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(Battlefield.no): Battlefront 2 kommer 17. november og kan spilles allerede 9. november hvis du har EA Access eller Origin Access, dette bekrefter den offisielle nettsiden for det nye Star Wars spillet. Battlefront 2 blir utviklet av DICE og Electronic Arts og er etterfølgeren av Battlefront som ble lansert i november 2015. Den originale serien av Battlefront spill ble først sluppet av Lucas Arts i 2004. Battlefront 2 kommer med både enspiller og flerspiller, som inkluderer kjente karakterer fra hele Star Wars universet. LES MER HER....

De som har en god ide og en plan for å lage spill har virkelig mange muligheter til å slå igjennom. Ikke siden 80 tallet har det vært så store muligheter til å kode på "gutterommet" og få ting ut i verden, takket være x-box, ps, steam, mobiler, pc og indie community. Dette forteller denne artiklen deg mer om og det er interessant lesing. I ukene som kommer blir den oppdatert, så om man er en "want to be developer" kan det lønne seg å bookmarke den. Om ikke lage eget så kan man jo modde med ferdig laget ressurs, ArmA er et godt eksempel med tanke på Day Z. Arma er kanskje lettere å modde en mange tror, her er hva Ivan Buchta hadde å si om spillet da vi snakket med han. Under finner du en gruppe nyttige linker fra artikkelen og en samling av informasjon. Tenkte det kunne være til interesse for noen Development tools Core advice: the dev tools to give you the edge Getting started with Game Maker Developing with Unity Platforms Core advice: the platforms on which to start your career Mobile Core advice: making a living from mobile How to make an iPhone game Console Making PS Minis Working with partners How to pitch your game to publishers Marketing Core advice: Marketing games on social media

Battlefield 4 | Battlefield 4 Facebook | Battlefield 4 YouTube Utgivelse 29. Oktober (US) | 1. November (EU) Oppdatert 1 oktober System krav PC Demomaskiner har brukt AMD Radeon HD 7990 Malta grafikk kort. Visninger på E3 har også blitt sponset av AMD. AMD benytter ikke Phys X, som kan bety at maskiner med AMD kort blir å bruke CPU kraft for fysikk(om FB3 bruker PhysX). Battlefield 4 Demo AMD intervju The minimum PC system requirements for Battlefield 4 are expected to be: Dual core CPU (Intel Core i5 or AMD “Bulldozer”). At least 2 GB main system memory Graphics card with at least 256 MB of VRAM and support for DirectX 10 20+ GB of harddrive space Windows Vista The recommended PC system requirements for optimal visual quality and frame rates: Quad core CPU (Intel Core i5 or i7) at 3 Ghz 4 GB memory (8 GB for 64-bit operating systems) A modern DX11 graphics card with 1 GB of video memory, GeForce 600 series or Radeon 7000 series Windows 7 64-bit operating system 20+ GB of free harddrive space Konsoll informasjon (Xbox og PS) Nåværende generasjon blir låst til 24 spillere Neste-Generasjon (ONE & PS4) får 64 spiller Neste Generasjon får 60fps (Frames Per Second) Istede for Battlerecorder så skal spillet bruke teknologi i konsoller for å yte den samme tjenesten(?) Battlelog blir mer tigjengelig, på samme måte som PC brukere kan ALT + TAB Battlefield 4 Spesifikt informasjon Frostbite 3 blir brukt i Battlefield 4 Kommer med 10 kart og 7 gamemodes (bekreftet 25 august) Battlefield 4 Second Assault inkluderer fire favoritter fra Battlefield 3 gjort på den nye Frostbite 3 motoren. Battlefield 4 China Rising, her kjemper spillere for dominanse i Kina. Kommer desember 2013 Battlefield 4 Naval Strike, her opplever du dynamiske kamper på sjøen. Kommer våren 2014 Battlefield 4 Dragons Teeth, USA slår tilbake med urban krigføring. Kommer sommeren 2014 Battlefield 4 Final Stand, episk avslutning av krigen. Kommer sommeren 2014 Ingen Co-Op Ingen kvinnelige spillbare karakterer Ingen mod support Spectator mode er bekreftet PC versjonen får custom HUD og muligheter for å modifisere Faksjoner kan bytte plass på alle kart, dynamiske faksjoner. Det er US, RUS, CHINA Ingen informasjon om Battlerecorder, men spectator mode + eSport støtte foreslår at det kan bli en BR Ingame VOIP er bekreftet Commander mode er tilbake - trenger squad/teamplay for å bruke assets 5 manns squad Supression blir bare gjeldene for LMG (Hovedsaklig) De forskjellige klassene kan dele våpen mer enn før, alle klasser for derfor mer våpen å velge mellom Proggresjon blir lengre og "dypere", i kjøretøy også To (tre?)nye gamemodes skal introduseres Playground (Sier seg selv, treningsmodus) Obliteration (Går ut på å bære bomber og utslette mål) Elimination (Squad / lagarbeid med å eliminere fiender, ingen respawn?) [*]Mer maritim krigføring [*]Treningsmodus for heli, jets (?) [*]Squad spesialiseringer blir annerledes, du og ditt lag kan gjøre progressjon sammen. [*]Du kan bestemme loadout i battlelog før du går inn i spill [*]Ingen ammo pool. Skifter du et magasin med kuler i så taper du ammo/magasin med minst ammo kommer bakerst i køen (?) E3 2013 Informasjon Commander er ikke en spiller (fysisk på kartet som på BF2) 66 spillere, hvorav 2 er commander slots Noen av assets er knyttet til spesielle flagg på kartet, feks så er B flagget på Shanghai knyttet til Tomahawk. C til C130 Lyd er viktig. Feks så vil metalldetektorer kunne gå av og varsler fiender at du kommer Nytt svømmemodus, sprint swim (og dykking?) Patruljebåten har TOW og 50cal. Jetski som eject Infanteri har mulighet til å "lene" våpnet rundt kanter. Counter-mele innføres SPECTATOR MODE !! E3 demoen viser spectator og de sjekker feedback for å kunne lage den bedre. DICE vil satse på eSport og de ønsker at BF4 skal ha eSport støtte Spectator: 1 Person view - ligner mest på hvordan spilleren opplever det Spectator: 3 Person view - ser spilleren bakfra, men har også med våpen informasjon og ammo count (Squad tilhørlighet og stats?) Spectator: Scoreboard view - Klikker på en vilkårlig spiller og man får 1 Person view Spectator: Freecam (5 forskjellige) Floate, plassert kamera, .......(Follow?) Spectator: Tabletop view - Ligner på commander, trykker man på en spiller så vil alle spillere i squad vises. Kan også brukes på flagg. Medic Pack & Medic Bag (en liten og en stor) Ammo Pack & Ammo Bag Commander rollen har progressjon, ikke alle kan spille Commander (XP) Grønne laser Attack heli har 42 raketter istede for 14 Snipers/recon har variabel zoom på noen sikter Motion ball (recon utstyr) Ligner samme type som i BC2 For å gå ut av kjøretøy må man holde nede exit i 2 sec. Attatchment til secondary våpen. Feks så kan man låse opp silencer og bruke på alle håndvåpen der typen passer. Flere nye våpen og kjøretøy bekreftet, hovedsaklig svenske, tjekkiske. Nye sikter (Levelcap analyse video) Flashbang (ses i E3 MP videoen) Incendiay Grenades (anm. Fossfor granat/SIP Grenade) C4 kan kastes lengre en før Battlefield Multiplayer Live Dag 1 Battlefield Multiplayer Live Dag 2 Battlefield Multiplayer Live Dag 3 Alle offisielle trailers og videoer fra E3 samlet Her er hva DICE gir premium medlemmer Battlefield 4 Second Assault inkluderer fire favoritter fra Battlefield 3 gjort på den nye Frostbite 3 motoren. Battlefield 4 China Rising, her kjemper spillere for dominanse i Kina. Kommer desemper 2013 Battlefield 4 Naval Strike, her opplever du dynamiske kamper på sjøen. Kommer våren 2014 Battlefield 4 Dragons Teeth, USA slår tilbake med urban krigføring. Kommer sommeren 2014 