On CoD affecting BF3 development
Question: Does he feel that some creative aspects of BF3 have been affected by the current popularity and trend of the Modern Warfare style of FPS, while maintaing the spirit and important elements of the Battlefield franchise ie comments that the Metro map are more similar in style and gameplay to MW than previous BF?
Lars: Ah… I guess we’re always inspired by the world around us, but when we build games – and we’ve been building Battlefield for 12 years now – we focus on our way. If you run your race and look at your competitors, then you’re bound to stumble and fall. Yes, we take inspiration from movies, games, and books, but I wouldn’t say that we go around changing our design in fear of competitors or anything. I only fear what’s living in my cupboard back home!
Operation Metro playing like CoD
Question: A popular consensus seems to be that Operation Metro plays very much like CoD.
Lars: I mean, with the open beta, you can probably see our train of thought. We showed Operation Metro at E3, then Caspian Border at Gamescom, and now the open beta. We try to get data out of both of them. They are each other’s counterparts. One is infantry-focused, tight combat, and one is that typical all-out war. But going back through our games throughout the years, you’ve had Stalingrad, you’ve had Karkand; many of these levels that have been more infantry-focused. So I wouldn’t call it CoD-esque. I’d call it another flavour of Battlefield.
Reason for Cutting LAN Support
Question: What was the reasoning for cutting private servers/LAN?
Lars: I would say, like this: When we ship the game, that’s where it all starts. Many times the perception is when we ship the game, that’s the end of it, this what we’re going to get. That’s totally not it. If people know DICE and our previous titles, Battlefield 2 is still out there, alive. So yeah, good things come to those who wait.
Reasons for Beta Test
Question: With the BF3 Beta build so old and with most of the issues that were raised by testers already patched for the final build, what was the point of the beta? Was it to test back end infrastructure, netcode and battlelog? Or was it a thinly disguised demo to build demand for the game or did it serve another purpose?
Lars: I would say, especially the first chunk there with checking servers, checking backend… it’s rare that you get the possiblity to have this many gamers in there to test your backend before launch. With 1943, we totally underestimated the onslaught of happy customers, so we don’t want to repeat that again. So for us, it’s been a huge success to get all these people in there to game and of course also give us feedback on things in and around the game.
Type of changes from beta
Question: Have the changes from then ‘til now been drastic or minor?
Lars: When it comes to the actual game, there’s already been… I mean, we branched off the open beta build a long time ago, so we already tweaked and tuned that and did so many changes and polish. Putting up lists of them, it’s almost impossible! Overall we still take all the feedback seriously so we can kind of run through it. We talk to the community, gather this feedback, and see if there’s things that we have missed out.
Question: And what kind of things do you think you’ve missed out?
Lars: Eh… there’s definitely input in a lot of areas that makes us wonder, and makes us look ahead and see maybe this is something for down the road. But it’s also about staying a bit cool, and not kind of overreacting. It’s very easy when you make games, where a competitor comes out or shows a movie of their upcoming game. It’s all CG, you don’t know what it’s going to be, but everyone gets nervous everywhere. Sometimes you just need to have a little faith in yourself, and this time around to take in the feedback from the community, and then when we ship the final game, we’ll see if we still have issues or not. Since when the game gets out there and more people start playing it, it really… it changes from day to day. People have a tendency to apply new tactics where, for example, the level stalls, and it’s about not being totally nervous and trying to change everything all the time to the latest and greatest.
HUD Design and Text Box
Question: What inspired the move to a more abstract and significantly less informative HUD design compared to previous Battlefield games? Specifically the move to a non-persistent single colour text chat box.
Lars: Okay. That text chat box is just a rudimentary implementation. It’s not the final one by far. It was just put in there to give you an idea.
Comments on Voip for PC
Question: News coming out of DICE, is that PC Voip will not be run in-game, but will be handled by a module running from Battlelog (similar to console voip running outside of the game), but it only has the ability to talk to people in your pre-defined battlelog party (i.e friends only), not other random players in the team/squad. Can you confirm this?, and if so - why the active step away from active cooperation between team/squad-mates if they are not your friends?
Lars: That is true for what we will ship with, but of course we’ll look into what will happen in the future.
Squad Sizes
Question: In regards to 64-player matches, why is the squad size limited to 4 players? I feel the large 64-player Conquest maps warrant a return of BF2's 6-man squads. Is there any chance of this happening?
Lars: At launch we will ship with four players, and the main thinking here has been to not create any magic rabbit holes. You know, there is a certain satisfaction to actually being able to wipe a squad in order to take a flag. So yeah, we will ship with four players.
Lars gets owned
Question: I’m sensing a recurring theme to these answers of yours…
Lars: All the changes we do, we do for a reason. It’s not like we have a big hat and we write down lots of solutions and then draw them. There’s always a lot of thinking that goes into this.
Female Skins
Question: Given that females are now allowed to serve in combat roles in many armies are there any plans to introduce a female skin?
Lars: That’s not in the plan, no. It’s something we’ve been talking about since, I think, even Battlefield 1942. There weren’t that many women fighting in active duty during those days. But overall, short answer: No.
"When I go to bed at night, I sleep well based on the fact that we have played the game every day in the office."
Day/Night Cycles
Question: Will there be a DAY/NIGHT time cycle throughout maps? I watched a demonstration video of the engine showing this feature off. Obviously it would be awesome to have in the game!!! So please do it!!!
Lars: No. It’s definitely been part of the demo to show what the engine can do. There’s definitely changes of light as levels progess and so on, but we don’t, as far as I know, work with the full day/night cycle. Especially not in multiplayer.
Flying practice
Question: Will it be possible to practice flying without having to be in an active multiplayer server? Such as a large training map or something of the sorts so people can hone their skills in the flying vehicles.
Lars: Nothing in the game at launch, sadly.
Comments on consumer expectations
Question: It seems like people want a a lot out of this game. They want everything!
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Wanting is good! But are you worried that expectations may be too high for you to ever reach them?
Lars: When I go to bed at night, I sleep well based on the fact that we have played the game every day in the office. It is a great game, it’s rock solid, a very organic experience. The vehicles are better than ever. We, as well, want to do everything – but usually, the studios that crash and burn are the ones that try to do everything. I would say it’s a touch of the mature studio mentality that stops us from going completely haywire!
Games On Net :: General News: Battlefield 3: Lars Gustavsson vs. games.on.net
,1vlag minder voor us,en vlaggen ook dichter bij elkaar te staan,maar euh zit deze map in bf3?
