Battlefield Heroes

Battlefield Heroes
Battlefield Heroes logo
Developer(s)	EA Digital Illusions CE
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Series	Battlefield
Engine	Refractor 2 Engine (Engine used to power Battlefield 2142
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	April 2009
Genre(s)	Action,Shooter
Mode(s)	Online Multiplayer

Battlefield Heroes features classic Battlefield-gameplay with a variety of classes and vehicles.

Battlefield Heroes is a cartoon-style action game currently under development by EA Digital Illusions CE.

The game features context-specific third- and first-person shooter perspectives. Heroes will be the first Battlefield game to be released under Electronic Arts' new "Play 4 Free" model, which will see the game released for free with revenue generated from advertising and micropayments. Advertisements will appear on the website and the 'front-end' of the game although none will appear in-game, while micropayments may be made for additional items to customize the appearance of players' avatars without any gaming advantage. The game is said to be placing less emphasis on skill and strategy, and will be less demanding on computer specifications than the previous games of the series to increase the audience base. In addition, a system will be in place to match players of similar skill levels together for fair play.

Gameplay

Battlefield Heroes features a modified conquest mode providing each team 50 tickets and two flags at the start of the round. Killing enemies will reduce tickets and holding more flags than the opposing army will grant a multiplier. It is possible to win by owning more flags than the enemy and by killing fewer of them. Matchmaking will also be a feature to keep players of the same level together. Players of each level will play with other players within a couple levels of their own. Developers of the game have talked about levels going as high as 40 or 50. The two armies are called the National Army (possessing a red base color flag) and the Royal Army (possessing a blue base color flag). The game is third-person only at this point, but senior producer Ben Cousins has stated if first-person is really wanted, it may be added in at a later date. Spawn times are five seconds (compared to previous Battlefield games' 15), allowing for less waiting and more action. Players do not pick spawn points since the game has an "Intelligent Spawn System" putting players closest to the nearest battle. Two maps will be available on release, but a third map is in development.

The point system in Battlefield Heroes is being called the Metagame (non official name), which allows characters to fight for a territorial position during each match. The land gained is then recorded as a win for each army, and at the end of the week everything is added up and both armies are given money based on percentage and land conquered. Players can choose whether or not to participate in the Metagame.

Like previous Battlefield games Battlefield Heroes also has a class system, but has been reduced to three basic classes: the Soldier, Gunner, and Commando.

Armies

There are to be two armies, the National Army and the Royal Army. The National Army resembles a World War 2 German style faction, while the Royal army is a British/American faction. The two factions are fighting over the outcome of the Olympics cycling event. There is a possibility of new armies being introduced later into the release, based on what the community wants.

Characters

Each account would have four character slots, in order for players to play characters in different classes and factions. No female models have been added yet.

Commando

The Commando class is the "quick" class, specializing in stealth tactics as well as back-stabs and sniping. The known weapons of the Commando are a sniper rifle, knife and a pistol. Although the sniper rifle does high damage, it cannot one-hit kill an enemy. The Commando is a spy type character and has low health compared to the other classes. Special abilities of this class are laying traps and cloaking.

Soldier

The Soldier is an all around class—equally balancing speed and armament. Currently the known weapons that the Soldier carries are the Submachine Gun and a Shotgun. Some abilities the Soldier can possess are incendiary rounds, a "health boost" (this heals allies around you), and throwing multiple grenades. The soldier is able to determine enemy locations via a special ability called "Sixth-Sense". This ability outlines nearby opponents even if the enemy is behind a wall.

Gunner

The Gunner moves the slowest of all units, but has the heaviest weapons. The gunner class can use an Anti-tank weapon, a heavy Machine gun and maybe even a Flamethrower. One special ability is picking up grenades and throwing them back.

Abilities

A screenshot showing early gameplay shown in the official trailer.

File:BF-Heroes-scr3.jpg

A screenshot showing the Metagame shown in the official trailer.

Abilities are special powers that each player gets when they level up. Known abilities at this time are Grenade Spam ability (allows 15 grenades to be thrown at a time), I Eat Grenades ability (absorb grenades and heal the player), Blasting Strike ability (Flings any nearby tanks, jeeps and infantry into the air), Life-Points Boost, and Incendiary Ammo.

Healing is by a 'blast heal', a soldier ability that heals the player and any friendlies nearby. Players also have a bandage which restores less health and only works for your own character. There is no medic class for this reason.

Achievement System

Achievements work by a mission system allowing players to choose an uncompleted badge, unlocking it by successfully completing a mission. The player's level increases as the game is played, as well as by completing missions. The more points allow players to buy better clothing items and different weapons.

Items

Visual items allows customization of 12 different aspects of your character: Head, face, facial hair, helmet, jacket, boot, neck, chest, hand, waist, legs, and feet. Additional items available for purchase are eye patches, badges, hats, boots, helmets, goggles, belts, and gloves. More types of items may be added in the future, especially if the player community wants them.