Battlefield 4 Final Stand, episk avslutning av krigen. Kommer sommeren 2014 Prioritet på serverkø Nytt innhold hver eneste uke 12 bonus Battlefield 4 Battlepacks Unike muligheter til kamuflasje, emblemer, dogtags med mer. To uker forhånds lanseringer på tillegspakker Alpha / Beta / Merc Merc: Dogtags (løpende giveways på Battlefield.no) Merc: Musematte (løpende giveways på Battlefield.no) Merc: DICE nett og iPhone 4 skin (løpende giveways på Battlefield.no) Alpha test annonsert 17 juni etter invitasjon (14 dagers periode). Ble spekulert i slutten av juni. Alpha spilles på E3 Beta kommer 1 oktober | Foreløpig - Må ha MOHWF, BF3 Premium, Preorder Digital Deluxe fra Origin Open beta kommer 3 dager/1 uke etter lukket beta (?). Norsk presseomtale fra de som var på visningen i Stockholm Avdukningen av Battlefield 4 i Stockholm 26 mars 2013 Battlefield.no dekning | Event bilder (Facebook) Gamer.no dekning Spill.no dekning Utgivelse dato ble annonsert 22 mai 2013 - Spillet kommer 29 oktober. Battlefield.no nyhet "......Men om vi får en Alpha test i mellomtiden, slik vi fikk med Battlefield 3, er enda usikkert. BF3 hadde lignende utgivelsesdatoer i 2011 og noen communities fikk hoste Battlefield 3 Alpha i slutten av juli måned 2011. Her i Norge var det battle.no og TV2 serverne. Battlefield 3 Alpha bestod av Metro Rush i en 14 dagersperiode, og mange spillere mente Alpha var bedre optimalisert enn Beta testen, som kom i september måned....." Gamer.no nyhet ".....Battlefield 4 benytter seg av Digital Illusions nye Frostbite 3-motor, som skal gi spillet et kraftig visuelt løft og sørge for dynamisk ødeleggelse av spillmiljøene. Det er imidlertid ikke klart hvilke forskjeller det blir på versjonene til dagens konsoller, Windows-versjonen og versjonene til de to nestegenerasjonskonsollene....." Spill.no nyhet ?? E3 visninger 10 juni 2013 Battlefield.no Alle de nye videoene på ett sted E3: EA pressekonferanse med streams og diskusjon på mumble (Streams kan ses enda) E3: Microsoft pressekonferanse med streams og diskusjon på mumble (Stream kan ses enda) Gamer.no Vi viste EAs pressekonferanse Vi viste Xbox-konferansen Spill.no ?? Finner ingen streams eller nyheter om BF4 visningene i skrivende stund E3 Visninger 11, 12 og 13 juni 2013 Battlefield.no Battlefield 4 Live Stream Gamer.no Finner ingen stream eller annonsering Spill.no Finner ingen stream eller annonsering E3 relatert Gamer.no - Sniktitt 3. juli "........Slik pakken fremstår nå virker dette som et mellomspill – en mindre oppgradering mens vi venter på at neste konsollgenerasjon skal sparkes i gang for fullt. Jeg tviler ikke på at det blir heidundrende moro, og at DICEs finsliping fører med seg mye godt til slagspillet. Jeg er bare usikker på om det er nok". Gamer.no - Aldri realisme foran morro 4. juli "......... Ingen Drapssimulator: Det er alltid interessant å høre hva spillutvikleren tenker om de moralske og samfunnsmessige påvirkningene spillene deres kan ha. For et spill som Battlefield, som omhandler krig, er det naturlig at slike diskusjoner tas på alvor. Jeg kan ikke ha vært den eneste som tenkte på tvillingtårnene som falt i New York, når skyskraperen falt i Battlefield-traileren?" Detaljer om enspillerdelen - Kampanjen. Battlefield.no 19 juli 2013 "Verden er på kanten til kaos, Kina er en kruttønne og din egen squad kan være fyrstikken som tenner gnisten i en global konflikt. DICE lovet oss en mye bedre enspillerdel da vi besøkte dem i mars, og nå kommer de første detaljene om kampanjen i et nytt blog innlegg. Dette er Battlefield 4. Verden er på kanten til kaos, Kina er en kruttønne og din egen squad kan være fyrstikken som tenner gnisten i en global konflikt. DICE lovet oss en mye bedre enspillerdel da vi besøkte dem i mars, og nå kommer de første detaljene om kampanjen i et nytt blog innlegg. Dette er Battlefield 4. Som Sergeant Daniel Recker, spiller du som medlem av en elitegruppe av usannsynlige helter bedre kjent som Tombstone Squad..".............. Relaterte Battlefield 4 nyheter Battlefield.no 26 juli 2013 Nye Battlelog Spill.no 27 juli 2013 Battlefield 4-statistikk på tvers av konsollene? Videointervju med Patrick Bach på DICE i Stockholm Battlefield.no 1 august 2013 "Vi har besøkt DICE i Stockholm og gjort et 30 minutter langt intervju med Patrick Bach som vi snart skal publisere, og vi kan love dere mye god informasjon om Battlefield 4. Men først kommer en liten teaser til glede for de som valgte å bidra til vår forespørsel om å sende inn spørsmål til DICE. Tusen takk til dere som bidrar til Battlefield.no, vi håper dere gleder dere like mye som oss til det nye Battlefield 4 som kommer til høsten. TB-Iceman, em2000, Afrobear90, Reppelars, Play4Friends og alle dere andre - dette er til dere Trekningen av konkurransen er denne helgen." Inneholder 3 min teaser Battlefield.no 5 august 2013 "Battlefield serien har 10-års jubileum i år og har siden 2002 gitt ut 11 spill i Battlefield serien. I november kommer det fjerde rendyrkede Battlefield spillet, Battlefield 4. Battlefield.no var blant de første i verden som så avdukningen av Battlefield 4 i mars, og i slutten av juli var vi hos DICE i Stockholm igjen for å være de første i verden som fikk teste noe helt nytt i Battlefield 4. Vi kan dessverre ikke røpe hva vi fikk spille, men vi kan si dette: Dere burde glede dere til Battlefield 4 - spillet ser fantastisk ut. Inneholder 30 min videointervju Gamer.no 20 august - Intervju med Aleksander Grøndal "I begynnelsen av august var vi på besøk hos söta bror for å kikke på spillets massivt ambisiøse flerspillerdel, og jaggu fikk vi ikke møte en vaskekte nordmann der også. Gleden var på vår side da vi fikk slå av en prat med DICEs egen Aleksander Grøndal, produsent for Battlefield 4, en mann som har klare mål for skyteballadens neste installasjon." Gamescom 2013 Battlefield.no 20 august 2013 Electronic Arts på Gamescom (kontinuerlig stream hele messen på Battlefield.no) "Gamescom 2013 åpner i Køln (Tyskland) om bare få timer og EA har tatt med seg en rekke spill. I en blogpost skriver EA representant, Keith Ramsdale "Fra Battlefield 4 og Command & Conquer til E3's Game of the Show - Titanfall. FIFA 14, The Sims 4 og Need for Speed Rivals. Dette ser ut til å bli vår beste Gamescom til dags dato". Gamescom er Europas største spillmesse og har over 275 000 besøkende." Battlefield.no 20 august 2013 Premium annonsert !! "I en times direktesending fra Gamescom i Tyskland ble besøkende bombardert med nye bilder fra Battlefield 4, vi viste alt sammen her i Battlefield.no. De siste minuttene av pressekonferansen avslørte mange nyheter om det kommende spillet, i tillegg til vår egen informasjonstråd om Battlefield 4 og vårt eget intervju med DICE veteranen Patrick Bach, kan vi fortelle deg dette." Fra Gamescom i august frem til Beta i oktober Battlefield.no Battlefield 4 premium annonsert !! Battlefield 4 Obliteration Levolution Kompetitiv spilling Battlefield 4 får ubåter Perfekt nettkode? Systemkrav Multiplayer trailer Betadetaljer Våpentilpasning De 10 nye kartene Nvidia og AMD med nye driver Inntrykk fra Battlefield 4 Beta -------------------------------------------------------------- Tråden er som hjelp til å spore informasjon og ha det lett tilgjengelig. Kommentere og diskuter gjerne, og fyll på mer informasjon om spillet etter hvert som nyheter blir tilgjengelig. Takk for bidrag !

