Battlefield 3

[Shakermaker]

Was I supposed to get a Karkland key with my LE pre-order? All I got was the 'physical warfare' keycode.

You will get the Karkand DLC key when it's released. Which will be in a couple of months.

I finally got a key to unlock my Physical Warfare pack btw.

 

[15357]

I've found out that you shouldn't:

1. Drop to prone in open ground when there is cover nearby just because a bullet just whized by you.

2. Run around in open ground

3. Conserve ammunition; especially as support - firing at the general direction of the enemy actually helps and you get points for suppressive fire. D:

4. Try to ram the enemy tank

5. Take the jet. Or at least until I get a joystick.


Despite the lack of coordinated tactics, this is a very good game, and the atmosphere is breathtaking. The combat is very intense, and even infantry firefights are epic, and the sound effects and suppression effects are enough to make you seek cover.

The game has turned to infantry as its main arm of action, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Sure, it's more like real life and perhaps more fun to play infantry now, but the reduced effectiveness of tanks except in anti-armor roles and being a mobile asset makes me a bit sad because tanks are meant to be awesome.

 

[hool10]

Well even Caspian feels primarily infantry based. I mean sure, there are jets flying around and helicopters too... but unlike Battlefield 2 and 1942 from my experiences, the vehicles are mostly just worrying about each other and not so much the infantry. As a result the planes are worrying about the planes and helicopters, the helicopters are worrying about the tanks, and the tanks are worrying about the tanks and occasionally infantry. Infantry has a real run of the place.

I think infantry being the more dominant force to winning maps is a good thing though.

That is exactly what BF should have been from the start. Initially I was disappointed in the beta that I couldn't carpet bomb places. It's great for the jet pilot, not so great for you on the ground.

How about Sunday at 3PM EST for the first HL2.net BF3 meeting?

 

[Stormy]

To be honest, mod tools are cool but I think the full on big mods we used to see are a dying bread. Games are just far to complex and it takes far to long to produce a good quality mod. By the time its finished everyone has moved off onto the next big game. Big games like battle field have hundreds of people working in the studio and then tons more in outsource companys to produce the masses of content needed which mod teams just don't have.

The kind's of mods that do well these days are the weapon / map packs which you see a lot in ArmA or Team Fortress. They are faster to make and get done before people move on to other games.

So yes, I'd like to see SDK tools but tools that give people what they need to create custom maps. An editor with a massives of static props + textures just so people can mash together custom multiplayer maps.

 

[Raziaar]

Admittedly a lot of the vehicle strengths on the battlefield might change once the players get more of the unlocks for them.

 

[Shakermaker]

How about Sunday at 3PM EST for the first HL2.net BF3 meeting?

That is 8PM UK and 9PM EU. Works for me.

 

[Ren.182]

To be honest, mod tools are cool but I think the full on big mods we used to see are a dying bread. Games are just far to complex and it takes far to long to produce a good quality mod. By the time its finished everyone has moved off onto the next big game. Big games like battle field have hundreds of people working in the studio and then tons more in outsource companys to produce the masses of content needed which mod teams just don't have.

The kind's of mods that do well these days are the weapon / map packs which you see a lot in ArmA or Team Fortress. They are faster to make and get done before people move on to other games.

So yes, I'd like to see SDK tools but tools that give people what they need to create custom maps. An editor with a massives of static props + textures just so people can mash together custom multiplayer maps.

I'd love to see a map editor. I'd be all over that. Didn't they say they weren't releasing a SDK because "it's too complicated" for us normal folk to use? Which is basically EA saying "we want to sell dlc rather than you guys make the same stuff for free."

Shame really. Custom maps/mods really extend a games life.

That is 8PM UK and 9PM EU. Works for me.

Works for me!

 

[ray_MAN]

It saddens me deeply how irrelevant choppers have become. They are seemingly made of paper, and apparently unloading an entire barrage of 14 rockets into a tank isn't even enough to disable it.

Gone are the days of thinking, "OH SHIT! A chopper!" when you hear those rotors. Rather, in BF3, choppers now just make me think, "Yay! Free points!".

 

[Stormy]

Ah man i was really hoping the choppers where going to be much better in bf3. They where made of paper in bad company 2 and it was ****ing annoying. Choppers have always been my favorate thing in battle field games so makes me very sad if they are shitty.

