f13.net

Gameplay teaser released today in preparation for the full trailer on March 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29-oK7Vy0pM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29-oK7Vy0pM)

(http://i53.tinypic.com/2nrbdh.png)

Looks really good from the brief glimpses you get and from seeing the quality of Crysis 2 and Killzone 3, this definitely looks like its right up there with the heavy weights in terms of graphics and technology.

I'm there. This'll make me an odd duck, but 2142 was my intro to the series, and the only other iteration I've played has been Bad Company 2. I really dig DICE's style and never liked MW2 much, so this'll be my next FPS after Killzone 3.

I'm in. I really dug 2142 though.

My computer is off in the corner, crying at the beating it would take trying to run something like that on a 64 player server.

I dunno why EA shat on 2142, it was the 2nd best game in the series after 1942 IMO.

After 2142 they dragged the Battlefield brand through the mud. Went after money pots with console style BF games, but just got lost in the CoD, MoH, etc. crowd. That along with dumb stuff like freegame BF heroes trying to make a big freeplay portal like SOE.

Hopefully BF3 gets back to the series roots of being massive free flowing maps with heaping servings of combined warfare. The thing I hope they can avoid is the superweapon spam that "Desert Combat" mod introduced into the series (machine guns, rockets, planes made much more lethal). It shattered the original game's delicate design which priotized balance above more "realistic" damage (idiot nerds hate that stuff, but it's much better gameplay).

Yeah, I loved 1942 but was meh about what came after, mostly due to the DC mod. Our old clan was split down the middle on it, half mostly played DC and the other half hated it. The first game was so much more tactical, played much slower for the most part, and you had to think more, because everything was so slow. Planes were susceptible to small arms fire, ffs (if you fired at the engine or sniped the pilot). That was such a great game and I'm happy I was in the right place at the right time with it, playing pubtards sucks no matter how good the game is.

Probably an insta buy.  Though I think ps2 and tribes universe are direct competition for my gaming time.

That's why I liked 2142 because it restored a lot of the pre-DC pacing and combined arms warfare style elements (titan mode was neat). Unfortunately instead of further refinement of this area (titan design coulda used work, and more interesting ground vehicles, they just didn't have the character of 1942 vehicles) they went in the console/freeplay direction.

It will be great if they are coming back to their design roots and can execute well.

I'm so there, though I'm not expecting the MP to be anything like that trailer in terms of atmosphere.

Yesssssss. Killzone 3 multiplayer feels sterile compared to BF and makes me want this even more.

Instant buy.

If my computer can run it, I'm on that first day as well. The Battlefield multiplay FPS design is my favorite.

Battlefield 3 - Fault Line Episode 1 Gameplay Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkZp2c_vzNY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkZp2c_vzNY)

Ditto. Although I will probably try to find a way to upgrade my GPU to make damned sure I can run it. I played BF2 literally hundreds if not thousands of hours. Hope this is more BF2 and less BC2.

I'm still really digging BC2 multiplayer, so yeah, I'll probably be a goddamn slave to BF3 when it comes out.

I go hot and cold with BC2. Sometimes it is a lot of fun, sometimes it is like anal dentistry. Some of the class decisions they made were a fucking joke (let's make Medics sharpshooting HMG-toting nightmares! That won't possibly fuck class balance right into a cocked hat! Or a hatted cock, for that matter).

Yeah, the medic's with sniper accurate heavy machine guns is really my only complaint with the whole BC thing. But even then, I still enjoy the hell out of it.

I've been playing a lot of BC2 again recently. It seems that the sniping MGs have been nerfed a bit. Seems a lot more kick on them now.

Technically anything you can carry isn't an HMG.  But by the numbers, they did right by machine guns.  Any two weapons of similar caliber and barrel length, barring any mechanical defect, will have very similar ranges.  Ergo, similar machine guns and sniper rifles tend to have the same range +/- a hundred metres or so.

Point being: the real life downside didn't translate. AKA carrying a fucking heavy ass machine gun is a real issue, and the game has no representation of that. The easiest thing I can think of is making medics move at 30% speed. It'd be incredibly unfun, but it'd translate the real life issue well and probably well make up for LMG sniping quite a bit.

This.  I have yet to find a game that captures the strategic feel without being overly dedicated to realism (a la WWIIOL).  I miss BF1942.

They aren't even all that heavy.  The ammunition is, but if ammo count were to be the determining factor then you're looking at people gaming the fuck out of the system.

Unlike, say, the Engineer carrying around a half-dozen AT-4s or Anti-tank mines? Maybe he should move at 10% speed? Or Assault carrying an Ammo box? WAP is just butthurt about Medics. And yeah, the man-portable MGs in the game are a mix of LMGs and GPMGs, not HMGs. I find the scoped SMGs on Engineer are more effective at long range anyway, since you have less kick and less muzzle flash.

The classes are "Balanced" as long as you ignore the fact that a Recon with a 12x scope sitting in spawn doesn't really help his team, sniper rifles are kind of lame (from a fun perspective on both sides) and people getting ressed with half health would solve the medic balance issue (which is the fact they can keep a squad up and a push going, not that their weapons are overpowered).

I play a lot of BC2, mostly on the goon server, which is amazing because people actually spot. Which is awesome. Steam says 73 hours, and I only got it in the last sale.

As a recon with a 12x scope, enemy sighting and a few mortar strikes peppered here and there to keep flags clear, I've turned the tides of more matches than I care to count. Your milage may vary.

My best sniper ever story involves a game of BF1942 where one horribly damaged fuck camped the south central flag in El Alamein for almost the entire goddamn match from the edge of the map, across a saddle in that big central ridge.  He got like five goddamn kills, never bothered to capture the flag even after he shot any enemy trying to take it, and then at the end someone got pissed and dropped a bomb on him.

Is it open world, or does it just have really huge maps? I saw that video that italian gaming site took during a closed presentation. At the beginning, they seemed to be demoing a huge height-mapped desert and then proceeded to play in what appeared a pretty large city, because the skyscraper models went pretty far down the map. Or is it just for effect and invisible walls everywhere?

Real Recon Snipers Snipe with Shotguns and Slugs.  :why_so_serious:

In BF1942 they didn't give ANY classes a .30 calibre MG, shows how dedicated to balance over reality they were back then. They also made fixed heavy MG gunner positions in bunkers and trenches very vulnerable to return fire and sniper fire (your head was really exposed), again for balance.


For every sniper like yourself who plays for team objectives, there are 100 that have the ninja/rogue mentality of sneaking around hidden and wanted to rack up ambush kills against people who can't fight back.

BF2 & BF 2142 had somewhat better classes, I just play the game and ignore the real world stuff of these games, there is no way in hell any of it really translates over  :why_so_serious:

Example, I was assigned the M-60, when I was a Combat Engineer, that GPMG (why we call it that instead of LMG I have no freaking idea) its weight was about 24lbs, plus I had to hump 300 rounds (100 round ammo bags, which was canvas and cardboard), I am only 5'6" about 135lbs back then so I had a bunch of gear and there was no way I could do as much run and gunning as people claim they could do.  I carried a M-16 and about a 25 lbs of medical gear (or more depending on missions and if we had a vehicle or not) when I was a medic.  Combing the 2 could be possible, but would severally hamper a squads ability to function.  They need the support weapon to lay down fire, they need the medic that can fight, but will stop fighting and focus on treating the wounded asap.

I really hope they do bring back the commander ability!  I hear they want to drop it though...

I'm going to assume the Battlefield 3 maps will be fucking huge, probably bigger than BC2. It's one of the things that separates it from the COD series so much, and probably why I like BF games over COD - big maps with lots of room for lots of players instead of grenade spam-filled phone booths with high kill counts.

As for BC2, there are a few balance issues I think exist - sniping LMG's and the goddamn Uzi. When I got the Uzi as an engineer I was just flabbergasted at how accurate that thing is. Uzi's are notoriously spray happy - they do not put a stream of bullets into a circle the size of a dime.

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_qCeSGJC0KZk/TXPJofj0G6I/AAAAAAAB0yU/DZZaryE1RK0/s800/snipers.jpg)

I've had some battles where I've made a significant difference as a stealthy, ambushy sniper. What really fucks teams though is when you have 6 snipers taking potshots from half a mile away and no one taking out vehicles or actually going to cap a flag.

That shit didn't happen in competitive play much. He would usually end up like you say, just a non-factor in the game. But if it was, say, the clan invading a pub where you would see a ton of snipers (camping the tards on the runway fighting over planes)...well, we had a massive thread dedicated entirely to screenshots of knife kills on snipers. One of the clan's favorite activities.

On medics: when I first started playing bf1942, I liked the regular grunt gun (assault kit?). But once I was asked to play medic, I never went back. It had a much nicer burst, even though it did slightly less damage you'd get more head shots, so you'd end up with more hits. And of course be able to heal yourself and your squaddies after. Then I got recruited as a pilot and usually went engineer to repair planes (on pubs, usually on private, it's faster to just get shot down and respawn). Another El Alamein story - landing the plane at the edge of the map in the desert, jumping out to repair it, jumping back in, total denial for the plane campers. It was so much fun to take competition level skill onto pubs and just pwn the server...part of why pubs aren't fun for me now that I'm the pubtard :p

Anyway, setting nostalgia aside. Can't afford the game at release and by the time it's affordable, the servers are haunted by guys who have learned all the tricks of all the maps months ago and not fun as a newbler. It's why I've stayed away from shooters since BF2.

I remember you telling me about this setup. Motion mine + Slugged shotgun was an incredibly deadly combo. I think I racked up 10 kills on one objective. They were very unhappy with my performance.

To be honest, I think the idea was borrowed from WAP.  :grin:

Last I played, the shotguns had been nerfed somewhat, so it was no longer trivial to no-scope slug snipe across maps.

I always did better with assault, hated the medic SMG which had a much worse cone of fire. I could go prone and pick off people at medium range with the extra accuracy and damage. There were also healing stations all over so being able to heal self wasnt a huge deal.

This thread is now about BC2 strategy until BF3, since the BC2 thread is a year old! Here are my (old) stats (http://bfbcs.com/stats_pc/bhodii). Yes, my K:D sucks. I don't care! I have everything unlocked. Yes, I'm a year late on it. I realize.

Always take Smoke on vehicles to stop tracers, or Zoom on UAV for the vehicle spec. I use the G7 for pistol but I have no real favorites there.

Here are current best builds after all the patches:

Assault
XM8 Proto, 4x, Magnum long range, while leveling up
FN2000, Red Dot, Magnum for close range, door-to-door, small maps. Better than a shotgun.
M416, 4x/dot, Magnum - Replaces XM8 when you get it for medium range mobile firing. If you move while firing a lot, get stability instead.
M16A2, Extra Explosive/dot, Magnum - 3 round burst means accurate long range fire death machine and death machine in general. Best assault gun IMO
M16A2, Extra Explosive, Exp MK2 - Team up with another assault, drop ammo, hide and fling a grenade a second and 40mm grenades at enemy defensive positions.

Medic
M249 Saw, 4x/dot, Armor/Magnum - OK long range gun, best option you get till the 2 last. Must be still while firing.
MG36, +healthpack, Armor - Comes with a free dot sight, best long range "sniping" style LMG. Ridiculous accuracy, good firing rate. I personally prefer this. Use Armor to live longer to revive people.
MG3, 4x/dot, Armor/Magnum - Slightly better than the MG36, but you lose the free dot sight.

Engineer:
Eng guns suck. Sorry. AKS-74U is the closest assualt rifle but G1/M1 are both better. Take the tracer as a pistol.
PP-2000, CG, Extra Explosive, Exp MK2 - Best in class close range gun. Gustav is the best gav, but you can swap for mines or the AT4 as needed. Swap PP for the G3, or the M1 if you have it for assault rifle flavor.
870 Combat, Slugs, Magnum - It's like a sniper rifle only your bullets drop only about half normal. A ton of fun and you can get plenty of shotgun headshots. Bonus, you can kill heli pilots with it as well.

Recon:
M24/Gol, 12x Scope, Magnum ammo - Standard camping asshole-on-the-ridge setup. M24 reloads faster, Gol has no zoom sway. Pick whichever you like. SV98 has 10 rounds but is weaker. Also you can swap for a dot scope and pretend you've got a shotgun. Don't silhouette yourself against the sky, hide in bushes half way down.
Saiga, Shotgun Spec, Magnum - Go house to house guns blazing, using sensors to find people.
VSS, Extra ammo, Magnum - Hi, I am the most stupidly overpowered/awesome setup. I am like an extra long range assault rifle with a crazy firing rate that kills in 3 hits and kills in 1-2 headshots. If you are a recon that is a team player, play this like assault with 2nd sight thanks to sensor balls. Throw more sensor balls. Throw them before going up a hill. Throw them at enemy positions. Rack up points for free even if you aren't doing anything. Use single shot or two round bursts at long range, hold fire button down medium/short range. This is currently the game's I WIN button.

Hey, stats...cool, they finally got that crap working: http://bfbcs.com/stats_pc/%5Bf13%5D%20Strazos (http://bfbcs.com/stats_pc/%5Bf13%5D%20Strazos)

I somehow ended up preferring the Neo2000, able to snipe across maps if you have high res, a good eye, and steady hands.

Also, I had nearly forgotten how much I was starting to love Assault...especially once I realized how hilarious it was to sneak up on APCs and plant some C4; I think I got something like a 6x kill once. Also started to get ok with piloting aircraft.

I thought the PP2000 engy gun was total shit compared to the Uzi.

Patches have made a lot of changes to many of the guns.. the Uzi is awful now.

Did it stop all the aimbots?

Mostly, but there are also server side scripts that just boot people who are 25:1 k:d. That, and server admins.

I've been playing BC2 again lately. Man, I'm kinda surprised by how much time I've put into this game. Then again, I generally find what I like and then stick with that, + one or two others, for ages.

http://bfbcs.com/stats_ps3/rhenasaurus

Right now, my favorite weapon is the AN-94 plus my dodi finger.

This was last week. The PP2000 seemed to have shit damage at range while the Uzi was death on a stick.

I wish EA would do this with their sports titles. Hey look, some guy with 1000 games played and has 7500 goals. That has to be legit, right?

Edited to add this-

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/710950/battlefield-3-could-support-256-players-will-only-support-64-though.html

Why on earth not? 128 v 128 would be fucking incredible.

Could is a magic word. Despite them saying it's a design decision, I'm going to say 256 people blowing shit up would do terrible things to any server.

The amount of server bandwidth out (client bandwidth in) to support a given number of people increases by the square of the number of people.  Ergo, 256 people would require roughly 16 times more bandwidth than a 64 person match takes.  In practice, the amount of bandwidth a person requires is variable, and the amount a client need can be reduced with aggressive culling.  But 256 people packed into a small area would be really hard on any home connection even if it doesn't headshot the server.

OK now I remember what I dislike so much about BC2. I just loaded more than a half dozen Conquest maps and on each one, the score was something like 10 - 175, with three scoreless low level players against a couple squads of lvl 50s and some straglers.

Levels in fps  :uhrr:

Loved 1942, the others? Not so much.

Sure, as long as 128 v. 128 is sustainable.  Given the fact that the map size would be absolutely huge to deal with that, the gameplay would probably be utter crap on anything but a highly populated server.  Granted, this problem could be avoided by having maps designed for different player numbers.   

As for levels - they don't matter too much in BC2 from my experience.  The guns are better at higher levels, but not insta-win better.  The bigger issue is that you have is that experienced players will beat the crap out of inexperienced payers.  The fact that they have even BETTER equipment only makes it worse.  I don't think that levels totally ruin any FPS they touch, but I think they do not add a single thing and do subtract things.

That being said, I'm firmly against levels in an FPS and would MUCH MUCH MUCH prefer to have everything available straight away "for free" so to speak (I think Tribes is a good model for this in terms of having tons of options for loadouts).   Its just more of the old "Lets keep people playing longer by dangling shit in front of them to chase."  It worked so well for MMOs that every other genre needs a host of levels, achievements and other meaningless sit to attain these days.

I would like to see unlocks for cosmetic things like black BDUs or sunglasses or berets...silly shit that looks cool but has no effect on gameplay.

That was one of the cooler aspects of BF Heroes, it had style in spades. Make that the carrot, and nothing that affects the power differential, since that's already inherent in online shooters from time invested.

I can deal with this if necessary, but I'd still prefer to just leave it out entirely or make all the cosmetic stuff available right away.   Why does this kind of game need a carrot?

To sell you DLC, of course.  :awesome_for_real:

On a normal server attackers have a very tough time these days on Rush. Of course you can often have a walkover on any map, but the amount of times I've been with halfway-decent teams and both sides have stopped the other on the first or second set of M-COMs is really not uncommon these days, compared to on release.



Battlefield 3? I've heard buzz about it going back to larger maps, but nothing official or final yet.



.30 cal MG? Which one would that be? Oh, none. They're all 5.56 or 7.62, except the Chinese one which is 5.8x42mm. The shielded MG positions can be annoying, but there are just as many unshielded ones, and when you use one of those, you know you'll die a lot faster than if you're running around on foot. Only way to hurt those choppers for many kits, though.



I love (playing against) those teams.



I don't mind the way that BF:BC2 has done it. BF2's version was just so fucking long and tedious I stopped playing the game long before I unlocked half of the guns. Especially since I like using a lot of the earlier guns. I also enjoy the ding-grats of getting new shit while also enjoying shooting people in the face.



Agreed. This seems to be in BF3 in some form as they've spoken about it already. I'm sure more stuff will be available as DLC, TF2-style  :drillf:

I run up and knife them. They're so stuck in their own bubbles, they don't see their lame sniper buddies getting killed by knife on the alert window.

This Brink interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05auA-hwGUE&t=2m16s) about sniper assholes is pretty funny. 

There is a special face I made every time my squad had 3 snipers light years away from the objectives forcing me to run across the map to the action.  It's the same face I make when the dentist decides it's time for a deep cleaning.

So sniping will take...2 shots?  :grin:

Or, just pick people off in a crowd that's being fired upon.  :why_so_serious:

 :oh_i_see:

One of the things about 2142 was the immense amount of mobility that the aircraft provided. Hopping around the map with an organized squad was just fun as hell and it felt really rewarding to get shit done. It was also very easy to get into the action in a non-cheese and fun way. I like big ass maps but I also want to be able to get around quickly in a fun way. 2142 had this. I've only played bc2 and 2142 so I don't know if this complaint is true of bf2. Theres helicopters in bc2 but either due to the smaller maps or the ease of taking outnhelciopters, its rare I ever see them used outside of fly to target area and jump out the fucking window, explosion. Very unrewarding.