58 Screens fra Imgur Kan tyde på at vi får en Alpha test etter E3 og før Gamescom slik som sist gang. I kveld vises spillets multiplayer del frem for første gang, se det her

Redaksjonen i Battlefield.no reiser til DICE i Stockholm for å se Battlefield 4 Vi skal informere deg så godt vi kan gjennom nyhetssaker på fremsiden. Vi har med profesjonell fotograf og det blir bilder og video - i den grad vi får lov til å dokumentere. Håper at dere gleder dere, like mye som oss. Vi fikk nylig bekreftet flyreise førstkommende tirsdag. Har du også lyst til å være med på slike events i fremtiden? Redaksjonen i battlefield.no er åpen for alle som har lyst, og som har et talent, for å skrive. Denne kommer på fremsiden, men vi opplever en del feil med portalen akkurat nå.

Utviklingen i cheats for Battlefield 3 er noe som får meg til å bli skikkelig urolig. Jeg er riktignok av den "gamle generasjonen" av gamere, men at det kan være Så gøy å uppe statsen sin på ren JUKS er utrolig. Nå skal det sies at TV2 hadde omtale som en av de mest befestede stedene med JUKS og at serverne der hadde mye hackers. En påstand som er helt vanvittig i mine øyne mtp det systemet som ikke engang bf.no har. Men om man tenker på det, så er det nesten naturlig i BF3 at en av de mest populerte serverne i Europa har det største problemet og at spillere ønsker å spille andre steder ? Hva er det som får en spiller til å ty til JUKS Vel, spillet i seg seg selv utgjør mesteparten av grunnen. Det er et spill som baserer seg på unlocks, stats, profil og hvordan man ligger ann i forhold til andre spillere. Det er egentlig naturlig at man har lyst til å være bedre enn andre og konkurransen handler om hvor god aim du har. De som sitter med ansvaret for en "ren" server har nesten ikke noen verktøy for å ta de som jukser, og de som gir ut spillet konsentrerer seg om konsoll utgaven - der de tjener penger. Med tanke på hva som er annonsert, er det helt på tryne at utgiverne av spillet ikke tar seg av det som er et av de mest pregende problemene pr.dags dato. MEN hvem vil erkjenne at jusks og fanteri er et problem når det er DLC som står for tur? Jeg tror du kan lete lenge etter spectator mode og battlerecorder, når EA vil selge deg mer du kan kjøpe. DICE leter etter flere gode coders... Det ser ut som de fleste "orginale" utviklerne rømmer. Men hva betyr det for spillet? Battlefield 3 er det tredje spillet i rekken og spillet i seg selv har hatt konkurranse fra mange andre spill. BF var i sin historie, et av de få PC-Spillene som hadde en ulineær spille stil og gav sinne spillere en helt unik opplevelse. Fra å være noe unikt ble Battlefield et mainstream spill og i likhet med andre spill som poppet opp ble det en konkurranse om å ha flest kills, heve stats, bli den beste som alltid lå øverst på listen. Det er her du belønnes og det er her du klatrer i rank, supermega sargent kill !!! Hva skjedde med Teamplay? Fra å være et av de mest ulineære spillene til å bli mainstream sliter Battlefield med sine spillere. De som spiller det mest, er som andre, mest interesert i å komme høyest på kill listen. Det betyr kanskje at teamplay ofte blir borte og det er av den grunn at de fleste veteranene av spillet søker andre spill, eller begir seg inn på klaner som fokuserer på teamplay? Det er her jeg irriterer meg, jeg kan ikke forstå at en i min squad hopper ut av tanksen når jeg lazer mål for han? Jeg skulle ønske jeg kunne rope til dem.... I helvette jeg prøver å hjelpe deg! Dont revive me bro'.... Resultatet på public siden er at de mest uerfarne spillerne blir igjen og at communities lider, eller at klan spillere gikk public med cheats for å profilere seg med stats som egentlig ikke viser den naturlige ferdigheten. Med 500 severs er det enkelt å bli bannet på 1 server for å cheate på 499, PB vil uansett ikke ta deg for cheat - i alle fall ikke de som finnes nå. Før var det slik at du kom inn i et spill og tilpasset deg, nå er det slik at du tilpasser det stats og hvor du får mest kills. Med andre ord så trenger du ikke lenger en team-mate. Du trenger en aimbot og en wallhack som gjør den nytten en lagkamerat kan gi deg. Kanskje trenger Battlelog noe i linje av socialpoints? Det ser i alle fall ut som at de som hacker har sin egen liten squad og ligger høyest på K/D. Tiden der du hadde lyst til å søke en gruppe for å spille sammen med noen blir overflødig og som spiller kan du oppnå det samme med juks eller EA sine egne web-sider for spillet - konsoll er med ander ord veldig "Hack vennlig" når det er portet til PC. Det er uansett veldig tydelig på et av de mest spilte mappsa i BF3, Metro(ja du hørte riktig - Metro er det mest spilte kartet i BF3........noensinne), der en haug med lagkamerater blir sittende i spawn for å skyte fiender... så lamejoiner de vinner siden på slutten slik at statsa blir riktige for dem. Hvem gidder å konsentrere seg om å jobbe mot et flagg når du kan få 75/3 i KD? Det hadde vært gull med noe poeng for å jobbe som et lag kjære DICE - eller skal jeg si EA Det er nesten utrolig at man måtte gjennom forum krangle seg til et Squad system da EA ikke så poenget med å være i et lag. Det sier jo litt om hvor langt man er kommet i utviklingen av et lagbasert skytespill. Hva skjedde med Battlefield? Battlefield har en lang historie og hva du kan lese utifra det jeg har skrevet, så forstår du at du ikke lengere er del av det. Verken som ny spiller eller som veteran. Det er faktisk sånn at EA har valgt deg bort, og selv om det selger mye og er et fantastisk imponerende teknologi for konsoll, så er det ikke et fantastisk imponerende spill for deg som eier en PC og har lyst til å spille sammen med andre. Konsoll gjengen sliter fortsatt med å ha kontakt One 2 One - Noe som vi PC spillere har hatt i over 10 år. Kontakten mellom deg og en annen spiller er bare ett av ankepunktene som battlefield 3 sliter med. De spillerne som er av den nye generasjonen har ikke opplevd noe annet og kan ikke relatere spillet til det som har vært, og de som har opplevd Battlefield tidligere kan ikke relatere dette spillet til noe de har opplevd før. Det er et vanvittig tomrom i spillet og det sluker stadig flere spillere i et intetsigende sort hull. Hva skjedde med ferdighet, samspill, kontakt og de spillerne som laget det battlefield det supere spillet? Fordi det var spillerne som var det viktige i Battlefield. Det var derfor du har lyst til å spille det om og om igjen. Du kunne rett og slett ikke la en lagkamerat være der alene og ville stadig oppleve nye ting sammen med han. Battlefield har skiftet både utsende og ferdighet. I motsetning til tidligere så trengs det ikke ferdigheter, nå behøver du bare å logge på og skaffe deg en aimbot uten å bli tatt. Du trenger ikke å spille sammen med venner og du behøver heller ikke søke deg til et community med rettferdige spill, eller som har en god organisasjon for serverne de hoster. Hvorfor vil du spille på en server som har gode anti-cheat muligheter når du har cheats såpass lett tilgjengelig at det nesten er vanlig? Det blir som å switche kanaler på TV, det selger like bra, det er lett fordøyelig. Det krever ingen innsats fra deg som spiller og DICE (egentlig EA) lager helt tåpelige patcher som gjør det enda enklere å jukse. Hvordan ble en irFlare en countermeasure for laserguided våpen? Som en tilhenger av virkelig militær teknologi og der et våpen fungerer som et våpen, så blir det dumt. Battlefield kunne(i sin tid) vise til at militære brukte dem som trening, nå betyr det lite når et våpen fungerer som en ærte-pistol. I et ønske om et skikkelig PC - Spill så er ikke Battlefield og DICE der du skal lete. Den tid er forbi, som ny spiller opplever du ikke samholdet og spillet som er Battlefield, og som veteran vil du aldri finne det samme i et konsoll spill som hva du kan oppleve i et PC-Spill.... slik battlefield egentlig var ment. Hva alt dette egentlig har for betydning for oss som spillere burde vi tenke på. EDITS: fortløpende

DICE har ingen planer om å ta Battlefield serien inn i futurisktisk setting. DICE veteranen Lars Gustavsson kunne opplyse via en livechat i går at selv om han personlig ønsker å se en oppfølger til 2006 utgivelsen Battlefield 2142, så er det ingen prosjekter under utvikling. "Vi kunne godt tenke oss å lage et slikt spill" sier har. "Da vi annonserste at vi skulle lage Battlefield 2142 var det utrolig mange som søkte som utviklere. Jeg tipper at den kreative friheten som kommer ved å lage en fiksjonell verden blir veldig fristene når man har brukt mesteparten av tiden med å lage samtid og historiske spill" Grafitti taggen over ble sett i utvidelses pakken Back to Karkan og foreslår at DICE hadde planer om Battlefield 2143. Da spørsmålet ble tatt opp ville representanten fra EA ikke kommentere saken. Under chatten ble Gustavson flere ganger spurt om Bad Company får en oppfølger. Gustavsson ungikk spørsmålet, men spøket med at det kan komme nyheter i fremtiden om BC3. "Sist vi hørte fra gjengen i Bad Company var det et postkort fra Bahamas der Haggard og gjengen hadde åpnet en beach bar", sa Gustavsson. "Det er egentlig opp til dem om det blir noe" En oppfølger til 2010 utgaven av Bad Company 2 vil bli en overraskelse. Spillet vant flere priser og solgte nesten 6 millioner, mot omkring 15 millioner av Battlefield 3. EA vil ikke kommentere Bad Company 3. Den neste bekreftede utgivelsen blir derfor Battlefield 4 som får en beta tidlig på høsten 2013.

