Directly from the EAUK BF2 Forums

We are beginning the first phase of our 1.4 patch beta testing! This initial phase of testing will only include a small number of servers whose focus is to ensure stability in a live environment. At the completion of this phase we will be rapidly expanding the number of servers hosted to allow everyone an opportunity to review this latest patch. I would like to stress that everyone who downloads the beta files should take the time to read the included text file so that you can properly safeguard your current BF2 install.

Also please note that EA Customer Service can not provide any support for issues related to the Beta Patch. I encourage everyone to log into the EA Battlefield forums and participate on the 1.4 Patch Beta discussions that will cover both 1.4 issues, tuning changes, and new features.

We have up threads for issues and gameplay feedback, please make sure you post in the right one once they are unlocked.

A few of the servers hosted will be set to the new ‘No Vehicles’ server setting that will allow players to focus on infantry vs infantry combat on all BF2 and Special Forces Maps. Other servers will include the new ‘Road to Jalalabad’ map which will allow US and MEC forces to engage in a new urban warfare environment! Everyone here at EA and DICE look forward to working with the community to ensure this next patch is a solid step forward for the Battlefield Franchise.

-The Battlefield Team

The last paragraph is particularly interesting imo. Download links can be found in the link above. This has only been out a short time, so feedback is minimal so far.

Discuss and provide feedback here in the Gamers Radio Forums.

Just a heads up to anyone who hasnt seen this. If you are interested in playing and dont have the files yet make sure you start downloading early as they are big.

Click read more for the full posting from the -=NC=- forums or look here: Napalm Cowboyz BG Thread

Battlegroup42 Night on -=NC=-Bar & Grill
1st & 3rd Tuesday of every month – 9PM EST
209.130.203.110 : 14567

Anyone who has some free time on Tuesday nights should consider stopping by the Bar & Grill for some BG42 1.3. Were doing it the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month. Very Happy

Well have a fun lineup of maps in the rotation: a mix of NC infantry-only favorites, some tank battle maps and some new maps from 1.3. After a few runs through the maps well refine the map rotation to everyones liking.

Im coordinating with |GRB|Sarge to post the monthly BG42 schedule in the several different forums so we can all meet up and enjoy BG42 on a populated server, one that will give decent pings to us folks in North America.

Make sure you upgrade to the latest version which is 1.3. The 3 files you need are pretty big, but VERY worth it!!!

Continue reading Battlegroup 42 Tuesday June 20, 2006 →

The rumors that have been flying around the message boards seem to have been true. DICE is working on a new patch that will include a new map as well as the fixes/changes/revisions to the game. From the looks of it, they are addressing many of the community concerns with the game at this point. Here is the update from the Battlefield 2 site:

Community Update – 6/16/06

Greetings,

The launch of Battlefield 2: Armored Fury has started off with great success, the maps have been great and the new scout choppers are introducing a whole new style of game play. Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of support and approval from the American community. Playing in Alaska, fields and Operation Road Rage make these maps a great change up in play. If not already, I suggest joining in the fun; it?s available for download at http://downloader.ea.com/products/en_US/bf2armor.

We recognize that this has been a very trying time for everyone who enjoys Battlefield 2 and are putting forth every effort to improve upon the issues that are causing some players frustration. The DICE team has been reviewing player feedback gathered from forums, email, and the ranker server providers in an effort to provide the best possible step forward from 1.3. While this work has been highly focused on bug fixing the team has also managed to put some work towards new content.

Some groups have noticed the testing of a new map ?Road to Jalalabad? being run on our test servers. This map will be included in our next patch release and is not part of a new booster pack. Some of the items on the change list for this next step are:

* Reversion: Allowing unlocks on unranked servers
* Fix/Reversion: We fixed the issue preventing mod teams from running multiple game modes in one map list.
* Tuning: We have lowered the number of players needed to start a ranked game.
* Tuning: We have made some modifications to the vehicle drop feature introduced in 1.3. These changes should reduce the overall impact of “cartillery” on game play.
* Crash Fix: We have located and fixed a crash connected to 1.3.

These are only a small portion of the fixes being worked on for our next step. We would also like to announce that we will be holding an Open Beta in early July for this next patch. We will have public servers hosted, Beta files available on mirror sites, and specific threads for feedback during this Beta period hosted on the EA forums.

As always keep your eyes on this space for all the latest Battlefield News.

-The DICE Battlefield Team

The Project Reality Mod has an update out:

THANKS very much to all of you for your patience while we sorted out some issues with PRMM 0.31.

NOTE: This requires BF2 1.3 and PRMM 0.30 installed.

– Removed ability to drop vehicles until we make some PR changes to it
– Disabled the PR Squad Hopping penalty system. The BF2 1.3 penalty system is used instead.
– Reduced volume and sound radius of SLAM timer beeps
– Removed Arty and Supply Drop capabilities from the Squad Leader map popup menu. These are now only available through the Squad Leader Comm Rose.
– Removed healing abilites from Supply Crates. You must now find a Medic to get healed.
– Added back in Vehicle Resupply capabilities to Supply Crates.
– Boosted Ammo Kit reloading speed by 50%.
– Reduced initial grenade toss delay by about 70%.
– Reduced Grenade Reloading delay to 4 seconds from 8 seconds in 0.30.

Download from Filecloud

Thanks to Total Battlefield 2 for the link

Anyone feel like going old-school for a bit?

