There are so many great videos from the Only in Battlefield 3 challenge that we haven’t had a chance to highlight yet. Check out five of the best ones that we posted in our honorary mentions over at the Battlefield Blog.

A new server update for Battlefield 3 is rolling out tomorrow on all formats, bringing more balancing tweaks to the Armored Kill gunship and the long awaited option to remove the minimap in Hardcore mode. Read on for the full details

You should see this update in effect starting 08:30 UTC October 11th (click link to see the corresponding time where you live). It usually takes ~6 hours on consoles for these updates to be rolled out to all servers worldwide. On PC you should see these updates in about 24 hours on a majority of the servers.

NOTE: During 08:00-08:30 UTC on October 11th (click link to see the corresponding time where you live) both Battlelog and the game backend will perform scheduled maintenance. During this time, you will not be able to play Battlefield 3 on PC or consoles.

Now, on to the change list!

October 11th server update change list

Gunship balance tweak in Rush mode
The Armored Kill gunship received major tweaks already in the last server update. We are now further tweaking it based on community feedback. It now only respawns after the attackers have destroyed an M-COM in Rush.

Rationale: The gunship has been a bit overpowered and spawning too fast in Rush, especially on servers running modified vehicle spawn times. This tweak makes the gunship only spawn for the attackers after each crate, except the initial spawn on round start. In effect, this means that after the gunship is destroyed, a new M-COM needs to be destroyed before the gunship can respawn at all.

Gunship balance tweak in Conquest mode
The gunship will always have a 60 second spawn delay in Conquest no matter the server spawn delay setting.

Rationale: The gunship has been spawning too fast on servers running modified vehicle spawn times, making it hard to regain control of the flag controlling the gunship. This tweak will make the gunship spawn every 60 seconds independent of server settings.

Option to remove minimap in Hardcore mode
We now allow disabling the minimap in Hardcore mode.

Rationale: It’s been a requested feature from the community to be able to remove the minimap in hardcore mode. We are now adding a new preset on consoles for server admins to use called “Hardcore no map” which disables the minimap and keeps the rest of the Hardcore settings intact. On PC, you disable the minimap with the server command “vars.minimap false” that is now permitted on Hardcore servers. Enjoy!

Improved server stability
Improved connectivity between game servers and the back end, significantly reducing the number of times a server times out and kicks players.

Knife takedown fix
Fixed so that there can be multiple knife kills at the same time on a server.

Rationale: We had a bug where only one knife takedown could take place at any one time on one server. If you attempted a knife takedown at the exact same time as someone else on the server, the takedown animation wouldn’t play, and your opponent wouldn’t take any damage. This has now been fixed.

MVP Premium member score fix
Fixed so that MVP and best team is calculated using normalized score (removing the advantage Premium members sometimes received in obtaining these ribbons)

Rationale: Earlier, Premium members would get an inflated chance of becoming MVP/best team during Premium exclusive double XP events, since these ribbons were calculated based on total score. Using base values all across the board now removes this artificial advantage.

Kill list fix
Fixed the bug where a kill was listed as a vehicle kill when the player actually killed someone with a mine or similar weapon. Another example where this would occur was if you fired a Javelin, then entered a vehicle before the Javelin hit its target.

Radio beacon exploit fix
Fixed the radio beacon exploit where you could place it above the roof and then spawn on it to access areas that are not meant to be accessible. This glitch was reported on Operation Métro and has been removed.

Ladder/vehicle entry fix
Fixed so that players can no longer enter vehicles while climbing a ladder.

Crash fix
Fixed a rare potential crash issue when loading a new map.

Let us know in the comments section below what you think about these tweaks and fixes.

Hi all. We just wanted to give you a short update on our anti-cheat measures and how we think about a couple of aspects regarding this in Battlefield 3. As you know, we are always striving to keep Battlefield 3 as fair as possible of a game. This takes many shapes and forms, including (but not limited to): Reading the reports that you file; Analyzing player behavior and stats to catch potential cheaters; And hiring more people with the full-time job of increasing our anti-cheat measures and decreasing our response times.

To make sure that everyone on the Battlefield plays multiplayer on equal terms, we also want to make sure that the game files have not been compromised for any reason. For us, a changed game file indicates the user is trying to affect the game to get the upper hand in multiplayer, whether that’s by modifying the graphics or making the game otherwise behave in a manner that is not as designed. We will not differentiate between someone who has modified the game for reasons he thinks are benign and a player doing it to cause grief online.

Players tampering with the game files for any reason need to know that this is against DICE and EA policy and is grounds for banning. Everyone else just needs to know that we will always strive to create a fair online gaming environment.

For more information on what you can do if you play against someone that you suspect is cheating, check this previous Battlelog News post.

The race for 19,420 rounds played on Wake Island has concluded, with the initial platform leaders on PlayStation 3 holding their lead all the way to the finish line.

In the spirit of celebration, we will now unlock the “Executioner” dog tag pictured above for all Battlefield 3 players on all formats. If it is not already available for you in-game, it will be shortly. Thanks to everyone who honored the 10th anniversary of Battlefield by playing on this most classic of all Battlefield maps (Wake Island, as you may know, was the map playable in the first Battlefield 1942 demo 10 years ago).

 

Please join us in welcoming Medal of Honor Warfighter into the Battlelog community! As you may know, our friends over at Danger Close are launching the Medal of Honor Warfighter Open Beta on Xbox 360 tomorrow (October 5th).

At the GamesCom show earlier this year, they announced that Medal of Honor would take full advantage of the Battlelog social platform. The Open Beta marks the first step on the journey towards full Battlelog integration.

Already now, you can see a new menu item at the top of the Battlelog landing page. If you click the MOHW item, it will instantly take you to the separate Medal of Honor section of Battlelog, also reachable via the individual URL battlelog.medalofhonor.com. Entering battlelog.battlefield.com will always take you to your normal Battlefield 3 space, so no changes there.

You will probably start seeing some Medal of Honor activity among your friends here on Battlelog as the Open Beta kicks into gear. More specifically, if your friends start playing the Medal of Honor Open Beta, that will show up as an activity in your Battle Feed. You will also be able to see in the Com Center when your friends are playing Medal of Honor. Finally, if they choose to publish any activities in their Game Activity feed, it will show up there as well. You can check out the deep stats tracking and Warfighter Nations metagame in the Medal of Honor section once the Open Beta is live.

If you haven’t done so already, check out the latest Medal of Honor trailer above, then join the Open Beta by downloading it from Xbox Live Marketplace to see what the game is all about. The Open Beta will be live on Xbox Live Marketplace on October 5th around 11:00 CEST (click the link to see what time this equates to in your region). Medal of Honor Warfighter launches on October 23rd.