I'm gonna put this out there right now. I plan on getting Battlefield 3 on PC like the majority of people who are seriously excited for this game. However consoles are where the mass market is these days. It's just easier for people to own a console because there really isn't that much incentive to own a PC. Let's face it what exclusive does a PC still have besides WOW and Starcraft? 
 
The call of duty franchise has always offered something for everyone. An intense single player, rather awesome coop and an addictive multiplayer. So what does BF3 have to do to compete? Pretty visuals aside there has to be something in there for the mass market. The reason so many of my friends were turned off Battlefield Bad Company 2 is because it was too hard to rank up, there was no coop (until the dlc was released), the campaign was strangely paced and their were only a handful of multiplayer modes. 
 
If Battlefield 3 wants to challenge Call of Duty for the FPS throne they need a big hit for singleplayer, coop and multiplayer. All I want to know is what do you think Battlefield 3 needs to add to improve apon Battlefield 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 to create an experience that all will enjoy? I personally think offline split-screen for console is a must...

It won't be able to. I'd argue that generally consoles have a lower barrier to entry and therefore the masses who own and play games like Call of Duty are of the...slightly more stupid variety. Those individuals cannot deal with the apparent "complexity" posed to them by games that involve anything more than running around and pulling the right trigger. It doesn't matter though either way; the game will rake in plenty of dough for EA on the PC alone and since I'll be getting it on the PC I really could give less of a shit if it doesn't do better than MW3 on the consoles.

If people want to play Battlefield they will play Battlefield and vice versa. The only people that might waiver are those on the fence and I would imagine they're only on the fence because Activision is rinse/repeating the COD franchise and they're looking for something new.

@RsistncE said:

It won't be able to. I'd argue that generally consoles have a lower barrier to entry and therefore the masses who own and play games like Call of Duty are of the...slightly more stupid variety. Those individuals cannot deal with the apparent "complexity" posed to them by games that involve anything more than running around and pulling the right trigger. It doesn't matter though either way; the game will rake in plenty of dough for EA on the PC alone and since I'll be getting it on the PC I really could give less of a shit if it doesn't do better than MW3 on the consoles.

This.

It just needs to be a solid FPS while offering a somewhat different experience. I don't think it will eclipse Call of Duty on console but on PC Battlefield will absolutely swallow Call of Duty. Activision/IW (not sure which called the shots) have fucked PC gamers over big time. 
 
I'm not sure about World at War but every other Call of Duty game since 4 has been a horrible port. MW2 was an embarassment, IWNet lul. That worked out well...
 
It's a shame because 4 was a really good game, it was well optimised, had dedicated servers, free official maps (!!!!) and mod support.
 

@Ryanmc94

  Let's face it what exclusive does a PC still have besides WOW and Starcraft?

its probably going to be a good game.  unfortunately, i still think people are going to be suckered into buying Call of Duty even though its the same formula.  to be honest i thought Black Ops sales were going to falter last year but i guess i was wrong.  so i can assume that MW3 is going to do great

Well they've done everything they can to make it look like a Call of duty clone, so im sure it'll do fine. But it wont beat out MW3 on console.

BF3 won't beat out MW3... But, if the word of mouth is good and enough people play it, BF4 may well outsell MW13

it wont matter. sales aside, bf3 will be known as the better game

It needs to be as accessible as COD but be fresh enough to convert the people who are getting sick of buying a new Duty game every year and having it be more of the same or just think it's becoming less "hip" But in all realism there's no way BF3 will top MW3 in console sales. But in the long term I really feel like its going to come down to how DICE handles BF3 this fall. I'm rootin' for Battlefield.

I think Battlefield 3 will compete but the PC is where its future lies.  If it gets anywhere near the community of Team Fortress 2 or Counter strike, it will be profitable for years to come.  And although Origin gets a lot of hate, BF3 and SW:TOR exclusivity could really ramp up EA's presence in the PC digital market.

60 FPS. Simple.

Mouse and Keyboard support. Stable smooth framerate. Leveling System. Perks.
 
