Correct us if we’re wrong, but the Double XP weekend made famous on Call of Duty has never been seen on Battlefield, prior to this past weekend. It is still live on console at the moment and although it was also intended for PC players, DICE has now rescheduled this for May 26-27 instead.

Now though, prepare yourselves for a massive rumor regarding new plans to monetize the game further. EA apparently has something called ‘Battlefield Premium’ in the pipeline according to Battlefieldo and it’s said to be a direct answer to the ‘successful’ Elite subscription platform that Activision has rolled out for Call of Duty.

Battlefield 3 players could be getting content drops and these drops will include items that normal members won’t be able to use. The first has already been given some initial details in the form of a black dog tag, as well as a ‘premium’ knife which we’re guessing may make it easier to perform knife attacks. There’s also mention of brand new exclusive assignments, as well as weapon camos and soldier camos.

EA had previously teased that they were a fan of Activision’s Elite platform, so perhaps Battlefield 3 players had this coming. There’s no word on how much this will cost per month, but we’re guessing it will fall in line with Activision’s $50 a year pricing, or maybe even cheaper if they want to offer an immediate incentive over Elite.

A date of June 12th has also been revealed for the Close Quarters expansion pack, as well as the apparent confirmation of a fifth expansion pack to be released in 2013 after End Game, which is thought to be coming before the end of the year.

Obviously there’s no confirmation that all this information is legit, but it is worth pointing out that the details also mentioned about the double XP weekend, prior to EA making that official, so it’s promising. What is your initial reaction to EA offering a premium platform for Battlefield 3?

After their attempts to recoup as much money as well via custom server renting – is it unsurprising that they are now taking things to the extreme with monthly payments? That premium knife is interesting as well, especially if it gives premium users an advantage over non-paying players – surely that is a very risky road to be heading down? You can imagine the uproar if this special knife kills non-premium users more quickly.

Are you willing to hear EA out on their plans to offer a subscription for Battlefield 3? Or is it yet another sign that EA are purely thinking of their wallets, when they should be bringing out regular patch updates to balance the original game that everyone paid for – ie, one with official servers as opposed to custom ones?

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While some of you are clearly happy pouring money into EA’s rent a server program on console, it appears that many of you are not, particularly those who just want to enjoy the vanilla BF3 experience that you first enjoyed when buying the game last year.

All the official servers hosted by EA and DICE appear to have disappeared permanently, with the minimal official servers that were available all snapped up by those who can’t wait to set up their 2000 ticket Metro 24/7 server. If the zero availability of official servers wasn’t bad enough, there also seems to be a growing trend of skilled players getting kicked by admins who decide that they don’t want them playing on their servers any more.

I have seen this myself first hand in game and it is annoying I have to say. Being kicked for no reason is obviously very irritating, especially when you have racked up a good score only for it to mean nothing. If DICE are going to keep custom servers in the game permanently at the expense of official ones, then they really need to tweak some settings to keep everyone happy.

Firstly, there needs to be an option to report an admin more easily. By perhaps having a ‘rate an admin’ option at the end of the map, with the votes going directly to a regional moderation team who can take action. Obviously it doesn’t solve the problem initially when you’ve just been kicked, but at least it’s a way for DICE to identify admins who are on a power trip.

After the infamous tweaks to the tactical light and IRNV scope, are you a bit disappointed with the way the game has ended up? The Close Quarters expansion will probably divert attention from the ongoing issues when it releases this Summer, but we just hope that DICE are listening to the community, as the popularity of the game seems to have decreased after their latest patch update.

How is your experience with the game at the moment – are you a happy player with no problems, or have you been kicked for no good reason at times?

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For those of you that aren’t aware yet, the Close Quarter pack will not feature the conquest game mode since all of the maps are of a smaller nature. Instead though, DICE will be offering a brand new mode called Conquest Domination and we see the first glimpse of it during the new gameplay.

Just like Ziba Tower, a heavy emphasis is placed on destruction and the theme of the map looks largely based on a typical presidential mansion, giving players the option of taking the battle indoors or outdoors. There’s some further evidence of the new SPAS-12 shotgun weapon, while we spotted the new AUG rifle as well.