 

[Dynasty]

But that minigun AA tank does bug all damage. I went through 2 full autos until it stopped due to overheating on a helo strafing me. He got me to disabled, and then he went down.

They're tougher than you think.

And stingers SHOULD take them down in one hit, considering it takes a million before you CAN hit the thing due to BLOODY FLARES SPAM!

 

[Stigmata]

Yeah choppers are actually pretty good. People were complaining like crazy over the flight model during the Beta, but lately I've seen people swooping gracefully under bridges and rapidly circling control points at a 15m radius, usually ripping up myself and everyone else on my team. To me, it's jets which seem massively underpowered at the moment.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

It's obvious every vehicle has been nerfed since BF2, although Vodniks and Humvee's are much stronger this time. Can't have something over powering!

It was done for the CoD players.

 

[Dynasty]

...or balance.

Cant stand when something is overpowered. DICE said over and over they wanted everything to have a counter.

A Humvee still goes down with a rocket. So close to getting the Javelin, that should shake some ***t up.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

If something is overpowered, you adapt. Medal of Honor had everything "balanced" and quite frankly it was DICE's worst game yet, there comes a point were too much balance is overkill.

 

[Stigmata]

If something is overpowered, you adapt.

That's not overpowered, though, that's a player failing to adapt. Overpowered is when the ways the game allows you to adapt aren't good enough. Jets in BF2 were a great example of this. Skilled pilots in real life are be able to outmaneouver Stingers and various other forms of AA, theoretically, but being able to reliably do that makes for a game that isn't much fun to play for anyone but the pilot.

 

[repiV]

I can't activate it...it just sits there...trying to connect to the activation server.

How annoying. And I have tomorrow off work. And I'm moving house over the weekend, so I quite wanted to play it tonight!

 

[Viperidae]

Skilled pilots in real life are be able to outmaneouver Stingers and various other forms of AA, theoretically

At sub-mach 2 speeds (BF2 speed), planes can't outmaneuvre Stingers. All they can do is deploy countermeasures, hide behind terrain, and pray.

 

[Ren.182]

I dunno why people are moaning about the stinger. All it takes is patience. I took down at least 4 planes and 3 choppers on a game last night on the canal map. Make them burn their flares, then re-lock and fire. If they don't burn their flares wait for them to come back, if they don't burn them again they probably don't know how to use them I've found

I find the choppers to be very maneuverable, loving them. Just need a bit of practice and it'll be like the old BF2 days! Also I've had no problem taking out vehicles with chopper rockets. Is there an armour mod or something to give tanks etc more armour? The choppers gunner can disable vehicles too, helps if he's firing at the tank or whatever too!

I'm slightly addicted! >_<

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

That's not overpowered, though, that's a player failing to adapt. Overpowered is when the ways the game allows you to adapt aren't good enough. Jets in BF2 were a great example of this. Skilled pilots in real life are be able to outmaneouver Stingers and various other forms of AA, theoretically, but being able to reliably do that makes for a game that isn't much fun to play for anyone but the pilot.

What I meant by adapting is squads staying together, an engineer (equipped with stingers) with support and medic can be pretty effective. In Battlefield 1942, none complained about the tiger tank being overpowered... and it was fine that way.

 

[Stormy]

Aw I got my copy now but wont install as EA server side activation is down. What bollocks

 

[Kadayi]

Aw I got my copy now but wont install as EA server side activation is down. What bollocks

Yeah it's bullshit

 

[Dynasty]

I can't activate it...it just sits there...trying to connect to the activation server.

How annoying. And I have tomorrow off work. And I'm moving house over the weekend, so I quite wanted to play it tonight!

It's not out yet in the UK until after midnight...

Unless you're using the VPN trick in your internet options.

That's not overpowered, though, that's a player failing to adapt. Overpowered is when the ways the game allows you to adapt aren't good enough. Jets in BF2 were a great example of this. Skilled pilots in real life are be able to outmaneouver Stingers and various other forms of AA, theoretically, but being able to reliably do that makes for a game that isn't much fun to play for anyone but the pilot.

Quite.

There's a TV missile video of some guy who parked his helo on a hill, just outside the view of the runway of the enemy main base. He fires missile after missile at the jets before they take off. Nobody came over to kill him. TV missile is therefore not overpowered. Annoying, but easily countered.

If you fail to react to what's infront of you, that's hardly the game's fault.

 

[Ennui]

EA is freaking out about the activation thing and working to fix it. Should be ready by tomorrow (UK launch) or there is gonna be absolute hell to pay for them.

