Newest Trailer:

First Aftermath Trailer


Soldier Names and Favourite Servers

Brick - Brick500
Griptor - Griptor
Xbob42 - Xbob42

Here are some servers provided by our brothers in arms over at Day One Patch
Day One Patch 64 Player Conquest Server
Day One Patch Rush Server

System Requirements:

Minimum System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS VISTA (SERVICE PACK 2) 32-BIT
PROCESSOR: 2 GHZ DUAL CORE (CORE 2 DUO 2.4 GHZ OR ALTHON X2 2.7 GHZ)
MEMORY: 2 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD (AMD): DIRECTX 10.1 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (ATI RADEON 3000, 4000, 5000 OR 6000 SERIES, WITH ATI RADEON 3870 OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
GRAPHICS CARD (NVIDIA): DIRECTX 10.0 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE 8, 9, 200, 300, 400 OR 500 SERIES WITH NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800 GT OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
SOUND CARD: DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

Recommended System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS 7 64-BIT
PROCESSOR: QUAD-CORE CPU
MEMORY: 4 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD: DIRECTX 11 COMPATIBLE WITH 1024 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 OR ATI RADEON 6950)
SOUND CARD: DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

Pre-release Info

Well, after many years, DICE is finally coming out with a proper sequel to Battlefield 2, and they're coming out guns blazing with Call of Duty in their sites! Bad Company 2 was my first Battlefield game, and it was pretty impressive, but it was missing some of the key features of a true Battlefield game, like more players, jets, etc. Battlefield 3 is coming with everything fans of the series want and more. The PC is the lead platform, so it won't have to be watered down for the consoles like the Bad Company spin-off series, but DICE is actually going to make it all work on both the 360 and PS3 regardless.

With the future of Call of Duty up in the air at the moment with Treyarch having shipped Black Ops and out of the picture until 2012 at least, and Infinity Ward in shambles after the mass exodus, we just don't know what we're going to get from the 2011 Call of Duty game, so it seems to be the perfect time for Battlefield to come in and take the FPS crown. I'll admit that I may like the more arcade style of Call of Duty a bit more, but with the formula staying relatively the same all these years, I am starting to get a bit fatigued by it, so I may prefer a change of pace with Battlefield this year, esp. if the next Call of Duty is sub-par.

There hasn't been to much info on Battlefield 3 so far, but what little there is has me very excited. I can't wait to see what true, large scale, Battlefield style warfare is really like.

So far we have this teaser:



And here are some stills from that teaser so that you can get a better look at the all new engine DICE is using for this game, Frostbite 2:



















Mmm mmm mmm! Just think, the game is still in development too, so the graphics can only improve from here, now just imagine how much better everything will look upon release! The game is currently slated for a fall release of this year, so that it can go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised, or upset if it got pushed back a bit since DICE has quite a bit on their table at the moment, and it's going to take a lot of work to get this all to run on the consoles.

Here's some information from an issue of Game Informer on the game:

-Aiming for CY Q4 2011 release
-Concept for BF3 has been in the works for years, waiting on proper tech to seamlessly come together
-Frostbite 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 complaints from the console crowd.
-No mod tools at release. Maybe none down the line either. Frostbite 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.

Here's a link to the Game Informer scans if you want to read the whole story

It's all very interesting stuff, and DICE's claim of it being a next generation game, on current generation hardware seems quite accurate.

The game is getting a full reveal this week at GDC, so expect another trailer, and more news soon.

So, this is the official Battlefield 3 coverage thread, so if you find any news post it here. If a new trailer is released post it here. If you find a cool interview post it here. Let's keep this thread updated with all the news of the game as we prepare for deploymen to the third Battlefield!

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@Xbob42

Yeah maybe on the multiplayer side of things, it would make more sense to not have regenerating health, making medics more useful, esp. in a very team oriented game like this. I don't know how it worked in Battlefield 2, I'm guessing the same as it does in Bad Company 2, but a more Left 4 Dead style could also work, although I kind of doubt DICE will change that up.

