EA™ and DICE™ present™ Battlefield™ 3

[Scratch]

I've joined the "platoon". Origin/BF3 ID: Skratches. Feel free to add me to your friends list. Hopefully I'll be around to join in on some classic thumbs action.

[Forbin]

I'm a huge fan of Battlelog.

Bad Company 2's server browser was an absolute mess. And so are so many shooters. CoD:WaW required you to quit if you refreshed the list for some users (and deleted data for others), even TF2 has serious "connection" problems with servers that fail to respond properly.

Making a web based server browser just makes so much sense. There are centuries more man-hours of experience in web technology, than any of the libraries that developers use in-game. It can be patched on the fly, there's proper targeted social networking that let's players take advantage of cool things that people have been exploring without spamming all their Facebook friends or Twitter followers with non-sense.

It's just good to see developers embracing the benificial parts of a service. I've been an Origin skeptic, but BF3/Battlelog makes me give EA the benefit of the doubt. They seem to committed, unlike most of their other half-assed attempts.

[Brannigan]

I'm a huge fan of Battlelog.

Bad Company 2's server browser was an absolute mess. And so are so many shooters. CoD:WaW required you to quit if you refreshed the list for some users (and deleted data for others), even TF2 has serious "connection" problems with servers that fail to respond properly.

Making a web based server browser just makes so much sense. There are centuries more man-hours of experience in web technology, than any of the libraries that developers use in-game. It can be patched on the fly, there's proper targeted social networking that let's players take advantage of cool things that people have been exploring without spamming all their Facebook friends or Twitter followers with non-sense.

It's just good to see developers embracing the benificial parts of a service. I've been an Origin skeptic, but BF3/Battlelog makes me give EA the benefit of the doubt. They seem to committed, unlike most of their other half-assed attempts.

I'll admit that quick match actually works really well in this. But if you're trying to join a specific server you like, it's horrendous, no option to auto-join that I've been able to find. Plus I just hate leaving firefox open in the background. The actual social stuff seems fine though.

[Lu]

A find the thing where you have to unlock attachments on a per weapon basis majorly annoying. So when you're playing US and you finally unlock your ACOG scope or whatever, you switch sides and you gotta unlock it all over again for the RU side. Fuck that shit, really.

[Armchair General]

What am I missing Poo? Should I get in on this? My life is in your hands.

[JonCole]

So, I basically thought the BF3 beta was total shit. Apparently, the BF3 beta isn't even reflective of the actual multiplayer of BF3 as it is now -

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/10/the-beta-and-battlefield-3/

[Gwardinen]

I believe if you didn't get a chance to play the Caspian Border map while it was briefly included in the beta (as I didn't, sadly) you also will have come away with a significantly worse impression than otherwise. From my understanding of those who got a chance to play it, Caspian Border was more of a traditional Battlefield map, large and covered in interesting vehicles and such. Operation Metro was a bad Call of Duty clone by comparison, and DICE having disabled Caspian Border was a very strange decision from a marketing and word of mouth perspective.

I get the feeling this is one beta that actually may have been run a little too much like an actual beta rather than the glorified demos we've become used to in recent times.

[Patters]

I believe if you didn't get a chance to play the Caspian Border map while it was briefly included in the beta (as I didn't, sadly) you also will have come away with a significantly worse impression than otherwise. From my understanding of those who got a chance to play it, Caspian Border was more of a traditional Battlefield map, large and covered in interesting vehicles and such. Operation Metro was a bad Call of Duty clone by comparison, and DICE having disabled Caspian Border was a very strange decision from a marketing and word of mouth perspective.

I get the feeling this is one beta that actually may have been run a little too much like an actual beta rather than the glorified demos we've become used to in recent times.

I played a round and a half Of Caspian Border which made up for the dreadful Metro. Metro is one of the worst maps I have played in a long time, it's too flat, the pacing is really weak due to it favouring campers. Caspian however is everything a Battlefield map should be, fast, fun and cool shit happens:

Starting the map I decided it was a good idea to get in a Jeep, I waited for a few minutes to see if anyone wanted to gun for me, they didn't, then I left. Full throttle to a point on the enemies side of the map, throwing my vehicle around corners violently, but not hitting any of them. As I approached the point I see two manned enemy tanks, one of which had it's cannon pointed directly at me, I immediately bail, while I see my Jeep's carcass continuing forward, hitting an enemy foot soldier and ending his life. Meanwhile I'm running to the building on my right for cover, where I hunker down until my buddy spawns on me. We proceed to the roof where I lay down covering fire, taking a couple of infantry with my M16, when he pulls out his RPG and takes down a tank. He however hasn't seen the second tank which fires and takes us out.

