July 2024 In Review

 Blaugust 2024 is here which means July 2024 is over! Let's take a look at what happened on the blog in July.

The Blog

 Blogger provided number (last 30 days graph so a bit off a full month): 29,200 visits

 This is up about 7,000 from June and there was a spike around 7/5 while I was out of town.  I did not dig into the spike.

 

 In other metrics:

• Posts:
  
• Target: 18 (week days minus days I was on my trip)
  
• Posted: 22
• Difference: +4 Woohoo! Lots of good topics to talk about and playing a new game, Once Human, kept the ideas flowing.
  
•  Search Trends
• "throne and liberty beta review", "throne and liberty impressions", and "throne and liberty open beta review" flew to the top this month with lots of Google searchers finding my initial impressions post and then after beta review post.  Look at that mountain in the chart!
• 
  

  

  Look at that mountain in the chart all driven by Throne and Liberty searches.
  

  
  
• "best battlefield game", "best battlefield", "best battlefield games" continue to be towards the top still thanks to this post: Best Battlefield!?
• Then another new search trend is cropping up around the game Once Human (see What I Played).  Lots of folks (me included) are searching for information about how seasons and season resets will work.  Here are the most common search terms:
  
  • once human 6 week reset
  • once human seasons
  • once human season reset
  • once human resets
  • once human seasonal wipe
• And for New World searches... well they dropped all the way to page 2 of the results!  It's all Once Human and T&L here baby!
  

What I Played

 For the first month in close to two years the answer for "what I played" is NOT New World.  I basically quit New World cold turkey after coming back from my trip.  I do drop in to reset some long duration trading post listings and to keep my "days since last login" fresh on the company board but that is it. I have not actually "played" the game since June.

 What I have played though is a lot of Once Human (all tagged posts).  I really like the game even though it has tons of issues and is death marching towards a seasonal model that is going to piss a lot of players off with how the server locking has gone.  We'll see if it has staying power after July.

 I also took the opportunity to try out the Throne and Liberty global beta and I shared my thoughts.  I wasn't hooked enough to say for sure I am playing at launch but having broken the New World grip on my gaming time it is entirely possible I give it a go in Sept.  It will be free 2 play so not much risk.

Years Ago

1 Year Ago

 In July 2023 I was prepping for my first Blaugust!  

 Season 2 of New World was in full swing and I was posting my daily checklist which was a long standing driver of traffic to the blog as it was picked up on the New World subreddit.  Sort of makes me sad to look back and see how positive we were on New World and just a year later and its doom and gloom.

5 Years Ago

  July 2019 was in the 'no blogging' era and nothing comes to mind.

10 Years Ago

 In July of 2014 I was also not blogging regularly so had no entries.

15 Years Ago

  July of 2009 had us talking about the infamous Darkfall review debacle and eventually we got the real Kieron Gillen Darkfall re-review to talk about.  To be honest the original review was fair.  Darkfall was a turd of a game.  Personally I liked my May 2009 take by taking Kieron's review of The Path and treating it like it was for Darkfall.

 I was also enamored with Battlefield Heroes through the month of July. It still holds a spot in my "best battlefield" list.  Sad that it closed so soon after launching.  It was Fortnite-like before Fortnite!

 20 19 Years Ago

 Technically I have 20 named years on my sidebar, but mathematically 2005 is only 19 years ago.

 In July of 2005 it was a mix of Battlefield 2 posts and posts complaining about World of Warcraft.  Hmmm... that seems familiar.

June 2024 In Review

 June 2024 has come and gone.  Here is a look back (late delivery due to being in the middle of Nowhere, Minnesota for the last couple of weeks).

The Blog

Blogger provided number (last 30 days graph so a bit off)

 In other metrics:

• Posts:
  
• Target: n/a (with my big canoe trip I didn't have a target set)
  
• Posted: 20
• Difference: n/a
  
•  Search Trends
• "best battlefield game", "best battlefield", "best battlefield games" blew up last month and continues to dominate my search trends.  All thanks to this post: Best Battlefield!?
• New World continues it's prominent spot with "new world roadmap 2024" right behind "best battlefield game" searches.
• In the third spot is the search for "pax dei" where my post Pax Dei: Wilderness Alpha Feedback appears.
  

What I Played

 New World continues as my main game and I spent a lot of time in 3v3 arenas and the trading post.  The game has lost steam without much to do so we'll see how it ranks in July.

 I fished a bit in Russian Fishing 4 which was a change of pace but not sure it's a game I'll stick with.