Does 2142 have any servers still running?

There will be a temporary re-explosion when it gets released on steam, between next weekish and when BF3 comes out later this year.

:p

ok you got me there. My native thinking is metric, but my fuckup. I was thinking of this kind of thing
http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/30cal.htm

To be fair though, his argument was that 1942 didn't give anyone a .30cal MG. Since so many of these are either 303 or 7.xx, I'll assume that Trouble meant the same thing that I did by .30 cal

The BAR
Cartridge: .30-06 Springfield (7.62x63mm) (M1918, M1922, M1918A1, M1918A2)
7.92x57mm Mauser (wz. 1928)
7.65x53mm Belgian Mauser (FN Mle 1930, FN Mle D)
7x57mm Mauser
6.5x55mm (Kg m/21, m/37)
303 British (7.7x56mmR)
7.62x51mm NATO

Degtyaryov (DP)
Cartridge   7.62x54mmR

Type 99
Cartridge   7.7x58mm Arisaka


Sturmgewehr 44
Caliber: 7.92x33mm Kurz

FG-42 (SW)
Cartridge   7.92x57mm Mauser

Bren (SW)
Cartridge   .303 British
7.92x57mm Mauser (for Republic of China in World War II)
7.62x51mm NATO (Post WW2)

BF2 had this, and I really do miss it in BC. In BF2 the Blackhawks were used to fly people around to take flags, while the ones in BC2 are basically used as gunships, and if you happen to spawn-on-squad, you might jump out the door into the map proper or the "you die in 8 seconds" zone.

So, basically, Brink is an FPS that pats you on the head and tells you, "it's ok that you suck at FPSes, here, we're gonna lower the bar to make you feel less like a loser." Really?

Don't ask me why they don't do [width]x[length] like metric does, or why they don't have a standard for width rather than using measurement at the lands or grooves of the rifling at will.  I just know it's all pretty much .30 or .303 diameter measured at the lands, with the latter seemingly having fallen out of favour.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/03/04/dice-on-the-decline-of-pc-gaming-bullshit-battlefield-3-will-give-extra-love-to-the-pc-community/

Interview with Karl Magnus Troedssonfrom DICE comes with various PC-love promises. Promising to give the PC the same full post-launch support that they promised for PC, then pulled gave consoles with BC2. He's talking a good game, but then again, that's what they said for BC2. Not to mention we've heard it before from other devs. Remember Randy/Gearbox's promises for Borderlands?

You tease.

You could easily pick up on BC2 next time it's on Steam sale. Until a few weeks ago, I hadn't played it since shortly unlocking everything a couple of months after release. There's heaps of new players on from the last set of steam sales. It's not like Counterstrike, nor is it like COD. It'll take a few rounds to get used to the maps, but I've basically relearned the whole thing in the last month, including quite a few new maps or new modes with different versions of older maps.

http://bf3blog.com/2011/04/battlefield-3-launching-this-november-with-a-100-million-ad-campaign/


Thats quite a budget.  I don't even see these games as in direct competition for my time, MW3 is a twitch shooter, and Battlefield really isn't, the frostbite engine isn't really designed for that kind of game.  I guess most people just see army shooty shooty though.

I don't understand.

Well throw out the engine bit if it makes it easier.  CoD is a series of twitch shooters; almost your entire success as a player boils down to how good you are at that one particular skill.  Battlefield is designed such that the gunplay is important, but not necessarily the most important thing by itself, the difference in gameplay is huge.

I guess I don't see that. They have the same game play as far as I can tell. I mean, its not like its the difference in game play like Quake is to source.

Well, maybe I'm the odd man out then, but they are different enough to me that I don't see any contradiction in owning both (I have both Blackops and Bad Company 2 and I don't see them as really competing for my game time).

I've no idea how MW2 or BO play compared to MW1, but the main difference I saw between MW1 and BC2 was that while MW1 had a small map and you played in short rounds, BC2 had a series of objectives you had to defend as long as possible, or capture as quickly as possible.

Ninjaedit: The actual twitch part I thought was more or less the same. vOv

The part in his statement I did not understand was this:


Implying he was talking about the gunfire mechanics.

Well, at the most basic level CoD uses hitscan, and battlefield uses bullet physics.  This leads to significantly different feeling gunplay in my opinion.

True, yeah to a point. That I agree with.

I think that, combined with the design differences in things like map size and vehicle use makes them different enough that they scratch different itches for me.

Most players just seem to want to run and gun. I mean, players on MW2 maps sometimes look like they're on roller skates. You spawn, run around for sixty seconds. Die. Repeat. Twitch in MW2 is obvious because there isn't much to do besides fire your weapon and run around like a maniac. In BC2 you get rewarded for some planning and can even get decent scores without using your weapon much. The two franchises might as well be on different planets.

I just hope BF3 doesn't make me wait through startup screens. I get anxious waiting through the screens for BC2. The best thing about MW2 was being able to fast forward through that stuff.

When I read "Twitch shooter". To me, it only refers to the method of shooting, in that case both games are twitch. Beyond that games can be different in game play but fall in the same category with me. That was my confusion with his statement.

I think how central a role the gunplay is to the experience matters as well.  There is nothing twitch shooter about following a tank around with a repair tool, for example.   The CoD series is fairly pure twitch gameplay through and through. 

As long as the EA behemoth wants the BF franchise to crush the CoD franchise, all hope of a solid sequel to BF1942 is lost.

Fuck, reward bunny hopping, plane-camping and snipers and you've got a hit!

Then you haven't played either one enough.

EDIT: And to address Sky, I really haven't seen a lot of bunny-hopping in BF: BC2, very little vehicle-camping and snipers... well, they can camp and snipe, but that doesn't often help their team win and the winning team gets bonus points.

I guess it's because we appreciate the work and thought that goes into the mechanics of the games more than you.  :grin:

A new low for EA...

http://pc.ign.com/articles/116/1167117p1.html

Announcing DLC pack long before the game even out.

Well ERTS finally climbing out of the basement thanks to fat margins on DLC, gotta keep that train chugging. It's getting very cynical now though, how long will gamers put up with it?

Maybe you should read beyond "DLC"... :uhrr:

So pro-order or pay for DLC...

Still gonna be cynically withholding content on release from normal buyers of the game.

I bet if you boycott BF3, that'll show 'em. Heck, you should probably pirate it to send a clear message.

:facepalm:

Im still prolly going to get it. Maybe even pre-order cuz to me it looks like the best BF game since 1942.

I am just thinking this kind of aggressive DLC flogging will backfire on EA if the title is less than a major a success, especially as there seems to be a lot of negative reaction to it on other forums.

No, it won't, and yes, this is the way of things going forward. You will be DLCed into submission.

The DLC angle will fail unless it's cleverly bundled into other shit people want / will get by default.

If your multiplayer server switches to a DLC map and half the people log off, pretty soon that map is going to be out of the rotation. With it out of the rotation, no one will ever buy it.

A similar thing happened with Vietnam. There was an initial buzz as people bought into it, but less than a month later everyone was back to playing the default game.  DLC only works if it gives individuals more options while still letting them play with the rest, like the specact kit.

If the default game crowd can't play with the DLC buyers, that DLC will fail.

This is actually the thing that's causing me to:
1) Not buy games at all
2) Wait a year for the all-inclusive GOTY/Gold edition


I love(d) the Burnout franchise, and while I wasn't exactly rapt with the open-world changes in Paradise, it had it's moments, but the amount of DLC there is just off-putting. Likewise I bought NFS Hot Pursuit based on it being a lot like Burnout. I played it for a bit, loved it, then got disappointed at the difficulty of the time trial races since I'm really casual and arcade in my driving games - and to play time trials is not why I bought the damned game. I checked out the DLC after the game kept telling me there was an update, and found about 4 million bits o DLC, including stuff like the Porsche 911.

Really left a sour taste in my mouth towards EA/Criterion. I won't be picking up the next Burnout on release.

Likewise, I'm waiting till Dead Space 2 is repackaged with all the DLC included at a discount price before I buy it. I've been waiting for not only the Assassins' Creed: Brotherhood all-in-one version (AKA Da Vinci Edition) but since it's a year old game now, I'm waiting for it to be cheap-ass as well as including all the DLC...

With option 2, the "evil company" still gets your money.  :oh_i_see:

I don't see the opposition to DLC. Yes, some of it is nickel-and-diming you to death. But I think part of it is that we've been trained to expect shit like the DLC for free. We shouldn't. The Fallout 3 DLC all looks to be fairly solid expansion pack type stuff. The Battlefield Bad Company 2 DLC, Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age DLC also seems to be substantial enough that it's either worth buying or if not, worth ignoring. The video game market has been fucking itself for decades with the "must have big release or game is a failure" mentality. DLC at least lets developers keep a decent after-release revenue stream. The other options are subscription-based games and we've seen how badly MMOG's have fucked that up, to the point many are moving to F2P with microtransactions.

The trick is to make sure the DLC is cheap enough to be in impulse buy territory, worthwhile enough to feel like the gamer got some value for his dollars (i.e. not fucking horse armor) and also be almost completely optional to the original purchase. Will some companies do stupid things with it? Of course. EA is known for that sort of thing especially. Hell, a lot of their sports game DLC is almost completely worthless. But don't dog on DLC because a few guys don't know how to package it. Frankly, if EA would release weapons packs for BF:BC2 every 3 months, I'd be happy. Basically, you buy a pack, you get immediate access to 1 weapon per class, with 2-3 more unlockable weapons on top of that.

I see DLC as a good way for a company to keep pouring resources into a non-new game (and for me to continue to extract enjoyment from same). As long as it isn't too expensive or overboard (paying for individual in game items or the like), I like it for the most part. Day zero DLC is still pretty chickenshit though.

The problem is, a good multiplayer game is going to be nearly infinitely replayable based on its mechanics, not based on what new guns I can get.   If a game isn't good enough without the DLC, I'm not going to care to buy the DLC in the first place.  I think something like Bad Company 2 Vietnam was very good.  I guess thats a little more in the expansion pack territory, but it added a bunch of new maps, and the game was different enough from BC2 that it offered new stuff to learn.

 I'd be interested in the new guns if they add something new to the game from a mechanics standpoint, but I don't need 3 new assault rifles that are only the slightest bit different from what is already there.  New maps can add a lot of replay value too, or at least freshen up a stale game that has strong mechanics to begin with.

The only problem with maps is that they become "necessary" because if you don't have the newest maps and the servers are running them, you're kind of hosed.  Its hard to strike a balance between worth buying and not necessary.

Is the plot to Battlefield 2/3 better than MW2/3?


So some gaming site released pretty much the full plot of MW3 (though they said they kept SOME spoilers back. Which is pretty idiotic if you ask me).

I liked MW1's plot. MW2 sickened me. The entire No Russian level was stupid. But invading the US AND THEN HAVING THE HERO FIRE A NUKE FROM A RUSSIAN SUB OVER D.C and NOT end in the next game being set in the Capital Wasteland after the ICBM's fly is so bizarre it's offensive to think about it.

MW3's plot is amazingly WORSE than MW2. A plot that idiotic and not played for Cheese like Duke Nukem should not be rewarded.

Battlefield 2 doesn't have a plot worth mentioning.   Battlefield 3 - who knows, I'll probably be buying it day 1 and never touching the single player.  It might be a decent single player for all I know, but my advice would be that you shouldn't buy these games for the single player and expect too much, generally speaking.

Yeaaaahh... you're missing my point, I guess. I'm not on a personal crusade to not buy games from EA or whatever or give a shit about "the evil company". My interest is to pay as little as possible for (new, not preowned) games and avoid having lots of bits of DLC on my consoles if there's an option to have them on the disc instead. I'm happy to wait a year or whatever because I have a large backlog, so it's not going to kill me if I play AC:B a year (or two) later than the Day-1 crowd.



It really depends on what we're calling DLC, and what it's priced at. Borderlands' stuff was alright for the price (especially since I bought most of it on sale). Undead Nightmare was a fully-fledged expansion pack, as was Gay Tony and LaTD. OTOH, 300 or 460MSP for a single car in a racing game can go and eat a dick. The Saints Row 2 DLC missions were ok., but overpriced for the amount of actual content.

I mean, my 360's 250gb HDD is pretty much full, and most of that is DLC. So I have no huge opposition to it in theory, but at the same time when I see a pattern that games from X publisher will be released in an all-singing, all-dancing, all-inclusive package in 14 months with all of the DLC mastered on the disc at 1/4 of the day-1 price. Well, fuck it, I'll wait since I have plenty to play right now and I'm in no need to rush. That applies to regular games as well, though - Portal 2? $50 today or $5 on sale this (or next) Christmas? I'll wait.

I actually think some of what EA is doing is smart - bonus content in the release-day "limited" edition, or some content for those who purchase new instead of pre-owned. I'll be buying/preordering probably 3-4 copies of BF3 with the Karkand pack, but that's because BF is my drug of choice. If it were pretty much any other game, I'd wait that year before buying. I do agree with WAP that day-0 DLC is bullshit. I'd hate to see them go down the CoD-styel of selling a million different map packs though. When I get on CoD:WAW on 360 occasionally, I always get booted off after 2-3 maps because I don't have the map packs. That doesn't make me want to buy the map packs. It makes me turn off WaW. At least Gears of War (which I have never played online) keep bringing out GoTY packs with all of the extra maps included.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UwOrl036_A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UwOrl036_A)

Single player tank mission. Looks nice, ok it looks freaking gorgeous

Wow, I might have to pick that up, just for the SP.

I want to believe!

Seriously though, the marketing campaign for this game is absolutely terrible and every time I actually see the videos it makes me want to stay away, but then I remind myself, 64 player multiplayer, return of planes, etc.   I'm hoping it doesn't require the EA Origins software though. That would be a deal breaker.

I dunno, that tank video was pretty good marketing.

It was good marketing for the graphics, maybe. And it HAD to be the single player. It was just a big open flat plain of tank mosh pit that would get old in minutes. I thought it looked pretty, but have zero interest in playing it because it looked boring.

Yeah, this is about how I feel about it as well.  It was single player, that is confirmed, but the single player in a Battlefield game isn't really the point anyway.  There is nothing about that seemed worth playing, it was great to watch, but I'm not going to buy a game because its nice to watch, I'm going to buy it because its nice to play.

I'd have to guess they are showing SP teaser stuff now to pump it up as a CoD/MoH beater, then MP marketing of old-style BF will be the hook for closer to release. I'd save the real kickass videos of Wake Island style combined arms maps for later.

This is entirely possible, and in fact probable, but I can't say that what I've seen *so far* looks all that amazing.  Then again, I would've said the same thing about Bad Company 2 single player videos, and the multiplayer is quite good, so I'm perfectly willing to wait for that stuff before I write the game off or anything like that. 

Or they could, you know, go with what has worked for them and release a demo that blows the doors off everything else in the market, but I'm not sure that bolt of lightning can strike twice.

They have said there will be a beta starting in September, but I don't know if that is going to be one of those pre-order things or not.

Have they announced how the classes will be done this time?

Just actually
http://battlefieldo.com/?p=1027


Seems like a rejiggering of the BC2 classes, but not too drastic a change.

I think 2142 was like this with the rifleman/medic and machinegun/ammo classes. As long as sniper has the option to go with a shotgun and be a close-up killer (motion mines?), I'll be happy with that class.

I have to admit, I spooge a little each time I see one of those BF3 videos, but I'm also very aware that I'm a simple fanboi for Battlefield.

As if this wasn't already a pre-order for me, the videos aren't hurting either. Wow it is pretty.

Ya! Prone back and the chance to not revive if you want to!  I kinda wish we had all the classes from BF2, but I see they want the less classes from the other games, BF 2142 version was fun, so that should be nice. 

Let's cut the shit and get to the point: lean?

Never upgraded my PC due to a game but, holy  :drill:

Opposite here. I've never upgraded my PC(s) for any other reason than games :P

Probably too hard to balance for.  :drill:

I've heard this will be Windows 7 only, which means I'll need to get a new computer between now and then. If that happens, I am all over this game.

Dx11 only too. Just FYI. Been reading about the tech behind the engine, its all bleeding edge, if that wasn't obvious.

Avoiding it till I get a better system. I dunno why, multiplayer FPS hardly grabbed me, especially when casuals get raped by Clan-tagged on most nights unless you're on the other side of the fence.

Not in my experience, but clearly YMMV.

Really good players are gonna do well regardless of if they are clan tagged or not...

You can still have fun even if you are not the best, provided the team balance is overall even.

This is sort of true, but its not like they are unrelated.  If you get a couple guys in vent from a good clan on one team, an entire server *can* (not necessarily, but definitely can) be effectively ruined.  This has been true forever though.  Luckily, you can always switch servers or just quit for a while if you really really can't take it.  I don't see this as a huge barrier, but I've also been playing these games for 15 years now, so I'm usually not so outclassed at a game that i play regularly that it isn't fun, even if I'm not like competitive level good.  I can definitely see how if you were/are late to the party that it could be pretty overwhelming though.

I agree, but it seems like bad team scrambling if a game lets a crew of high score clannies group up so easily on a public server.

Being together on vent gives them an extra edge, but if the 6 best players are all on one team, the other team is prolly going to lose hard regardless of if they are clanned or now (unless they also got all the worst players).

With all the stats BF is now collecting, it would be a pretty big oversight if they weren't using that data for smarter team scrambles. Not just based on player skill, but even balancing out classes, hell, even admin options to break or group up people with clan tags.

The otherside of the coin is - why should the game prevent me from playing with my friends?  If I have 3 clan mates on its a lot more fun to play on the same team for that night.  It'd be pretty much a punch in the balls to say "sorry, you guys can't play together"

My experience was similar playing bf1942. My clan used to absolutely demolish any pub server we'd hit up after a scrim. But without being able to play with them, pubs would've been boring and frustrating.

That was also the last fps I played at that level, so my skills, how you say, they do the suck. So, given that pubs suck and I'm not interested in clan play, I just avoid online fps altogether, even though I really enjoy it and used to be quite good.

