Battlefield 3

[ManaByte]

[MyNameIsMethodis]

stupid game for people who can't enjoy real gun games

[ManaByte]

stupid game for people who can't enjoy real gun games

DIAF

[pilonv1]

Just make a good pc version ffs

[Stoney Mason]

Will be interesting to see if its any different than the Bad Company series.

[Vizzys]

bad company 2 is almost perfect infantry combat, they just need to change up the vehicles a bit if they are going to make it 32+players, maybe add jets again

id love to see some scans

[Smooth Groove]

Coming out too quickly, imo.  BC:Vietnam just came out and it was pretty good.  I feel like they should take two years to make something that's epic instead of just another incremental upgrade. 

[Eel O'Brian]

i'd imagine they've been working on it for quite a while now

[Eel O'Brian]

yeah, if they succumb to the "constantly running and firing your gun every single second" style of play then i'm out

i doubt they will, though (although they might "simplify" like they did with BF1943)

[Stoney Mason]

It's not hard to predict how this is going to go. Most of the changes will be in terms of accesibility. There are still a lot of console people who don't like massive maps and running around forever. So the changes to the series will be to try to distinguish itself on that front and keep what makes Battlefield different while at the same time making it more accessible. The way something like Squad Spawning made BC 2 more accesible. Decisions like that.

[Eel O'Brian]

man, massive maps are what i expect out of a genuine battlefield game

there was nothing like cresting over a hill in BF1942 and seeing the tanks tearing each other up across the horizon, or seeing the cloud of parachutes dropping in the distance

it never felt like running around forever, it just heightened the tension before the clash

if they scale it back too much (on pc, don't care what they do for consoles) they can keep it

[Smooth Groove]

That would be awesome if they made a game with so much detail that it would barely run on most PCs, with max settings on.  Just like the good ol' days of the first Battlefield. 

[pilonv1]

man, massive maps are what i expect out of a genuine battlefield game

there was nothing like cresting over a hill in BF1942 and seeing the tanks tearing each other up across the horizon, or seeing the cloud of parachutes dropping in the distance

it never felt like running around forever, it just heightened the tension before the clash

if they scale it back too much (on pc, don't care what they do for consoles) they can keep it

It never felt like running around forever, because there was all this shit going on around you and running itself was dangerous. Really anything less than 40 players is a waste of time for PC. How hard is it to go back to what worked in 1942?

[cool breeze]

The squad system in Battlefield 2 pretty much solved any problem people had about the lull in action.  At the same time, it strengthen the bond with other players like no other game does.  It was actually fun to play a role in the larger battle with a few other people, and it would be to you and your team's benefit to play that role effectively.  And while you weren't always shooting those evil easterners or killing brave westerners, just completing objectives with your team like taking a flag had a lot of tension, even if was unguarded.

And yeah, I want planes and the ability to play as a dedicated vehicle operation to return.  I used to play BF1942 with a friend from school and he was incredible at flying the plane and would be in the sky 95% of the match.  I was never a great pilot, but I always appreciated it when the tank between me and a base exploded as I look up and see him fly away.

I wonder if they will ever work in Mirror's Edge mechanics too.  I remember hearing stuff about that.  Even if they just got rid of a sprint button and had it all momentum based, that would be great.

[cool breeze]

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/battlefield_3/b/pc/default.aspx
only thing important listed there is:

Online Multiplayer:
Competitive: 64-Player (PC) 24-Player (Console)

[Eel O'Brian]

I want some of the old jank back, let me sit on the wing of a plane plz

[duckman2000]

I used to play BF1942 with a friend from school and he was incredible at flying the plane and would be in the sky 95% of the match.  I was never a great pilot, but I always appreciated it when the tank between me and a base exploded as I look up and see him fly away.

You know, the only non-BF game that I have played that sort of captured that was Warhawk.

Which should have been more popular than it was.

