POSTED BY David DeMartini ON JUL 6, 2011
I’ve been at EA for 13 years – mostly on the studio side, developing games like March Madness, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and The Godfather. In 2007 I began leading EA Partners and had the honor of working with marquee studios like Harmonix, Crytek, Insomniac, EPIC, Double Fine Studios, Respawn and Valve.
More recently, I was asked to lead EA’s consumer platform, Origin. Origin connects gamers with our franchises across PC and mobile devices. It is the new name of our EA Store, and an application that allows you to download EA games directly to your PC. My new role means that I’m involved in shaping EA’s policies for how players download our online games and services, and we always try to avoid misunderstandings with our players.
Some confusion came up a few weeks ago, when we started seeing stories and forum posts that suggested that EA was in conflict with one of our download partners, and that we had removed our games from that service. This is absolutely not true. I want to make sure our players understand EA’s policy on selling games through our download partners. As such, today we posted our official policy on selling games on third-party download sites, which you can view here.
At EA, we want to bring the best possible content to our players. This was a key factor during my time in EA Partners, where we found great studios and worked to make their games available to as many players as possible. Here at Origin we have the same principle. We want our products available to as many players as possible, which means we make them available in all the places that gamers go to download games and services. To be very clear, except under extremely special circumstances we offer our games to every major download service including Amazon, Gamestop, and Steam.
As you know, games and how they are made have both changed. Today, we continue to extend the experience with new maps, vehicles and other content that adds hours of fun and more value for our players. We also enhance the gaming experience with features like friends lists and in-game chat using the Origin application. Most importantly, we always want to be sure we provide this content and service at the highest possible level of quality. To ensure this, any retailer can sell our games, but we take direct responsibility for providing patches, updates, additional content and other services to our players. You are connecting to our servers, and we want to establish on ongoing relationship with you, to continue to give you the best possible gaming experience. This works well for our partnership with Gamestop, Amazon and other online retailers.
Unfortunately, if we’re not allowed to manage this experience directly and establish a relationship with you, it disrupts our ability to provide the support you expect and deserve. At present, there is only one download service that will not allow this relationship. This is not our choice, and unfortunately it is their customer base that is most impacted by this decision. We are working diligently to find a mutually agreeable solution.
Going forward, EA will continue offering our games to all major download sites. We will also remain committed to providing you, our players, with the best possible content, services, and gaming experience that we can.
David DeMartini
SVP, Global E-Commerce
Highwind55 POSTED : Jul 07, 2011, 09:00AM
Welcome to the second installment of the Battleblog, a blog series taking you all the way to the launch of Battlefield 3 on October 25th! In this blog series, you’ll learn more about every aspect of our biggest shooter ever. This time out is a look at the classes found in multiplayer with Senior Mulitplayer Designer Alan Kertz.
Here at DICE, we’re very proud of the team play functionality that we have become known and loved for in the Battlefield series, and we’re continuing to embrace that approach for Battlefield 3, but not without a few upgrades for the new game. In Battlefield 3, we’re making sure each of the four playable classes (Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon) are each completely capable of holding their own in combat. While they each have different specialties, each class is a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.
If you’re that kind of lone wolf player who simply wants to jump in and cook some fools, that’s perfectly fine – we’re making sure each class in Battlefield 3 packs a mean punch on their own, giving you another chance to play it your way. However, we’re also hard at work fine-tuning each class and their unique team play capabilities, so squads in Battlefield 3 will be able to function tightly, giving even more reasons to team play than ever before.
As mentioned, the four classes available in Battlefield 3 are Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon. All classes include familiar elements, but this time around, we’re tweaking things a bit, bringing something new to our online multiplayer. Our Assault class is still the frontline run and gun class, and considering the havoc and fallen team members someone will see while on the frontlines, the Assault soldier now has medic abilities. That’s right, all the abilities such as medkits and defibrillators typically found on the Medic class are now incorporated into Assault. It makes sense that the class on the frontline will be able to revive fallen team mates, right? Right! Remember, you can play it your way, so if you want to customize your Assault soldier more towards medic abilities or towards serious gunplay, it’s totally up to you.
