I have a frankly frightening amount of interview material from my trip to see Battlefield 3 at EA DICE HQ earlier this week, but before I lower myself into the tenth circle of hell that is transcribing the main hour of it, here’s a interesting side-discussion that came up when I asked Twitter for a few question suggestions. One of the first respondents was Minecraft-maker Notch, who asked us to ask DICE “What are some best practices and lessons learned when awarding long-term rewards in a highly competitive game like Battlefield 3?”

Here’s what BF3′s executive producer Patrick Bach had to say in response – which led to a discussion of best practice for creating in-game unlocks, how he thinks Bad Company 2 got it a bit wrong, and why he reckons devs should try and keep improving and expanding their games for several years after launch instead of putting out annual sequels. Whatever could he be referring to?(more…)