Battlefield 3 premium fact sheet leaks......anger should ensue...

While Battlefield 3 nuts will likely see the value in EA's upcoming Battlefield Premium service, those who don't want to fork out £40 for it are likely to have issues with some of the content.

As previously reported, the Call of Duty: Elite-style service will offer early access to all Battlefield 3 DLC expansions - including a fifth, as-yet-unannounced one called Aftermath - and a range of other downloadable goodies.

But according to a leaked fact sheet (Courtesy of NeoGAF), it'll also offer access to a number of "powerful new features" that'll leave a bad taste in some players' mouths. These include "the unique chance to reset your Score/Minute, Kills/Deaths, and Wins/Losses stats", as well as "queue priority into servers", meaning subscribers will jump into games more quickly than the non-paying proles.

Here I go.....

You can't have the type of support and attention that EA have put into this product without a cost...

We get a game that has the best multiplayer experience of any console game... It has innovations which no other publisher has attempted (on console)

The attention to detail and the scope of the fixes/refinements they have attempted is unprecedented... We may find in the coming years that this is a golden era and products will not be able to aspire to this level again.

i take it for that price you get all the maps for free and early, in other words its battlefields 3 answer to elite

I think you get 4 packs for the price of 3 by paying in advance

The sad thing about this all is that now every publisher will look at this as an excellent way to get additional revenue and want some sort of premium/elite subscription service to priority DLC etc for their games. Want exclusive Assasins creed content and priority? Join UBisoft Elite pricing plan!

How long until you need to be a member of one of these to access multiplayer?

When Microsoft and (to a lesser extent) Sony allowed this sort of player money gouging on their systems it opened a whole can of worms which could put the whole idea of LIVE in danger.

Why spend £40 on a game £40 on a Gold sub, the the same again on an Elite pass? All of a sudden it costs more to play one game then a whole console used to cost.

Its a pricing model that works for all of us.....

If you have a game that only makes money at release it generally has crap multiplayer.... and no incentive to fix bugs.

It deals with 2nd hand game sales too.... (publishers will leave this market alone)

There was never much profit in selling the kit.... its always been about the games.

Really what is happening here is you buy the game for single player experience and to keep retailers in business.... then there's the multiplayer and EA/Microsoft get their cut.

There is however an argument to say Microsoft should scrap the live sub or give you more for it.... (free premium movie membership)

LOL

The single player on BF3 was not worth anywhere near £35-£40.....

I'm sorry but this is gouging pure and simple

In the case of BF3 you can continue to play multiplayer without paying for any DLC....

But you will be missing out on new stuff..... but you still get all the tweeks & fixes.

So don't you think you have had your moneys worth after 93 hours?

tweaks and fixes for a game that should not require them so thats an invalid argument really. dlc gives ongoing income and these paid for servers are giving them income (i did read that the number of ea/dice servers has decreased since this move).

N1NJA FWG wrote:The single player on BF3 was not worth anywhere near £35-£40.....

I'm sorry but this is gouging pure and simple

This

Andy wrote:tweaks and fixes for a game that should not require them so thats an invalid argument really. dlc gives ongoing income and these paid for servers are giving them income (i did read that the number of ea/dice servers has decreased since this move).

All games require fixes.... They have gone way beyond this. And far too many games never get fixed because there is no financial incentive as they want to sell you next years game....

BF3 is not going to be replaced for at least 18 months....

There aren't enough servers to make EA much money I guess there are less than 10,000.... But I agree it's cheeky but it's properly hosted....(not peer to peer)

Do you prefer the COD model?

Good potential games which never reached their potential due to lack of incentive.... SHIFT2, F1 2010, Dragon Rising etc....

So you are in favor of dlc, but not committing to it in advance?

Duke wrote:The sad thing about this all is that now every publisher will look at this as an excellent way to get additional revenue and want some sort of premium/elite subscription service to priority DLC etc for their games. Want exclusive Assasins creed content and priority? Join UBisoft Elite pricing plan!

