I get to play Battlefield 3 tomorrow. What do you want to know?

DeVore · 05-04-2011 4:19pm #1

So, tomorrow, lucky auld me gets to fly to London and play BF3!

I will be meeting with the producers and what not, so if you have questions, I'll get you hands-on answers.

Post them here by 11am Wednesday (6th Apr) and I'll find out for you

DeV.

Spear · 05-04-2011 4:25pm

I can only think of nasty questions that they won't answer. I doubt they'll give anything of real substance away anyway.

Auvers · 05-04-2011 4:28pm

are you getting to see the multiplayer?

DeVore · 05-04-2011 4:31pm

I would imagine so yes. Its a "journalist" PR launch and they tend to be very "hands on". If theres anything you want to know about MP post the question and I'll see if I can get an answer.

Spear, so long as they arent "rude" questions, I'll buttonhole anyone about any topic.

DeV.

Auvers · 05-04-2011 4:33pm

all I want to know is there regenerating health (in multiplayer) on the PC version

Spear · 05-04-2011 4:35pm

DeVore wrote: »

Spear, so long as they arent "rude" questions, I'll buttonhole anyone about any topic.

DeV.

No, nothing rude, just wondering about things such as why they pander to the selfish and unproductive elements of the player base by continuing to provide a sniper class in a team based multiplayer game. Or why they botched the PC release of BF1943.

DeVore · 05-04-2011 4:45pm

I can probably knock those into non-emotive, reasonable questions

Auvers, I take it you mean "health comes back if you dont get shot for a few seconds".... ala Halo? I'm sure I'll have an answer tomorrow for you!

DeV.

Auvers · 05-04-2011 4:48pm

DeVore wrote: »

I take it you mean "health comes back if you dont get shot for a few seconds".... ala Halo? I'm sure I'll have an answer tomorrow for you!

yep thats what I mean

Spear · 05-04-2011 4:51pm

Actually, I do have a productive question: do they intend to have collectible dogtags as they've done so in 2142 and BC1/2.

/looking forward to stabbing Wonda in new environments.

Ponster · 05-04-2011 5:13pm

Will there be Multiplayer built-in LAN support? (including dedicated server files)

Will there be a demo and/or a beta release ?

Will BF3 support mods ?

Is the "commander modes" from BF2 which didn't feature in BC2 back in BF3 ?

What is the maximum amount of squads that can be created and how many people per squad?

In BF2 1.0 it was possible to 'see' servers and who was playing on them from third-party sites and applications (such as Yahoo! All Seeing Eye). This was removed after patch 1.3. Will it be possible to join BF3 games from third-party applications/sites rather than using the in-game browser something for which DiCE have never been known to master properly?

Why isn't a Battlefield mod being invited?

Why are Ireland being kicked out of the 2015 Cricket World Cup ?

kirving · 05-04-2011 5:19pm

As the PC is the more powerful platform, are they really putting more effort into the PC version as opposed to the console version?

omerin · 05-04-2011 6:25pm

I'll second what spear mentioed, where the f**k is 1943?
Also as I mentioned on another thread, please please make sure they release a product that tested properly, i.e. make sure you can log on to the servers, I remember BFBC2 log in issues, took them a while to get it right. Also I'd prefer not to download 400mb+ patches a few days after its released

When will a demo be available for the PC?
Maybe an option to customise your soldier as part of the main release, not to be charged for it. I make a point when playing to kill those rich ba*tards first when I'm online

Dx11 support from the start.

Spear · 05-04-2011 6:38pm

Now that I've thought a bit more.