Jeg vet ikke helt hvor jeg burde putte denne nyheten. Er det spill eller er det TV og kultur. Gamer.no sier at spill er kultur, men at Bad Company blir til en TV-serie er neppe hva de mente med utsagnet. Dette emnet kan forsåvidt gå i humor tråden også? Vel over til nyheten... kremt morsomheten, nei... jeg mener det kulturelle med dette her. I går postet Deadline Hollywod en informativ liten notis om at Battlefield: Bad Company ligger på dreieboken. Fox har angivelig satt igang utviklingen av en times lang action komedie basert på EA's bestselger. Det hele dreier seg om karakterene i spillet, som etter å ha forlatt militær livet og gått til privat sektor, kommer i trøbbel. Det viser seg nemlig at offiseren dems ønsker Bad Company døde for å slette alle bevis etter at de utførte en rekke oppdrag "under cover", dette peker tydeligvis tilbake på hva vi fikk oppleve i selve spillet. En ting er sikkert - Da Gustavsson fortalte at Haggard og gjengen slappet av på en strand i Bahamas, så har de tydeligvis møtt Fox i mellomtiden, tatt seg en drink, og blitt enige om en film istede. Hvor skal dette ende?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nLJBZCBcdg&hd=1 INSIDE DICE: Armored Kill - Alborz INSIDE DICE: Armored Kill - Designing the biggest map Bandar Desert

David Goldfarb forlater DICE. David er mest kjent som lead designer for Battlefield 3 singleplayer og Bad Company 2, men har også jobbet for Guerilla og Milestone. "5 år og 4 spill, takknemlig for å ha jobbet med så supre mennesker og spill. Farvell" twittret han. Foreløpig er det ikke kommet en offisiell melding verken fra DICE eller EA om hvem som skal erstatte han, men til Kotaku sier Goldfarb at fansen ikke har noe å bekymre seg for. I en blogpost (Fuck it, lets rock) kommer det frem at han har tenkt å jobbe med film. David Goldfarb blir dermed en i rekken av kjente navn som har forlatt DICE den siste tiden, blant andre Barry Tingle (bedre kjent som Bazajaytee) og Ben Cousins. Cousins startet med mobil spill (ngmoco sweeden) og det kan se ut som Bazajaytee (i følge nettsiden sin) har meldt seg på iOS og app development kurs sammen med sin forlovede. Update: Bazajaytee jobber som "Associate Producer" på Danger Close Games og har ansvaret for post launch support og Ranked Server Provider for MOH.

Nå var den der. Noen som har testet den enda?

Intervjuet i Eurogamer.net The dust has settled on Battlefield 3, how did it go for you ? Patrick Bach: On a high level it went way better than we expected, if you look at the sales and how many people who are actually spending time in the game and apparently having fun with it. Of course there were a lot of problems. It's a very complicated game, both when it comes to a tech perspective and from all the different bits and pieces of the actual product. Of course, three months before shipping, I would have loved to have said, fuck it, let's ship it six months later. But you can't do that when you're that close. I don't like developers who push their dates. It feels a bit like, come on, I want your game. You promised it. And now you're saying it's not ready. It's like, you don't decide when it's ready. I decide when it's ready. So I want to stick to what I promised and deliver something. What we tried to do was make sure the game was good enough when we shipped it, and then post launch we have been updating it quite a bit, and also releasing these expansion packs, which also fix stuff in the game. There is definitely stuff I want to do better, but then again that's why I always try to make things better. I'm never content with what we're building. I always seek room for improvement, which is the core of how we work at DICE. We always want to do better and more and push the boundaries. So am I happy? Absolutely. Am I satisfied? No. Absolutely not. I think we can do much better. We can push this even further. Did Battlefield 3 meet expectations in terms of active users at launch and since then? Patrick Bach: Absolutely. You always have a peak when you launch, and then it flattens out, and then it drops. We haven't seen that. We peaked, then we flattened out, and we haven't moved since. It went up when we released the Back to Karkand expansion pack. And then it went down slightly again. We saw when the latest patch released, the multi-gigabyte patch, that the PSU [Peak Simultaneous Users] went up. People actually started to play again. They felt, ah, okay, they fixed this and that, now I accept your changes, therefore I will now spend time with it. That was positive for us. So we haven't dropped players in the last couple of months. People just keep playing it. I remember before launch, you said you wanted to keep people playing for 12 months after launch, with new content. P B: And that's still the plan. We want to keep delivering new experiences within the same game. You don't have to re-learn. It's not re-tweaked. It's the same guns, the same movement, the same core experience, but here's the new twist on it, and here's this angle and here's this angle. That's creating a brand new experience even if it's the same game. We don't want people to have an excuse to stop playing it. Some believe that with the release of the latest patch, it's finally the game they had hoped for from the beginning. Do you agree with that assessment? P B: Yes. That's how we've always felt with all Battlefield games, actually. Battlefield 2 had the same cycle. When it was released people thought it was great. And then you had all the complaints. People still played it. We won all these awards. But the guys who were actually playing the game claimed after a thousand hours, I hate your game. It's the worst game ever. You should listen to me because I spent a thousand hours in it. It's like, well you're not really hating it. You're loving it so much that you get upset about these things. We patched BF2 several times. It wasn't until 2.5 or something that people said, now it's done. Now this is the game you should have shipped. It's like, yeah, but that's two years after we launched the game. When we released this patch we felt the same thing. Now it's more what we wanted it to be. Next time we patch it we'll feel the same thing again, because there is always room for improvement. It's such a complicated game. I don't know how many guns we have in the game. It's plenty. Then, together with all the vehicles, maps, and gadgets, they all need to work perfect on all maps, and it needs to work the same on all maps. It can't be, here's a special case for this map, and here's a special case for this map. That's the challenge for us, to find the ultimate balance of everything. I completely agree. Now the game has never been better. So...Hardcore Battlefield 3 players now feels it's the game they hoped it would be. P B: Yeah. But it's interesting they say that. I've heard some people say, I didn't notice any difference. And I've heard people say, it was good, now you broke it. So when you say that, it's a bit like, this is the patch that made the game complete. But is that a good thing or bad thing compared to the other people who didn't notice anything, or say we broke it? We can't win. I love the fact they notice the differences and the changes we made and approve of it, they get why we did this and that, because we spent a lot of energy looking at all the numbers. We didn't have all those numbers when we shipped. We didn't know about all the balancing issues. What I'm proud of is people trust us to stay in the game so when we release the patch they're still playing and can actually enjoy the result of the patch. In some games you never get a second chance, you never get the chance to do your first patch. Again, the game wasn't that bad, because then people wouldn't have played it at all. They did play it. Even your friends were playing it when they got the patch, so they did notice the difference. To me it's trusting us to improve. I want to improve and do better, and it feels like our fans are actually aware of that. They know if we give them feedback, if you talk about these things, if you bring it up, if you point out issues, they will probably fix it. And yes, we will. We are listening and we are not getting lazy. We know Battlefield is not a game where you just release it and then move on to something else. It's a game where you need to have a team that works on it post-launch. We have a huge team working on not only the expansion packs, but the patching, blocking cheaters, especially on PC where people try everything to cheat - they mod their PCs to do all kinds of crazy stuff. We have people only looking at telemetry, matching that towards the feedback that people actually write in forums. In a lot of cases it doesn't match up. It's like, no, this isn't a problem. You claim it's a problem. It's not a problem. The numbers tell me this is not a problem. One interesting one is, people have been complaining about Operation Metro in the original game, that it's tight infantry, it's not Battlefield, people hate this, this is what makes people move away from Battlefield. Actually, it's the most popular map on all platforms. Why