Battlefield Heroes

indeed, seems fun !
will it require a super crazy powerful pc ?

Apparently not. It's being designed to run at very low specs - being ad supported they've got to get it playable on as many systems as possible. According to GFW quoting DICE, "specs as low as 1 GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 64 MB video card..."

Am I wrong for feeling considerably more skeptical about this game after learning it will only be playable from a 3rd person view? And that the main reason for that is if they had made the game in 1st person they felt you wouldn't want to pay to customize your character's looks?

So...how will they make money from this? In game advertisements, during loading screens? Pay $10 for a special weapon, something like that?

From what I've heard / read it'll be ads when you first load up the game (but not "in-game") and personalization - like you can buy a red jacket for your character or rad sideburns. My understanding is you can't buy anything that'll give you an advantage. Maybe you can get a different looking weapon, but one that performs no different than the free ones? Cause basically if they charge for perks the game will be d.o.a., at least in tems of the bigger market they are trying to reach, I'd think.

sounds cool although I can't see myself buying anything to customize my charachter. As long as you can play just as well without...

Is this game ever going to come out for real?

Got a beta key in the mail. Anyone know if it's worth the trouble of signing up and installing?

I would definitely check it out. Looks like a fun game. And it's free. I'm always a little weary of a beta release though. I don't think it's a very big install? Check out and post your impressions if you can. I wish the game would come out for real.

Not looking good so far.

First of all there's this ridiculous setup process to go through just to start, for a "casual friendly" game - register EA account, register "secure beta" account (and you need to login with BOTH accounts), install browser plugin, install game, create character, etc. I've never played the Battlefield games before, so I don't know how well they compare, but it's weird, this feels a lot like that Battalion Wars game on the gamecube, with the atmosphere/style and gameplay. Lot of bad interface design decisions, like not being able to change controls / options while in the game, three levels of interface (web browser, pre-game browser, in-game) which are totally separated. Still quite buggy, like menu options in the character build editor not working properly.

But the worst part is they've really taken lessons of Korean pay-for-extras MMOs to heart, in the worst way. They'll expect you to grind, grind, grind, grind, to buy not just clothes but weapons and abilities - I groaned when I saw that one of the these "abilities" you could upgrade was basic running speed, up to five times! No wonder everyone was spinning around me while I was crawling... (btw walking around feels like you're skating on pancake batter). You can buy little items that boost your abilities for one real-time day. I hate this kind of design and general MMO philosophy, but especially for a skill-based FPS (vs. say, a cute golfing game or Worms clone)... when you play, you have a little avatar of your head with a green arrow that fills up as you get closer to leveling up. Ugh.

There's no real gameplay incentives to work together as a team, like in TF2. I'll give this some more tries, but ugh, definitely not impressed right now. At least with Quake Live, you know where you stand - you'll get destroyed by getting out-skilled, not just because the other guy put countless hours into accumulating shop points. Well, at least the art direction is nice.

Played this some more and softened a bit on it. I mistook some elements for sure, due to being unfamiliar with Battlefield in general, I think, in regards to the classes and abilities. This is true especially for certain abilities, like the generic soldier's healing ability, which becomes more effective when you're surrounded by other soldiers, but isn't very useful solo.

Still don't love it, for things like essentially have to build up a separate character for each class (w/grinding battle points for exp, weapons and abilities) but there are some things that they don't really tell you. There's a generic tutorial when you start and it shows you how to play (like how to enter a vehicle) but for instance, they don't tell you a thing about the Missions that you can equip (again, sort of MMO-style) which also give you more points. These missions are like 10-20 points, and it takes like 1000 to afford a rocket launcher permanently (of course, you could spend your valuable points to rent one for 3 days! gag.) But they do give some kind of interim goal, like kill 5 infantry, get 10 tank kills, etc. Yes. Grindy.

Nor do they tell you about upgrading your character's Abilities (though of course, they do tell you about the useless stuff the clothes). The Gunner, the slow heavy class, has a special ability of "dashing" for a few seconds (aka walk briefly at normal speed) which I was confused on earlier. I still don't like they there are these limited use items (bandages, exp boosters, etc.) that they expect you to pay for for an advantage, very lame in principle. I'm not sure if these are turned on yet, though, since I haven't tried to put any money in.

Interface split is still an absolutely retarded decision though. Want to change class? Sorry you have to exit the game and go to the shop/character menu. Want to change sides? Got to go back to that, quit, go to the web browser and use THAT shitty bog of an interface.

I find it so weird that Quake Live, in terms of gameplay and interface, is like 75% unchanged from the year 2000, and yet is much smoother and more ingratiating than BFH. Quake still has its ridiculous hyper-competitive-arcade-machismo thing going on (which is still kind of amusing, I have to admit) but it feels more right, while BFH has a really nice cartoony, inviting art design, which is a bit at odds with the genuine nature of the game. I don't want to come out and say Quake is more "honest", but BFH is certainly less competent and cohesive as a product.

I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure you should be judging it so much like a finished game. I don't know how far away it is from actual release, but I would hope some of the interface stuff will be cleaned up before then. I definitely am turned off by the idea that you can grind/buy upgrades to your character's speed and things like that. I don't mind unlocks, as long as it's nothing that gives the other guy an advantage. Five levels more of speed, seems like a HUGE advantage. I applied to get into the beta too, but so far nothing...

yeah probly the reason they release these beta editions is to get some feedback, so some of these headaches will go away on final release.

Finally tried this out a bit last night. My main problem with it is the same as the other Battlefield games I've played - the maps seem too big and I end up spending too much time walking (or driving / flying) across the map only to get killed five seconds after I finally come across somebody else. The visual style is okay, but after playing a really sharp game like Team Fortress 2, it's a hard switch to make to this blurry, low res simplified style.

Heads up - lulzsec leaked a list of beta users
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/26/lulzsec-over-release-battlefield-heroes-data/

Haven't even thought about this game since the beta. I checked the BF list, my username and (thankfully, at least) hashed password was in there - good thing I don't use this pw for anything important, but still, annoying

planned 50 day cruise my arse lol, nothing to do with certain arrests recently causing them to shit their pants?