I suspect they can't answer this, but I'm concerned about what comes after the game. In all prior releases there's been 2 or 3 major patches within the main sales window of the few months after release. After that patches become rare and minor, and the flow of new content dries up correspondingly. So are they going to give this real support after release? I'd really like to see them take the same approach as Blizzard do with WoW and regard it as a living and evolving game. EA/Dice need to plan out maybe 2 years plus of regular patches and genuinely new content (not a new mode on a pre-existing map). If they really want to steal CoD's thunder they need to target them where they're weak in the form of paid map packs, and where they're strong in the form of a new release every year by providing free new content, even if it is only 1 map a month or so. Is there any hope of them providing the long term support the franchise needs?

Spiritine · 05-04-2011 7:39pm

+1 for LAN support question, if we dont get a new game with LAN support soon, LAN's are going to suffer more

BULLER · 05-04-2011 8:16pm

Will it be possible to host a dedicated server as with BF1942 and BF2?
Will you be reintoducing AI bots for single player / dedicated server maps?
If so, will they be remotely intellegent this time?
How does the game run on consoles if the engine is based on DX11 and is unable to run in DX9 mode on PC? (Im not complaining, its very encouraging that its DX11, just curious)
Will there be commander mode?
Will they be retaining "Rush mode"?

seyeM · 06-04-2011 10:44am

I wouldn't be suprised to see a WW2 based expansion to BF3 at some stage, which is probably why BF1943 is on ice.

A bit late but i'd like to know if:

- The chopper maneuverability and control system from Battlefield 2 is coming back (BC2's sucked ass).
- Proper joystick support.
- The game has lan support/mod tools/public server files
- Is Battlerecorder back? Do they plan to implement a first person spectator mode (i.e. seeing exactly what the player being spectated sees..usable in demos too ala counterstrike). Previously it has been restricted to free look and third person.
- How does the squad system work (hopefully 6 man squads with members only able to spawn on the squad leader..)

Blazer · 06-04-2011 12:26pm

I'd like to know what Jets are in this game and how big some of the maps are.
Another thing is lan support.
I think a lot of my other concerns have been called out above.

DeVore · 06-04-2011 9:06pm

Ok, so they didnt let us near the machines to play it as its pre-alpha code (and even in the demo it crashed occasionally).

Also, they wouldnt talk about certain aspects. (boooo)

And they have embargoed the whole world from talking about until the 8th (Friday). So, until then, all I can really say is "wow... it looks awesome and I seriously think I might play this".

I have answers to some of your questions but they were quite tight lipped but I'll tell you what I know come Friday.

DeV.

Spear · 06-04-2011 9:17pm

DeVore wrote: »

Ok, so they didnt let us near the machines to play it as its pre-alpha code (and even in the demo it crashed occasionally).

Also, they wouldnt talk about certain aspects. (boooo)

And they have embargoed the whole world from talking about until the 8th (Friday). So, until then, all I can really say is "wow... it looks awesome and I seriously think I might play this".

I have answers to some of your questions but they were quite tight lipped but I'll tell you what I know come Friday.

DeV.

Regrettable but predictable behaviour by them. I had hoped it was in a better, more playable state by now though.

Kiith · 06-04-2011 10:57pm

They've 7 months till it's released, so there's plenty of time.

DeVore · 07-04-2011 2:19am

I really dont want to break any embargoes but I will say that as someone with 20 years of coding/project management, I wouldnt be concerned about the state of the code.

I'll say more on Friday... or more likely midnight today

DeV.

BULLER · 07-04-2011 12:19pm

DeVore wrote: »

I really dont want to break any embargoes but I will say that as someone with 20 years of coding/project management, I wouldnt be concerned about the state of the code.

I'll say more on Friday... or more likely midnight today

DeV.

Ah gowan!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDVCWKx0hIM&feature=related

karma_ · 08-04-2011 11:01am

Right, it's Friday, spit it out.

DeVore · 08-04-2011 3:25pm

It looks awesome. if you could make a game out of Black Hawk Down, it would look like this.

So, specific answers.

Yes there is an extensive singleplayer campaign.

Its developed with the Frostbite2 engine and it was developed for the PC. The xbox version has been scrunched down. In fact one of the techs was telling me that when they first tried it on 360, it would barely render a single player object before optimisation.