do you think that is? P B: It's a great map. It's an awesome map. We spent a lot of energy proving to ourselves we can build those types of experiences as well, because we never had that in Battlefield 2. We said, why wouldn't you be able to do that in Battlefield? Battlefield has great guns, great movement, we have all these things including destruction that should make this a better experience. The Close Quarters DLC is infantry focused and more run and gun. This not what we're used to from the traditional Battlefield experience. P B: There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to have this experience in Battlefield. There is no limitation in the game that prevents you from having this experience. And also, looking at the data and feedback, there are a lot of people who want it. They're asking for it and they want it. It's a double edged sword. The traditional Battlefield player that loved Battlefield 1942 and today claims we're not building a proper Battlefield, we've been selling so many copies of Battlefield 3 now that there is no one Battlefield player. The game is so diverse and there are so many different ways of playing the game, that we are trying to cater for everyone. If you play any of the Karkand maps, people are spending their time doing completely different things. I'm a tanker, I will spend the whole day just being a tanker. I will wait for it to respawn and I will do it again. You have people only sniping. You have people only playing jet. You have people only playing lone wolf. There are so many different ways of playing Battlefield that you can't say, oh, this is the way you play Battlefield. It lies within the whole idea of Battlefield that Battlefield is a personal experience on a Battlefield where everything can happen and it's all player driven. All these planes, all these helicopters, all these awesome things that are happening, are actually people who love to do it. That tank battle over there between those tanks, someone will spend their time doing that. That's their life. I will actually interfere or I will go away. I choose. It's a game that's bigger than your own experience. And again, this is an example of that as well. Close Quarters DLC recreates a Call of Duty style experience, and that doesn't sit well with some Battlefield fans? P B: Yeah that could be sensitive to some people, that even mentioning tight indoor fighting is challenging. But there's a reason why we also revealed the future expansion pack, Armored Kill. Armored Kill is quite the opposite. It's the complete polarised version of Close Quarters, where it's only about the big open landscapes, it's only about vehicles and the more tactical way of playing Battlefield. It doesn't take away the joy of what you experience in Close Quarters. It complements it. Today I feel like this and I want to do this - you can do it. You can just choose. You have a wider spectrum of experiences in the same game. You don't have to re-learn anything. You can still use what we think is the key to a great Battlefield player: your head. It's not about how fast you are. It's about how smart you are. The smarter player will win. If you know your tools, if you now your strengths, you can use that to win any match, in any game mode, on any map. I've seen people who are really good at a specific thing and they can only play it on one specific map. That's fine, but then you have the players who try to win everything, and they're really good at close quarter fighting, they're really good team players, they're really good at vehicles, and they can control the battlefield from a more tactical standpoint as well. Using this [Close Quarters] as a practice round could also be beneficial for people who like to play on big open maps, because it makes you faster and think in a different way, even though you're playing Battlefield. If you don't like it, you can get it for the guns. You get 10 new guns and you can bring them into the vanilla game if you want to. You have a number of teams within DICE, as you have mentioned. What's the split? P B: We have those teams, which are quite big. Then of course we have some secret projects we can't talk about. But it's really hard to say what the split is today. It goes from a month per month basis more or less. People are helping out on different things. We're working with this expansion pack and future expansion packs. So depending on what you do, you're doing different things at different times. Of course we have good leadership in all the areas to make sure we get the most out of it. There's quite a lot going on. There must be a team on the next game in the series. Given we are expecting the next-generation of consoles next year, how do you go about preparing for that while building a game? P B: Battlefield 3 has been a huge success for us. The challenge is: how do you top that? What would you expect to top a game like this? Of course we're thinking about it. What could it be? And then on top of that are the expansion packs, which we see as games. How do we make a better expansion pack than the last one. It's not about, how do we make money, how do we trick people into buying this? It's about, how do we create a new experience and turn it into something unique, rather than just, here's a new map? That would be easy. Anyone can do that. There are a lot of challenges, and we are a bit picky, to be honest. We don't want to release stuff that is not on par with what we want it to be. But then we have the reality of time and money. You need to ship stuff. DICE are known for being graphics wizards and push what's possible on hardware. Do you see a significant improvement in visuals and AI, in what you're able to create using Frostbite 2. P B: Yes and no. Yes because we will have a better understanding of our own technology. Knowing your tools would make it better. But then, if you look at the game we have, even on the current generation we're thinking about how we can make things better. But then on top of that, it all depends on how much CPU, how much memory, how much GPU do you get extra? You're competing now with the high end PC, where you have a lot of power. When we released the first imagery on PC for Battlefield 3, people were like, oh my god, is this possible? If the consoles don't take a big step beyond that, if it's on par with PC, PC will still be the bar of how pretty something can look. How do you make sure you create one game for all the platforms that is scaleable, so you don't have to rebuild the game? Here's a game with one AI, but here's the same game with a completely new AI because we couldn't do that on the other one. It's all about managing risk and focusing on scaleability and finding the right balance. It's hard to answer if you don't have the specs for the consoles. Intervjuet i Eurogamer.net

Roland Smedberg, han som laget den siste DLC trailer videoen, ble nylig spurt spørsmål om hvordan han laget videoen. På twitter svarte han "It's a mix of Frostbite editor, battlerecorder and straight up 1p capture." ORLY ? It's a mix of Frostbite editor, battlerecorder and straight up 1p capture. Så det finnes en battlerecorder altså? Så kjekt da gitt, kan vi få en please ? Ikke nok med det. I den siste Battlefieldbloggen der de frir til CS community vet du... har du sett på valgene helt nederst der, eller gikk det hus forbi kanskje. Se på siste valget..... ville det stått der om det ikke var snakk om en slags opptaksfunksjon i spillet ? Hmmm.... JA, ved nærmere ettertanke, det ville det gjort. Det er ikke det første trollet vi ser i DICE drakt. Men la oss håpe

Ravn i Multiplayer.no skrev at Battlefield serien kan få abonnement i fremtiden. Patrick Søderlund hadde "lettet litt på sløret" i et intervju med VentureBeat der de hadde spurt han om Battlefield kom til å bli abonnements service, Patrick svarte at de hadde alle muligheter åpne og at de ser etter måter de kan tjene mest mulig på sitt produkt. Med tanke på at World of Tanks tar inn en fortjeneste på langt over 50 millioner Norske kroner pr måned, så er det ikke rart at spill-industrien ser på med store øyne. WoT markedsføres som et Free to Play spill, men baserer sin inntekt på mikrotransaksjoner der spilleren kjøper seg våpen og tjenester ingame. Det er slett ikke uvanlig å ha brukt to siffrede tusen kroner på dette spillet fra launch for knapt ett år siden. Dette er selfølgelig en ganske kløktig måte å tjene inn utgiftene på og gjøre en fortjeneste. WoT hadde en veldig lang Beta periode der de samlet millioner av spillere. Russerne har tenkt lenge og grundig på et system som binder spilleren til dems produkt og samtidig til mikrotransaksjonene i spillet. 