Battlefield 3 announced, is superior on PC.

[xthetenth]

Assuming that network conditions are the only thing that dictates the maximum number of players is a fallacy. I do not know much about the Frostbite engine but from this source it does seem like bloated. It could be a problem with the game engine itself.

Well yeah, network conditions aren't the only thing, it's just that I never noticed anyone having problems hosting and playing PR with a decent amount of memory and a fast quad core and a decently quick connection. If you skip out on the video card to make it a hosting box, you aren't really saving much when you already have those three boxes checked.

What about that makes it sound bloated, though? It reads like they're putting in large cities and maps big enough for jets, which would indicate that with destruction that a lot of the resource consumption is going there, rather than for sheer player numbers. Priorities. Just as there's multiple constraints on players, there's multiple ways to spend computer resources.

[Sarevok]

Their coding practices sound terrible. It's like their programmers are led by some technically illiterate person who sees programming buzzwords and orders them implemented. The thread I linked was about why BF3 does not have modtools. The official explanation was its such an obtuse piece of software even the developers themselves struggle to work on it.

[Mr Bean]

Their coding practices sound terrible. It's like their programmers are led by some technically illiterate person who sees programming buzzwords and orders them implemented. The thread I linked was about why BF3 does not have modtools. The official explanation was its such an obtuse piece of software even the developers themselves struggle to work on it.

Which was a major issue moving from BF1942 to BF2. The BF1942 tools were clunky, uninformative and finicky about placements. But they worked great and once you mastered them and learned them, you could build pretty much any kind of map or mod you wanted.

By contrast the BF2 mod and map tools were clunky, uninformative, even more finicky about placements and lets add they crash constantly and are more than happy to chew up and spit out your work unless you save constantly. The BF1942 tools could be made to copy your map and work on the copy while the original was left alone as a backup. The BF2 editor does no such thing and was more than happy to utterly corrupt any map you worked on with ease. And don't even get me started about how modifying the terrain in editor is a pile of ass. (Hint, you can't create right angles so dig ground for trenches or bunker complexes takes forever and is screwy as hell.) The only thing they improved in any way was modifying the terrain types and overgrowth settings which got a thousand times easier in BF2 even if it did take forever and simple settings like auto delete tree's in roads you built were left out. And don't even get me started on the lack of a proper map exporter built into the map engine.

Screw it I'll toss out a comment here.
Hey developers? When I export a map from editor it should not require me to .RAR the damn thing up myself and put back in files your editor automatically strips out for size that are vital if one wants to go back and edit a map later or send someone a copy to do something other than play on. Yes they add a few extra megs to the size of the map but why not give me the option to export it with the terrain files and lightmap samples hmmm?

[xthetenth]

The thread I linked was about why BF3 does not have modtools.

Hmm, think it misdirected then, cause all I see is a generic release about what they're doing with absolutely no mention of modding.

[Mr Bean]

The thread I linked was about why BF3 does not have modtools.

Hmm, think it misdirected then, cause all I see is a generic release about what they're doing with absolutely no mention of modding.

Now having my hands on the Gameinformer cover story I can say they say the same thing in there as well that mod tools and even map tools are unlikely "because they really want to focus on multiplayer" and I'm guess it's less to do with focus and lots more to do with DLC. Never mind trying to sell map packs to PC players is a semi-hopeless exercise. Map packs + new context works great but just call of duty style map packs don't exactly sell well on the PC.

[adam_grif]

EA has their stupid "project 10 dollar" shit where every game has to come out with 10 bucks US worth of DLC. They've also got all that goddamn preorder bonuses, exclusive items and so on. Dragon Age 1 was the fucking worse for this:

[Fire Fly]

Some new tidbits and pictures for BF3

The worldwide interest in Battlefield 3 is very high so I made a summary of the most important information of the GameStar cover story (Issue 04/2011). First of all let me start with a comparison to the article Matt Bertz wrote for GameInformer. German editor Fabian Siegismund also played the demo level but describes it in another way and gives more detail to the destruction. Here is an example: when the huge building collapses during the earthquake it buries and destroys a Blackhawk helicopter. Patrick Bach says that debris can hurt characters. Important here: we are talking about the singleplayer. Not tested or confirmed for the multiplayer (Bach: "We'll see")!

Talking about the multiplayer the text contains a short summary about the multiplayer aspects editor Siegismund was able to see. I’ll give you that aspects in form of a list.

* Most important fact but most likely a typo or mistake: 32 players for the console.
* At a screen there were four classes with five slots for equipment. No further word about the details of the equipment is given
* Siegismund says that he has seen a F-16 and a Su-27 Jet. Important here: there is a render / picture at the article that shows a F-18 Super Hornet and not a F-16. Don’t know if this means the existence of both jets or a typo.
* Siegesmund talks about a “Replay-Function which was also included in Battlefield 2”. In our opinion he is talking about the Battlerecorder (as a function to replay whole games). His statement concerning this function: “DICE is playing around with a feasible version for BF3”. The function is not confirmed.
* Sound: DICE is working with a revised system for the sound that enables players to detect from where a vehicle or enemy soldier is coming. Every object (aka tank, helicopter) has up to 80 soundchannels with different sounds from different angles.
* Singleplayer: there will be Quicktime-Events where you have to push the mouse buttons to win a fight. The example here: an enemy tries to stab you with a knife and you have to defend you (knock him down / kill him).

That’s it for now. I may add some aspects (SP) later but I wanted to get the news out quickly.