Don’t forget that there will be 10 brand new weapons so we’ll try to bring you a list of those weapons as soon as we have it. If you’ve spotted any other new weapons that we didn’t see in the Ziba Tower gameplay, let us know your observations below.

The map looks to be around the same size as Ziba Tower so if you were previously unimpressed with Ziba Tower, you may not change your mind on Close Quarters after seeing Donya Fortress. In our opinion though, we can’t wait for the new expansion pack to drop. Close Quarters is going to offer up an entirely new gameplay experience to BF3 and it’s just the change we need before preparing for the next DLC pack Armored Kill which will return the gameplay to its roots with brand new vehicles.

What are your initial thoughts on the new gameplay? Are you really excited about Close Quarters as well?

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If you haven’t used Battlelog yet and you play Battlefield 3 frequently, you really should since it is the perfect side compliment to the game. Battlelog is a great tool to check out detailed stats about your various Battlefield adventures, as it records crucial data such as your kill/death ratio, how many games you have won and lost and even your longest headshot distance.

Now you can bring up the same stats on your iPhone, thanks to the free Battlelog app. It’s on the App Store now, just do a search for Battlelog and you should see it. The interface is exactly the same as the desktop version and it looks to be very well made by EA we have to say.

There’s four main categories at the bottom of the app which will provide shortcuts to the main areas of Battlelog. The Battle Feed will give you live updates on how you and your friends are getting on in the game, whether that involves unlocking a certain attachment, or if you have just reached a brand new Colonel level. The Com Center is a very useful addition, as it will allow you to send instant chat messages to anyone else who has the Battlelog iOS app running. Stats provides a summary of all your achievements in the game, such as accuracy, hours played, best weapon and vehicle kills and so on. Finally, the unlocks tab will display all the unlocks still needed in the game for a relevant class or vehicle. For instance if you just need to unlock items for the Jet, it will just list those, rather than all the unlocks that you have already made for other vehicles.

Our first impressions of the app are very good. EA obviously took their time with it, but it looks like they have delivered with a quality app and not some lazy approach which some of you were fearing. We’re glad to see that this is entirely free as well – there’s no sign of any required payments, and the app isn’t littered with ads either which is always nice to see.

The app will probably be most useful in between rounds, when you and a friend can discuss tactics in the Com Center whilst waiting for the next map to load. You can also find another BF3 player easily straight from the app, for those moments when you want to check out the stats of a particular opponent to see how good they really are.

We have a feeling that the app is going to come in very useful for all BF3 players with an iPhone. There’s no sign of an Android release yet, but we imagine that EA are working on releasing it soon. If you have already used the app, let us know your initial thoughts on it. They’ve done a pretty good job haven’t they?

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It’s not just any old video game though, but rather a concept look at how Battlefield 5 may look in the distant future if combined with a pair of Google’s fancy glasses. In short, the person in the video is able to load up a virtual Battlefield sim straight from the glasses, using the location that he is currently situated.

Soldiers come out of nowhere and there’s plenty of Battlefield effects to be seen, including some pretty realistic knife action. The video takes elements from Google’s original Project Glass video, such as being able to toggle music on and off through the glasses, as well as being able to take a video call instantly, whilst still being in the Battlefield sim.

Sound a bit too unrealistic to you? Perhaps, but that’s why it’s a concept and it is very well made. The video, made by ‘There is a Canal’ seems to have already attracted the attention of EA, as we can see that the video has already been uploaded to the official Battlefield Facebook page. Job done then for the creator?

This could be the first progression into a virtual reality future of video games, and it may seem farfetched right now, but it is obviously going to happen sooner or later – in the comfort of your own home. We just hope that Google’s Glasses come with a disclaimer, otherwise people are going to get seriously hurt running around abandoned warehouse sites pretending to shoot imaginary people.

What are your thoughts on the concept – do you like it?

