Meh... the only real failure there is EA demanding and expecting their games to sell that much. Call of Duty and World of Warcraft hit some magic note at the exact right time and were rewarded for it, there is no formula for repeating that.

Well, if you want to measure in "Call of Duty terms", then pretty much everything that isn't Call of Duty is a failure.

Lemmings don't know or care about company ethics or practices.

Anyway, great work will always remain outside of majority appreciation...it's just how things are balanced...or imbalanced some might say.

On the bright side, under the current circumstances, this means less stupid Call of Duty fans in the Battlefield community (not that there aren't a large number of stupid Battlefield fans).

Battlefield 3 is one of the first DirectX 11-centric games. DirectX 9 is not supported so XP neo-luddites need not apply.

Dumping XP in favour of DirectX 11 allows DirectX 10, 10.1 and 11 hardware to be targeted through a modern, unified renderer, reducing development time while offering technical benefits at all supported hardware levels. DirectX 11-specific features (e.g. tesselation) are not supported on older cards but they can still benefit from DirectX 11's other advantages (e.g. multi-threading).

Between this and the PC-only player cap increase it's good to see that DICE is giving the PC version the treatment it deserves. Just Cause 2 dropped XP for DirectX 10-centric development and ended up being significantly better because of it, but if DICE has done a good job the gains for Battlefield 3 should be even more dramatic.

Looking forward to mods too. At the VERY LEAST, mapmaking. BC2 Just didn't have much in the way of good maps and the community should be able to add some.

So what exactly do you think is long lost from military shooters? What information are you looking to be released? Maybe this subgenre of FPS games just isn't for you.

It's a lot of the little things. Mainly, older titles seemed to be a bit more slower paced, while modern titles are much more arcade-like. Instead of working your way through an area carefully, you can charge out and get shot at, then regenerate behind cover and repeat. Personally speaking, stuff like this is very silly for this particular genre. Before, you had to be careful, and if you got shot, you deal with it or find a medic. There was no magical heal ability.

There is really a lot I could rant about, but it is things like that. I miss huge ass maps that allowed you to flank and destroy the enemy, not small enclosed zones that were restricted until an objective completed. I am not a fan of kill-streak perks and the like either, things that simply seem silly.

Again not Battlefield related, but MoH is one of the best examples. My first time in multiplayer, I did pretty well and started getting kill streak perks. I would launch a missile strike, kill a group of the enemy, and instantly get another missile to launch. It was stupid and cheap, and I felt like I wasn't accomplishing much due to my own skill by that point. I ended the game at the top of the leaderboard, but I found nothing to be proud of about it.

It is this kind of stuff I want to see gone, and a return to proper military based shooters. Not to the degree of ARMA for example, but to what the original Battlefield games have always been about. This is teamwork and tactics, not cheap gimmicks. If BF3 does this, believe me, I will be singing praises for months on end.

Sneak peak at upcoming Game Informer issue with some photographed images. Mostly sad at only 4 classes when BF2 had 7 distinct classes and didn't try to mix too much together, and no mod tools. Time will tell of course though how things turn out, still waiting to see.

http://planetbattlefield.gamespy.com/fullstory.php?id=164284

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

I honestly don't care about mods much and everything else there sounds AWESOME. I am excited.

Announcing real health bars would send me into the stratosphere.

Really hard to tell so not drawing conclusions just yet, but the last screenshot on that page shows bits of the hud. Not noticing anything that looks like a health bar there, but again, hard to tell. Personally though, I fear regen health is here to stay. I'll be interested when the magazine is actually released though, and can check things out more thoroughly. So far nothing is a deal breaker for me, altho still wish the classes were akin to bf2.

Mod tools I think would be great, especially with what people churned out in the past for BF games. Mod tools could interfere with DLC profits tho, so not really surprised in the end. ;)

Whats the big deal behind Battlefield 3? People seem to think its the second coming by announcing things a PC FPS should have.
Edit: This doesn't mean this site in particular but I see it everywhere. Genuinely curious here.

Really the excitement says to me that standards are so low that when something like this is shown it is the second coming... Now it isn't bad don't get me wrong but again these are things I sort of expect from an FPS.

Because it has them and most games don't? I think that is pretty self explanatory really.

Now, should more games have these features? Of course. Are we ecstatic over things that were standard issue 10 years ago? Yes. Does that in any way negate the fact that it's exciting to see those features back though? Nope.

I've just been a fan of the BF series since the start. It's a great combination of FPS, vehicle combat, strategy, and tactics. The early games had a player be the commander who could issue commands, send help packages, and even send artillery strikes on locations. You can also fly planes, helicopters, drive tanks, jeeps, APCs, etc, and play multiple infantry classes. It's much slower and more tactical than CoD, and IMO much more fun.

Full screenshot of blurb regarding PC gamers in the upcoming magazine.

http://filesmelt.com/dl/bf3page10.jpg

I mostly like paragraph three, how PC gamers are a whiny bunch (console guys never complain) and making it sound as though we only care about showing off our rigs. Pretty sure most of us just want the epic gameplay from older titles more than anything else.

Seems you can change the number in the url though and read the other pages. Have yet to do so myself, but plan to soon as I get back home and get a chance.

It's such a simple thing to get right and they're acting like it's difficult. All we want is Battlefield 2 with better graphics & a destruction engine. There's no need to revolutionize anything.... the gameplay was great as it was. We don't even need a single player (which is probably going to be a rubbish, tacked on waste of time that could have been used to refine the multiplayer further.)