 The surprise game of June though was the Once Human demo which ran for a week.  I was hooked on the game and looking forward to it's launch today (7/9) at 5 PM EDT!  Check out my Once Human posts.  I suspect this may break me from New World for a bit!

Years Ago

1 Year Ago

 In June 2023 I was hard at work grinding out my major combat trophies in pursuit of the ultimate combat trophies.  I finished my 3x major corrupted in the 28th.

 Oh and our vacation last year started with our rental bike getting stolen.

5 Years Ago

 June 2019 saw no blog posts on the blog and I cannot recollect what I was up to.

10 Years Ago

 In June of 2014 is when my blog drought occurred.  Crazy looking back that it lasted so long and amazing how life just gets in the way sometimes.

15 Years Ago

  June of 2009 was the month of Battlefield Heroes (which I still maintain as one of my all time favorite Battlefield experiences).  It was basically Fortnite-ish before Fortnite was a fart of an idea.

 This month also saw the merge of Bioware and Mythic after they were consumed by EA.

 Probably the most important update though was the fact I finally gave in and purchased my first microtransaction in a game.  Looking back it was a dumb purchase for a dumb game.  Now a days I don't really sweat buying something in a game if I am enjoying it, but back then it felt like I was breaking an unwritten rule.

 20 19 Years Ago

 Technically I have 20 named years on my sidebar, but mathematically 2005 is only 19 years ago.

 In June of 2005 I got screwed out of some loot in World of Warcraft and created a classic forum fire to go with it.  Ironically looking back I see that the guild the player was part of was Angels of Death which at the time I said "I will probably not group with any Angels of Death members anytime soon." which if memory serves me I never did until..... many years later in 2024 when I joined up with Angels of Death to play Battlefield 2042.  Small world out there.

 We also got the Battlefield 2 demo in June 2005 and I was enamored with it and have been a diehard Battlefield fan ever since.  2 is still my favorite of the series.

 And Dark Ages of Camelot was playing around with what we'd call a "classic server".

 Oh and we got battlegrounds in World of Warcraft.

 What a month!

Best Battlefield!?

 Jack Frags published a recent video going over the Battlefield Reddit communities vote for "Best Battlefield game ever".  Surprisingly the winner was Battlefield 1 which happened to also be available on Steam for the low sales price of $5.99.  Having not played BF1 and being apparently the "best one" I had to give it a go.

 Before I jump into my initial impressions let's review my last personal "favorite Battlefield" list (at least as far as I can find in my 20 years of blog content): https://www.heartlessgamer.com/2011/11/battlefield-3-is-step-back.html

My list at the time in 2011:

1. Battlefield 2
2. Battlefield 1942
3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
4. Battlefield Heroes
5. Battlefield 3 

  Since that is 13 years (yikes) old let me update it:

1. Battlefield 2
2. Battlefield 1942
3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
4. Battlefield 2042
5. Battlefield Heroes

 There.  All is right with the world.  The community has a different opinion with Battlefield 1, Battlefield 3, and Battlefield 4 being the top three.  Personally, I didn't jive with Battlefield 3.  I played a good bit of it but it didn't supplant the others.  I never played Battlefield 4 (because of my feelings about 3) and originally the theme of Battlefield 1 was not attractive so I skipped it.

 More recently I've had a side addiction to Battlefield 2042.  I didn't get it at launch so missed all the launch drama and came in well after the game had significant changes to make it more Battlefield-like.  I am in the minority listing this as one of my favorite Battlefield games.  2042 has a bad reputation from that launch drama.  For me though it hits a sweet spot in theme (near future) and a good balance between infantry and vehicle.  I really enjoy it and haven't enjoyed a Battlefield game this much since BFBC2.

 Battlefield 1

 On to Battlefield 1 then. I've put about 3 hours in so far and it is definitely a different experience than other Battlefields.  Part of it is the setting being World War 1 but also that the game seems stuck between the old days of server browsers and the new days of "quick match" push button experiences.

 Personally I couldn't get quick match to work as there was never enough players to start the matches.  The campaign mode also didn't seem to work.  This pushed me into the server browser and there were only a few servers to pick from with reasonable ping.

 Once in a match the visuals are top notch.  I grabbed some screenshots riding around on a horse as cavalry and for a game that is seven years old it looks pretty good.  The maps are also visually stunning and some feature a grand scope.  I stopped a few times to look at something.

 I can't say I've ever played a WW1 themed game so some of the aspects caught me by surprise such as the horse cavalry, the biplanes, and coolest of all: the armored train!  The first time I was on a map when the train came rolling through was pretty dang cool.

