Battlefield 3’s online service ‘Battlelog’ has finally received a much-wanted update, giving players the ability to edit their in game loadout remotely via the Battlelog website.

The online service will allow players on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC to fully customize the equipment they want to use in game, as long as they’ve unlocked it. This includes all four of the games classes (Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon) as well as the weapon the class is set to use, the attachments on it, both gadget slots and the loadout specialisation.

After you’ve edited your loadout, the class will then be ready to use straight away in game, perfect for people wanting to jump straight into a match as soon as they’re home after a long days work.

Another neat feature is the ability to directly copy any of your friends loadouts without having to spend ten minutes hunting through menus to find the right attachment. You’re now able to instantly copy a friends loadout to your battlelog with just a few quick clicks.

The latest addition to the Battlelog service is available for free, all you’ll have to do is link your Battlelog account to your Xbox Live gamer tag, Playstation Network ID or EA/Origin account (PC).

The multiplayer beta of Battlefield 3 is up and running, and people have been giving their feedback on it. DICE has taken all that into consideration and listed a number of changes that they will make to the game itself, after having taken all feedback into consideration. The full list can be found on the Battlefield 3 forums, but here’s a shorter, more concise list that lists all the major, big changes (thanks, Battlefield Blog!):

• Fixed occasional client crash when reviving.
• Fixed killcam showing glitched area under map if your killer is dead.
• Issue with spawning on dead squad mates fixed.
• Fixed a bug where shooting at a moving enemy could cause more than the intended amount of damage.
• Crosshairs for shotguns have been replaced with a new, thinner, art.
• A subtle low health screen effect has been added.
• Tweaked scores of Medals and Service Stars.
• Tweaked the Rank progression.
• Pushing prone on console will not play the animation twice.
• Fixed loss of Squad Leader after EOR at some times.
• Framerate stability fixes.
• The 3D spotting icons has been tweaked to better match the target’s visibility. Icons will show frequently less on mostly obscured targets.
• Fixed issue with crosshair disappearing after round transition.
• Fixed issue with crosshair disappearing after trying to deploy while the countdown timer still active.
• Squad list now shows specializations chosen, VOIP activity and dead squad mates.
• Non working options in squad menu fixed: “Private” flag and “Switch Teams”.

DICE has released a new, 25 seconds long Battlefield 3 teaser trailer, which shows practically nothing at all. It shows a guy jumping over another guy, then it shows a tank, then it shows a building falling down, then it shows the player taking cover behind a car, and that’s it. Well, something’s better than nothing, I guess…

Battlefield 3 is shaping up to be a very good game, from what we’ve seen so far. EA has a lot of confidence in the game- they say it’ll eat up CoD’s market share like FIFA did to PES.

EA is going all guns blazing against Call of Duty, it seems. Battlefield 3’s beta got a tagline that says “Go above and beyond the call.” We all know how hard it must have been for EA to not add “of Duty” at the end of that line.

Stay tuned for more info.

EA’s European publishing SVP, Jens Uwe Intat understands that while with Battlefield 3 they may not be able to take over the First Person Shooter market entirely, they do want to chop off a huge market share that Activision possesses. He believes EA will take over the FPS market the way they took over the football sim market with FIFA.

“One of my favourite sayings is ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’,” he said, speaking with MCV.

“We might not do it Day One, but we are going to take a decent amount share from Activision. In broad numbers, Activision has 90 per cent of the shooter market, and we want to see that go down to 70. I would be even happier if they were left with 60 per cent.

“The poster child for the model really is FIFA. Ultimate Team has proven that we can give a compelling experience every day, and also monetise it.”

He carried on, elaborating upon his point: “Then we took back market share and then claimed the majority.

In football, the differently shaped balls are differently attractive on the two sides of the Atlantic. Here we play with a proper round ball, and over there they play with that oddly-shaped ball. But FIFA is actually getting more and more attractive in the US. Not the least driven by the phenomenon of soccer itself – the US women’s team has done well, and the male team… well, they’ll have a bit of a wait.

