Topic: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - PC patch removes Securom DRM from Non-Steam version

[MysterD]

I think the steam sales helped it a lot. Twice I remember they had all of the Battlefield 2 games for 9.99.

You know, I ain't even bought one game in the BF series, oddly enuff...

[W7RE]

You know, I ain't even bought one game in the BF series, oddly enuff...

I tried BF1942 and hated it. The aiming and movement felt sloppy. I did pick up BF2 and loved it, though to be honest I didn't play a ton of it as I was addicted to Day of Defeat at the time.

[PyroMenace]

Wow, I just had the best game yet. I practically won the match single handedly, was also my longest lasting life. Played on Atacama Desert, jumped on a tank and pushed forward, kept on going with it capturing the middle and all the way to the enemies first point. I played an engineer and any time I got hit I would jump out and repair. Nothing could get near me. Eventually a helicopter took out the tank but I jumped out in time. Kept defending the their main point. One of their tanks rolled in and I just took cover in a house and took pop shots with my RPG till it was down. I kept at it there till I was basically in the midst of two tanks staring at me. No more RPG ammo left, so I just ran in charging like an insane nationalistic lunatic as they blew me away. Totally epic.

I've been playing each class unlocking their basic stuff. Haven't played recon all that much. I did a little bit ago, but I just felt so useless standing back and looking for targets to cap. I just need to find some good sniping positions which I'm totally not familiar with yet. Anyway, this game is unbelievably fun, I wish more of you would grab it on PC so we can play.

[W7RE]

I really don't like the sniper rifles in this game. Though at the same time if they were better, there's would be even more recons, and there's already too many.

However, if you have played some previous battlefield games you can register them at veteran.ea.com. At least 2 games (BFBC2 doesn't count since you can't register it yet) will get you to rank 1. This unlocks the M1 Garand. It's 8 rounds per clip, semi auto, and has great range along with almost no kick. I use it and then play the recon class as a long range assault type class, but with cool unique tricks.

[PyroMenace]

Played quite a bit of recon tonight, managed to get a lot of its unlocks: motion sensor, mortar, and another sniper rifle. It definitely took some getting used to and I found out how useful they can be. I did manage to nab a head shot here or there and an occasional sniper kill, their best use really is spotting enemy infantry. You spot some guys, your team kills them, and you get 10 points for each kill you spotted. Another really nifty gadget is the motion sensor, its best use really is when your playing a rush map and a enemy squad comes in and plants a charge on the MCOMM station, throw a motion sensor in there, and everyone will see where all those bastards are hiding. The last match I played, I kept doing that and I got a ridiculous amount of points for detecting the enemy kills we made, so much in fact I got 2 bonus medals for doing it. I kept racking up other medals that round and ended up getting my best match score yet, which was over 2000 points.

There was one server I was on where it had one of those godlike players. You know, the ones where your not sure if hes just that fucking good or hes cheating. I mean the dude had a kill/death ratio of like 70/5 in one match... no exaggeration. One guy kept complaining about him, then I started some shit and said he had to be asian, because all those slanty eyes are gods gift to video games. So I didn't really know, but if you do play this game with friends and have some coordination then you will dominate, so he could have been playing in a squad with is other amazingly gifted friends.

Also, if your in a UAV, the space bar is not the button to elevate, it actually fires a missile. Firing a missile while the UAV is still on the ground instantly destroys it... I did it and another guy I saw tried it out and did it. It just seems like a backward ass control scheme.

[W7RE]

Yea on xbox the vehicle controls are different depending on the vehicle. Helicopters elevate with right trigger and drop altitude with left trigger, but a tank uses left trigger to accelerate, and the UAV elevates with left bumper and descends with left trigger. Of course, I think I may have changed some of that around on my own. By default some of the vehicles had right bumper set to fire, and right trigger set to accelerate. Well, then I can't fire on the move.

