It's definitely beta. Gameplay is fun, fast and furious and it definitely plays like a casual Battlefield.

Sniping is only effective if you can shoot for shit and know how to avoid direct confrontations. Commandos are meat 1v1.

Yeah, I got it working, just let it run while I was away.

I have 6 guys, but my "main" is HelmutVonZepp. HelmutVonZeppelin didn't fit :(.

I have one character named SirWinkleford

There's a bunch of threads in thier forums about the issue loading above.  Check there.

I get a nice Error downloading patch message whenever I try to install the game.  Ah well guess I'm waiting on the next update. 

They really need to add some more maps. One is pretty good... one is meh.

I'm f13Jimbo as a National Gunner, or some variation, like f13Jimbomedic, or f13JimboScout.  Had a couple of bugs, but pretty fun so far! 

Now for some reason I can't log in. When I try to retrieve my password, it says my EA account doesn't exist.

Edit: Ok, now I can log in, but I'm getting the dreaded Play Now button crash that has had no mod reply in months.

Sucks, it's really fun when it actually works.

I wish they would clarify on what is and isn't in the NDA, as I wasn't @ PAX I don't want to comment on much other than it is fun as hell when it works :)

Allright well since people are talking about it I will assume the NDA is gone.

I haven't played it since the day I got into the beta and played a few hours.  Not being able to sprint in an FPS makes my penis soft.  Yes I know you can unlock a limited charge sprint with xp but screw that nonsense.

Finally got it all running and its ok.  Quick and simple, but damn running is soooo sloooowwwww. 

I'm not sure I like it. Seems like some guns/abilities are very overpowered.

I'm really not digging the whole starting from a browser kind of thing. I'm guessing it is just for added security?

Also not being able to which server you want to play on sucks. The main point (?) of having it the way they have it now is for team balance, and I've been sent to games with 8 nationals and 3 err... Other guys. And vice-versa.

Need more and better maps. The Seaside Skirmish map is way too big. Once one side takes the flags in town, it's a long hoof back to try to retake it if you are the losing side. And generally, if you aren't in a vehicle, you're screwed anyway. The other map is decent. The guns are very uneven, and yes the running is very slow.

It's certainly the type of progression-based FPS that anyone can jump right into, but it needs a good bit of work before it's worth more than a few day's diversion.

I can't seem to log in anymore..but my personal take, its fun, its quick... Its slow...very slow...really really ...slow. Its also even worse than planetside in regards to gimping skilled players. There is no "bloom", its just random from the moment you pull the trigger.

This is the biggest reason why I don't play this as much as I want to. Every national with that god damn gatling gun has a "WIN" button in their hands. All you have to do is spam nades/kegs, get in close and spray. I've only really done well while they were healing or I had a teammate shooting at the same person. As it stands there's no reason to play as an allied, it's frustrating.

Are you all saying the cone of fire is too big?  Plus your weapon selection really does make a difference in accuracy, range and damage.  I have found I like the weapons that shoot slower, but are more accurate and damaging.

I would like to see them increase knife damage and range (I know they did it once before, but it still needs a bit of a boost), as that is frustrating as hell to kill someone with a knife.  I think the most damage I can get is 48 with a knife attack from hidden, poison helps, but it still is a bummer when you get behind and ambush them, then you have to spaz around them trying to land 2 to 4 more knife attacks to kill them.  I usually have to switch to my pistol if they get spazy.

I think they aren't trying to make it a hardcore fps, since I can actually fly the plane without crashing it.  I've allways crashed the planes and helio's in the other BF games, so maybe they want fierce, short, and fun battles.

The biggest problem right now is that they're fierce, fast and short ONE sided battles.

Its not fun when i'm shooting a guy in the head with a SMG (small) and shots are WIZZING BY HIM MISSING. This game needs a bloom system, random from trigger pull 1 is not working.

That the smg that is fast rate of fire?  If so, yeah it sucks, I gave up on the ones that are supposed to fire like mad.  The only ones who use those lately have been gunners, because frenzy fire makes all of the bullets go at one person instead of being inacurate as hell.  To me it doesn't make any sense, in that if I'm firing a ton of ammo, I'm still not hitting even up close, but if i switch to the slower weapon I'll hit a lot and do more damage and have more range.  I can see most people switching to those weapons (all of the guns from pistol to sniper rifles have those choices), with the exception being gunners with frenzy fire or maybe soldiers with burning bullets (then again, I never used it with fast weapons).

Don't know how they plan on making it more balanced, right now the weapons do do what they say, just seems like the dev's want us to use the slower rate of fire weapons.

Seems like the devs must all play nationals.