100 kr der og 50 kr her blir mye penger gjennom et år når du ganger det opp med hvor mange spillere som faktisk betaler for produker ingame....dessuten oppleves det ikke dyrt ut når du har spilt i timesvis for å kunne kjøpe deg det nye produktet som blir presentert foran deg...du bare må ha det. Jeg har litt blandede meninger om F2P. På en måte synes jeg det er helt fantastisk å kunne prøve spillet før du kjøper det, F2P gjør dette på en langt bedre måte enn feks Demoer. På den andre side ser jeg at i WoT tilfellet, så bruker spillere langt langt mer enn hva de ville brukt hvis spillet kostet 600 kr + et abonnement pr mnd. Som sagt ikke uvanlig å ha brukt flere tusen kroner på WoT....og WoT er ikke spesiellt bra engang, men som Ben Cousins sier i intervjuene under så har vi ikke kommet til det punktet der utviklerne har begynt å finpusse spillene. Jeg kan fort se for meg hvordan for eksempel Battlefield 3 ville vært om det hadde vært gratis å laste ned, men at jeg måtte betale for å kunne bruke visse våpen eller at mine poeng ble gjort om til virtuelle penger som jeg kunne kjøpe perks eller gadgets med. Det er flere innen spill industrien som ser på denne måten å selge spill på i fremtiden, og mange av dem mener at det vil redde spill-bransjen. Et eksempel er suksessen med WoT og det er flere som har samme måte å markedsføre seg på; Leauge of Legends, Team Fortress, en haug med Facebook spill og det kommer stadig flere. Men går det så forferdelig dårlig med spill bransjen? Og har vi egentlig lyst til å betale pr kule og pr våpen? En ting er sikkert... det er [rimelig] vanskelig å cheate seg til hard cash, og en billig affære å piratkopiere et gratis spill. Hva tror dere om Free to Play fremtiden...meninger og synspunkt ?? Ben Cousins, et navn vi kjenner fra DICE - Battlefield - EA, har ved flere anledninger kommentert spill-industriends fremtid og den nye buissnis modellen Free to Play. Her er to intervjuer med Ben Cousins om F2P

Fant dette intervjuet og synes det var et interessant innblikk i prosessen av å lage et spill i DICE og med EA som investor. Rob Briscoe, som også er kjent fra Dear Esther, jobbet med design og levels på Mirrors Edge. Han snakker om hvordan det var å bygge Mirrors Edge, utfordringene med Unreal 3 (slik det var den gangen), styringer fra EA og hvordan DICE jobber med et spill. Selv om teksten er lang så er det ganske interessant lesning om du vil vite mer om hvordan et spill blir til, hvordan DICE jobber og hva EA prioriterer.....og sorry... orket ikke oversette hele det greiene her -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The best possible reason for a sequel isn’t to build upon success, but to build upon the right kind of failure. Mirror’s Edge is not a great game, but Mirror’s Edge 2 could be incredible. DICE’s ultra-desirable anti-FPS may have stumbled in the execution, but the need for such a game seems more urgent than ever. It was an embattled project faced with early Unreal Engine 3 code and changing expectations (at EA) of its role. But its bleached and blown-out vision of a future surveillance society is perhaps, still, the best implementation of Epic’s ubiquitous technology to date. Much of the credit for that belongs to prodigal environment artist Robert Briscoe, who this year gave us a masterful remake of thechineseroom’s Dear Esther. Clearly a man who thrives upon games where scenery dictates action, he has now delivered three of the most memorable venues ever: the quietening Hebrides of Esther; The Shard, the sky-piercing mirage at the heart of Mirror’s Edge; and the world’s only gorgeous storm drain (Mirror’s Edge again). It’s not the most obvious path for a military hardware specialist to take - but, then again… “I literally didn’t want to see another bloody tank, plane or warship again in my life,” he begins, recalling his previous job as a modeler for military recognition systems. “One of my friends who worked on a mod with me was working on Battlefield: Bad Company, and got me the interview at DICE. I was pretty sure I was going to go and work on that but, towards the end of the interview, they mentioned this new IP coming up. I was sceptical but they were looking for environment artists, so I thought it could be all right.” Details were not forthcoming until after Briscoe signed on; Mirror’s Edge was a secretive and risky venture from the outset, something the old demoscene DICE might have dreamt up before Battlefield, EA, and the withering global recession. “Do we need to go completely white, though?” Mirror’s Edge was “basically just an art test at this point, set in Shanghai or somewhere very much like it,” recalls Briscoe. “It looked cool, but generic.” There were rooftops, but not until two months after Briscoe joined did art director Johannes Soderqvist, returning from holiday in Spain, think to plaster them all in, well, “this brilliant white plaster you get over there. He took all these pictures of it; he was fascinated by the light and the colours bouncing around. The clean, fresh look of it. “Another part of it was that some of the 3D artists we had on the team tended to just block stuff out really quickly, not put any textures on things. And they did these really cool renders of the city, just detail models. He loved that as well. So those two things came together and that really turned the art direction around.” Briscoe wasn’t quite sold on it, though. “I was sceptical. I was thinking, ‘Yeah, do we need to go completely white, though? That white? Because all I’d seen was just a couple of very small art tests.” Mirror's Edge gallery What’s more, the game was being built using a painfully early incarnation of Unreal Engine 3. Epic’s own Gears Of War was still in production; and it was around this time, you’ll remember, that hasty adopters like Fatal Inertia (Koei), Frame City Killer (Namco) and Too Human (Silicon Knights) stumbled. “We needed to get a better lighting engine because the one we had with Unreal was bad,” recalls Briscoe, “Really bad. They hadn’t changed it since Unreal 1. We were looking at some of the Gears Of War levels at the time - we got hold of some of their source artwork and stuff - and they had thousands and thousands of lights in there just to simulate bounced light. They were manually placing all of them. And we just took one look and everyone was like, ‘There’s no bloody way in hell we’re spending two months doing that.’” Help came in the form of rendering company Illuminate Labs, which at the time specialised in a Maya renderer - a global illumination lighting engine - called Turtle. After lengthy discussions, DICE convinced it to port the tech to Unreal as an external renderer called Beast (which would later appear in BioShock Infinite and the Starbreeze reboot of Syndicate). “It was just a case of building the impossible.” Briscoe had no advanced knowledge of what he’d be working on. Artists were assigned to level designers already at work on the maps, few of which had much identity. What had stemmed from the game’s concept, though - ruthless cops and renegade traceurs in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse - was a projection of today’s most hubristic urban landscapes. “It’s almost over-developed,” says Briscoe. “It’s like Dubai and stuff, where you’ve got these amazing buildings that are built and then no one occupies them.” And it just so happened that the biggest, proudest and coldest of these monuments fell into Briscoe’s lap. The Shard, a dominating skyscraper wired into every CCTV camera and affair in the city, was actually invented prior to the identically named, visually similar project currently underway in London’s Bridge Quarter.“ To be fair, it’s an amalgamation of architectural designs and stuff that were studied at the time, so there might have been an influence in there,” says Briscoe. “But we had this idea of what we wanted to do, which was this triangular, almost impossible-looking building just to dominate the skyline.” It was a paradox that DICE’s level designers, artists and concept artists had to tackle together. “Just a case of building the impossible, which is this kind of theme throughout it all.” Much the same could be said for the London Shard, designed by architect Renzo Piano, which early on promised a glazed facade much like its virtual predecessor. This has yet to appear, however, leaving just a gradually rising spike of exposed cubicles and strip lights. The Mirror’s Edge Shard still stands alone. “It was supposed to look like a complete mirror,” notes Briscoe.”There’s no real light visible throughout. It would just blend into the background - not completely, but like an aberration effect, this weird optical illusion of a mirror in the sky.” Thanks to Half-Life 2’s Citadel, The Shard serves a familiar purpose. As an orienteering device, it allows Mirror’s Edge to explore a broad range of times and locations without losing its sense of geography. You can see it from just about anywhere in the game - and it, you feel, sees all. “It’s just one of the things that Half-Life 2 did great, giving you this goal from the get-go,” says Briscoe. “You get out onto the square and straight away you’ve this huge, ominous, looming /thing/ in the background that you know… that’s where shit’s going down later on. It’s gives you a goal right away, and that’s what we wanted to with Mirror’s Edge. You had this hub where all of the tech was being monitored, where everything was being controlled. I don’t know if [DICE] would appreciate me saying it was a direct influence, Half-Life 2, but it’s not really deniable.” Transitioning