Battlefield 3: Big guy causes havoc

Battlefield 3 – first patch out on PC and coming to consoles soon

A big first patch has been released for Battlefield 3 on the PC, with the console versions coming shortly due to the lengthier approval process. Included in the update are a variety of new features and a host of bug fixes.

Included will be general performance and load time improvements, plus several factors causing the game to crash have now been sorted. For PC gamers specifically, there’s now single sign-on from Battlelog to Origin, plus unranked servers if you fancy a more relaxing game of Battlefield, although there’s no indication whether this might lead to community modifications at some point in the future.

You’re also able to share profile and stats pages to Facebook, Twitter and Google+, but more important for most of us are the gameplay changes, which include fixes such as ‘You should no longer spawn too close to enemies in TDM, SQDM or Conquest’, plus tweaks to damage and range on a number of weapons, and grenades now drop to the ground if you’re killed mid-throw.

The EOD Bot exploit has now been fixed, there are improvements to the ‘team kill kick’ configuration, and there are a lot of changes to the Squad and Platoon options, which are definitely going to improve the console experience shortly.

Battlefield 3 patch: Squad and Platoon changes:

Players can join empty Squads alone, and the ‘Find Me a Squad’ option has been removed. Instead, you’ll now be able to cycle through available squads, which will make it a lot easier to actually play alongside your friends, rather than spending one or two rounds messing around changing teams and constantly jumping from squad to squad to find them mid-game.

Empty squads will display in white to show there’s space available, occupied squads will be coloured blue, and although squad privacy flags will be disabled if you’re in a 1-man squad, two-player squads can still go private.

Update highlights:

Patch Notes:

General performance and loading time improvements
• ”Black Screen” fix for an issue occurring on some PC configurations
• Stereo and rendering support for Nvidia and AMD graphics cards
• Fixed several crashes that occurred when joining multiplayer and co-op sessions
• Fixed a problem with high speed mouse movement (aka “negative mouse acceleration”)
• You should no longer be able to damage a friendly vehicle when sitting in an open position
• Grenades now drop to ground if you get killed while attempting to throw it (dangerous in Hardcore mode!)
• You should no longer spawn too close to enemies in TDM, SQDM, or Conquest
• A large number of damage and range tweaks on a number of weapons to fine-tune overall balance in the game
• Added round duration and ticket summary at End of Round screen
• Fixed a problem regarding key bindings while playing
• Significant changes to the Join Squad interface, detailed at the bottom of this post

Server side:

• EOD Bot exploit fix
• Several crash fixes
• Anti-stat padding measures taken, disallowing ranked servers to run obscure settings
• Improved team kill kick configuration
• Support for unranked servers. Unranked servers do not report players’ scores to Battlelog, but server administrators can freely control all settings

Battlelog:

• Ability to share your Profile and Stats pages to Facebook, Google+, and Twitter
• User Profile and Stats pages on Battlelog can now be accessed without being signed in to Battlelog if you know a user’s URL
• Single sign on from Battlelog to Origin. If you’re not logged in to Origin and join a game server, Battlelog will automatically sign you in to Origin in the background and join the game server

Squad changes:

• Removed FIND ME A SQUAD option
• Allow players to join empty Squads alone, thus having 1/4 squad members
• Change order of options to LEAVE SQUAD, INV A FRIEND, SWITCH TEAM
• Disable Privacy flag when 1 man squad
• Reset Privacy flag from Private to Public when squad drops to 1 player
• All occupied Squads will now show up colored blue on the Squad Selection screen
• Players who choose not to join squads will also show up as Blue in the “Not in a Squad” line
• Squads that are currently empty will display as white — if you wish to join an empty Squad, you can choose the first one marked with white text

Server problems for Battlefield 3 Owners

With EA’s Battlefield 3 projected to have shipped 10 million copies in its first week, it seems EA’s servers are struggling to cope with demand.

The problems which have affected all three platforms (PS3, 360, PC) have prevented some owners from accessing the multiplayer portion of the game entirely, including the much-touted Battlelog feature. Many owners have complained of a lack of server available for players to join, that their EA Online Pass codes are invalid and of severe lag.

Earlier today, Battlefield 3′s online services went down for maintenance and it’s Twitter account said: “We are going to perform maintenance to improve stability for all platforms on our servers. Therefore, online connectivity will be down from 8:00 to 9:00 UTC.”

DICE have claimed maintenance has now been completed on all three versions, but whether or not server problems have been fully fixed remains to be seen.

Are you experiencing problems with playing Battlefield 3 online? Let us know in the comments box below.

Battlefield 3 Official Launch Trailer

Battlefield 3 Open Beta Available Now!!

DICE and EA have made available Battlefield 3′s multiplayer beta to all those who have been gobsmacked with amazement by one of this years most beautiful and must have title.

Today, the beta was released on both Xbox 360′s Live Marketplace and Playstation 3′s Network. For those who have beastly PCs and opted for that version, Origin is the place to be. Those of you who live under a rock, Origin is EA’s answer to Valve’s hugely successful Steam client.

Updated: We’re in! Our first impressions of the Battlefield 3 Open Beta

Back to EA and with beta’s in general, nobody can predict how successful they will be until it’s made publicly available. When BF3′s beta was classified as open to all, server performance would have taken a huge hit as countless numbers of eager gamers try to log on.

Yeah, I’m one of those guys!

Having spent a good hour waiting for the Xbox 360 version to download (all 1.3 gigs worth), I have attempted to join the fight well over 30 times, only to be greeted with connection lost error messages. For all those attempts, I had hit the server once and managing a measly five minutes worth of actual game time.

