this looks great, am defo looking forward to this

This is going to be pretty awesome, I made a video about it because I was so excited (also submitted to bfo).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKNBOtw5cwA

It looks great. Whats great to see is the maturity of the community here! On MP1ST and Battlelog all I have seen on posts about this is "It's useless" or "Existed in COD" both of which are made by those who don't exactly realize what the feature is.


Can see this being used allot by people like x-factor, fhrope, luitin etc.

what ever happened to the $1.5 million tournament that was supposed to be hosted by virgin gaming.. I remember that this torunament was publicized as the largest tournament ever.. but up to this point i havent heard nothing at all.. I know Dice and Virgin gaming said that this tournament was slated to take place in early 2012 but so far nothing does anyone have any input into whats happening? thanks!

maybe now they are giving us this it will get started, as it looks the same sort of idea for how you set up matches on virgin gaming. And there has been a bracket on there for battlefield 3 since last year with just a coming soon

Sounds pretty awesome!

Hmmm, I want to try to play on server with 1-10% HP only.
This looks really good.

NWT is looking forward to this , can see who the top clans are....yeeehaaaa

Yes, I believe I'm even going to take advantage of this feature. Gotta snag a server first, though.

Sounds great there will be those that say its too little too late but so many of us still love this game its definitely a welcome feature.
Something like spectator mode would be welcomed too though and having seen the code in the pages we have access to that's a possibility I hope.

Next step, Battlerecorder!!!

needs spectator mode or battlerecorder!

Exactly, this isn't really going anywhere unless DICE implements spectator. These type of 'matches' have already been made possible with sites like esl.eu for those interested in competitive gaming. It's the lack of proper eSport features that's holding BF3 back, not organizing the gathers...

I disagree with your last comment. At least in North America most people aren't aware of competitive battlefield 3, let alone know what league web site to go to. Spec mode and Battlerecorder would be nice to have, but they will not suddenly make competitive battlefield more popular. There are dozens of good players on youtube who post their competitive matches only to find these kind of videos are not that popular. It's more reasonable to say most simply aren't aware of where to go or how to play than they're turned off because of no spec/battlerecorder features.

Yes, the matches feature does make scrims more accessible for newbies but if you're one of "those interested in competitive gaming" then you should already know how to arrange these type of gathers. This implementation still doesn't add any often requested eSport features to BF3, it makes it more accessible for complete newbies but doesn't fix anything the eSports community asked for.
Competitive BF3 isn't popular because it was abandoned by the community when it turned out to be a poorly supported, casualised generic shooter sprinkled with false promises and blatant lies, not because people aren't aware of its existence.

At least in North America your notion that the competitive BF3 was abandoned by the community is a false one because its built on the incorrect assumption that there was a community around competitive bf3 of any significant size in the first place. Even during the first three months, there were only perhaps 40 active 8v8 teams on TWL whereas now there are 20. While a 50% is significant relative to one another, both of these figures are tiny compared to the hundreds of active 8v8 teams back in battlefield 2.

How is it that BF2 sold half as many PC copies in North America compared to BF3 yet had almost an order of magnitude difference in active competitive players? Do you really think battlerecorder and spec mode is what drew so many people to bf2? I will tell you I was incredibly active back then and these things were niceties at best. People came because communities like CAL existed where people could organize and play.

This matches system will do more to get people playing competitively than spec mode or battlerecorder ever will. But hey I could be wrong, there's surely a bunch of youtube commentators getting millions of hits from showcasing their competitive matches.

Yeah I don't know about NA but here in EU the 8v8 never received much attention to begin with, it was mostly the 4v4 ladders that people focused on. Sadly the numbers are still diminishing and people are jumping ships but you can't really blame them. Competitive BF3 is regarded a joke in many casuals and even competitive players eyes.

Number of sales doesn't equal to amount of players interested in competitive gaming. Gaming in general has turned more casual and "mainstream" compared to ~2005. The typical "gamer" back then sadly isn't the same type of player games are marketed for today. Nowadays it's all about piss easy learning curves and encouraging pop-ups with shiny ribbons, numbers and 'achievements' that keep the masses happy, not challenging gameplay and friendly competition between players.
Quantity over quality, money is the only thing EA listens to...

I've never said BR or spec being what draws people to competitive gaming but DICE sure isn't it making it easy for the eSports community when they themselves don't include, disregarding all their pre-launch promises, proper eSports support. Spectator has since the beginning been an important cornerstone of competitive gaming and a 'competitive' game without it is destined to fail.

In my eyes it's already too late for BF3 to be regarded as an eSports title. There was so much talk about BF3 being eSports focused when the hypetrain was still rolling but once the game was out and the pockets holding the money changed did the eSports focus suddenly also change...

I'm glad they're adding more features. Matches might breathe some new life into competitive BF3 but I still don't see BF3 going anywhere as a competitive game on a noticeable scale. I'd be glad to be proven wrong though.