.

theres already uplay for ubisoft it awards free stuff and doenst cost anything

technically a `broken` game could be returned to the shop as its not fit for purpose so if they dont get fixed then potentially this could lead to mass loss for the studio. we also need to remember that these companies are making masses of cash from the start.

i have experienced similar lag on battlefield in the past to what i have on cod so am not seeing much difference there although i do appreciate there is more going on in a battlefield game.

re dlc, if priced correctly it does extend the life of a game, gearbox demonstrated this well by pricing borderlands add ons at 800 msp but gave many many hours of extended play. i did pay for the gears 3 season pass in advance and although i left the xbox before i got all the packs i still feel that i got my moneys worth from the first 2.

oh and surely the other point about ongoing support is that it then leads to more sales for the next in the inevitable series - the games you mentioned are relatively dead in the water now.

Andy has covered most of my points. I bought the GOW3 season pass and while I don't feel I have used the content enough to get my monies worth I do feel it was worth the expenditure as it expanded all aspects of the game - single, co-op and multiplayer and its release schedule was good.

BF3 on the other hand, as good as it is still has major flaws that havent been addressed - the sound loss issue alone is extremely irritating and should not occur in the first place let alone wait 7 months into a games release to be fixed in a title update. While I accept its a complex game with a lot to address but its little things like this that irk and make me feel like I have participated it not much more than a 7 month public beta to now be asked to pay full retail again on top for DLC. Most of what is in that list is of complete irrelevance to me as I could not give 2 hoots about some extra camo's and dogtags (I dont use all the ones at my disposal now so why do I need more?), I have no interest in resetting my stats, the special events do not interest me either (do you know anyone who has won anything through MW Elite??) and the priority queuing option for servers is utter bullshit so for me that just leaves the maps. New weapons would be interesting but then I still havent tried all the ones in the game atm so again am indifferent about that.

Add to that that for 5 map pack price I get 4 map packs as I have B2K, where's the equity in that? I preordered the game and was among the early adopters so got B2K free - thats great and was a nice touch. But now, I am effectively paying for it as there is no discount for B2K owners....

I might pick up the odd map pack if I hear good things about them but I won't prepay for content that I am unsure of the quality of. Its one thing preordering and paying for a retail game as that could at least be passed on and some of the cost recouped but to pay full retail for DLC is a step too far and if Activision royally fucked up Elite even after beta testing it on Black Ops then I have no doubt EA will not get this launched smoothly and without issue.

If you choose to get this, then good on you and I genuinely hope that all the content is enough to enhance this very good game.

The season pass idea is fundamentally a sound one IF you know you are going to plough enough time into a game or are happy to take a gamble that you will enjoy the content regardless. From a dev point of view season passes are great as they are ensuring your loyalty to their game via a prepaid commitment but there needs to be suitable incentive for both parties and in this instance, for me, there just isn't

My view on DLC (not just this but all of it).

I've been on 'Live' since early '07 and in all that time and of all the games i've bought the only DLC i've bought is the 'Red' and 'Black' map packs for R6:V and the maps for CoD4.

The reason i hav'nt bought any since is for the simple fact that not everybody on my FL has them. When i bought the DLC for those 2 games i was just a 'lone wolf' so to speak. Had a couple of friends on my FL that i gamed with and we bought the same packs. They then buggered off to PS3 and i ended up joining C4G. Now not everyone had the CoD4 map pack so the new maps never got played (even now there are some who never picked them up) and got forgotten.

What i'd like to see is games being split in 2. Sell the SP for 25-30 quid and the MP for 35-40. I can understand this might not go down well but think about all the games you have played online. How many have had a good SP? For me there have only been 6 (GRAW2,CoD4,the Gears series and,although i've not finished it,GRFS).

Now some of you will have a longer list than that,but look at all your games which have an online MP and count how many were good (both SP & MP) and i bet only a small percentage were good on both counts.

Sorry went off on one there,back to DLC. If everyone bought it i would to,but i aint buying shit that wont get played.

Agreed you need your friends to buy the DLC too otherwise its worthless.

I understand all the DLC will be a week early for premium members but that's in addition to the week earlier for PS3, so PS3 + premium gets it 2 weeks early! (Bstards!)

Premium gets you all four upcoming packs... Close Quarters, Armored Kill, Aftermath & End Game (expected to be £10-£12 each)

So premium at 4000 points looks good value particularly if you use the code below to get 4200 for £24.49

code is - JubileeOffer

at

http://emea.microsoftstore.com/UK/en-GB/Search?tduid=e331071e6ad5ae893415b6128a03b043#!query=xbox points

BE WARNED I understand it can take a week to turn up....

considering leaving the console market if this becomes the next bog thing!