We’re taking the next step in advancing online competitive play in the Battlefield 3 community. The “Matches” feature will allow players to coordinate competitive multiplayer sessions with their friends and squad members. Battlefield 3 players will be able to select the time, server, game settings, and roster for their Matches creating a controlled and definitive environment for competitive play.

Players will be able to coordinate Matches for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 through the Battlelog. To coordinate a Match a player must be actively renting a dedicated server. Once a dedicated server has been selected the Match host can set the Match name, start time, game mode, team size, and map rotations.

The matches feature is being gradually rolled out and should not take too long for it to show up.

For more information on matches, check out our Battlefield Blog on: http://blogs.battlefield.com/2012/07/matches-feature-coming-to-battlefield-3/

We’re happy to announce that a new range of soldier upgrades are now available to Premium members.

For Premium players, this means that you will receive two new Camos (One per faction) as well as new assignments.

The new assignments are:

Unlock – F2000 Woodland Oak Camo

Pre-requisite Premium Assignment 1 completed
100 kills with the F2000
50 squad revives
25 kills with the underslung shotgun

Unlock – Pecheneg Tactical Camo

Premium Assignment 2 completed
100 kills with the Pecheng
25 Claymore kills
25 vehicle kills with C4

Unlock – L96 Digital Woodland Camo

Premium Assignment 3 completed
100 kills with the L96
50 squad spot assists with the MAV
350 meter headshot with the L96

Unlock – Scar-H Berkut Camo

Premium Assignment 4 completed
100 kills with the SCAR-H
20 kills with AT mines
5 air vehicles killed with AT launchers (RPG/SMAW/Javelin)

Unlock – Navy Blue Digital Camo for US Soldiers and Woodland Stripe Pattern for RU Soldiers

Pre-requisite F2000 Specialist, Pecheneg Specialist, SCAR-H Specialist and L96 Specialist Assignments completed
500 kills with Assault
400 kills with Support
500 kills with Engineer
300 kills with Recon

If you are not a Premium player but would like to enjoy the benefits, you can get Premium right here: http://www.battlefield.com/battlefield3/1/premium

The first of the Premium-exclusive strategy guides is dropping today. This Prima Games guide will give insider information about the new maps, weapons, Assignments, and games modes featured in Close Quarters. So, whether you’re going for first place in Gun Master, hopping from flag to flag in Conquest Domination, or trying to unlock the new Close Quarters Assignment weapons, you’ll have a leg up on the competition. Everything from how to get that elusive EOD bot kill to unlock the MTAR-21, to the best places to defend against a frenetic. Conquest Domination onslaught is included.

You will receive the full version of the guide as a 70 page PDF. You can also get the digital interactive version by http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/premium/guides/

Next week, we have a great treat for all Battlefield 3 players. Premium members will get double XP for an entire week, while non-Premium members get two and a half days of double XP goodness.

As always, double XP means your net gain for any round will be effectively doubled at the end of round. This goes for any map and any mode from the base game or any of our expansion packs, as long as you play on ranked servers.

Full details of the event below. We hope you enjoy it, and hope to see you online.

July Double XP event
What: Double your net score after every round
Who: All players
When: July 2-8 for Premium members, July 2-4 for non-Premium members
Starts: 00:01 PDT/07:01 UTC July 2 (click link for handy time conversion tool)
Ends for non-Premium members: 13:00 PDT/20:00 UTC July 4
Ends for Premium members: 23:59 PDT July 8/06:59 UTC July 9

Grab the chance to play Battlefield 3 with DICE tonight on Xbox 360!

We will be online from 5-8 PM CST on a few specific Premium-only servers. Join us to play with DICE or try and grab our dev dog tags.

You can find the names of the servers in question by following us on Twitter @battlefield. We will tweet the server names as soon as we hop on!