[ BF:V News ] General Battlefield Vietnam News

Winters

In an interview with boomtown.net, AJ Marini (BF:V lead designer) has said there will be no Capture the Flag and Team Death Match modes but there will be two new modes insted; Evolution and Custom Combat.

There is such a small percentage of people who played Capture the Flag and Team Death Match that we decided to drop those game modes all together, AJ Marini said.

In Evolution, the game spans across two historically tied maps. The scores from the first map, player and team, are then carried over to the second, AJ Marini explained.

Custom Combat, as the name implies, allows the server to customize the battle so it isn’t the same as the default. You are not limited to only changing armies, vehicles. In fact you can even exclude specific weapons or complete classes. So if you feel like a knife fight with only U.S. soldiers, you can do that.

From Boomtown.net

Sounds good. Very few servers have the TDM or CTF running and that was the reason for removing it from the game. Ill link you to the full interview when it is posted on the boomtown site. Hopefully it will give some more information on the gameplay and overall look and feel of Battlefield Vietnam

Winters

Also, just posted up are some new screenshots of BF:V. Thought you may like them


Pictures from planetbattlefield

Winters

Just to tell you lot [even more updates!] that Battlefield Vietnam is now listed on Play.com and Amazon.co.uk. It is scheduled for release on the 5th March 2004 and is priced as £29.99 on Play and £25.99 + P&P on amazon, though this may change.

Lock and load your M-16 and grab your flak jacket, it's time to hit the jungle in Battlefield Vietnam.

The Battlefield franchise is entering a new era with more firepower and beautiful yet ferocious new combat settings. Staying true to the over-the-top, action-packed multiplayer style that gave Battlefield 1942 its critical and commercial success, Battlefield Vietnam will drop players into some of the Vietnam War's fiercest battles. Fighting in theatres from jungles surrounding the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the city streets of Hue, players will choose from two well-equipped forces, the United States or the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Vietcong.

Offering an arsenal of weapons and vehicles authentic to the Vietnam conflict, players will battle in first-person perspective. The workhorse vehicle for the U.S. during the conflict was the helicopter and it will serve the same purpose in Battlefield Vietnam. The NVA will be outfitted with many Russian-made vehicles including the T-54 tank and Mig-21 jet. Taking a step forward from its franchise predecessors, Battlefield Vietnam will allow passengers to fire from moving vehicles and players will have the ability to airlift other vehicles via helicopter. The game will also deploy new rendering and sound engines that will help take players deeper into the 1960's mindset.

Battlefield Vietnam, like its brethren Battlefield games, allows players to join forces on teams in games up to 64 players over the Internet, or jump into single player action. Battlefield Vietnam is being developed by Digital Illusions Canada, a subsidiary of Sweden-based Digital Illusions.

From Play.com

I'll add more as usual as it is released.

Winters

Full interview with Battlefield: Vietnam developer AJ Marini is now on Boomtown.

Battlefield 1942 hit the gaming community like a 200-metre wide meteor crashing through our planet’s atmosphere. Not least due to an excellent pre-release demo, which convinced enough people to buy the game, so that instantly it rivalled the popularity of other online-orientated action games of the time. Roughly 1.5 million units have been sold now, certainly fuelled by the appearance of brilliant mods like Desert Combat and Eve of Destruction. EoD simulated the Vietnam War, and that’s also where the official Battlefield sequel is heading.

We had an exclusive interview with Battlefield Vietnam’s leading designer, AJ Marini. As it turns out, Battlefield Vietnam is looking more and more like a distinctive game on its own, instead of just a rehash with better graphics.

Sssssssmokin
One of the most interesting areas of evolvement is the multiplayer game modes. While a few gamers have been enjoying Battlefield 1942’s Capture the Flag and Team Death Match modes, the vast majority only play the Conquest mode, which really is the heart of BF1942. Thus the development team will remove CTF and TDM entirely and instead add two completely new modes instead:

“We aren’t implementing CTF at all. There is such a small percentage of people who played Capture the Flag and Team Death Match that we decided to drop those game modes all together. What we have included are two new modes called Evolution and Custom Combat.

In Evolution, the game spans across two historically tied maps. The scores from the first map, player and team are then carried over to the second. Custom Combat, as the name implies, allows the server to customize the battle so it isn’t the same as the default. You can change armies, vehicles, and you can exclude specific weapons or complete classes. Feel like a knife fight with only U.S. soldiers, you can do that. Maybe you would like to see scouts versus engineers? You can do that as well. The server can set the game up however they like”, AJ Marini says.

