Battlefield 3 thread - Server details in opening post -

Pete.Dakota · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:01

gropingmantis said:
Me and my housemate were just chatting about this DLC thing that has been flying around and he made the very good point that this is almost certainly not DICE or EAs doing. If it was then why is the offer not avaliable on Origin? This is Game (and Gamestation who are owned by Game), trying to throw their weight around and get people to buy only from them. To do this they probably told EA that if they didnt get some exclusive deal that they wouldnt stock/seriously nerf sales of BF3 and/or other EA titles.

So if anything people should be boycotting Game and Gamestation NOT EA or DICE.

The problem is there's no confirmation on that. And there is going to be some kind of exclusive Origin DLC, just no word on it yet.

Game would not have threatened EA with not selling their title if they didn't get pre-order DLC. Retail stores not selling BF3 regardless of exclusive content would be very costly to them, so the threat of not putting it on shelves can't be used as a bargaining chip. I suspect that EA approached the retail stores and said "If we offer you exclusive pre-order content, how much will you pay us."

Either way EA is complicit. Retail stores are struggling since the dawn of digital downloads and need all the help they can get. EA isn't affected by retail slump because they only make the games, whether they're sold via digital or in store doesn't matter to them. Game isn't in a position to threaten not selling BF3.

Greebo · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:18

Think I am going to cancel my EA pre order and order it from game to get the warfare pack.

Access to a shotgun with shells which can fire through walls or take 3 guys out with one shot and a muzzle flash suppressant for your sniper rifle are going to be two major advantages from the early days whatever EA says.

LeJosh · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:24

Greebo said:
Think I am going to cancel my EA pre order and order it from game to get the warfare pack.

Access to a shotgun with shells which can fire through walls or take 3 guys out with one shot and a muzzle flash suppressant for your sniper rifle are going to be two major advantages from the early days whatever EA says.

You'll be flamed to hell and back.

But it will be worth it!

topgun06 · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:34

Ok, so if I pre-order from Amazon for example, I get the Back To Karkand pack. But if I pre-order from GAME/GameStation I get Back To Karkand and these extra weapons thingys. RIGHT, Got it!

Pete.Dakota · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:37

Greebo said:
Think I am going to cancel my EA pre order and order it from game to get the warfare pack.

Access to a shotgun with shells which can fire through walls or take 3 guys out with one shot and a muzzle flash suppressant for your sniper rifle are going to be two major advantages from the early days whatever EA says.

They wont be that good. They're going to have to nerf them. If they are any kind of major advantage things will get very ugly.

Pete.Dakota · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:40

topgun06 said:
Ok, so if I pre-order from Amazon for example, I get the Back To Karkand pack. But if I pre-order from GAME/GameStation I get Back To Karkand and these extra weapons thingys. RIGHT, Got it!

Or, buy the Limited Edition in a supermarket on release day. You get Karkand. You don't get the gimmicky weapons but not giving Game/EA any pre-order revenue is IMO worth it.

Embed · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:44

DirtyJester said:
Very true but a part of me always wanted to try it with helicopters

AIX 2 mod has a version or karkand with little birds. Great fun!

Tefal · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:48

maxilive said:
Okay so lets say your the CEO of DICE and as any good business man you want to make the most amount of money on your game, so what is the flaws with BF2? A single out pay of £30 then people playing the game for 4 years solid without DICE making a penny without dlc. So thats why there is paid dlc.

yeah it's not like dice get a slice of the money from every single ranked server for those 4 years... oh wait IT IS!

Gzero · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:51

maxilive said:
Okay so lets say your the CEO of DICE and as any good business man you want to make the most amount of money on your game, so what is the flaws with BF2? A single out pay of £30 then people playing the game for 4 years solid without DICE making a penny without dlc. So thats why there is paid dlc.

You forget, BF2 and BF1942 had many segmenting expansion packs, which probably made EA a tidy sum hence why EA and DICE are still in business?

Scougar · 14 Jun 2011 at 10:59

And there was me worrying about the legs lol.

gropingmantis · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:05

I still find it odd that the DLC was announced aaaaaaaages ago and yet people are getting all uppity about it now?