Edit woot 2000th post on my Birthday!

i think accessibility is a big factor you wanna make it so that a wide variety of people can play it but at the same time not have a bunch of 12 year old(or older) COD people taking advantage of the glitches in the system and expoiting things that would make the game unenjoyable for a majority of people.

this thread is annoying

@Mikemcn said:

Well they've done everything they can to make it look like a Call of duty clone, so im sure it'll do fine. But it wont beat out MW3 on console.

Crazy talk. It looks nothing like CoD in any context.

@Ahmad_Metallic said:

this thread is annoying

Yes.

It's been said time and time again in this thread, but they need to capture the accessibility of something like Call of Duty, or (I hate to say it) Halo, but maintain the scale and "complexity" of a Battlefield game. A game that's easily playable and enjoyable on the surface, but has a lot of meat on it's bones when you really dig in deep and try to explore all the things at your disposal. 

I do fear that if Battlefield 3 doesn't outsell COD (which is very likely), the excecs at EA will go bananas and will force DICE to make another COD clone. The past year various people from EA have been trying very hard to prove that they can be the same dicks as Activision, if not bigger.

  Let's face it what exclusive does a PC still have besides WOW and Starcraft? 

@Ryanmc94 said:

  Let's face it what exclusive does a PC still have besides WOW and Starcraft? 

Bahahahahahaha. Like every strategy game? You don't really seem to know what your talking about.

BF3 could be a strong contender on console if they actually give the console market the actual BF2 style gameplay instead of the campy one-man-army BS that is Bad company. The only thing that could still make that fail is the console gaming community. I'll be picking it up on Xbox (as I cant afford a new PC ATM) but I just know the MP is still going to be full of  racist, cheap kids. Ive been waiting for a proper BF experience on consoles (at least we got BF1943).

@No0b0rAmA said:

@Meowshi: I would think there would be exclusives that would actually matter that's not FPS, like the Civilization franchise.

Civ doesn't make me want to buy a €2000 gaming pc.

We're not marketing people, we're gamers. Lets just play them all and stop fighting about which one is the best etc, etc.

*gamerhippie*

edit: Really disliking the word gamer. Meh.

It just needs to be a solid FPS while offering a somewhat different experience. I don't think it will eclipse Call of Duty on console but on PC Battlefield will absolutely swallow Call of Duty. Activision/IW (not sure which called the shots) have fucked PC gamers over big time. 
  
I'm not sure about World at War but every other Call of Duty game since 4 has been a horrible port. MW2 was an embarassment, IWNet lul. That worked out well... 
 
It's a shame because 4 was a really good game, it was well optimised, had dedicated servers, free official maps (!!!!) and mod support.

@Meowshi: I would think there would be exclusives that would actually matter that's not FPS, like the Civilization franchise.

@No0b0rAmA said:

@Meowshi: I would think there would be exclusives that would actually matter that's not FPS, like the Civilization franchise.

Do you honestly consider Civ 5 in the same vein as Infamous or Uncharted when it comes to selling platforms?

A Dino survival mode to rival Zombies. Sounds like fun and people have thought about this a lot...prolly too much :p.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/621026-battlefield-3/59614765

Sounds redic to me, but that's the point, and would be a ton of fun if DICE could be even a little self-effacing.

@fuddles said:

It's been said time and time again in this thread, but they need to capture the accessibility of something like Call of Duty, or (I hate to say it) Halo, but maintain the scale and "complexity" of a Battlefield game. A game that's easily playable and enjoyable on the surface, but has a lot of meat on it's bones when you really dig in deep and try to explore all the things at your disposal.

That's Bad Company all over. One button for all squad messages, one button to use doors and your basic steering/flight/aiming/shooting stick and button combo. BC2 is very simple to get into.

its probably going to be a good game.  unfortunately, i still think people are going to be suckered into buying Call of Duty even though its the same formula.  to be honest i thought Black Ops sales were going to falter last year but i guess i was wrong.  so i can assume that MW3 is going to do great

@fuddles said:

It's been said time and time again in this thread, but they need to capture the accessibility of something like Call of Duty, or (I hate to say it) Halo, but maintain the scale and "complexity" of a Battlefield game. A game that's easily playable and enjoyable on the surface, but has a lot of meat on it's bones when you really dig in deep and try to explore all the things at your disposal.

