first person shooter
Battlefield 2 Patch with New Maps On the Way
Posted by Owen Good at 4:00 AM on June 23, 2008
netGameRadio's Inside Battlefield show spoke to
John Hargelid of Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment (the developer behind Battlefield 2), and he dropped word that a new Battlefield 2 patch is coming, and it will include a new map pack with the update. An official announcement is set for Monday.
It's a lengthy podcast. The comment It's at timestamp 37:22 if you want to hear it for yourself. netGameRadio is suspender-popping proud at all the attention this has earned, but all that attention has put a whammy on its servers.
The entire podcast can be retrieved from TotalGamingNetwork, too.
The Inside Battlefield Show [netGameRadio via TotalGamingNetwork

Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Gofthick
Posted 4:41 AM 23/6/08
I love BF2 and all, but why?
Gofthick
Covert_Knight
Posted 4:29 AM 23/6/08
@francoamerica:
You clearly don't play this game now do you? Several thousand servers with plenty of players in each, not to mention the other few hundred or so dedicated to mods, more people play this than cod4 squared.
Covert_Knight
crice
Posted 4:28 AM 23/6/08
I still play it. It's still awesome!
crice
Spl1nter
Posted 4:25 AM 23/6/08
@NobleArc, The Lazy Canadian:
Well there are a lot of maps to play not only wake island.
Spl1nter
Winterbringer
Posted 4:24 AM 23/6/08
@francoamerica: CoD4 actually "borrows" a lot from this game.
Winterbringer
Clarke
Posted 4:24 AM 23/6/08
I was just thinking of BF2 also. I'm gonna buy it for my friend on monday.
Clarke
hamandcheeseUK
Posted 4:17 AM 23/6/08
Oh sweet, Battlefield 2 is awesome. Nice to see support for a game that is rather old and even has a sequel out.
hamandcheeseUK
cobrax25
Posted 4:16 AM 23/6/08
I hope they decide to release all the booaster pack content for free (seeing as how nobody plays it), since that has like 12 new maps, 12 new vehicals, and 20 new weapons.
cobrax25
OkayOctane
Posted 4:13 AM 23/6/08
Well, I guess its time I dust off the ol' desktop. I've been meaning too for a while and this now gives me a good reason to do so.
Was there any word on the type of maps or anything specific?
OkayOctane
NobleArc, The Lazy Canadian
Posted 4:12 AM 23/6/08
I haven't played BF2 in ages--I haven't really wanted to. I got sick of being killed over and over on Wake Island. I might check it out again after I fix my PC, though.
NobleArc, The Lazy Canadian
B1ooDshOt
Posted 4:10 AM 23/6/08
Oh cool - I might have to check it out, Battlefield 2 was awesome.
B1ooDshOt
Simpsons-Movie-ruled
Posted 4:09 AM 23/6/08
You guys got interviewed by the New York Times?!
Thats really awesome!!!
(*reading the whole meaning behind MGS4)
Simpsons-Movie-ruled
cobrax25
Posted 4:09 AM 23/6/08
@francoamerica:
its more popular than COD4 on the PC.
cobrax25
theblade
Posted 4:08 AM 23/6/08
@francoamerica: I agree with you. Tho thing with PC gaming is when it comes to fps type games lotta ppl like to cling tio the old classics like BF an CS etc, but im not one to cling to classics tho i respect them for what they are.
theblade
thaswizz
Posted 4:04 AM 23/6/08
I do, I just picked it up 2 weeks ago and think it blows CoD4 away. A new patch with some new maps added sounds good to me as I still haven't played all of them or got tired of any of them.
thaswizz
Candlejack
Posted 4:04 AM 23/6/08
@francoamerica: Yes, same as people still play CS or CS:S with COD4 around. You know nothing about the PC gaming scene do you?
Candlejack
francoamerica
Posted 4:02 AM 23/6/08
does anyone still play bf2 with COD4 around?
francoamerica
EnigmaNemesis
Posted 5:01 AM 23/6/08
One of the many reasons PC gaming is so great.
EnigmaNemesis
cobrax25
Posted 4:59 AM 23/6/08
@sovietspartan:
Heroes is an entirely different buisness model...and all content for Heroes with the exception of clothing will be free to download.
cobrax25
j14rk1n
Posted 4:57 AM 23/6/08
@sovietspartan: Thanks.
j14rk1n
PepsiPerfect
Posted 4:56 AM 23/6/08
I'm still playing the BF2 demo!
