BF3 Beta invites with MOH LE

Spear

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1109659p1.html

This brings the horrifying possibility of console influences on BF3.

And EA's own statement of this:

http://www.ea.com/1/beta

seyeM

Great and terrible news at once. Hopefully the PC version will be superior, and the consoles will get a game more in line with their capabilites - like Bf2 on the PC and Bf2:Modern Combat on the Xbox

dazftw

Its funny i'm playing bfbc2 on the xbox because my friends do. If they dumb this down for the pc guys ill be majorly pissed. Its the one game I was hoping would bring me back to playing bf again on the PC. I played tons of bf2.

If they don't have prone im going to cry.

christophicus

I'd be surprised if they make the PC version of the game much different to the console version, it just doesn't make financial sense to do it that way.

TBH BC2 isn't that bad from a PC perspective. It's the only platform I play it on and I'm not massively upset that the PC versions and Console versions are nearly identical.

I mean, what are we really missing from BC2? And editor and console, that's about it.

The lack of prone is something that lots of people cried about simply because it was a feature which they felt was being taken away from them. In reality it hasn't really affected gameplay all that much and has reduced the amount of possible bugs and glitching.

Blazer

ah no prone sucks..if anything they should be giving it to snipers anyway..
If BF3 is basically a copy of BC2 then it's going to be a disaster and basically no one playing it 6 months later..
Look at BF2...5 years later it's still being played by thousands..

Auvers

christophicus wrote: »

I mean, what are we really missing from BC2? And editor and console, that's about it.

you obviously have never played a lot of the Battlefield series on the PC because the difference is vast between BF2 and BC2

I wouldnt worry as BF3 is in development for the last three\four years, I think you will get the full on experience with the PC version, I hope they revert the playablity to something like Battlefield Vietnam

and a watered down console version following the success of BC2

rzelky

Is there any info @ bf3 ?
Coz unfortunately the games that are to come out will - 85% of the time - be :
- Modern
- Future
- Terrorism
- End of the world/genocide/neotechnology [even the racing games are using this - well paid ]
and ofcourse
- NUKE NUKE NUKE NUKE

and the gameplay 90% of the time will be : C A S U A L gaming = ALOT of monies ...
Will BF3 be a good game ?

Spear

rzelky wrote: »

Is there any info @ bf3 ?
Coz unfortunately the games that are to come out will - 85% of the time - be :
- Modern
- Future
- Terrorism
- End of the world/genocide/neotechnology [even the racing games are using this - well paid ]
and ofcourse
- NUKE NUKE NUKE NUKE

and the gameplay 90% of the time will be : C A S U A L gaming = ALOT of monies ...
Will BF3 be a good game ?

The leaked PDF concept doc from a few years back had a modern setting, 40 vs 40 teams, with about 48 vehicles, with 17 weapons per faction, and a further 22 general weapons unlocks. But this could all have changed.

Hercule

wasnt there some sh1t like this with BFBC2 whereby you got BF1943 beta? - hows that working out?

Personally, I dont trust EA/Dice to produce games of a high standard anymore - primarily because of their hideously clunky game engines BF has never had a well optimised engin - how many times do they "patch out a memory leak" in their patches - they need to go to quake engine/unreal engine variants that have tried and tested success.

Auvers

What's known so far:

It's a Multiplatform game for XBoX360, PS3 and PC

If you buy the Medal of Honor Limited Edition you'll get a Beta-Key at some point in the future.

Battlefield 3 uses the Frostbite 2.0 Engine, which is developed from the ground up "for all platforms", while the Frostbite Engine was a console engine.

The Battlefield 3 PC Version will be using DX10/11 only, it will not support DX9/XP anymore and it'll be "optimized" for 64Bit CPUs.

They "would like" to get back to 64 player maps on PC.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1109659p1.html
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/14494-battlefield-3-leaving-dx-9-behind-frostbite-2-engine-good-news-for-pc-gamers/va

Especially the 2nd article is worth reading:

After the Battlefield 3 "announcement" last week indicated the game would be going multiplatform, many PC gamers were outraged, worrying the series' next flagship title would be tarnished for the sake of console players.

While EA wasn't willing to comment on the state of the PC version, we were able to dig up some info which should put your mind at ease -- scratch that, make it very excited.

Firstly, we learn via Twitter from DICE rendering architect Johann Andersson the engine BF3 is built on -- Frostbite 2.0 -- is "primarily developed for DirectX 11"; XP and DX9 won't be supported (though you may be able to hack it). Also the engine will be especially optmized for 64-bit -- thankfully a lot of you have chosen the road less travelled. Good news in itself, but since consoles only support DX9, the implication is the PC version will be a "true" PC game.

An interview (PDF) between AMD and Anderrson back in November taught us DICE has been involved with DX11 from a very early stage, which helped them get in all the features and improvements important to the team, like multicore optimization, multithreading support (more variation, detail, improved load times, smoother performance), compute shader support (more dynamic light sources), and lastly, tesselation (more detailed and more realistically rendered objects). It's a fascinating read for tech heads, so give the full interview a look if you're interested. Also check out a more in-depth look at the features in our DirectX 11 By the Numbers article. The short version is this: Battlefield 3 should be a huge jump forward that will please those with great hardware, particularly if it's running on Windows 7 64-bit.