That's Bad Company all over. One button for all squad messages, one button to use doors and your basic steering/flight/aiming/shooting stick and button combo. BC2 is very simple to get into.

@Agent47 said:

@Ryanmc94: All those complaintents with BFBC2 just proved an early poster that the COD crowd really can't handle anything more than running and gunning.That's why the campaign is "weirdly paced" because it takes breaks in action to add dialouge and such where as COD is a nonstop rollercoaster ride.And from the rest of your comment BF3 has everything you mentioned a CO-OP campaign, more multiplayer modes.Of course BF3 is going to be even harder to level up.Because high levels provide bounses for your team. The only thing it doesn't have that I want is splitscreen.Sadly EA is known for never implementing that.They would get more sales if they did though, I know alot of places and family where internet connections are VERY limited or non existant so they play splitscreen.I keep hearing "Oh the Frostbite 2 engine can't handle splitscreen BULLSHIT, if it can handle 24+ players online it can handle 2-4 players on splitscreen.I think they coud add like a bots feature so players could have more people.Of course DICE will do ZERO of this.

"if it can handle 24+ players online it can handle 2-4 players on splitscreen" is certainly not a good assertion. Each player's console only loads and renders what that player can actually see. When you introduce splitscreen you have to load and render what every player on your console can see. In the worst case, each player can be in a different corner of the map. There can be some resource sharing with textures and sounds but the level geometry cannot be shared and those poor little consoles do not have the memory to deal with that. The game already struggles to achieve 30 fps when rendering one player's viewpoint.

The server can handle 24+ players because it only loads the collision geometry. No textures/sounds/etc are loaded on the server. The server receives data from every player, checks for collisions, determines the outcomes, then returns that data back to the clients. The server is not rendering the viewpoints of 24 players.

@No0b0rAmA said:

@Meowshi: I would think there would be exclusives that would actually matter that's not FPS, like the Civilization franchise.

Civ doesn't make me want to buy a €2000 gaming pc.

I don't think there's anything a modern military shooter can do to take the COD audience, because they've got their shooter and have no reason to look for another one. If you want Battlefield to get that audience (which I would argue you don't, really), you need enough marketing to overcome several years of memories.

It won't be able to. I'd argue that generally consoles have a lower barrier to entry and therefore the masses who own and play games like Call of Duty are of the...slightly more stupid variety. Those individuals cannot deal with the apparent "complexity" posed to them by games that involve anything more than running around and pulling the right trigger. It doesn't matter though either way; the game will rake in plenty of dough for EA on the PC alone and since I'll be getting it on the PC I really could give less of a shit if it doesn't do better than MW3 on the consoles.

Just being on a console means it will sell more than the PC, no need to do anything else.

Be so simple and boring that stupid little kids can play it (*ahem* call of duty)

@RsistncE said:

It won't be able to. I'd argue that generally consoles have a lower barrier to entry and therefore the masses who own and play games like Call of Duty are of the...slightly more stupid variety. Those individuals cannot deal with the apparent "complexity" posed to them by games that involve anything more than running around and pulling the right trigger. It doesn't matter though either way; the game will rake in plenty of dough for EA on the PC alone and since I'll be getting it on the PC I really could give less of a shit if it doesn't do better than MW3 on the consoles.

As someone who started out a console gamer, I feel totally entitled to calling you a dick. Or at least a narrow sighted idiot.

That said, the games are very very different. Even if the shooting is more like CoD, the gameplay structure is very different. I know people who HATE one but totaly adore the other. It's not quite as ridiculous as Halo vs CoD comparisons, but the overlap of the audiences isn't as big as you might think.