 

[Ren.182]

I want to playyyyyy :'(

Edit: Nevermind it's working, just taking ages to load for some reason!

 

[Stigmata]

BF3 is currently unplayable for me and a number of others due to audio driver-based system lockups, anywhere from 1-10 minutes into a game. Reinstalling them, clean uninstall/reinstall, different sound card, different bitrates/samplerates, nothing fixes it.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

OH GOD WHY IS IT STILL WORK TIMEiwannaplayagain

 

[Shakermaker]

I have played Operation Firestorm and Caspian Border on Rush mode tonight, and it was actually a lot of fun. Especially Firestorm was a blast. Will play again.

 

[Raziaar]

To be honest, mod tools are cool but I think the full on big mods we used to see are a dying bread. Games are just far to complex and it takes far to long to produce a good quality mod.

That's an insult to mod developers everywhere. Far too complex? These mod makers make their own games too oftentimes, and they're really good at developing for games. If they are given the proper access they can make mods really well and are very capable. If they had the same kind of access that the video game developers themselves had... code base and all they would do no worse than the game developers themselves. Case in point, mod development is no more complex than game development itself. The problem is the game developers either don't compensate for allowing mod development in their own development plans and thus all the hooks aren't there properly, or they try to obfuscate the process.

I have seen far more incredibly well made mods that I wanted to play than I have seen actual games come out in the past 5 years that I really wanted to play. Mod makers are a lot more ambitious than you think. You can't takethe attention span of people and put all that blame on the modders.

 

[Stigmata]

Mods are products of passion, while games are products of financial investment which must generate a return. In this sense, mods are the purest form of videogame greatness.

 

[Kakashi]

Right now I've still not been able to even start the game. Still stuck here with the Origin Activation. Apparently activation servers have been down all day.

 

[PvtRyan]

I think the "full-conversion" type mods are essentially dead. I doubt we'll ever play a mod again that will be anywhere near the significance of CS or DoD. The indie scene has largely taken over the role of the mod scene. The maturity and availability of quality middleware software probably has something to do with that. In the old days, if you wanted to make a game your choices were pretty much limited to either roll your own engine and tooling or to make a mod. Now, you use something like Unity or another middleware engine.

I don't know if the mod scene could do anything really worthwhile if they had a BF3 SDK. I'm not underestimating them, but BF3 was probably a game that had 200+ dedicated people working on it. While making a map like Caspian Border seems viable (to oversimplify it: just shape the terrain, put prefab buildings on it and you're done) I doubt something like Seine Crossing could be made. It just has a lot of custom modeling in it. The days that shooter maps were mostly made up out of rectangular brushes with some meshes for decoration like in HL en HL2 are over.

But assuming quality maps can be made, how will you get them to the players? I don't know how large a BF3 map is, and maybe it's not that bad, but it's certainly not 5MB like a HL map. Is it worth it to ask all your players to download those 25, 50, 100, 200? MB maps? I'm just not sure I would bother. It would also create chaos in the simple world of 9 maps we have now. That simplicity and lack of fragmentation is worth something too. While I'm sure that there would be great maps, there would be even more shitty ones and I think that could create frustration for the average gamer.

There's also the possibility that the Frostbite engine and tooling simply isn't ready (yet) for external use. Other than to prepare an SDK, DICE would also need to make sure that it's actually usable for the outside world. There's a huge difference between tools you use internally and tools that are ready to be released to the public and that you are expected to provide support for. It would also require changes to how servers work I think, as you need to be able to deploy maps and your custom assets on it.

I just can't get excited about mods or custom maps. Too many unskinned weapon renders and unfulfilled promises made me bitter I guess. I think the excitement that I used to get from mods can now be found in indie games. And for game developers, you can actually sell those games and without worrying about the licensing issues of creating a mod.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Mods are products of passion, while games are products of financial investment which must generate a return. In this sense, mods are the purest form of videogame greatness.

Well put

 

[Raziaar]

This shit is false. I've killed 6 people in one round with the EOD bot. It even said [EOD Bot] when I killed hte person. Killed them with the welding gun.

 

[Vegeta897]

While making a map like Caspian Border seems viable (to oversimplify it: just shape the terrain, put prefab buildings on it and you're done) I doubt something like Seine Crossing could be made. It just has a lot of custom modeling in it.