More About: Battlefield 3, EA, Google Glasses

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We have asked you for your highest killstreak in various Call of Duty games before, but now we want to see how well you are getting on with Battlefield 3. Due to the nature of the game and being more tactical based than COD, you can argue that it is a lot harder to achieve a really good killstreak since there is just so much going on around you and countless ways to die whether on foot or in the air.

We want to know what your highest killstreak on Battlefield 3 is, or as EA call it on Battlelog, your ”highest killstreak bonus” without dying. Battlelog is great for keeping a tab on some of your best stats and previous battle reports, but we just wish that there was an option to save a battle report on Battlelog for those true ‘Battlefield moments’.

The only way to do that right now is to take a screenshot, and that’s exactly what I did when I achieved my finest score on the game yet. I managed some time ago to get a 46 killstreak on Seine Crossing, ending with 51 kills and 4 deaths and a total score of 14,983. Before the latest patch update, it was pretty rare to get a score over 10,000 on standard ticket numbers, but since there are now plenty of custom servers with x2 tickets, we imagine that most of you have started to get scores close to 15,000 and 20,000 on a regular basis.

If you have managed to rack up an impressive killstreak on Battlefield 3, share your experiences of the moment below. Also feel free to post your current Kill / Death ratio on Battlelog if you feel it is worthy of public appreciation. At the moment, I have a K/D of 2.06 which is not too bad at all.

Would you agree with us that a killstreak is much more satisfying on Battlefield 3 than Modern Warfare 3?

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There’s no denying the popularity of the custom servers either – EA must be loving it. The one big problem that we have though is that they are continuing to remove official servers at the expense of custom ones, making it harder than ever to find an official server on console.

The option of having custom servers and rules is always nice of course, but when we can no longer find an official server with a full conquest rotation and normal ticket size, that’s when we have a problem. EA and DICE went back on their word when they said that the Asia servers would be live on April 4th. Almost 10 days later, we find that they have finally been switched on, but there is not one official server in sight. We refreshed the server browser to see 25 pages of servers, with every single one of them a custom server and the majority of them offering 1000+ ticket scores.

In other regions it’s not too different either. We had a little success finding some official servers in Australia, but unfortunately there was nobody playing on them. We’ve had a lot of excellent feedback in our previous report on Rent a Servers, but in actual fact gamers are still happily pouring their money into custom servers when in reality they should be concerned about EA’s tactics here.

Some of you have pointed out that the update has just served as a cash scheme for EA and DICE, with no incentive of keeping those who are not paying happy. If there was an equal balance of custom and official servers, it wouldn’t be such a problem, but 25 pages of Asia servers with not one official server on console tells you that EA are just looking to make as much money as possible out of the game now.

Just to reiterate, this is just from a console perspective. We’re well aware that on PC, official servers can be found by simply typing in ‘DICE’ in the server filter. On console though, we have to say that EA are driving the game into the ground with these tactics. We really hope that they are planning to address this in their next update, or they may find their console numbers severely drop from those who are unwilling to play by these new rules.

If you agree or disagree with us on this, leave your opinions below. We would just like DICE to bring back some more official servers across all regions, so it doesn’t feel too bad when players are kicked or switched by admins for no good reason.

More About: Battlefield 3, EA

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To give you a recap, Ziba Tower is one map of a confirmed four maps as part of the Close Quarters pack. As the name suggests, gameplay will take a focus on more confined gameplay and we won’t be seeing any vehicle combat or large scale maps.

What we will be getting though is 10 brand new weapons to play around with, weapons which will once again need to be unlocked via assignments just like the Back to Karkand pack. In the previous look at Ziba Tower, DICE gave us an example of how you’ll be able to play Ziba Tower on a variety of levels, in a hotel-style complex. The new footage from PAX East features more of the same of this, although unfortunately the gameplay we see does not include any of the fantastic destruction elements as seen in this EA teaser here.