Well personally I mostly play as a loner in these games (just wanna login quickly and get my pew pew on) and don't mind pub servers, I just want the teams to be even so the games are close or at least competitive.

Like I said just give server admins some scramble options on if they want to allow clanmates/people from same area together, or give them extra attention in the scramble.

I'll play with a crew or solo, either way is fine with me as long as it doesn't devolve into a fucking spawn camp fest like most BC2 fights have become of late.

It seems that EA has pissed off a good chunk of their fans, and managed to totally throw away the leg up that the COD clusterfuck thing gave them in good will.

Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5811243/battlefield-3-finds-a-way-to-piss-people-off)

Forbes: the day DLC went too far. (http://blogs.forbes.com/insertcoin/2011/06/13/the-day-dlc-went-too-far/)

I have to say that giving an item thats basically required for the recon class as a preorder bonus is pretty fucked up.

I feel like I have outrage fatigue for video games at this point.

uuughghgggghghghghgggggggwheeez*

To hell with it. When BF3 drops I'll still be hooked on Dark Souls anyways.

Hm. Maybe I'll buy BF3 6-months-to-a-year down the line when all this shit is rolled into one Ultimate Edition with Karkand. I was seriously looking at getting at least 2 copies and possibly 4 for my little LAN here (via Steam) but if they're deciding to pull this shit perhaps I'm better off waiting.

My BF3 scale just went from "maybe it won't suck and maybe they won't DRM it the fuck up" to "welp, guess they didn't want my money anyways".

At least certain games companies are making my purchase decisions easier and easier as time goes. :awesome_for_real:

Hmm...I wasn't going to be able to play BF3 online anyway, so I guess I'll save my money and just buy more books.  :oh_i_see:

Coming soon!  Star Wars: The Old Republic!  Pre-order now and be able to play a Jedi or Sith on day 1, or else you'll have to wait 2-4 months after release!

 :why_so_serious:

I thought having to wait to get to the fun part was built into the MMO genre to begin with.

(http://i.imgur.com/1hy5e.jpg)

That deserves a place in the funny pics thread.

It's funny because if tetris had been invented today, that's precisely what would've happened.

  :| Mine pretty much went from "Fanboi Fanboi Fanboi Fanboi buy multiple copies on release Fanboi Fanboi Fanboi Fanboi" to " :oh_i_see: :uhrr: :ye_gods: look at it again in 6 months to a year."

Which is a pretty extreme amount of pissed off.

And the worst thing? We're probably going to be in the minority, so this tactic is probably actually paying off. :oh_i_see:

I just realised that both of the games that I was super-keen on and actually going to buy on release this year rather than giving 6mo+ to get out of the discount bin have fucked that idea via shop-exclusive DLC.

I wonder if EA will respond to the backlash?

This has been a long time coming. I would write something here to describe what I feel about where the gaming industry as a whole has been headed for some years now, but words fail me.

My trust in gaming companies is at an historical low. I'll still throw money after these guys, it's EA, but it's not Activision

So have we really fallen to the point where EA has better reputation that Activision?

I think so, but its really a race to the bottom.


I doubt the vast majority of their audience even registers it as remotely problematic.   Luckily, the minority that does care is extremely loud.

I honestly don't know, they're both (at this point) shit.

I'm not sure the "loud" part is going to be able to overshadow the "minority" and "lawl moneyhats" part.

Well, I was wondering due to their previous attempt to do pretty much the exact same thing apparently resulted in them backing off due to the backlash.

I also remembered the third game I planned to buy on release this year - Saints Row 3 - but it's from THQ who just fucked up my Space Marine purchase, so I'm sure they'll think of something.

In other news, Assassins Creed Brotherhood Da Vinci edition with all the DLC and pre-order bullshit packed in continues to drop in price. Another $10 drop and it'll be time for me to buy it. I only just got a copy of MW2 for PC the other week.

....Well. EA will always be EA. Fuck'em.

It's going to take at least 3 years (or more) before they go "maybe that's not such a great idea". I mean, we got Spore with the first online activation, tons of people told EA to go fuck themselves, Ubisot went one step further and required you be online at all times (people bitched even more), and we're now, 3 years later, still seeing tons of games with activation crap in it.

I was going to say they might learn in 3-5 years, but then I realized that there's most likely going to be enough people buying these games on the consoles that they really don't have to go back on what they've done lately, and in fact are probably going to make even more money hand-over-fist as they get to charge full price for the game itself, and then charge €5-15 more for the DLC/pre-purchase "bonuses" (which you of course must get or your mates'll laugh at you for being a cheapskate).

God, I'm getting to be a bitter, bitter old man. Thanks, EA, Ubisoft, Activision. Thanks a lot.

Internet wins.  Pre-order content to be unlocked for free sometime after release. (http://twitter.com/#!/Battlefield/status/81395538259476480)

*shrug* No steam, no purchase.

Like when they want to salvage the sales numbers...so day 2.

...and the internet loses:

(http://i.imgur.com/4UYH9.jpg)

 :why_so_serious:

Welcome to the jungle...

We've got fun and games and are throwing in "fun" as a preorder bonus.

This is a really shitty trend. 

I like that Rockstar acknowledged that fact and started putting their pre-order bonuses as DLC after the launch of the game.  I'm okay with that.  But don't hold back content from your players, especially stuff that has the potential to be an advantage. 

I know with RDR it took them awhile to get the pre-order stuff up on PSN, but with LANoire it was up almost immediately after launch.  I'm also entirely okay with the Fallout series DLC, very modular and one doesn't necessarily need the DLC, only to have a little extra fun. 

El oh el:

www.modernwarfare3.com

That looks like a domain name squatter that's doing that and not EA but it's still pretty funny.

Yeah, maybe a tactic to get Activision to pay up more for the name.

I may have to get Battlefield 3 after that multiplayer trailer. Seemed to resonant with me a bit more than *anything* Call of Duty.

I watched some gameplay trailers and the whole thing seems retarded. There's no tension to anything that happens on screen, it's just more formulaic military manshooterisms. Sure it looks pretty, but 15 years ago I could for example play Harpoon and watch completely immersed, missile by missile, as an attack goes to shit and the use of nuclear weapons gets greenlighted. How exactly is another shooting gallery "game" going to impress me compared to that?

Fuck you modern military games, I hate you.

Normally BF3 would look like a good enough shooter for me, but especially given the fact that we FINALLY have some decent non-military shooters in the pipeline (Tribes coming within a similar timeframe), BF3 is looking less and less like a buy to me.

The thing about BF is that until BC 1 and 2 there never was a SP campaign, all you could do solo was shoot bots. So for me the selling point is, as ever, the MP. If the SP manages to be fun and/or entertaining, then so much the better.

Unlike CoD or MoH who came the opposite way. CoD used to have interesting and lengthy SP campaigns which have now become Bruckheimer-Bay wannabes, and moving towards being closer to the length of one of those films.

You mean Spielberg wannabes. The first mission in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, made by many of the people that would eventually form Infinity Ward, was a recreation of the beach landing scene in Saving Private Ryan in video game form. It wasn't a ripoff though since Spielberg is credited as the game's creator.

Nope, I don't. You misunderstand what I was saying.

I'm not talking about the old MoH stuff (and I know who IW came from - 2015) when I talk about Bruckheimer-Bay productions, I'm talking about the most recent set of CoD games where the SP have become short-duration explosion-fest "summer movie" games, compared to the longer, more grounded and way less OTT campaigns that the series originated from (which includes the early MoH). MP has also become much more the focus, along with the short "summer movie" SP campaigns.

The contrast being that BF has gone from basically no SP campaign at all, to making it much more relevant to the package, but still being that at it's core, BF is (still hopefully) an online MP game. (and so I don't mind it's SP campaign being a bit formulaic manshooteristic.)

AIR PORT SCENE SHOOT OUT.

THIS CONTENT MIGHT BE OFFENSIVE.

WOULD U LIKE TO SKIP?

HERE WE GO COLUMBIA, SHOOT COLUMBIANS

OH NOES AMERIKKA NUKED RUSSIANS BAD OR ARE THEY?

FIGHT, MUSTACHED BRITISH PERSON, FIGHT ON!

WHO DROPPED THE SOAP?

It was fun for the first run, afterwards.. OK. That's $60? Fuck, I finished that over an afternoon stayover at my neighbor's place....No, thanks.

The hilarious bit was how the airport scene was literally all that was eluded to in their awfully obscure videos, and it was the most boring part of the game. I was just rolling my eyes at how ridiculously overhyped that bit of the game was, and how ridiculously over-reactive people were to it as well. :oh_i_see:

Who are these ppl buying it for SP campaign??

Guess it is a console thing or something...

There are a LOT of casual gamers who love the MW campaigns because it makes them feel like a special ops hero.  My wife's brother loved those games and he wasn't very much a gamer, I saw him playing once and he just ATE UP all those scripted moments where you don't even press buttons but do awesome crazy stuff.  Hes the kind of guy that thought No Russian was a stroke of genius because it was so edgy and "real."   I honestly can't relate to it very well, but I'm guessing there are a lot more people out there like him than there are like me who give a shit about things like regenerating health.

What I was alluding to in my previous posts is that CoD used to primarily mean a well done, solid SP campaign of a good length. It was also primarily a PC game.  :why_so_serious: With CoD4:MW, the MP really took off, and the SP was noticably shorter, but still decent, then we got CoD5:WaW which was in many ways a reskin of CoD4, and then with MW2 the shark-jumping (for me at least) took off in earnest at the same time that MP became the main focus while the SP campaign became 5 hours long and made of stupid. (And yes, it is very accessable to the mainstream XBox/PS3 audience, so they've done well in that sense.)

BF (series) was all about the MP, and they didn't even bother with a SP game until the side-game detours of BC1 and 2. If they decide to make the SP game a bit Brotastic or HardMilitaryMan, I don't care that much as long as it's mildly entertaining, because the meat for BF is in MP.

People play Battlefield for the singleplayer? Why? Shit, I've never even loaded up the Bad Company 2 singelplayer.

I hope the specs aren't too crazy for this game, I will probably pre-order it, but not totally sold on it.  Kinda sad, since I played the hell out of bf2& bf2142.

The prologue is pretty good. After that it goes swiftly downhill though.

Well I guess if you are spending 200 million on a FPS game you may as well add on a single player campaign as a selling point to the people who expect that sort of thing.

As long as they keep their eye on the ball, of getting out a superior MP game.

Part of me wishes they would just skip the single player if they aren't going to be at all innovative. Not that they would really have to try that hard with what looks like the awesome new engine. I'll buy it either way but a game always feels more complete and well polished when there is a decent SP to compliment the MP, even if the latter is by far more important. 

It's a bit of fun. I enjoyed it enough to play through it twice since I've owned it. Once when I got it - a level or two at various times for a break between MP matches, and once when I got my new PC to see how it would look with everything turned up.

The BF3 SP footage looks quite good for the genre, TBH. It's not like each new FPS game needs to be innovative, but I'm sure Frostbite 2 or 3 or whichever it is will take care of that for us. I remember thinking the ability to shoot through soft walls and tables and hedges etc was pretty damn innovative in CoD4 SP.

BF3 trailer with ingame jet fighting footage. Looks good. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8S_eEv_A5k)

 :Love_Letters: :yahoo: :heart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-YwJtIGaqM

Remix version of the trailer

nm

I hate you. I should delete your post.

1/5. F-. Whatever the craigslist equivalent of rating a terrible person is.

Don't think I saw this discussed yet:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/19/battlefield-3-pc-wont-have-in-game-server-browser-battlelog-is-the-main-menu/

 :ye_gods:

Everyone who tried the alpha said that Battelog was amazing and was it was very quick and easy to get into a server. You should not be worried about that news.

On what browser?  Which version of windows?  They aren't making things easier on themselves with that can of worms.  I'm not particularly worried I'm just like "why?".    Are they pushing this battlelog for some reason?   From a coding perspective it's silly.

In-game browsers for the console versions is awesome news though.  :awesome_for_real: A big problem with BC2 on PS3 has been leaving a match only to get placed right back into it over and over again. Or to get stuck on a server half way across the planet.

 :grin: I totally believed that. Also , BC2 lag is still shit. The moment you get into close combat. Blam. Lag hell.

I'm personally very excited at the news that DICE will not be making an in-game server browser

Yeah, I mean as fucking awful as every in-game browser DICE has ever done has been, can alt-tabbing to a web site possibly get worse? One less DICE menu screen loading is probably a good thing.

I've never gotten into any of the Battlefield series, but B3 looks really interesting.  I was going to pickup BFBC2, but it's like $40 and will soon be "replaced" with B3.  Is there a cheaper way to check out the series?  BF1943 is only $10 on PSN, does anyone play it anymore?  Is it even relevant?

Also, is there any news on a PC tech demo for B3, so I can see how badly it will melt my PC?

This. I don't think it is possible to make shittier in game browsers than BC2 and BF2, so any movement away from those has to be an improvement, slight or otherwise.


Keep an eye out on Steam and other download retailers...it goes on sale regularly. Only 2 months to go though, so you may just wait for the BF3 open beta "Soon".

If they do it in javascript then yes.   Of course that would mean a different development team at least.

Its getting personal now between EA and Activision. 

"Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg extended the olive branch to rival Electronic Arts at Gamescom, publicly calling for an end to the mudslinging between the two publishers over Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 versus Battlefield 3. EA's response? "Someone should have told you this is a competitive industry.""

http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/118/1189661p1.html

I'm assuming they'll be using the same stuff as Battlefield Heroes and Battlefield Play 4 Free. Really small footprint stuff.

Well that's reassuring to me if they do.   They gave it a special name "Battlelog" so I was getting nightmares of them trying to push some new over engineered mess.

Oh, it's DICE so I'm sure it'll be obtuse and make fuckall for sense. But I don't think it'll be all that bloated and Javascripty.

Well, hopefully they'll launch this thing quickly enough (sorry, I realize it's aimed at different audiences, but ArmA is quite another experience) and move to more serious stuff, like Mirror's Edge 2  :drill: :heart: :heart:

Yeah, ahem, signing off now, just felt like trolling a bit  :grin:

Isn't ARMA 3 coming out this year? Also, I believe that ME was a sales flop so don't count on seeing a second one anytime soon. Who knows, they might reboot it into a 3rd person Assassins Creed-wannabe parkour killfest with a male lead character and find it sells a bit better though.. :why_so_serious:

RO2 coming out in a week as well. Very tempted to pick that up to play until BF3 comes out.

Probably on the far extreme to games like BF though, If you pick up RO, make sure to give your thoughts. Lack of SP campaign was the main reason I never picked up the first one.

I've already bought RO2, just waiting on it to come out.

I played the crap out of the first one, but then I'm as much a Russian history fanboy as I am a WH40K fanboy. Still, even if you're not all that familiar with the setting it's great fun to take out a German tank when you're just a squishy infantryman with a large bore AT rifle.

RO ?

Oh and btw, why do we hate this game again ?

RO = http://store.steampowered.com/app/1200/

If by "this game" you mean BF3, then personally it's Origin and EA. I'm holding out for ArmA3 and RO2 now, myself.

Though it seems just as many or more of use are squeeing in anticipation.

I think because it seems more BFBC3 than BF3.  Also, Origin.

I don't know what the fuck you guys are kvetching about. Ok, I do hate that this is not on Steam, but other than that, I'm positively erect at the thought of BF3 and hoping to upgrade my computer just to play it.

???????? What is it about BF2 that seems 'better' than BC2 multiplayer?
The availability of jetplanes that absolutely rape the ground?
The Heli TV guided missiles that destroys everything from 400 metres?
I know the map is smaller, hell, but it's just 32 players max. Wish there's more.

I do love BC2, but honestly, I love the wide huge open spaces of BF1942/DC/BF2. Scope, size, flanking etc rather than being funneled into a small area. DC had a couple of "push" maps that seem to have influenced the "rush" gameplay, and while I enjoy rush, I think some "push" maps would have been equally awesome.

This is mostly it for me.  I think the scale just isn't as impressive.  Its possible there will be some larger scale maps in BF3, and if there are, I suspect I will feel more compelled to buy it. The maps we have seen seem bigger than BC2, but not relative to the number of players.    I am currently hoping that Tribes Ascend comes closer if BF3 doesn't, but I've heard some criticism of the maps being smaller in that as well, so I guess we will see.

It's like you can read my mind. 

I loved BF1942 for the fact that it really balanced twitch and tactics well.  Larger maps allowed for more varied gameplay.  It seems that most shooters cramp players into a small space forcing much more twitchy play.  I prefer a better balance and hop that I'll find a more current game that can strike a better strategy/twitch balance. 

I hope they learned their lesson with overpowered aerial units in BF2. In BF1942 they got it right where planes were unrealistically slow and weak for balance purposes. In bf42 you could do heavy damage to a plane with an assault rifle or even SMG clip if the you caught it on a good angle and unloaded into the engine (and infantryman could survive a hit from a bazooka, so anti tankers wouldn't be aggressively runring around shotgunning people with them). Then came Desert Combat and their more "realistic" super weapons that basically nerfed infantrymen and powered up heavier weapon platforms. Being immensly popular (all the mouthbreathers love spamming out 1 hit kills + iraq timing), the DC devs were hired by DICE for BF2, whereupon the duplicated the same crappy balance in the new game.

So far from what DICE has said, and those slow flying jets from the Capsian map MP trailer has given me some reason to be optimistic that DICE has returned to some semblance of BF1942 balance where it takes precedence over super weapon high powered "realism".

Heh, I kicked all kinds of arse as infantry in DC. I was also a tank-player, but fuck - with the stinger and RPG combo, while I couldnt do shit to planes, I would seriously fuck up armour and choppers on a regular constant basis.

I hated DC.  I played it for a couple of days with friends and never went back. 

I loved it, it made a nice change up from 1942. I spent a long time alternating between the two of them/playing both. The amount of new maps that DC came with was also quite welcome. A lot more than most commercial MP titles come with these days, come to think of it.

Shooting down aircraft with small arms is actually very possible.  There's a reason the A-10 is built like a brick shithouse.

Infantry Only is coming back as an option in BF3, so there is always that.

Beta Sept 29th-Oct 10th.  All platforms.  If they let me test both PC and PS3 versions, they guarantee a sale from me on one of the platforms.  I hate not knowing how stuff will play on my PC. 

