EA Mentions New Battlefront Game

[Grev]

Meh. We all knew Battlefront would be revived.

I thought everyone knew the franchise was dead and there was no hope.

[Teancum]

Meh. We all knew Battlefront would be revived.

I thought everyone knew the franchise was dead and there was no hope.

The highest selling Star Wars titles of all time + EA? How can there be a question. EA may be a lot of things, but they can smell money from miles away.

[Jendo7]

Not too surprised really as Dice has already hinted about it on Twitter... Battlefront III on Frostbite 3 is definitely a nice prospect, I just hope they're able to add the ground to space feature that the Free Radical game had.

[giftheck]

Not too surprised really as Dice has already hinted about it on Twitter... Battlefront III on Frostbite 3 is definitely a nice prospect, I just hope they're able to add the ground to space feature that the Free Radical game had.

If BF2 modders can do it with an outdated engine and outdated tools, it should be childsplay for professional developers with the latest in game engines and tools.

[Fusion]

While it's certainly possible to make the space to ground transition work, the problem is keeping it balanced for both battlefields. If any of you played Geonosis XL back in the day, you know how overpowered the bomber and even the regular fighter were against ground infantry (I went 1000/0 multiple times). If they want to keep it like classic Battlefront, they will need to do the cutscene method to transition between two different maps, because even one stray starfighter missile could mean the death of 4 or more players on the ground.

While that sounds cool from the space perspective, it would be incredibly annoying for the ground players.

[noMatt]

hmm but they can make it impossible to use flyer cannons near the ground

[Eggman]

And that would be really annoying as a pilot. What if I want to have a death-defying dogfight with an enemy while we weave around the terrain? Or see a big, juicy, AT-AT and want to blow it to pieces?

Not to stray too far off-topic, but I have mixed feelings on the whole ground-to-space idea. Sure, it could be cool and make for massive battles, but I'd rather keep ground maps and space maps separate in most cases, because I feel like that would result in better balance and more focused action. Maybe have a few specific maps that allow for the transition, but also have plenty of dedicated ground and dedicated space maps.

Also, the movie purist in me would get cranky if TIE Fighters in the Battle of Endor could go down and strafe soldiers on the ground, because that didn't happen in the movie.

[giftheck]

While it's certainly possible to make the space to ground transition work, the problem is keeping it balanced for both battlefields. If any of you played Geonosis XL back in the day, you know how overpowered the bomber and even the regular fighter were against ground infantry (I went 1000/0 multiple times). If they want to keep it like classic Battlefront, they will need to do the cutscene method to transition between two different maps, because even one stray starfighter missile could mean the death of 4 or more players on the ground.

While that sounds cool from the space perspective, it would be incredibly annoying for the ground players.

The trouble with this is that Elite Squadron already tried that and separating the sections seemed somewhat pointless because neither one of the sections would actively affect the other. Granted, that could be down to the way Elite Squadron added it in. But even so, with the cutscene mechanic it would still be possible for a player to hop in a starfighter in space or on the ground, and blast the ground units to pieces. If I'm not mistaken Battlefront had the option to make projectiles 'expire' after a certain distance. It could also be doable to make them expire upon a certain height, like the atmosphere (whereby the transition would mean you wouldn't be able to fire a fighter's weapons anyway). There are ways and means around this.

Personally, though, I don't really care for the space-to-ground mechanic. It's fine as an idea but it doesn't really apply that well to SWBF as it forces the ground battle to be in Assault Mode as well, with points as opposed to reinforcements.

[Fiodis]

Fighters are always OP against ground troops, even in the literature. Ground-to-space isn't a must for me, but I really do hope they do something incredible with boarding in space battles. That's where the ground/space combat would mix best imo.

It'd also be cool to somehow control a capital ship.

[Cleb]

Personally, though, I don't really care for the space-to-ground mechanic. It's fine as an idea but it doesn't really apply that well to SWBF as it forces the ground battle to be in Assault Mode as well, with points as opposed to reinforcements.

Well, I'm sure these days they can do both somehow.

It'd also be cool to somehow control a capital ship.

Yeah I really hope you can control ships with interiors, that would be really cool.

Also for fixing imbalance they could also make ship weapons do less to ground troops.

[Fiodis]

Also for fixing imbalance they could also make ship weapons do less to ground troops.

That would make no sense though, it'd be like getting shot by a tank and living.

[Cleb]

Also for fixing imbalance they could also make ship weapons do less to ground troops.

That would make no sense though, it'd be like getting shot by a tank and living.

Well, neither does hovering in an aat, either, or most other star wars things.

[kinetosimpetus]

Hovercraft make sense in Star Wars because it's a sci fi universe, the technology they have allows it. It would, however, make no sense for a cannon to be built for a starfighter for use on other starfighters that wouldn't be capable of melting a hole through the much lighter armor of an infantryman just to be "fair" to the soldier since the cannon isn't intended for anti-ground use, except, who can say it isn't intended for ground use? What use would air superiority be if you couldn't pummel the enemy ground units into dust after winning it in the air?

IMO, they shouldn't try to balance the air(/space) units to be fair to ground units, they just shouldn't include maps where air and ground are both important battlegrounds for players to be fighting on. If there is a ground strike type mission, make it AI only on the ground. "Space to Ground" is a gimmick that might be cool in a campaign, but I don't see the need for it in multiplayer.

[Marth8880]

Lol exactly that^. Plus, really all the ground troops would need either way is just some fancy AA guns like what Bespin: Platforms has. MAN the A.I. are good with those lol.

[CommanderCody]

I would like to see ground to space, but just on the bigger maps like Coruscant where it makes sense. it was really funny in Elite Squadron.
But this was the past, maybe Dice has some new ideas for a Swbf III like three factions fights or a Death Trooper zombie mode (this book was awesome ). I will wait for the future and maybe at the E3 we will get some hints.

[Teancum]

I couldn't care less at this point if it were released on PC. I grew tired of constantly upgrading my rig long ago, and given DICE's Frostbite 3 tech I'd have to buy a whole new PC to play (and possibly mod) on it. Besides, there aren't any tools for Battlefield 3 as DICE told reporters that the tools would be too hard to learn. So PC mods are unlikely. I just want it to come out on 360, and frankly at this point that's all -- DICE has a great reputation and though I'm not a Battlefield guy I'm sure they'll handle Battlefront well.

...IF they're actually developing it.

[Noobasaurus]

I don't know if any of you have seen this yet, but I found some more alpha footage of the Free Radical SWBF3. I certainly haven't seen all of this footage until today. So I thought this was relevant to the topic.

http://vimeo.com/65491177

I don't really want to bump one of those old SWBF3 topics, so I'm posting it here.

[AceMastermind]

That Vimeo video is the source of the Youtube video that Fusion posted about here some time ago.

[Noobasaurus]

I had a feeling someone posted it here.