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

NEW FEATURES

* Air dropped vehicles: Squad members can now send a request up the chain of command for a vehicle to be dropped at their location.
* Co-op: Co-op Mode allows you to play Single Player levels on the Internet and LAN with both AI controlled bots and human players. Several new options have been created that will allow the server creator to modify how the bots behave in game.
* Number of Bots: This setting allows you to determine the total number of bots that will spawn in game.
* Bot Ratio: This setting allows you to determine the percentage of total bots that will spawn for each team. For example, setting this value to 25 means that 25% of the total bots will spawn in Team 1, and 75% in Team 2. Team 1 is always the MEC, Chinese, or their allies, while Team 2 is always the USA, EU, and their allies.
* Bot Difficulty: This setting determines the skill level of the bots. 10 is easiest, 100 is the most difficult.
* Default Kit Selection: The kit that you used last is remembered at the beginning of the round and between maps. Continue reading Patch v1.3 For Battlefield 2 Released →

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.

EA Posted this in their recent community update.

Although the 1.3 patch is still being worked on we wanted to provide a peek at what you can expect with the coming release:

NEW FEATURES

* Co-op: Co-op Mode allows you to play Single Player levels on the Internet and LAN with both AI controlled bots and human players. Several new options have been created that will allow the server creator to modify how the bots behave in game.
* Air dropped vehicles: Squad members can now send a request up the chain of command for a vehicle to be dropped at their location.

BUG FIXES & GAME PLAY TWEAKS

* Prevented ban list from being cleared in the event of a server crash.
* Fixed issue with players not properly ranking up on servers where they continuously play.
* Fixed bug where friendly vehicles show up as valid targets.
* Friendly Vehicle lock: Lock-on weapons do not lock on to friendly vehicles. The box with an X through it will still appear, but a lock tone will not sound and then if fired, the missile will not track the friendly target.

Keep in mind this is only a part of what 1.3 will include. Our live team is working diligently to provide the best update possible in preparation for the release of the Armored Fury booster pack!

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.

Patch 1.22 has been released and is available on EA Downloader. The release of this patch is in line with our ongoing effort to make the game as enjoyable as possible, releasing quicker fixes addressing some of the things that you want to see changed.

Were still hard at work on version 1.3, which will see the addition of some additional, sought-after changes. When we have more information to share with you on 1.3 we will, in the meantime, please find below the list of fixes in 1.22:

– Improved Server Stability
– Adjusted handling of the Tiger attack chopper
– Increased delay for aiming reticule when going from movement to prone on all support weapons
– Adjusted deviation on MG36 and PKM to be in line with other support weapons
– Increased rpm from 600 to 900 on the P90
– Fixed Lock on error on certain Oil towers
– Fixed a Great Wall Exploit
– Fixed exploits on Dragon Valley and Karkand

Download from:

* BF2s Website
* EAs FTP

Press Release

All-new Title from the Award-winning Battlefield Franchise to be set in the Future

Redwood City, Calif. – March 22, 2006 – Fight an all-out war for survival in the year 2142. Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Sweden-based developer, Digital Illusions, today announced development of the next installment in the award-winning Battlefield™ franchise, Battlefield 2142™. The ground-breaking first-person shooter is scheduled to ship this fall for the PC.

Continue reading EA AND DICE ANNOUNCE BATTLEFIELD 2142 FOR PC →

The bug fix list for the latest BF2 patch is out. Patch is out now. What are you waiting for? Go get it Soldier!

Patch v1.21

BUG FIXES
– Fixed the Hmmwv with TOW crash on Battlefield 2: Special Forces maps
– Fixed the Battle Recorder crash
– Fixed the screen capture
– Fixed the issue with Pixel Shader 1.4 video cards
– Fixed the issue that caused heat seeking missiles to stick to oil towers
– Fixed the issue that caused heat seaking missiles to ziz-zag
– Reduced the maximum number of claymores that can be dropped to 2
– Fixed the Server Browser filter to enable search by map name
– Fixed the error in Client – Server communication causing sound, animation and other
sync issues.

The 1.2 version of the BF2Pro Mod was released today. Looks like some interesting tweaks to the Vanilla BF2. The BFPro mod for Battlefield 1942 did an excellent job of tweaking vanilla Battlefield 1942 by adjusting some things and adding some new stuff to enhance the game. I plan to check out the BF2 version to see if they have continued in that same vein. From the changes listed, it looks as though they have.

Short list of BF2Pro Changes

Full List of BF2Pro Changes

Download BF2Pro 1.2

Another Community Update from DICE/EA today that provides some details on what is being addressed with the 1.21 patch:

Good day soldiers, We want to let you know that we have been making great progress on patch 1.21 and are happy to share with you some of the issues that are being addressed. The patch will be tested in a limited beta starting the end of this week. Were working around the clock to minimize your wait on the release of 1.21 but at the same time want to make sure that the patch is thoroughly tested before it goes out officially.

Below is a list of the current confirmed fixes

* Crash bug when using Hummer with TOW in the Special Forces expansion pack has been fixed
* Screen capture is now working
* Performance issues with certain ATI cards has been addressed
* Server browser can now filter by map name
* Claymores – the number that can be dropped at any one time has been reduced to 2

Once again thank you for your patience and see you all on the Battlefield!

The team at DICE and EA

Glad to see that EA/DICE have recognized that there are some issues with the latest patch for BF2 and are working quickly to correct them.

Community Update – 2/20/06

Listen up Troops,

Although patch 1.2 included several fixes that we know were eagerly awaited, it unfortunately introduced some new issues. These are being addressed immediately and we are working around the clock to resolve those. Patch 1.21 (coming soon) will be tested in a limited beta with select Battlefield community members starting as early as this week. We’re doing this to ensure a clean release of 1.21. In addition, we have decided to postpone the Euro Force Booster Pack until sometime after the release of the updated 1.21 patch.

Stick to this web space for additional information soon.

On a more pleasant note, Battlefield 2 hit somewhat of a milestone last night with over 52,000 simultaneous players. This is the highest number of players we’ve seen at one time for Battlefield 2 and almost 4 times more than the peak number of Battlefield 1942.

Thanks in advance for your patience.

The team at DICE and EA

Thanks to DocJon for the reminder on this one.