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2011/09/19/battlefield-3-open-beta-dates-announced.aspx##

System Requirements are up:

Yep, not going to be able to get this until I upgrade my computer. FUCK. I really don't want to try to put Windows 7 on this machine.

Sell a kidney*- you gotta play!




*doesn't have to be YOUR kidney.

I'm thinking I'll be able to upgrade before Christmas so I won't be too far off.

Windows 7 is actually kind of nice.  It's the Windows XP to Vista's Windows 2000.

My father-in-law needs one.

A 6950 for MEDIUM? I wonder how much difference a 2GB GPU would make over a 1GB 6950.

Probably not much. Worst case, you'll have to turn the textures down a notch or two, and still not notice anything.

I just talked to two Origin reps over live chat and they told me the exact opposite things, it was almost funny.

Basically one said BF3 is region locked, and I won't be able to play on US servers if I'm in Asia, the other said it wasn't a problem and that there was no region locking. Anyone in alpha remember having a server list from foreign servers?

I read that recommended is for high not medium

Hm, looks like I won't be able to buy/play BF3....

I have a GTX 460 (4gb) which runs everything I've tried to date with ease, I've updated the drivers as far as NVIDIA's site wants to know about (280.26) but BF3 (Beta) won't boot and tells me to get 285.27 or GTFO.

Time to cancel them pre-orders, I guess. :(

Yeap, looks like to run BF3 at Medium settings, I'd need to buy a Graphics card that has the cost of 1.5 new Xboxes. To play at High I need to buy a card that costs the same as 2 XBoxes.

Looks like I'm a console player, if I want to bother (probably won't).

You mean these?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-285.27-beta-driver.html

Also, medium settings? Heh. I always turn the resolution up and the graphical geewhiz down.

Hm, beta drivers, eh?

I'll have a look tomorrow or the next day, then. Gonna go back to Sons of Anarchy for the next little while.

But what's this about a graphics card that costs 1.5 new xboxes? I'm running a 285, and the main difference (I guess?) is DX11, performance seems (after a quick google to be more or less equal). Most of the time I'll be running the games at 2560x1600, and the only thing I really have to tune down is AA.

In early on the 360 beta. 1.3 gig download.

Aaaaand there's nobody else on at the moment.

Apparently they are having quite the meltdown with the PC version.

Some moderate DICE comedy so far, with being unable to change any settings until you join a game, like video settings, so servers are filled with people fucking around on first time configs. Apparently the matching website thing is also imploding and people can't join servers that have people.

I'm staying away from this because of origin unless it's truly the second coming. I'll give it a while to even out.

How'd you get in on the 360 beta. Can the code they sent be used cross-platform?

There was some link to a website to see if your computer was ready for prime time Battlefield 3 and it recommended a 550/560/570. A quick check of my local computer hardware place (Aussie prices, remember) showed that the 570 goes for roughly $560-$600+. Since I can pick up a 360 for $300 or less...

Anyway, I think I'll cancel the preorder and wait out the launch clusterfuck. Shame, I wanted the Return to Karkand pack, too.

Bought Medal of Honor, got me in early. Pretty sure the code's just for the 360 though.

First blush, it's pretty as all hell. The one map I played on was intense, though CoDtards will probably cry copying for the location, it's pretty solid.

"Pre-order to get early access" my ass. 10 hours in and still no mail. /sadpanda
Nothing on my Origin-page to even acknowledge i pre-ordered the game. Besides a receipt e-mail, nada. Asked a EA-rep about this and was told that because it was a pre-order it wouldn't show  :uhrr: .....what?
10 bucks says I won't get in at all. Apparently several thousand people in the Live Help-chat queue

edit: And finally it arrived. DL'ing and squeeing ( i forget easily)

Got into some early beta for having bought the turd Medal of Honor back in the day. Not sure if I should bother with it, hoping others will let me know how it goes.

Playing it now. Wondering how the fuck some people catassed so high already.

Sigh. Clownshoes. You'd think they'd learn.

One thing I began wondering about, however, is whether or not the beta has SP in it, or is it just MP? I'm assuming it's MP only.

So yeah, I was just trying to find out about the release date of BF3, landed on Wikipedia via Google, started skimming the article and read about the web browser MP launcher. I thought what-the-fuck, came here and see it confirmed. What in the fuck!

What was this about DICE and EA hailing this as the return to PC gaming with their 1337 DX11 engine, just to fuck it up this way?!  :uhrr:

According to people that use it it's fabulous. Make a group, join a server, friends and you put in same squad, no worries. Just got back from work. Time to fire this thing up  :grin:

I'll be waiting for a sale before I purchase. BC2 still has a ton of game breaking bugs on the console.

Try it before bashing it. It's not some shitty java web version of a server browser. Apparently the time from website to being on the server is the same as doing it in-game. I don't know why they made this change, but getting caught up in the "THE FUCK IS THIS STUPID SHIT!?" nonsense isn't needed. Also, why was/is this an issue for people? I have yet to touch a DICE game with a decent server browser.

Even though I pre-ordered before the 25th on origin, I still don't have my beta key email. Dropped repeatedly from the live chat customer service queue during my 6 hour wait. I get to within a couple of minute wait time of actually being able to talk to somebody and they bring the chat help down.

For some odd reason DICE decided they would release Caspian Border with the beta, but limit to a select group of testers with the server password. The password leaked last night and now DICE is blaming the community for possible ruining their chance at having the map unlocked for the rest of the public beta.

Serious business.

Babbies.

How is babby leaked?

The babby was leaked by the CM himself apparently.

Handle is Pennilenko if anyone wants to add me.

Played on by PS3 and my 4-yr old PC (q6600, 4gig, 8800gtx).  My PC blows it away, looks better in every fashion.  I'd prefer to play on my couch, but the PC version is *that* much better.  Two things:

1.  Visually, this is one of those games that comes along and reminds me of how far we've come since Pong. 
2.  I suck at these games.  I think I went 0-8 each game.

Tried playing the beta just now, and it turns out that I won't be buying BF3 any time soon since they're trying to force me to change my fucking browser just to play their game.  :mob:

I think this is really contributing to how effective/frustrating camping seems to be from my experience tonight. There is just so much going on to visually process, it is really hard to spot some dude laying down in the bushes, even if you have a general idea where he is.

This strikes me as another game where lowering your graphical settings improves your gameplay, because it's far easier to tell things apart. Like player vs bush.

It's fun, but dear lord the entire open origin for patching, open battle log for playing, open game itself for adjusting shit thing seems like there were three different dev teams with goals set before them, and nobody ever stopped to go "so does this IMPROVE the user experience at all?"

Battlelog will update the game and manage your social interaction and you have to mess with settings ingame in most games that have ever been made. You continue being dramatic though. I only used the origin software once. To download the beta.

As far as I can figure out, BF3 will not properly launch without Origin running in the background.

I have never before played a game where I cannot change my video settings without actively being mid gameplay. It's made even funnier in BF3 in that you cannot change settings while dead, and if you die while changing settings, it cancels you out of the menu. I presume that will be fixed.

It's a three tier process for no reason. It's entirely obvious it was intended to be a two tier process, but Origin was stapled to the side to give people a reason to actually start Origin.

I just validated it actually. If you exit Origin, go to battlelog and join a game, it starts Origin so it can start BF3. Origin is doing the BF3 patching as well. Which makes sense, but begs the question: why the fuck isn't Battlelog just part of Origin? One of these pieces is completely useless and not improving the customer experience at all.

edit: it's not a bad game at all, it just seems like the team wanted to make a really neat game, and decided that interfaces are for pussies. Why exactly can't I choose my squad anymore? Why isn't there any obvious form of "here's the freaking mission map" besides the rather tiny mini radar thing? This is more a complaint on the 64 player sized maps, where it can be a bit hard to figure out how to get somewhere when you first start. A map would be awesome! Why doesn't battlelog have any form of connect timeout?

Basically: this is a DICE game through and through. Wonderful core gameplay. Everything else leaves you scratching your head.

(http://i.imgur.com/00cuq.jpg)

I'm at the point where I'm tempted to troll the everliving fuck out of everyone who has to emphasize that they're "gamer girls".

I suspect that people will use the single player campaign to edit video settings, so this will be less of an issue in a month.

Why are they pushing Origin so hard? To compete with Steam? With just 1 game?

If it forces origin to be always-on, there must be a reason - DRM, spyware or stealing your idle cycles... so what is exactly are they doing and why?

If I log into the battlelog site, I don't see it starting origin up anywhere on my machine. As far as i can tell though you do use your origin credentials to log into battelog. The settings thing I am sure will get ironed out, or at least I hope so.

Edit: Nevermind I was wrong it does open origin. Sorry for calling you dramatic Kildorn.

Some random forums are saying that the 360/PS3 demos intentionally have lower graphics for time the time being so that the demo was a smaller file size, and the full version will be better.

No clue on the validity of it.

I am being dramatic about it, really. It's less offended by Origin and Battlelog, as much as this triggers my "Raar, this is blindingly inefficient for no reason" personal peeve. Like I said, the gameplay is great. It's everything about the interface(s) that just makes me twitch.

are they gonna open up that caspian map? infantry only maps are a very poor way to show off battlefield.

They have a little, maybe only to some testers.   TB did a 2 part video on it yesterday, it looks pretty decent.

I installed the beta on my work machine, which would be the only place I can play it until I can afford a new PC. Holy shit, is it visually dense. This is one of the reasons I suck so bad early on. Training my eye to distinguish some camoed dude in that much realistic looking stuff is really hard.

In a month everyone will be running with modded models, where everybody will appear bright pink.

Everyone but me.

Stop being a fuckhead.

For some odd reason they're running two betas. One open beta, and one closed. Caspian is the closed one, and the password keeps getting leaked. But I agree that Metro is a horrible map to show off Battlefield.

::DICE:: I guess.

edit: more clownshoes complaints about the system, and a quick update:

"We are currently having issues with passwords containing
special characters (such as &%<>).

Until we have fixed this, you can change your password to
only use alphanumeric characters at http://profile.ea.com"

Yeah, battlelog cannot handle Origin passwords, so they're blocking anyone with special characters. Amusingly, they worked last night when I was playing..

But more beta update-y, they appear to have pulled down the Caspian servers completely and made the beta only Metro. Because apparently using the open beta to pimp out your combined arms game is silly?

You'd think they'd know better since showing off their best map in the bf1942 demo helped make it such a huge success.

My N52te doesnt work properly with this game, for whatever reason. Everytime I change directions my character just comes to a complete halt.

Ah, so with this and the other complaint about it forcing a type of browser can I assume it's making people use IE with a crapton of activeX garbage like battlefield heroes?

(http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/fear.jpg)

Some browser doesn't work(safari maybe? And I believe the page errors out in IE8), but I was shocked and pleased that it worked with Chrome out of the box actually. At first I thought it was broken since I couldn't join anything, but it turns out the servers were having issues.

Yeah, it worked just fine with Chrome for me as well.

Battlelog worked fine for me in Chrome during the Alpha (at least it installed stuff, I hardly played), but the Beta's throwing a fit because of my password.

Just the fact that my choice of web-browser affects whether or not I can actually run this game is enough to ensure that I won't be getting it any time soon.

you show them.

Tried the 360 demo as well, experience is much the same as the PC really, the drop in visual fidelity is not that big a deal IMO. Still the same brutally quick deaths. BF was always about the vehicles, I'm just baffled that they'd release this map as the beta with none, it just leaves a real sour taste in my mouth.

Metro was the worst possible choice. I'm not enjoying this game at all, which really sucks considering how much time I've put into Bad Company 2.

I want to meet the tool on the dev team who thought flashlights that blind anyone in a 60 degree was a good idea.

Not sure if trolling or serious:

https://twitter.com/#!/zh1nt0/status/120072134226751488


http://twitter.com/#!/zh1nt0/status/120182322803900416


 :ye_gods:

They ... uh, what? more than 32 players is a security risk?

I think it's just poor communication. The server files appear to be leaked, and given some of the stat tracking stuff going on, I'd be shocked if it your client wasn't authing to them with your Origin account user/pass instead of some form of API key just for stat alteration.

So it should have been "only use our servers", which all happen to be 32 player right now.


edit: reading around: LOOOOL, there does not appear to be any auth between the server code and battlelog. So if you happen to get the leaked server files and start em up, your server goes into the battlelog list. So yeah, only play 32 player servers, but more specifically: Dice fix your shit, because the account scamming servers will be 32 player and say EA in the name.

Unresponsive crouch button, inexplicably unable to bind functions to the mouse buttons, flashlight that covers your screen in a lens flare and an asinine BATTLELOG server browser that attempts to fix what isnt fucking broken.

It's a damn shame because the shooting actually feels better, the sounds design is fantastic and graphics, even at medium settings, are really quite well done and relies little if at all on the "REAL IS BROWN" rule.

Bring it to steam, give me a proper server browser, tighten up the controls and for fucks sake, let me change my controls / graphics settings without having to idle in a live game.

The server browsers for all previous Battlefield titles were pretty damn broken.  This one is just new and still broken.

Bad Company 2's server browser at launch was broken, but was later fixed to be pretty average.

DICE? With a shit server browser at launch? You don't say.

It has to be self parody at this point, because lord knows they've had enough practice fixing broken server browsers that they would have a set of "how u maek browser" documents the size of the bible by now.

No, BC2's server browser even now is shit. DICE has never released a server browser that wasn't complete and total monkey ass. Only being able to change video settings IN GAME is probably the biggest clownshoes part of the Battlelog thing, besides the security fuckup that is monumentally stupid.

I never had problems with the revised server browser but whatever.

Speaking of things DICE refuses to improve on, wtf is with the chat log appearing in the right center of the screen? On a related note, does voice communication even work?

Three weeks from release and my dude is clipping inside the ground when I go prone? Failboat.

This is DICE we are talking about.

They also for some reason are having us test a month old build that's the same one MS certed for the 360. Which begs the question of "besides stress testing Battlelog, what the fuck are we trying to fix?"

I don't believe in miracle "all this works in the real build" patches. I DO believe in "we're testing a months old build, so the miracle patch is going to have ALL NEW BUGS!"

I think you have it surrounded.

Tried the PS3 version. Unresponsive, laggy, bland visual design between environment and player models makes it hard to pick out other players, annoying flashlight, reduced textures, clunky forced DELAYED turn speed even with my split-fish (wired).

Every single action has a delay.

This is pretty much how I feel, you can't even crouch right after sprinting. You have to STOP first, wait a split second and then hit the button to crouch, or else nothing will happen at all. Maybe if I set it on low...

I don''t actually want to visit their forums, but did this daffy fuckhead have everyone jump on her for the various obvious reasons?

Welcome to the future of modding :(

(http://i.imgur.com/mfoQW.png)

"hey guys, I know it's a beta, and it's totally our fault that our server browser publishes unofficial servers.. but we may ban your entire EA account if you use one. Thanks!"

.. his shoes, they appear to be made for a clown.

(seriously, DICE. Love the gameplay, but what the hell are you people doing?)

I'm not even loving the gameplay here. The whole genre of online shooters is unbelievably stagnant, and after Brink flopping, all we're going to see for the perceivable future is douchy "military" shooters like this (because military apparently means pretend jargon and gun porn).

Bring on Tribes!

https://twitter.com/#%21/zh1nt0/status/120072134226751488

Hurp durp.

Actually, not only do I NOT have a problem with this, I am glad they are doing this. One of the things that kills a BF game for me is some assgoblin running hacks, circlestrafing headshots with a chain gun from a helicopter flying in a perfect circle. DICE has been incredibly bad about hack prevention in the BF series. I'd love to see hackers who are caught banned not only from BF3, but SWTOR, and any XBox Live or PS3 games that use their EA account.

Not totally comfortable with EA having this power, but face it. It's going to start happening a lot more. I think we've all gotten used to big entities like Microsoft and Sony controlling our access to games.

...Except that these people aren't cheating. They're just joining servers they see on the server list.

What if they play on these modified servers with no knowledge they are modified, or even that it's a bannable offense? Tough luck?

So, you're ok with joining a modded server and having them ban you from playing any game you've purchased on Origin?   Uh, ok I guess.

The thought that anyone should get banned from any game, let alone all origin games or more, simply because they happen to join a modified server, is sad and pathetic.

Based on how fucking bad cheating and hacking has been in previous Battlfield games, I'd rather they start the bannings now. As for modded servers, technically this is a beta and you've agreed to test it under certain circumstances. Not modding the server is probably a part of that and not playing on modded servers is likely another part. Of course, if they are going to start bannings for modded servers, they should at least endeavor to make sure those servers don't appear on the Battlelog server list.

Having modded servers appear on the server list is somewhat like having an EMU listed as a server option in a MMO.

This is why it's so jaw droppingly weird how this "open beta" is being handled. If they're trying to show off how great and next gen BF3 is they should be doing it with a polished demo on one of the games' best combined arms maps, with all features enabled...Instead 3 weeks before release, they are publicly running it on a 3 month old obsolete and glitchy build, with (official) servers that clearly have stability issues, on a narrow focused no-vehicle map, with their great destructable environment physics disabled? wth? may as well be playing counterstrike.

You'd think with a 100 million dollar marketing budget they woulda thought this part through a little better.

Isn't this par for the course for dice though?

No, because they will make millions anyway.

I don't think that Haemish fully understood the situation. I joined a 'modded' server entirely by accident -because it was just the first on the danged list of available servers-. There was no indication that it wasn't 'official'. I just thought to myself, "Cool, over 32 players, that rules!" and joined it.

Evil hacker. You must die now. :oh_i_see:

No, you are correct, I wasn't aware that the modded servers were just things that upped the player limits. I'm also a bit butthurt over how bad some of the cheating has been in previous DICE games. DICE seems to have continually bungled aspects of this beta - leaking the password to a new build on a server playing a map not available in the main beta, letting modded servers into the server list.

I still want them to ban Origin accounts found to be hacking in release.

I'd prefer a VAC ban style. Hack in an Origin hosted game? No more multiplayer for you, ever. But single player is still fine.

Given their attitude over the course of their marketing campaign, it seems like they've let far too much arrogance get in.

Their community dude is... not very good at his job, to say the least. I can understand being frustrated and stressed out, but he's basically ranting via official company communication devices at the playerbase.