[JonCole]

I don't really want to get into it, as I've already bitched to high hell about the beta elsewhere. But my problems didn't end with the level design, which I thought was a big problem, but also just with the fact that you could die ridiculously quickly (especially from someone with an unlocked, quick-firing SMG or something). From that Joystiq article, it seems like you can take a little more damage which seems to inherently induce that kind of Battlefield firefights that I was hoping for. Arthur talked about the new damage modeling and feel of the guns making even Metro much more enjoyable, making the big areas a little more prone to prolonged firefights and flanking maneuvers.

[abelsave]

want to be able to buy this game once ive bought my new PC does anyone know the minimum specs, im about to buy my PC from Build Your Box i cant afford the most expensive graphics cards but was looking at GTX 550 Ti 1GB PC, good enough?

[Brannigan]

smgs are really the only issue for me. I actually was fine with metro, but this probably also has something to do with the fact that I vastly prefer rush to conquest. Caspian was fun for trying planes out, but conquest isn't quite my cup of tea. I did however jump a jeep into a low hovering helicopter and immediately quip that i was "out of bullets." So totally worth it there.

Oh and on Metro, the beta version was actually much better balanced than the alpha version. I saw that map won twice in alpha. People actually had a chance to win this time.

Also: http://bf3blog.com/battlefield-3-system-requirements/

[miffy495]

That's weird. I wonder why the required HDD space is 15GB for the disc version and 10GB for the digital download. You'd think the download would need more room?

[Patters]

That's weird. I wonder why the required HDD space is 15GB for the disc version and 10GB for the digital download. You'd think the download would need more room?

Probably for decompression reasons.

[Thompson]

Seems like i'm the only person on earth who is genuinely excited and impressed by what i've seen and played so far. Sure it's buggy, but A. You're dealing with DICE here, you've got to expect it, B. It's a pre-release product and C. Any game that tries to push the limit on a technical level is going to have issues, look at Crysis or RAGE.

Even if the full game was as buggy as what i've played, i'd still be alright with it, I love the way that game looks, sounds and feels.

[JonCole]

I don't understand why I should be okay with a game being buggy/rough because:

• The developer is notorious for it
  
• The version of the product the developer/publisher decided to show to millions of people a month before release/weeks before going gold was shoddy
  
• It's ambitious
  

Hell, I think RAGE is kind of a shitty game, regardless of what it was trying to do or the pedigree of the developer. If you're okay with what you experienced, I'm honestly glad. The more people that enjoy this game, the better. But I know I'm not going to put any money to it any time soon.

[Brannigan]

The beta/alpha had bugs but nothing that was gamebreaking for me, which is key. Rage on the other hand had major problems for a significant amount of people. I'm with Thompson on being pretty satisfied with what I've seen. My only real gripe with the game to be honest is lack of an auto-join function in battlelog.

[JonCole]

The beta/alpha had bugs but nothing that was gamebreaking for me, which is key. Rage on the other hand had major problems for a significant amount of people. I'm with Thompson on being pretty satisfied with what I've seen. My only real gripe with the game to be honest is lack of an auto-join function in battlelog.

Well, there were gamebreaking things for me, but I have no doubt that they'll be resolved when the game actually hits the market. My issue is with the simple fact that EA/DICE chose to put out this sub-par version of the game in front of people with any level of confidence. They know how the publishing pipeline works for XBL/PSN/PC, so saying "well, it's an old build" isn't a good excuse for me. It's not entirely a matter of how good or bad the game is, more the attitude of EA in this particular instance compounded with previous garbage concerning Origin vs Steam, etc.

[Thompson]

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Fuuuuu

[Thrik]

Similarly outrageous:

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The prospect of a Battlefield with a good single-player is kind of weird.

[Thompson]

The prospect of a Battlefield with a good single-player is kind of weird.

I always avoid watching trailers with any sort of singleplayer footage to avoid ruining the surprise, sadly those early trailers with the building falling were impossible to avoid, but i'm steering clear of most of their trailers at this point.

I'm not sure you could actually release a triple A FPS without a singleplayer campaign in this day and age, even Battlefield probably has to have one.

[JonCole]

This seems a bit like a potential clusterfuck -

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/our-battlefield-3-review-why-were-splitting-it-up-and-why-con/

Also, this isn't particularly reassuring to me as a primarily console shooter player -

Edited October 23, 2011 by JonCole

[SiN]

It's an unfortunate side effect of this console generation going so long. Frankly, I'm pretty impressed with all the crazy workarounds developers have come up with to squeeze more power out of these ageing machines, moreso than generations prior. Still, it's impressive from a technical point of view, but really crappy for the user experience.

Roll on, next gen consoles...

[Brannigan]

Of course, the pc version's gonna look better no matter what.

[Sno]

It's an unfortunate side effect of this console generation going so long.

Soon be rolling into year seven for the 360.

It's really quite crazy.

[JonCole]

Of course the PC version is going to look better, I just kinda think the Xbox 360 version (sans HD pack) looks shitty. The lighting is horrible and that guy looks like a cartoon character.