Battlefield 3

-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?

Oh look paid DLC info before the game even gets released.




If you pre-order it's free, if you didn't you have to pay extra. No wonder gaming has gone to shit.

DICE says it's "learnt its lesson" following Battlefield: Bad Company 2's sparse DLC schedule - and it won't make the same mistakes with just-announced Battlefield 3.

Speaking in the latest issue of US retail mag Game Informer, DICE exec producer Patrick Bach acknowledged that not releasing a new map pack for six months saw the Bad Company 2 community drop off drastically.

"To be honest, Bad Company 2 was a bigger success than we anticipated," he admitted. "We did not account for that. We sold a lot of copies and don't feel bad about where we were, but looking back, we should have released more, bigger content after."

He added: "We were more successful with our approach then anticipated. We didn't think most people would hit level 22 to be honest, and especially so fast. Our calculations on how much people would play to hit level 20, 25, 50 were completely wrong. We thought people wouldn't play that much."

For Battlefield 3, says Bach, DICE will properly prepare for post-release content to keep the community occupied.

"We've learnt our lesson now, and have a lot of really interesting plans for how to keep the attention of the players. We can do better in that area," he said.

"The challenge is to build a game, and then have more people coming on before the project is done to start building extra content because it takes a lot of time to get stuff out."

There will be "a lot more to unlock", Bach promises, "not only weapons and other treats, but we have more things that you can unlock than in Bad Company 2. We're also making sure that there is a reason for you to reach top rank," he said.

Battlefield 3 will feature 64-player multiplayer on PC and 24-players on console.

More details arrived via the US mag this morning, including news that PC is being treated as the lead platform for the EA game.

Q: When I think about Battlefield 2, I always come back to the Commander position and the game within the game that arose from having Special Forces objectives. Are those returning in the proper sequel?

A: We could implement it, but the questions is "how do you get the threshold lower?" That's not by making it more complicated. Our challenge is to make sure that anyone that just jumps into the game will get it. One of the biggest problems with Commander was that only two people could use it. Some people like it but most people didn't care. They just cared that someone gave them an order or that their squad could play together having fun on their own more or less. Then the most hardcore people went into the Commander mode and learned how to use that. You could argue it was a great feature, but looking at the number you could also say that no one uses it. We tried in Bad Company 2 to give that t players, so you could issue orders to your squad, and you could use gadgets like the UAV that only the commander could use earlier — giving the power back to the players so everyone could use it. That made a big difference. More people could enjoy the game. We lowered the threshold for everyone because we gave it to everyone. We now know the boundaries are for keeping the strategic depth and complexity while lowering the threshold to get in.

"To be honest, Bad Company 2 was a bigger success than we anticipated," he admitted. "We did not account for that. We sold a lot of copies and don't feel bad about where we were, but looking back, we should have released more, bigger content after."

All of these features combine to deliver spectacular and unpredictable action moments found nowhere else in the genre.

Battlefield Bad Company 2™ is all-out multiplayer warfare at its absolute finest!

and even after release they still can't give a straight answer....."well we might, almost, maybe, someday think about kinda appending some type of almost that"

The Beta of #BF3 will be expected in October.

Assuming EA will not let the 2011 holiday sales window pass without having this game packaged and ready by Black Friday, thats at best a month worth of "beta testing".

If so, sounds just like the Bc2 "beta", and three to four months (minium) of server fees - for a buggy ass game that was not properly tested prior to launch.

Why on earth wont they actually do legitimate testing, that provides themself a realistic timetable to effect meaningful changes?




Butt

I'm starting to wonder if Frostbite 2 is heading towards being another Crysis in that you needed a hig end machine to even play it. BC2 @ 32 players can be quite demanding and I've read a lot that 24 players seems to run better. MoH ran even better with no destruction and 24 players max.

With BF3 it's 64 players, more advanced destruction, bigger maps (I assume) and sharper graphics. Add to that DX10 or better is required. Nice to have cool things but they won't do much if it's lagging all over the place. Guess we will have to wait and see.

See the first glimpse of actual in-game footage from Battlefield 3 as a U.S. Marine squad engages hostile forces in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Battlefield 3 Limited Edition features the digital expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand at no extra charge. This themed multiplayer expansion pack includes four legendary maps from Battlefield 2 boldly re-imagined with Frostbite 2 physics, destruction and visuals. Completing the package are classic Battlefield 2 weapons and vehicles, unique rewards, new achievements/trophies, and more. Players anxious to start the fight can pre-order the Battlefield 3 Limited Edition now at EA Store at this link:
http://bit.ly/hf49Oy