This beta as a test of battlelog may be going well, but as an open beta marketing gimmick, it's basically been saying "seriously, this game is so much better if only you were playing the other build! We swear! Please don't let this be your first impression!"

If you actually read the damn words the DICE guy is posting, he's not saying you will get banned for joining a hacked server, he's saying that as a result your account may be compromised and that could get you banned.

Same shit, different wording.

If you'd read, he goes beyond "account compromised", and into "or stats altered, or other issues may arise that will lead to the banning of your origin account"

In other words, he's sending the least subtle message ever: play on modded servers, and we might block your origin account. They probably won't, because lolshitstorm, but they're clearly threatening it. And they're clearly threatening it because *drumroll* their community manager is kind of a dick, and actually admitting there's a problem where battlelog is allowing modded servers into the list would be admitting partial fault, and DICE doesn't admit their mistakes.

Why even bother in this place. If it's not Minecraft , it sucks Donkey balls regardless. Just let it go and enjoy ( and i agree on some of the shit they always pull off, but c'mon......)

Sorry for having standards, snowwy. Feel free to fuck off if you don't like how things are "in this place".

Huh? Are you seriously saying that the only game we like here at f13 is minecraft?

Speak for yourself tgr, personally I don't like minecraft that much.

Just ignore; snowwy's last 2 posts have been gibberish.  Drunk posting is my guess at this point.

Uhh, no.  The one wording would imply that they're being dicks, the other wording implies that your connection to their servers is likely being used for a DDOS or CSRF attack and they really don't appreciate that.

How is "your connection to their servers" going to be used for a DDOS or a CSRF?

I like this game when everything works.

Just have to hope that everything works, at least most of the time, when it is finally released, but you know... DICE.  :uhrr:

I just heard that Caspian is going live this weekend for the full beta, if people are still interested in this. Actually tanks and jets and shit in your battlefield.

Just played a game on the new map...or tried to play.  The lag is horrible and makes it unplayable. :ye_gods:  I know its beta, but its kind of hard to test anything when you can't play.  I'll wait till they get their shit sorted out before I try again.  The only positive I saw was that it was a large 64 player map.  Suck on that console kiddies!!!

I had no issues on the *state name* Gameservers named systems. Other ones? Lagged to shit. Caspian obviously requires dickloads more server horsepower.

That said, all my complaints about battlelog and Dice haven't faded, but Caspian actually feels like a battlefield game. Shit going on everywhere, tanks and helis all over the place, mass chaos.

Just went through all the annoying shit you have to do to play this game on the PC.  Now the matchmaking circle just spins forever.  Yay.

Anyone heard of the NVIDIA beta drivers fucking up any of their other games software? I'm always paranoid about shit like that - had it happen too many times in the past.

The fact that playing on one of these hacked maps can allegedly be used to dupe your account's stats, or steal password information, should indicate to you that the hacked servers are capable of running scripts.  Unless it's DICE that has been compromised, which I guess is not outside the realm of possibility.

As I understand it, the BF3 and Rage beta drivers conflict badly. But I've heard nothing else odd about it.

The Nvidia beta drivers fucked up Playready, the DRM for media center tv tuners.

The fact they're able to dupe your account's stats is because it's the server's responsibility to keep track of stats, which makes it obvious that they're able to tell the central server that you've killed 500 people and died 0 times during that session. Stealing password information? That's DICE being absolute shit at protocol design. I've no problems seeing these things, but what I have a problem with is the "DDOS and CSRF" aspect of it. Both implies that the hacked servers can get the client to do things it shouldn't, and would imply to me that DICE were literally dangerously incompetent.

I mean, beyond the fact they already have.

This origin plus browser setup is a piece of shit.  I am not "already matchmaking" you fucking asshole of an application.  Uninstalling after all that without ever having managed to play.

Yes, that could be true.  "We're routing your account information through insecure third party servers with a protocol that's already been hacked" is hardly more reassuring than the hackers just being able to run malicious scripts on your box.

Apart from the much wider implication that running malicious scripts on my box has.

If I suspect some dweeb has the username and password to an internet service, I'll have to change the password of that service. If they've had illegal access to my entire box, I'll have to reinstall it and change all passwords I ever use, just to be on the safe side. Or risk sitting with a machine infested with keyloggers.

I gave it a try today.... Seemed a lot more like COD than BF.

Try Caspian Border map and say that again....i dare you

Damn. I love the Battlefield franchise more than huge chunks of my own family yet this combination of Origin + fucked up beta drivers has stopped me from even trying it out. Compare this to the Steam-run beta of BC2 which had me permanently living in a bombed out small town in the snow next to a hill covered in Russians...

Yeah, the BC2 beta was sweet. What the hell happened here?!

No joke. This has basically been awful. I may skip this one.

I agree, I played the BC2 beta religiously until it came out. To play this beta I have to

1 - Open origin
2 - Open browser
3 - Select a game
4 - Hope it lets me in
5 - Hope there the server isnt filled with invisible knifers
6 - Plug in older version of n52te that works for BF3.
7 - Round ends
8 - Wait 5 minutes
9 - Round begins

Often times I dont even want to bother, especially since I cant even run the game well full screen on my system.

(overclocked 4890, i5 2500k, 8g of ram)

So now I get to spend several hundred dollars on a video card that will run the game "OK".

 :oh_i_see:

Bring on Tribes: Ascend!

See, I haven't even had those issues and I don't mind the browser launch. The thing is that I don't even know if this one is good.

First, there's something about the graphics. I don't know if it's the abundance of lighting effects or lens flare or the colors chosen but everything has this weird washed out feel to it. And for whatever reason, I can't pick enemies out of this whole pale grey-blue screen. It was also starting to make me feel a little queasy this evening the same way EQ2 does and that's not a good thing.

Second, all the keys stick in weird ways. Crouch sticks, either down or up. I press E to get into a vehicle and it immediately boots me back out again as though I pushed it twice. All the controls feel like this.

Third, none of the weapons feel right. Every gun I've used feels either too powerful or too weak. Sometimes I get dropped long range by an automatic weapon, which irritates the fuck out of me, only to survive a full on shotgun blast to the face the next spawn.

Fourth, holy fuck the lag on some of those servers. And it's not my end because the "official" ones are fine. I don't know what sort of machine is required to host this thing but I have a bad feeling it's going to be pretty heinous.

I loved the beta. I played it constantly from day one. I was killed every shitty way possible and experienced just as much server lag as anyone else, and in every infuriating manner imaginable. Metro was kind of a letdown but Caspian felt just like Battlefield should, stupidness and all. No skipping this for me.

? Is the Beta over?

Yep.  The waiting begins.

(For those of us who are buying it, anyways.)

New Map Reveal. (http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2011/10/13/battleblog-13-from-the-streets-of-paris-to-the-outskirts-of-tehran-battlefield-3-multiplayer-map-reveal.aspx##)

God damn it. Damavand Peak looks awesome. Looks being the keyword.

Yeah....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRqfFfuVuNE

I don't know why, but I'm now remarkably unexcited for BF3. I think it's the whole Origin/beta drivers clusterfuck, perhaps. I think I've been spoiled by the painless Steam integration that BC2 has. I'll likely still get my preorder copies (2) but not install or play it for a few weeks/a month so they can work the initial kinks out.

Speaking of which, have NVIDIA rolled out full drivers incorporating both Rage and BF3 yet?

Still beta drivers I believe.  I downloaded it yesterday.

I'm still running those drivers because I keep forgetting to switch and they have twiced caused some sort of video driver crash where my monitor goes into power save because the input stops.  Then the nvidia stuff seems to notice and restarts the driver.

So when you mention the Origin/beta-drivers clusterfuck, i gotta ask. I had no problem with Origin at all during the neta. Ok, it wasn't optimized yet, but Steam has caused me way more problems than Origin this far.
And how can some Nvidia beta-drivers make you not wanna play a game? Also still using them cause i forget, and they work. So i fail to see the logic. Could you please explain what this clusterfuck consists of?

It worked for you. Fantastic. That means jack shit though, sorry.

Same can be said of those it didn't work for.

My enthusiasm is slightly dampened, but it's either BF3 or COD, and I'm firmly on BF3 multiplayer all the way.
So yeah, pre-ordered a week before launch for the free ex-pack.  :grin:

Everyone is firing at dust monsters!

Pre-download 25% completed  :awesome_for_real:
*checks calender. 6 more days to go*  :ye_gods:

If I enjoyed BF1942 but don't like vehicle-heavy FPS, am I going to hate this game? 

FWIW, I also hated the DC mod. 

There is essentially no resemblance between BF1942 and BC2, much less BF3. Don't go there expecting a similar experience.

Don't get me wrong, you may still like it, but don't set yourself up for disappointment.

I'm just asking if it's vehicle heavy.  If it's tactical and dominated by infantry, I'll be happy. 

There are infantry specific maps and vehicle maps. Though not a lot of people got to try the vehicle map during beta because DICE is stupid. From my experience with BC2, the vehicle usage will be balanced well with infantry combat with a majority of your team being comprised of infantry on foot.

It's going to depend on the map. Some maps like the Metro map in beta had no vehicles at all. Some are heavy vehicle maps. There will also likely be servers that have vehicle spawns turned off like there were in BF2.

Caspian Border was quite vehicle heavy, but with areas where the infantry-fighting was heavy. Forest-Checkpoint-Hilltop-Gas Station square was infantry dominated all the way. Sure, tanks would roll in there, only to be sent home as scrap metal in seconds. Mostly because infantry was busy doing their own thing in beta, and not looking out for the flanks of their major firepower. In my opinion, the combined forces maps are the most fun, but there will tighter infantry maps as well. Metro and Bazaar to name two. And no, it's nothing like DC

BF2 had a good mix. Maps like Gulf of Oman were a fucking nightmare to play infantry on, while Mashtuur, Karkand, and the other city one with the crane whose name escapes me were much friendlier to grunts while still having vehicles. Road to Jalalabad was pretty good too.

Thanks for the info.  I may just have to preorder this now.  

Next question:  Controller or Keyboard/mouse?  (I need an excuse to buy a new controller!)

Unless you grew up playing shooters with a controller (ie you are 30 years younger than I believe you to be), then kb+m, easily. Even if you grew up with a controller in your mother's womb you would still get smoked by just about anyone playing with kb+m head to head.

I get smoked by everyone anyway.  I just wondered if a controller would help.  Seems I just need new neurons. 

Using a controller isn't that bad, people just get a bit hysterical over it for some reason (prolly because of cognitive dissonance). Sure it's not as quick as a mouse and thus you'll never become a Korean child prodigy, but that's about it.

Oh jesus here we go.

Wild card, bitches!

For Battlefield on a PC, I've heard some use a controller for vehicle control, but regular shooter, you want KB+M.

Are you trying to godwin the thread?

When I was a clan pilot in bf1942 I used a gamepad for flying.

Definitely kbam for everything else, though.

What's the size of the download? Considering switching my box pre-order for the chance to be ready for action when I get home from work.

11,4 gigs. That's a euro-install though, and from Origin, so the 300megs day1 patch is included i belive

I preordered with Amazon, downloaded with amazon, and registered/installed with Origin. Was kind of an interesting process but I ended up saving a nice chunk of cash by cancelling my preorder with EA and going through a secondary retailer.

Ah, I thought I heard the patch was going to be huge. But at only around 300meg I'll stick with purchasing the box, so I can stick it in the box with all my other boxes in the closet.
And since my system winced when I clicked the pre-order button, I ordered a 6970 to get up to snuff.

Uggggghhhhh I was gonna wait a month to purchase this, but Amazon is giving a $20 pre-order credit. How am I supposed to split time between this and Dark Souls? I don't really expect BF3 to be as terrible as the beta experience.

The PS3 beta map had no vehicles and no destructible environments and my enthusiasm dwindled but a sweet sweet $20 credit has me enthused again.  Hope there's a way to skip that map.

So, no LAN support at launch?

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/17197-battlefield-3-wont-have-lan-support-at-launch-maybe-later/

Thanks for the heads up- didn't realize I could pre-download. Will have to cancel my box order with GameStop tomorrow =)

I preordered today so that I might preload overnight. I placed my order an hour or so ago, and still no charge to my bank account and no confirmation email.

No doubt they're overloaded, but if any of you are thinking of purchasing right now I'd wait until after the release day craze is over.

I am at 43% already  :grin:

Well, now I've got it in My Games, but I can't preload.  :oh_i_see:

i'm playing already. Fun times. unlocked defib after 3 rounds....before having to leave for work.

I've got just under an hour left on my preload, but I thought we couldn't play until tomorrow?

Duno about you guys, but I'm in S.E Asia and it's running just fine this morning.

"Later" from DICE pretty much means "never". Onslaught would have totally made my day month year with the other 3 I play these games with.

Crap.
I better pre-order this thing from the UK when I get home so I get all the extra crap.

Well, this game fucking rules.

Looks like I'll be up all night.

Yeah, that's how I was taking it as well.

PS: don't read the comments. Whatever you do, don't read them. Dear god.

Apparently the Amazon pre-order didn't qualify me for the Karkand pack, so I had to order that separately. Just spoke to EA and they basically told me they are too busy making money hats to process the order and that the expansion would be available in my Origin account 'soon'. It has already been 12 hours FFS.

OTOH- holy SHIT is this game pretty. I have had a monitor issue (I hope) where the middle of my screen is really washed out when there is a lot of flare/white, so I will be headed to Costco in an hour to pick up a new monitor. Also have a lead on a GPU I can get cheap, but I am not sure how much of a bump it will really be so not sure it is worth it (from ATI 4870 to 6870).

Can't wait until things settle a bit and it gets more playable. Had a fucking BLAST for the 45 minutes I got in last night.

Worth it.  Plus you DX11 and terrain tessellation in BF3.  In reality you may not notice the extra depth to the pebbles on the ground but the other performance gains to relatively low power consumption are worth it.

One thing I hate about getting a system upgrade is now I want games like this  :grin:

My (not so) inner graphics whore is screaming that it would look so nice on my new system. I shouldn't be watching that kid benchmark 460 SLI at 1080p...

Question - anyone found a way to skip browser and join matches from the game itself?

I went to local game store and picked up "preorder" copy, they had extras and were giving away to anyone at a regular price.

Graphics - nice to see my now almost year-old PC running everything at max settings, HD 5970 here. I had to download new video drivers (AMD has non-WHQL 10.11 VER3 drivers with BF3 profiles) but aside from that no issues.

Game is not as pretty as I expected it to be, but I guess I had my hopes up too high. I yet to connect my joystick and fly it. Tank feels about right. Deploy interface is annoying and Origin/Browser game starting is PEAK OF IDIOCY.

TL;DR After 30 minutes of playing 6/10, would be 9/10 if not for Origin/Browser launch. Still, it actually WORKED on DAY 1.

I'm sure there's a console command, but outside of that, Battlelog replaced the server browser in-game.

Looks like the monitor was the display problem- picked up one of these (http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-S27A350H-27-Inch-Class-Monitor/dp/B004QNHNWK/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1319569890&sr=8-5) from Costco ($50 rebate at the register + regular Costco price= $80 cheaper than listed at Amazon and NewEgg). GODDAMN it is pretty. Can't wait it get in game and try it out. Will probably still add the vid card as well. Now I need an HDMI cable so I can run both monitors (or I could get a splitter or whatever).

Gunplay seems easier nowadays. I felt there's a slight degree of auto aim or something even on PC version. Cause there's no way I could rack up kills by just emptying a clip by just holding down the trigger full auto in Bad Company 2 at mid range. Not complaining, ranked up to Lance Corporal and taking a break after trying all the maps.

Biggest change I really want is a 10-second respawn timer. 64 players with 5 second default respawn timer is complete bullshit. There's really no incentive to cap and risk your butt if you're with a small grp. Better to just camp and rack up kills from those hapless spawners since there's at least 4-5 of them coming every 5 seconds in game.  400 tickets just kept disappearing in less than an hour due to the excessive spawn camping. Like it or not, you'd better park your ass in a vantage spot while neutralizing cap points, since defenders just keep spawning.

The only real improvement I want is for servers to stop running Tehran Highway. What a painful map.

The Battlelog thing has taken me a bit of time to get used to but I quite like it now.

First off, filtering servers and the like is really fast.  Second, I like how once I've joined a server and gotten my slot it doesn't bring up the loading screen until the last few moments of loading.

I played about an hour of single player, on normal difficulty. I am decent FPS but single player completely kicked my ass. It takes about 2-3 deaths "per room" to figure out WTF they want from you, then another 2-3 death to get it done. Killing other guys is easy, figuring out what to do is not.

For example - they want you to grab machine cannon on the bridge and start shooting at advanced enemies, but doing so is absolutely suicidal, you get destroyed if you linger on the bridge. So you are expected to grab machine cannon and retreat to safety. Until you figure it out you get repeatedly creamed. Or you have to move through enemy lines, until you get to a bus, you can't get around this bus, you have to go inside of it, wait for it to get blown up then kill bad guys from burning wreckage.

Single player get 10/10 for atmosphere, it get feeling of chaos of combat down extremely well, but it gets -10/10 on gameplay. Until you figure out exact loops mission designers want you to jump through you will get repeatedly and unavoidably killed.

Overall - skip single player missions. It is not fun.

You should not buy a DICE game for single-player.

:awesome_for_real: I laughed when the IGN video review gave a 9 because 1 point was deducted due to the campaign. Yeah, that's because COD did it better, am I right?

I 100% agree, but if option was there I wanted to see what it is.

I played about 4 hours of multiplayer. To say I am disappointed is understatement. This is all around bad game.  MP mostly consist of spawn point camping, any mostly-infantry map you ether farm people or get farmed around spawn points and as a result this is outright unplayable. Base weapons are _SIGNIFICANTLY_ weaker than some farmed/upgraded/bought (?.?) versions I have seen, to the point of you need to unload full clip into someone with engineer starting weapon while someone with farmed weapon would get 2-3 bullets kills on you.

Maps... uggh, dear god maps are awful. They were designed to be pretty and no though was given to have any playability.

Overall - game is moderately pretty, stable and completely unfun. I planned to play it for next 3-6 months, tonight I logged off in disgust after about 2 hours.