Balance

There is not much information in regards to additional weapons. However, there have been mentions of the sticky bomb. The intent of this weapon is to be effective against tanks so that there is a balance between the armored vehicles and infantry. The sticky bomb will allow you to blow up tanks easily, and is available to every class. Aeroplanes are also highly damaged by bullets. The ability of foot soldiers to take on more powerful vehicles will hopefully provide a balance not found in other shooters.

Vehicles

The game is set to start with three types of vehicle per side: Jeeps, tanks and planes. DICE has explained that they will add more vehicles according to user demand. The current vehicles are based loosely on real-life ones, and include the classic American WWII styled tank (M4 Sherman), an American Jeep, a German Panzer division styled tank (Panzer IV Ausf. D), a German Kübelwagen, a British WWII styled aeroplane (Supermarine Spitfire), and a German WWII styled aeroplane (Bf-109/FW 190) for dogfighting. Players can also climb onto the wings of planes and fire their weapons from there. This was brought in to limit the immense power that aircraft would deal to the ground vehicles and infantry.

Customization

The developers have allowed users the ability to change their avatars looks and features as well as abilities for in-game play. When a user creates his hero for the first time, he/she will be able to select a hero's name, faction, class, skincolor, hair, and facial hair. The game also gives you clothing options on 10 different areas, Face, head, neck, accessory, body, chest, hands, waist, legs and finally feet, to make your hero a one-of-a-kind on the battlefield, the clothing options will also be affected by the class you pick, the soldier class for example has waist long jackets, semi long trousers and light helmets, the commando class has rolled up sleeves/short-sleeved jackets, long slim trousers and berets, and the gunner class which has long bulky jackets, long bulky trousers and heavy helmets.

History

Closed beta

On May 6, 2008 the first phase of the game release was an invitation only closed beta and the invitations were given to professional beta testers only. More information about the open beta and signing up will be released in the coming weeks prior to the closed beta's release. Following the selection of beta testers, an immense rush of eager readers caused the site to crash for a short time. Once the website was placed back up it was revealed that third-party professional testers would be testing the game, and several open beta phases would begin in the near future. The purpose of these beta phases is to test server capacity as players download the game and whether the servers provided can handle the intense use. The current closed beta players are under a non disclosure agreement, disallowing them from releasing information about the beta. On August 29, 2008, hundreds of beta keys were given out at the EA booth at the Penny Arcade Expo on small cards to anyone in attendance. The closed beta ended on November 14, 2008.

In an email sent to members of the Battlefield Heroes forum on January 30, 2009, the Battlefield Heroes Team indicated that "[Their] aim is to bring the beta back up some time this February.".

Beta key

DICE stated in a post, that they would be handing out extra closed-beta keys for the first 20 comments on their new posts. This was posted on the official Battlefield Heroes website on July 31, 2008. It was revealed that the first of these posts would be made on August 4, 2008. This caused so many users to be on the Battlefield Heroes website at the same time waiting for a beta key, that it caused the Battlefield Heroes server to crash, delaying the release of the keys until maintenance could be completed.

Two days later on the August 6, the method was changed so that users had to solve a riddle to win a beta key (although the first 20 comments were still awarded beta keys on this occasion, since it was not made clear that the format had changed). On the August 9, the second beta-key riddle was released (being harder, this riddle was available for a longer 5 minutes). Users were told that the riddle would be released at 7 pm, however, there was a degree of confusion over which time-zone was meant (being based in Sweden, DICE used the GMT +1 hour time zone, which was clarified later with the third riddle).

On August 27, 2008, DICE released another set of keys, this time 400 were given out. Another 200 were released on September 11, 2008; these were used up in 22 minutes.

Delayed

On July 29, 2008, it was announced that Battlefield Heroes will be delayed until sometime 2009 in the first 3 months of the year EA CEO John Riccitiello stated that they are going "to increase its focus on some of the social networking features".

Closed beta Part 2

In January 2009, the Battlefield Heroes Beta Key Signup page was opened with another set of Battlefield: Heroes keys on a "first come, first served" basis. The closed beta has already started, and users may stand in queue for a beta key. On February the 6th; it was announced that the Battlefield Heroes Closed Beta Sign-Up had reached over 100,000 in participants.

On February 10, 2009, it was announced that the closed beta would be re-opened on the 11th of February, 2009. Many fans incorrectly assumed that thousands of beta keys would be handed out on that day, however, only testers from the first phase of the first phase were able to access the beta on that day.

On February 16th, 2009, 2000 beta keys were given out to some of the fans who had signed up for the previous stage on QABoss, and an addition 2000 the next day. DICE will announce when all of the testers from QABoss have keys, so they can start giving out keys to new testers.

External links

• Official Battlefield Heroes website