Going to the movies
It also seems that Battlefield Vietnam is going to have a very cinematic feel. With music from the Vietnam War era blazing from the choppers’ speakers, you’d expect to meet Rambo with a torn shirt and red bandana skin, shooting down enemies with explosive arrows…

“Yes, and then scream “ADRIAN!” – I am just kidding of course. We used film as a point of reference for creating the visual elements in the game, not the gameplay. The biggest hurdle we had to overcome was the misconception that people had of the war. Many of the photos and reference didn’t look or feel like what people generally think about in regards to the Vietnam War. Most people only know the Hollywood side of it. Our character designs are based on the real world for the most part, but even there, the best reference came from film. We used that to our advantage to create a gameplay environment that completely immerses the player,” he explained.

Goliath vs. David? Forget about it…
What had me worried when the game was announced was the vast difference in the two opposing forces’ equipment and style of warfare. How could a game be fun when one army would be totally technical superior to the other? In a game like Battlefield a few good tank commanders can win no matter how many infantrymen they face. So what has the team done to balance out Vietcong with the, equipment wise, superior Americans?

“While researching, we found that the North Vietnamese had some very interesting Russian weapons and vehicles at their disposal. Remember, this is the Cold War era. Their weapons and vehicles are just as compelling as what the U.S. brought to the war. What it boils down to is the skill of each player and how he uses the tools given to him.

It is a misconception to think of the Vietnamese as poor folks with no weapons. That was not the case. This is a war, and both sides need to fear their enemy,” said AJ Marini.

Better than Eve of Destruction
With that settled it’s time to look at the relationship with Eve of Destruction – the mod that transforms BF1942 into a Vietnam War game. It’s as clear as snow on Mount Everest: the Battlefield Vietnam development team wants to create a game that gives us gamers a much better Vietnam War experience than Eve of Destruction (which actually IS really good):

“I guess I’ll leave it up to the public to decide, which game they prefer. My preference is obviously biased, but in my opinion what we’ve created here is amazing. Those who have seen and played it first hand have always come away impressed,” AJ Marini states.

But that’s not the only thing the team has high ambitions with. They are also keen not to repeat the mistake of releasing a game that has an appalling number of serious bugs, combined with a code that was so thirsty got resources that only high-end machines could run the game the way it was mean to be played.

“The overall game performance has been a very important aspect for us. By improving the overall performance we are putting fewer burdens on clients and servers. We are also trying to be careful with what information we pass along so that we don’t fill bandwidth with unessential information.

Furthermore no one ever tries to ship a game with bugs in it. Many bugs that existed in the original game were hard to find through the regular test methods. This time around, we are using experienced testers who know all about the BF1942 bugs. They’ll be hard at work trying to make sure those bugs don’t exist in BFV,” said AJ Marini.

Use your vote, man
An area that has not received much attention from the development team in regards to BF1942 is the voting system. Even with improvements it is still difficult to vote on public servers and most people barely know how to vote. Luckily the team will not just abandon BF1942 and implement a better voting system in Battlefield Vietnam. AJ Marini hints that this may actually be taken care of before the release of Battlefield Vietnam in a BF1942 patch.

However, the team is quite sure that Battlefield Vietnam will be bad news for Battlefield cheaters:

“We are planning on implementing anti-cheat measures. Cheaters really bother me because I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. I mean, are they so poorly skilled that they cannot play the game on equal terms with others? What kind of gain is there if it was gotten through a cheat?”

With the end of the interview drawing very close, we wanted to know one last thing: What’s driving guys like AJ Marini to create new games? Why not just be happy with the stuff the team has achieved (apart from the obvious money issues naturally, ed.):

“If people didn’t make new games, we would all still be playing Pong. Making games is my life. When the company is finished making a game, every one of us has an opinion about what we could have done differently. Remember that while the public waits for a game to be released, we are busy creating it. By the time the public gets to play a game for the first time, we’ve been playing it for months, or in the case of BFV, a year. We’re very creative people and we always have a drive to create something new.”

From Boomtown.net

Winters

Yes, EA say coming Spring 2004 and as mentioned above, Play.com have it set for March 5th. EA have released an official Video for it too which you can see on the official Battlefield 1942 homepage: Battlefield1942.com and also i believe its on fileplanet but i cant get into the link from DCU at the moment.

Also some screenshots form the video have appeared. Enjoy them as you wish

Jim

those screen shots look a bit ****e tbh. much prefare the other ones, perhaps there just bad quality. those guys dont look very vietnamese.

krattapopov

that game looks like the bees knees

Jim

tried to watch video from our 2mb line in work, but they have the player blocked.

facists bastards!