While I've had more fun than you seem to have had, I have to agree with most of what you've said.  I fucking HATE launching the game form that web browser, the starter weapons do feel weak, maps are mostly camp-fests, the SP campaign is meh and objectives/goals are often unclear.  Overall, I enjoyed BC2 more than this.  Its very pretty though. :awesome_for_real:

I found the SP campaigns in both Bad Company 1 (console) and Bad Company 2 to be fun enough that I completed them at least twice each. I'd compare either of them well enough against something like CoD: World At War, and BC2 played pretty well compared to CoD:MW

Negative mouse acceleration, we meet again.  :uhrr:

I never learn. Oh well, at least keybindings work now.

What specifically is a downgrade from BC2?  BC2 was perfect so I figured BF3 would be perfecter, haven't had a chance to open my copy yet but I'm reading things like maps not being as destructible as in BC2.   

Its hard to put into words but I'm just not having as much fun with BF3.  And yes, it seems the environment isn't as destructible.  In BC2, one of my favourite things to do was put out some ammo and use my grenade launcher repeatedly to destroy buildings.

This game seems to be shaping up pretty well...

Well, they specifically nerfed that by taking the ammo pack away from Assault and giving it (back) to Heavy Support (as it was in 2142).

Oh, I know.  I'm just saying the buildings don't seem to be as destructible as there were in BC2.  I loved taking them down, hopefully with some enemy still inside.

It's not as extreme as it was in BC2 where you'd be fighting in rubble at the end of the round but you can still knock the crap out of some buildings and there are environmental hazards.  Earlier today I was near some gas pumps and when they went off, I went with them :drill:.

Game is fine. I had a blast. The only issue is the short respawn timer that results in excessive spawn camping and kill-streaks. At times I would lose, just because some beginners doesn't get enough time to orient themselves before eating a shotgun to the face upon re-spawning. Though I find the lack of destructible high-rise building slightly disappointing, it's still a good game battlefield game.

I thought they'd fixed that in BC2 by kicking those who spawnkilled multiple times?

How do you kick people when they're legitimately waiting for reinforcements to capture a flag...and the enemy just spawn in his scopes every 5 seconds? I'd fucking stay prone and rack up the kills instead of going in close and get whacked by a full squad spawn.

I had one of those experience where I picked a place to spawn, only to see an enemy squad right in front of me...their backs turned. Three rifles bursts and an unloaded glock later, 4 kill streak.  :awesome_for_real:

Also, minor gripe with gun attachments, goddamnit DICE...

hey, dawgs i heard you like unlocks so i'll be putting unlocks in your unlocks so you can unlock while you're unlocking stuff.

Fair enough point. I just thought of what I saw when I was talked into firing up BC2 again for a week or two I think it was. I'm not sure what the criteria was, but I saw more than once that people were kicked for spawnraping or something. I'm not sure if that's just a secondary mod or if it came with the game.

I loathe and despise the entire concept of having to grind up guns etc in this kind of game. I bought BC2 for the SP stuff, turns out it didn't capture me like I thought it would, and the MP I did play was initially an exercise in frustration as I would often unload a whole clip in someone's direction and they'd two-three shot me. It did improve, but I still can't fathom why anyone would want this to be a part of the game. Poopsockers unite?

I think the people you saw being kicked for spawn camping were kicked by admins who were playing at that time.  Each server has their own rules enforced depending on who pays the bills for the server.  And I'm quite sure theres already people who have unlocked everything in the class they were playing and are Generals or whatever the fuck the top rank is. :oh_i_see:

No, I don't think so, it looked fairly automatic to me.

I'm not going to completely discount that, but I don't think it was manual.

Respawn system (in 5 seconds you can re-appear at any captured point or on anyone in your squad, but you can switch squads on the fly) when combined with a) 'be next to a flag' capture system b) so much clutter on the map results in whack-a-mole combat system where enemy can spawn behind you at any time and spawn camping in the only way to contain enemy.

Spawn camping is very much a product of BF3 respawn system and the only way to play it. It is unlikely to change/go away unless respawn system is changed.

How would I fix it:

1. Re-spawn _only_ on your squad leader, not just anyone in the squad, and only ONCE per 60 seconds. Keep 5 seconds respawn timer on base spawns and add 5 second 75% damage dealt and received reduction after spawn (so nothing short of eating tank shell would kill you right away).
2. Change control point capture and spawn mechanism - you have very wide radius where you are considering "capturing", closer you are faster you capture. Any control point under attack and you can't spawn there.

Holy shit, there's a server browser on the fucking 360.

I never had a problem with spawn campers and I played all throughout beta and release.

Multiple spawn "areas" on a control point combined with the ability to spawn on squad members has resulted in me spawning and instantly dying only a handful of times.

"Any control point under attack and you can't spawn there" is an awful idea. There has been plenty of times I've spawned into a control point and was able to defend it from attackers in the base. If I spawn and they instantly kill me, oh well. They are assaulting the base, after all.

Also, suggesting people that spawn in be damn near invulnerable is completely ridiculous. Have you played any other battlefield games?

I suck so fucking bad.  Beautiful game though, i enjoy playing even though i die over and over again without any clue as to where the guy killing me even was.  Sooooo bad.

Welcome to "Battlefield" games.

I don't understand that. I am an average player. I would say I know why and how and where I was killed from about 90 percent of the time.

Doesn't the camera switch to the player who killed you while waiting for respawn?

Not to mention, isn't the mechanic in place where you can spawn on your life squad mates?

Well yes, i can see who killed me after i died but not during gameplay.

 :awesome_for_real:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnn4bG1tj-E

How on earth can they seriously manage to make SP games like this shittier and shittier as time goes on?

Hes got something on his screen.

People keep buying them. To be fair, the audience is the MP audience. There's no point in crafting a non-scripted sandboxy type SP game. Way too many resources for a game who's main audience is MP folks. Should they just dispense with the charade of SP ? Probably, but its sorta like the stale bread sticks at an Italian restaurant. No one likes them, but someone would bitch if they weren't there.

Well, there have only been 2 Battlefield games that even had a SP campaign (BC1 and 2). CoD4 had a robust SP campaign and MP - but the MP took off like crazy, and coincided with the console kids trying something aside from Halo in MP - giving us what we have now with 5 hour campaigns and most of the focus being on the MP.

I actually thought CoD4's SP was heading downhill a bit, but that was mostly in the pacing of missions, somehow they just ended up being more confusing than the previous games. They'd lost what I thought made the older CoD games (1 and 2) stand a head above the others such as MoHAA etc, but MW2 went pants on head retarded with its SP.

And the less said about the airport bullshit, the better.

I thought CoD4 SP was a breath of fresh air to what had become so much of a cliche'-filled and stale genre in the WW2 shooter - I felt the pacing worked, and it added to the tension and sense of urgency.

I've only played a bit of MW2 so far, just past the airport bit, in fact. It felt like it was there to be "edgy" - it kind of felt like it's the kind of thing that would usually be referred to as a plot point, but instead they put you in the shoes and allowed you to either feel uncomfortable with or revel in it.

The thing I remember the most about that whole scene was how absolutely limited I felt because I couldn't walk quickly enough to run and gun. I was prepared to actually revel in it because I knew somewhere, someone, would be watching it and literally bawwwing their eyes out over the inhumanity.

And they fucked it up.

As to the "clichè-filled and stale genre in the WW2 shooter", the two of us have had this discussion before, and we just don't agree there. But to be honest, the setting isn't so important for me, it was more that the guns were deadly in one or two shots, so accuracy actually meant something rather than spray and pray, and it was a matter of a lot of missions where I actually sat there and defended instead of just being on the attack. The combination of the guns and defending against wave after wave of soldier was what sold me. And I don't think they quite captured that feeling in MW1, although it was still playable.

In fact, one of the things that irked me the most about RAGE, sans the fact that the whole game just wasn't as fun as I wanted it to be, was how even the pistol ended up feeling more powerful than both machineguns I ended up using. The shotgun was awesome in how it felt powerful, though.

Well, the CoD4 SP may have been good, relatively speaking, but it was still on rails. Coming from the perspective of RPGs such as Deus Ex and others that predate it, it was not exactly a work of literary genius. Now excuses are constantly made, as if developers of military shooters are somehow mentally challenged and we have to pat them on the back every time they manage to string up even the most basic narrative, but really, there's just no excuse for it, other than just simply acknowledging that these people do not give a flyin fuck about story, or world immersion, and realise that their audience wants one thing and one thing only; to shoot people in the face, repeatedly. This is an admirable activity, one that I engage in often, but at the same time, I'm not getting butt hurt that my imagination isn't transported to far off mystical lands of wonder.

I always thought "butt hurt" was just something we said in the military. Good to see the term used in real life.

Once you get into some bigger maps with vehicles this game is a ton of fun, it really brings back that old Battlefield feeling.

I took one round in AA vehicle and had easy time shooting down birds in the sky. Pretty funny once you unlock the AA missiles, shit just get pounded easy.
Overall, I think the armor vehicles now have 'disabled' states where if they're hit by a good rocket, they'll start burning up and has to be repaired. It's a good change IMO.

Well I've played about 2 hours of the single player game. And it is the worst gameplay of a computer game I have ever played. PONG has more freedom. Minesweeper is more challenging. Push Button war -why yes this is! Hold mouse on centre of screen. That is highlighted. And your curser takes up 1/3 of the screen after that.

I really hope I get to kill every single speaking character later on. Or if the choice is between letting the fat homeland security guy who's lost track if he's the good cop or bad cop twice in 2 minutes living, or letting the nuke off, I want to arm the nuke myself.


I played 2 rounds of the oh so lauded multiplayer. Random matchmaking put me into infantry only team deathmatch. Which was less interesting than deathmatch had been in Doom. One.


Hope it gets better.

If you're expecting something good out of random matchmaking then I guess there's no helping it. Filter out that shit and stick to conquest / rushes .

I played game more, and multiplayer isn't as bad as my initial impression. I was unlucky to get into worst possible match configuration - conquest (I think that what its called, where you capture control points but can re-capture them back in any order) on a small map is just painful and _always_ leads to camping last node and farming kills. Other modes, like rush or team deathmatch are fine.

There is no other mode besides Rush.  Remember that.

You guys are crazy, Conquest for life.

I wish they'd bring "Push" back from Desert Combat. Essentially Conquest combined with Rush.

Easiest explanation = Imagine Rush with 1 flag instead of 2 boxes and the defenders can recapture it after losing it.


good times.

If they put Rush at 5 sec, and Conquest at 10 sec respawn timer, things wouldn't be so bad. Each type has a good point. Rush is pretty playable, but needs around 40 people to be fun. 32 is just too little and once you blow up one objective, the other is camped heavily by the defense.

You're doing Battlefield wrong.

I'm partial to Conquest, but I haven't really played BF since 2. I have BC2, but it's so casual-unfriendly I haven't loaded it up on the new pc yet.

No doubt. Conquest is Battlefield.

I prefer Rush on Battlefield games, but I can play either one. But yes, team deathmatch? Should never be allowed in a Battlefield game, as it totally goes against the design ethos of the series.

Conquest is the only type i feel useful even with my horrible k/d ratio.  At least i can take back flags.

Death Match does have a place, it is very good for taking a small group of friends and getting weapon unlocks rather quickly. It is useless for all other things.

DO NOT. I REPEAT. DO NOT PLAY THE CO-OP.
IT'S PROBABLY THE SHITTIEST BATTLEFIELD EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE TIME.

Even Contra did this shit better.

Looks like premiere in Europe is a fucking disaster.
Noone can activate their product - origin is DDOS'ed. No info anywhere.  Forums are burning (EA forum is constantly cleared form any threads about origin and activation problems).

My copy is En Route from the UK. Looks like I should treat it like an MMO Launch.  :why_so_serious:

It's things like that which makes me glad I can't upgrade my machine at the moment to buy this game.

Two major complaints:

1. The jeeps have no horn.

2. Why is the Battlefield theme not being played during load times?

EU activation issues are surprising, considering how problem-free was US release.

Activation servers got DDoSed from all activation requests or actual attack from someone trying to bring them down?

Activation requests.

I keep getting directx error message when i try to join servers, and then when I right click to repair my install Origin decides to not find my BF3 install, and makes me install the entire game over again, and I still can't play.

Have you tried uploading latest DirectX from MS? AFAIK game runs DX11.

Have you tried updating your browser?  :awesome_for_real:

have you tried updating your mama?

Yes.
Yes.
The only mama I know is a M1A1 Abrams

A friend of mine got the Origin not recognising an install issue about 6 months ago, and it still has not been resolved. You can remove everything and reinstall and the game (ME2) still won't work. The funny part is that the problem has persisted through numerous Origin updates.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/829607/fallout/08/wtf.jpg)

Is that real?

I just saw it on my origin account.

2.99?

 :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, the first unlock on the Battlelog page for most weapons has that.  Usually a flash suppressor or some type of scope, not new either.

I can't stop playing this game. Plays, runs and looks fantastic. Maybe it's the hiatus from BF games, but this one firmly has its hooks in my flesh. Most maps with 64 player and fast respawn are a bit nuts, right now as I shake the rust off the 32 player servers are my sweet spot. I also haven't been on a 32 that lagged out but see it often on the 64 player ones.

The only thing that is preventing me from fully enjoying this game is how utterly incompetent i am at it.  I don't usually suck this bad at shooters, i was actually quite good in TF2.

I have unlocked the RPK's foregrip 7 times. Any word on when the first patch is coming?

This is my experience exactly.  TF2 is my shooter of choice and I'm pretty reasonable at it.  Picked this up, against my better judgement, based on a recommendation from a buddy of mine and oh boy do I suck.  Had to grit my teeth for a while on the promise of fun to come.  I'm at the point where I think I know WHY I suck, which I didn't at the start. 

I also think this game would have been much better served with a suite of 20 min training missions for each thing you can do in the MP matches rather than the abortion of a campaign we got.  My first few trips in a chopper were hilarious and I'm scared of what I will do when I decide to jump into a jet.

This is only for automatic rifles, which you can unlock the 8x scope on anyway. And trying to shoot anyone at a long range with the 8x scope is nearly impossible with the bullet deviation and bullet drop. Can't even imagine the 12x.

The sniper riles "DICE Unlock" is a flash suppressor which reduces accuracy. Meh

I don't feel like switching other scopes after getting the IR scope. Bwhahahahaa. I CAN SEE EVERYTHING.

IR makes a huge difference on some of the darker/dustier maps.

I looted someone's IR scoped MG. It felt a bit like cheating, but had issues at longer ranges. I need to unlock it for some gun, just so I'm not helpless when explosions start kicking dust up everywhere.

I haven't unlocked an IR sniper scope. Pretty sure there isn't one. In MW2, it was pretty much tantamount to cheating. It made sniping so easy.

Nope, there isn't a zooming IR scope from what I saw.  All the 100 kill IR scopes are the same deal.

Uhm, games like Deus Ex are almost a different subgenre to the current linear shooters that are the mainstay of the industry, and unfortunately, most seem to have gone for that linear, highly scripted experience these days. There are some "open" shooters like the new Wolfenstein that hark back to the early days of Quake etc (I never played Wolf-3d) but just as many or more are basically a long corridor, and have been for quite a few years now that I think of it.

There's also a big difference between no story, a story badly told (see Homefront), playing a Michael Bay movie (ie CoD) and "worldliness". I mean, Homefront I can talk about because I played it recently. It was an average shooter at best, but it's tight grip on making the player run through their naff story and naffer dialogue leads to a worse "story" experience than any CoD game I've played yet (disclaimer, haven't played/finished MW2 or Blops)...

don't forget bushier.

It's really HARD to see these fuckers hiding in bushes. Especially in metro etc. By the time you spot the flash, they're already shooting and you're dead. Better to just scan from a distance and spot the fuckers before getting in close. The IR scope might be useless at long range since it sways and has pathetic zoom, but at least I have the advantage of spotting threats before firefight occur.

Totally. Metro is notorious for the fuckers prone in the bushes.

But is is balanced for prone?  :why_so_serious:

Prone? Yes.

Lean? Not so much.

If you have a field of fire, proning is the shit. I saw one guy deploy a bipod on his MG and just cleaned house while perched on top of a hill.
However, getting up and running from grenade is another story. And you move sooooo slowly. Getting up is also half a second delay before your gun comes up.

I've unlocked all the assault guns and now moving on to the Support Class. I want that 200 round M249, rawr.

I finished the single player today. Unlike MW2's offensively stupid plot, this plot was just stupid. The only thing I enjoyed about it was

.

It wasn't nearly as fun as the single player in MW2 was- in MW2 you had SOME choice. In this you had none. And I don't understand why they didn't have a couple of missions where you can actually use some of the vehicle's - I thought that was the POINT of a single player game for a multiplayer shooter - to learn how to use them. Thunder Run was nice and a good example of it, but it was the only one. The F18 part was the worst gameplay experience I have ever played. 

I'm going to work on Level 26 this week - Squad Specialization - Ammo is probably very useful. And maybe give this Russian acquired M16A (Trolling us Dice?) a spin.

Metro? Metro is notorious for the fuckers prone at the top of escalators making metro/conquest the dumbest game mode ever.

MAYBE tied with Grand Bazaar/Rush. MAYBE.

One thing I love about f13: it saves me a lot of money. I begin to weaken in my resolve not to buy another online shooter and you guys are there to remind me why I don't buy them anymore.

Thanks!

BF3 is awesome some of you people are bitchy ass sandy vaginas.

Could not agree more.  I was on the edge of buying this game when all the talk of snipers with infrared scopes saved me.  I really REALLY hate snipers.

You can't snipe with IR, I think that was the point.

That said, a good sniper will fuck up your day. Most of the snipers I've encountered haven't been good for much more than padding my k/d ratio.

I was thinking about a bunch of leveled-up kids hiding in the bushes and me just randomly dying left and right.

On the one hand, my fps skills are rusty (BF2) and even then I was getting tired of exploits (dolphin diving bunny hoppers etc). Throw in leveling and the deck is stacked against me, which wouldn't be real conducive to an enjoyable evening of relaxation.

Recon is a dying kit. All their gadgets require you to hide and 'look' through them, and they do nothing but allow spotting of vehicles. They have zero ways to destroy vehicles of any kind. They are usually not in the front lines, meaning they get zero mcom points and zero capture points. Finally, bulletdrop is exaggerated and scope wobble is constant unless you hold shift to steady the scope for a few seconds.

