If you have been playing BF3 on PC, you’ll know that the Frostbite 2 engine makes a considerable difference in terms of graphics quality, compared to the same game on console using the Frostbite 2 engine. DICE has confirmed that they plan to make enhancements to their new engine and these improvements in the future will require the need for PC players to be running a 64-bit operating system.

Johan Andersson, rendering architect at DICE has also suggested that when DICE does carry out these changes, it would be a good idea for all 32-bit players to upgrade to Windows 8 and experience the Frostbite 2 engine on 64-bit instead. It’s important to note that this change won’t be happening until sometime in 2013, so those of you on Windows 7 32-bit and are thinking of getting the PC version of Medal of Honor: Warfighter shouldn’t worry for now.

Since the majority of PC players run most games fine on 32-bit, convincing consumers to upgrade to a 64-bit OS may not be an easy task, especially when players can find workaround methods using executables. Now that DICE has come out and stated that this will be a requirement on PC in the future, will it now lead to other developers following suit and practically forcing consumers to make the upgrade?

With Medal of Honor: Warfighter taking primary focus for EA during the latter stages of 2013, it is logical to assume that the likes of Bad Company 3 and Battlefield 4 will be just some of the titles that require a 64-bit OS on PC. Will you make the upgrade when the time comes, or are you already happily running a 64-bit system, and wished that more gamers did the same?

Kertz aka @Demize99 shared his fake patch notes on his Twitter feed, firstly he suggested that the fire rate and damage of the USAS12 with FRAG round had been improved, secondly he said the F35 was now hover only and went on to say that the Mi28 tail rotor had been nerfed to reduce maneuverability. Other fake patch notes included TV guided missiles only being fired when a chopper is stationary, the inability to turn your console off between rounds and finally fall damage which makes soldiers limp and bleed out if unheeled.

As you can see the patch notes were obviously stupid ideas, but if you check out the #fakepatchnotes hashtag on Twitter you can see that the fake patch notes which others are submitting feature plenty of sarcastic comments which allow us to easily see areas of the game which people are clearly not happy with.

Let’s start with something that Kertz said, one of his ideas was to not allow consoles to be turned off between round, some Twitter users have now pointed out that they want a way to quit between rounds rather than have to turn off the console. Also his tweet about the USAS12 with FRAG rounds being buffed has pointed out that lots of people think that this setup is overpowered and used as a “noob cannon” – similar things are suggested about the Tunguska 9K22 in this tweet.

Other things which tweets seemingly mocked include BF3′s “awful” knife animation, the overly-bright flashlight attachments, the Xbox 360′s hacked leaderboards, the price of DLC and the clarity of sound in regards to online chat during gameplay.

Our favorite tweet we spotted was left by @Lepidus33BC, it reads: Stingers will now come out from the other end of the tube meaning you will have to lockon from your backside #fakepatchnotes

Can you come up with something funnier? If so, get on Twitter and remember to use the #fakepatchnotes hashtag!

We first heard of this issue when EA DICE’s Global Battlefield Community Manager tweeted this message: “Game disconnected: you were kicked by Punkbuster errors are beeing looked into right now” and we spotted plenty of complaints of complaints on Twitter (see here).

The error which is currently affecting gamers reads: “Game disconnected: you were kicked by Punkbuster”, we have embedded an image below which shows a screenshot of the issue, the good news is that this is a PunkBuster fault and nothing to do with the game or your account.

To resolve the issue simply download the latest version of PunkBuster, you can download this here, and during the installation procedure it will uninstall the previous versions of the application. When you open the new version of PunkBuster for the fist time you will have to select Battlefield 3 from the ‘Add a Game’ section and check for updates – once you see a message reading ‘No New Updates Needed’ you are ready to go. If for some reason you have problems with any of this check out this link.

Hopefully we will find out more about exactly why this error occurred soon, it’s just nice to see EA DICE and the guys at PunkBuster working well together to create such a quick fix given the fact that it’s still less than 24 hours since we began hearing reports of issues.

Has this fix worked for you?

You can see his post for yourself here, basically Kerts feels that there are lots of elements of the game which need tweaking, especially accessories. At the moment he thinks that certain accessories are much preferred to others, therefore they will be nerfed in an attempt to convince people to try different accessories and improve balance. Before we go on we must clearly state that Kertz has not 100% sure what changes will be made to the game, but at least some things that are being considered.