Perhaps Bobby Kotic and his cronies realised what a threat BF3 is after E3? Or maybe a consortium of CoD players who are losing friends to BF after E3??

Either way something doesn't feel right about the timing.

LeJosh · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:09

gropingmantis said:
I still find it odd that the DLC was announced aaaaaaaages ago and yet people are getting all uppity about it now?

Perhaps Bobby Kotic and his cronies realised what a threat BF3 is after E3? Or maybe a consortium of CoD players who are losing friends to BF after E3??

Either way something doesn't feel right about the timing.

Because people probably didn't have any vested interest in BF3 until it was shown at E3 and EA started throwing bananas at Kotick.

Now there is a larger public interest it seems.

maxilive · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:11

Gzero said:
You forget, BF2 and BF1942 had many segmenting expansion packs, which probably made EA a tidy sum hence why EA and DICE are still in business?

Yep, but people are complaining about DLC for BF3/no instant mod tools, that's the point I was trying to make

Sorry. 90% of companies need to make revenue off their big AAA title to cover the production costs of 4+ years (before and after game release) and they do this via pre-order incentives where Game and Co will give extended shelve life/prices on their title along with a extra bit of earnings off the sales to give away exclusive content. Then DLC map packs and such to keep money coming in and to extend awareness and enjoyment for an older title.

Valve are pretty clever at finding new markets hence why they can keep giving away mod tools at launch for free and then marketing off that, hats for TF2/Portal for example, yep not many people buy them but that 3% or so that do often spend big! Also it brings more players and word of mouth to the game which = more sales and keeps using buying "new copies" as second hands games may not be able to access some of this online content or mods.

Okay wayyy off topic there

But I think DICE is doing okay with their pre-orders and such for BF3 it's nothing new that hasn't been happening for the past 2-3 years and they say they are offering "COD Elite" style features for free so it could be worse!

Greebo · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:22

gropingmantis said:
I still find it odd that the DLC was announced aaaaaaaages ago and yet people are getting all uppity about it now?

Perhaps Bobby Kotic and his cronies realised what a threat BF3 is after E3? Or maybe a consortium of CoD players who are losing friends to BF after E3??

Either way something doesn't feel right about the timing.

People are getting uppity about the pre-order extras. This was announced ages ago as to what you got (extra maps, skins etc). Then this week EA announce that selected retailers will get additional pre-order bonuses namely the flash suppression for the sniper, access to the (best?) shotgun from day 1 plus armour and wall peircing slugs.

For the uk you only get these free extras if you pre order from game or gamestation.

That's what stinks.

Pete.Dakota · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:29

maxilive said:
Yep, but people are complaining about DLC for BF3/no instant mod tools, that's the point I was trying to make Sorry. 90% of companies need to make revenue off their big AAA title to cover the production costs of 4+ years (before and after game release) and they do this via pre-order incentives where Game and Co will give extended shelve life/prices on their title along with a extra bit of earnings off the sales to give away exclusive content. Then DLC map packs and such to keep money coming in and to extend awareness and enjoyment for an older title.

Valve are pretty clever at finding new markets hence why they can keep giving away mod tools at launch for free and then marketing off that, hats for TF2/Portal for example, yep not many people buy them but that 3% or so that do often spend big! Also it brings more players and word of mouth to the game which = more sales and keeps using buying "new copies" as second hands games may not be able to access some of this online content or mods.

Okay wayyy off topic there But I think DICE is doing okay with their pre-orders and such for BF3 it's nothing new that hasn't been happening for the past 2-3 years and they say they are offering "COD Elite" style features for free so it could be worse!

The argument isn't that there IS downloadable content. Everyone knows DLC is viable and isn't going anywhere. The issue here is that the DLC weapon pack is exclusive to the store where you pre-order it and is exclusive only to people who pre-order.

So someone who holds off on purchase waiting for reviews, or has to wait because it's going to be a Christmas present, or even someone that waits to upgrade their computer so they can play it, is going to be getting a different game. And they'll never have access to that content, even though it's included in the price if you pre-order it now.

It's the equivalent of a movie studio only showing some scenes at the cinema to get people to go see it, and the cutting them from the full price DVD.