“But soccer generally is played more in the US than ever before. So FIFA is catching up there, more than Madden ever will in Europe.”

I find this really funny, because a year ago, he said the same thing about taking over the first person shooter market by beating Activision and Call of Duty, and gave the example of FIFA, but only that time, he said so about Medal of Honor.

Let’s hope this time he actually turns out to be true. Stay tuned for more updates.

We all know about the ongoing “war” between the two upcoming military First Person Shooters- namely, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. While Activision recently tried to play it cool by saying they wouldn’t care if Modern Warfare 3 sold as low as three copies (right, three, not three hundred, or thousand, or million), EA isn’t letting up at all.

They have released a new tagline for Battlefield 3’s beta. It says “Go Above and Beyond the Call.” We know very well how much EA wanted to add “of Duty” at the end, but it conveys its message pretty well as it is.

EA Labels’ Frank Gibeau recently said that the CoD franchise hasn’t had much competition till now, and that Battlefield 3 will definitely eat up a whole lot of Modern Warfare 3’s market share.

“We’re all in,” Gabeau said about twenty days back. “

We’re going for it. How you measure victory, I don’t know. What I’m curious about is how the game is going to finish from a quality standpoint – I think it’s going to be great.

“We’re going to take share from them and I think we’re going to grow the business significantly. We’re going to give them competition for the first time that they haven’t had.”

Read the full post here.

Battlefield 3 certainly seems to be doing very well sales-wise already, a month prior to its release. If analyst reports are anything to go by, it has garner 1.5 million pre-order sales already.

System requirements were also recently revealed for Battlefield 3. And, well, prepare to get your PC blown into pieces (no, seriously).

And just in case about which one of the two shooters you should buy, you can have a look at our recent shootout between the two, which hopefully will help you decide better. Read it here.

Many people had issues with Battlefield: Bad Company 2, especially when it comes to the control sensitivity. I’m talking about the consoles of course, since PC’s do not have to deal with this problem. Well, good news for people who were turned off by the slight unresponsive controls in Bad Company 2; Battlefield 3 will be a massive improvement when it comes to sensitivity and controls.

Alan Kertz, who works at DICE and had worked on  Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as well, reassured the fans that the controls wont be a problem for Battlefield 3. He acknowledged that Bad Company 2 had problems and optimizing the controls were their top priority. When asked about the controls, he said they are much more optimized and have higher sensitivity range on the consoles than other Battlefield console games.

“We’ve really improved responsiveness and control, and also given more sensitivity range than previous BF console games,” he replied to a response to a question by a Battlefield fan.

Battlefield 3 is shaping up to be a terrific game on both the PC and the consoles. Controls are important because that’s what makes CoD stand out compared to the other shooters on the consoles. 60fps is a huge advantage which really helps the responsiveness of the controls. Battlefield 3, doesn’t run at 60fps but half the frame rate of CoD but considering the scale and the graphical might, we’ve to say it truly provides a ‘Battlefield’ like experience.

Optimization of the controls is good news, since many shooters do not get that right, especially a promising one called Killzone 2. It was a graphical beast on consoles but the controls dragged it down and hence it reflected in the sales, but considering Battlefield 3 does have 1.25 million pre-orders already, it looks secure in the sales department. We will come to know how well it performs and wins over gamers’ heart later this year.

Meanwhile, tell us in the comments section below. Do you prefer CoD controls? Or enjoy the controls of Bad Company 2 or Killzone 2? We would love to know. Battlefield 3 releases on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 25th.

EA Labels’ Frank Gibeau says the Call of Duty series “hasn’t had competition” till date, and that they will make sure with the Battlefield series that it finally does. He says Battlefield 3 will “definitely” eat up a major portion of CoD’s market share. “We’re going for it,” he said.

“We don’t take things lightly. If we’re going to go after a category, we intend to lead. We have a very big competitor there but they’re going to get some competition this Christmas for the first time in a long time.

“We’re all in. We’re going for it. How you measure victory, I don’t know. What I’m curious about is how the game is going to finish from a quality standpoint – I think it’s going to be great.