 With those surprises it made me realize there is a lot I don't understand about this Battlefield.  Sure there are points on the map to conquer and the classic Battlefield classes to pick from, but as far as how stuff like the train works I don't know.  The maps are also proving difficult for me to grok and some rounds are really rough learning where you can and can't stick your head out.

 I think I'll put a few more hours into the game but it's not grabbing me like 2042 did.  Its a good break from the faster pace and more technically capable vehicles of 2042 though so has a slot currently with New World being on the slow down.

Games I'd Play: Battlefield-as-a-service

 Every once and a while I find myself day dreaming about games I'd like to play.  One that recurs to me is a Battlefield-as-a-service game where instead of releasing a new iteration of the Battlefield franchise every year instead we'd have a single Battlefield game where they just release new maps and campaign settings (WWII, modern, future, Vietnam, etc) as part of the service and throw a battle pass on it to tease money out of our wallets.  I honestly wonder why this doesn't already exist.  I'd play it.

My theoretical Battlefield game would also take us back in time to the style of game that Battlefield 2 was.  Battlefield 2 had two amazing features I have missed in every Battlefield game I've played since: commanders and replay.

Battlefield 2 allowed a single player to take on the role of commander and instead of going pew-pew around the battlefield that player had a top-down view directing squads of players to objectives and calling in artillery strikes on areas.  The enhancement I'd make to bring this feature back would be a ranking system for commanders that way its not just luck of the draw on who gets to take on this key role.  Yes, this would gate keep some players but I think its one of those key roles that could make this sort of game that much better.

Battlefield 2 also had a replay system whereby you could go back and replay the entire match.  Many games have this system to a degree, but Battlefield 2 is the only Battlefield I am aware of that has had it.  I spent hours replaying matches, watching epic fights, rewinding them, re-watching them from different angles, and then capturing epic combat footage.  I made a good number of videos (which sadly were lost to the now defunct Google Video platform that Google had before they acquired YouTube).  

Yes, we live in a world of streaming and super simple video capture, but a replay system allows for so much more than just what a single player's view was.  With the content creation tools that exist today a replay system would be an amazing capability and I have no doubt would result in some epic community created content.

I also think graphics engines are at a point where you could use a current state engine for years without a concern about it looking "old" in a couple.  This would be a key element to making Battlefield-as-a-service.  

Of course I mentioned battle pass and I understand that may tilt some players, but I think its the reality of the current market for these types of games.  If it was combined with new maps, weapons, and campaign settings it would be almost no different than buying "Battlefield version 2022/2023/2024/2025" and the improvement is that your investment per pass is building on all previous passes.  Compared to when I started playing Battlefield 3 it didn't matter what I had accomplished in Battlefield 2.  Ideally a battle pass would focus on cosmetic and "battle medals" type awards and not any power increases (i.e. don't tie unlocking access to a weapon behind battle pass).

If this game were made I'd play it.  Would you?  If so, leave a comment.  If not, believe it or not, still leave a comment.

Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand thoughts and commentary

Battlefield 3 recently released their Back to Karkand expansion pack which brought four new Battlefield 2-inspired maps and a bug-fixing patch.  I've had some time to play a couple dozen games and here are my thoughts on how the game has progressed.

Anyone that has followed my blog or Twitter knows that I haven't exactly had the best experience with Battlefield 3.  I went from being a good Bad Company 2 player to a terrible Battlefield 3 player and at first glance the games are not that different.  Some analysis lead me to understand why I was not doing as well at Battlefield 3 as I had hoped and most of that revolved around what I felt was Battlefield 3's biggest problem: it was released too early.  Fortunately, the patch and expansion seem to have put the game on the right path and I am finding myself enjoying the game much more.

The best improvements revolve around the UI and while the patch doesn't fix all of the problems, it was a huge step in the right direction.  The chat box can now be hidden and it has been moved to a much more acceptable placement on the screen.  Squad management is simpler and squads are much easier to leave and join.  They didn't up the total number of squads available which is annoying as it literally breaks 64 player servers leaving upwards of 32 players without a squad to join.

The glowing neon text that Battlefield 3 uses hasn't gone away, but ironically enough they added a color blind mode which makes the UI elements (such as names and unit identifiers) contrast much better and I've moved to using as my default mode (and I'm not colorblind!).  Many other players have also moved to colorblind mode which makes me wonder why DICE doesn't get the hint and do away with the horrible, horrible neon lines and text.