I should probably pick it up one of these days, but Gulf of Oman is just so much fun.
PepsiPerfect
sovietspartan
Posted 4:56 AM 23/6/08
@j14rk1n: Have you hear of Battlefield Heroes? There is your paid DLC.
Have you hear of Flight Simulator 2004 and FSX? There's more paid DLC.
sovietspartan
Coquiton
Posted 4:56 AM 23/6/08
@francoamerica:
Considering they're totally different types of games, I would imagine people do play both, yes.
Coquiton
sovietspartan
Posted 4:55 AM 23/6/08
@Thassodar: I think they will. They just added it to 2142. I love me some battlefield. I just realized I must have given over 500 dollars to EA just buying their battlefield series. But its just so good. Bad Company here i come!
sovietspartan
NitrousO
Posted 4:54 AM 23/6/08
This is going to be awesome. BF2 is among the best games ever created IMO.
NitrousO
j14rk1n
Posted 4:54 AM 23/6/08
@cobrax25: True, but I wouldn't put it past EA nowadays.
j14rk1n
cobrax25
Posted 4:53 AM 23/6/08
@j14rk1n:
if its a patch, than it will probably be free....
paid DLC is very rare with PC games.
cobrax25
j14rk1n
Posted 4:50 AM 23/6/08
How much will I have to pay to update my copy?
j14rk1n
taftsearlobe33
Posted 4:48 AM 23/6/08
@theblade: you consider BF2 a classic? Its a great game and its defently not old enough to be considered a classic.
taftsearlobe33
NullsRevenge
Posted 4:48 AM 23/6/08
Unless the patch does something about the rampant hacking that has gone on for the past few years in BF2. If it doesnt then I really don't see the point in patching it.
NullsRevenge
Thassodar
Posted 4:45 AM 23/6/08
They better allow widscreen in this bitch. I hate BF2 without widescreen.
Thassodar
Allcars
Posted 4:43 AM 23/6/08
Bf2 was amazing... sadly i just said f**k it due to some weird stuttering and what not online. The lag was horrible sometimes and it was fine others i just didnt know what was wrong. but me and my friends played this game everyday day.
Allcars
DrLiquid
Posted 5:39 AM 23/6/08
Awesome news! The last patch was ages ago, so I assumed they had dropped support for it.
DrLiquid
shendragon
Posted 5:39 AM 23/6/08
for me, vehicular warfare > straight infantry warfare
which is why BF2>CoD4
shendragon
cobrax25
Posted 5:35 AM 23/6/08
@rincew1nd:
yeah that would be awsome...nobody plays the booster packs now since they cost money, but they contain a lot of content each.
cobrax25
Pornosaur
Posted 5:29 AM 23/6/08
Yeah I kind of stopped playing after they fragmented the servers with "map packs" that I couldn't justify the price on. Maybe I'll reinstall it now that I have a 360 controller to use on the helios and jets.
Pornosaur
rincew1nd
Posted 5:27 AM 23/6/08
My best guess, 3-4 maps from a sponsor and some minor fixes, optimisations.
What im hoping for though is that they make the booster packs free for all.
rincew1nd
warxsnake
Posted 5:20 AM 23/6/08
<3 BF2, it's awesome that they are still actively supporting it, more so than 2142.
battlefield3, cant wait for thee
warxsnake
belo
Posted 5:13 AM 23/6/08
It the maps are in the patch, they're free.
BF2142 just had a patch not to long ago that introduced two new fan-made maps as well.
belo
thefais
Posted 5:57 AM 23/6/08
Bad hit detection ruined this for me. It's also a pretty poorly balanced game.
Fun for a (long) while, but there are less flawed games out there now.
thefais
Jon-Claw
Posted 5:51 AM 23/6/08
Will this patch allow a real control binding system and better hit detection? If not, GG BF2...
Jon-Claw
Triggster
Posted 6:29 AM 23/6/08
BF2 > COD4 hands down. COD4 was a disapointment for me as I thought it might have been as good as BF2 but I was wrong.
Triggster
tcrat
Posted 6:10 AM 23/6/08
@cobrax25: I think you can pick them all up, original bf2 included, for about $20 total now.
tcrat
HotFootMcCook
Posted 6:09 AM 23/6/08
@Candlejack:
Precisely.
