What made the earlier titles great

What is it that made BF2/2142 such a hit with gamers?  Below is a partial list of those features.  Essentially this table represents the minimum Dice needs to achieve to make BF3 stand on-par with BF2 (note that many of these features are missing from BC2):

 

But the above list of features would just be a minimum, or to put it another way would simply be recreating BF2, which kind of defeats the whole idea of releasing a new game.  We can however assume one additional feature of the new game, and that is that Dice will use its Frostbite engine.  This engine has been used in Bad Company 2 and will be used, albeit in a more rudimentary form, in the upcoming Medal of Honor reboot due out this October.  It'll be in BF3, and the huge step forward that represents in and of itself will be enough for many of us to be happy with the new game.

Would BF2 + Frostbite = BF3 be enough to please the community?

It is perhaps a sad reflection of the state of our collective mood that we would gladly welcome a regurgitated BF2, with Frostbite, as the new BF3.  To have those huge maps again, with umpteen vehicles on them, the freedom to flank and pull off a higher level of teamwork, along with a full (or at least partial) destruction engine would satisfy pretty much everyone.

But should that be enough for us, should we be expecting (some might say demanding) more? Although many of us look back at BF2 with rose-tinted spectacles, and I must admit I look back at BF2142 in the same way, it should be remembered that in some ways BF2 actually reduced the things you could do.  In BF2 there were no large sea vessels a player could control, the maps were often smaller than BF1942 etc.  Personally I had expected 64+ player servers, that didn't happen.

Despite this trend, and the fact we would probably simply be happy with BF2 + FB I think we should expect some new features in BF3.  Gaming has moved on since BF2 was released, so lets take a look at some of the possible new features.

What extra features could BF3 have?

This is a brief list of possible additions the game could have.  If you can think of more, please post them up as comments at the end of the blog.  I'll insert the best ones into the blog along with a credit:

1. The first, and probably the most disappointing, is that BF3 will almost definitely be multi-platform.  I'll address this in more detail in a future blog post.  The recent news that FB 2.0 will mainly be developed for DX11 does not rule-out the game being on consoles if Dice were to use an earlier version of FB on the console version OR it simply added console-based DX9 support (as it did for DX11 on the PC on BC2).
2. The game could have full clan integration along with an enhanced friends system.  Players are now used to being able to easily find, chat and join on their friends in-game, so it's hard to see BF3 not having this.
3. A reduction in the number of classes would seem to be fairly obvious.  BF2142 did this, as has BC2.
4. Perks, achievements and all that blingy shiznit BC2 and MOH have plastered across their screens also seem to be pretty much a shoe-in.  I view this as unfortunate because the last thing I want when fighting is some flashing bar telling me I just got 10 points for a kill, 5 points for a headshot and 3 points for a saviour kill.  Dice, let the COD folks keep this stuff please.
5. One thing that Breach includes, as we noted in this news piece, is active cover.  Now whether or not this would transfer to BF3 is questionable, but I do think Dice could come out with something a little special such as this feature.

Concerns

Yes, BF3 may seem to be the panacea we've all been waiting for. 64 players, large maps, modding - oh how I have missed you!  And as I mentioned earlier we must discount BC2 as an indication of what BF3 will be like as they're completely separate games.  However there are a few lessons we can learn from what's happened with BC2:

1. Dice will continue to release larger patches, rather than smaller ones that companies such as Valve release, unless they change the methodology they use.  Mikael Kalms did an excellent job of describing how Dice handle patching with their current auto-updater in this post: http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/members-helping-members/1199353-software-engineering-file-formats-build-processes-packaging.html
2. Dice have flat-refused to release any mapping/modding tools for Bad Company 2.  I'm genuinely concerned they may continue this into BF3.  If they do it will be a catastrophe - modding tools have allowed many excellent mods to be made for BF2, such as the pre-eminent Project Reality, amongst others. This not only gives a game "legs", but also allows the community to develop competition-specific mods and maps.  If you've ever played in the www.TournamentGamingWorld.net tournament you'll know what I mean.  For a great example of what a mod tool can do, take a look at Crysis' SandBox2.
3. The lack of LAN play may also carry into BF3.  Dice's decision to do this with BC2 seemed strange, and they justified the decision by saying it helps to protect their server code by not releasing it to the public.  Whether it has been successful or not is a matter of opinion, however it's very clear that LAN gamers did not like the decision one iota.

Conclusions

So will we be happy with BattleField 3?  I think the answer to that is yes.  Not because it'll be a game that's so great we'll all bow down in awe, but simply because the BattleField experience is built around large, open maps with combined vehicular and infantry combat - and I believe BF3 will provide that.  There will of course be issues, and we'll all have to deal with problems and bugs of one variety or another.  The game will need several patches before it's relatively bug-free and balanced, plus of course it'll have Dice's net code ('nuff said on that one).

In the end though the true BattleField DNA, as opposed to the Bad Company DNA, is pretty much set in stone.  Dice would have to work hard to break that basic DNA, which means we, the humble customer, should prepare ourselves for some more rip-roaring fun in about a year's time in all manner of air and ground vehicles.  I'll be cocking ma gun ready for the beta :

source:eurogamers