Battlefield 3 beta gets 64-player Caspian Border this weekend
Caspian Border, including its jets, tanks and other vehicles, will be free to play this weekend.
The extension, which only applies to PC participants of the beta due to the 64-player cap not being supported by the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions, is designed to stress EA's servers. However, it will also enable players to finally, and legitimately, try out BF3's vehicles, including tanks, jets and UAVs.
As the game is still very much in the beta stage, though, EA is keen to reinforce that 'users may experience crashes, network instability and outages as we roll out and configure servers and network utilities. Understand that such potential issues and the testing environment are not reflective or indicative of the final product and that, through your participation, you will be helping to ensure future stability and functionality.'
You'll need to be quick if you want to give the game a try for free though, as the beta ends on Monday 10 October. After that, you'll have to wait for the game's release date on 25 October.
Are you excited about finally trying out BF3 with vehicles, or frustrated that Caspian Border wasn't included in the beta from the beginning? Either way, let us know in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyI played about 30 seconds of CB before the servers closed. Lookin' forward to it. Operation Metro is incredibly annoying now.
+1 I never even got in to a server, can't wait for this!
I wanna come to the party!! :'(
Weekend sorted then, might have to hook up a dodge mic i got.
/sad
oh btw, ive been using the UAV Metro park stage, so......
I just wish for once dice could have a server that's browser pings = ingame ping. Its so annoying.
Did you notice any squad management in conquest mode on CB or is it still "join/find" and nothing else?
Didn't notice any difference. I will have a proper look when I play with a mate later as that is when I will care.
Thank YOU!
The problem is that in this case the "beta" is actually a pre game demo. Its the only thing we have to go on about the quality of the final product. The huge list of bugs, none of which have been fixed during the beta, do not give me and confidence in the product, infact its made me very worried.
What is a gamer to do? I have to assume based on the demos its going to be an incredibly buggy COD clone. Confirming that something is going to fixed doesn't show me that they actually get the problem, or that they are going to fix the literally vast list of technical problems the game continues to have.
Do you trust them?! I don't.
The bugs were never going to get fixed during the beta. The point of the beta was to test the back end services, not bug test a client that was a month or so old by the time we got our hands on it. Had it been a PC only beta test then it might have been a different situation but by rolling it out across PC, XBox and PS3 it meant Dice were constrained by the need to have their beta build go thru MS and Sony's validation processes before it could be released on their networks and that's something which takes time. Which means that the beta client was always going to be an old build and wasn't likely to recieve any sort of updates in the short period the beta was on.
Caspian Border is a must play for all dedicated BF2 players, finally we get to see how the game will be favourable to us old timers!
And does Mag let you blow up most of the environment? Do you really think Dice wouldn't have loved to have had bigger teams available on console versions as well as the PC?
Well aside from the limitations of the console itself Caspian Border was never included in the download made available for the 360 or PS3, it was only included in the PC download. And exactly what time and money has been wasted?
I don't want to hear that a PC is way more expensive, that's a myth. Initially outlay may be more but once you have your PC u can upgrade individual parts and sell the old bits to offset the cost. I would hate to play a fast FPS with a joystick/thumb stick. That's just wrong.
+1 for sure, in my mind consoles are for people that can't handle multiple things at any one time, like multi-tacking, something you need to do in games nowadays
Hopefully conquest will go some-way toward fixing this, as will the final release.
Otherwise there will be no winner to the COD/BF battle...both sides will have lost.
Very fun though..caspian border seems like a fairly small map for a 64player though. I found that your pretty much getting shot from AA nomatter where you are in the air which is slightly annoying.
QQ more, Rush was a gameplay mode taken from MoH where it was fairly popular, and highly tactical., objective gameplay is not my favorite but metro rush had it's moments, and at least I know one map very well now. the COD style gameplay isn't "simpler" in many ways the gun play was more indepth and tailored very well for infantry only gameplay. BF3 will be fun, save for all the spawn-kill instapwns by a tank when you're a recon or assault and can do 0 damage to it.
I played BF2 big time and it brings back a lot of the memories, of course all the old modes such as deathmatch and conquest will be back. squad and teamplay isa two edged sword. Oddles of fun if you had 3 like minded and equally skilled friends. Painful if you were playing solo against a team with 1 or 2 squads that played together.
Unfortunately on the internets most people are playing by themselves and squad play is at a minimum.
I do hate the server browser though. You can't even have a server auto start whenever its full. Bah. Waiting for a free space in my good server now :(
The detail of the map is simply fantastic, I like the fact that its hard to spot people, it prevents you running into an area without properly looking around, you should be taking peeks round corners and checking out whats there before you commit yourself to running across a huge open area.