Now, many players are worrying 3 will turn out more like Bad Company 2. While DICE did do a pretty good job in making it feel like a PC title, it's no classic Battlefield.

Firstly, you must understand Bad Company 2 was never a "true" Battlefield game, so it's not fair to assume this is the direction DICE will be heading in, at least on PC. Series associate producer Barrie Tingle has said, "Battlefield Bad Company 2 is NOT a sequel to Battlefield 2 or 2142; it is a sequel to Battlefield Bad Company and as such the list of features matches that of the original game and not that of past Battlefield games." In other words, it was always intended as an offshoot, not a monster, flagship title like previous games have been.

But no matter -- the team has already admitted it was Frostbite's first time on PC and so, limited in ways. According to Battlefield forum mod "crazycanuck", based on his experiences and "some conversations", Frostbite 2 is built from the ground up to "be more efficient and take advantage of the PC's abilities." He also says the team is "very excited about what FB2 and BF3 together are going to produce", especially as they've been in development for a number of years (four to six, word has it).
Again from the mouth of Johann, we're told Frostbite 2 is "developed simultaneously for the strengths of each platform (i.e. we use the best API for each platform)." In other words, it's a multiplatform engine, but a good one that should satisfy all players, no matter the platform, in the same sense BioWare or Capcom have or CD Projekt will be with The Witcher 2.

The other big issue is maps -- BC2 had some pretty small ones and as a result, a smaller player cap. Previous series entries included huge, sprawling maps which made for some real in-depth tactics. For this we go back to May, when senior gameplay designer Alan Kertz wrote to a fan inquiring about the lower play count, "For Battlefield it's bandwidth; we are bandwidth capped on the consoles. For PC, I'd like to get back to big scale 64 player."

It's hard to say then what will happen, but they've said it is clear with them fans want the classic stuff. Perhaps PC players will get their own maps, or maybe console maps will be based on the PC maps but scaled down considerably -- both seem like entirely plausible scenarios. We've seen the latter played out alongside further, bigger scale changes in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, a console-centric version of Battlefield 2 which came about four months after the PC version. Sadly though, Kertz' response to a fan today regarding this in relation to BC2 says, "It was two completely different games; BC2 is not 2 completely different games. Reality says it costs too much."

That doesn't mean the PC version won't be great -- DICE are clever people, after all. Take this quote from former DICE CEO Fredrik Lilegren who said in February, "What the PC version is going to be, Battlefield 3, I think it's going to absolutely blow everyone away, but I can't tell you what it is, but it will blow people away."

Then there is of course the issue of mods, from which we've seen some truly epic work like the "Desert Combat" 1942 mod (the team went on to help make Battlefield 2 and then create full games of their own like Frontlines: Fuel of War). Then there's Commanders, the "Comma Rose", LAN play, spectating, battlerecorder, and so on. Many of these features, seemingly, are being considered for a future BC2 patch, nevermind BF3. We're not guaranteeing any of these features will be in BF3; we're saying based on the evidence, it looks good.

christophicus

Sc@recrow wrote: »

ah no prone sucks..if anything they should be giving it to snipers anyway..
If BF3 is basically a copy of BC2 then it's going to be a disaster and basically no one playing it 6 months later..
Look at BF2...5 years later it's still being played by thousands..

Yeah and EA/DICE haven't made a cent off of many of those players for 5 years. Seriously, that's the way publishers in particular are looking at it now, that's why Activision are looking to bring in some method of charging players for online play with CoD. Despite MW2's massive success, Activision have realised that players are spending massive amounts of time playing that game, and are therefore not spending money on any of their other games. Although I'd love to see it, I doubt too many companies will make BF2 like scenarios where the leveling and achievement system lasts so long.

Auvers wrote: »

you obviously have never played a lot of the Battlefield series on the PC because the difference is vast between BF2 and BC2

I wouldnt worry as BF3 is in development for the last three\four years, I think you will get the full on experience with the PC version, I hope they revert the playablity to something like Battlefield Vietnam

and a watered down console version following the success of BC2

I dunno I wouldn't say I haven't had experience with previous BF titles. Granted I only started getting into it with BF (didn't have a rig capable of playing games before then), but I have over 400 hours logged on 2142 and about 200 logged on BF2. So yeah, I am familiar with some of the older PC only games. I do take your point though, after being reminded of Battlerecorder, and to a lesser extent spectating. The lack of jets and 64 players could be considered a problem by some I suppose, but that was more of a design issue than anything, they never intended to have those, this is a different series.

Spear wrote: »

The leaked PDF concept doc from a few years back had a modern setting, 40 vs 40 teams, with about 48 vehicles, with 17 weapons per faction, and a further 22 general weapons unlocks. But this could all have changed.

I could have sworn that was a BS document, no?

Spear

christophicus wrote: »

I could have sworn that was a BS document, no?

