[PC] Battlefield: Heroes

This game will be the first of EA's new "play4free" (see: Korean grindan gaem) financial model. It's set to launch in Summer 2008.

Reading the premiere article in Games For Windows, EA stated that the sales for recent super high end games like Crysis just weren't enough to keep pursuing that model of PC game development. Instead, they've decided to take a page out of Korea's book (or perhaps the whole book) and make a free to play game that'll run well on pretty much any computer out there. They also stressed that their art design was determined before TF2's was revealed, and that they were most definitely not just ripping off Valve.

Of course, they'll make their money off this game by offering cash-only items for players to buy, but they have also stated that these items will simply be convenience items and clothing items to customize your character. They won't be abilities or weapons that give players willing to shell out some money an unfair advantage over the penny-pinchers.

In the article they announced 3 classes: covert, soldier, and heavy. No real specifics yet, but you can probably imagine what they do pretty well anyway.

One of the more interesting features they announced was the metagame aspect, where there will be set periods of time that are a "campaign" and during these campaigns players will align themselves with one army or the other, then whichever army wins more territory gains an exp and money bonus .

The game's website was pretty dead since they were holding all their info for the GFW article, but now they finally have a trailer video up, along with some dev blogs. Have a look for yourself:

Battlefield Heroes » Play 4 Free, Cartoon Shooter — Coming Summer 2008

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I've never played any of the BF games before because they've always looked to be too ultra realistic, and getting shot once and dying has never been my idea of fun. After I read the article in GFW though, this definitely looks like a fun game to try, and I like how they're deviating from the hardcore BF model to make it a little more noob friendly for people like me who don't enjoy all of the ultra realistic FPS games that have come out in the past several years. Plus, it's coming out in the summer time which is usually a slow time for gaming, so hopefully it'll help me pass the time through the summer doldrums.

EDIT: Oh forgot to mention, that trailer is AWESOME

How ya doing, buddy?

Agreed. That trailer is awesome! Can't wait to pilot a plane with two guys on the wings!

Now, I'm not normally a fan of army games or just FPS in general. But this seems really interesting due to the cartoon style. Plus . . . It's free. That's always a decent incentive. It'll give me something to do during work.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Because as fun as things like Rainbow Six or Black are, sometimes you need a fix of something a touch more lighthearted; this looks like it could fit the bill.
It helps that the dev team is aiming for reasonable hardware requirements... 'casual game' and 'Crysis-level resource needs' don't go well together.
I should note, according to previews up at IGN and other places, that aside from purchasable items, funding will come from ads on the website and perhaps in loading screens, but never in the game itself.
Now, a bit of speculation on my part: could the medals (such as we're seeing on that artwork provided) be reflective of a player's ingame accomplishments, much like how you can see which achievements a particular Live-connected 360 player has earned?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the two controversial aspects they've announced for the game.

#1: No going prone anymore. You can still crouch, but even that doesn't give you an accuracy bonus.

#2: Third-person view only. Although they have said that they might add first-person view later if enough people complain about it.

How ya doing, buddy?

I have to admit, before seeing that trailer, I was really, really skeptical about this game. But after seeing this trailer, it looks really interesting. I wouldn't mind playing this game. I do hope they put in a First-Person-View mode though.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Totally going to give this a shot when it comes out. All I can hope is they actually deliver on what they're promising, and the gameplay mechanics themselves aren't totally out of whack.

The only thing I'm worried about is if it becomes too oriented at casual gamers I won't be able to get any good teamwork going, which is totally the most fun part of TF2/Battlefield/etc.

FELIPE NO

Well I think it's about time we had an update in this thread. Is there anyone else playing the Beta right now besides me, Star and Animechanic? I'm currently a level 9 National Gunner.

This game is pretty darn fun. It's very much like a casual BF2 with cartoony graphics. The clothing you can outfit your characters with are really nice, and yes, if you stick together you'll do much better than going solo. I'm having trouble deciding whether to buy a machine gun or a rocket launcher first.

Haha, one round had just me and one other against five Royals. Even though we were horribly outnumbered, we did pretty well, managing to get lots of kills and captures before our eventual defeat. I actually managed to complete three missions just in that round alone.

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man nobody cares about your poopy diaper games for fat dumb babies

*fires up Far Cry 2*

Jam it back in, in the dark.

it's been 6 month now that I sign up for the beta and I still haven't got any beta key... so i just gave up on this game...