Firstly Kertz is making sure that an unmodified weapon offers the best balance in terms of accuracy, recoil and stealth – which basically means that when you start adding attachments it will have a negative affect on some aspects of a gun, whilst adding the extra functionality which that attachment offers. Alan goes into great detail in regards to just how different attachments will positively and negatively affect a weapon over at Reddit – below we have listed the what’s set to change with specific accessories:

Foregrip
+34% reduction in horizontal recoil (adjust based on gun)
-20% penalty to base accuracy when aimed
Bipod
+Reduction in horizontal and vertical recoil (% depends on gun type)
+Reduction in dispersion (% depends on gun type/ammo type)
-Has to be setup to get the benefit
Suppressor
+Does not appear on minimap when firing.
+Reduces sound and visual muzzle signature
-Reduced range for both min and max, damage stays the same.
-50% penalty to base accuracy from the hip
+25% bonus to base accuracy when aimed
+10% reduced vertical recoil
Heavy Barrel
+Increased maximum range, damage stays the same.
-25% increased dispersion per shot
+50% bonus to base accuracy when aimed
-25% penalty to base accuracy from the hip
Flash Suppressor
+Reduces visual muzzle signature
+20% reduced vertical recoil
-20% penalty to base accuracy from the hip
Target Pointer
-Visible Laser
+Laser can dazzle opponents
+33% increase in base accuracy from the hip

As you can see there are so many proposed changes, we wanted to present the details in an easy-to-read manner,however check out the link to Reddit in this post’s second paragraph for full information regarding the rationale behind such changes. When you’ve check out some of the proposed changes leave us a comment below letting us know which changes you will welcome and which you think shouldn’t make the cut – we will keep you updated when we hear more on the situaton.

Let’s start by telling you exactly what the document says, it reads: “Objective: Retrieve all Dinosaurs, Details: We lost 5 or 6 dinosaurs on the island, it is of the utmost importance that we retrieve all samples and return them safely to HQ! Additional Details: The General promised cake!”

Initially there was some confusion as to whether there were really six dinosaurs hidden on the Wake Island map, however a tweet from someone over at EA DICE confirmed that there was, so SpotTheOzzie and some of his buddies decided to get to work and locate all six of them. Rather than write complicated instructions as to where to find each dinosaur we have embedded two videos at the bottom of this post, the top of the two shows you how to find the first five, whilst the bottom video shows you how to find the last one.

After watching the two videos carefully you will be able to find all the dinosaurs, but there is still some confusion surrounding this easter egg and whether there is more to it other than just finding all six locations – let’s not forget that the top secret document said “The General promised cake!”, what do you think this means? It also asked you to return them safely to the HQ – how can this be done? Some people are hoping that this easter egg will somehow lead to a Dino-survival mode – that would be great, but we very much doubt it would ever happen.

As we hear more about this easter egg we will keep you posted, have you spotted anything we have missed?

This news was revealed by EA DICE’s community manager, Daniel Matros, he used Twitter to announce this and you can see his tweet below:

“We´ve located the issue with “game content not available” for Karkand users. Will roll out a fix in the next couple of hours! #ontheway”

This tweet was posted roughly an hour ago (at the time of this post), therefore we assume that the fix should be live pretty soon, however as you can imagine further details are scarce at the moment. In fact we can’t even confirm whether this problem is affecting all platforms or not.

We found this thread over at the Battlefield 3 forums and it seems to talk about many issues which people are experiencing. The most common problem basically sees people try to join a server, however it says that you don’t have Back to Karkland, this is despite Battlelog clearly showing that you do. You can see one example of the error below:

We haven’t experienced the problem ourselves and after a little research it seems a little confusing as to exactly when this issue occurs, by the looks of things once people have download the “Back to Karkland” downloadable-content they receive an error message when trying to play a game on the new maps. If you have experienced the problem yourself why not leave us a comment below so we can explain to our readers just how frustrating the issue really is (remember to mention which platform you are using).

Have you experienced any of the issues described in this post?

