In the first interesting mod news in a while, PlanetBattlefield has posted an interview that they did with the Forgotten Hope mod team. Contrary to most recent information regarding on going mod development, this interview gets into the dynamics of gameplay and gives us our first indications of how the BF2 engine will be adopted to WWII game play.

Here is an excerpt from the interview posted here

PBF: “What are you going to do with BF 2s Commander Mode? Will it be removed, adapted for a WW II setting, completely changed?”

FH: “FH 2’s command system will be heavily modified from the BF 2 system to better suit FH 2’s gameplay and historical accuracy. New features such as smoke barrages air strikes, and a few others will be added to the commander’s arsenal, as well as a unique “recon system” to provide battlefield intelligence to the command map in place of satellite and UAV scans.”

Forgotten Hope

We wanted to take a moment to give everyone a quick update on the Gamers Radio Podcast interview with Lars Gustavsson from DICE Sweden. Lars has the list of questions in hand. We are working out a schedule for us to do the interview.

Production of the show is coming along nicely. We have the voicework and music. Now we just need to put it all together and make sure it sounds kick ass!

For those of you that submitted questions, we have selected the finalists. Each one of you is elligible to win the Gamers Radio Crucial Ballistix Prize Package. Not to mention, we will get an answer to your question straight from DICE. Here are the finalist.

– Perry from Indiana
– SiLvABuLLetZ from Umass
– Ross of California
– Talus from Canada
– Hydrogen Elf from Texas

Listen to the show as the winner will be announced at then. We dont have a release date yet, but keep an eye here and we will let you know as soon as we can.

Many people have had questions about how to make improvements to their computers so that Battlefield 2 will run better. Corsair has produced a document that just may answer that question by detailing how performance improves when you upgrade from 1 GByte of ram to 2 GByte for a variety of applications, including BF2. This improvement happens regardless of cpu platform or screen resolution which indicates that for your dollar, it is apt to be a better alternative than an upgraded processor or video card.

Read the document here (pdf): Performance Impact of Changing Memory Size from 1 GByte to 2 GByte

Thanks to Zardon at Driverheaven for posting the link originally.

In that same PC Gamer section talking about the upcoming FPS games, they went into more detail on Battlefield 2: Special Forces. This article started making me think about the current state of Battlefield 2. I have seen a lot of people who prefer the city based maps over the larger terrain maps, present company included. There is something about the battles in close quarters with multiple paths of attack that I find more satisfying than the non-city maps.

The focus of the new BF2: Special Forces expansion is going to be close quarters, infantry based battles. There will still be vehicles, but the focus is on the infantry. Additionally, this will be more of a stealth based game. Oh and lots of new toys like Zip lines, grappling hooks and night vision goggles.

The article also mentions the armies will be the British Special Air Services, Navy SEALs and Russian Rebels. Further on in the article it mentions insurgents versus Navy SEALs on one map. Is it me or does this sound a lot like the most popular FPS of all time, CounterStrike? I am not sure if that is good or bad, but I know one thing. After the way BF2 was handled when it was first released, I swore I would not buy the expansion. Having played BF2 and finding the play style I prefer to be city maps, I find myself more interested in this expansion than I initially thought.

Which brings me to my last point. Even though Battlefield 2 has sold over a million copies, is it actually a successful game? I guess that depends on your definition of success. BF42 in my opinion was a highly successful game because it lasted so long. Heck, there are still people playing it, just not as many since BF2 was released. BFV on the other hand was not a very successful game because people quickly became bored with it and moved on. With all the unique features BF2 brings to the table, I really feel it is going to fall somewhere between BF42 and BFV. The only chance of it being played as long as BF42 is a mod as successful as Desert Combat was. Could the Special Forces expansion be that mod? Wouldnt it be ironic if BF2 actually wound up being 2nd to a DICE Canada produced expansion pack for BF2? Think it cant happen? My gut instinct says if it is a bug free game focusing on the tighter aspects of special forces urban combat, it just may surpass BF2. Could it be the game to dethrone CounterStrike? I dont know, but only time will tell.

Gamers Radio is proud to present their very first Gaming Talk Podcast. For our first show, we have lined up a very special guest. Lars Gustavsson, the Creative Director for DICE Sweden has agreed to do an interview. The topic of discussion will be the process DICE/EA uses to develop and test patches before release. We are also going to discus why a patch was released that had a memory leak given EAs lengthy QA process.

In addition, we want to give you a chance to submit questions for the interview. What would you like to ask DICE concerning the way Battlefield 2 has been patched? We will pick the best questions from the submissions and include them in the interview. If we select your question, you will be eligible to win a Gamers Radio Prize package.

As a tribute to the infamous “memory leak”, we have a special treat for the winner. Besides the few music CDs and Gamers Radio Swag we are going to send your way, Crucial Memory has agreed to send the winner a 1GB kit featuring Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 high-performance memory (http://www.crucial.com/ballistix/). I bet BF2 would run sweet on that! Oh yea, they are also going to include a bunch of cool Ballistix Swag! How cool is that?

Send your question to podcast(at)gamersradio.com. Please include your name(Nic is fine), Location and one question. Make sure you get your questions in quick! We are making our selections this Sunday. Then, keep an eye out for the release of our first episode of Gamers Radio Podcast! I guarantee this is one Podcast you do not want to miss!

