Battlefield 4

[Sneakytiger]

think i'll wait about a month after release when they release the premium version.

[DuVeL]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/17/battlefield-4-alpha-trial-starts-today-system-specs-and-vehicle-customisation-shots-surface/

DICE are rolling towards the late October release of Battlefield 4 â€" air-dropping the game to select testers for an alpha trial that’s due to begin today. Testers were selected based on “experience with the Battlefield series”. Don’t let that get your hopes up, though â€" even if you have hundreds of collective hours of chaotic battle time, DICE’s “[URL=http://i.imgur.com/1N8g35d.png]TheBikeViking” has confirmed there will be no second batch of testers. Even so, information about the test is coming through, including an early look at system specifications.[/U][/URL]

[GhostMjr]

Preordered with Green Man Gaming. £29.99 and getting £1.81 cashback via top cashback. (they've already taken payment though!)

[DuVeL]

Anyone else got a BF4 Alpha test invite for the next two weeks?

Is it me or does it have anything to do with at least a 5+ Veteran status?

[ShadowFax75]

Is it me or does it have anything to do with at least a 5+ Veteran status?

Nope, checked it for you.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/wallaholm/
This person has veteran status 3 and was in alpha.

[ArithonUK]

Is it me or does it have anything to do with at least a 5+ Veteran status?

Nah, it's coz I play BattleField Heroes!

[ArithonUK]

[video=youtube;tqJfCPcu0As]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqJfCPcu0As[/video]

What is wrong with this picture? Watching the video of multi-player I keep seeing things and asking "Why didn't they fix that? We told them it was broken in BF:BC2!"

When throwing down medic packs, ammo etc. the player auto-gives-away-position by shouting "I dropped a medic bag here, so shoot me!" Surely this action should be silent, and the player only shout out stuff when the comma-rose equivalent is selected "Medic here", "ammo here" etc.

Also, they still don't allow players to be knocked down. Seems stupid, but a friendly and (worse still) an enemy player can pass through you, like a ghost. Surely if you run into an enemy player (or there's an explosion), simply physics should dictate one of you get knocked back or go down. How difficult is falling back from going prone? How cool would seeing a group of enemy combatants floored by a stun grenade look?

For all the special effects added to FrostBite 3, they still haven't covered the basics. Around the 24min mark watch as the Apache flies around the building and the leaves on the trees simply "pop" into existence. Can't they use a sprite up until that point, so the tree is visible (if less detailed) at a distance. Currently a sniper with a mid-range sight can simply go far enough away to "see through" any cover. How dumb is that?

While they made mucho-hypo about the skyscraper falling down, they didn't mention that every other window on the map above eye level is RPG-proof (again), so much for "destructible" maps..

There's been lots of tweaking, but very little change from BF3.

The "new" game does for BF3 what the "Special Forces" expansion pack did for BF2, only instead of costing £20, it costs £45-55 instead - with further DLC (map packs) coming probably for £20 a pop or another £45-55 for "Premium" which cannot be ordered yet (so no idea on content or price) this is the most expensive buy-it-by-instalments game I've ever seen at an eye-watering £90-110!!

Current poll on buying BF4 is 6 in-game already, 5 to hang up their guns and 7 waiting to spawn...

[Chaosphere]

Great post Arithon, many thanks.

The game just looks more and more like battlefield 3.5, not 4.

I know that I will want to play it when it is out, as I always enjoy the games, but I am not sure I want it enough to justify the money EA is asking for it...

[DannagE]

Just downloaded 20gb of BF3 again to play.

Cant see me getting BF4 though, like said before, it looks like battlefield 3.5. Just an expensive DLC.


EDIT - And 14GB of DLC to download too now. lol!!

[Tutonic]

Strange video, that. They can't seem to make up their mind between being a relatively realistic simulation or an arcade shooter. The end result is something that doesn't really satisfy on either front. Arma does the realism better, COD is a better 'arcade' shooter.

Battlefield used to be about the epic. 64 player games across huge terrain, massed tank battles with a full on fight for air supremacy above... this is a pale imitation.

It's hardly surprising, given the short amount of time that BF4 has actually been in development for. I think it's the price that's putting me off, rather than the game itself. Considering that it's a fairly minor update to BF3, asking me to pay a premium price is not going to get them a sale.

If it were £15 cheaper, I would probably be tempted.

[ArithonUK]

[video=youtube;FPPe4hX9o4A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPe4hX9o4A[/video]

Another video - interview with DICE. The ditzy blonde (clearly selected for her long and encyclopaedic knowledge of the BattleField franchise) is very off-putting. All I could think was "how many fags does she smoke to sound that gravelly?"