Oh, and shooting without a suppressor gives away your position, along with lense glare.

Out of all the classes in the game, I'm least killed by recon (and this is on a variety of maps)

Out of all the classes in the game, recon's generally get a lower amount of points and kills.

So yeah, not playing BF3 because of snipers is a ridiculous reason if I ever heard any. Hell, just about every assault/support/engineer rifle in the game has an 8x scope unlock and single shot capabilities.

Recon can still be effective. They just made it a lot harder to make the lamers lose interest.

Which is fine by me.

"Lamer" is cool again? What's next, telefragging?

It's called Mortar :D

I haven't gotten around to buying this yet..but witht the engine, do bushes get cleared out by damage? like by grenades or other explosives?

I'm bringing it back!

Sometimes, a cad must be called out as such.

I haven't played an online FPS this addicting in a long time.

Ok.  How about I don't want to pay $60 to be reminded how much I suck at FPS games.  Does that work better?  :why_so_serious:

Recons are pulled in the wrong direction by some of their unlocks. They're supposed to be designated marksmen, not snipers. Their semi autos without a scope turn into crazy accurate crazy damage battle rifles, or use PDWs/shotguns. The TUGS is awesome if you're near the front lines, same with the spawn radio.

The problem is they keep unlocking bigger scopes and thinking they need to hang back on a hill and snipe. If anything, my annoyance with their gadgets is how BF3 handles spawning. If I spawn as a recon with a TUGS and deploy it, we're cool. If I die and respawn with the TUGS equipped, my old one instantly dies. If I respawn as say an engineer, my old TUGS hangs out and happily detects people all game long. It needs to act like an ammo pack. Deployed until you place a new one.

So, can someone who has played BC2 and is now trying BF3 comment on the difference in the MP aspect of the game? I played the 'beta' of BF3, and I was a bit underwhelmed at how similar it was, at first blush. Slightly different gui, slightly better graphics, but essentially the exact same game. I'm not seeing a 'buy' here.

Well, for one, a lot of the players from BC2 have moved on to BF3.  :why_so_serious:

That said, the core gameplay is similar, just some tweaks. Plus some of the maps are FUCKHUGE. As has been said by others, recon has been revamped a lot and is, if played well, more suited to the run-and-gun play style. The re-introduction of planes means that in the right hands, (or the wrong ones, if you're the opfor) games have the capacity to become a one-sided gankfest.

I bought the game on Saturday, promptly lost power due to this stupid snowstorm, and still can't because the power is still off.

...Snow? You live in the arctic!

The entire fucking northeast apparently got hammered this weekend. A lot of my minions are cursing me for getting the hell out of dodge the day before all hell broke loose.

Loved BC2, but I'm already over BF3.  I also didn't like the beta and after unlocking various gadgets I feel like I've done it all before (Am I flying?  I'm catching a rocket.  Is someone else flying?  I'm going to rocket them.  C4 walls, defib your squad, lay mines, etc.) with added rage inducers like flashlights powered by nuclear reactors and menu screens dissolving into static every time you want to switch a loadout.  However, I played BC2 so much I turned into Rambo so that contributed to my burnout grumpiness.

I do love the recon changes including the forward spawn beacon since it is the perfect solution if your squad is a bunch of campers / death traps.

I'm not northeast enough  :cry:

Ahem: fuck the tactical floodlight. SO MUCH.

The worst part about it is getting blinded by your teammates at inopportune times.

I am just a few thousand points from unlocking mortars...can't wait!

For those of you fearing rampant snipers, there are very few maps where they are even remotely useful, and even then, the maps are SO big that a sniper can't hope to cover even a small section. Caspian Border has some great sniper nests on it, and can be fun as hell if you remain undetected. OTOH, one of life's great pleasures is flanking a sniper, rolling him over to remove his tags, and stabbing him in his face. The knife kill animations kick ass in this game.

Our BF1942 clan had a thread dedicated to screenshots of knife kills. Sniper knifings were so delicious.

I still want to know who came up with that idea so I can send them a hateful note. Completely turned me off BF3.

I saw a video of a MAV with a claymore on it.

I now desire to unlock MAVs and find a claymore friend. Because I want an airborne claymore delivery system.

Is spotting weird for anyone else? I cant get it to work unless I hold the button down long enough to bring up the voice bindings menu, and this not only takes a long time, but kicks you out of ADS.

Spotting works decently for me, though it can be a bit strange if I'm trying to spot something semi behind cover. Like pointing at a tank tread doesn't work, it wants me to point at more of the tank. BUT I CAN SEE THE TREAD I'M PRETTY SURE THERE'S A TANK BACK THERE GUYS.

Also, you don't see arrows for things that aren't fully in view all the time, so you can spot (and get the voice confirmation), but not actually see an arrow for what you spotted.

I have found that my spotting target needs to be basically directly in my crosshairs for it to work. It is more restrictive than BFBC2 by quite a bit.

As far as the tac lights go, I don't really see the problem. Yeah, sure, they're a pain in the ass when your teammates blind you, but if you've ever been hit with a SureFire this is an accurate representation. Just be glad it's not a strobe.

I think the laser in your eye is more irritating, and who the fuck actually uses a red laser anyway? Trick question - NOBODY.

I was half tempted to write "because it's shitty gameplay and unbelievably annoying when the entire enemy team is rocking flashlights and turns every hallway into a white blur" and then put a massive white image overlay on top of it.. but that's too much work.

It's shit gameplay, and turns your entire game into a massive blinding field of white. Because there's absolutely no down side to using them all day every day. One means "aim above the white light, get kill", 30 means "fuck, this is an ugly assed game. It's like, the opposite of Doom 3."

I don't know what they were thinking with lights on this engine.   The flashlight thing is very annoying but trying to play on a map where the sun is at the horizon is just flat out "OH GOD MY EYES ARE BURNING".

I guess I haven't run into a server like that.

Lasers are much more popular on my server, with only the occasional tac light. And it seems that only at close range do they really mess me up.

I've never seen a problem with tac lights.  It is pretty much 'Shoot over here'.

I do agree with the sun burning my eyes out.  Particularly on one map (forget which) - the US fixed AA position has you pointing directly at the sun towards the main part of the map, which makes it particularly difficult to shoot at anything.

Lasers don't annoy me as much because they have to be aimed right at your face to suck. The mild red overlay of being aimed somewhere in your general area doesn't blind me nearly as much as "a flashlight is within 90 degrees of your cone of vision. TRAIN TUNNEL TIME!"

But I do get a laugh that lasers are so precise that they have a ~30 degree cone of red blur. What is that, a shotgun sight?

My main issue with the tac lights really is the 7-10 dudes in a city map hallway with lights down it. Blind fire was never so accurate a term.

1. The maps aren't meant for 64 players. 48 is probably the magic number. 32 will drag the battle longer a bit.

2. Some are badly designed. Too much enclosed spaces, and the ease of mortar spamming shells with infinite ammo from the safety of their spawns.

3. If people hate snipers, it's because they're good and patient. I see no reason to worry about snipers too much because I never see them dominating so much. The scope flash and such will reveal their position, as well as the kill-cam. You should know by know which route to avoid being sniped.

4. Vehicles are powerful as always, yet this time, if a rockets hits a vehicle at a critical spot, it will start to burn, forcing the engineer to repair it quick or have it blown up to bits.

5. Maps like Firestorm is heavy with Vehicles. 4 Tanks per side is bound to go crazy.

6. Unlocking system may seem awesome for those advanced players and progression junkies, but in truth it forces people to purchase this game on day 1 or be left in the dust, with all the high powered scope and gadgets others have unlocked. It makes a difference.

7. Guns, each guns handles MUCH differently now. AN Abakan may seem like an upgrade to some people, packing more accuracy and firepower than my AEK, but I can't bear to part with the AEK, she's fast firing and has that IR scope attached. I might be wrong, but it felt right. A lot of people get attached to their guns much more than the previous Battlefields where going up to the G36C means you'll never, ever go back to the previous MP5 starter kits.

8. Some specialization can be taken to different direction with different combination of unlocked weapons, attachments. A support guy running with SMG unlock is running with fast reloading infinite bullet thrower AND claymores. Scary shit to meet in an alley. A recon with Shotgun and motion sensors can lay the hurt when capping points. Assaults can even forgo their medical role and go for their old traditional favorite, the grenade launcher, which can deliver frag or smoke.

9. The biggest issue for me is the Mini map and Communication between teammates. It seems to be a step backward from Battlefield 2 where I can call for pickup and call for ammo. When I do this on BF3, I simply highlighted my icon for bullet / first aid on the mini map, my teammates usually don't notice. I spent some time chasing one support for ammo, watching him die. Take his kit, drop ammo pack, take back my kit, and revive him. And he still complained of 'WHY DID U TAKE SO LONG TO REVIVE ME BIYATCH?!'

10. The unlocks even extend to vehicles, there's a rude awakening for aspiring pilots who jump into a jet for the first time, there's no flares, no Air to Air missiles, no Air to ground. NOTHING but a gun. It's almost like the army needs someone to kill something before they give the big guns to let them kill more. What the fuck, Dice?

Thanks for the write up, rk47 and others. I think I'm gonna wait a few weeks, then ask who here's still playing it. If its like BC2, then there still will be quite a few. If it exhausts people's patience and they've moved on to the games coming out in November, then I will know its probably not for me.

There also seem to be a strange, real tangible value to having high ranked accounts than before. The amount of unlocks that it entitles to advanced players and such. I might be crazy for saying this, but I think I might be able to sell my account for more than I paid for the box since newcomers are having a difficult time against veteran players at the moment.

There are also many instances where you have to unlock scopes and attachments for both your class and its opposing team's nearly identical counterpart.  :uhrr:

One step forward, one step back.

Medics are no longer the heavy weapon's guy with ridiculous aoe healing ability and instant resurrection: YAY!

OH HAY HERES MORTAR: SPAM FROM BASE WITH UNLIMTED AMMO.

Yeah, I don't feel left out not purchasing this. Sounds like it's very up and down in terms of enjoyment.

Saints and Skyrim, here I come!

I played this for a couple of hours at a friends house and although some stuff looked awesome I wasn't impressed.  I'll admit though I've been out of the FPS game for awhile but I do admit to playing CoD: Black Ops pretty religiously for the first 3-4 months that it was out.

Mortars are visible on minimap the second they fire, so very easy to counter-mortar. Just target that red bomb-icon, hit mouse1....profit!

This has been my experience as well. I've gotten several kills where I would have never even noticed the dude without his bright SHOOT HERE sign on.

I believe most of the complaints are regarding the close range flood lights that severely fuck up close combat situation. So yeah, that's most of the issue. You cannot counter this shit at all, you just gotta pray your burst hits him first before he does when it happens.

Being a big fan of the IR crippled me in a lot of things. I can't play other class effectively any more. But at least I'm having fun killing those bastards in the bush of Caspian Borders and being accused a hacker. Bwahahaha. IT IS WALLHACK scope, motherfuckers. Learn to eat it.

Yeah, tac lights only suck when they're right in front of you and en masse. Otherwise, yeah, "chuck a grenade at this."

Well the good news is with the defibrillator giving back a ticket i feel like i contribute to the team even with my awful k/d ratio, also since i mostly play conquest i score a shit ton of points capping flags and ressing people.  The bad news is this game is making my computer shut down.

I'm getting more and more amused by this game, though I still think at least two of the maps are terrible (bazaar and metro are just awful spammy clusterfucks)

I've been running around about 50/50 as support or shotgun recon. The recon gadgets are a decent amount of fun, but I think the SOFLAM's primary purpose at this stage of the game's life is to just annoy the living shit out of tank drivers since nobody runs around with the weapons to use it.

Could my computer be overheating because my AC is broken? it's not really all that hot.

I've played games in 30c+ indoors, and I was doing worse than the computer was. I'd say that if your computer is shutting down, chances are it's time to go through the computer and clean it up a bit.

Check the event log, if the system is overheating, it should mention it I believe.

Other things to do would be to disable automatic restart on system failure, which would cause it to actually leave a bluescreen up if it panicked, instead of just acting like "whoops, reboot!"

I could see the video card overheating, but usually that's not a system reboot, it's a really fucked up graphics thing.

edit: also, see if there is a file in (loosely) %SystemRoot% called memory.dmp that's recent. If there's a tiny one (less than 10 megs) someone can figure out the crash reason for you pretty easily if it's a software related crash.

30c+?

It gets up to 40-46c+ (104-115f) here in summer. It sucks and takes the AC awhile to get the room/house bearable, but the computers work okay. I imagine the Texans/Arizonans have similar stories...

I'm a bit further north of the equator than you are, me being in Norway and all. :why_so_serious:

But yes, I do have a portable AC unit now, and it is making those periods bearable. Thankfully, they only last about 1-2 weeks every year, and I manage to flee even further north during that time if I time it properly.

Is there an F13 battleog platoon for xbox?

Yup, that's pretty much what I do.  Damavand Peak is pretty crazy for that.

The only way to beat it is to use it yourself. I don't know how you would balance it at this point, other than lighting anyone like a Christmas tree so they are ultra-visible at all times for using it.

New pilots get farmed hard, but that was almost always the case in any BF game. Seasoned pilots can do fine without a flare, but until you gain a lot of experience you absolutely need a flare. Lack of flare is only an issue if you are dealing with engineers, AA-Armor or AA-spec helicopter. Pilot vs Pilot you almost never see rocket kills, you generally don't want Beep Beep Beep giving away the fact that you are lining up for the kill or lack of Beep Beep Beep to give away the fact that they shook you off. You can play mind games, start with it on and turn it off mid chase, but as a kill weapon it isn't wildly used.

I use Heat Seeking Missiles mostly against high-flying helicopters, with a belt upgrade you can fire 2 nearly at the same time point blank range where flare won't save them. Against other planes, if they have flare ( :grin: ), AA rockets are useless even if they don't know what they are doing.


My main issues with air:

a) planes no longer have cluster bombs, rockets (fairly late unlock) are poor substitute for bombing runs
b) your cool upgrades are no-go; stealth, flare (piss off enough engineers on the ground and you will need it to keep flying) are mandatory. Then you can pick rockets, laser bomb (if you ever unlock it) or heat seekers.
c) unlimited ammo - you no longer need to do base runs and as a result can camp enemy air strip forever and some
d) why the fuck is helicopter tossed so much when hit?

Yeah, I know. I wasn't dick-measuring, but pointing out that it's probably not 30C days that are the problem.

My first 30 seconds ever in BF3 Multiplayer after not having played since BF2:

Get beaten to the chopper on the flightdeck. Hop on anyways hoping for a ride, chopper flies 1m and promptly crashes into the sea and kills me while the pilot bails out just in time.

Ah, The Battlefield Experience. It was good to be back.  :why_so_serious:

Multi Passenger vehicles!

BF series Practical use: Personal transportation.

To be honest, that's what I was getting at as well. Or, that if it was 30C, then the computer was definitely not cooling itself off properly, and that it was time for a cleanup. At least as an easy first step.

Checking the event logs and just generally doing what kildorn suggested is probably just as well, though. I've yet to have to clean any of my machines, and I have 2 indoor cats.

It always seems like the guys on the enemy team are expert tankers and ace pilots but the guys on your side are all playing from some kind of outpatient facility.

I used to love playing crazy taxi, pull up in a jeep and yell 'get in!', then drive them to a hotspot and tell them to get out. Repeat for the entire match. Most people expect you to just crash into a wall or something, since most people seem utterly incapable of driving vehicles in BF, but once guys got used to me actually driving them to a good spot, it was a lot of fun.

As an admin on our clan server, I used to watch guys who would plane camp. Very few would ever fly well enough to get into combat, the majority would just hit a tree or spiral into the ground.

Is there a way to filter password protect servers out of the list?

Nope, just have to go by the padlock in the name.

Add Seine Crossing into that list and you nailed all 3 of the maps that drive me insane. I love Caspian, Firestorm, and Kharg. Can't wait for BtK so we can get some new maps.

If anyone is down for some coop, friend me on battlelog or Origin or whatever- I would like the coop unlocks eventually. Haven't bothered with that or the campaign yet.

I tried to friend you, but the option is greyed out. LLJK, you say? I play mainly on KFS, but occasionally on WookWook.

My SA/BF3 (and pretty much everywhere but here) is rldmoto - try and add me?

man, I dunno wtf they're thinking with the co-op missions. The heli one gives you a little practice, but the rest is just pure shit. You're just grinding points in there and I doubt both of you will enjoy it. Good luck, I've done 2 missions so far and I'm not liking it one bit.

This guy will probably have to stop playing the game soon once he realizes that he can never top this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_JIKrjs5IY

I was like ...'hmm nahh...that's nothing, people sniped me off a jet before....' then....the second part comes in and I was like...  :ye_gods:

I'm not sure if I like this game.  My newbie assault gun seems to suck, and half the time I get killed when I have someone dead to rights.  Lots of flashing and explosions  and blurred screens make playing an infantry kind of stink.  Never thought I'd miss BFBC2, but at least I had a chance to fire back in that game.

Eh you just gotta remember to right click to aim at the guy before holding the trigger. Once you got 10 kills on the gun, you get a 4x scope i think. It gets easier from there. Heck, even the M16 is pretty reliable as fuck till mid game, until you get the hang of other gun unlocks. Also, if you are starter assault, just stick with others to heal and farm points for unlocks. Defibs are probably going to be worth 500-1000 points per round. Don't forget it all adds up. I kept fucking up when learning new guns before they come with no attachments as well, so I understand the frustration.

If you find the kills are moving too slowly in a huge map where unseen enemies usually kill you off, try joining Team Deathmatch servers for that first 20 kills and easier learning experience.

I found that I have a better K/D ratio and more kills on 32 player servers than on 64 player ones. Probably has a lot to do with a smaller chance of someone popping out from bushes, buildings or even falling from the sky and killing me from the back.

u mad?

No u :p

I just find servers with less players much more organized with better teamwork. 64 player servers are, for me at least, too hectic.

:twitch: don't do that, it :twitch: makes my troll bone tingle :twitch:

y u no feed the trollz?

We knew a guy named Lum once. He was mad. It was a joke.

You can heal as an assault?