HotFootMcCook
Mit
Posted 7:02 AM 23/6/08
Battlefield and Call of Duty are two different types of games. Yes you can get a decent amount of players into one CoD server, but Battlefield is about massive scale battles with all kinds of vehicles in the arena as well. It's also squad based, complete with a commander who can give orders to all the squads, and not just imaginary squads made from players (although tons more people go solo). They can't be so easily compared just because they're modern warfare games.
Anyhow, I've been playing this game since the first day the demo launched and I'm still playing it. I love it (probably because I'm so good at it...). This is amazing news, because EA hasn't touched this game in a looooong time. Hopefully there's atleast one more infantry map included in this update, because the last free map they gave us was just a big open desert. Hopefully the patch fixes some of the now rampant hacking as well.
Mit
mondog
Posted 6:52 AM 23/6/08
@Simpsons-Movie-ruled:
No its not, not by a long way. Theres almost 4 times the servers for CoD4 running right now. BF2 is still a good game but a patch for it is too little and far too late. Should have brought out a patch for it a year and a half ago.
mondog
Blackop773643
Posted 6:44 AM 23/6/08
I'm so happy. Me and my squad started playing again, but we're sick of the things that made us left BF2. Lack of maps, bugs, etc
Blackop773643
Scuba Steve
Posted 8:30 AM 23/6/08
@Krondonian: Get the Expansions as well, you'll get to use the expansion guns in regular maps, and you'll be able to play on any server out there. (minus the mod servers)
Scuba Steve
theblur3419
Posted 8:15 AM 23/6/08
Still play this all the time. Can't wait!
theblur3419
Krondonian
Posted 8:10 AM 23/6/08
Great stuff. I've not really played much online FPS, with only Half-Life 2 Deathmatch.
After all the positive response here though, I think I'll try and pick BF2 up soon. I always buy games late, due to the spec of my PC...I just hit the recommended specs for it, so whoop de do.
Krondonian
HotFootMcCook
Posted 9:40 AM 23/6/08
Not to mention that in Call of Duty, you can go it alone and are probably guaranteed a kill streak if you're good. In Battlefield 2, it's much more tacticool. You can't run around spraying and praying for kills, and you've got to have at least a little plan in your play.
HotFootMcCook
PlayingKarrde
Posted 10:02 AM 23/6/08
Still my second fave online game of all time (behind TFC). I stopped playing because there's really a huge problem with there being no unit AA in the game. I seriously hope they add that in (just give the AT an AA gun as well, or have the AT gun be able to lock onto aircraft) and the game suddenly becomes a whole crapload of cool again.
The game is no fun when guys in the attack chopper are completely owning everyone with no way of stopping them. The mounted AA guns are effectively useless as they can (and are) taken out in a heartbeat.
PlayingKarrde
M2k3
Posted 9:48 AM 23/6/08
Every time I reinstall and play BF2 I remember why I uninstalled it. I'm sure lots of people really like BF2 but there's so many little things that ruin it for me. Stuff like laggy gameplay, glitchy voice communication, patches that take forever to install. I found it's not really as easy to pick up and play, not like CS or COD4, it seems like it would be more enjoyable playing with a clan or at a LAN party or something.
M2k3
Replica23
Posted 9:46 AM 23/6/08
Holy shit! I totally thought they forgot about this game.
@francoamerica: "does anyone still play bf2 with COD4 around?"
Aside from the modern military theme and the genre both are not that similar. Why would anyone substitute one for the other? When COD4 lets me run someone down with a tank or strap C4 to the front of a buggy hurtling into a control point, maybe myself and others will make the switch.
Replica23
otimus
Posted 11:34 AM 23/6/08
@francoamerica:
BF2 is better than CoD4, and BF 1942 is better than BF2, and Tribes is equal to BF 1942.
Any half-decent large-scale war-with-vehicles type game is better than any CoD, CS, TF, etc.
otimus
NullsRevenge
Posted 12:04 PM 23/6/08
@Jon-Claw: I forgot about the hit detection. Really it is shooting in general in that game is completely off target. Maybe that is why practically everyone cheats in it.
I do remember once playing as a sniper having a headshot lined up only to have the bullet in complete defiance of all physics magically curve upwards like 6 feet and completely miss.
After that I never played as a sniper.
