When does BF3 Beta become available? At midnight tonight? During the day tomorrow? In the evening?

Just trying to plan the next 48 hours...

I downloaded it yesterday morning and played some last night- but I had early access from MOH.

So...

I realize this is a beta but..
Shotguns are overpowered - range is too much.
Sniper rifle is underpowered - 3 shots to the chest and a guy is still alive?
Sniping with a machine gun from across the map into the spawn is just ridiculous. The accuracy with iron sights at a distance needs to be tamed.
Hit detection on knifing is iffy.
People aren't communicating
Maps are unbalanced - in the Subway when you are coming in from daylight into the tunnel you are at a complete disadvantage. the defending team can just sit and camp at the end of the tunnel and rack up kills.
Screen tearing and clipping is an issue and the true douchebags are using it to their advantage.

That said -animation is fluid and the graphics are nice

This does not bode well for me keeping my preorder. Does EA even playtest anymore?

Hopefully there will be an update to try to clean some of this stuff up fore the beta is up - At least EA did an alpha test and are now into the beta with a full month to go before release. Day one patches can fix things but if they don't straighten it out in beta I don't know if I'll keep my preorder.

It's up now, Spatula.

You'd think EA would have their crap together. It seems every release they have server issues. I haven't been able to log on to the beta at all today.

^^ Did you play Medal of Honor? I have zero faith in EA anymore. BF3 is one of my most anticipated titles but I'm certain another devleoper could handle this series better than they will.

Did you play Bad Company 2? That game had the best Multiplayer in my opinion. DICE is the developer and I have full faith in them.

Remember everyone, this is the Beta, they doing this playtest for a reason. Last night my team successfully attacked and defended. Very rewarding when a team works together.

Don't get me wrong, I loved BC2 and I'm certain BF3 will be excellent... but DICE also developed the bland MP for MoH... so, they're track record is dice-y at best

I don't think they were given enough time on MOH.

very true - the whole point of a beta is to work the bugs out and to load up the servers.
MoH multiplayer was solid, stable and entertaining. Unfortunately it was very vanilla and did nothing spectacularly.
I just think there wasn't enough innovation . MoH controls/gameplay was better than BFBC2 but not as good as CoD. BFBC2's destruction and class system was better than MoH's.

The shotguns are waaay overpowered. But all weapons seem to be overpowered. You can't go more than a few seconds without getting blow'd up in this game. I do hope they town this down a little bit. The most effective players are guys who lie on their stomachs and snipe the whole time with shotguns. Lame.

I can't really believe how "off" the balance of this game feels. This is for hardcore FPSers.... of which I am not one. I'm not much enjoying this...

And whoever thought it was a good idea to include this blinding-light bullshit should have their head examined.

The shotgun issue, screams "Quantum of Solace" all over again, where in that game the shotguns, once fully upgraded were like magnetic sniper rifles. Aim and hit, over and over and over.

My context: Battlefield Bad Company 2 was my first FPS and I only started playing in February. I was a Nintendo guy all my life and the PS3 was only purchased this December as a Blu-ray player and now I do a little gaming. I've never experienced an "open beta" and I have no experience with COD, MoH, or PC/Xbox gaming to compare my experience to; basically, I'm a newbie with a newbie impression.

This sucks. I really, really hope I eat crow on this one but I am no longer excited about Battlefield 3.

Gameplay is drastically different than BFBC2. It feel like, in their desire to make the game as realistic as possible, they've slowed everything down to a grinding halt. I don't care how real they want the game to be - if it ruins the gameplay then it ruins the gameplay. jdpatri is exactly right - this is for hardcore FPS gamers and that's about it. My uncle will love it on his PC. I'm considering canceling my pre-order, even if it means not joining in on the fun with everyone else because they're on BF3 and I'm still roaming around Arica Harbor on BFBC2 on my own.

