**OFFICIAL** AT Battlefield 3 FAQ and News Thread

[Fanatical Meat]

found a demo of the frostbite 2 engine, no game play but things do look perdy.
http://n4g.com/news/695184/mind-blowing-frostbite-2-engine-real-time-radiosity-demo

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

"Kertz reveals that Battlefield 3 will have a spotting system similar to that of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in which players could tap a button and highlight an enemy to the rest of the team."

3D spotting. The screwing over of BF3 with BC2 style things begins.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/07/b...and-new-york-will-have-spotting-and-dog-tags/

Edit- apparently this article is an analysis of tweets and may lack appropriate context...but still, not confidence inspiring for those who recognize 3D spotting is for consoles.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I am curious if they'll have commanders, with car drops/ammo drops/artillery/etc

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Their response on all that is just "no comment" so far...

 

[Capt Caveman]

DICE has claimed prominently that Battlefield 3 will be released in "Fall 2011". Because of the recent discussions about BFBC2 Vietnam being releeased in Winter 2010, we know that zh1nt0 defines Winter as December through February. There for, it should be released before December.

There is one shop.to site being discussed on the EA UK forums that has a date of October 14th posted as the release date. That is right in the middle of DICE's definition of Fall...

Yeah, my friend that works at EA mentioned to me a while ago that BF3 wasn't going to come out til December but with them canceling those two other titles, the launch date was able to be moved up.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I think November/early December is a safe bet, business wise it just makes sense. Holiday shopping, people have extra money to spend...

 

[Zargon]

"Kertz reveals that Battlefield 3 will have a spotting system similar to that of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in which players could tap a button and highlight an enemy to the rest of the team."

3D spotting. The screwing over of BF3 with BC2 style things begins.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/07/b...and-new-york-will-have-spotting-and-dog-tags/

Edit- apparently this article is an analysis of tweets and may lack appropriate context...but still, not confidence inspiring for those who recognize 3D spotting is for consoles.

yeah all they really said is there will be spotting, as opposed to there not being spotting like other games...

 

[Thor86]

found a demo of the frostbite 2 engine, no game play but things do look perdy.
http://n4g.com/news/695184/mind-blowing-frostbite-2-engine-real-time-radiosity-demo

Very purdy. Can't wait. Might be the first game I ever "pre-purchase".

 

[GullyFoyle]

yeah all they really said is there will be spotting, as opposed to there not being spotting like other games...

I could have sworn I saw a tweet from Demize99 where he said "there will be spotting, I just don't know how it works yet". I remember thinking that didn't jibe with their claim that they had been honing the formula for BF3 for years, waiting for a capable engine like Frostbite 2. Now I can't locate that comment.
I don't think this decision is finialized yet.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I've read his tweets for a few days back and it seems he is in favor of ridiculous 3d spotting. Feb 5: "OffDutyGamers @GamerOfFreedom I also don't want to punish that recon who sits on a hill and spots and does his job, 3D spotting = teamplay."

3d spotting = stealth means nothing.

He later did say on Feb 5 "I'm done talking about spotting folks, I know the positions, I know the reasons, and I'm not decided yet. Bring something new to the table?".

My point is : "SPOTTING" is teamplay, "3D SPOTTING" is console garbage, just like consolized autoaim is garbage. Leave that shit for the consoles. If they want to give Xbox and PS3 3d spotting that's fine with me, but give PC minimap spotting only.

This also gives extreme cause for concern because in BC2 there was no commo rose, you just pointed yourself at the enemy and hit Q. If he's talking about the possibility of 3d spotting, it doesn't look good for the commo rose. We need the commo rose and the ability it brings to say things like Yes, No, Thanks, Help, Follow Me, etc.

 

[ViviTheMage]

before I even shoot, i team spot as recon ... what is 3D spotting?

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

before I even shoot, i team spot as recon ... what is 3D spotting?

In Battlefield 2, when you spot someone, it shows up on the minimap only. BC2 has a crap minimap and a crap full size map when you bring it up, too. In BC2, 3D spotting is when that red triangle appears over the spotted player's head and can be seen not just in the minimap but can also be seen by all players all over the map(in the game window itself, not the map).

In BF2 if you see someone spotted on the minimap you still have to exert a little effort to look for them. 3D spotting is too omniscient.

Now, if they truly wanted 3d spotting, then here is how to do it. They could model either helmets, or flip down eyepieces that project a HUD in the player's eyes. This HUD would allow you to see 3D spotting, BUT it would also clutter your view a little bit, so you could choose to turn it off to have better visibility. That would make it much much better.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I still enjoy it but I only have 33 hours online so far..haven't unlocked everything yet.


I'm happy to see that - hopefully we'll get some progress in graphics/etc if they start eliminating backwards compatibility with older DX versions.