Nobody really cares about having custom building models. There are plenty to work with already in the game. The most important factors in a good map in a game like Battlefield are beyond the visuals. People have made some amazing looking maps for Arma 2, and they recycle existing building models that look right at home in the map.

But assuming quality maps can be made, how will you get them to the players? I don't know how large a BF3 map is, and maybe it's not that bad, but it's certainly not 5MB like a HL map. Is it worth it to ask all your players to download those 25, 50, 100, 200? MB maps?

This is silly. A 5mb map back in the day was ****ing huge, but people downloaded them. 100 mb is really not that much these days. Hell, it's a fraction of what a patch would weigh. Do you really think people are going to be turned off from downloading something they want to play because of a 100mb file size? Get real.

If your logic were true, people wouldn't buy DLCs because the file size is too much to download. (Plus you have to pay for it!)

I'm just not sure I would bother. It would also create chaos in the simple world of 9 maps we have now. That simplicity and lack of fragmentation is worth something too. While I'm sure that there would be great maps, there would be even more shitty ones and I think that could create frustration for the average gamer.

This is even sillier, and just perpetuates the awful mindset that the community can't make shit. Sure there are going to be bad maps, but it's not like you have to download them. Good maps will be played a lot, bad maps will starve. I can't even believe you're taking this kind of stance on a Half-Life forum.

There's also the possibility that the Frostbite engine and tooling simply isn't ready (yet) for external use. Other than to prepare an SDK, DICE would also need to make sure that it's actually usable for the outside world. There's a huge difference between tools you use internally and tools that are ready to be released to the public and that you are expected to provide support for.

Of course. But shipping a game earlier without mod tools because they're not ready is different from just not making the tools at all with the elitist excuse of 'the community couldn't handle them.'

 

[Raziaar]

I think the "full-conversion" type mods are essentially dead. I doubt we'll ever play a mod again that will be anywhere near the significance of CS or DoD. The indie scene has largely taken over the role of the mod scene. The maturity and availability of quality middleware software probably has something to do with that. In the old days, if you wanted to make a game your choices were pretty much limited to either roll your own engine and tooling or to make a mod. Now, you use something like Unity or another middleware engine.

I don't know if the mod scene could do anything really worthwhile if they had a BF3 SDK. I'm not underestimating them, but BF3 was probably a game that had 200+ dedicated people working on it. While making a map like Caspian Border seems viable (to oversimplify it: just shape the terrain, put prefab buildings on it and you're done) I doubt something like Seine Crossing could be made. It just has a lot of custom modeling in it. The days that shooter maps were mostly made up out of rectangular brushes with some meshes for decoration like in HL en HL2 are over.

But assuming quality maps can be made, how will you get them to the players? I don't know how large a BF3 map is, and maybe it's not that bad, but it's certainly not 5MB like a HL map. Is it worth it to ask all your players to download those 25, 50, 100, 200? MB maps? I'm just not sure I would bother. It would also create chaos in the simple world of 9 maps we have now. That simplicity and lack of fragmentation is worth something too. While I'm sure that there would be great maps, there would be even more shitty ones and I think that could create frustration for the average gamer.

There's also the possibility that the Frostbite engine and tooling simply isn't ready (yet) for external use. Other than to prepare an SDK, DICE would also need to make sure that it's actually usable for the outside world. There's a huge difference between tools you use internally and tools that are ready to be released to the public and that you are expected to provide support for. It would also require changes to how servers work I think, as you need to be able to deploy maps and your custom assets on it.

I just can't get excited about mods or custom maps. Too many unskinned weapon renders and unfulfilled promises made me bitter I guess. I think the excitement that I used to get from mods can now be found in indie games. And for game developers, you can actually sell those games and without worrying about the licensing issues of creating a mod.

No offense but it sounds to me like you really haven't been accustomed to mods at all. Most of the things you say just sound silly because modders tackle shit like that all the time. Total conversion mods still come out for games that ALLOW it, games where developers aren't actively obfuscating or preventing the ability to do it.

The most important issues I have with what you say are the following.

You don't think the community could do anything worthwhile if they had a BF3 SDK? What do you think the point of an SDK is? If they had the POTENTIAL to create stuff they would create things like Desert Storm, Forgotten Hope and Project Reality all over again. Not that they'd create those mods, but those are ideas of what they would create. If they have the power to do it, they WOULD do it and are MORE than capable of doing it. The fact that 200+ people worked on battlefield 3 has shit all to do with anything. That doesn't mean the game is impossibly complex and only 200+ people can make anything for it... that just means they have a large team to create all the assets. Many of those assets are audio things mind you, which mod communities probably won't focus heavily on. Most of the people aren't actually there working on the CORE elements of the game that the moders would be working on. There aren't 200 programmers and 200 3d modelers.