Gameplay Gripes:
- It takes longer to switch from a rifle to pistol than in BFBC2. Noticeable and deadly in close-combat situations when you need extra ammo and quick.
- Jumping over obstacles incurs the little Mirror's Edge sort of "see the whole body" way that makes sense some time and no sense other times. It's also really slow.
- Throwing out med packs and ammo packs is slow.
- Spawning seems slow. And what's up with the screen going to black first?
- Knifing is a joke. It's slow and confusing.
- There's no indicator to let you know who in your squad is talking so you can't know who is telling you what's going on.
- But that doesn't matter because I can't hear anybody in my squad and they can't hear me. I'm hearing people who aren't in my squad, though, just fine.
- I'd say 90% of the enemies who kill me are prone. I guess going prone is replacing "hide in the corner" or "hide in a tree" for how to get a long killstreak.
- I know this is likely just me, but the glowing blue text is really difficult for me to read. I can't tell if I killed someone or if someone spawned on me. (I hope I get used to this but it is the most absolutely frustrating thing for me. I can barely read it and it actually makes me angry while playing. Again, probably just me...)
- There's no way to take a squad of friends into a game or join a friend already in a game. This is the number one reason I play - to play with friends. BFBC2 is fun, no doubt, but I never enjoy myself nearly as much as when I'm in a squad with friends.

Those are my major gripes. I'd be able to live with the drastic design changes like the way weapon upgrades work (looks like there's going to be double the "star chasing" in BF3), the way the menu screen layout works (it's really confusing), or even what really feels like an air of the game taking itself way too seriously (there's something about all of this that feels like it's relying on an assumed prior knowledge of how FPS are supposed to work, look, and feel, as well as simply too serious a tone compared to the rollicking good times with Bad Company)... I'd be able to live with those drastic design changes if the gameplay were exciting. Which, for me, it's not.

If people disagree with me, that's fine. The internet is loaded up with people who appear to really be digging this one. So far, it's not for me.

Oh, and for anyone about to say, "Remember, this is beta," I don't care. It should still be fun to play.

DICE also needs a really good copy editor / writer. Between the awful sentences and punctuation of BFBC2 and the BF3 beta, it's clear that good writing is their last priority.

Wait, you can't form a party and jump into games? Are you serious? If that's the case, I am immediately canceling my preorder.

I'm sure you're supposed to be able to, but it's broken.

I've tried joining a friend's game, joining a friend's squad once in the game, leaving and joining squads over and over hoping to get into a friend's squad with an open space, inviting a friend to a game or squad (well, not this one - I couldn't figure out a way to do it), and being a part of a squad hoping to join a game together and none of those options worked.

I'm seriously considering cancelling my preorder.

I never thought I'd say that.

I hope they work the bugs out but the one I am really waiting for is Ghost Recon FS.

Ditto.

It's one of the problems with the move toward open betas that are pushed as events/demos -- we've come to expect a level of polish that this game just doesn't currently have.

Try crawling in just about any hilly portion of the above ground section of the "Metro" level. You end up half above ground half below ground. Serious geometry issues.

Significant/frequent frame drops. Had the demo freeze my PS3 entirely already in the first hour I was playing.

Tossing ammo or a med pack leaves you vulnerable for what feels like almost 10 seconds. Knifing's broken. Squad management's broken.

I just don't know...

I hope you guys are voicing these concerns to DICE and not just to strangers on an internet forum. They're the ones with the ability to correct these issues before release, after all, isn't that the entire point of an open beta?

That's another of the problems with the trend toward "open betas" as events/demos-- they're not set up for feedback/bug reporting. You have to search out a means for reporting the issues.

Nowhere in the downloading process or game screens is a big deal made about bug reporting or how to do it. It also seems like an afterthought in their blog posts. The first result in a google search for BF3 beta bug reporting isn't even an official bf3 site. The official site contains a blog post saying you should report on the battlelog forums with a link pointing here: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3...=|bf3|devblog|.

Signing in here requires an "Origin Account email" and password, but no means for creating an account. Searching for "origin account" or "origin ea" leads here: http://www.origin.com/us/about, which is a windows download that I'm sure as hell not downloading. From there, I'm smart enough to go here: http://store.origin.com/ on which I can click "register" and create an account, after which I can go back and search for the proper place for bf3 beta bug reporting in the forums.

But yeah... they really seem to want my feedback. :-\