Still needing improvement is the mini map, both during the game and during spawning.  It is hard to determine where a certain spawn point is going to place the player and as discovered by some keen-eyed players, the mini maps are clearly not accurate reflections of the actual map.  The mini maps seem to be from a previous map design, showing structures that were clearly removed or moved at some point.

Other than the new maps, weapons, and vehicles that came with Back to Karkand there weren't any huge features added to the game.  Assignments were added, which is like a quest system used to unlock the weapons of BtK.  Kill X players with X weapon and do Y to earn Z weapon.  They are a better system than having to level up specific kits to get new weapons, but some of the assignments just feature dumb objectives such as killing an enemy with the repair tool.

Still missing from Battlefield 2 are in-game voice chat, commander mode, and the battle recorder.  Three items that in my opinion are absolute requirements for Battlefield 3 to ever be considered a successor to Battlefield 2.  Without them, Battlefield 3 will remain low on my list of best Battlefield games.

Back to Karkand inadvertently fixed one of my other gripes with Battlefield 3: the maps!  The Back to Karkand maps are far superior to the vanilla maps.  After a couple rounds on Gulf of Oman and Back to Karkand I knew I would not likely go back to the vanilla maps anytime soon.  The BtK maps look better, play better, and feature a lot more destruction.

Everything that seems destructible is destructible and there are no more random paper thin walls that can't be destroyed.  The capture points on Conquest are tighter making actual defense possible instead of watching your flag cap with no enemy in sight.  The rush modes of the maps bring a refreshing twist to the classic Battlefield 2 maps.  The vehicle spawns seem closer, allowing for more vehicle action.  I could go on, but suffice to say, the Karkand maps are much better.

The balance changes that came with the patch also were a step in the right direction.  Weapons such as the SCAR-H and M240-B had their damage reduced which brought them in line with the rest of the weaponry in the game.  RPGs were slightly nerfed on damage to infantry (but could still go a bit further).   Mines are no longer infinite and limited to six per engineer.  And most critically of all, the IRNV scope was dramatically reduced in effectiveness.  It now only works in close ranges and blurs out at a distance.  The IRNV is no longer the equivalent of a wall hack and no longer the defacto scope everyone uses.

DICE also played with the way burst firing works.  I'm not sure on the details, but I seem to have much better luck with burst firing with certain weapons.  Some weapons still seem to have a first shot that goes randomly off target (and I mean WAY OFF target), but from reading the forums and on /r/battlefield3 it seems it may just be a bug with sprint or changing positions.  Hopefully, it gets tightened up a bit.  Either way though, I feel like I am far more accurate now when firing weapons.

Overall I am pleased with the patch and Back to Karkand.  I would be annoyed thinking I had to pay for BtK, but I bought the Limited Edition so got it for free.  Its still unfortunate that we're waiting for more features to be patched into the game.  Maybe in a year Battlefield 3 will be the successor to Battlefield 2 that we all wanted.

Hypocritical on Battlefield 3, Origin, digital distribution

I have drawn a line in the sand. I am a Steam user and I want my fucking games on Steam. Publishers should come to me, the consumer. I, the consumer, should not have to go to them. I have serious problems with Origin (and Battle.net and Steam for that matter). I DO NOT want exclusive digital distribution platforms. However, I am an avid PC gamer; a very hypocritical and easily fooled by “oh shiny” gamer at that.
This brings me to my current dilemma. I’ve all but said that I refuse to accept Origin and EA locking their flagship games into the platform. Especially because I own a half dozen of their other games on Steam and I really like Steam as my digital distribution platform. I’m disappointed that Valve and EA can’t work out their differences.

The EA vs Valve spat was not terribly unexpected. This has been playing out in the movie/TV streaming market for years already. The content providers are unwilling to sell the rights to their prime content to players such as Netflix or Amazon. Netflix and Amazon then get stuck with the re-runs and B rate stuff. The content providers meanwhile are wising up to the fact they can just as easily distribute their own digital content and just like hardcore game fans, the content fans will come to them.

The content I’m interested in is Battlefield 3. I’ve played and paid for all but two PC Battlefield titles to date. I loved the last two iterations: Heroes and Bad Company 2. I’ve always picked the Battlefield series over the likes of Call of Duty or Counterstrike. Battlefield games have always given me, the very unskilled twitch player, an excellent chance to thrive in the not-focused-just-on-shooting aspects. I played one hell of a medic in Battlefield 2.