[Raban]

I used to play BF1942 with a friend from school and he was incredible at flying the plane and would be in the sky 95% of the match.  I was never a great pilot, but I always appreciated it when the tank between me and a base exploded as I look up and see him fly away.

You know, the only non-BF game that I have played that sort of captured that was Warhawk.

Which should have been more popular than it was.

Thank you, my dear friend. Warhawk was amazing.

[Stoney Mason]

I bet a lot of folks who gotten into Battlefield via the Bad Company games would assume this is the third one and be really put off to find out the single player doesn't have anything to do with those games. They probably should have kept the BC series on consoles and kept the mainline games on the PC.

Maybe.

But they are a corporation. You don't leave money on the table.

As far as the player count it is what it is I guess.


Homefront is 16 on 16. Frontlines had a max of 50 players on consoles although it was also a pretty laggy game even for dedicated serves. Although that was probably because there weren't a lot of servers due to the low population of the game. And of course there is MAG with its high number count.

.

[Smooth Groove]

You could still plane ride in BF:Heroes.  I've never played it though so I'm not sure about the overall quality of the game.

[youtube=560,345]7x3lF-vyy4o&feature[/youtube]

I used to play BF1942 with a friend from school and he was incredible at flying the plane and would be in the sky 95% of the match.  I was never a great pilot, but I always appreciated it when the tank between me and a base exploded as I look up and see him fly away.

You know, the only non-BF game that I have played that sort of captured that was Warhawk.

Which should have been more popular than it was.

You get paid even for shilling old games?  Hook me up. 

[SantaC]

I really, really hope that "DICE sets it's sight on Call of Duty" is just something GameInformer added and isn't the goal by DICE.

of course it is Game Informer who wrote that sentence, how dumb can people be?

Also Frostibe 2 with DX11 will be a beast.

[SantaC]

I really, really hope that "DICE sets it's sight on Call of Duty" is just something GameInformer added and isn't the goal by DICE.

of course it is Game Informer who wrote that sentence, how dumb can people be?

You tell me.

Obviously I know someone at Game Informer wrote that specific line but I have to wonder if there's pressure on DICE to make a Call of Duty clone because EA is so desperate for one of those.

meh I hope not. PC version get.

[Eel O'Brian]

[youtube=560,345]xP0Ij1_VTY0[/youtube]

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2011/02/04/battlefield-3-is-coming-preorder-now.aspx##

This is it! We are very excited to announce the first details on Battlefield 3 and to kickstart the preorders for the Limited Edition!

Battlefield 3 is the true successor to Battlefield 2. Beyond our signature multiplayer, we have also included a full single-player campaign and a co-op campaign – all straight out of the box. As for fan favorite features, how does the return of jets, prone, and 64-player multiplayer (on PC) sound? All this built with our powerful new game engine Frostbite 2, which you'll hear and see a lot of in the months leading up to launch. For the full reveal on Battlefield 3, stay tuned for links to our cover stories hitting the gaming press throughout February, starting with Game Informer right now.

Battlefield 3 will release this Fall. You can preorder the Battlefield 3 Limited Edition at www.battlefield.com now. The exact contents of the Limited Edition will be revealed around GDC.

 

[Eel O'Brian]

http://www.game.co.uk/Games/Xbox-360/Shooter-First-Person/Battlefield-3/~r353698/?s=Battlefield+3

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of the competition with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next instalment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering superior visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding single player missions and competitive multiplayer actions ranging across diverse locations from around the globe including Paris, Tehran and New York

Battlefield 3 features:

    * Frostbite 2 – Battlefield 3 introduces Frostbite 2, the incredible technology that takes animation, destruction, lighting, scale and audio to new heights. Built upon this powerful game engine, Battlefield 3 immerses players physically and emotionally to the world around them like never before.
    * Feel the Battle —  Feel the impact of bullets and explosions, drag your fallen comrades into safety, and mount your weapon on almost any part of the terrain.  Battlefield 3’s cutting edge animation, spectacular visuals and real as hell battle gameplay attack your senses and make you feel the visceral warriors experience like no other FPS.
    * Unparalleled Vehicle Warfare — The best online vehicle warfare experience gets even better with a fitting sonic boom as fighter jets headline impressive lineup of land, air and sea vehicles.
    * Urban Combat — Take the fight to iconic and unexpected places in the USA, Middle East, and Europe including claustrophobic streets, metropolitan downtowns, and open, vehicle-friendly landscapes as you fight your way through the war of tomorrow.