The gameplay is obviously taken from the PC version of the game as seen by the keyboard and mouse player at the start of the clip and the visuals in general look very crisp indeed. One point that we do want to mention though is that Ziba Tower doesn’t exactly look like a small map. A lot of people are going pretty nuts about EA choosing the ‘COD route’ with Close Quarters, but the fact that you can take the action to a variety of destructible floors provides a fresh experience that players will grow to love. Being able to shoot players above or below you as well looks particularly exciting in our opinion. There’s a lot of negativity at the moment over the pack, but don’t forget that the footage seen has only come from Ziba Tower – we still have three other maps to see and they could be completely different.

It goes without saying that it is unlikely that we’ll see this level of quality on console, but we just hope that DICE won’t sacrifice too much in their mission to make the console versions as impressive as possible.

Take a look at the new footage for yourself and let us know what you think of it. Hopefully it is just a taster of good things to come later this week if EA decide to release some official footage for us.

Will you be picking up the Close Quarters Expansion pack at the first opportunity, or are you angry with DICE at the moment over the current state of the game following on from the big patch updates and new Rent a Server options?

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However, not everyone is happy with the service. It appears that in allowing gamers to rent servers, EA has started to cut down on their own official servers, presumably to lower costs on their end even further, while at the same time providing even more servers available for paid customers.

This hasn’t gone down too well with those who are not looking to pay an extra fee to play Battlefield 3 and we can already see numerous problems with the game following on from the Rent a Servers program. For starters, DICE has not made it easy to separate official and custom servers in the server browser. On console, we can see that there are just endless pages of servers, with no way to just select official ones if you don’t want to play on a custom server.

If EA’s cut down of official servers was worrying enough, we’ve also noticed that they have merged servers together with the various game modes. For example, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find an official server with Conquest maps only, as you’ll find that for the limited number of official servers still available, DICE has merged Rush with Conquest.

More frustrating from our point of view, is that DICE seems to have removed their official Back to Karkand only servers as well. Before the patch, we were very happy with the ‘SERVER6078′ type servers which offered a full rotation of Conquest maps including the Back to Karkand maps as well. Now though, these servers have disappeared, as well as the B2K only servers – all because EA are looking to maximize profits with custom servers?

As for custom servers, playing a 24/7 Metro server can be fun for a while, but playing 1750 ticket maps can get boring real quick. Also, there are plenty of servers where admins are just kicking the top players for no reason. On console there doesn’t appear to be any easy way to report this to DICE either – it’s just turning into a bit of a mess.

Rent a Server is a great idea for Battlefield 3, but DICE has implemented this in the completely wrong way in our opinion. If they want to improve this they need to 1) Separate official and custom servers more easily 2) Offer a LOT more official maps to show that EA are not just after our money and 3) Bring back a full rotation of Conquest-only maps with B2K maps included.

After having a chance to play the game after the patch update and Rent a Server changes, what are your thoughts on the game now. Is it ruined or is it the best it has ever been? Have you noticed a decline in official servers as well?

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Who knows if this is to make up for the fact that PC users didn’t get the patch first as a lead platform, but they’ll definitely be happy with this little addition. DICE has added an extra addition to the Server Browser on PC, in which players will now be able to view a live scoreboard.

It means that players can study the game prior to joining, but more importantly they can check to see how many tickets have currently been acquired in a game. This then eliminates the very frustrating aspect of joining a game only to find out that it ends five seconds later as soon as you’ve joined.

This is obviously a vital addition to the game in our opinion, but we’re disappointed to see that this isn’t available on console yet. We’re hoping that it is a case of releasing to PC first as it’s easier, and then a console version will follow soon afterwards. Considering how long it takes in-between games on console though – this needs to come as soon as possible.

On a side note, what are your impressions of the game post-patch? Are you satisfied with the plethora of changes that DICE has implemented into the game or not? From our point of view, we think the changes to the Stinger missile will be beneficial to all in the long run. Infantry can now take down choppers with more success, while Attack Helicopters can counter this with the fixed Below Radar. Stingers may be able to disable aircraft with a single hit, but it’s now harder to actually connect with a missile than ever before and a good ECM Jammer pilot with a smart IR flares gunner will easily win out every time.

Do you agree that the new live scoreboard feature is badly needed on console as well?

More About: Battlefield 3, EA

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