In it DICE state how they are "proud" of BattleLog (which I'm sure I read was knocked in a hurry by a subcontractor and bolted into the PC version to make up for the absent voice comms and game-browser) and how not only are they extending it for BattleField 4, but bringing it to consoles as well (a problem shared, is a problem two people have).  BattleLog is the gaming equivalent of the story ending "And it was all a dream and he woke up..." lazy, sloppy and unfit for purpose. Fine if you want a stats site, but a game browser (the name's a clue) should be in the game. And comms is to allow team play. If you have to write down everybody's names, quit to desktop, add everyone to Origin friends, restart and hope the game hasn't ended just to talk to your squad, then clearly you can see that (a) the person who made this, never played the game and (b) he or she was a moron and not any kind of capable software engineer. Or they knew it was unworkable and didn't care (occam's razor) and just assumed anyone with a brain would use teamspeak and ditch the pointless token comms.

I have to agree with Tut, that the "premium" price tag for the game is very much a factor in my not buying it. Barely removed from it's predecessor and openly missing content, for the sole purpose of selling it piecemeal. It's like being sold the base of Ming vase you just watched the shopkeeper smash, so he can sell you bottles of glue and fragments in bags of ten....

I noticed in both videos, even when the commander was mentioned, the words "team play" never came up. Telling that - and sad.

Rising bollards and shop shutters all essential features, not like in-game comms unconnected to friends list, eh? I mean, that would be getting our priorities all wrong!

And NOT knocking down the skyscraper is tactical, because it might move the flag twenty feet and some people might object! Now, of course, knocking down a building with an AC130 control centre in it would be just silly. Knocking down a captured chopper spawn point, that would be ridiculous! But moving a flag, well that's tactical. Thanks for clearing that up Karl!

Another thing Karl said in Part One of the interview was that DICE were not happy with the single player in BF3. Well newsflash Karl! Neither was I. Because there was one. And you're making the same resource burning, hard-drive occupying, unnecessary mistake in BF4!! Make the maps all free and make any single-player DLC. At least then the game has longevity, rather than a split player-base. How much money, time and effort was put into music, voice acting, animation and level design for a "feature" than 80-90% of BattleField players will never use? That could have paid for an in-game browser or a couple of extra player classes!

I REALLY want to like BF4. I've had every PC version of the BattleField franchise since it started. BF1942, Road to Rome, Secret Weapons, Vietnam, spent untold hours playing Desert Combat mod and Point Of Existence mod - then BF2, Special Forces, Euro Forces & Armoured Fury, I was in the BF2142 BETA 1 & BETA 2 before getting the game and have Bad Company 2 + Vietnam and accounts on BF:Online and BF:Heroes, plus (obviously) BF3 and Premium. It's not like I don't care or something. I think I've shown some commitment to the series.
But BF4 is repeating all the mistakes of BC2 and BF3 and ignoring all the things that were right about BF2 and not because they're bad ideas or difficult to apply, but because they don't fit with the consoles and don't appeal to twitch-shooter fans.

I'm just waiting for a "zombie mode" to seal the deal.

[Tutonic]

I'm not sure I agree with all your points - I actually quite like Battlelog. Once I got used to the idea of browsing for a server from a web browser, it's hard to argue that it's any worse than doing the same thing from within the game.

The lack of voice comms is, however, inexcusable. Being able to easily talk to the other players on your team is such a fundamental, vital part of a team-based shooter that leaving it out is sheer madness. I still can't understand why they thought restricting it was a good idea.

As for the lack of modding support? Well that's just moronic. "It's too hard *sniff*" doesn't cut it - look how much revenue and creativity it supplies for the likes of Valve, BI, etc.... why on earth would you not want a piece of that?

[DuVeL]

I slightly agree on the Battlelog part with Tut. The things I like about it is that you can adjust your setups here but what I dislike about it is that some things keep getting reset sometimes like some guns and character camo. Some people still don't know that the camo and such are useful.

About the voicecomms. For it and against it a bit. Depends on the players unless you have the ability to mute some people.

[ShadowFax75]

Some information about bf4:
[video=youtube;OnMtISNb_zQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnMtISNb_zQ[/video]

[Chaosphere]

Hmm that is a really good video, well worth a watch.

And actually, a lot of the things he talked about sound like nothing but improvements to the game. Still feels very BF3.5, but the more I hear the more I like, at least!