Snipers are in it but i didnt get to see any play as them.

There is regenerating health like Halo.

Here's the shocker.... no dedicated LAN support. The lan has to have connection out to the interweb. He said would you be able to rent dedicated servers, "like before" ... which i hope makes sense to you.

I asked about commander mode and they all clammed up and wouldnt say anything. I doubt you will see it as one head guy did say "it was only 2 out of 128 people, its a lot of work for that"... but i expect some new tactical and strategic elements to MP because there was something they werent telling us.

They wouldnt say a lot about MP and certainly wouldnt answer questions about mods squads, mostly they wanted to show off the pretty pictures which were... in fairness... pretty.

There was one thing I loved, their destruction physics are amazing, you can tear down a 5 storey hotel to the ground, to rubble, or you can blow about a 1/6th of a breezeblock away from a wall to get a shot or to reveal an enemy in cover.

If we get another invite in the fall (as we sometimes do) I'll try to get a BF mod over to it, we've done it before for driving games mods. This was much more than BF though, i got to see and play Portal 2(awesome, gonna be huge!) and tons of other stuff.

DeV

Spear · 08-04-2011 3:35pm

DeVore wrote: »

as one head guy did say "it was only 2 out of 128 people, its a lot of work for that"

Are you very sure about the numbers in that quote? It has interesting implications if so.

If we get another invite in the fall (as we sometimes do) I'll try to get a BF mod over to it, we've done it before for driving games mods.

EA is a client of my employer, if that helps smooth things.

kklkit · 08-04-2011 3:39pm

DeVore wrote: »

I doubt you will see it as one head guy did say "it was only 2 out of 128 people, its a lot of work for that"... but i expect some new tactical and strategic elements to MP because there was something they werent telling us.

Wait.. isnt MP 32vs32 on PC?

Shiminay · 08-04-2011 3:46pm

It's worth noting that if it's Frostbite, there won't be any Mods as the engine doesn't really support them (so the Senior Producer of MoH told me). Bit disappointing that, there were some really fun mods for BF2.

If they're talking about 64 vs 64, then that surely makes the need for a central team commander all the more important?

No LAN/Dedicated Server support (renting servers does not count unless you can rent someone to come along to your LAN and run it for you) is typical of pretty much every game now and it's a disgrace tbh. F**k you consoles

Auvers · 08-04-2011 4:01pm

DeVore wrote: »

There is regenerating health like Halo.DeV

nnnnnnnoooooooooo

looks like Battlefield has been consolized, its going to be more BC2\COD than BF2

Korvanica · 08-04-2011 4:16pm

Auvers wrote: »

nnnnnnnoooooooooo

looks like Battlefield has been consolized, its going to be more BC2\COD than BF2

Hardcore mode doesn't have regenerating health in BC2..

Just play hardcore mode... :pac:

DeVore · 08-04-2011 4:23pm

It sure looked like BF2 ... lots of tanks, APC's, jets...They acknowledged jets would be in there but didnt say what kind... they did talk about how tricky it had been to balance jets against infantry and the answer was illuminating. They said if they had made it realistic, the ground forces havent a chance, as in real life, so they explicitly recognised that they were making a game, not a simulator which meant to be precise and representative... while games should be fun and enjoyable so they were clear that realism in the numbers was sacraficed for enjoyability and entertainment. Which in my mind is a GOOD thing.

DeV.

DeVore · 08-04-2011 4:31pm

Kharn wrote: »

It's worth noting that if it's Frostbite, there won't be any Mods as the engine doesn't really support them (so the Senior Producer of MoH told me). Bit disappointing that, there were some really fun mods for BF2.

If they're talking about 64 vs 64, then that surely makes the need for a central team commander all the more important?