I’ve been sitting around today watching videos such as the one at the end of this post and I’m absolutely drooling at the footage. Battlefield 3 is exactly the type of game I want. It’s an upgrade of Bad Company 2 and flat-out impressive. And I’m missing out on it because of some silly line I drew in the sand.

The problem is: can I really by the hypocrite? Again? My mind says no, but my heart (ha!) says “who gives a fuck?”. So this is me signing off, unsure what I’m going to do. In the mean time, I need to stop watching videos.



Du du, du, dun duh. Du du, du, dun duh.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 vs. Battlefield 2

In my initial impressions post for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (BFBC2), Esoteric Articles left a comment asking me what I thought of BC2 vs BF2:

Do you think it [BFBC2] is better or worse than Battlefield 2?

I left my initial thoughts in a reply, but I wanted to note and add to those thoughts here.

As compared to BF2, BFBC2 Pros:

• BC2 is better about vehicles. Aircraft aren't overpowered (so far) and ground vehicles aren't invincible.
• Destructible environments.
• The leveling and upgrade system is superior in BC2.
• In-game friends system.
• Squads are limited to four players in BC2 and any member can be used as a spawn point.
• Vehicle-based upgrades.
• Rush game-type (a game mode that doesn't stray too far from the traditional BF "capture the flag", but provides a focused objective-based progression map).
• Collecting dog tags for melee kills
• A move away from kills counting for the most points, allowing support players to be in the hunt for top honors each round.

As compared to BF2, BFBC2 Cons:

• The gun play feels sloppy in the BC2 beta. 
• Players can not go prone in BC2.
• Ground vehicles feel overpowered until players unlock laser tags.  This is mainly because C4 in BC2 is  a pain in the rear to use.
• Some graphic effects in BC2 are annoying (scope blur, bloom, fog/smoke, explosion bounce).  BF2 always felt very clean visually, allowing players to make sense of the madness.

Good in BOTH

• Squads
• Large, open maps
• More to do than just kill enemies, but its still really all about killing enemies.

Sucks in BOTH

• The server browser.
• Close quarters sound effects are non-existent.  I've never heard another player approaching or running around near me in BF2 or BC2. 

No More Battlefield 2 Patches

From DigitalBattle:

According to ex-DICE employees, there are no more patches planned for the bug-filled multiplayer shooter Battlefield 2. The former DICE members, who now formed their own studio, said via a forum release that patch 1.4 (released last November)was the last BF2 patch, and that all forces at DICE are focused on Battlefield 2142, which is, unfortunately, just as bug filled as its predecessor.

EA and DICE hasn’t mentioned anything about a patch ever since the last one, over six months ago. And they will probably never reveal that no further patches are planned, since that’ll take away the last hope BF2 players have. Since there most likely won’t be an announcement, this will technically remain a rumor forever, just as BF2 will technically remain a bug filled game.

Strike at Karkand, a lesson in how to not build a Battlefield 2 map

Lesson 1: Do not start both sides within sprinting distance of each other. This rewards only those players that can load in the fastest on the first round and have the first flag capped before the majority of gamers even think about moving.

Also it is prime real estate for a campfest by tanks and APCs. No one likes dieing the second they spawn because there is ZERO cover to take against a set of camping tanks and APCs.

Pushing the bases farther apart would allow for teams to set up defenses and actually be prepared for an assault before the battle is already lost. Engineers could provide a crucial role on this map, but unfortunately by the time they could get in place to set AT mines the tank and APCs are already camping the spawns.

Lesson 2: In Battlefield 2 openess is key. You can't artificially impose boundaries with non-combat areas to bottleneck the action. I could understand if the south-east corner of the map was mountains, but it is not! It is wide open and should of been left open to prevent the bottleneck that occurs currently.

Boats and other items would of made that area a key part of the map. The MEC would have to defend both their back bases and their forward bases instead of just watching the bottleneck slaughter that occurs at the forward bases.

Lesson 3: Providing tons of buildings with no interiors to hide in is a mistake. Once again the camping issue. Tanks and APCs can have field days in the alley ways as infantry have no place to run. There is also ZERO space for infantry to surprise tanks or APCs to take them out.

Lesson 4: Maximizing fast combat situations does not make the game fun. It just promotes the whoring aspect of an already flawed ranking system. Its sad that you don't have to leave the forward spawn points to get the Gold Medal. Actually those people that actually try to cap spawn points for a win usually wind up with the fewest points. The points are whored within the forward most spawn point in the mid of the rush.