I cant wait to play the full game.
Also anyone reckon this map would also be good infantry only? Or maybe that's just me.. I like the idea of a full team of 32 players charging across the fields when the game starts...
Now just hoping for 2 seater jets.
think you got to re-do your research. Rush started in BFBC1, on the consoles because Conquest confuses those kids and there can only be 2 objectives.
the major problem i have with BF3 at the moment is it's way too hard to see people. almost all of my death are from people hiding in a bush.
this game seems to punish those who dare to go for the objective/flags. rewards those who camp in a bush.
You did remember to join a server right? Walking around in RL won't get you anywhere ;)
Ultra settings, aa way, up 1920x1200. I played with it for awhile and couldn't make it look good.
Also most motherboards seems very samey. Hard to pick anything when everything looks the same. Picking CPU, GPU and PSU is far easier task.
Brian: There's no pleasing some people.
Ex-Leper: That's just what Jesus said, sir.
just don't try throwing a grenade from the bush!! lol
(am sure they will fix that bug, well they better)
Mate i like gives it the more real feel you can still make the push with a good squad and pairs fire manenuver. So far i like very much looking forward to the full release
Give the game 2-3 months for the lamers to have had some fun and with luck we'll be left with a game that provides BF2 like staying power, every extra month that goes by will see the user base become more skilled and those lamers will naturally disperse elsewhere. I don't see it being a problem, not any Pc anyways, the stupid ratio thankfully is nothing like the console state of online play :-)
well if you Re-re-do your research you'll realize that game mode is really a carry over of other objective based FPS' such as the original Day of Defeat, unreal tournament, and return to castle wolfenstein, I brought up MoH because that was a recent example and I recall one of the dev's citing it.
@feathers you may want to correct your argument, the initial cost is vastly increased and upgrades just increase that further, the only thing that changes is the fact that our PC games are usually £10 cheaper RRP and fall in price quicker which is what offsets the initial and upgrade cost ;)
I've been playing it on both PC (with 3 screens) and ps3. The difference is huge both in graphics and playstyles I've enjoyed both though. It's a shame the unlocks don't carry over as both versions are tied to the same account. I hate this trend for unlocking everything. Gives long time players a big advantage over new player's. Weirdly the console players are the only ones using mic's in my experience. Shame they only use it to play **** music or be annoying.
Funnily enough the mate I'm playing with on ps3 is looking to buy a PC. Im encouraging him ;)
You missed my point, I just meant it's a different experience playing games on the PC versus console, at least by my experience.
It is nice of Dice to look after the console market, they've done pretty well for them really, its about time the emphasis went back to PC on an occasion. Simple thing is the current generation consoles are so old already in terms of hardware, that any half decent programmer would have nothing left to accomplish on them and without a challenge to programmers go stale and lose interest.
What makes me laugh is the console gamers have been so busy fighting it out whether an 360 release was better than a PS3 release, which lets face it their pretty similar most times, that when an actual superior PC version comes along they don't know what to do with themselves ;-)
I own a PS3, it works nicely with my media server, nice little divx/picture viewer box it is too! I even play some of the exclusives, but with most games being only 720P and often lower, generally no fsaa, i prefer the fidelity of a pc title, its a as simple that.
Did find one really annoying issue with Battlelog though - notifications don't seem to come through, which makes joining parties, responding to game invites and doing the party join stuff is a nightmare. Works fine for some of the other guys I play with and not for others. Very annoying.
And the guy whinging that ultra didn't give him a face full of eye candy, graphics were needed in the beta, ultra gave you med/high at best. Expect uber eye candy in two weeks ;)
Managed to fly a jet (spawned in one) and it was fun. Slow, but they need to be in order to not be unkillable by ground forces - never seemed to go out of bounds which is a good thing and it was ace seeing the action taking place down below. I smacked into the antenna after trying to take down a tank (fail!) so had to bail but enjoyed it immensely.
Loving the trees shaking from heavy artillery...really adds to the whole spectacle and also lets you know when tanks are nearby if they've not been spotted.
Anyways...great map....sooooo much better than Metro imo. Should of released this map along with the Beta test warning dialogue (not 100% finished etc, stress testing) at the start and maybe they would of had less people cancel their pre-orders. I wander how many people have cancelled? Would be interested by the figures.
Hmm - i think Metro is in the minortiy come full release in terms of size of map...Battlefield maps in general tend to be pretty big and open. You'll get used to the bigger maps though, just takes a different style of playing.
And even then it still looks bloody good now, gives my 6950 a workout :D
They are lesser beings ;)