No LAN/Dedicated Server support (renting servers does not count unless you can rent someone to come along to your LAN and run it for you) is typical of pretty much every game now and it's a disgrace tbh. F**k you consoles

Its definitely the Frostbite 2 engine. I cant be entirely certain (as I only caught the end of the conversation) but I am reasonably sure he said it would be 64v64. I'll try to find out for certain.

I would find the lack of commander mode sad as I think its a fantastic addition to the genre, in fact I would love to see another team member or several, playing an RTS which acts as in-world supply of munitions etc!

They gave me a cd of press stuff which I will be going through over the weekend so hopefully it has some screenies for you guys.

DeV.

DeV.

TheFairy · 08-04-2011 9:28pm

Here's the shocker.... no dedicated LAN support.

Same old same old!

Blazer · 08-04-2011 10:07pm

DeVore wrote: »

It sure looked like BF2 ... lots of tanks, APC's, jets...They acknowledged jets would be in there but didnt say what kind... they did talk about how tricky it had been to balance jets against infantry and the answer was illuminating. They said if they had made it realistic, the ground forces havent a chance, as in real life, so they explicitly recognised that they were making a game, not a simulator which meant to be precise and representative... while games should be fun and enjoyable so they were clear that realism in the numbers was sacraficed for enjoyability and entertainment. Which in my mind is a GOOD thing.

DeV.

frakkin a$$holes..i's pretty easy to balance the jets...have some of them strictly air to air with no bombs and making the bombers have extremely limited air to air missiles...
it will encourage pilots to attach the bombers etc and not keep pounding the ground units for cheap kills..
By the sounds of it I reckon BF3 is not going to be anything like BF2 and basically just a bigger version of Medal of Honour /Bad Company with jets thrown into it as an afterthought..
No dedicated lan support...bunch of prícks..
One good thing though is it's fairl obvious that the console versions are gonna suck big time

lemon_remon · 09-04-2011 10:00am

lol you're famous 'board.ie'

http://planetbattlefield.gamespy.com/fullstory.php?id=164696

seyeM · 09-04-2011 11:26am

Nice way to get more traffic to the site

DeVore · 09-04-2011 6:58pm

Meh... I'm willing to bet we dwarf them heheh, but its nice to see it get out to he community. I'm writing a review at the moment and I have a bunch of pics for you too.

DeV.

Blazer · 10-04-2011 9:51pm

DeVore wrote: »

I'm writing a review at the moment and I have a bunch of pics for you too.

DeV.

christ man..hurry the frak up..whaddya using? typewriter and scanner?

Jim · 10-04-2011 10:05pm

Auvers wrote: »

nnnnnnnoooooooooo

looks like Battlefield has been consolized, its going to be more BC2\COD than BF2

This may just be in single player.

the_syco · 11-04-2011 12:32am

DeVore wrote: »

Here's the shocker.... no dedicated LAN support. The lan has to have connection out to the interweb. He said would you be able to rent dedicated servers, "like before" ... which i hope makes sense to you.

Gah. No surprise there. At least there'll be some kind of dedicated servers, I suppose, and not some P2P sh|te. Agree with Kharn.

DeVore wrote: »

There was one thing I loved, their destruction physics are amazing, you can tear down a 5 storey hotel to the ground, to rubble, or you can blow about a 1/6th of a breezeblock away from a wall to get a shot or to reveal an enemy in cover.

Cool. Will look forward to that. The TiG lads, and a few others, know of my, erm... fascination with C4 and putting C4 onto jeeps, tanks, planes, choppers, buildings, bridges, bomb-sites, quad bikes, etc

DeVore wrote: »

They acknowledged jets would be in there but didnt say what kind...

Well, jets = large maps, so yippee on that point.

11-04-2011 1:14am

Lads just have one or two queries, not entirely related to BF3 but tie in, and i also don't want to start another thread.

My laptop's lifespan has come to an end(after 1 year and 4mths :mad:) and considering I got nearly 4 years from my PC(which I'm back using) I've decided I'm not wasting money on another laptop again so I'm going to get a new desktop.

