Zh1nt0 (head community manager for Battlefield 3) sat down with the German Battlefield community to discuss questions concerning the beta. A lot of valuable information was revealed during the conversation. You can read all of it below.
Battlefield 3 Beta:
The beta will not start at midnight or 00:00 GMT
The download size will be 2 - 3gb
Those who had the alpha must download the beta client, the alpha client can not be updated.
No game rank limit during beta (go all the way to 50!)
Pre-load information coming soon
The beta was not delayed
Battlefield 3 General:
The netcode is completely new and rewritten
Players can not join a squad if their team is full (to prevent Battlelog groups from getting split)
Vehicles will begin to heal themselves after 10 - 15 seconds (this is a server setting)
Vehicles will only begin to regenerate if their health is under 75%
Unlocks are class restrictive, can't put a sniper scope on a support gun
Operation Metro has been better balanced
Two knife animations (behind and on the ground)
A knife attack on your player can not be countered
Throwing a grenade will still prompt enemy players to yell (Bad Company 2 similar)
Hand grenades can not be held to make the detonation time quicker (known as cooking)
You can join a server that a friend is on via Origin
Friendly Fire is set to "on" by default. It can be turned off in the server settings
Caspian Border is not the biggest map
Jets do not have bombs (wtf?)
If you are kicked from a server, Battlelog will prompt you with the reason (ping, server settings, or server admin reasoning)
A ranked server can be turned into an unranked server (for practice, etc.)
No weather or time change during a multiplayer game
e-sports are the focus of Battlefield 3
No word on Battlerecorder/Game recorder
Misc. Battlefield 3 Information:
You can use three screens with the game
Next 1 - 3 weeks will bring more information about maps
Battlelog application for iPhone/iOS (free). No word on Android.
Battlelog is updated separately to allow game updating to be a bit more flawless
More community events in the works (some happening here on enterbf3!)
Mod tools are still a possibility
Two nVidia GTX 580's can run the game on ultra
Battlefield 3 may be available on the Xbox marketplace
Some 300 employees at DICE
Quite a lot of Battlefield 3 information in such a short period of time! Thanks to the German and EA UK communities for getting all of these Battlefield 3 details.
http://www.enterbf3.com/viewtopic.php?t=4068