The Battlegroup team has continued to work on their fantastic mod for Battlefield 1942 while they prepare an offereing for Battlefield 2. Version 1.3 was released earlier today and contains a large number of changes from the 1.2 version.

12 New Maps, including “Ghost Front” designed by Raze and Atomm(woohoo!)
5 Reworked maps
7 new maps with Co-op support
20 new weapons including Molotov Cocktail, Incendiary Grenade, M14 Thermite Grenade which are effective sabotage tools.
Many new effects and sounds.

Visit the Battlegroup42 website for download and installation info, as well as a detailed change list.

I know our friends over at the Napalm Cowboys Clan are running BG 1.3 on their “-=NC=- Bar and Grille” server. IP is 209.130.203.110 so go and give it a try.

EA has realized that there is a problem and may have actually found the solution.

Community Update – 5/25/06

Attention Soldiers and Server Admins!

After a thorough investigation into the issues plaguing the server browser after the 1.3 Update, we believe that a last minute update in the way the Battlefield servers and Gamespy servers communicate may be the cause.

We have decided to revert this change in an attempt eliminate these browser issues. Please note that no uninstalling or re-installing is required by players or server admins. All servers currently running must be restarted once this change has taken place.

Please also note that if you are experiencing CTD issues upon start up that any alternate-ranking redirections in your windows “Hosts” file must be removed.

The reversion will occur at 2:00 PST. We are continuing to review other issues players have noted with 1.3. Further updates will be posted to this space as they become available.”

Thank you,
/The team at Dice and EA

EA Community Update 5/25/06

In The EA BF2 Forums, EAUK_Sentience has posted the following updates to the time requirements for some of the ribbons in BF2.

In order to make certain medal rewards more accessible to casual players the time played criteria for the following medals has been reduced:

Golden Scimitar Medal – Now requires 100 hours
Peoples Medallion – Now requires 100 hours
MEC Special Forces Service Medal – Now requires 50 hours
Navy Cross Medal – Now requires 100 hours
EU Special Service Medal – Now requires 50 hours
SAS Service Medal – Now requires 50 hours
Navy Seal Service Medal – Now requires 50 hours
Spetsnaz Service Medal – Now requires 50 hours
Rebel Service Medal – Now requires 50 hours

Other Changes in the update include:

– Addition of a North America Service Ribbon.
– Change in the promotion of Generals Each month. After the update the top 50 Lt. Generals will be promoted to General.
– Additional authentication support for ranked servers to ensure proper labeling of ranked servers in the server browser.

Thanks to PlanetBattlefield for the heads up on this.

The following was posted on the Frontlines mod website today.

Dear Community,

Well well, I bet you all thought our merge announcement was just an April Fools joke. Well the jokes on you, it`s for real! You may need to sit down for this next part folks, so don`t say we didn`t warn you. Not only are BG and FL merging, Warfront will be joining us as well! Yes you read this correctly, Battlegroup2, Frontlines, and Warfront will all be working under the same name. The idea to merge was first proposed in January and soon after the teams started the first discussions. We have had many discussions over the past few months, and we`ve come to an arrangement everyone thinks will benefit us and the mod community.

Now you may ask what scenario we are going to develop at first. Battlegroup2 and Warfront started to develop an Eastern-front-scenario, while Frontlines started to do a Normandy-scenario. We decided to primarily continue working on the Eastern-front-scenario, but we won´t stop working on the Normandy-scenario, which means that soon after the release of the Eastern-front-scenario we will be able to provide you a second scenario, which will be Normandy.

This sounds great to me! With three mod teams merged to work on this, significant progress cant be far away. Lets hope for some WWII action soon.

The Nations At War team has released version 3.9 of their Battlefield 2 conversion. This new release includes several new maps, new vehicles, new weapons, and significant tweaks and changes to existing content. I could write them out, but it would probably better for you to go right to the Release Notes for the full listing.

One immediate improvement is the availability of map packs for this mod as previously all maps were downloaded individually. You can find links to download the 3.9 client, the client with map pack 3, or any of the map packs at the Nations At War website.

There was a bunch of mod news released this weekend.

First the biggest mod news I have heard in a while: Battlegroup and Frontlines have merged to form a single mod!

The developers of the two leading ww2 mods, Battlegroup and Frontlines, are proud to announce that they are to join together as Battlegroup:Frontlines to create the strongest BF mod ever known. Development of eastern and western fronts will go ahead in parallel, sharing vehicles, player models and statics to produce a bigger and more complete mod than was possible before. The aim of Battlegroup:Frontlines (BGF) is nothing less than to produce the leading ww2 mod on the BF2 engine, offering the best gameplay, the best models and skins, most challenging maps, most realistic sounds and atmospheric music. And of course with an open ear for the concerns amd wishes of the BF2 community. Read the rest here

Next, Silent Heroes has posted a couple of screen shots of very cool looking enhancements that they have made to the undergrowth system in BF2 and a revamp of the GUI that they have done. Read the rest here.

Forgotten Hope has also posted some renders of various vehicles that they are putting together while also announcing that they are releasing a fan map pack for FH1942. Read the rest here.

Finally, Desert Conflict has posted some renders of their new Blackhawk Attack helo Read the rest here.

A promotional video for Battlefield 2142 has surfaced. Looks like Mechwarrior meets Battlefield. From what I can see it looks like there are some cool features, but I am guessing that it in the end it will be BF2 with lasers.

Overall, I cant help but be intruiged by it even though it causes me great pain. Anyway, go check out the video and let us know what you think in the forums.

BF2142 Promo Video on Youtube