User blog:Bovell/Lots of new Battlefield 3 details via Twitter, DreamHack festival, PSM3, and interview

E3 2011 might have come and gone, but DICE still had another place to show off Battlefield 3 live in front of thousands of gamers. DreamHack, the world's largest LAN party festival, had its summer rendition from June 18-21, with Battlefield 3 present of course. A pre-Alpha version of multiplayer was available for people to play, with the map Operation Métro on Rush mode. Project Reality (a mod for Battlefield 2) forum member Zrix, who attended DreamHack Summer 2011, described the map as starting in a park area of Paris, and advanced into the city and its underground, and eventually into the downtown area of Paris itself.

Zrix also provided details on the classes that were available:

Keep in mind that there are three slots on every weapon that can be customized to the player's liking, such as adding a flash suppressor or flashlight.

One can also strafe while sprinting, and spawn on squad leaders or at the team base. Squad leaders were chosen at random during this pre-Alpha demo, but it remains unknown whether the squad leader system will be similar to how it was in Battlefield 2.

A "command rose" like the one in Battlefield 2 is suspected to be returning, but not a whole lot of details were given.

Reviving friendly teammates is also something that has been changed from previous Battlefield installments. When a player is revived, he re-enters the conflict prone, with temporarily blurred vision, no weapon, and not at full health. Also of note is that a player that has just been revived can be killed, unlike in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 where a revived player had a few seconds of invulnerability.

More pre-order bonuses for Battlefield 3 were announced for other countries, this time, Sweeden and Norway. Pre-order details from CDON.com, a Sweedish digital merchandise site, state that those who reserve the game from Sweeden or Norway will receive the "Specact Kit 8 Unique Multiplayer skins for the elite of the elite. Expand your Customization options in Battlefield 3 with this set of 8 unique multiplayer skins."

Another online shopping website, Play.com, revealed that the collection dogtags through melee will return in Battlefield 3 in their own pre-order bonus: "Dog tags in Battlefield 3 serve as your ingame signature, displayed on screen every time you defeat an enemy. You can also claim the dog tag of your enemies via skillful stealth knife takedowns. This pre-order exclusive pack gives you 5 unique dog tag designs to complement the standard range in the game."

SVT Play recently put up an interview of Karl Magnus Troedsson, DICE's general manager. Make sure you put on closed captioning for the English translation! EnterBF3.com also gave us an idea of the scale of Battlefield 3 maps. In the interview, Troedsson states that some maps will be "equal" to the size of El Alamein, so EnterBF3 found it fit to make a comparison of El Alamein to Atacama Desert.

What that means in words: some of Battlefield 3 ' s multiplayer maps could be four times the size of those of Battlefield: Bad Company 2! Yeah, now that's thinking big!

Battlefield 3 had a cover feature article in the PlayStation magazine, PSM3. Here are some of the interesting details from it:
 * Campaign settings range from Iraq, to Paris, to New York
 * Co-op campaign is separate from that of singleplayer, and has 10 completely different levels
 * Pins and insignias from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 make a return
 * Dogtags, which now also ingame signatures, can be customized
 * Reviving a teammate takes time, and the trigger must be held down this time around
 * Bipods are available to sniper rifles and light machine guns, and can be deployed when the player goes prone
 * A player under suppressing fire will have increased difficulty getting shot off when popping out of cover, and the screen will shake and blur to convey that
 * Vehicles can be disabled prior to destruction, whereby the guns will still operate, but the vehicle itself cannot move
 * Vehicles also slowly regenerate health without a repair tool, but only if for an extended period of time without damage
 * Troedsson "not concerned" about console limitations in terms of graphics

Johan Andersson, lead rendering architect for Battlefield 3, revealed over Twitter that the Xbox 360 version of the game will "have a special lighting solution" that "[they] haven't talked about yet, it's also pretty awesome."

It is unknown what this "lighting solution" may be, but it is suspected that it will bring the Xbox 360 up to par with high graphical standard of Battlefield 3.

Daniel Matros, global community manager for DICE, replied to a Tweet asking about the possibility of theater mode with "no comment on battlerecorder." Could DICE have something up their sleeves for revealing their version of a theater mode?

Tell us what you think of all this news in the comments section.

Original/source articles:
 * EnterBF3.com | Battlefield 3 Review - Dreamhack
 * EnterBF3.com | Battlefield 3 Pre-Order Bonuses
 * EnterBF3.com | A Worthwhile Battlefield 3 Interview
 * EnterBF3.com | Battlefield 3 in PSM3
 * GameBandits.com | Battlefield 3: Awesome lighting feature for Xbox version

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