Greebo · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:33

Pete.Dakota said:
They wont be that good. They're going to have to nerf them. If they are any kind of major advantage things will get very ugly.

EXCLUSIVE to pre-order items:

TYPE 88 LIGHT MACHINE GUN: Nice LMG with bipod. Not sure how much an advantage this will be compared to the stock weapons with the game but should be great for suppression.

FLASH SUPPRESSOR: Making it almost impossible to spot a long range sniper.This exclusive item is the only sniper rifle flash suppressor in the game.

FLECHETTE AMMO for DAO-12: Armour percing slugs which can fire through WALLS and armour and kill 3 men in one shot.Again this item will not be available to be unlocked in the game.

First day access:

DAO-12 shotgun: Day 1 unlock: Big advantage until everybody else unlocks it

So you have the situation where people with pre-orders from Game etc will have these items, people with pre-orders from elsewhere or people who buy the game after launch won't

There is going to be hell on. I mean, how ****** are you going to be with a normal pre-order pack or retail game and you start and get shot through walls?

I for one will be running around with my DAO-12 and Flechette ammo from day 1 getting flamed to hell but I don't care.

Tefal · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:37

the shotgun shells sound so broken, especially considering how broken the shotguns were in bc2.

if there isn't a way to turn them of in server options I can see a few servers just kicking/banning people with them till someone makes a tool that slays you for equipping them.

Gzero · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:38

maxilive said:
Yep, but people are complaining about DLC for BF3/no instant mod tools, that's the point I was trying to make Sorry. 90% of companies need to make revenue off their big AAA title to cover the production costs of 4+ years (before and after game release) and they do this via pre-order incentives where Game and Co will give extended shelve life/prices on their title along with a extra bit of earnings off the sales to give away exclusive content. Then DLC map packs and such to keep money coming in and to extend awareness and enjoyment for an older title.

Valve are pretty clever at finding new markets hence why they can keep giving away mod tools at launch for free and then marketing off that, hats for TF2/Portal for example, yep not many people buy them but that 3% or so that do often spend big! Also it brings more players and word of mouth to the game which = more sales and keeps using buying "new copies" as second hands games may not be able to access some of this online content or mods.

Okay wayyy off topic there But I think DICE is doing okay with their pre-orders and such for BF3 it's nothing new that hasn't been happening for the past 2-3 years and they say they are offering "COD Elite" style features for free so it could be worse!

Well I'm afraid this is EA who are supporting this game, and I'm sure most people will agree that EA could easily afford not milking their customers... :rolleyes:

You are missing the point in the current DLC debate. The latest is that the PWP is only available through a certain retailer and not available through any other means.

I shall not buy BF3 unless they release a SDK, do you know how boring BC2 and BC2:Vietnam get after a month? Yep very quickly because both games put together offer less than half of the maps available in BF1942 and BF2.

Besides that, it's pointless to pre order on PC. The whole point in pre ordering use to be to ensure that you get a copy on release day because it might be sold out. We have Steam (and other digital download platforms), we can buy it a day before and preload it if they allow it.

Pretty miffed about the direction EA, Valve (they helped kill the second hand sales market by making it impossible to remove a key from your steam account) and Activision are dragging PC gaming in.

Greebo · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:44

Tefal said:
the shotgun shells sound so broken, especially considering how broken the shotguns were in bc2.

if there isn't a way to turn them of in server options I can see a few servers just kicking/banning people with them till someone makes a tool that slays you for equipping them.

I know and EA say that it won't upset the balance of the game???? If something as powerful as that is an exclusive item then that only means that normal people must have access to weapons just as powerful (albeit once they have earned them) so I am starting to wonder what the hell they have weapon wise.

Predator style mini guns?

Gzero · 14 Jun 2011 at 11:49

Greebo said:
I know and EA say that it won't upset the balance of the game???? If something as powerful as that is an exclusive item then that only means that normal people must have access to weapons just as powerful (albeit once they have earned them) so I am starting to wonder what the hell they have weapon wise.

Predator style mini guns?

This just in, Crytek offered a game balancing patch:

*Maximum Armour*

I'll get my coat...