I dislike regenerating health for the simple fact that it's lame. You get into a fire fight with some dude, barely escape, hide behind a rock for a few seconds, and suddenly it's like nothing ever happened. If it's a "life" then you shouldn't be getting better magically. It would also help trim down on the run and gun nature of games if you had to actually live with stupid decisions, instead of just hide for a second and jump out to do it again.

They should also not have god medics. I know in BC2 you could just throw down a pack and it would heal people without any loss in gameplay, but I don't think that's the way to go. There needs to be some risk involved with it leaving you or the medic completely open. And the revive mechanic needs a tweak. You can run into a house full of dead people and revive half your team in 3 seconds with no problem.

Also, according to a friend who is super cereal about this game, the demo was running on a single GTX 580.

Regenerating health is fuckin stupid. I agree with Missy.

Hey you mean you agree with XBOB!

I think kill streaks are infinitely more impressive when you have to really worry about ammo and health, and can't just get the drop on a couple people and maybe have an "OP" gun compared to theirs so you can continually kill and heal.

Some people think it takes away from the "quickness," of the match, but I don't believe that to be the case. I think it makes firefights fare more intense and meaningful and really makes you truly learn to rely on a team you learn to trust over the course of a hopefully long match. (Battlefield ain't about quickie matches!)


In fact, since I was such a big America's Army fan (Really great game, criminally underrated in my opinion! By dudebros no doubt!) I'll give my opinion on why I think their system worked so great:

In AA, as you took damage, you moved increasingly slowly. Eventually, you were moving just faster than a walk, and your accuracy was, unless you'd been bandaged, taking a serious hit. (As in, your crosshair/ironsights/scope would be moving a lot more than they would from natural breathing, as though your character was dealing with serious pain.)

If you were walking that slowly, you could almost always (Unless playing with some really crappy people.) count on your team to move slowly with you, valuing every player as part of the team. They'd cycle more healthy people to the front, to prolong the life of each player as long as possible. If you were too wounded to make it across a part where you really needed to sprint for a good distance, someone might even trade you their sniper rifle so you could provide rear cover and be less likely to die.

The point was largely that alone in the "red," you might've been little threat, but because the team around you was actively protecting you, you still posessed lethality to be feared, and people wouldn't charge in in hopes of taking you out quickly. Your team was immensely important to you, and vice versa. It made both the team and the individual feel extremely important.

Now, Battlefield is about quicker combat, and a bit more wacky. But at the same time, any good Battlefield player will tell you that lone wolves rarely sealed the deal. And when they did, it was out of desperation, not out of trying to be a badass. Even the most elite pilots in 1942 who could precision bomb you tended to work in conjunction with other pilots and folks on the ground.

All this, to me, is relevant because the simple act of having regenerating health makes me feel like the game is saying "This is for YOU, just in case YOU get hurt during a fight! My, aren't you a special little rainbow? Here, so when YOU beat someone YOU can have full health again so YOU can go and kill more people!"

And that, to me, negates the purpose of having teams online to begin with.

I agree with Xbob too. The thing about killstreaks makes me think: will there be killstreak rewards in this game like in CoD?

@SkorchKyote

Highly doubt it since when you think about it, the killstreaks in CoD are mostly vehicles, but in Battlefield, the vehicles are already there at your disposal. You want to airstrike the enemy? Hop into a jet and do it yourself! Regenerating health works more if you have a killstreak system like CoD, otherwise it would be basically impossible to rack up enough kills to get the better ones, and therefore making the whole thing useless, but since Battlefield won't have killstreaks, it could go either way.

Not sure if I'd like a system more like America's Army though, after all at the end of the day the game has to be about fun, and not be too realistic; it's a Goddamn game after all. Hell there are even times when I'm playing BC2 and I think to myself, "did this really have to be implemented? Can't I just play and have fun?". Needs to strike a balance of being somewhat realistic, but not too much to detract the fun and make me feel like I'm playing a simulation.

When I want to have fun playing a Battlefield game, I usually go to BF:1943. It's simple and easy, unlike BC2 with all the classes and slight weapon customizations and such.