 “We’re going to take share from them and I think we’re going to grow the business significantly. We’re going to give them competition for the first time that they haven’t had.”

“We like to think that we’ve got a pretty powerful game offer with the technology base that is brand new, next generation and should set new standards for what happens in FPS,” he said.

“We’re excited about and we’re really proud of the Battlefield 3 game. It’s coming together very well and the quality and technology is something that you can just see on screen. The DICE guys have the pedigree of building some spectacular games.

“This Christmas we’re definitely going to take market share in the FPS category from those guys,” he concluded. “Customers like competition, they like these kind of heavyweight fights so we’re going for it.”

BF3 will be out later next month. Stay tuned.

Speaking to RockPaperShotgun, executive producer Patrick Bach said that players will not be able to shoot civilians in Battlefield 3, because the studio wants to avoid controversies.

“If you put the player in front of a choice where they can do good things or bad things, they will do bad things, go dark side – because people think it’s cool to be naughty, they won’t be caught,” he explained.

“In a game where it’s more authentic, when you have a gun in your hand and a child in front of you what would happen? Well the player would probably shoot that child. We would be the ones to be blamed. We have to build our experiences so we don’t put the player in experiences where they can do bad things.

“Me personally, I’m trying to stay away from civilians in games like BF because I think people will do bad. I don’t want to see videos on the internet where people shoot civilians. That’s something I will sanitise by removing that feature from the game

“We are trying to do something that is more mature. Mature not being gore – some people confuse the two. That’s childish actually, to want more blood.”

DICE recently revealed a lot of co-op details. Have a look at them here.

Tommy Rydling, junior product manager at DICE has explained the co-op of Battlefield 3 in detail at the PlayStation Blog. He has detailed the Exfiltration co-op campaign in Battlefield 3, which was shown at gamescom some time ago.

“We designed co-op to be the perfect blend between the strong narrative from single player and the open-ended action from multiplayer,” he said. “We are fusing the replayability of multiplayer with a pick up-and-play mentality to create a totally new flavor of Battlefield.

“For the most part, the missions in the co-op campaign are asymmetric. This means that one mission can have you piloting a helicopter while your friend is the gunner, for example. Other situations have one player disarming a bomb and the other one defending him. Or (as you could see in our press conference playthrough at gamescom) you can do tandem kills to avoid detection. There are also other mechanics requiring teamwork, such as spotting enemies to make large firefights easier, or the essential concept of reviving one another to avoid ending up at the game over screen.

“The co-op missions in Battlefield 3 all take place in the same world as the single-player campaign, and follow a unique series of events that lead up to an explosive finish. Players in co-op will take the role of soldiers that are not tied to any one particular branch of the Armed Forces. This is an intentional design decision to allow for a vast variety in gameplay in the different co-op missions.”

Missions can randomize elements “to keep playthroughs fresh.” Clearing a mission will give a boost to both, you single player and your miltuplayer score. Co-op will also include several unlockable weapons which can be used in MP. The unlocks are based on your cumulative score through co-op.

EA COO Peter Moore believes Battlefield 3 doesn’t have to outsell direct competitor Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to be successful. EA says their goal right now is to eat up a huge share of CoD’s market, and expand on that year over year.

“It’s less about being second place. This is about taking market share,” Moore told Gamespot. “This is really about a long-term strategy in what we think is a very important shooter segment that has driven over the last few years multiple billions of dollars of revenue into the industry.

“If you look at last year, you might argue that Call of Duty took maybe 90 percent of the market share. We think we can knock that down to 70 percent this year. We don’t have to outsell Call of Duty to have a very successful year. This is a long-term strategy to be a major player.”

He compared this BF vs COD battle to the previous FIFA vs PES one, which turned out to be successful for EA Sports. “We’ve got a precedent,” he said. “If you remember, FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer used to be as recently as three or four years ago, head-to-head in a lot of markets, with PES as the dominant brand.

“We invested enormously in both the quality of the game, the marketing, a real focus on getting the game right, and being there for gamers and building a community around it. It’s no different than what we intend to do in the shooter category.”