Lesson 5: Don't build in a strategic bridge over a river if you are going to just allow vehicles to drive down river 10 feet to cross without a bridge. These are the type of choke points that should be in game. That way armor whores have to get out of their vehicles and fight or fix the bridge to cross.

A Final Note: Many players play Strike at Karkand with the sole excuse that they just hate air power. These players need to get Special Forces and play on maps that are built 100% around infantry combat. Most Special Forces maps are a joy to play on and are wide open from end to end. Strike at Karkand is poorly designed and is nothing more than an excuse to whore points.

This post came out of anger because I'm sick of the map. I don't play it any longer except for a game here and there. I hate the fact that its the most overplayed map in game and that without it you can't compete for rank sufficiently. Ranks are artificially harder to achieve because of the score inflation this single map causes.

You're right and I should play the game for fun, but I like to watch my stats. Fortunately I can somewhat compete playing on the other maps and I enjoy my time. EA has done a better job with each patch to make it so you can score more points on other maps than just Strike at Karkand. Hopefully EA gets a clue and rebuilds Karkand with a more open battlefield.

Tips for Battlefield 2 : Special Forces

I'm writing this tips for Battlefield 2 : Special Forces for all the knuckle heads out there that are still trying to play Special Forces as though it was regular BF2. Special Forces is not and will never be like regular BF2 and therefore you need to adjust your current way of thinking.

1. Squads! Squads! Squads! Joining a squad is key to success in any Special Forces game. Special Forces is grounded in the work of squads! This is a good tip for regular BF2, but is magnified 10x in the Special Forces expansion.

1a. While in a squad spawn on the squad leader! Most of the time they are setting up for a flag cap and its easier to sneak one person in than 5. Spawn and cap... makes for a great surprise.

1b. A squads success relies heavily on its combination of classes. A good rule of thumb is to always have a medic and two anti tanks. Anti tanks are always needed... a single tank will always win a stand off against a squad that has no AT. Even if you have Spec Ops you need to assume you will not have the jump on a tank. Resupply doesn't hurt, but you also need to have some decent firepower and until EA fixes the supply weapons accuracy they are not more important than a Spec Ops or Assault.

2. They added grapling hooks, zip lines, gas, and flash bangs in for a reason!

2a. Grappling hooks and zip-lines. The Special Forces maps are full of buildings and obstacles that can be bypassed. This makes it harder to defend flags, but in the end it makes the game 100% better because there isn't finite choke points to bottleneck at.

If you see your squad leader tossing up a rope be kind enough to follow. Chances are he is looking to get high to a) clear out any enemies below and b) get high enough for a zip line into the flag.

2b. Zip lines. As with grappling hooks they are keys to Special Forces. I guarantee a good squad will always be zipping into flags and you would be very amazed at how quickly the flags get capped. The key to the zip line is to deploy it and use it right away. If you hesitate at all you're never going to make it down.

2c. Flash bangs and gas. These two items can allow a squad to go into a packed spawn and remove every target before they have a chance to react. Employ with a zip-line and you can zip line into a flag covered by gas.

Flash bangs are useful, but don't get happy with them. They are tricky to throw and usually the effect is not enough to throw someones aim off that much.

Update: 29 Nov, 2009 - Edited post, corrected spelling, and applied labels.

Battlefield 2 patch 1.2 and Armored Fury

EA is at it again today with the new Battlefield 2 patch 1.2 and the announcement of Armored Fury another booster pack. Also with the announcement they put a price tag of $9.99 on the two announced booster packs; Armored Fury and Euro Force.

Onto the 1.2 patch notes and some commentary.

• * Helicopter now carry 8 missiles rather than 14
• * TV-Guided missile now have a shorter range
• Both of these will go a long way to balancing the attack helicopters.
  

• * Hit points on all air vehicles have been reduced
• * AA missile lock on has been improved
• More nerfs to the overpowered air power. Ground pounders rejoice!
  

• * Support kits have had their primary weapons adjusted for accuracy
• * Sniper kits have had their primary weapons adjusted for accuracy
• * Anti-Tank kits have had their primary weapons adjusted for accuracy
• Hmmm wonder if this means they will be more accurate? I may go back to playing support and sniper now. Nothing like letting 100 bullets fly at someone two feet away and not hitting them with the support guns or the 50/50 accuracy of the sniper rifle sometimes.
  

• * "Dolphin Diving" is no longer possible
• Dolphin what?
  

• * Players can no longer jump and shoot at the same time
• And a whine hear the world round was heard the day the bunny hoppers were nerfed!
  

