The guys who write the Road To Battlefield 4 blog are so drenched in PR, they could polish a turd to mirror shine and use it to deflect lasers. In the latest issue of "Let's try to sound as PR as possible", they're tackling the Battlelog,, the place where stats are shown, loadouts are edited and various other crap happens.
In Battlefield 3 Battlelog was handled by your browser - the game only launched when you selected a server. Now, it's integrated into the game and the tool will be seen in the upper right hand corner of the screen. From there you will be able to access most Battlelog features: your friends (I still don't understand what that word means), people in your squad and their profiles ("Gee, I wonder what BongBoi420 likes"), your standing in Geo Leaderboards, progress towards achievements, create a Mission and so forth...
The blog also uses copious amounts of the word "experience", as PR people love it for its vagueness.
Anyways, the Battlelog is now more uniform among all platforms (including pads and phones) than it was before. I couldn't tell the difference. I never felt the need to access Battlefield on my phone because I can't play Battlefield on my phone. And I'd rather read Not Always Right or Badass of The Week than fidget with rifles that I can't shoot right now.
A new thing that will have Call of Duty fans shouting "PLAGIARISM" (and Blacklight fans going 'eh') is emblems. Surprisingly, only a short paragraph is spent on it, even though every other "RtBF4" post was full of feverish shouting that customization will save your soul, etc. Anyways, you can now make emblems and next time you're in the game, it will be seen on you gun, your soldier and any unfortunate vehicles you mount. I already feel the onslaught of crude penises and cannabis plants. Meanwhile, the PR shill goes "We can't wait to see all the creative emblems people will create and bring into the game." as if emblem creation was an art and anyone was interested in it.
"This extends Battlelog to be more than something you use while you're not playing – Battlelog for BF4 is quite simply a full-fledged companion experience!" is another turd that's so bright, your eyes water. Look, we all know what the driving motive behind mobile Battlelog is. It's not to help you play the game, it's to keep you hooked on the game like a crackwhore on crack. The more time you spend not playing Battlefield, the bigger the chance that you might forget to play it, or even fall to heresy and buy CoD. But before Activision starts whispering stuff into your ear, Battlelog pops out on your overpriced plastic rectangle with patented round corners and you're back. You're hooked in. You're playing Battlefield even when you're not playing Battlefield (i.e., not shooting, running or calling the other team "base raping whores).
Anyways, what does Battlelog present to you? Well, "you can view your stats, customize your Loadout, write in the forums, read the latest news, connect with friends, and more." It also now recognizes when you are in the game (progress!) and through something they call Unified Game Manager (the more acronyms and capitalized words, the better is your new system) it will offer access to more game related features: Real-time Loadout, Remote Joining and BattleScreen.
They say the loadout screen is now more tightly integrated into the game (so even CoD players would know how to use it), more user friendly and any changes done will be automatically applied. The same was in Battlefield 3, but the menu was not very easy to navigate and individual items had to be scrolled - because that's what console users do and we won't make a list for PC players! Remote Joining, on the other hand, lets you look for a new server while in game and ditch the current one once you find something better (preferably without MCOMMS and other such nonsense).
Meanwhile, Battlecreen now replaces the map. You can call it up on a tablet though, since that is supposedly less intrusive than pressing a button to get a map display. Supposedly, this makes it easier for squad commanders to order their troops around. Yes, the seamless transition from using a mouse and keyboard to shoot and then moving your hands away to grab a tablet to do some action there. Immersion, what's that? Anyways, this is also very useful for the now literal armchair generals, since it's through the pad that the Commanders will order around people on the battlefield. Sigh.
And you might have read something about Geo Leaderboards. Well, they show how you measure up against other people in the game. Of course, DICE understands that it's a bit disheartening to see that you're the 3,000,001st out of 3,000,000 Battlefield players and that's where Geo comes into play. See, you can set the region - down to town level - in which you compete for better score in kills, points, vehicles destroyed. Now, while it's uncertain if it will be possible in Bumfuck, Nowhere or Some Yurta, Mongolia, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't - I mean, I really doubt that EA cares about provincial customers more than that one guy who tweeted that Xbox don't care about people with crappy internet connection. Or, I will be proven wrong, and even the loneliest hamlet in Wales will be able to compete against other people in his bogmen clan.
Personal Records is a thing that counts your highest scores in various stats (like most kills in match)... and then come Divisions that separate you worldwide according, again, to various ratings. And it goes down to Geo level - you might be Division 1 in your city, but Division 10 in the world (because you're the only player in your city).
Next come missions, the new way to make your friends hate you. In a mission, you can set a goal (kill ratio, be best class, teabag most dead recons, etc), a map (or any map), number of attempts (each round counts as one, but the number can be infinite if you want) - and now you and your select friends have 48 hours to fail miserably! So it's like challenges, but the only reward is bragging rights. Nice to see EA offloading work to us.
On the stats side of things, there's the Profile Replay. I'll just quote it here "On your stats overview page, you can drag this slider around so you can see how your core stats have changed, and hopefully improved, over time". See? Even the PR guys are open to the option that you're a lame player, just like your grandma always told you.
And now, to cut them some slack, a quote about an actual good idea:
"We have also improved Battle Reports, and I am particularly excited about the new dynamic prize system. We have around 40 different stats being analyzed, and if you are good enough, then you may be highlighted as a top player in that round. Even if you don't get a Top Player award, there's still a good chance that you've been the best at something, and we'll make sure to tell you what that is. Even the small victories count, right?"
This is a step forward as evidenced by War Thunder where you might not be the #1 player, but you might be the best bomber, ground force rescuer and so on.
Also the Suggestion screen will show you which medals, unlocks, service stars you're close to achieving. If you don't like the suggestions - refresh. And if you have one that is particularly juicy for you, you can choose to track it. I know at least one co-worker who will be using that.
Well, Battelfield 4 comes out on October 29th with Pre-Order Master Race being able to play beta from October 1st. Hopefully, it won't suck, because I couldn't bear both CoD and BF sucking.