[Herr Mafflard]

Sounds hot. Completely went over my head that they'd introduce a single player campaign. I'm finding it hard to imagine a huge battlefield map set in new York tho

2011 is PACKED. Most promising gaming year ever? Seems so.

[WrikaWrek]

[youtube=560,345]xP0Ij1_VTY0[/youtube]

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2011/02/04/battlefield-3-is-coming-preorder-now.aspx##

This is it! We are very excited to announce the first details on Battlefield 3 and to kickstart the preorders for the Limited Edition!

Battlefield 3 is the true successor to Battlefield 2. Beyond our signature multiplayer, we have also included a full single-player campaign and a co-op campaign – all straight out of the box. As for fan favorite features, how does the return of jets, prone, and 64-player multiplayer (on PC) sound? All this built with our powerful new game engine Frostbite 2, which you'll hear and see a lot of in the months leading up to launch. For the full reveal on Battlefield 3, stay tuned for links to our cover stories hitting the gaming press throughout February, starting with Game Informer right now.

Battlefield 3 will release this Fall. You can preorder the Battlefield 3 Limited Edition at www.battlefield.com now. The exact contents of the Limited Edition will be revealed around GDC.

Oh oh, that's a nice teaser.

A mix between Tron Evolution and Terminator going on.

 

[Eel O'Brian]

it's cool how even in those few seconds they managed to squeeze in stuff like pulling a teammate out of fire, and that jet eating the helicopter up

[Smooth Groove]

I'm excited just to see the new engine.  BC2 had very underrated graphics.  With max settings at DX11, it blew away COD but still managed to run smoothly on moderate systems. 

[cool breeze]

The little information that came out is very exciting.  Things like explosions knocking you back makes me think "ok, less focus on grenade/explosives spamming" and dragging teammates to safety, "my medic boner is rising"

this part also has be excited:

  * Urban Combat — Take the fight to iconic and unexpected places in the USA, Middle East, and Europe including claustrophobic streets, metropolitan downtowns, and open, vehicle-friendly landscapes as you fight your way through the war of tomorrow.

assuming the entire map isn't just inside a city.  Some of my the memorable parts of BF2 were moving through a city with small squad while the rest of the team fighting around the outskirts of providing support from around.

oh, and I wonder how accurate Tehran will be.  If I suddenly start having a shootout inside that bazaar I spent 30 cents at to play Sonic 3, that would be cool.

Has there been any mention of the commander role returning?

also, I was trying to hold onto my gtx275 for another year...yeah, I think I might need to upgrayedd to a 5##.

[duckman2000]

You get paid even for shilling old games?  Hook me up. 

Have you tried it? Everything about it is very un-colsoleish, down to server browsing and setting up dedicated servers. I don't know if it's still live, though. Cool game.

[Raban]

Oh man, this is really coming out in 2011? Jesus this year is gonna be off the hook.

[Eel O'Brian]

yeah, warhawk is a good game, one of my friends still plays it all the time

[SantaC]

wasnt warhawk that game you had to control with the motion crap?

[huckleberry]

wasnt warhawk that game you had to control with the motion crap?

You don't have to control it that way at all if you don't want to. 

[duckman2000]

Yeah, you could pick to do it either way. The upside to using the tilt stuff was that you got more precise controls for vehicle guns, since the stick was dedicated to that function in tilt mode.

Anyone know if there is any substance behind the whole Starhawk thing? I keep seeing the term, but I can't figure out if it's just fanboy wish-stuff.