The Battlefield 2 1.03 patch has been officially delayed. According to EA UK, they could not make the end of August deadline because they want to make sure they get it right. When can we expect it? Your guess is as good as mine as they would not give a tenative date this time around.

EA Released the Beta of the BF2 Mod Tools today [and there was much rejoicing!]

Read about it here: Mod Tools Update

Download them here: Mod Tools Beta

There is a catch though;

Also worth noting is that the current Battlefield 2 Dedicated Server files are not yet compatible with Mods. DICE is already working on a fix for the Dedicated Server files that will be included with the 1.03 patch. In the meantime, this will not prevent Mods from being tested over the Internet entirely. For testing purposes, Mod Teams can still create a non-dedicated server game through the regular in-game multiplayer interface that will allow anyone to connect to your game, either locally or over the net, provided that the rest of the team connects by IP .

Weapons Unlock Community Update – 7/25/05

Profiles with all Weapons Unlocked

Many users logged into Battlefield 2 today to discover that they had access to all of the games weapons unlocked in their profile. We have fixed the root issue that caused this to occur and by tomorrow morning all users will return to having access only to the weapons which they had earned. Once our solution is in place, if you find that you do not have access to weapons appropriate to your in-game rank, please direct inquiries to the Support sites linked below. In some cases users may be prompted to re-select the Unlock weapons that they are eligible for (if you are eligible for two weapons you will get to choose the two you wish to have unlocked).

Users in the U.S., please visit http://eatech.custhelp.com to report your technical issue and one of our Support representatives will help you out ASAP.

If you are in Europe, visit the following link for support information/contacts. click here for EU Support

Sorry Atomm, youre fun is over now. Give us back those weapons soldier! 😉

Discovered this thread started by forum member “Zero2Zero” on TotalBF2

Well, what a wonderful few days it has been. Since EA didnt take the time to respond (or maybe even read) our emails about various stats-server security holes, it clearly showed us how much they care. Therefore, we came to the conclusion that modifying 5 million accounts wouldnt be that big of a deal.

That being said, accounts with ids from 40,000,000 to 45,000,000 now have all of their weapons unlocked.

What will be next week? Perhaps well give everyone their Distinguished Service Medal, or maybe well elevate everyone to the rank of Sergeant Major.

The balls in your court, EA. Times up at the buzzer, how well will you play?

Continue reading EA BF2 Stats Servers Hacked! →

This was posted to the EA UK Forums. It hasnt been 100% confirmed, but it looks official. Sounds interesting…..

Hi everyone, and thanks for supporting BF2. Thanks to all of you out there,
BF2 has seen great success around the world and we’d like to thank you all
for that.

Since its launch, we’ve tried to give BF2 all the support it deserves by
releasing patches with the fixes and improvements you’ve asked for.
Unfortunately, we haven’t lived up to the standards we’ve set for ourselves
and we know that. So all of us at EA and DICE are working extra hard to make
sure that the BF2 experience improves dramatically in the coming weeks.

Towards the end of August, we will be releasing a new patch, 1.03. This
patch is currently underway and will undergo thorough testing before it goes
out to avoid the problems that have occurred in the past. There are over 140
fixes and improvements in this patch. Here are just a few of them:

Continue reading BF2 1.03 Patch On The Way →

In their July 21st Community Update EA provides us with information on BF2 Combat, a “Tour of Duty” allowing players to join large scale weekly battles. Also, a Ranked Server Admin Program has been released for those that wish to use it.

Finally, and most importantly, they provide an update on the soon to be released Mod Tools. This set of tools appears to be in a short closed beta period being tested by a small group of BF2 mod teams, and

“Barring a major issue being discovered, the editor is now mere days from being released. Not weeks, days!”

Good news all around.

Its Here! Battlefield 2 v1.02 Patch (aka The Hotfix)!

Client

http://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/patches/bf2patch_v_102.exe

Linux Server
http://bf1942.lightcubed.com/dist/bf2-linuxded-1.1.2484.0-installer.zip – Very Fast!
ftp://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/misc/bf2-linuxded-1.1.2484.0-installer.zip

Ill give you a little hint…. You cant get it from this link through a browser. However, I am downloading it now to our Game Server for GRBs to grab. I am sure you will figure it out…..

See you on the battlefield….. Be sure and jump on our server. We are up and running v1.02! Server Details up above.

Now that EA has got the important things out of the way like the Expansion Pack announcement and a call for good community websites to spotlight, they can get back to the more mundane jobs like resolving issues with the game. This is straight from EA:

GameSpy Login Issues
It has been brought to our attention that some users may be experiencing login problems when trying to log into GameSpy through the BF2 in-game browser. GameSpy is in the process of hunting down the problem to get it fixed they have determined that the issue is related to web sites tracking BF2 stats, the stats tracking feed may be turned off temporarily in order to speed up this process. However, it will be turned back on after this issue has been resolved.

HOTFIX Candidate Now Being Tested!
Listen up soldiers, this update is to inform you that EA and DICE have a HOTFIX candidate for Battlefield 2 v1.01 in testing now. What does this mean? It means the fix for the memory leak found in v1.01 is being tested and will soon be available. While were unable to specify an exact release date, rest assured, its not far off and we will keep you updated through this web space.