The Frostbite engine.

[Genma]

Well as many of you know, Battlefield Bad Company was a "success" in consoles with a very impressive (or at least increadibly) fun destruction system, their motto is basically "make your own door on the wall with a grenade" and if anyone had the chance to try it, it brings a total new level of joyness to the use of explosives in a multiplayer game.

So Bad Company 2 is getting close, and while it still may be just a "port" it is coming to PC.

Some basic features I've been seeing is:

• More focus on infantry combat, vehicles are still important though but they plan to fix what is wrong with soldier vs soldier battles.
• Destruction everywhere!! You can literally level a complete building into rubble... *drool* artillery...
• Vehicle unlocks, extra armor and other kind of power ups to armor players, could think of a few uses for WWII tanks with this (like different armor values, main weapon damage, etc)
• Full costumization kits, you can select both primary and secondary weapons, gadgets, etc. This mean we could have more kit options.

etc...


Also, there is BF1943 that is just a small example of what can be done regarding WWII and the frostbite engine, personally I didn't enjoyed that much but only because it feel too "arcadey" and more of a quick pick up game.

And obviously there's still the constant anticipation to see the true Battlefield sequel, Battlefield 3.
So, what do you think? Should the FH team try to deliver some real WWII experience using the frostbite engine or is it just a waste of time?

[[130.Pz]I.Kluge]

..just a waste of time..

At this stage is to early to decide what engine the devs would move on to or(When it rains puppies in hell) switch. That is to say "Is there going to be a FH3?" I don't know.(Doubtful)

[Torenico]

Its a waste of time yeah.

Lets stick whit Refractor 2

[flyboy_fx]

Hard not to it sticks with us 

[Natty]

Should the FH team try to deliver some real WWII experience using the frostbite engine or is it just a waste of time?

Hi Genma

Just to correct you alittle, BC2 is focusing a lot on vehicles, the infantry gameplay is ofcourse there with heavy teamplay focus but the game's most prominent feature is the awesome vehicles. Designer Demize99 who has a history in mods like Point of Existence (very vehicle heavy mod for BFV and BF2) has really done a good job on the vehicles in this game.

Frostbite is too complicated to be described as "an engine", it is alot more to it than that. First of all there probably wont be any editors, exporters or mod tools available for the public, which immediately kills off any dreams about modding it. Second of all, there is no game out yet (on PC) and if you make a mod, you must base it off of a game, be it BC2 or Bf1943 or future titles, we still need an actual game to mod. None of them are planned to support any kinds of modding tools.
the reason why there cant be an editor is as you know the games are being produced for PS3, XBOX360 and the PC. EA/DICE would have to create a totally new editor, with only PC technology, as they ofcourse cant release Sony or Microsoft technology for free.

Now even if some magic happened and they decided to build a pc-only editor and support it (like the old bfeditor.org) we'd run in to the fact that it would take our team a few years to create a couple of maps, characters, vehicles, weapons and other assets. At the moment we rather continue with what we think is the best WW2 game ever made (fh2) and to be it simple: destroyable environment never was a part of core FH gameplay, if we would just take our existing mod and apply destruction to it, it might play very badly. Maybe our map designs and 1shot1kill system sucks in frostbite? maybe we would simply have to scrap FH and design a new mod from scratch. (bf1943 for example, is not bf42 with destroyable assets as some might think, it is a game designed from scratch, just reusing some terrainshapes from older maps).

so: it is more complicated, as a reference you can compare FH for bf42 and FH for BF2. Pretty different right? plays differently alltogether. The step to frostbite might change the game even more. Now we succeeded in 2.2 after having worked with the engine 3 years,(well I think 2.0 and 2.15 was awesome as well, but 2.2 took the mod up a notch) I would estimate it would take at least that or more to get a good Mod running on frostbite. So if we started 2011 maybe we have a mod ready 2015 if we had an editor. This is not on anyones agenda, (any dev who actually likes this prospect please speak up) and we rather make our own plans about the future. (speaking for myself here, but Im sure most devs agree with me)

Hope that makes sense.

-cheers!-

[Tedacious]

Also destructible enviroments is EXTREMELY OVERRATED.
BC sucked, worst BF game to date, without a doubt.

[DLFReporter]

And as has been stated before, due to licence problems with Sony and MS, there will most likely be no Editor Support.

[FatJoe]

and as a side reason on why not to move to frostbite even if we could, is that BC2's Multiplayer player number limit is 24 AKA 12 vs 12. I'd rather eat my own foot than have FH in such low player numbers!

So yeah.. Not going to happen.