Am I the only one thinking that this unlock talk sounds utterly crazy? Go grind up points before you bother playing with the guns? What? A new genre, first person points grind and then some day shooter. FPPGATSDS

Nope, you're not the only one. It's pants on head retarded, but it's what the kids want apparently.

The age of pure skill is gone. Long live the age of catassery.

That's fine and all, I can just not bother with the game. I do miss a bit of shooter, since I was a big fps player fan in ye olden dayes.

Count me as one who loves the unlocks.

A lot of the default guns are quite good, (I'm still using the default LMG for support) actually; but I agree - the unlocks in this game take it up to 11 with how ridiculous some of them are. (IE: Ive been using a default lmg for so long I have a lot of nice attachments for it that make the game easier)

I like how someone suggested doing revives to level up.  I don't have defib.   Seriously, I'm playing World of Warcraft here, not Battlefield

You sure you don't? i got the defib almost instantly and i suck really bad.

Yeah, Defib should be the first unlock for Assault.

Play one of those shitty corridor meatgrinder rocket spam fest maps and just drop med packs all over the place. Ass load of exp. I havent even played medic yet that much and I got a fair bit done by doing that.

To be honest, most of the unlocks past the first 4-5 on a class are.. enh. Across the board the second weapon they give you will usually suit you fine for the entire game.

The Javelin is.. amusingly broken. If there's a SOFLAM painting someone it's freaking awesome. If there isn't, it turns out it deals less damage on average than a normal RPG(35% damage to a tank from any angle. RPG does 22 front, 36 side, 61 rear), as well as taking forever to lock on and fire.

Personally, I prefer the M4 for the Engineer over the other options, the first shotgun for my recon, and the M249 for my support.

edit: and as stupid as "unlock for each side" is, it only actually happens for the starter guns. The unlocked guns are usable by any side and you can just use them and unlock accessories away.

I spent some time as recon, unlocked my first bolt action rifle.

 :ye_gods: :ye_gods: :ye_gods:

Why would anyone use it? I am fair shot and get out-sniped by support. It takes _forever_ to reload, and won't 1-shot kill unless you hit head.

Shotguns are good in close-quarters, but you generally only going to get one shot. If they are not dead or suppressed, you are toast.

IR scope is surprisingly good considering how much people love camping in the bushes, it also reduces recoil (must be a bug?).

The IR scope is kinda limited in view, though. It's practically pitch black anywhere else but the scope. I know a friend of mine complained he'd kill one guy with IR yet another guy gets a free kill on him from another angle. It's pros and cons. I personally learn to live with the downside and revel in the upside. M16A3 full auto at mid range with that scope is the shit, yo!

People who do this in Halo: Reach are crazy too.

The only problem with the unlocks is that i can't tell if i'm getting better or if it's the better weapon/scope/accessories that are making me play better.

For assault (medic) leveling before defibs, just drop med packs and cap points. 3 Capped points should be more than enough to unlock defibs (which is at like 700 points or something). Alternatively hide in a dark corner and shoot some people in the back  :grin:

Or just join operation metro and drop heal packs. lol. I finished Operation Metro for the first time during releaase...gawd that map was awful...all the teammate bodies sliding down the escalator.  :awesome_for_real: Tasty revives is all I care about.

Metro Conquest is both awful and completely hilarious.  I love it when that map comes up as long as it's not very often.

What happened?

Same shit that always happens. I have to deal with customer service. Apparently I have more than one account each with games on it, they won't merge them, they changed the e-mail to the wrong things, and this bot of a rep keeps telling me BF3 is not on steam. As if I asked.

Despite my protestations, if it was I'd probably own it now. So quick and easy to pillage my wallet on steam.

Thanks, Origin!

Future EA Titles will have Origin-only content in them...Fuuuuuuuuu-

Meh, with a few exceptions, my gaming has been moving more and more console-ward due to the endless stream of bullshit on the PC side.

I'm just playing less FPS games, myself. The FPS genre is more or less a dying genre to me. Thanks, EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc, for saving me money.

Finally got to put some more time in tonight after a week and I really didn't notice people's higher ranks (~15-20 to ~30-40) with regards to my performance.  Still using stuff I unlocked the first or second night I played and did well.

Also, since they updated the server browser (yay!) a suggestion if you find most Conquest servers too hectic: try a 32 player server running Conquest Large.  You still get the scale that I love but people are a bit more sparse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV4LDCgWMdI

Never played BF before.
Oh my... this game is a mess. Is there any posibility that I will finaly see enemy before they kill me? It looks like all of them are running with some kind of enemy-tracker (except me). They see me from everywhere.

The other team is spotting. It's a thing in BF. If someone sees you, they press Q (or back), and you get a little orange triangle on your head and show on the minimap until you break LOS from the spotter for a bit.

If you're not seeing the hostiles like this, your team is not spotting well.

(also, TUGS and MAVS, both recon toys, have motion sensors in them)

One of the dumbest mechanics I have ever seen in a FPS.  Why oh WHY would they make you press a button for this?  If anything should be automatic, it should be this.

I'd guess to separate the people who can press a single button while looking at an enemy from those who can't?

Spotting is so useful, I feel as if it's a shame to have it be done automatically on mouseover. I wouldn't want my gun to fire when it detects a possible hit either.

Because it has a hidden cooldown to prevent sweeping an area and revealing everyone hidden. It's a button press to make sure YOU spotted them.

Coming from team fortress 2 (I played 1942 and BF2 a few years ago) - this is the biggest learning curve for BF3.  Seeing an enemy is hard.  They're small and they tend to hide behind the cover which is all over the map.  Learning where good cover is, where the bad guys will probably be coming from, and then flanking the bad guys so they don't see where you are coming from, is a major skill to learn with BF3.  My first few days I was getting hammered since I couldn't see anyone - but once you start to get a feel for the maps and what the bad guys look like, things improve.  Then you start doing some flanking and the like, and you start to rack up some kills.  And thats before you start including spotting.

You also quickly learn that unless you outnumber the hostiles, you're probably not going to take the point. There are occasions when you simply out class them, but a lone random bullet to the head from an automatic will put down any delusions of rambo.

Yeah, not even if you are in a tank.

Now that novelty worn off, I am getting progressively more annoyed at BF3. 90% of the game is getting shot/shooting at somone from some dark corner or bushes. Game rewards camping so much, its not funny.

Just an FYI about co-op, there are 7 unlocks you get while doing it that work in multiplayer. However, if you ever ran through co-op you'll realize that after doing each mission once, they aren't very exciting or fun. The idea of grinding them out for hours to get the unlocks isn't appealing.

Thankfully, they're so poorly done that its possible to game the system and get all the unlocks in less than an hour.

The trick is to do all the missions to unlock the final mission. Set final mission on easy and just sprint past all the enemies all the way to the first bomb. Fail the bomb disarm and the blast from the bomb will kill everyone on the map (about 45-50 enemies and yourself)  these count as kills on the end game progression screen giving you roughly ~5000 points per run. Sprinting to the bomb takes about 30 seconds.

Rinse and repeat until you get all the unlocks, then never look back.

That's really just trading one brand of exclusivity bullshit for another though.

It's more the DRM bullshit that's turning me off. Along with every other publisher deciding that they want to be mini-steam now.

What are you going to do when they require you authenticate your game on your console, too?

First they came for the PC games, and I didn't cry out because I wasn't a PC gamer, etc etc etc. :why_so_serious:

That's basically already happening with some console downloadable games as well as with this online pass / dlc code crap.

On PC this stuff seems pretty cyclical. I remember the days of having to have the CD in the drive, and the days of needing information from the instruction manual, but interspersed with days of being able to easily copy PC games with zero protection. Maybe it's a a grass is always greener sort of thing and the pendulum is doomed to swing back and forth forever.

Wonderful, so if you spot a few people at once, now you can't even highlight all of them because of the cooldown.

BC2 had the same cooldown. The spot is probably identical: a cone, and I think you get 3-5 spots that 'regenerate' at the rate of 1 spot per 2 seconds or something.

I'm really loving the Engineer. I'm a mine planting fool and pubbies line up to drive over them all round long.

Can we buy Samprimary the game so he can give us another great chapter?  http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=3827.msg95594#msg95594

I felt like he did, I totally sucked at flying in BF2 but loved the tanks and apc's, plus favorite kit was a mix of engineer, special forces, support, and medic.

Is Wake Island in the game yet?

See a wall? Blow it up. If Friendly Fire is off, all bets are off. :O I had instances where I blew a wall without knowing what's behind it and killing people behind it. XD

Funniest moment was when I planted 6 C4 charges on a building, set it off and it didn't collapse, confused I went inside to blow it up from within. It collapsed as I vaulted over the crumbling wall. Suicide.  :uhrr:

Heh, yeah i love how on the rush missions you can literally destroy the base to a pile of rubble but it will not harm the objective at all.

Is this a deliberate change from how it worked in BC2, or am I not understanding what you are talking about?

You have to go tag the objective with an infantry guy and then keep the bomb from being defused for a set amount of time, even though you can reduce the entire base the objective is in to rubble from long range.

They probably made that change because in BC2, there were some maps where you could pound the objectives with tanks from the spawn zone and destroy them without ever risking being killed.

You can highlight them all. The cooldown is triggered on misses in succession, and it has a pretty forgiving cone.

So if you see and spot 20 dudes, go nuts. If you spam spot 5 times into the darkness and get no bites, you can't spot again for a bit.

It's to make it so you can spot people you actually see, but not use it as some form of bush sweeping radar. I don't really see a problem with the system. IRNV is far more of an issue imo.

As far as getting spotted by enemies constantly, they are probably using the IRNV scope, which pretty much a cheat code at this point. I will be amazed if it doesn't get nerfed  beyond belief.

http://bf3blog.com/2011/11/battlefield-3-criticized-by-peta-over-animal-cruelty/

Oh PETA, you do more to hurt the cause of those against animal cruelty than any video game ever could.

Serious question: Do people in the US really take PETA seriously? I mean, aside from vapid and brain-dead models and celebrities?

Define take seriously?  I think people assume they mean what they say, but I don't think people take them seriously as in give a shit what they say. 

Yeah, well as in over here people take, say, the RSPCA seriously. Which I think is the same as most countries' SPCA (ours just has "Royal" in front of it).

The local SPCAs usually are well liked. They don't really do much besides take in strays and do health care and awareness campaigns.

PETA is just crazy, and nobody actually takes them seriously or ever wants their endorsement.

yeah it made rushes even stupider. I remember my teammates react in horror as I detonated the 6 x C4 when an enemy came to arm the bomb in BC2.
No such thing here, baby. Setting the bomb..oh wait what's this C4 doing here...oh shi---

WHAT THE FUCK?! I had to re-check if I was still reading BF3 thread, you PETA motherfuckers. GTFO.

 :why_so_serious:

You think the fringes will cease to surprise you ... and then they pull this kind of shit out of their hat. Bravo.

Fucking nutcases.

They should get together with Jack Thompson...

They shd just put in maps where some desert lions spawn and start mauling the snipers in the edges of the cliff....and I'll swoop in my Black Hawk minigun to drill some holes in Elephants trampling our capture points.

What about the poor poor elephants in Age of Empires II?

Oh wait, that game's not new or popular enough, is it? :oh_i_see:

Try this:  Place your mines, then when you die spawn as a different class.  Your mines will last until they kill someone  because :dice:

Also because ::Dice::, you can place 6 mines at a time.

Oh, but if you respawn, the counter resets. So plant 6 mines, die, plant 6 more, die.. etc until the entire map is a field of tank death.

It's funny planting a few mines near a flag approach and hanging out. I got 7 tank kills in a row from the same dudes who kept coming back and hitting the exact same mines.

Awesome,  I will try this tonight.

I hope nobody tells PETA about mmo, where you have to kill TEN rats!

Bravo, Sir!

Hopefully the first Skyrim mod will be a quest to kill 10 PETA members.

I've been doing some reading...

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/288293/battlefield-3-pc-console-ports-not-how-we-do-things-says-dice/

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/324517/battlefield-3-lead-platform-switched-to-consoles-mid-development/


“We said originally that the PC was the lead SKU of the game, but in mid-production we switched to console as lead platform to make sure we could get all the versions done for release,”

Apparently the 360 version had (early on) outsold the PC and PS3 versions combined (not counting digital distribution). I imagine whatever "onslaught" mode-alike that they release down the line will also come with PC-centric promises, be delayed, and then be quietly dropped.

So, kind of like id Software with RAGE, then. And borderlands. So much for promises. :why_so_serious:

/facepalm

I didn't cry out? I stopped buying them. Besides - when a PC title has non-intrusive DRM, I'm happy to buy it.

Yeah, there's quite a number of objectives where you just take the building down i- mortars, C4, RPG, whetever - instead of worrying about a prolonged firefight defending the box so it goes off.,.

Quick question, If I am able to run the first and second mission (up until you get to go after the sniper, could not stand the gameplay longer  :uhrr: )on the lowest quality setting on my dated machine, should I be able to run multiplayer or is it more taxing ?

/crickets

Anyone ?

Since you appear to have it installed, why not just try it?

Yeah, I'm confused. was there any risk of losing anything by logging online at all?
Oh, yeah. Fuck the main campaign, if you can only play the main campaign for this game, then you should try to sell it off or get a refund. The main campaign is just utter shit with no redeemable parts.

I borrowed a copy from my coworker, but he instructed me NOT to try multiplayer for fear of his account getting banned.  :awesome_for_real:

edit to add: or my own old EA-account from BC2. Origin makes me nervous.  :grin:

How would you compare it to BFBC1/2/MW1/2/3? I assumed it was pretty much more of the same?

Is it me, or is the m60 in this game a pile of horse dick? The recoil is riduclous, it takes a long time to kill someone even at close range, and the irons are awful.

Playing with this gun enough to unlock the holo / grip / extended mags, I cant see why anyone should use this gun over the M240

BF3 has destructible environments and near photo-realistic (if your PC can handle it) graphics. In every other way it is a step back from BF2.

 :mob:

Is there a meaningful difference between 5.56 and 7.62, or do the guns all have fantasy stats based on how cool the devs think the guns are like they have in most shooters? Particularly in response to M60 vs M249...

I was just going to post that I don't like BF3.  The balance is terrible, Recon is terrible, the unlock grind is out of control, and it's too hard to pick up people from the background.

Your summary is better than mine.  It's not worth buying.

BF3 online community is already dying, this soon after release. Being huge fan of BF series, I can't say I can recommend BF3. I heard it plays much better on a console, as a console FPS it may have legs, but as a PC title with realistic graphics gameplay is all about trench warfare, where couple maps (metro for example) are unplayable because it is not physically possible to make past well-defended chokes.

Do you have actual numbers to back up this claim?

No numbers, but all my favorite servers  (about 10) from around release day are now perpetually empty.

I have mixed feelings about this game, on one hand, it's still Battlefield, yet there's some plus and minuses.
+ Weapons handling is still fantastic. Some guns have high rate of fire and is a nightmare to snipe at long range, but a monster at close combat. Different firing modes are also available. It felt authentic and offer enough variety that I tweak my setup on some maps. F2000 with 850 ROF is perfect for close fights while the balanced M16A3 will work better in open maps.
+ Vehicles Disables are now possible. No longer the tank will be fully operational at 1% armor condition. It'll start burning when struck at critical spot. 49% and it'll start burning till repairs are done. Helicopters will eat most armor alive if AA don't do their job.
+ Vehicles are still fun. Flying is easier. Tanks felt smooth and powerful. Yet vulnerable - as it should be when dealing with infantry in buildings.

- Unlocks are overblown. There's really no need to go this far. Gun attachments should have been universal. There's no excuse for me to unlock a red dot scope for the M16, only to lose it when I try a new gun like the F2000.
- Vehicles sub-systems are now unlocks. Holy shit. Flares, Zoom Optics, even guided TV missiles. It makes heli-whoring worse. A noob gunner will not outperform a veteran one..not with the basic gun.
-Main campaign is suffering from 'trying to be CoD' syndrome, it was very, VERY bad. If anyone disagrees, I guess I don't like to be hand-held in action game. Imagine Doom with a straightforward corridor. Literally, in the first mission you are running in a narrow train, with no way but forward. Dice is really bad at pacing the action, too. Often times, I took initiative and wasn't rewarded, because the door simply won't open without my AI teammates walking forward. Their primary function is solely to soak bullets since most kills are done by you. Even flying a jet traps you as a co-pilot, firing missiles and flares - think Rebel Assault.
-The Co Op missions are just good for one thing - and one thing only: Helicopter Practice. The rest pits you and your partner against 20-40 insurgents. I completed one human wave mission before deciding to call it quits. Fuck the unlocks. It wasn't fun.
- Multiplayer maps get imbalanced easily. Operation Metro is shit from the get-go. When a server adds that as map rotation, it's time to switch. Damavand Peak is also suffering from just one concentrated action. It's not very fun when ground infantry is given only two narrow passages that rocket spam will destroy anything. Or just park a van and drill it with turret. That, or risk tank shells in the dark tunnel road.
- Mobile Camper syndrome - they really amped the kill speed in this game. At long range, you won't die as easy, but at mid range and below, prepare to be blow away in seconds. I had instances where I killed 2-3 closely bunched infantry with the SCAR-H SMG, turn around, drill another with one clip. That's 4 kills in 10 seconds. And another guy spawned behind me with MG. It was comical as fuck. But that's what happens when spawn timers are so ridiculously short. If you don't wipe out a squad, don't expect them not to respawn. There's literally moments where you thought you cleared an alley, and settled down to cap the flag, only to be jumped by a fresh spawner. Not fun.

That said, the Support Class is comical when they unlock the C4 satchels. Remember that grenade takes such a LONG time to get resupplied? *Rummages through supply pack...where is that round thing...hmmm* No such thing with C4. You can spam it so quick that a jeep can be stickied with 6 C4 in matter of seconds if you have an ammo pack on the ground. Thing is, you can create passages easily by blowing wall sections and flank enemies quickly. That's one aspect that I appreciate in BF3, you can take a class and tweak your role accordingly.

The dying community can be attributed to the newcomers to the series realizing that this isn't the game for them. The speed of death is too fast, TBH. And hardcore server is a joke with the infrared Scope. I'm still waiting for Karkand + Wake Island map pack...and playing the odd round or three but yes, it was generally 'quieter' now.