The trailer has been embedded at the bottom of this post and you should watch it in full screen and in HD for full effect. The map is still recognizable, however the Frosbite 2.0 engine allows it to look better than it has ever done before. The screenshots below show just how much has changed since the 2004 Battlefield 1942 release (click on the image for a larger view).

The trailer is action packed and the shows PS3 gameplay, the shadows, water effect and smooth framerate come together nicely, also the realistic sounds and explosions seemingly ensure that this will be the best Wake Island experience to date. If you watch the video closely at around 50 seconds you get to see a new vehicle which looks like a BobCat, which is a small bulldozer (sometimes called a Skid Loader).

If you purchased the Limited Edition version of Battlefield 3 you get this downloadable-content free-of-charge, however for those of you who bought a standard version of BF3 you will have to pay $14.99 which equates to 1200 Microsoft Points. The DLC hits the PSN today, whilst Xbox 360 and PC gamers have to wait another week – you can find out more about its release here.

Have you played this map on BF3 yet? Is it as good as it looks?

According to one of Battlefield 3′s core gameplay designers it looks like semi-automatic gunfire is something which is currently being looked at, apparently they want it to be smoother like it was in Bad Company 2. This tweet from Alan Kertz, aka @Demize99, made us aware of this:

Working with a coder today to make Semiautomatic weapons fire smoother (like it was in BC2). Still some work to be done, hopefully soon.

Despite playing the beta a fair bit and lots of our readers reporting problems and imperfections we must admit that we didn’t hear a lot of complaints (if any) in regards to semi-automatic weapons firing unsmoothly.

Since posting the tweet lots of people have been responded with their own wishes, one person wants everything about BF3 to be smooth like it was in BC2, whilst others suggest that both the AN94 and KG need to be looked at, here are the corresponding tweets:

Can we get a buff for the AN94? Massive recoil and super slow firing. Maybe give it the RL feature of 2 super accurate bullets.

Is this going to help with things like the KH locking up and skipping a burst set?

A recent tweet from Kertz went on to suggest that on the whole Assault Rifles are pretty OK, but the main changes will be coming to semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns.

Are you happy to hear that semi-automatic guns should soon be smoother in BF3? Also, are there any other things which should be a priority to BF3′s dev team? We will keep you posted as we hear more on the subject…

According to these two tweets (here and here) the updates will take place between 2.00am PDT and 3.00am PDT (Friday, 4th November). We are currently unsure as to whether this is something which will affect gamers around the world, or just in the U.S, however we have converted the times for you here (click to see a full breakdown for all major locations). It equates to 9.00am until 10.00am in London (Friday), 5.00pm until 6.00pm in Hong Kong (Friday) and 8.00pm until 9.00pm in Sydney (Friday).

During these times we are told to expect complete inaccessibility to Battlelog for everyone, whilst PC gamers won’t be able to play multiplayer game modes. As for Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers we are told that there may be some intermittent online disturbances, but by the sounds of what we have heard the game’s multiplayer modes should be available.

Sadly no details regarding the updates have been disclosed, therefore we presume that general maintenance is being carried out on the servers etc, however to be honest with you, your guess is as good as ours. We just hope that once this is over gamers can have a stable weekend of BF3 multiplayer gaming as it would be fair to say that some people have been quite annoyed with it so far.

Hopefully we will hear more about these updates prior to when they take place, when we do we will update this brief article with anything worth knowing.

If you head over to your local HMV store you can get BF3 for just £2.99 if you trade-in either Batman: Arkham City or Forza 4, which means that HMV value your trade-in at roughly £36 – the price without the trade-in for consoles is £38.91, the deal is not available for the PC version of the game (indecently this retails at £34.99).

Both Forza 4 and Arkham City have only been out for roughly two weeks, which is why HMV knocks off such a high amount for trade-ins, we don’t really see many people taking advantage of the deal as both Forza and Batman received great reviews and have plenty of challenges etc to keep you busy for months on end – but what do we know?

Retailers will probably take other games in as part-payments, but we very much doubt that they will offer you a lot for any games which are over a month old, if you think you snapped up a bargain feel free to let us know in the comments section below.

If you check out Twitter you will see that lots of people are, or were, queuing for Battlefield 3, let’s just hope the servers are ready for the demand!

Did you queue for BF3 tonight? Was it busy?