Does anyone here have any experience using a joypad on the PC?.
I'd consider doing some gaming on it but I can't be arsed trying to adapt to a keyboard and mouse.
Do joypads have any lag or major disadvantages you wouldn't get on a console?

I have a HD, could I avoid getting a decent screen and hook the PC up to the HD through a HDMI and get as good of a picture as I do from my PS3?.
Will the HD have any disadvantages over a monitor?(Ive hooked up my laptop through the HDMI watching games on RTE and it looked fairly crap)

Lastly, how does one learn the necessary specs for playing games?, reading them off a box leaves me none the wiser, my laptop had decent RAM, and a Radeon HD 4200 which i taught would be ok to play games(at low settings) and it wouldn't run the Arma demo on the lowest settings.

I don't want to splash out on a desktop again and find it's not capable of playing anything at a decent level.

Spear · 11-04-2011 1:53am

gilberto_eire wrote: »

Lads just have one or two queries, not entirely related to BF3 but tie in, and i also don't want to start another thread.

My laptop's lifespan has come to an end(after 1 year and 4mths :mad:) and considering I got nearly 4 years from my PC(which I'm back using) I've decided I'm not wasting money on another laptop again so I'm going to get a new desktop.

Does anyone here have any experience using a joypad on the PC?.
I'd consider doing some gaming on it but I can't be arsed trying to adapt to a keyboard and mouse.
Do joypads have any lag or major disadvantages you wouldn't get on a console?

I have a HD, could I avoid getting a decent screen and hook the PC up to the HD through a HDMI and get as good of a picture as I do from my PS3?.
Will the HD have any disadvantages over a monitor?(Ive hooked up my laptop through the HDMI watching games on RTE and it looked fairly crap)

Lastly, how does one learn the necessary specs for playing games?, reading them off a box leaves me none the wiser, my laptop had decent RAM, and a Radeon HD 4200 which i taught would be ok to play games(at low settings) and it wouldn't run the Arma demo on the lowest settings.

I don't want to splash out on a desktop again and find it's not capable of playing anything at a decent level.

I was toying with the idea of putting up a sticky for those building a PC for BF3, since there's no two ways about it, the console edition is a cutdown version, no fancy lighting, no fancy shadows, smaller maps, smaller player count, lower resolution etc.

Might as well address some basic points here then.

If it can run BC2 happily it should run BF3 happily according to Dice.

In your case, a Radeon 4200 was the lowest end of 2 generations ago. They're meant for barely running Wordpad and basic movie playback. To give a comparison between that and a current video card, the 4200 manages 40 GFlops of processing power, a current mid range card, the 6850 manages up to 1488 GFlops.

As for the PC, if it's at least got a quad core processor, you can probably put a decent video card in there and massively improve it's gaming potential. Post the specs of the PC and more detailed advice is possible.

As for connecting via HDMI, most video cards these days come with HDMI out, and you'll get better image quality than the PS3 thanks to proper and higher levels of anti-aliasing.

Gamepad wise, forget it. There's no auto-aim on PCs, and the faster and more accurate mouse users will just make it a miserable experience for you.

Jonny7 · 11-04-2011 9:04am

gilberto_eire wrote: »

Lads just have one or two queries, not entirely related to BF3 but tie in, and i also don't want to start another thread.

My laptop's lifespan has come to an end(after 1 year and 4mths :mad:) and considering I got nearly 4 years from my PC(which I'm back using) I've decided I'm not wasting money on another laptop again so I'm going to get a new desktop.

Does anyone here have any experience using a joypad on the PC?.
I'd consider doing some gaming on it but I can't be arsed trying to adapt to a keyboard and mouse.
Do joypads have any lag or major disadvantages you wouldn't get on a console?