[cool breeze]

Co-sign on Lair being the worst game this generation.  Only thing worse is Wii Music.

While you didn't need to use motion controls in warhawk, I remember them giving you an advantage since you could around the screen while flying.  I never bothered with it.  I think I played it mostly with the easier control scheme where the right stick did all the tricks at the cost of less control and it felt more like Crimson Skies than a sim.

The 'rumor' (as in, the name showed up somewhere and there was no more information) was that Starhawk was the sequel.  That's been going around for years by now.

speaking of crimson skies, why was that completely forgotten? I think the people went on from that to make Dark Avoid, but Microsoft just let it die and I thought it was supposed to be popular back in the Xbox 1 days (along with Mech Assault).  It was really damn fun.  Even an XBLA multi-only game would rock.

[ManaByte]

MS owns the FASA IPs, but Smith & Tinker have license for games for Shadowrun, Mechwarrior, and Crimson Skies and have been sitting on them since 2007.

[naff]

Yeah, you could pick to do it either way. The upside to using the tilt stuff was that you got more precise controls for vehicle guns, since the stick was dedicated to that function in tilt mode.

Anyone know if there is any substance behind the whole Starhawk thing? I keep seeing the term, but I can't figure out if it's just fanboy wish-stuff.

Jobe keeps tweeting that they're working on 'a game' for PS3. And I think he's hinted it's a WarHawk successor but StarHawk and it's concept is just a fanboy dream atm, but from the sounds of it there should be more news on Lightbox's new game soon.

[Eel O'Brian]

so there's a big nerdwar going on over the fact that dice is debating whether to add controller support with aim assist in the pc version

personally i don't really care, i am gonna use kb&m for infantry because i'm used to it, but i'd like the option to use the controller for vehicles even if they leave aim assist off

it's just in the past year that i've finally managed to wrap my head around flight controls in games (using a controller), so that's what i feel comfortable with now

[cool breeze]

yeah, it was part of new info from twitter or something

Some facts gleaned from his tweets (these count as official confirmations):
Prone on consoles as well
No tracer darts
Bullet drop will be more sophisticated than BC2 (different drop rates for each gun)
Knife/Dogtags are in
No grapple hooks or zipwires
The spotting mechanic is still be debated
They are debating supporting game pads on the PC, and letting pad users have aim assists
Essentially confirmed rented servers on PC

Things he's refusing to comment on:
The anti-cheating method (Punkbuster)
Commander mode
Dragging teammates to safety (although, he practically confirmed it)
SDK and LAN on PC
Battle Recorder on PC
Killcams

Even though I won't use a game pad, it should be still be an option.  Unless it requires massive redesigns for it to work on a game pad like Torchlight or Dragon Age, all PC games should support them.  Battlefield 3 is coming to consoles as well, so all the functions can fit onto a gamepad.

I'm hypocritical about this.  At the same time that I want gamepad support for everything, I also want developers to make interfaces better suited to the PC.  Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 did the second one and both lack any game pad support.

[fistfulofmetal]

add game-pad support

if only just so my joystick properly works in the game for helicopters/jets

[Herr Mafflard]

wtf is this aim assist shit? If nubes wanna use gamepad, fine! Don't give them an extra advantage with fucking aim assist (in mp, don't care 'bout sp) - keep that shit on consoles.

arrow + numpad keys helicopter controls ftw

/rant

honestly, it depends on how much aim assist they give, but still, I'm not a fan of the idea.

[BlueTsunami]

I think I may build a new PC just for this game. God. I had lots of fun with Battlefield 2 and I was the type that didn't play in squads, just lone wolfing and dieing constantly. Throwing C4 on buggies and suicide bombing up in that shit. Good times.

[Stoney Mason]

Someone on GAF posted the details from the GI article.