between skybox object and local map feature where necessary, The Shard is never closer than in Briscoe’s own ‘The Shard’, a closing level that finally lets you inside - to see what it sees. Serried rows of servers beneath gleaming, vaulted ceilings track the movements and histories of an entire population. And then, with nowhere left to run to but an abysmal anticlimax of an endgame, the rooftop gives you the full, unbroken view of the city at nightfall. “One of the things I really wanted to establish at the beginning of that level was to just see this thing before you actually went up to it,” explains Briscoe. “It was really important for us to show the massive scale of it - in the same way that when you come out on the last level of Dear Esther, you see you’re finally at this huge mount with the aerial on top. It builds the tension up to a crescendo; you know you’re at the final stages.” The rooftop panorama, such a complete 360 that it allows a Bon Jovi-worthy helicopter shot to close out the game, would be an extraordinary feat of skybox engineering in any game, Unreal-powered or not. “The guy who actually made it spent the majority of his life on it, I think,” says Briscoe. “It was literally the last year of the project. So that’s one of the reasons it looks fantastic.” Another is because it’s not, like most videogame skyboxes, a muddy lo-res curtain wrapped sloppily around the map. It looks like a horizon, not a stage. Between Valve’s City 17 and the hypnotic coasts of Dear Esther, it might very well be the bridge between Briscoe’s inspiration and his later work. “There was a lot of modelling in there,” he points out. “The thing about that rooftop was that it was fairly simple, just this small area that didn’t really have the environmental detail of the other rooftop levels. It was literally a single rooftop, which meant Chris could just go nuts. Most of the budget just went into that skybox alone. You can’t do that for every game, but it’s about getting this balance. It’s about putting the same amount of effort into the foreground as the background.” That the events on that rooftop are a split-second flurry of unmitigated tosh is hard to deny. It’s Briscoe’s “biggest regret,” in fact, “that there was so much effort put into it by me, the level designer and the backdrop artist. We built up this huge gameplay scenario that was going to happen where you’d be chased around by all these guys and have to chase this helicopter around, then kick this guy out at the right time. But it got cut at the last minute.” “What the hell have they been eating over there?” Briscoe’s other level in Mirror’s Edge is arguably more powerful than even The Shard, staged around and throughout a quite awesome storm drain. Furthermore, unlike The Shard, this one is very much rooted in reality. G-Cans - or, to give it a somehow less glamorous name, the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel - is a distinctly Japanese vanity project designed to protect Tokyo from flooding during the monsoon season. Costing $2bn and home to over 100km of tunnels, it lures in urban adventurers from around the world to see its ‘Underground Temple’, a cavernous pillared storage tank literally dripping with atmosphere. Most recently it appeared in the egregiously repetitive survival horror game Fragile, the saving grace of which was a funereal parade of such places linked by a story of post-apocalyptic companionship. Being a Wii game, though, Fragile can only imply what Briscoe’s version delights in: the unique behaviour of light in a place recently visited by water. Again, it’s not hard to draw parallels with Dear Esther’s refurbished Cave level. “Me and the level designer were just brainstorming ideas and were literally looking at stuff - architecture - from Tokyo, Korea, Shanghai…” says Briscoe. “And one of my mates just sent me one of these images of this huge… You know, the shot with the pillars. “I was like, ‘What the fuck is it? What is it?’ And he said it was a sewer. And I said, ‘What the hell have they been eating over there? Is it that bad?’ It took us a while to find out what the name of the bloody thing was, but we found it and it was like, ‘That has got to go in.’ It really speaks to the kind of weird, semi-futuristic architecture that was in the game at the time. And the other opportunity it presented was really good vertical gameplay within an indoor environment. We could get a really good feeling of vertigo but not have it be an office building or something boring like that. “And, as an artist, for me it was just brilliant. It was something I knew I’d just love to work on. So, we belted out some ideas. It took a long time to get some gameplay together for that, just because it’s such a big room. But it was a bit of creative twisting of reality in there, with all the scaffolding and stuff. That was one area of the game that I worked on that I was really pleased with in the end.” These levels weren’t just blank canvases for the artists, either. Briscoe and his colleagues would join their allotted level designers to find a timeline of levels with broad mechanical, if not visual, themes. “I think level two started out as this big hole in the ground that you travelled down into, going through all these tunnels and stuff. But there wasn’t any real predefined thing before we started building.” Something else that threatens to literally strike you in the storm drain are the walls and floor: they’re beautifully textured. Mirror’s Edge owes much of its endurance to the fact that it’s not another ‘consolitis’-afflicted charnel house of compressed and neglected surfaces. It’s immaculate, just like its city. “The secret of that was that we had these basically monochrome textures. We could get away with a lot because it’s mostly just black and white,” says Briscoe. “And, in a similar way to Dear Esther, you’ve not necessarily got detailed textures but this perceived detail, this impression, which is what’s really important. We could do small tricks like having high-res normal maps but a low-res diffuse map which didn’t have much detail on, but you could get away with it because of the normal map. And of course a lot of areas were really bright, slightly blown out, so again you’re hiding it. “A lot of textures were reused as well because they’re so basic. All the building textures, we just reused them all over the place because we didn’t have to worry about different material types. We didn’t have to worry about concrete not being the right colour for concrete, or enamel not being enamel. In a lot of places it was just plain white textures - there wasn’t even a diffuse used. And we used a lot of tricks in the textures, even going as far as to use one channel of the actual diffuse for the specular, another for the alpha.” It’s these little tricks and shortcuts - knowing when to use new and expensive techniques versus old, cheap ones - that have separated the good and the ugly of the last ten years. Trapped within the same console hardware for approaching seven of them, games have progressed through reduction and economy. Mirror’s Edge, a game defined by almost hyper-realistic lighting, got it right first time, choosing baked static lighting throughout. “A lot of people don’t realise that if you ever use dynamic shadows or lighting, that’s a massive, massive chunk of memory gone straight away. Because you have to render the whole scene to an uncompressed, huge texture. So we had that extra memory there,” explains Briscoe. “We also did a lot more work on putting detail into the actual polygons, rather than the textures themselves, which is a philosophy I’ve taken away with me. Vertices on a model cost nothing; mesh memory is nothing compared to texture memory. And you see in a lot of games they have these flat walls with air ducts and things, and they’re just normal maps. I just think, why not just model it? It’s a hell of a lot cheaper and it’ll look a hell of a lot better up close. “And you see these other games that have normal maps on every single surface, so you’ve got a grass texture which looks like porridge because you don’t need a normal map on grass. You can’t do it, it doesn’t work. So we used normal maps and specularity quite sparingly where we could, and that’s something I took over to Dear Esther. The only level I really extensively used normal maps in was the Cave level.” Briscoe is “really irked” by this stuff, and it’s not hard to see why. Games with beautifully high-res diffuse textures and tiny normal maps are just one example of such crass optimisation, others simply misspending their budgets and basically vomiting the results in your face. Briscoe suggests we call it “the Skyrim effect,” though surely there’s a better ring to simply ‘the Mass Effect’. “I hate to use the word but it tends to be what I’d call ‘consolitis’. It’s a bit of a swearword, but it’s people not putting enough effort into the console version. They’ve just lowered their texture resolution to fit it in memory. Or you find a paint bucket that has a really high-resolution normal and specular map, and you think: why? It’s a bucket. It’s about consistency, giving priority to what needs decent textures and what doesn’t.” “It wasn’t really my cup of tea.” The worst you can say about Mirror’s Edge is that it’s simply not very good, or that it’s simply brilliant or awful. It’s too complex a scenario for any of that, its flaws residing in the molecular chemistry of its pacing, signposting, innovative POV and accompanying control scheme. Well, most of its flaws are that subtle. Then there are the cutscenes. Briscoe howls, “Oh, don’t tell me about those. Honestly. We couldn’t really believe it when we got those back. I was opposed to the whole idea of these e-surance style animations in the first place. I think they just thought to outsource the animation because it could be a really cool thing. It could look really different. But it just turned out to be, ‘What the fuck?’ I don’t think there’s a single person on that team who’ll say those are cool. “It’s a total contrast to the actual game, and not in a good way. It’s like you’re watching Game Of Thrones and a commercial for Kellogg’s Frosties comes on. ‘That’s it, I’m getting a cup of tea.’ “Early on in the game we had these prototype cutscenes which were all firstperson. Completely firstperson: a little bit like the ending cutscene but a lot more choreographed, a lot more polished. It was really amazing. But I think it was just a case of time. We had to get out and compete, for some reason, with Gears Of War 2, Uncharted, and all these other titles that were coming out. All these sequels. We were pushed and pushed and pushed, and more and more stuff had to be cut.” Level designer and 3D environment artist Robert Briscoe. Mirror's Edge breathtaking skybox This is Mirror’s Edge in a nutshell, really. Green-lit as part of a bold new IP drive by EA chairman John Riccitiello - “they used to call him ‘JR’” - it was suddenly a bit too bold for the company’s bean counters. That nasty habit of maximising sales rather than concept, to which we owe Dead Space 2’s incongruous multiplayer mode, became something of a personality disorder for DICE’s ultra-niche platformer - and it was contagious. “There was this pressure to deliver within a short amount of time because it was costing a lot of money,” reveals Briscoe, “and again it was a huge risk. And I think it was a case of nobody being really sure what they were capable of in the time that they had. There were decisions made that were just questionable. Me and the level designer would sit there and get a level looking really good, and the next day you’d come in and there’d be snipers everywhere. People wanted it more intense, not really seeing the bigger picture of pacing and stuff like that. “So, it wasn’t really my cup of tea when it came out. I sat down and played it on PS3 for about an hour and that was it, I gave up. Didn’t like it. There were all these gameplay decisions going on that I wasn’t happy with, but as an artist it was like, ‘Well, I’ve got no control over that so I’m just going to make it as good looking a game as I can.’ And, luckily, the art designers and level designers were some of the best I’ve worked with.” There was, furthermore, a tension right at the heart of what Mirror’s Edge involves: free-running… or should that be parkour? Was this a game about pondering the environment (arguably the former) or beating it (arguably the latter)? Was it open world or linear time trial? Was it, ultimately, the game DICE imagined from the start? “The open world thing was something we really wanted to do, one of the early things we kind of dreamed about doing,” says Briscoe. “But it became obvious early on that it just - as far as getting it on the consoles was concerned - wasn’t going to be possible. One of the first things we had to do was just tackle the Unreal Engine, because no one in the company had really worked with it before. But towards the end we really got this solid engine together. If it had kept going and if they’d kept working on Mirror’s Edge, it could have easily gone in [an open world] direction. It’s just a case of what our original goals were and what we could actually achieve. They were separated towards the end.” Rumours perpetually swirl of that Mirror’s Edge sequel - and why not? DICE must be furiously itching to do something non-Battlefield; the first game is nothing if not a costly R&D project; and what better sophomore project for Frostbite 2 than a masterpiece of outdoor lighting? Just how much petitioning does it take? Briscoe confirms “there were rumours going around, so it’s fair to say people were thinking about it. All of these issues were up there as some of the most important to be addressed if it was going any further in the future. I can say without giving too much away that the plans were to improve it a lot more in those areas. You would have got more of an open game, a lot more choices. I have literally no idea what’s happening now. I heard it might be getting resurrected but nothing official.” “We need to go back to the drawing board…” Drop-kicking the villainous Jackknife out of a helicopter and into gaming’s hall of eternal shame - right next door to the last half-hour of BioShock - wasn’t the last of Mirror’s Edge, sequel or no sequel. A series of unlockable Time Trial levels sought to purify the game somewhat, turning it into a more appetising sport. It was a half-measure, though, as much an attempt to recover abandoned level designs, recycle existing ones, and add something - anything - to the meagre few hours of singleplayer story. Then this happened… “At the end the project, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was entering crunch time and the whole team went to either that or Battlefield 3,” recalls Briscoe. “So most of the team went off and was dissolved between those two. But EA wanted DLC from the get-go, because it was really kicking off and making loads of money. That was where a lot of the revenue could come in. “We had two or three level designers, if that, and one artist: me. At least at first. And I was like, ‘Okay. So, you want me to make seven time trial maps on a similar scale to some of the other levels which took one artist two years to make. And you want me to do it in three months?’ I think it was even less. I just said to Johannes, “Look, it’s not going to happen, it’s just impossible. We need to go back to the drawing board a bit here and just think about doing something in the spirit of Mirror’s Edge, but a lot simpler.” The result, Pure, is extraordinary. It’s just Mirror’s Edge heroine Faith, essentially, dropped into the centrifuge of Briscoe’s imagination. Story and reality are separated and removed, leaving textures, geometry and light. It is the unlikeliest of art games, made in guerilla fashion by one of the biggest studios in the world. Demoscene stuff, you might say. Classic DICE. “We had the training level in the game already, this huge room with just blocks and stuff. So we talked about doing this whole thing of maybe having arenas like that. But again it had to be cut down because there just weren’t the resources to design and build these rooms. So Johannes went away for a while and thought about it, and we talked it over with [the Mirror’s Edge] concept artist, Pierre Hannah. And he came up with a few sketches of this weird, abstract landscape. I loved it. It was perfect. “We had this idea of just themes for each level. One was pure cubes, another was obtuse angles and conflicting geometry, and another was just streamline geometry - curves and things like that. We basically invented this material that could just be used on brushwork in the game, to apply textures without worrying about alignment or anything; it would just fit. I think it was probably one of the coolest things I’ve worked on.” Briscoe’s memories of Mirror’s Edge remind us, like the game itself, that game appreciation is not an exact science. There are no metrics for the people who buy games like Rage (Briscoe: “Don’t even get me started on that”), Mass Effect and even ArmA for something other than the critical path. To a great many, DICE’s game is a work of art. To Rob Briscoe, the time he spent on it made him what he is today. “DICE has a massive bar that they like to stick to,” he says. “The quality consistency is a very important thing over there. They just won’t release something unless they’re… I think Battlefield 3 was in its third iteration of Frostbite 2 when I was there, and there were two other iterations by the time I’d left. The art directors there are, without a doubt, some of the most talented I’ve seen, and the artists are also amazing. I was absolutely out of my depth when I went there. “‘What the hell am I doing?’ I thought. ‘I’ve got all these amazing people around me.’ But being around that quality and talent really drives you to do better and improve yourself. One of the things I’ve learned is that is you slack out on one element - if you can’t be bothered with the skybox; if you just want to make everything look great from a distance… I’d have trouble going back to a company that has different philosophies on those things.” Source: Next-Gen.Biz