• * "Prone Spamming" is now fixed
• * "Sprint exploit" is now fixed
• Exploit fixes are always good!
  

• * The Sa80 weapon has been improved
• * The G3A3 weapon has been improved
• Don't even know what weapons these are... oh well.
  

• * Reload while sprinting has been enabled
• Fin a fucking lee.
  

• * Chinese and MEC APCs can now shoot through penetrable materials
• Now they didn't specify if these were the main gun or the side guns.
  

• * Damage decreased for the M134
• * Medic defibrillator paddles have been adjusted. They now reload while not in use.
• Medics rejoice... no longer pulling out the paddles and having to watch them re-reload!
  

• * Server search filters now work properly
• What??? They FINALLY fixed the server browser filter issues. I will believe it when I see it.
  

• * All mines (Claymore, Anti-vehicle, C4) can now be picked up by the same class that dropped it by using the “G” key.
• Snipers rejoice... no longer is it a "wait and see if I got a TK for using a claymore!"
  

• * Mines can no longer be destroyed with other explosives
• What you do in one patch can always be undone in the next.
  

• * Flash bang effect radius decreased
• Good... never made sense that flashbangs worked 100 feet away and through walls.
  

• * Added unlocks for Sniper and AT kits
• Say what? Interesting.
  

• * Fixed a bug in terrain rendering with night vision, whereby terrain was still dark in dark areas.
• * Fixed a bug whereby mods that are not bf2 or not xpack permutate shaders every time a level is loaded.
• * Fixed a bug whereby non-xpack mods cannot use xpack shaders.
• * Fixed bug in TV guided missiles of Havoc helicopter
• * Bug in MP7 fire rate fixed. Ammo count increased and mag count and damage decreased
• * APC Update – “Chinese and MEC APCs can now shoot through penetrable materials”. This fix was a miscommunication to the patch team. Chinese and MEC APC’s have been reverted and the LAV25 now no longer shoots through penetrable materials.
• Awww damn... hope none of you had your hopes up.
  

• * Vehicles no longer disappear when viewed from some vehicles with a HUD (e.g. Tanks).
• * Performance gain found in static mesh rendering.
• * Detonation radius from grenade launcher explosions has been reduced.
• * Grenade launcher projectiles now have a minimum time before arming.
• All the poor noob toobers spamming Strike at Karkand will quit... I mean it! I can't say much since I had a love affair with the noob toob grenade launcher for a while.

Battlefield 2 : Euro Force... my predictions

EA has announced that Battlefield 2 will recieve a booster pack entitled Euro Force. Here is a list of what it will bring.

3 New Maps

• * Operation Smoke Screen
• * Taraba Quarry
• * Great Wall

4 New vehicles

• * Main Battle Tank - Leopard 2A6
• * Main Battle Tank – Challenger 2
• * Fighter – Eurofighter (Typhoon T1)
• * Attack Heli – Eurocopter Tiger (Tiger HAP)

7 New Weapons

• * HK53A3
• * Famas
• * SA80 L85A2
• * SA80 L85A2 with UGL (AG-36)
• * HK21
• * Benelli M4
• * P90
• * L96A1

1 New Army

• * European Union

1 new award

• * European Union Special Service Medal

---

Now onto my predictions.

1. It is no secret the Chinese Army is the most underplayed army in BF2. For good reason; the Chinese maps are large and prone to air power raping the entire map. On top of that there is no single good map for scoring points in the Chinese map set.

So one of these new maps is going to be very (and I mean VERY) similar to Strike at Karkand. It will offer equally fast paced combat in an urban setting without the use of any air power. People will flock to this server because it will gain as many (if not more) points than Karkand does. EA probably believes this will somehow even out the balance between the armies.

2. A patch will be appearing shortly before or after the launch of Euro Force. It will make Euro Force unplayable and be removed. It will be taken back and retooled and then be released with the next big update.

3. The pack will sell well because of the new Karkand like map and EA will be convinced they can keep making money off these minor content updates. Its a good idea, but after Special Forces I don't expect too much meat with the release of each of these booster packs.

EA has failed to integrate the game play of SF and Battlefield 2 as it is which has segregated the community. I don't see this pack being that great, but give the stat boys a map to whore points on and they will pay... they will pay.

My BF2 morning!

Update: 7 October, 2009 - Removed post. It was only a picture of a winning score from a round of Battlefield 2.

I almost fainted when I logged in this morning...