Engineers are returning in Battlefield 3, bringing back the class in charge of making repairs to the various vehicles on the battlefield. On the other hand, the Engineer is very adept at taking down vehicles as well – this class includes RPGs that can take down armored targets that can’t be destroyed by bullets alone, or even building facades that enemy combatants may be using to take cover. Add the fact that an Engineer’s arsenal includes Carbine weapons, you get an extremely versatile multiplayer class that can truly move like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
The Support class makes its return in Battlefield 3, incorporating the ability to use light machine guns and can lay down heavy fire, allowing him to become a serious mobile weapons platform. “Support has always been about heavy infantry firepower from his LMG,” says Alan Kertz, Senior Multiplayer Designer at DICE. “It’s a role that we’ve wanted to feel different than Assault’s running and gunning.”
This brings us to two new features in Battlefield 3: Bipods and Suppressive Fire. Bipods have a very practical use, especially for LMGs, as they provide a substantial increase in stability while laying down a base of fire. Bipods can be deployed anywhere by zooming in with your LMG when prone, or when standing/kneeling in front of suitable supports, such as a window sill. The stability created by deploying a Bipod gives players a massive boost in accuracy and recoil reduction. You’ll be able to unload an entire clip of 200 bullets from your LMG with great accuracy without even letting go of the trigger, all thanks to the Bipod.
Suppressive Fire is a new in-game mechanic that changes how you can play the game. When you lay down fire in close vicinity to an enemy, the incoming barrage will show up as a graphical blur effect on his screen to stress him and let him know it’s not safe to pop out from behind cover. Just as importantly, this mechanic also affects his character’s in-game firing accuracy, making him less of a threat by using real world tactics. Better yet? You get team play experience points for doing so!
“Supported shooting with Bipods and Suppressive Fire finally allows us to achieve an obvious difference between Assault and Support, since the heavy LMGs are not terribly mobile,” explains Kertz. “When deployed with a Bipod, they become an incredibly powerful force. Suppressive Fire forces the enemy to keep their head down and lets the Support gunner pin his enemies in place so teammates can flank.”
Love him or hate him, Recon is the long range sniper class for Battlefield 3 who excels at gathering intel while on the battlefield. His sniper scope gives this class a distinct view of the battlefield, making Recon particularly suited for spotting enemies as seen in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, ensuring your entire team can see the locations of spotted members of the opposing team. “Recon traditionally has been seen as just a sniper,” Kertz said. “We wanted to change that perception, so we’ve built several completely new teamplay oriented gadgets specifically for the Recon class so he can be a team player, even if he’s sitting on the top of Wookie Mountain.” We’ll talk more about these toys and how they work in a blog post a bit further down the road.
Even though each soldier has a default loadout, they’re there for you to completely customize, making sure you’re able to cater to your own unique style so you can play it your way. We’ll be able to talk more about unlocks, persistence and customization later in the Battleblog series, so stay tuned for more on Battlefield 3 soon!
Stay tuned for BF3 Battleblog #3 next week.
For more information on Battlefield 3, visit the Official Site.
To learn about the Frostbite 2 game engine, visit the Frostbite 2 section on the Battlefield 3 site.
For the latest news on everything Battlefield, follow us on Twitter and our Facebook page.
Building facades? what?
Building facades? what?
The following is a personal opinion which is based on the extremely limited information DICE has revealed:
Building "facade" means the brickface/exterior walls on large buildings. APPARENTLY, despite the fact that we are moving on to Destruction 2.0, we will not be able to completely destroy large buildings because that would change the map layout too much(the ENGINE will allow such destruction, but APPARENTLY DICE is choosing not to allow us to do it). So, they are touting the fact that you can destroy building facade, ie knock the walls off, and that's a subtle acknowledgement that you usually will not be able to destroy whole buildings- the frame and floors will remain.
we already have destruction 2.0
we are now in frostbite 2.0
I meant to say Frostbite 2.0...I guess that means Destruction 2.5 then?
One question I have: which, if any, store front will have all the preorder perks?
Will Origin have them? If so, I may just get it through there, but I want it all.
