News - Battlefield 4 unveiling teased for 27th March

[HEXUS]

Meanwhile EA’s CEO of six years standing, John Riccitiello, resigns.

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[Kirano]

Now, I'm excited about this... I genuinely am... There's one slight snag though...

I was invited to the BF3 closed Alpha and played a lot of the beta too! When it came to final release... I was fine. I had one or two dropss from servers and such but generally had a smooth gameplay experience.

My friends who I regularly game with however... well, they didn't have such a smooth time of it. On launch, the game was basically broken for them - couldn't access any servers and then when they could they'd randomnly cut them out etc. Together we've played some 300hrs of BFBC2 together. Of BF3? Less than 50. If that. And there was the whole Premium Edition thing....

I'll be interested to see what they're going to do with BF4 and how they're going to make it interesting so soon after the release of BF3 (it was only a year and a half ago - they've only just released the last DLC!) to entice BF3 players away... Frankly, I think the only *really* viable option is to make it a different kind of Battlefield i.e. you could be interested in this AND BF3. Otherwise, I don't see how they're going to make it a convincing sell given that there's still a lot of play time to be had in BF3.

Unless they view us like COD players now who'll just lap up every new game that comes out, regardless of how small the iterative enhancements are and how soon the previous installment was... In which case, count me out...

*commence flame war.... now*

[MrJim]

I encountered lots of stability issues when BF3 first came out too. I know there are plenty of other games released with some major bugs, but it did feel as if the paying customers were being treated as beta testers. The fact that I pre-ordered the game & got the 'Back to Karkand' add-on free, only to find it included in the Premium bundle as really annoying too. With BF4 I'll be leaving it 6 months before buying it; hopefully by then it will be stable enough to be playable, & the price might have dropped a bit too.

[Kirano]

Want to know what's really strange about it? The alpha build was fantastic. And the Beta. Admittedly the alpha was only the one map but I never had a problem connecting to servers. The same with the beta. It was like they accidently released BF3 a few versions *before* the alpha! That said, I imagine that server load makes all the difference when it comes to this kind of thing...

Given how little I've played it and that you can get the Premium Edition (base game + all add-ons) now for the same price that I preordered BF3 for (about £25-28 iirc), I do regret preordering it! So I'm with you - wait for 6 months, let the problems get ironed out and the price to drop and then I'll probably buy the edition that comes with the complete set...

[crossy]

Now, I'm excited about this... I genuinely am... There's one slight snag though... And there was the whole Premium Edition thing....

I'll be interested to see what they're going to do with BF4 and how they're going to make it interesting so soon after the release of BF3 (it was only a year and a half ago - they've only just released the last DLC!) to entice BF3 players away... Frankly, I think the only *really* viable option is to make it a different kind of Battlefield i.e. you could be interested in this AND BF3. Otherwise, I don't see how they're going to make it a convincing sell given that there's still a lot of play time to be had in BF3.

Unless they view us like COD players now who'll just lap up every new game that comes out, regardless of how small the iterative enhancements are and how soon the previous installment was... In which case, count me out...

I want to be excited by this - after all it'd be nice after being a little disappointed with last years CoD installment, (I still think BOps1 had a better storyline). Hopefully they're not going to do a Bops2 and throw it into some near-future setting. I also can't see much in the way of improvements possible for the campaign junkie - think that folks (like me) who do that are in for more and more disappointment, as the SP "campaigns" become nothing but extended training missions for the MP play that EA etc want you to do so they can sting you for all that lovely DLC! (yes, I'm being very cynical)

MP on the other hand surely has plenty of scope for improvements - even if it's something as "minor" as larger teams on each side. I'd love to see some feed in from something like Assassin's Creed - so special ops style missions and even perhaps ones with NPC's involved (e.g. terrorist hunt). Just no zombie hunts!

As to the "Premium" thing - I find the whole thing a bit distasteful - "buy our game and then pay the same price again for all the stuff you'd wished it'd had in the first place". And I'm not joking about the price - got a mail from EA this morning saying BF3Premium is £39.99 - which is perhaps even more than I paid for BF3 on launch day!

Still, could be worse, BF5 with the "ammo vending machines" that you need real money to use?

I encountered lots of stability issues when BF3 first came out too.

Strangely enough, the PC version was pretty darned stable for me, and it was the XBox version that had all kind of glitches. I'll not be repeating that mistake - if/when I go for BF4 I'll be limiting that one to purely the PC.

Given that Saints Row IV looks to be hitting the shops around the same time, I'd better get saving now...

[Deftee]

I don't know if I can get excited for this anymore. I was so excited for BF3, everytime the previews appeared, the BF music gave me those little shivers but when the game landed I just didn't get on with it. I got roughly 50 hours out of it before it died off for me.