Almost 3/4 of rank 6 gained with a BELOW average week for myself. I ranked high at 263 overall, but felt I had a two day string of really bad Arathi Basin groups. Well I am now 1/4 away from getting my goal of rank 7! A little less Battlefield 2 and Day of Defeat:Source and I may just have made it to rank 7!

Grats to Blizzard for listening!

My BF2 video @ Google videos!

Checking around the net and did a search for "BF2" on Google Videos. Here is my result.

I had submitted this video a long time ago (See original post here) and for some reason I was never able to see it or get it to show on a video search. Even the link that google provided for the video did not work! So I wrote Google's free video hosting service as a broken tool.

Lo' and behold... it works. Will have to see why it took forever to display via Google Video and possibly use it for more uploads.

TotalBF2.com discussion thread

TotalBF2.com thread on my 1.03 commentary post. Enjoy!

Update: 6 Nov, 2006 - Updated post and applied labels.

Battlefield 2 Patch 1.3

So what is so good about this patch? Well it fixes a lot of things... and by fix I mean changes that were needed! First and foremost the requirements for each rank have been reduced SIGNIFICANTLY! I logged in and after a few kills I was awarded three new ranks.

This allowed me to finally unlock some more weapons instead of the pansy medic weapon I had already unlocked. I can't tell you how insanely unbalanced the ranks were... it would of taken me years of gaming to get the rank that I have with the 1.03 patch. A very good change indeed!

Next you won't be running anyone over by just touching them with vehicles anymore. You actually have to hit them full force! This is great considering how ultimately lame it had been to get killed anytime a vehicle so much as grazed you.

Commanders no longer get teamkills for artillery strikes. Good for pick up games, but probably will be abused in organized matches. It still kills your own team, but no punishment.

Many improvements to the in-game server browser. Still pissed off that the server browser was released in such a crappy condition. Also the patch broke the Xfire and other server programs ability to launch into a server. There is a fix... here.

Various other changes in the patch also and the addition of a new map, Wake Island. It is a remake of the BF1942 classic map and is the first map I ever played any BF game on :) Sadly the new version seems to be getting mixed reviews. I have yet to play it much.

Overall I am happy with the patch, but still have some requests for *changes* to make the game even better.

1. Vehicle vs Infantry kills should only give the driver/shooter one point for the kill. I am sick and tired of matches where the gold/silver are just tank/aircraft whores.

2. Sniper rifles still feel horribly inaccurate 50% of the time and still are extremely weak. A shot to the chest or head area should = death.

3. Increase accuracy of support machine guns. Bullets should drop off at a shorter distance to prevent long range sniping.

4. Tanks should be easier to destroy... fewer AT rockets required.

5. Map balance... give infantry more damn places to hide so we stop getting raped by the vehicle whores.

2 days and no BF2

DAoC and 12 hour work shifts have kept me offline of BF2 for the last two days... and I'm ITCHING to pull the trigger. However I am working this weekend and have other business to take are of... so I won't get my BF2 fix until Monday!

Oh the tragedy!

Battlefield 2 Video - Lets Go!

I sat down and tackled the BF2 Recorder finally and here are my first results. This took approx 2 hours to film, edit, and load onto the web. It is nothing fancy... more a practice run with the tools.

Sorry for the poor quality. My computer couldn't handle recording at any higher resolutions and BF2 is a hog on system resources. At least I can record with FRAPS in BF2 unlike *cough* Counterstrike:Source *cough*

I lost my FRAPS registration info so you will have to deal with the www.fraps.com banner.

I struggled with the name of the video and also what music to put in the background. Citizen Cope - Bullet and a Target was my first choice, but it didn't work as well as it could have. Lil' John and Lets Go fits the video much better IMO.

Enjoy.

EDIT: Link updated 10 Oct 2005 thanks to Google Video!Get it here.

BF2 Patch 1.03 announced.

Link.

"Server and Client performance improvements
Improved Server Browser – added Favorites and History Lists.
Point-farming prevention - game will stop Support/Medic/Engineer point farming exploits.
Squads - locked squad leader will get a message if someone wants to join.
Many HUD improvements - see the names of others in your vehicle, zoom level changing depending on vehicle, map zoom depending on map setup (16, 32 or 64 player map) etc.
Teamkilling changes – the logic of how teamkills are tracked will be changed.
Gameplay tweaks - the way transport helicopters work will be tweaked.
Additional scoring changes - players who destroy an enemy commander's assets will be given points."

Looks good so far. I am curious to see the exact effect on transport helicopters. Blackhawks are currently way out of line and unbalancing in the gameplay. Also nice to see spec ops getting the points they deserve.