Previously, the Physical Warfare Pack for Battlefield 3 was only available in the UK, but EA has announced that the Battlefield 3 Limited Edition: Physical Warfare Pack will now be coming to Australia and New Zealand too, with EB Games snagging an exclusivity deal for the special steelbook package with bonus DLC.
The Battlefield 3 Limited Edition: Physical Warfare Pack is available to pre-order exclusively from EB Games and bundles the Type 88 light machine gun with bipod for "deadly firepower and total zone control", the SKS sniper rifle flash suppressor for additional stealth abilities for the Recon class, and the lethal armour-piercing flechette ammo for the DAO-12 semi-automatic shotgun that will tear through almost anything in its way.
You'll also get day one access to the versatile DAO-12 semi-automatic shotgun itself, as well as the Limited Edition Battlefield 3 Back to Karkand map pack, which contains four fan favourite maps from Battlefield 2. Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Wake Island and Sharqi Peninsula are all revamped using the new Frostbite Engine 2.0.
You can pre-order the Battlefield 3 Limited Edition: Physical Warfare Pack from EB Games at no extra cost. Or you could pre-order from GAME in Australia and New Zealand and get the SPECACT Kit, which bundles a set of eight unique multiplayer skins. This is exclusively available with the Standard and Limited Editions of BF3 at GAME and JB Hi-Fi. GAME customers will also get five unique downloadable dog tags to further customise their soldier, while JB Hi-Fi punters will get exclusive Battlefield 3 military gear for their Xbox Live Avatar.
Battlefield 3 will be launching on October 27th in Australia and New Zealand. Check out images of the Physical Warfare Pack below.
It's too early to preorder, wait until a week before release then decide. I'm usually strongly against preorders but I'll give credit here seems like a couple week long demo before the game is released.
Here are the minimum and recommended specs according to an updated listing at GameStop.
Minimum
Hard Drive Space - 15 GB for disc version or 10 GB for digital version
Operating System - Windows Vista or Windows 7
Processor - Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz
RAM - 2GB
Video Card - DirectX 10 or 11 compatible Nvidia or AMD ATI card
Recommended
Hard Drive Space - 15 GB for disc version or 10 GB for digital version
Operating System - Windows 7 64-bit
Processor - Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
RAM - 4GB
Video Card - DirectX 11 Nvidia or AMD ATI card, GeForce GTX 460, Radeon Radeon HD 6850
3:25 pm | by Ennui on July 8, 2011 in Battlefield 3, DICE, Frostbite 2, News
The rumors have been flying today. A number of gaming news sites have been posting false information that the Battlefield 3 system requirements have been leaked by GameStop. This is completely FALSE DICE has not commented officially on system requirements yet. Earlier today the GameStop BF3 product page included a set of minimum and recommended system requirements for BF3 (which has since been removed) that led many sites to believe the system requirements had been leaked by GameStop, and report as much (see this article and this article, and many more like it).
This is not the case. What happened is the GameStop person responsible for maintaining the BF3 product page searched online and found speculative, hypothetical system requirements on BF3Blog.com. The ones posted to the GameStop page were 100% identical to the ones posted months ago on this BF3Blog page. The GameStop guy found those which are confirmed false by DICE programmer Johan repi Andersson, among others, who notes bf3blog.com is a fansite, and they have some problems separating fact from fiction & speculation, unfortunately.
The article in question on BF3Blog discussing theorized system requirements does note that it is purely speculative in an addendum at the bottom of the article:
Please note: these are our expected system requirements for Battlefield 3. When EA/DICE releases the official system requirements, well update this page accordingly.
It seems that the GameStop employee responsible for the mishap failed to notice this disclaimer, though, and copy-pasted their speculative system requirements to the GameStop product page, making people think they were factual.
So just to reiterate GameStop did not leak the real BF3 system requirements like many sites are reporting, they just got inaccurate information from the internet and re-posted it. Up to this point, we have no definitive information from EA DICE about minimum or recommended requirements, and you can be sure that Battlefieldo will report it the moment that they comment on it.
So far the only official comment we have that indicates anything at all about the system requirements for BF3 is an old tweet by Johan Andersson way back in February, in which he asserts that you dont need to worry if you can play BC2 perfectly, BF3 will scale up to even higher detail for eyecandy++, but not required.