Please prove me wrong and give me those shivers again!

[Biscuit]

As to the "Premium" thing - I find the whole thing a bit distasteful - "buy our game and then pay the same price again for all the stuff you'd wished it'd had in the first place". And I'm not joking about the price - got a mail from EA this morning saying BF3Premium is £39.99 - which is perhaps even more than I paid for BF3 on launch day!

I actually payed the £50 (or whatever it was) upfront for premium, on top of the £25 (or whatever it was) i had paid for the game and i don't feel the slightest bit ripped off to be honest. The game itself was worth the cost of a normal game and each of the DLC packs has cost the equivalent of about £10 (if you divvy it up that way) and i have easily had that much play out of them. On top of that there is the little perks like additional weapons, priority queuing into servers (which is largely pointless as most people have it anyway but does come in handy on occasion) and a different knife that allows for a larger variety of stealth 'dogtag' kills.
Whilst the sales on Origin are not as good as the steam sales, there was recently the full BF3 Premium version available as single purchase for under £30 recently which is a MASSIVE amount of mulitplayer gaming for the price... seriously massive!
Each different part of BF3 (in MP, which is all i really care about for this kind of game) is almost the equivalent of what you would get from a COD multiplayer, except they are all integrated into the same interface. To me this is a huge advantage and gives the game a lot of vitality, i think they need to build BF4 into the same battlelog interface so you keep the same friends and same interface and when you search for servers, you search for them in and amongst the existing BF3 ones. If they decide to go against this and try and make people start from scratch, i will be very disappointed and will probably find something new.

Still, could be worse, BF5 with the "ammo vending machines" that you need real money to use?

and this is where i will hang up my mouse and keyboard and take up a new hobby

[shaithis]

Perhaps BF4 will just be BF3 with a working server browser....

[Biscuit]

Perhaps BF4 will just be BF3 with a working server browser....

.... it works perfectly fine?! It was buggy at first but now i would argue it works better than any other server browser for any other game i have used for years.

[Turquoisetim]

Some interesting changes

[Brewster0101]

Based on the server issues EA are having with Simcity , I hold little faith in any online game they will publish in the future.

Also John Riccitiello's news might have something to do with the Simcity server news. That made international news , massive dent in EA's pretty poor reputation.

[Andi-C]

TIME LINE.
BF2 June 21, 2005
BF3 October 25, 2011
BF4 October XX, 2013 ?


I'd say EA are looking to milk us like MW does (or did) !
There was 6 years between BF2 & BF3, there will be 2 years between BF3 & BF4 (admittedly one more year than the MW series).

I had no problem with paying for Premium, I've wasted more money on games that are let for the side or in my Steam account doing nothing.

Yes BF3 has/had issues but what game doesn't ? Look at Black ops, it was a mess - Sim City, a server joke. the list goes on...EA have sort to fix the issues in a timely manor unlike some other developers !

I'll continue to play BF3 & will have an eye on BF4 but I will have the other eye on Arma III !

[Brewster0101]

TIME LINE.
BF2 June 21, 2005
BF3 October 25, 2011
BF4 October XX, 2013 ?


I'd say EA are looking to milk us like MW does (or did) !
There was 6 years between BF2 & BF3, there will be 2 years between BF3 & BF4 (admittedly one more year than the MW series).

You've missed Battlefield Bad Company 2 (assuming we are talking PC launches)

[Noxvayl]

I enjoyed BF3's single player but found it relatively short. I didn't play multiplayer because I refuse to use PunkBuster and won't play BF4 if it requires PunkBuster. So I will wait and see what their choice is with regards to anti-cheat software before I even consider getting it.

I hope the resignation of EA's CEO allows them to make changes that improves the way they treat their customers because their current business practise is not beneficial for us.

[Noxvayl]

You've missed Battlefield Bad Company 2 (assuming we are talking PC launches)

He also missed Battlefield 2142, my favourite of all the Battlefield games, which was out in 2006.

So a full list of major Battlefield PC releases reveals a relatively steady release cycle over the last 10 years.

2002 - BF1942
2004 - BF Vietnam
2005 - BF2
2006 - BF2142
2010 - BF BC2
2011 - BF3

If anything the anomaly in that list is Battlefield Bad Company 2 and that is mainly because of the popularity of BF2 + BF2142 and also because they began making Battlefield for consoles in that time. So they were making Battlefield games for PC regularly for years before the gap happened.

So far I have played all the PC versions of Battlefield including the Play4Free and Heroes versions but I doubt I'll play another because I've decided not to accept the terms and conditions required to use PunkBuster.

[Terbinator]

So you bought BF3 for the campaign?