[Paavopesusieni]

Also destructible enviroments is EXTREMELY OVERRATED.
BC sucked, worst BF game to date, without a doubt.

Destruction is AWESOME its so hooking and creates lots of new tactics.
Seems you have never played BC as it surely isn't one of the worst BF:s. Yeah it sucks as a battlefield(name should be changed) if you want bf its not the game to go for, but if you just want a very good game its the one to get.

[Archimonday]

and as a side reason on why not to move to frostbite even if we could, is that BC2's Multiplayer player number limit is 24 AKA 12 vs 12. I'd rather eat my own foot than have FH in such low player numbers!

So yeah.. Not going to happen.

You don't know this for a fact, and even DICE themselves have said that the PC community expects a higher quality product and that they will deliver.

[DLFReporter]

You don't know this for a fact, and even DICE themselves have said that the PC community expects a higher quality product and that they will deliver.

Oh Archi, I wish I could have that optimism as well.
After all these disappointing releases perhaps this time they will hold their promises, which they have always made prior to releases...

[Tedacious]

Also destructible enviroments is EXTREMELY OVERRATED.
BC sucked, worst BF game to date, without a doubt.

Destruction is AWESOME its so hooking and creates lots of new tactics.
Seems you have never played BC as it surely isn't one of the worst BF:s. Yeah it sucks as a battlefield(name should be changed) if you want bf its not the game to go for, but if you just want a very good game its the one to get.

Yes I have played it. I have played through the whole game.
I believe it sucked big time. Destructible enviroments is fun for the first 10 minutes.

it's so obvious that BC is just a way for EA/DICE to show off what they can do, the all-around gameplay sucks. (It was ruined for me when a tank hit me with its maingun, direct hit. and I only last 50% health)

[von.small]

I thought BC was a very nice spray and play game for thumb jockeys, with the power of next gen consoles behind the game and a sweet ass HD tv this game is a real "get your mates round and pound some noobs" literally, pound those f***ers like they never knew what a beating was until they met you and your beered up buddies.  And that's where my like for this game ends.

A PC port will suffer from the myriad of different PC set-ups out there - and that's just to start with, graphics will be shockingly shit, I will assume (yes, yes an ass out of U and me) that they will be no better than Mercenaries II which also boasted destructible environment but realistically could only provide 30% destruction compared to world size....  12 v 12 battles, suck balls, imo the PC gamer is something different to the console gamer, the PC gamer is far more inclined to sit near the edge of the map or a convenient hard to reach spot and spawn rape, far more inclined to just blow everything up to start with and then like a terminator go from flag to flag wreaking havoc.  I know someone will come along and say "well in my opinion you are wrong, console gamers are more prone to spawn camping" well, it's just that a matter of opinion.  I have played everything, from the zx spectrum to the Ps3, I've seen a lot of tards in my time.

[Safe-Keeper]

Also destructible enviroments is EXTREMELY OVERRATED.

Wow, never saw that one coming in a million years.

My all-time favourite video game is X-Com UFO Defence, a strategy game from the 80's or 90's that had a fully destructible environment (with 'fully' I mean 'fully', not the rudimentary 'we say fully, but we mean you can only blow up trees and buildings and put some generic crates in the ground and whatnot' things we see in 3D games today). Everything, including whole hills, could be destroyed. Only problem was that the engine couldn't update things as they were partially destroyed, so you could, say, blow off the base of a lamp post and the rest of it would just hover in midair. But the experience of fighting out a massive squad- or platoon-level shootout in a city and see it get reduced to fire, ruins and smoke around you as you fought... just awesome, and probably one of the #1 reasons people still play and love UFO.

I'm glad to see 3D games are finally catching up - trust me, while the fairly limited and rudimentary (compared to X-Com UFO D) destruction physics in, say, Crysis or World in Conflict may be overrated to you, I expect huge things in this field. When we have a 3D game like Battlefield with a fully destructible terrain, like in X-Com UFO Defence, I'll swoon with happiness as I kill snipers by blowing up the ground floor of the houses in which they hide, sending the entire structure crashing down with them inside  .

[Paavopesusieni]

Yes I have played it. I have played through the whole game.
I believe it sucked big time. Destructible enviroments is fun for the first 10 minutes.

it's so obvious that BC is just a way for EA/DICE to show off what they can do, the all-around gameplay sucks. (It was ruined for me when a tank hit me with its maingun, direct hit. and I only last 50% health)

If you start talking about SP, you cant deny that BF:BC SP is 100 times better than BF2.

In MP you do die from one tank shot. You should try MP.