I have a HD, could I avoid getting a decent screen and hook the PC up to the HD through a HDMI and get as good of a picture as I do from my PS3?.
Will the HD have any disadvantages over a monitor?(Ive hooked up my laptop through the HDMI watching games on RTE and it looked fairly crap)

Lastly, how does one learn the necessary specs for playing games?, reading them off a box leaves me none the wiser, my laptop had decent RAM, and a Radeon HD 4200 which i taught would be ok to play games(at low settings) and it wouldn't run the Arma demo on the lowest settings.

I don't want to splash out on a desktop again and find it's not capable of playing anything at a decent level.

You can buy a joypad for the PC, just plug it into USB and off you go

But as the other guy said, you'll get mashed online, keyboard and mouse takes less than a week to learn (I've seen plenty of consolers switch)

As for a PC, if you aren't in the know, then don't read specs they will mean nothing. You pick a budget, (e.g. PC for BF3 without monitor, starting at 550 euros) then go to the building and upgrading forum and they will spec a gaming PC for you to get.

the_syco · 11-04-2011 10:17am

Spear wrote: »

Gamepad wise, forget it. There's no auto-aim on PCs, and the faster and more accurate mouse users will just make it a miserable experience for you.

Ignore him. Get a gamepad, and tell us your online username, and what server you are on, so we can all get some knife-in-your-back practise :P

Blazer · 11-04-2011 4:10pm

the_syco wrote: »

Ignore him. Get a gamepad, and tell us your online username, and what server you are on, so we can all get some knife-in-your-back practise :P

+1
After that get one of those roller ball mice so you can adapt to the laser mice....slowly though!!

DeVore · 11-04-2011 5:45pm

Oh someone mentioned about map sizes?? They demoed a few maps which went from interior fighting to huge desert vistas. They said they wanted the feeling of epicness about the levels... they did look big to me for sure.

DeV.

seyeM · 11-04-2011 10:21pm

Spear wrote: »

If it can run BC2 happily it should run BF3 happily according to Dice.

I've read that before - it'll be interesting to see if it holds true. They'd need to do a lot of optimising for 64 players with air and ground vehicles on larger, more destructible maps to run similarly to the 32 player shoebox maps in BC2.

Spear · 11-04-2011 10:36pm

seyeM wrote: »

I've read that before - it'll be interesting to see if it holds true. They'd need to do a lot of optimising for 64 players with air and ground vehicles on larger, more destructible maps to run similarly to the 32 player shoebox maps in BC2.

I'm skeptical of it myself. They've had 18 months to optimize, and they've cut out the DX9 path, and made it DX10/11 only, which can't hurt, but increased destruction, map size and player count can only cost resources.

Spunge · 18-04-2011 4:12pm

Id say id definitely need to upgrade to a quad core or something with all that even more destructible stuff. As it stands my fps can drop into the 30s and 20s with my dual-core e7200, no matter what graphics or resolution i use (in BC2).

sink · 18-04-2011 4:23pm

Sweet spot for gaming rigs is roughly ~€800 excluding peripherals. If you can afford that your can get a really nice rig that will handle everything you throw at, no compromises at 1080p.

ShadowHearth · 19-04-2011 8:09pm

I just happy, so happy that one thing is deffenetly going in - destructible environment!

Now I hope there will be squad system like in bc2. It makes playing with friends so much better.

Hardcore fans hate bc2, but I love it. I played bf2 and I can't say it was so epic... It was good, but not epic. So if bf3 will have bc2 flavour then I will be happy enough.

LAN, dedicated servers etc is a different story.

Zomg Okay · 22-04-2011 12:38am

Spear wrote: »

No, nothing rude, just wondering about things such as why they pander to the selfish and unproductive elements of the player base by continuing to provide a sniper class in a team based multiplayer game. Or why they botched the PC release of BF1943.

Hey, I happen to be a very good team sniper, thank you very much. We aren't all selfish morons worrying about KD.

I get to play Battlefield 3 tomorrow. What do you want to know?

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