I had a mix of bad games and good games last night. In a couple me and a friend dominated in a helicopter and took the top scores of the match. In another we were playing rush on offense and getting spawn camped the whole time. I'd spawn all the way back at our starting base and get shot in the back within a second or two of spawning.

[PyroMenace]

Had a bunch of rough games at first, but got onto a rush map and had some really good rounds with the medic. They are amazing at defense, reviving guys left and right, was grabbing a ton of points each match and unlocked a crap load of stuff including gear that increases my sprint speed and another that allows me to carry more ammo.

Whats your rank W7RE, right now I'm at 6, which is specialist III.

[W7RE]

I'm about to hit rank 9. I have very few class unlocks other than engineer, as that's what I play most. Usually it's me as engineer and a friend I usually play with plays medic. When there's a helicopter, I fly and he guns, and when we get low on HP I land and repair. When in tanks, he drives and I gun. When we face another tank, I repair while he shoots. I also jump out to deal with pesky recons and their C4.

[W7RE]

I already posted in the MW2 thread the link to Dice's response to Ifinity Ward's "Mapathy" map pack ad, but here it is for anyone not reading that thread.


Now, Dice has a parody of the MW2 PSA for "F.A.G.S." (Fight Against Grenade Spam).

[PyroMenace]

ATTENTION

Steam is doing a 4 pack deal for this and I was going to chip in some money for it. If anyone is interested, PM me and we can talk details. I want some dudes to shoot people with.

[MysterD]

Gamers looking for Bad Company 2...
$47 on Amazon for PS3 or X360 version.
$37 for PC version.
Spend over $25, free saver shipping.

[Xessive]

I haven't been able to play online over the last couple of days. I was studying mostly but when I did have time I was unable to join any servers because of PunkBuster. Apparently it's a common issue that a lot of people have been suffering. Fortunately the fix is relatively easy.

Basically you have to manually update PunkBuster.

Download the latest version of PBSetup v3.4 for Windows here.

Unzip it and run the file.

- Click "Add a Game"
- Select "Battlefield Bad Company 2"
- Then "Browse" for the "Game Path"
- C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Battlefield Bad Company 2\
- Click "OK", then "Add Game"
- Click "Check for Updates"

It should update PunkBuster and, hopefully, you'll be good to go (if that was the issue).


Alternatively, this process posted around as well (this is the one that worked for me):

Go to your Steam folder

..\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Battlefield Bad Company 2\Install\PunkBuster

In that folder you should find "pbsvc_bc2.exe". Run the application and it should reinstall PunkBuster and get you back online.

With regards to the game itself, I like some of it and I hate other parts. Put simply, this is the first game that has made me a sore loser! It really sucks to lose in BFBC2! Primarily because I know I didn't stand a chance against my opponents not due to their skill but their overpowering equipment, gear, and "power-ups." Experience makes a huge difference! I was talking to GPW about it and I described as a blend of MMORPG and FPS. The ranks are like levels, unlocking all sorts of major advantages from high-damage ammo to scopes allowing players to practically snipe with sub-machineguns.

It takes a bit of time to get used to the gameplay mechanics. It has its ups and downs but overall it's pretty fun.

EDIT:
It's most fun when you have great team mates (like GPW and Pyro )

[gpw11]

Yeah, I've been enjoying it a lot even if the multiplayer is kind of shitty when you first get the game...you'll be dying a lot. That said, DICE kind of needs to get some patches out there.  I've been having horrible crashing problems and the only real solution I've come across is either buy a dedicated sound card (fuck that, it's 2010 and I play through headphones) or disable the onboard sound in bios so I can play one game.  Again, fuck that.

[scottws]

Yeah, I've been enjoying it a lot even if the multiplayer is kind of shitty when you first get the game...you'll be dying a lot. That said, DICE kind of needs to get some patches out there.  I've been having horrible crashing problems and the only real solution I've come across is either buy a dedicated sound card (fuck that, it's 2010 and I play through headphones) or disable the onboard sound in bios so I can play one game.  Again, fuck that.

Gee, that's a surprise.  DICE and the Battlefield series has a pretty consistent history of being extremely buggy, especially at launch.  For me Vietnam would frequently drop to very low framerates.  This is when I had an ATi Radeon 9800 XT and it was the most powerful card on the market.  I even turned all the graphics settings to their lowest and set the resolution to 640x480 and the problem still occurred.

I pert much wrote the series off after that.

[gpw11]

Yeah, the only one I had was 1942 and I don't remember it being too bad.  I wasn't playing at launch though, so it could have properly been patched up by the time I was on board.  Oh...wait...yeah.  I do remember ending up having to buy an extra stick of RAM because the game refused to load in under 20 min while every other game on the market was fine.

But the complaints are pretty bad about this.  I get a full system hard lock because of my very very common sound hardware, many get crashes to the desktop for no reason whatsoever, and all kinds of people are having performance problems.    My performance isn't bad, but it's not great compared to other demanding games.  Apparently the thing is overly cpu bound due to it's console development (I guess?).

Oh, and I have to run the game as administer in order to get pings in the server browser under Windows 7...which fucks up Steam unless I also run it as administer.

[Cobra951]

Unless W7 introduced new weaknesses, hard locks in games are driver problems.  I'm not justifying crappy game coding.  Just saying that app-level code should never crash system-level code.  This has been true since NT, which is the core of XP, and I presume 7.

[Xessive]

BFBC2 tends to just crash-to-desktop for me. Actually now that I think about it, it happens regularly. It happened a couple of times when I was playing with GPW. Aside from that there was the PunkBuster issue and some connectivity problems here and there.

[gpw11]

Unless W7 introduced new weaknesses, hard locks in games are driver problems.  I'm not justifying crappy game coding.  Just saying that app-level code should never crash system-level code.  This has been true since NT, which is the core of XP, and I presume 7.

That makes sense. The thing that gets me confused is that this does not happen in any other games at all*.  A lot of people playing on PC have been having the same problem, all on Windows 7, all rocking the same integrated sound card, and pretty much all of the say the same thing - only happens to this game. I imagine you're 100% spot on about it being drivers (Reminds me of Creative's "Infinite loop" crash" but guys making the sound driver's fault, I'm just saying SOMEONE needs to fix this.  I wonder if just running generic Windows sound drivers would help...Either way, the real kicker is that the game doesn't even support hardware accelerated sound - forcing software sound was a development choice.  I don't know why there would even be a driver conflict in that situation (but granted, I know dick all about how this works).

I'd THINK about sucking it up and pay $30 to get a cheap Audigy or something, but I'm pretty sure that I'd lose my front ports if I did so...not a HUGE deal, but I do use them.  I also kind of have a problem buying a sound card at all.  Software sound kind of won out years ago.


*The only other game I ever have problems with is Burnout Paradise.  Game does not like Windows 7 (instant crash after logo movie), so in order to play it you have to run it in compatibility mode.  It still randomly crashes, but you can play at least.

[Cobra951]

I'm hoping you don't have to end up with another Creative audio card.  I thought integrated sound had finally gotten us past that sad fate.  (Audio is a solved problem.  I.e., technology is better than it needs to be for full fidelity.  So even an integrated vanilla chipset will do.)  That presumes that it's stable, though.  Have you checked to see if there are newer drivers out there?

[gpw11]

Yeah, I'm using the newest drivers.  I really don't want to have to go get a sound card and I probably won't. The lock-ups for me are infrequent enough that I can deal with them and enough people are affected by this (there's a 130 page thread on EA's Battlefield forums that I found) that I imagine the drivers will be fixed or the game will be patched with a work around...hopefully.

[Xessive]

THey ahve to address the issue. Your on-board sound is a popular choice and I doubt EA or Realtek would risk alienating their consumers and hardware manufacturers.

[Xessive]

Yo dudes, that was fun earlier!

Pyro, sorry I missed your message. I left the game on singleplayer while I was in the bathroom.

[Xessive]

Major Update Released!

Here are the details:

Updates to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Client R7 changelist.
MP - New Server browser
MP - Added 15 second spawn timer for Conquest/Rush gamemodes at the start of round to prevent high end machines getting the upper hand before other machines load in.
MP - Crash fixes relating to ALT+TAB at different times throughout the game
MP - Hang fix when trying to connect to a full server multiple times
MP - Deletion of soldiers now possible through the account pages in game
MP - Removed screen flash during loading
MP - Added support for colour blind players
MP - Fixed crashes relating to faulty server banners
MP - Servers closing during connection no longer cause the client to hang
MP - Auto team swap reflects correctly in the scoreboard
MP - Fixed scoreboards when switching teams before spawning
MP - Rush scoreboards fixed
MP - Veteran ranks no longer display as "12"
MP - Isla Innocentes MCOM building fixed where knifing the fence would destroy the building
MP - Logout/Login button correctly reflects the player status
MP - Added minimum number of players needed to start a round (you can still start playing and take objectives but you won't get any score until 4 or more players join the server)
MP - Isla Inocentes welcome message on the loading screen now fits the text box area
MP - Reduced the brightness in Russian vehicles
MP - Medic gadgets now display correctly if the defib is not unlocked
MP - Server filter options are remembered
MP - Punkbuster filter now works as intended
MP - Scroll bar no longer overlays the Join Server button in the friends list panel
MP - CANCEL server refresh is implemented
MP - Zooming in on a friendly using the SAIGA no longer causes the crosshair to disappear
MP - The chat no longer displays the incorrect player name when appearing
MP - FoV switches to the default value of 55 when entering vehicles to prevent graphical glitches caused by wider FoV settings. The custom FoV returns when exiting vehicles.
MP - FoV no longer causes the UAV station to rotate
MP - Fix to correctly display the unlock progression at the end of round
MP - Chat functionality will no longer freeze after writing a partial message at the end of round
MP - One account can no longer connect to the same server multiple times
MP - Squad Death Match is correctly named during loading
MP - Server browser no longer gets a bad FPS when filtering Conquest
MP - Server info banners correctly clear between displays
MP - Setting display settings which the system hardware can not handle no longer makes the game unusable
MP - Correct camera collision for vehicles' heavy machine gun
MP - Game no longer crashes if the player sends a message in the loading screen
MP - Trying to join a full server no longer causes the game to hang on Please Wait message
MP - Most server filter options are remembered it doesn't remember the setting in dropdowns
MP - Kit/gadget loadout saved between sessions
MP - Window on static guns is now transparent on DirectX 9 systems
SP - Fixed crashes when patching and trying to resume a campaign (there is now a message that you need to re-play the latest mission from the beginning)
SP - Fixed a crash after the "Upriver" mission end cinematic
SP - Supply create at "Resupply at Flynns create" objective now supplies weapon ammo
SP - Hang fix when reaching the objective "Destroy Enemy Zu23"
SP - Fixed hang after "Storm Cockpit" objective
SP - Changed melee attack raycast to be detailed
SP - Game no longer crashes when transitioning between SP_03B to SP_04A when installed in Polish
SP - Game no longer crashes when killed by the first two enemies in the trenches on SP_01 when installed in Italian
SP - Updating to R7 will invalidate your single player save game. If you update you will need to play your last mission from the start. If you do not update you will not be able to play multiplayer.

Server R10 changelist
Punkbuster is required ON for ranked servers
Ranked servers cannot be started with a password
Autobalance message goes to text-chat instead of in the middle of the screen
Added weapon balance tweaks to a number of weapons – we are eagerly awaiting feedback!
We aren't going to tell you what weapon balance tweaks we have done, we want your unbiased views on the changes before we detail what has changed.

[scottws]

That's typical.  These games are released unfinished.  It looks like they are finally out of the alpha state now.

[gpw11]

Haha.  Good call Scott.  The  server browser works much better now.  Sadly, I still had a hard lock.

[Xessive]

Haha.  Good call Scott.  The  server browser works much better now.  Sadly, I still had a hard lock.

Crap, I was hoping that would have been addressed.

[gpw11]

No, but to be fair it really doesn't happen to me all that often.  For some people though, the game seems to be unplayable.

[MysterD]

That's typical.  These games are released unfinished.  It looks like they are finally out of the alpha state now.

Isn't that the case w/ most of DICE's BF games? 

[Pugnate]

Isn't that what he said?

[Ghandi]

Ah, Pug. I have so much to teach you...

[MysterD]

Isn't that what he said?

I thought he meant games in general.
*shrug*

[gpw11]

Wouldn't that still be just reiterating what he said?

[Pugnate]

Ah, GPW. Gandhi has so much to teach you... in bed.

[Ghandi]

I feel like you didn't have to make that so homoerotic.

[W7RE]

So, the Dr Pepper promotion for this game that was supposed to start over a month ago, is now active. There's 4 alternate costumes (one for each class) and 4 camo painted weapons (one for each class). One nice thing though, is that the camo weapons are the final unlocks for each respective class. So if you've not touched the engineer class at all, and then get the unlock from a code, you now have access to the UMP (final engineer weapon).

Anyway, here's a NeoGAF post explaining how to get all of this shit for free.

This applies only to Us Xbox players. Here's the breakdown of how it works, I think:

US Xbox players - Dr Pepper codes only
non-US Xbox players - MS Points only
PC players - ??

[PyroMenace]

That last patched really fixed some stuff in the game, and it runs much better for me now, though it could also be due to the video drivers I had updated. The server browser works sooo much better now, refreshes server information quickly and offers a lot of new filters for searching in which I also look for non-hardcore punkbuster servers. Anyway, I'm putting some more time into it tonight, gpw or Xessive if you're on, give me a message on Steam and we can hook up.

[MysterD]

Onslaught DLC announced for consoles.
PC version of this DLC is "uncertain."

[Xessive]

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Onslaught Four-Player Co-op Mode to arrive next month!!

DICE, an Electronic Arts studio, today announced that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is expanding its award-winning multiplayer experience with the introduction of an all-new mode called ‘Onslaught’. This mode brings co-op gameplay to the Battlefield franchise for the first time ever on console.

 

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Onslaught mode can be played with up to four players across four multiplayer maps – Valparaiso, Atacama Desert, Isla Inocentes, and Nelson Bay – redesigned with new lighting, time of day, added vehicles and other effects. Each map has a dedicated gameplay focus, requiring different levels of teamwork in order to complete the objectives against an onslaught of enemy AI. Vehicle warfare comes to the forefront in Atacama Desert while Nelson Bay focuses squarely on infantry assault. Players can compete in squads and check individual progress via the dedicated Onslaught leaderboards.

“We’re thrilled to bring something new and fresh to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 while still keeping Battlefield’s signature gameplay intact,” says Patrick Bach, Senior Producer at DICE. “We want to consistently support the over 4 million fans playing the game with new ways to get into multiplayer and also challenge the elite players with new experiences to improve their performance online. Effective squad play is the key to success in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer and this new mode will provide players with a dedicated environment to test their team skills and rank against the competition.”

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is available in North America and Europe for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

I thought the Onslaught DLC was just gonna be maps, but 4-player coop is awesome!!

Pyro, GPW, Keebs? Whaddaya say?

[PyroMenace]

Sounds pretty cool, I certainly didn't expect this, though I hope they aren't going to charge $15 for it.

[Xessive]

Sounds pretty cool, I certainly didn't expect this, though I hope they aren't going to charge $15 for it.

Yeah, that would suck balls.

So far BC2 has been competing with MW2 for the affections of the public. First it was the matchmaker versus dedicated servers, and DICE released that PR to appease the masses and show off a little. Hopefully this time they'll release Onslaught for free, at least for PC. If not then at least at a modest price.