Battlefield Heroes New Landing Video & Open Beta

[Jimbo]

Battlefield Heroes

I figured they would have had more fan fair as they lifted the NDA, put up a new video, and started open beta.

[K9]

 

That trailer music is very sunday-morning cartoon theme, but I guess that fits with the game.

[HaemishM]

Wait, the NDA is down? Glad they told us beta testers.

/meh I haven't played in months. I hope the game is better now than it was then.

[AcidCat]

/meh I haven't played in months. I hope the game is better now than it was then.

Yeah. It kept my interest for maybe 2-3 hours. I can't imagine it could have improved all that much.

[Prospero]

If you're going to be ironic with your trailer at least try to be funny. Just a little bit. Also, their engine can't hold up to that kind of presentation.  

[Sky]

Meh. Dice jumped the shark a while ago.

[Prospero]

If you should decide to play with your friends we want to help you make it as easy as possible. Simply rent a server, choose the settings you like and enter combat. Because different people have different preferences we like to offer two sets of options.

WTF? If you want to play with all of your friends you have to rent a server?!?!? I'm just going to assume this service is poorly described, because that is idiotic.

[Malakili]

I played this for one evening and then never really felt compelled to play again, which seems about par for the course for people posting in this thread.  There just wasn't really anything that made me say "yeah, i definitely want to go play that now" instead of something like Team Fortress 2, which despite the problems I have with it, seems to be one of the only shooters worth playing right now. (Though I recently got my hands on a copy of Call of Duty World at War, and that seems fun, though I don't know if it will stand the test of time).

Also, the fact that it is third person drove me nuts, I hate 3rd person shooters.

[K9]

3rd person?

 

[HaemishM]

Yeah, the 3rd person was a problem, but I got past that. The avatars and the ability to customize their uniforms and gear (with REAL MONEY!) was also decent and quite funny. But the game itself? Very very meh. It might have been that 1 map was decent and 1 map was way too spread out for the kind of numbers they were putting in it. It may have been that the vehicles weren't very good. Control was mediocre at best. They've added a 3rd map but I haven't been back to play it.

Given the choice between this or Battlefield 2 or 2142 or Team Fortress 2, I'll take any of the above over this game. Hopefully they don't screw the pooch on Battlefield 1943 later this year or Battlefield 3 next year.

[Jimbo]

Battlefield 1943 comes out for playstation and xbox live June 2009.

http://planetbattlefield.gamespy.com/battlefield-1943/?game=11

[Nebu]

Battlefield 1943? 

My instincts tell me that this smacks of a Madden-esque delivery. 

[HaemishM]

It's coming out on the PC a bit later. Only 3 maps (or 2 and then the third gets unlocked when the community registers 43 million kills). It's 24 players a side BF1942 only with the new DICE graphics engine. If it's cheap, I'll probably buy it, but I'm not paying $50 for 2 maps.

[Malakili]

If it's cheap, I'll probably buy it, but I'm not paying $50 for 2 maps.

Wait, what?  I thought this game was free, and that they planned to make their money off the RMT.

[Prospero]

He's talking about 1943.

[Malakili]

Oh, nevermind, I'm just an idiot.

[Mrbloodworth]

It's coming out on the PC a bit later. Only 3 maps (or 2 and then the third gets unlocked when the community registers 43 million kills). It's 24 players a side BF1942 only with the new DICE graphics engine. If it's cheap, I'll probably buy it, but I'm not paying $50 for 2 maps.

The engine from bad company, meaning destructible environments.

[Jimbo]

Battlefield Heroes is supposed to be light hearted and see how many goofy things can happen as you battle up the ranks.  Yes a rip off of Team Fortress 2, but still fun in another way, in that you get DICE with the vehicle combat.

You can play with friends without renting a server.  They need to add some more stuff to the FAQ, but what you do is hit play now, get to your hero page, then hit friends and add the friend as there account or hero name (mine is JimboF13, it will then show if i am playing and what hero I'm playing), after you add a friend, you can then join that friend in a game.

The private server thing is if you want to make it for you and your friends only, sort of like any other FPS.

It is free, so at least try it out and see if you like it or not, I will say it depends on who you get in with to play on your team, but that is like any other FPS too.

[Malakili]

So, this appears to be out of open beta and live now.

[Threash]

I like it better than TF2 so far, and not just because of the vehicles.  Seems a bit silly to completely give up on the female customers by not having female avatars, when your entire business model revolves around people playing dress up you want to at least pretend like you are interested in having female customers.

[Der Helm]

I like it better than TF2 so far, and not just because of the vehicles.  Seems a bit silly to completely give up on the female customers by not having female avatars, when your entire business model revolves around people playing dress up you want to at least pretend like you are interested in having female customers.

Better than TF2 ? No way, I'd have been content with the original BF mechanics and better graphics.

I am having fun though atm, playing as a melee specced sneaking commando. 

[Sky]

Seems a bit silly to completely give up on the female customers by not having female avatars, when your entire business model revolves around people playing dress up you want to at least pretend like you are interested in having female customers.

Think of the money to be had by charging RMT for bikinis.

[Prospero]

I've been playing it a bit trying to find the fun and it's just not there for me. It's vaguely entertaining, but there are too many annoyances and rough edges for me.