I have 63 hours according to steam. I think most of that was in the first 3 months. I pretty much stopped playing after I unlocked everything. I even bought Vietnam and barely touched it =(

I remember playing a lot of BF2 back in the day.

The thing that held me back from the entire Battlefield series was the sketchy registration system. BF2 was pretty bad at this at the start where you would hit someone and dust would come off of them but they would just not die. BC2 was so-so.

 

[GullyFoyle]

I've read his tweets for a few days back and it seems he is in favor of ridiculous 3d spotting. Feb 5: "OffDutyGamers @GamerOfFreedom I also don't want to punish that recon who sits on a hill and spots and does his job, 3D spotting = teamplay."

3d spotting = stealth means nothing.

He later did say on Feb 5 "I'm done talking about spotting folks, I know the positions, I know the reasons, and I'm not decided yet. Bring something new to the table?".

My point is : "SPOTTING" is teamplay, "3D SPOTTING" is console garbage, just like consolized autoaim is garbage. Leave that shit for the consoles. If they want to give Xbox and PS3 3d spotting that's fine with me, but give PC minimap spotting only.

This also gives extreme cause for concern because in BC2 there was no commo rose, you just pointed yourself at the enemy and hit Q. If he's talking about the possibility of 3d spotting, it doesn't look good for the commo rose. We need the commo rose and the ability it brings to say things like Yes, No, Thanks, Help, Follow Me, etc.

The question of 3D spotting and the question of a Commo rose are totally seperate. They don't need to be connected.
In either case you have to point at what you are spotting. What happens after you spot (where the markers show up) is not connected to how you did the spotting.
I ran a BFBC2 server for a while that had 3D spotting turned off (it's a server side option). People missed it.

 

[Zargon]

This also gives extreme cause for concern because in BC2 there was no commo rose, you just pointed yourself at the enemy and hit Q. If he's talking about the possibility of 3d spotting, it doesn't look good for the commo rose. We need the commo rose and the ability it brings to say things like Yes, No, Thanks, Help, Follow Me, etc.

why?

you could spot in the commorose

you can have both, its not one or the other, you are thinking inside a small angry box........

it would just be q, up = 3d spot that thing

 

[Demo24]

I mainly use spotting in recon to a)see if the guy is dead b)follow him c)inform team. I really don't think 3d spotting is that big of a deal, and I quite like it.

 

[maevinj]

I play on Hardcore servers, so I never see the red triangles, I do however use the spotting to find people that sit in the bushes when I'm playing recon

 

[zerocool84]

I have 63 hours according to steam. I think most of that was in the first 3 months. I pretty much stopped playing after I unlocked everything. I even bought Vietnam and barely touched it =(

I remember playing a lot of BF2 back in the day.

The thing that held me back from the entire Battlefield series was the sketchy registration system. BF2 was pretty bad at this at the start where you would hit someone and dust would come off of them but they would just not die. BC2 was so-so.

BC2 just didn't have the great replay value for me. I played ~49hrs in total and I bought Vietnam as well. I just got bored after I unlocked everything for some reason.

 

[HybridSquirrel]

awwww yea

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

why?

you could spot in the commorose

you can have both, its not one or the other, you are thinking inside a small angry box........

it would just be q, up = 3d spot that thing

It's more of the preponderance of evidence than any single thing. Demize keeps making comments that indicate a preference for BC2's way of doing things, and surely you can't blame someone for fearing that that means they might not return to the proper BF2 way.

Right now is the time to be vocal about such things hoping they will notice, not after beta has been released and it's too late to change certain things.

 

[Zargon]

sure

but saying 'we cant have this, we have to have that' is stupid when you can actually have BOTH.

if we have to pick its commorose all the way.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Information is beginning to leak from Game Informer's issue, and the word is thet it has 4 kits. That's exactly what Bad Company 2 had. Combined with what Demize tweets, I'm afraid it will be Bad Company 3, but with jets.

 

[minmaster]

2142 had 4 kits and it was fine. stop panicking about 4 kits.

 

[GullyFoyle]

Information is beginning to leak from Game Informer's issue, and the word is thet it has 4 kits. That's exactly what Bad Company 2 had. Combined with what Demize tweets, I'm afraid it will be Bad Company 3, but with jets.

Link

(Today, 06:28 PM)
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FLEABttn's Avatar

Game Informer: Battlefield 3 - New Thread of Details #1
Okay, so going through the 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?
-Original story, not based on Bad Company at all.

Okay, that's basically it.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

It's not the kits, it's just the fact that nothing that's been confirmed points to BF2 gameplay, and everything that is rumored points to BC2 gameplay. By itself, 4 kits means nothing, because you're right, if done properly it could be OK. But taken as a whole along with the stuff Demize tweets, it is fear inspiring. What if the next thing, or the next 2 things, or next 3 things that are confirmed are exactly as BC2 does them? At what point is it ok to panic?