So, as I try yet again to get on EA servers, who has managed more than five minutes? Did you like what you saw? Or is Battlefield 3 lacking something? Leave your thoughts below… And then try and get back on them servers!!

Battlefield 3′s multiplayer beta is available until the 10th October, with the titles’ imminent release on the 25th. Those gaming with PCs, the recommended system requirements are stated below:

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) 32-BIT
PROCESSOR: 2 GHZ Dual Core (Core 2 DUO 2.4 GHZ OR Athlon 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

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Battlefield 3: Pre-Order Bonuses and Limited Edition Details

It’s not long now until the October 28th launch of Battlefield 3, and apparently fans have already pre-ordered ten times more copies of the game than they did for the launch of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, so it’s looking to be a pretty darn big launch. In addition to winning over 50 awards even before launch, developers DICE and publishers Electronic Arts have announced a number of bonus items and extras you can get by carefully choosing which version you fancy buying, and pre-ordering once you’ve decided.

So what’s the difference if you go for the Limited Edition? The Battlefield 3 Limited Edition includes the Back to Karkland DLC expansion pack, which includes four maps from Battlefield 2, including Strike at Karland, Gulf of Oman and the Sharqi Peninsula. If you d go for the standard edition and want to download the map pack seperately, it’ll cost you a fairly heft £11.99, so you may as well go limited from the start!

Battlefield 3 Pre-Order bonuses:

If you commit to a Battlefield 3 pre-order now, then various retailers are offering bonuses for your custom. And the split between the retailers is:

Physical Warfare Pack: Available in the UK from Game.

You’ll get three exclusive weapon bonuses unlocked for a limited time in-game, before they later become available to all players. The three goodies you’ll get access to straight away are: The Type 88 Light Machine Gun with Bipod, the SKS Sniper Rifle Flash Suppressor, and Flechette Ammo for the DAO-12 Semi-Automatic Shotgun, and the DAO itself will also be unlocked for you, giving you a healthy headstart with increased stealth from the flash suppressor, and the hefty stopping power of the armour-piercing flechette rounds. So if killing is your business, then you should probably consider pre-ordering from Game right away.

SPECACT Kit – available from Amazon UK:

You’ll be able to expand your look with a set of eight unique multiplayer skins, with one for each class in Battlefield 3, because as we all know, looking good is second only to getting the kills! So if you fancy being ‘on trend’ this season, get your pre-order in at Amazon.

 

Dog Tag Pack – available from Play.com:

The role of dog tags in Battlefield is your in-game signature, which get displayed when you make a kill or claim an opponent’s dog tags by sneaking up on them and stabbing. So you’ll be able to select one of five new and unique dog tags to stand out whether you’re the one claiming the kills, or being stabbded in the back. Quite a classy way to show off the fact you’ve pre-ordered from Play.com.

 

So what would we recommend? Well, the Limited Edition appears to be the sole version available for pre-order at the moment, and given the fact that so many people are going to have access to the extra maps, and the hefty price to download them later, it seems like a bit of a no-brainer to pick them up at launch.

As for pre-order bonuses – despite the fact that limiting game content by pre-order retailer makes us slightly uneasy as gamers, the time-exclusive option and the fact that it will give us a gameplay advantage means that we’re choosing the Physical Warfare bonus from Game over the other two. After all, nothing looks better than a high kill/death ratio, and people aren’t as likely to notice your custom skin or dog tag as much as the fact you’re taking them out with high-powered flechette rounds. Plus it’s a moral duty to encourage the use of time-limited content which is then opened up to every gamer, regardless of retailer, rather than permanent exclusives most of us will never get the chance to access. So we’re pre-ordering the Limited Edition via Game, but which version is tempting you?

Battlefield 3: Possible PC Requirements

DICE, one of Electronic Arts many studios, have yet to release some official PC requirements for their upcoming spectacle, Battlefield 3. For those that would like to play one of this years must have games in all it’s visual beauty, knowing these PC requirements sooner rather than later would allow them to save some pennies.

Games retailer GameStop, had earlier posted some requirements on their website for the title. These requirements appear to have been removed (why?!) since word of mouth seems to have spread.

Those that were able to jump over to GameStop earlier on, would have seen the below, possibly only just rumoured, PC requirements.

Let’s see if we can run it:

Minimum specifications:

• Operating system: Windows Vista or Windows 7
• Processor: Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz
• Graphics card: DirectX 10 or 11 compatible Nvidia or AMD ATI card
• Hard drive space: 15GB (disc) or 10GB (digital)
• RAM: 2GB

Recommended specifications:

• Operating system: Windows 7 64-bit
• Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
• Graphics card: DirectX 11 Nvidia GeForce CTX 460 or equivalent; AMD ATI card Radeon HD 6850 or equivalent
• Hard drive space: 15GB (disc) or 10GB (digital)
• RAM: 4GB

There is no question that the Frostbite 2 powered Battlefield 3 will require some fairly up to date computer components in order to see the same level of realism and details the trailers all seem to show off with. An expensive collection of components you may have already purchased primarily for Crysis 2. However, these aren’t official requirement specifications, so take it with a pinch of salt.

Battlefield 3′s beta is due a month before release, making it available sometime in September. The full game will be upon us in October 25th in North America and the 28th for Europe. In the mean time, be sure to pre-order your copy at either Play.com, Gamestation, Game and HMV to name but a few outlets. If all else fails, you can even pre-order on EA’s online store to play on their Steam rivalling application, Origin.

Think your PC can currently meet these rumoured requirements? Or need to splash out on new bits? Leave your thoughts below.

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