NullsRevenge
artistpavel
Posted 12:42 PM 23/6/08
@PepsiPerfect:
Same here, been playing BF2 Demo since 2005, Gulf of Oman never gets old. Finally I got a decent PC that can run it on max settings @1680x1050, may pick up the full product for $10.
artistpavel
AtomicPlayboy
Posted 12:09 PM 23/6/08
This is fantastic. I haven't touched BF2 since COD4 and TF2 dropped, but now that there is some new content, I'm very excited to head back. I definitely think BF2 is the best online shooter out there, but after 100+ hours, it was sort of getting stale. Thank you, DICE.
AtomicPlayboy
GreyFoxV1
Posted 1:47 PM 23/6/08
That was some truly bad music they were playing but I guess this is good news. Nobody I know plays it anymore though.
GreyFoxV1
Vanguarde
Posted 4:37 PM 23/6/08
People still play this game? Really?
Vanguarde
PlayingKarrde
Posted 4:31 PM 23/6/08
@NullsRevenge: You need to account for gravity as a sniper. You weren't missing over the head, more likely you were hitting way too low. The aiming and hit detection isn't messed up at all.
PlayingKarrde
JohnnytheFuture
Posted 5:22 PM 23/6/08
@Vanguarde: BF2 was an instant classic, and to this day remains just as fresh. It's one of the few games where I can always return to it, and not be disappointed. (Unless of course my ping is too high and I get kicked off the servers)
There's no denying CoD4 is great, but the sheer scale of BF2, the teamwork, vehicles, and control scheme is not matched by Call of Duty.
I love flying my helicopter into enemy territory, bombing their transmission tower, and sneaking back to my side.
JohnnytheFuture
Turtlestack
Posted 5:39 PM 23/6/08
Does a band aid really stick to poop? Good to know. Good. To. Know.
Turtlestack
UFO
Posted 7:19 PM 23/6/08
Think its great that they`re still supporting the game after all this time and i really didnt expect it for an EA game tbh.Even though i havent played BF2 for ages i have been thinking about reinstalling it lately because i did like it a lot and it has been my 2nd most played online game ever after wolf et.The trouble is that most of my online gaming consists of playing wolf et daily for the past 5 years.Mainly because i love the game and the people playing it so much.The guy asking does anyone play bf2 after cod4 coming out needs to realise that some people would tell you to shove game X up your arse because they have THEIR own favourate game just as you have yours.I would say the same.
UFO
AntiHiro
Posted 7:16 PM 23/6/08
@Turtlestack: Don't know, you tell us if they do?
I have to say hats off to DICE for extending the support, but I stopped playing because of the bad hit detection, crappy AA, exploits found with dolphin diving, red lining in choppers, any the other 100+ so that have been found since I stopped playing. BF2142 fixed these and like it or not is a much better experience.
AntiHiro
elronathon
Posted 7:05 PM 23/6/08
This is great news, I've been meaning to dedicate some more time to this - haven't played it for a while. This is just the excuse I need, playing as a medic is one of my fondest experiences of online gaming...
elronathon
DrLiquid
Posted 10:51 PM 23/6/08
@AntiHiro: Yeah... those are pretty much the same reasons I stopped playing in favor of BF2142. I hope that the patch addresses at least a few of these things. There's not many things more frustrating in an online FPS than getting PKM sniped by a guy who dove to the ground a fraction of a second earlier.
I'm hoping against hope that they put in the huge deviation bump upon going prone like in BF2142, but I'm guessing that's unlikely. BF2142 is so much more balanced.
DrLiquid
schvitzatura
Posted 4:08 AM 24/6/08
I strongly suspect that this altruism for 15M BF2 screennames on the part of EA/Dice is not really as it seems. Expect in addition to maps and a few bug fixes significant expansion of IGA Worldwide's (yes, the in-game advert folk) presence to offset the cost to produce these "enhancements". This is likely the true "deliverable" for this update effort, wrapped in a candy-coated shell of maps and marginal sundry BF2fanboi potpourri.
How much additional overhead this will create? TBD.
No such thing as a free lunch and/or caveat emptor.
YMMV...
schvitzatura
Vanguarde
Posted 9:56 AM 24/6/08
@JohnnytheFuture:
'Instant classic'? I remember everyone disliked the game and felt BF1942 was much, much, better.
Vanguarde
AtomicPlayboy
Posted 2:40 AM 25/6/08
@schvitzatura: Agreed. I also suspect that DICE may be piloting some new anti-cheat features in BF2 in preparation for BF: Heroes. What better place to do QA?
AtomicPlayboy