Battlefield 3 Message Board older than one year ago

My code has arrived, my megabytes have downloaded, Origin has grudgingly been installed and I have managed to squeeze in a couple of rounds in the Battlefield 3 open beta, which launched for pre-orderers and Medal of Honor special edition-buying mooks today (and goes live for everyone a couple of days later). This is nothing like an informed opinion as of yet: it’s just entirely top-of-the-head thoughts based on my very first experiences of manshooting in DICE’s new game and its new engine.(more…)

Console makers jockeying for DLC exclusivity is pretty much the norm these days, so odds are you won't be terribly shocked to learn that Sony has gone ahead and put in a winning bid for an exclusivity window on all future DLC entries for EA and DICE's upcoming first-person shooting behemoth, Battlefield 3.

Now, before any of you Xbox 360 or PC owners start constructing your elaborate death poems to be scrawled on the flaming bricks you plan to toss through EA's windows, you probably should know that the exclusivity period will only last a week. One. As in, singular. That is decidedly less time to wait than, say, a month, which is how long Modern Warfare DLC typically takes to get from the Xbox 360 (where it exclusively debuts) to other platforms.

The first official DLC for Battlefield 3 will be the "Back to Karkland" set, which includes four Battlefield 2 maps reworked for the new Frostbite engine. That pack will come free with all first-run copies of the game, though you won't be able to download it until "later this year."

That short period of exclusivity might still only be cold comfort to some. If you're such a person I simply propose that you consider what you could do with a whole week not playing Battlefield 3 maps. You could catch up on your backlog of other games, which is sure to only grow larger as this insane fourth quarter of the year rolls on. You could spend some time reading through that great novel everyone's been telling you about that you haven't had time to read yet. You could spend that time with family and friends. Or you could spend a week angrily cursing at an elaborately staged wall filled with the faces of Sony, Electronic Arts, and the many others who have wronged you over the years, while lit only by a single, red-tinted bulb, listening to "In A Gadda Da Vida" on repeat, and menacingly sharpening a blade still encrusted with blood from the last time someone made the mistake of crossing you, the master of your domain.

You know, whatever works for you.

This is Tommy Rydling from DICE, and I’ve got two exciting pieces of news to share with PlayStation.Blog readers. First, we are very happy to announce the dates for the eagerly awaited Battlefield 3 Open Beta on PSN. The Beta is open to all and will run from September 29th to October 10th. You can join it by simply going to the going the PlayStation Store and navigating to the “View All By Title” section, then selecting Battlefield 3 – within there you’ll see the download for the Battlefield 3 demo!

Prepare for battle in the bombed-out metro tunnels on the outskirts of Paris in the upcoming Battlefield 3 Open Beta!

Alternatively, if you have redeemed a Medal of Honor: Limited Edition or Tier 1 Edition Online Pass, you will receive early access via a personal email invitation from DICE that includes 48-hour early access, which will allow you to start playing on September 27th.

The Open Beta is your chance to play Battlefield 3 early, try out our free social platform Battlelog, and give your valued feedback directly to those of us at DICE. You participating in the Battlefield 3 Open Beta means that you are not only helping us load test the servers, but more importantly, helping us fine-tune the final components of the multiplayer game.

During your time in the Open Beta, you’ll be playing on the map Operation Métro – a map you might have seen coverage of from E3, where we won the Best Multiplayer Game award.

But that’s not all for our PlayStation fans! You’ll be happy to know that beginning with our first expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand (to be released later this year), all full-blown upcoming expansion packs for the game will appear one week early exclusively on PS3, brought to you by Sony!

As you may or may not have heard, Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand is a themed expansion pack containing four of the most loved maps from Battlefield 2, boldly reimagined in the Frostbite 2 engine. It also features new weapons and vehicles, unique in-game dog tags, new persistence, as well as new Trophies.

Make sure to stay tuned for more on the PS3 version of Battlefield 3 and all things related. And do let us know what you think of the Beta once it’s up and running. For more stories on Battlefield 3, feel free to check out the official Battlefield blog where I post from behind the scenes under the name “H Brun”.

I also wanted to say thank you for your continued support for DICE and Battlefield 3. Meeting our fans in person is always very rewarding and exciting. We went to gamescom with the PS3 co-op mission Exfiltration, and at Tokyo Game Show we let visitors play the single player mission Operation Guillotine. The response so far has been overwhelming, and we look forward to showing you more action from Battlefield 3 before the North American launch on October 25th.

In just over a month, Electronic Arts and DICE will fire the first shot in this fall's most watched financial contest: Battlefield 3 vs. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Before that happens, however, players will have a chance to give Battlefield 3 a run with a beta test that opens on September 29.

It's hard to imagine how much a beta test could drastically change a game that must be essentially finished at this point, especially since the content being tested is limited, but it will most likely inform the now nearly standard day one patch for it.

The beta goes live for everyone on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on September 29.

If you've pre-ordered the game through Origin on PC or picked up a limited edition copy of Medal of Honor last year, you can start shooting up your friends two days earlier on September 27.

The beta itself will contain the Paris-set Operation Metro map within the Rush game mode, which is an objective-based where players have to compete on separate teams to defend/blow up M-COM stations.

#battlefield Battlefield 3's much-anticipated open beta starts on Thursday, Sept. 29, the publisher said this morning. More »

A date for you: September 29. That date is when the much-awaited open beta for Battlefield 3 will commence. It will run until October 10.

Another date for you: September 27. That date is when people who pre-ordered BF3 PC via EA’s trouble-makin’ Origin platform or who made the mistake of coughing up for the Limited Edition of last year’s Medal of Honor remake will get to access the beta.

More details and FAQs and things here, and there are system requirements and some singleplayer footage we may not have already shown you below, if you like. Oh, and some no doubt divisive news regarding the PC beta specifically: “ORIGIN WILL BE USED TO DISTRIBUTE THE BETA INSTALLATION AND RUN THE GAME AND THEREFORE NECESSARY TO PLAY.” Their capitals, not mine.(more…)