• Not being able to change classes without leaving the map is obnoxious.
• Levels that greatly improve a person's ability to kill are dumb. It just sucks in every possible way.
• The airplanes are way underpowered compared to BF:1942. The only thing they are good for is getting to the enemy quickly.
• I can't delete my stupidly named character that I made to just play with the very weak character creator
• The community sucks

The tanks are still good fun and I've had some fun with sniper wars, but taken as a whole it's a big ball of meh. I think the kicker is not being able to pick a server to play on. I realize that this game is supposed to be more casual friendly with just one big button to get you into the action quickly, but I like having my FPS version of Cheers where I can go play and everybody knows my name.

[Der Helm]

• The community sucks

This. Stupid, badmouthed and incompetent.

[Jimbo]

To bookmark a server, hit Tab + F5, then when you get into your hero, look under the connections and you can see the bookmarked servers and pick to connect to them.

To delete a hero isn't in yet, we had to post in the forum to have a hero deleted, then they would do it, it took DICE 72 hours to delete some heroes.

Right now the amount of Nationals is amazing, I join as a Royal, and it is usually 4 vs 8, sure I'm getting like 14 kills, but it sucks for our team.

Of course I like it better than most of the other FPS'ers since it makes you play all 4 maps, and not just play one map over and over and over...

[Prospero]

It's good to know there is a way to bookmark a server, but I suspect that alone won't solve the problem. In say the TF2 world, communities host servers where their members and other can play. The existing community sets a tone and a level of behavior. As a player I can search around to find a community that matches my personality and skill level. Even if I were to bookmark a server in BF:H it's very unlikely the same players will be there again, and I probably won't get to spend enough time with any particular set of people to find the ones I like. I've made a number of "TF2 friends" playing on the same set of 7-8 servers.

There is a whole set of interactions that I think BF:H needs to work on to really build a thriving community. I think it is a solvable problem even with their current matchmaking system, but they have to think it is a problem first.

The lack of auto-balance pisses me off in the worst way. It fucking sucks to be spawn camped to death 3 vs 8. I can't imagine how they ever thought that could be fun.

[HaemishM]

I haven't been able to play at all since it got released. The 2 times I've tried, I've been told there was no matching server. I want to see how much it's improved, but my patience is wearing thin because it just didn't grab me in beta.

[jakonovski]

Mixed first impressions. At first I thought it was a neat little shooter that didn't take itself too seriously. Then I got sniped to death for an hour straight. One of those games again...

[Triforcer]

Jesus fucking christ, what makes these online games offer SHITTY server selection methods?  This problem was fucking solved with BF1942- just let us see the servers and pick them!  Left 4 Dead pulled this crap too (at least at release, I haven't played in months).

And yes, with three classes, one of which is a sniper (and can cloak?  Its hard to find hard info on class abilities), there are going to be sniping problems. 

[jakonovski]

Apparently the commando class is a stealther, sniper, one-shot knifer as well as the fastest class on foot.

Holy balance problems Batman!

[Jimbo]

More lone wolf problems than class balance.

Commando (sniper sort of) can stealth, but the stealth isn't great and breaks as soon as you attack, and has a recharge.

If the Gunners or Soldiers actually stick together they capture the flags and smash the other team easier.  Heck I tell the other commando's to team up with me and we will go far, when everyone runs off, you get the rants of damn sniper killed me.

BTW there is no one shot weapon, so even when the commando attacks you still have a chance to turn and nail them.  Knife damage is capped at 65 on a perfect stab (so 2 hits on a commando, 3 on soldier, 4 on gunner, with the poison blade letting you do more but still not a 1 hitter), max rifle shot is 70 (that is having the ability piercing shot @ 5 levels, so 2, 3, and 4 again).

It drives me nuts when I join a server, see my team is a commando (6 of them) and me the soldier, and I see my teammates scatter all over and wonder why we are loosing.  That and the Royals are seeming to be underdogs right now, which is different than beta as everyone wanted to be a Royal then.

Of course all the FPS'ers communities can be assholes, I remember them in CoD, PS, Quake, Halo, BF, etc... guess my skin is thick to it where it doesn't bother me, if I get a bunch of complainers or assholes I just quit the server and try a different or bookmarked server.

[Mrbloodworth]

Jesus fucking christ, what makes these online games offer SHITTY server selection methods?  This problem was fucking solved with BF1942- just let us see the servers and pick them! 

I bet you would want to go back to typing in IP addresses too.

 

[Threash]

That and the Royals are seeming to be underdogs right now, which is different than beta as everyone wanted to be a Royal then.

I checked out both sides and the nationals have WAY cooler looking customization stuff.  Its like they gave the royals all the vanilla looking normal army crap while the nationals got all the cool looking random shit.

[Triforcer]

Resounding meh.  Shooting people does roughly the damage of lightly hitting them with a pillow.  And that was with a Gunner.  I'd hate to see how long it takes a Commando or Soldier to kill someone. 

[HaemishM]

Finally got a chance to play this over the weekend. Played for about an hour.

It's just as meh as it was in beta. In fact, other than removing all the customization bits you had in beta (which you now have to buy) and adding a couple of maps, this IS the beta. The game plays the same, only now the Nationals are taking it in the pants. Most of the guns suck. Whatever work they did when they closed the beta the last time, it wasn't on the gameplay because it's still about as interesting as a rat fart in a windstorm. I've played worse, it's true. But nothing in the gameplay makes me want to plunk money down on it for cosmetic knickknacks. Choosing a server is still idiotic, there are way too many pauses between matches where the program doesn't even tell you why you have no ability to input any commands, and the paucity of maps, none of which are inspiring means this one is probably going to die a slow death.