I'd be curious to see the sales of MW3 on PC vs Battlefield. I hope Battlefield pounds CoD into the ground on at least one platform, but I dunno at this point.

@RsistncE said:

It won't be able to. I'd argue that generally consoles have a lower barrier to entry and therefore the masses who own and play games like Call of Duty are of the...slightly more stupid variety. Those individuals cannot deal with the apparent "complexity" posed to them by games that involve anything more than running around and pulling the right trigger. It doesn't matter though either way; the game will rake in plenty of dough for EA on the PC alone and since I'll be getting it on the PC I really could give less of a shit if it doesn't do better than MW3 on the consoles.

As someone who started out a console gamer, I feel totally entitled to calling you a dick. Or at least a narrow sighted idiot.

That said, the games are very very different. Even if the shooting is more like CoD, the gameplay structure is very different. I know people who HATE one but totaly adore the other. It's not quite as ridiculous as Halo vs CoD comparisons, but the overlap of the audiences isn't as big as you might think.

I'd be curious to see the sales of MW3 on PC vs Battlefield. I hope Battlefield pounds CoD into the ground on at least one platform, but I dunno at this point.

@RsistncE: No, it is analogous to those people being snobby for being rich, and as a result are more likely to insult people. You assumed they were older because they had the money to purchase a PC (which costs about $4-500, not much compared to a fully stocked 360 and a $50 a year subscription fee) and therefor more intelligent and therefore desired more complex games. There are plenty of people out there that only own a 360 and play games like Battlefield (most of which had done very well on consoles), or whatever "more advanced and mature" game you get into, but it doesn't change the fact that PC gamers aren't all that difference from console gamers. They play smaller less popular games more often? That's about it. Oh and realy really REALLY simple games like Quake and UT thrive on the PC and then go to die on consoles.

Become a fundamentally different game. Console players just aren't as into the methodical style of gameplay required to make BF play right.

@RsistncE: I can play Crysis at max settings (no AA) at my resolution just fine on my $500 PC. No, it won't run everything at 2560x1600 with FSAA at 60fps, but those games are MORE than playable. And games like TF2, Bad Company 2, L4D2 all run with AA and max settings over 80FPS most of the time for me. You don't need a kick ass rig to play games. People on consoles get away with graphics being sub HD, absolutely no AA, tiny draw distances, etc etc etc. I can run those games better at higher settings than a console. Your shitting yourself if you think a $500 computer isn't enough to game on.

It's not to say that, yeah, you have to be more knowledgeable about certain things to, for example, build your own PC. But I figured it out pretty much on my own when I was maybe 9 years old. It's pretty easy, everything pretty much only even looks like it fits in one place. Maybe picking out the components takes more knowledge, but it all knowledge. And having a job has nothing to do with the IQ of the person. I know idiots with $3000 PCs and I know geniuses that are looking at ivy league schools that don't own anything but a PS3 or 360 for gaming.

My point is that, yeah, there is some difference. But it's not massive. It's not like there aren't a shit ton of asshats who don't know what a fuckin Rhombus is playing Dragon Age on their $10,000 rig, nor is it like there was never an intelligent owner of a 360, or PS3. The audiences aren't identical. There is a higher barrier to entry. But most of that is just bullshit. It's not hard to get a decent PC on the cheap, it's stupid easy to find out what you should buy and how you should put it together. Knowing what goes where in a computer case isn't intelligence, it's knowledge. Yet ask half (hell, almost all...) of my PC gamer friends, and how many would know the difference between ipv4 vs 6, or how to do something as simple as force settings through your video card's drivers.

In fact, you could argue that the people who spend less time and money just to play games, because they have busy lives making a living, are more likely to be intelligent, or even educated, than the asshole sitting on an overpriced alienware piece of shit most of his day and working at McDonalds.

This is all coming from someone who greatly prefers gaming on a PC, and is planning on building a crazy awesome rig in the near future if he gets a chance, and has been building PCs since he was like 7 or 8, and would rather play a complex and 'unforgiving' game like Stalker: CoP than CoD.