You completely underestimate the capabilities of 3D modelers out there. You think the assets created for the game are masterpieces that only developers of the game could possibly achieve? There are COUNTLESS amazing 3d modelers out there, many of them with passion for games. I'm not talking about brush shit for HL2 engines either... I'm talking about vertice pushing and pulling mother****ers.

Also what bothers me about what you say is the map sizes. Really... 5MB? Nobody thinks the map sizes are 5MB. They're not going to be unrealistically sized, but whatever they are will not be a problem for both the mod community and the people who consume them. Mods out for battlefield 2 approached 1 gig and beyond... tons of that being art assets. People downloaded, and they downloaded it easily. The ability to distribute content of large sizes such as that is easy, much easier than it was even in BF2 days.

Nobody is denying that a huge hindrance to mod developers will be how accessible the game developers have made the game for modification. But even without those internal tools to do things, mod developers can do incredible things. You know GTA San Andreas? Yeah... without any tools or anything provided to them, they utilized some hidden network code that was scrapped by the game developers and actually built an entire functioning multiplayer community when multiplayer wasn't even available for the base game. No tools offered by the developers, absolutely no modding availability offered by the developers. They still forged their way and made an incredible experience. Never underestimate what those people determined to make shit can do.

ANyway, enough of that rant. By the way if I appears I'm attacking you, please don't take it that way. I'm just kind of passionate about the subject and hate to think that people actually believe none of it is possible anymore and has gone the way of the Dodo.

 

[B_MAN]

This shit is false. I've killed 6 people in one round with the EOD bot. It even said [EOD Bot] when I killed hte person. Killed them with the welding gun.

YA I've spotted a number of peculiarities with my stats tracking too...

 

[Stigmata]

Yeah the stats are slightly bugged. Better than what I expected, though... and the end-of-round scoreboard stats are funny since they're not actual Battlelog stats. Play a round for 20 minutes, get 6:14. Kills per minute: 0. Play a round for 2 minutes, get 2:4. Kills per minute: 2.

 

[Dynasty]

My time played is like 7 hours, and thats definitely wrong.

Everything else seems to be on the money except kills per minute. Im on 19.4, which is either true or bugged.

Doesnt bother me though, as the stats insta-update in Battlelog which is nice. No more stats resetting like in Bad Company 2 on the PS3 every time it said 'updating stats', which meant I had to restart the PS3 after every match or when you quit.

[EDIT] Battlelog just went down for maintenance at 9:15am UK time on all platforms. Shouldn't take too long.

 

[repiV]

It's not out yet in the UK until after midnight...

Unless you're using the VPN trick in your internet options.

Hmm I went to the pub in the end anyway. It was either going to be a night for drinking or a night for BF3, and drinking won! It's all working now, anyhow. Gonna whack on the new nvidia drivers and away we go...

 

[Stormy]

I'm not saying its complex in such a way they are unable to handle it. People are smart and they can figure stuff out and have done for years. Its more complex in terms of the amount of things that are now pored into games and how much work they would need to produce.

Back in the day when mods where big they had to deal with some basic art production, some new code and a few levels. Now there is all the 3d sound to deal with, physics, destriction and more which adds MASSIVES of code and then there is the TONS and TONS of art work. Like I said before games like this take years to produce with hundreds of people working on them. The man hours put into the production of a game like this is insane to say the least.

What I'm really getting at is modding has become harder just because there is so much more involved, there is just too much work for a team of 10-20 people working a few hours in an evening to produce a great quality mod in a decent time frame.

The SDK of some description should be released, and people will try to mod it and I'm sure some mods will come out but its debatable as to weather they will meet the quality of past mods. The best results would come from mapping, if they released a fully comprehensive mapper which included a **** ton of ready made assets.

-------------

I managed to play this for the first time this morning, a quick hour of pwnage and It was frigging awesome. Though I came across one problem. I've mashed my mouse sensitivity riiight down as this is how I like to play but it has not put it down for the Veichels, So the tank turret moves a zillion MPH and I cant aim for shit. Can you change this at all??