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Yeah, I signed up for this when they first announced the open beta... Which I'm pretty sure was more than six months back.

Oh well. I'll probably just wait for 1943 to come out at this rate.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I just got my beta key this morning and installed the game to play it for about 30 minutes. The game seems pretty neat; hit detection is less buggy than in BF1942 or BF2 which is nice, but snipers are still really gay. I'm also not sure how I feel about your profile only being able to take one particular class since I'm someone that really likes to switch up between different classes depending on how battlefield conditions are. (In the beta you get four profiles, for each you select a side and a class, so you can do 4/6 options. Also, no deleting profiles yet.).

Not sure how I feel about unlockable weapons which you only get for X many days for what you put into them, since it penalizes people that play the game recreationally, but maybe you get so many Valor Points (the stuff used to buy weapons) while playing it doesn't matter much.

Tanks don't feel too massively overpowered, as it takes more than one direct hit from the cannon to kill you, but it's still a major pain to kill them when you're not in a tank yourself. I played as the assault class, and there's no rocket launcher by default, only sticky dynamite with a very short throw range (and it takes a few sticks to take them out, too).

Additional Spam:
Been playing the game a bit more.

Pretty much right now the sniper is moderately overpowered since they have abilities that let them get to crazy impossible to shoot places unless you're also a sniper. I bought the rocket launcher for my assault character, and he's now a heck of a lot more effective. He should really come with it instead of making it an unlock.

I still suck at flying airplanes. Is anyone out there actually good at it with a mouse and keyboard?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Only the Gunner class has rocket launchers and while they're not as strong as TNT they're pretty much a godsend since you can hit tanks and other things (send enemies flying) from really far away. Otherwise good luck trying to get close to a tank on foot if you're not a Commando.

Gunners are my class of choice, but I just started playing as a Commando and they're an interesting class to play as, but takes longer to learn how to play them effectively though.

A new map is apparently coming, one with a lighthouse (hmmm).

Sorry, but I never use planes because I just totally suck flying. I'll stick to tanks.

I was speaking idiomatically.

In case anyone wanted to try this and never got into the beta, it has finally been officially released.

The permanent clothes are a little more expensive than I'd hoped they'd be. $4 per item? Guess I'm only decking out one character.

How ya doing, buddy?

Have they released any more maps/weapons? I haven't played for a few weeks now because what was available started to feel really tired, and I got sick of every map being a sniperfest.

FELIPE NO

I haven't played in a while, but there's a fourth map now. Not sure when they added that. Maybe it came with what was apparently a big patch a couple weeks ago. Gunner machine guns are supposed to do more damage at all ranges. Can't find the specifics, though.

As for being a sniperfest, most commandos are terrible anyways and it never seemed like too much of a problem.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well this is a late reply, but the new map, Coastal Clash, came out on 06/03. It's an infantry map like Victory Village.

They made several tweaks and updates in the past several weeks. Soldiers can no longer do 1 hit kills with Grenade Spam. Gunners' MG DMG range has been increased. Lots of bugs have been fixed. They added Punkbuster to deal with hackers. They tweaked the planes too with an increased MG range and the chance of dealing critical DMG to infantry units. Haven't heard of any updates to Commandos, but a way to counter-act their sniping is for Soldiers to use their Mark Target skill to flush them out. Sadly, they are still the most popular class though, followed by Soldiers and lastly Gunners. Oh, and I hear the Gunners' explosive keg skill works as it should now. I haven't used it myself yet so I can't comment.

No new weapons though.

Unfortunately, I dunno anyone else who plays the game besides Star (sorta, since he hasn't played it much himself either). I seem to be one of the few people who seem to it. I love BF2 and I think BFH is quite fun for a free game. I also like how it's so fast to load and play as opposed to BF2 in which loading times were a pain in the butt.

My hero name is Bitzer if anyone wants to add me in their Friends list. Since the game is now in open BETA, I suppose it's fine now to talk about it outside the official forums. Here's my sig:



I agree that permanent clothing is indeed a bit expensive. I think they should lower the prices for the smaller accessories and the emotes. Luckily I am only maining one hero so I won't need to spend so much as opposed to decking out 4 characters (or more if you buy addtl slots).

Update!: I got an email overnight with 2 redemption codes for a Beta Tester medal! It looks snazzy.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Royals, eh

Heroname Alphonse_Glee has a knife with your name on it.

(Shameless National Commando #4923020)

There's nowhere I can't reach.