The fellows at The Irish guard were able to get Dice to answer a few questions for them. Here's the Q&A posted at their website here.

 

TFD

 

Dice Battlefield 2 Questions & Answers Session

 

Those nice people at Dice allowed us a short questions and answers sections about Battlefield 2 which is just around the corner. While most of this stuff isnt new there are some new pointers on features we where not sure about:

 

1. How many ranks will there be in BF2 and how long do you estimate it will take to gain a new rank?

 

Battlefield 2 will ship with 13 ranks. In general players can achieve the earlier ranks more easily, but the higher ranks take more time and experience points.

 

2. When playing clan matches will it be possible for the battle recorder to be disabled. If so will it be obvious to the clan visiting the server that this has happened, i.e. will it stop clans being sneaky and viewing the other clan's tactics. In other words will the visiting clan be able to lock out the other clan from spectating them?

 

The battle recorder is a server side option that can be turned on or off.

 

3. While playing the game is it possible to have a second person spec view, as in Desert Combat ?

 

Unclear question...?

 

4. Does the ammo crate drift a bit when it comes down, and will it be viewable to the opposition, giving your position away?

 

The ammo crate maintains a relatively direct path it lands pretty much where the commander points to. Players can see it parachute into the world, so they know where to look for it.

 

5. Is music going to be any part of the game at all, i.e. will you have an MP3 player built in? If so will it work in vehicle?

 

Music while in vehicles (similar to Battlefield Vietnam) is not in the game. We do have original music, that pays homage to the Battlefield 1942 theme music.

 

6. Is the 3d Map, Q-Hud of old, going to be on by default?

 

This is off by default, but it's a one key toggle to turn it on.

 

7. I want to know how undectable the sniper will be to ordinary infs, will the opposition have to be close to spot them?

 

This depends on how good of an eye you have. We don't do any tricks to make the sniper less visible, if they are laying still and prone they can be hard to spot, until they move or fire their weapon.

 

8. Whats the average size of the maps in bf2? Are the largest maps akin to El Al in BF1942, or bigger/smaller?

 

There are three flavors of every map in Battlefield 2 16 32 and 64 player versions. The larger versions of the maps feel comparable to the size of El Alamein, if not bigger. The smaller maps play more like Stalingrad, with intense close quarters infantry battles.

 

9. Are their any map designed purely for foot or any designed with a heavy bias towards tanks/aircraft?

 

All of the maps are designed with a balance between infantry / vehicle play. There are no maps that lean towards one vehicle type (Coral Sea, Aberdeen, etc.)

 

10. How long do the supply drops last?

 

The supply drops have a set amount of ammunition / health that they can refill before they disappear. Supply drops can also be destroyed. They are not on a timer.

 

The 3d map not being on automatically is a bit annoying, lots of "press Q you ****" messages shall ensue. Once again thanks to Dice for taking the time to speak to TiG.

 

[TiG]TheFairy

in the next round of interviews:

 

So, what improvements have you made to the BF gameplay:

 

Well actually, doing anything evolutionary was too much work so we scrapped what we started and have decided to keep the gameplay exactly the same as the original BF

 

At least the game engine is new right?:

 

Creating a new 3D engine turned out to be too much work to fit into our time schedule. We have decided to use the original BF42 engine with some minor improvements (more realistic wreckage for vehicles!)

lol thats great

in the next round of interviews:

 

So, what improvements have you made to the BF gameplay:

 

Well actually, doing anything evolutionary was too much work so we scrapped what we started and have decided to keep the gameplay exactly the same as the original BF

 

At least the game engine is new right?:

 

Creating a new 3D engine turned out to be too much work to fit into our time schedule. We have decided to use the original BF42 engine with some minor improvements (more realistic wreckage for vehicles!)

So don't get it.... I liked what I saw in the "real" interview I posted, and I think there's gonna be major improvement to gameplay, and the graphics are constantly be said to be "stunning"... I'm gonna take my chances, you keep playing FA and CS.....

 

TFD

actually Im looking very much forward to BF2, I am just a bit disapointed with the developers decision to drop a number of sweet features. The new spawn interface and squad combat system is actually quite exciting, and having some training as an acual infantry squad leader only makes me want to play BF2 even more. its just that this is the second interview where the developers have indicated that they are leaving a lot of things from the first games in and dropping new feaures. I apologize for my sarcasm, i probably should have noted that I was mostly just messing around.