Update

* One of the player models has a tattoo at the right forearm (SP possibly). Looks really cool.
* The M16 at Page 22 has no notch and is adjusted to semi fire (1st Picture of this news) (Thx MaxFragg)

[Zaune]

Just an idle thought here, but whilst I can understand consoles having a lower limit to how many games they can host, what exactly is preventing them being able to join PC-hosted games? Or 360 players being able to join games hosted on a PS3 and vice versa, for that matter.

[ray245]

I recall some company trying to link up Xbox players with Computer players before. It turns out that console players have an extremely hard time playing against PC users.

[Lonestar]

I recall some company trying to link up Xbox players with Computer players before. It turns out that console players have an extremely hard time playing against PC users.

Yup, it was Microsoft that tried it, and in house tests had PC Players stomping the shit out of Xbox players, so they stopped the project.

[adam_grif]

I recall some company trying to link up Xbox players with Computer players before. It turns out that console players have an extremely hard time playing against PC users.

Yup, it was Microsoft that tried it, and in house tests had PC Players stomping the shit out of Xbox players, so they stopped the project.

Bu-bu-bu-but gamepads aren't inferior!

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

It's a little more complicated than that.

Even connecting a 360 player to a PC player requires a fair amount of work in early planning and development as well as actual implementation. And this is between two platforms wherein creating a working version on either is often literally as simple as changing a few configuration settings and setting a couple drop-down boxes from "x86" to "Xbox 360", mind. This is further compounded by the unfortunate yet enduring fact that Games for Windows Live (a necessary service for interfacing with Xbox Live) is a catastrophically terrible pile of shit. Microsoft, for reasons I don't entirely understand, has helped make the dream of cross-platform play so utterly unappealing that no one in their right mind is even attempting it anymore.

Cross-platform play between completely unrelated platforms, such as PS3 and 360, is a total pipedream at this point.

[adam_grif]

Shadowrun had operational cross-platform play, iirc.

[Mr Bean]

Shadowrun had operational cross-platform play, iirc.

Yes they also had their own servers and some technical hi-jinks to let 360 players play with PC gamers. From what I heard the PC version were in fact running in an emulator style mode to look like 360's as far as the 360's were concerned because of Microsoft's restrictions on what you could do with a 360.

[Fire Fly]

Gameplay trailer

Looks pretty good so far.

[Mr Bean]

Short positive gameplay not
I have legs! (Player models are fully integrated 1st person) and the Camera is centered in the head not the chest (Taken from a PC Gamer blog from someone who had played the game)

Nothing says frustration like getting shot in the head because you think your in cover but due to camera in chest that 99% of FPS have done your not and die from it. Chest cams and invisible legs are a pet peeve of mine.

[Zaune]

It's a little more complicated than that.

Even connecting a 360 player to a PC player requires a fair amount of work in early planning and development as well as actual implementation. And this is between two platforms wherein creating a working version on either is often literally as simple as changing a few configuration settings and setting a couple drop-down boxes from "x86" to "Xbox 360", mind. This is further compounded by the unfortunate yet enduring fact that Games for Windows Live (a necessary service for interfacing with Xbox Live) is a catastrophically terrible pile of shit. Microsoft, for reasons I don't entirely understand, has helped make the dream of cross-platform play so utterly unappealing that no one in their right mind is even attempting it anymore.

Cross-platform play between completely unrelated platforms, such as PS3 and 360, is a total pipedream at this point.

Forgive my ignorance, but shouldn't the data string that's exchanged between participating machines and the server -coordinates on the map on the map, inventory etc- look much the same regardless of platform?

[weemadando]

Finally. Someone picks up on the thing I've been wanting implemented since SWAT3. Dragging downed buddies back into cover/out of combat.

Being a medic suddenly became even better.

[Steel]

Forgive my ignorance, but shouldn't the data string that's exchanged between participating machines and the server -coordinates on the map on the map, inventory etc- look much the same regardless of platform?

Yes, and no. The actual data exchanged will be very similar, but the protocols and interfaces for communicating that will be significantly different. Having the different platforms talk to each other directly would be an arse.

However this links into the interesting concept of having a server that just handles the communication to/from all the clients, which never see each other directly. So this could handle all the communication issues, and the individual clients don't have to know how to talk to each other.

[Fire Fly]

New BF3 video with single player gameplay

[Singular Intellect]

This just cracks me up:

"Other returning fan favourite features include 64 players for PC and prone."

They may as well have said "Reintroducing game mechanics established almost ten years ago!"

Reminds me of the release of Aliens Versus Predator 2. They actually could advertise "Save your game at any point" as a selling point for the game because they fucked that up in the original one.

Prone, leaning, ducking, rolling sideways...this shit should be standard for any respectable modern FPS. We're past the era of games like the orginal Doom people; advertising functions like 'prone' is like advertising mouse look capabilities.

One of my biggest beefs with current FPSs is the absolute shit interfaces and control setups they provide. Based upon current trends in FPS gaming, you'd think dynamic and yet simple to implement character control is a major hurtle to overcome.

[weemadando]

Ahahahahahaha.

The "drag your buddy to cover" bit is a goddamn QTE.


COOOOOOOOOOONSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
/grif

PS - it's actually just cheap game design to make you "engaged" in a scripted sequence. Not a sign of consolification of your world. But hey. I'm just pretending I care.

[CaptHawkeye]

If it's going to have lots of melodramatic "phwaaoorrr" moments the single player will be suck just by virtue of trying too hard.

[Fire Fly]

Leaked BF3 gameplay video

[Singular Intellect]

Leaked BF3 gameplay video

I almost cried tears when I saw the player crawl through a vent using the prone function. If they throw in the lean function coupled with a good keyboard/mouse interface setup, that's the first step towards guaranteeing I'll pay out the money for the game.