EA/Dice never denied it, just made a generic statement that they didn't comment on rumours. It's been three years since then, and the docs claimed a 2008 release, so it's effectively BS anyway.

shootermacg

Was BC2 such a bad game?
the only thing it was missing IMO was interesting maps, a lot of the maps sucked tbh.
It has much more reliable aiming, I personally hope they keep this for BF3.

The destructable scenery is sweet, as is having buildings you can enter, although this type of feature doesn't seem to lend itself to bigger scale maps, pointless taking a chopper/jet if everyones under cover.

It could have used bigger squads, less CGs and snipers (until we take snipers (ie:easymode) out of games, they'll always be less dynamic/fun).
I was dissappointed with the interface but I can live with it.
I always know when buying a BF title that it is never going to be optimised and will come with bugs. in comparrison to BF2142 it's such a leap forward, I tried BF2142 recently and had to stop, it's so bloody slow and the guns had no grunt.

So if they release some better maps I'll be back to BC2 in a shot.
I think it's the poor level design that lets this game down in the end.

the_syco

shootermacg wrote: »

It could have used bigger squads, less CGs and snipers (until we take snipers (ie:easymode) out of games, they'll always be less dynamic/fun).

I snipe with an M60 :P But yeah, I get your point. Heck, taking prone out of the game helped balance the snipers a bit: they had to stand miles back, instead of going prone close to their target.

The only thing that sucked are the maps, and lack of a mode that could be used for clan wars. And by god, the maps sucks. So far, they have released the same map with under every mode possible. This is what really sucks. Every other Battlefield, you could make maps and mods, except for this one. Heck, they're making a mod (Nam), and will probably charge you for it.

If they released half decent maps I'd also be back playing it, but nope, no hope there.

Somethjing to consider: they wanted to do this in BF2. Because people could host their own servers, people deisgned maps from the ground up using 3DSMAX and people played them. This time around, the servers are locked down, and thus there's no way someone can add a mod or a map to it.

jumbobreakfast

christophicus wrote: »

I dunno I wouldn't say I haven't had experience with previous BF titles. Granted I only started getting into it with BF (didn't have a rig capable of playing games before then), but I have over 400 hours logged on 2142 and about 200 logged on BF2. So yeah, I am familiar with some of the older PC only games. I do take your point though, after being reminded of Battlerecorder, and to a lesser extent spectating. The lack of jets and 64 players could be considered a problem by some I suppose, but that was more of a design issue than anything, they never intended to have those, this is a different series.

I've gone back to 2142 and I can assure you that the difference is huge between legacy BF and the BC series. The biggest difference being the size of the maps and the freedom that this gives you. BC2 focuses on tube maps with pretty much 1 path from one side of the map to the other, with the BF series even the small maps allow you to sneak around a lot more and hence gives you much more options when playing.

I liked BC2 but playing 2142 again has put me off the game completely and I am seeing more and more of the old 2142 regulars appearing week by week.

Dcully

2142 is a cracking BF game imo, vastly under rated.
Unfortunately i cant find my game , might try pick it up cheap somewhere.
Are there many servers running still?

the_syco

Dcully wrote: »

2142 is a cracking BF game imo, vastly under rated.
Unfortunately i cant find my game , might try pick it up cheap somewhere.
Are there many servers running still?

Which reminds me, must reinstall Crysis, and its mod, Mechwarrior Living Legends.

shootermacg

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

I've gone back to 2142 and I can assure you that the difference is huge between legacy BF and the BC series. The biggest difference being the size of the maps and the freedom that this gives you. BC2 focuses on tube maps with pretty much 1 path from one side of the map to the other, with the BF series even the small maps allow you to sneak around a lot more and hence gives you much more options when playing.

I liked BC2 but playing 2142 again has put me off the game completely and I am seeing more and more of the old 2142 regulars appearing week by week.

But and this is a big BUTT, it's like running through treacle, the only reason you don't die is because the aiming is crap.
If I saw you running in your BF2142 limp with my BC2 physics, I'd think SWEET! not gonna bother with the headshot, I think this calls for the knife!

Coming from a quake 3 background I favor movement speed over shortcuts. So basically what you all seem to be saying is: BC2 great game, great physics, great guns but bad maps..I agree! But I'd rather watch paint dry then play BF2142 now.

I actually reinstalled the game, tried to play for 5 minutes and gave up, used to love it but it's day has passed, it was like playing swatt 4 after a game of quake 3. Why should we the gamer have to put up with poor movement, now if they brought out a mod that upped the movement, I'd give it another go for sure, probably wouldn't even be hard to do, just a variable that needs to be changed IMO.

Wonda-Boy

If there is a mod that ups the speed of gameplay I would deffo go back for a game. But as was already posted the game is absolute dire at normal speed. And its not just the movement, even selecting guns is sooooo slow......:(

The game in its day was just awesome, but why take 1 step forward and 2 steps back. All BC2 needed/needs were bigger maps, shame really. But I hope they see the mass decline (have not even loaded it up in months) and use it to make the next BF series better.

Dcully

Im playing on some infantry only servers the last few days and the game is so much better without the vehicles.
Africa Harbor on Conquest is a class infantry map,i found a nice UK server running that map 24/7.