Aiming for CY Q4 2011 release
-Concept for BF3 has been in the works for years, waiting on proper tech to seamlessly come together
-Frosbite 2.0 is the culmination of this tech, entirely re-written
-Lighting sounds neat, one "probe" contains more lighting information than an entire BFBC2 level.
-Level destruction is going to be "believable" but basically everything is destructible.
-Character animations powered by ANT, what EA Sports uses.
-AI characters and multiplayer characters have different animation sets
-No more "gliding" animations that look off, animation realism is a focus
-Captured their own war audios (bullets, tanks, helicopters, etc) at different distances to ensure realism
-Better audio cues for certain actions, more easily able to listen for threats
-Plan on better, more immediate post release content
-More unlocks than BFBC2
-Dice trying to find a good balance between customization of your character and not having "pink rabbit hat(s)"
-4 classes
-Will talk about squads "later"
-Looking into a theater mode but can't talk about it
-Will have co-op
-There will be a kill-cam but it can be turned off
-BF3's team is almost twice as big as the team for BFBC2
-They want the pacing of the single player mode to be balanced, with highs and lows. Makes the comparison to a song vs a guitar solo.
-Part of the single player mode takes place in Sulaymaniyah - Iraqi Kurdistan.
-"Fuck" will be used often, so M rated for sure
-There will be an earthquake in a level. The destruction sounds very impressive. 7 story building collapses, looks very well done
-Significant narrative that goes with the SP mode
-More than one setting, you're not in the middle east for the whole game
-PC version is lead version
-Why 64 players for PC only? No complains from the console crowd.
-No mod tools at release. Maybe none down the line either. Frosbite 2.0 is complex and mods tools would have to be dumbed down, so does Dice really want to put their time to that or would it be better spent elsewhere?

[Raban]

Some really good stuff, some really interesting stuff and some really stuff. Either way, I'm signed on for the sound design alone.

[cool breeze]

looks good but I hope they don't stick to the MoH hud style.

[BlueTsunami]

H...holy fuck

I have to remember scans and photos of magazines (and possible bullshots) do special things to PC screens

[ManaByte]

DICE doesn't need to use bullshots with the PC version.

[cool breeze]

H...holy fuck

I have to remember scans and photos of magazines (and possible bullshots) do special things to PC screens

what's crazy is that all those buildings are collapsing in that picture (at least, I think that's the picture they were talking about).

[Vizzys]

http://battlefield.gamersverse.com/articles/655/game-informer-cover-issue-including-scans/

[Raban]

HUD looks too much like that shitty MOH HUD.

Keep in mind, MoH's HUD is like a dot-matrix version of BFBC2's HUD. If anything, BF3 is closer to BC2.

[Herr Mafflard]

I haven't played BC2 in a while, but am I wrong in thinkng that the FOV already looks a lot better in this?

[cool breeze]

I used a custom fov in Bad Company 2 because the normal one made me a bit queasy, but to my eyes, it seems considerably wider than the BC2 default.  Bad Company 2 did have one of the tightest fovs in a game, though.

It screens remind me of Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter on PC (the ones from Grin, different from the Xbox 360 ones).

[ManaByte]

PC is the lead platform w/ dedicated servers.

[TEEEPO]

wow 

[Eel O'Brian]

if i get sniped and you sonsofbitches just leave me there screaming instead of pulling me over to a medic, i will pull the pins on all my grenades and take you all with me

[MyNameIsMethodis]

Are they seriously going to be putting in a singleplayer mode?

I remember when i was stuck in rehab for a few months all I had was Battlefield :Vietnam with no online play, so I played the shit out of the single player version of that, which was just a bot filled version of the multiplyaer.

[cool breeze]

if i get sniped and you sonsofbitches just leave me there screaming instead of pulling me over to a medic, i will pull the pins on all my grenades and take you all with me

That makes me hope they still plan to have some advanced movement ala mirror's edge or brink in this.  Running past fire just to heal or revive teammates was my favorite part of the Battlefield games.  I almost always played medic and my top priority was saving lives.  Dammit, I'm a doctor, not a soldier.

[SantaC]

holy fuck, best looking game ever.

I <3 DX11

[ManaByte]

Non-scanned images from GI: