Battlefield fansite Battlefieldo (via: VG247) are reporting on word from a "very reliable source" that EA/DICE are planning on launching something called Battlefield Premium on June 4th -- the day of their E3 press conference and a week ahead of the release date for the Close Quarters map pack for Battlefield 3.

Battlefield™ Premium will land you a number of content drops with unique in-game items not available anywhere else. First out is the one-of-a-kind Premium knife and black dog tag, plus a set of soldier camos, weapon camos, dog tags and Assignments that will make sure you stand out and get more personalization options.

We don't have much else to go on, but if there is any merit to this one, it's unclear whether it would be in the form of a subscription service like Activision's Call of Duty: Elite, or whether it would just be smaller content packs or individual weapons/camos/dog tags for sale via micro-transaction.

The article also outlines BF3's expected DLC strategy, with Close Quarters on June 12 2012, Armored Kill in Fall 2012 (Aus Spring), End Game in Winter 2012 (Aus Summer) as well as unannounced "Bonus Content" in August 2012, and a fifth, yet-to-be-titled DLC expansion in March 2013. Stay tuned for more as it develops.

For those players still enjoying the explosive combat of the hit FPS Battlefield 3, DICE has today announced the first of many Double XP Weekends. Starting at 5:01pm AEST tonight and finishing up on Monday at 4:59pm AEST, all players will earn double XP in matches across all maps and modes.

During the Battlefield 3 Double XP Weekend players will continue to wage all-out-war in Battlefield 3 multiplayer. At the conclusion of each match, players total points for the round will be reflected in the end of round screen and classified as ‘ADDITIONAL POINT”. Double XP will be accrued across all ranked servers and matches.

So if you're in need of some extra ranks or a little push to get that new gun, make sure you jump into the warfare tonight for free double XP.

EA and DICE have released another new trailer from the upcoming Close Quarters DLC expansion for Battlefield 3, showcasing another one of the new maps that will be coming to PC and Xbox 360 in June 2012 and one week earlier for PlayStation 3.

We are proud to present the second of four maps included in Close Quarters, dubbed Donya Fortress (internally called simply “Palace” after its working name). In today’s new gameplay trailer, you’ll see more of the gameplay changing HD Destruction, plus a glimpse of the new game mode Conquest Domination. Conquest Domination is basically a clever mix of the tactical Conquest mode and the instant action gameplay approach in Close Quarters, tailored to the tight level design and frantic close quarters combat

Watch the trailer embedded below or click here for the HD option.

DICE have quietly rolled out another server-side update for Battlefield 3, addressing a handful of lingering bugs without the need for players to path their game clients.

According to a forum post by DICE's Mikael Kalms, the update is due to rollout to BF3 servers worldwide starting at 10:00 UTC on April 19 2012. Here's the stated changelog:

• Fixed AA missiles not doing damage to vehicles moving at very high speeds
  
• Fixed TV Missile doing much more damage than it should (it is no longer a 1-hit kill)
  
• Tweaked tank armor strength
  
• MAV elevatoring fix, round 2; proning on the MAV will now disable it
  
• RCON admin.say command can send to individual players
  
• A few invalid map+gamemode combinations in maplist.txt could crash the server on startup; these combinations are now rejected instead
  
• RCON vars.serverDescription was not returning anything in R20 if the string was not set; this has been changed to return “” instead
  
• RCON player.onChat now reports the target player subset

The RCON changes are obviously only relevant to PC, but no mention has been made of when the gameplay-related fixes will make their way on to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 Battlefield 3 servers.

Following the PlayStation 3 and PC updates before it, the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 3 has now also finally received the latest patch, adding that big swag of balance tweaks and bringing the option of dedicated server rentals to the console for the first time.

Most seasoned PC first person shooter players will be familiar with server rentals -- and the PC version of Battlefield 3 has supported rentals since launch -- but given that most console-bound shooters generally have players unwittingly hosting everyone in a match from their often choked and laggy home connections this is a somewhat alien concept in that space.

To walk PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Battlefield 3 players through the process, DICE and EA have released this instructional video. Watch it below or click here to jump to our HD video library.

Following in the footsteps of the recent PlayStation 3 patch, the PC version has finally been scheduled and it's surprisingly only a few hours away.

The PC Battlefield 3 patch is due to roll out "at around 9AM UTC / 11 AM CET March 29", which translates to 8pm AEDT tonight in Sydney and will hit your download quota to the tune of approximately 1.6GB.

A new post on the official Battlefield Blog details the main changes, which are mostly just higher-level summaries of the PS3 patch notes including the improved commo-rose and minimap, however there is one elaboration that wasn't previously explained -- the Recon's SOFLAM accessory can now paint targets without active control:

Now, when a Recon player places it and then leaves it, it will continue to paint targets entering its area of control, continuously giving the Recon player a passive points income. This means a Recon player can place a SOFLAM in a strategic position, then leave it to find a good sniping spot. Combined with fixing a few scoring error in the SOFLAM, it should now be a much more viable source of experience points for Recons. This balancing change is also present in the PlayStation 3 update that went live yesterday.

The controversial weapon unlock purchases are also supposed to launch with this patch, however contrary to the BF Blog claiming that they are now available on Origin, we haven't been able to locate them on either the AU or US store, so cannot confirm prices. Here's what to expect though:

The 10 shortcut items are available now from Origin and include:

• Kit Shortcut Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items unique to the four playable classes
  
• Vehicle Shortcut Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items for all vehicles
  
• The Ultimate Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items from all other available shortcut packs

Similarly, an update the server software will also be deploying tonight and a list of fixes can be found in this forum post by DICE's Mikael Kalms.

Update: The Australian Dollar unlock shortcut prices are now online:

Air Vehicle Shortcut $9.99
Vehicle Shortcut Bundle $17.99
Ground Vehicle Shortcut $9.99
The Ultimate Shortcut Bundle $39.99
Co-op Weapons Shortcut $4.99
Support Kit Shortcut $6.99
Assault Kit Shortcut $6.99
Engineer Kit Shortcut $6.99

At $40 for the lot, these unlocks sure don't come cheap for Aussies. For reference the Ultimate Bundle is only US$24.99 (currently AUD$24.17) on the North American Origin store. I guess it must be all that distribution and shipping overhead.

A new Battlefield 3 update for the PlayStation 3 version of the game has gone live and offers options that are disturbing some players. From the official blog:

Today, we are also offering 10 different shortcut items for sale for Battlefield 3 on PS3. If you’re new to the game, this is the perfect way to gain some ground on the veterans online. Or if you’d love to get some more air time in the jets but want to equip those AA missiles straight away, this is for you.

The 10 shortcut items are available now from the PlayStation Store and the in-game store and include these:

Kit Shortcut Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items unique to the four playable classes

Vehicle Shortcut Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items for all vehicles

The Ultimate Bundle: Immediately unlocks all items from all other available shortcut packs

It is expected that this option will soon also make its way to PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game, however a date has yet to be specified.

As you would also expect, many Battlefield 3 fans are furious about the move, feeling that it cheapens how hard they have had to work for their unlocks. What do you think?

promoted/edited forum item

DICE have posted word on the official Battlefield blog of the latest BF3 patch, due in a few short days for the PlayStation 3 version on March 27th CET (so Wednesday March 28th here in Australia) with PC and Xbox 360 to follow in the coming weeks.

Chief among the changes is long-awaited improvements to the PC's "commo-rose" interface -- the hot-menu used for sending quick voice commands to your team that had been clumsy to the point of uselessness since the game's launch last October.

For console players, the biggest deal this time around is the introduction of server rentals -- a feature that the PC version has had since launch, however since third party providers aren't able to run BF3 console servers like they can for PC (EA DICE run all BF3 console servers via an exclusive deal with i3D) this hasn't previously been an option for PS3 and X360 players. More details on just how this will work on consoles is expected in the next few days.

As always, the patch also includes an exhaustive list of gameplay balance changes and bug fixes far too numerous to list here. So hit up the patch notes for a complete breakdown (and to rage at SOFLAM being even further disincentivised).

Following this one, the next major update for Battlefield 3 will likely accompany the upcoming Close Quarters DLC in June.

It's been almost six weeks since the first reports of the problems plaguing Battlefield 3 for PlayStation 3 gamers trying to enjoy the game online, but finally it sounds like there's light at the end of the tunnel.

As of yesterday, many users started reporting significantly improved performance in the online component of the game on the official forums. Some members have received updates from their support requests with some more information:

We have rolled out a cross-platform update for the BF3 servers and are looking for feedback from customers that were experiencing server issues.

It sounds like there's still a few minor gripes, but overall the major problems that have almost completely prevented people from enjoying this game online appear to be mostly resolved.

We chased this up with both DICE and EA Australia directly, as always the local EA team were quick to respond and I'm sure were instrumental in helping to prod this along to completion - so big thanks to them for chasing this up. If you have any feedback about the game performance, please don't hesitate to share it in the comments and I'll make sure it gets in front of the right people.

We had a chance to catch up with DICE's Patrick Bach at this year's GDC during a special unveiling event for both the upcoming Battlefield 3 map expansion, Close Quarters, and Danger Close's Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

Among topics, Bach explains what the team learnt from Battlefield 3's launch and where they want to take the game this year and into the future.

"We at DICE, we honestly feel this is what we want - as gamers ourselves," he told us in our interview. "We don’t just want a new map; we want new guns, we want Achievements, Assignments... so instead of just giving you one part of the puzzle, we give you a palette of stuff. You know, all the new guns, you can bring them back into the original game (Battlefield 3), so even if you don’t care about the actual maps, I can still enjoy the guns and I can play the old maps."

Click here for the full interview.