Brick said:

@SkorchKyote

Highly doubt it since when you think about it, the killstreaks in CoD are mostly vehicles, but in Battlefield, the vehicles are already there at your disposal. You want to airstrike the enemy? Hop into a jet and do it yourself! Regenerating health works more if you have a killstreak system like CoD, otherwise it would be basically impossible to rack up enough kills to get the better ones, and therefore making the whole thing useless, but since Battlefield won't have killstreaks, it could go either way.

Not sure if I'd like a system more like America's Army though, after all at the end of the day the game has to be about fun, and not be too realistic; it's a Goddamn game after all. Hell there are even times when I'm playing BC2 and I think to myself, "did this really have to be implemented? Can't I just play and have fun?". Needs to strike a balance of being somewhat realistic, but not too much to detract the fun and make me feel like I'm playing a simulation.

But none of it is about realism so much as it is about teamwork, and the satisfaction you get from knowing that you won because of patience and trust, rather than a raging boner filled with pure adrenaline.

If you just want to go around killing people... may as well axe the teams and make it a deathmatch.



P.S. NEVER mistake "patience and trust" for "not fun," because it's some of the most fun, in my opinion, that can be had in ANY game.

Also, a bit unrelated, a bit not: I really hope we get an FPS soon that utilizes THREE teams! That was one of my favorite parts of Planetside, and hopefully will be with Planetside 2.

But it'd work especially well, I think, with normal FPS games as well! At least for objective-based gameplay, not so much for just killing or death matches, although it's a GREAT way to keep things from getting too lopsided. Made Planetside really incredible.

@Xbob42

Yes but a lot of times I feel a developer puts something in just to be more realistic, and forgetting about the fun factor. That may be the reason why CoD outsells many other shooters because of the fact that it's accessible and fun. There are things in BC2, like say the dust, where sure it may be more realistic to have that, but then I can't see the bloody guy I'm aiming at, and yet he kills me. You have to strike a balance, and not let things get too frustrating. That's what I'm referring to; things put in to be more realistic, but only end up frustrating the player.

I too would like to see more than just two teams in online games. Almost made the Squad Deathmatch worthwhile in BC2 because there were more than two teams. Actually a 24 player max limit would be ideal since you could have 12vs12, 8vs8vs8, and even 6vs6vs6vs6! Not going to happen here in Battlefield 3 of course, but could bring in a bit more innovation to another shooter.

Of course at the end of the day it's still either you're going to shoot that guy, or you're not, but still.

I actually liked the dust in BC2. Obstacles make up the playing field for shooters, so having things obscure your vision is strategic as well as realistic. I never had enough dust to not really see any people, though. That's why Battlefield 3 looks fun. Using lighting to your advantage to hide will be awesome!

Well, there was a video on Youtube of off-camera gameplay footage from the demonstration. It showed the earthquake. MY GOD. Sadly EA took it down pretty fast, within 10 minutes after I first saw it it is now gone, but sweet baby Jesus does this game look great and smooth. A lot of little details were thrown in, your guy is crawling through a vent and you see his left hand reaching forward to pull himself forward. There's a lot of smoke created by a machine gun turret you find. You get rattled pretty hard when people hit the bridge you are on. A lot of really cool stuff.

Also showed more of the impressive lighting engine, though that would be tough to explain.

Up on Youtube as of 12:53 CST

@missypissy

WOW!

@missypissy
Wow. This game will deliver.

@missypissy

Ooohhhh my tits...

The next episode of this Fault Line series is up, and IGN has it



Looks pretty good, although you can still see a bit of the animation needs work, like when one of your squadmates turns around instantaneously, and even before that his idle animation doesn't really suit the mood of the scene.

There is supposedly going to be some news on the Karkand Expansion today, or at least soon. Whether it's a trailer, news, or whatever remains to be seen, but rest assured it will be posted here!

That "episode" was kinda weak. Felt really scripted. Still looking good though.

@Griptor

Yeah definitely wasn't as impressive as the first. Plus, how does one AT4 rocket take out a whole building? In two weeks though we'll get to see that glorious earthquake scene in HD though

Can you repost the video? I went to watch it and all I saw were guys running around in real life.

Oh wait...nevermind.

@PogueSquadron

i c wut u did thar