Is Battlefield 2 still "active"?

I was reminiscing the other day about the many happy hours that I spent hunched over my keyboard playing BF2 several years ago. I would quite like to re-install it, but before I go through the rigamarole of applying patches etc I thought I would just see how active the community still is.

Is there a good chance that I, as an unclanned newbie can find a decent game nowadays? Failing that, can anyone suggest any similar games that are worth a poke? They would have to run well on my MBP (2.8GHz, 9600M GT).

Thanks

 

I still play it a couple of times a week, still hundreds of servers , I downloaded a ported version of BF2 for the Mac but it runs 1/4 slower and i could not get the online gaming to work, very poor punkbuster for the mac, so i normaly play under bootcamp.

 

Thanks, looks like I will give it a go...if you see a medic/machine gunner running around like a headless chicken then take pity.

 

Just keep to the outskirts of the bases or the jet/chopper/artillery will make mince meat of you over and over again.

 

The Battlefield 2 1.5 patch is done and is coming out in a few days! Google it for some info I am SO loading the game back up when the 1.5 patch is released I am so stoked for it!!! I played so hard in the past it was ridiculous!

 

What!? If this is true, I will, well, give you rep!

I'd say "about time" but I have no idea what they're including. I doubt anything from my wish list made it:

(1) Change kits at a supply crate
(2) Shoulder Mounted Anti-air Unit (stinger) - perhaps an upgrade to anti-tank unit
(3) Snipers disassemble claymores (from behind of course - like engineers with mines), and/or grenades destroy claymores. I'm primarily a sniper now, myself, but there's got to be a way to deactivate the things.

 

Hey eeerman. I still also play BF2 at least 2-3 times a week. =UBR= and =Box= servers work best for me and ping is usually consistent. On occasion, I still see new players ranked as privates play on UBR and Box. Pretty friendly guys over there and Voip is enabled for both.

I have a question though...If you were playing BF2 before, you should've created an account. I'm not sure if EA deletes accounts that aren't in usage over a period of time (like Email accounts), but if you were playing before and have climbed the ranks; why not try to retrieve your account?

As far as I know, only the BF2 v1.50 Beta has been released. Sorry to dissapoint you htwingnut, but the only changes for the new patch are the following (as stated by EA):
============
Battlefield 2 Update v1.50
============
FEATURES
- Additional support for Windows Vista.
- Added Highway Tampa as a required map.
- Added a new map called Operation Blue Pearl.
- Added support for Widescreen resolutions
- Added support for the Novint Falcon controller - http://www.novint.com

GAMEPLAY TWEAKS
- Changes made to both the J10 and F35B to make them more balanced. Please note that the J10 is a superior dogfighter to the F35B and as such these two aircraft will never be equally matched.
- AA targeting tweaked to make it more effective.
- Added checks to prevent "runway grieving".
- Various changes made to prevent cheating.
- Tweaked the hit detection, hits will be more accurate to the model
- Increased the time to go prone after jumping from 0.3 seconds to 0.7 seconds
- Fixed G36E HUD during sprinting to match other weapons.

While I would probably enjoy the new maps, and I guess the gameplay tweaks make the game somewhat more realistic and difficult; I still would've hoped for further changes like those you've mentioned.

And I'm not sure if Exostenza is aware, but they have once again delayed the official release for the new patch. It was announced last week (August 7), on DigitalBattle that:

"DICE has delayed the debut of the upcoming 1.5 patch for Battlefield 2 once again...Yesterday, associate producer Barrie Tingle gave word that due to “office politics”, the patch won’t be out for even longer..."

"“Unfortunately I can’t tell you what the office politics decision is about but it is worth the slight extra delay,” Tingle said. “There won’t be another public Beta of this version, instead we will do a closed Beta to get a faster turn around and is basically to make sure things are still OK like the connection to servers issue.”

"Other than that, the patch is technically ready for launch. Anyone who has the 1.5 beta installed will want to downgrade that to 1.41, otherwise the update to 1.5 won’t be possible."


So I guess it would still be awhile until we see the release of a new patch. Hopefully they make further changes in the duration of the delay.

 

Thanks for the info! Anything regarding Battlefield 2 excites me (ok I'm weird).

I definitely do see some good things though:

- Widescreen support (finally!)
- Tweaked hit detection. This could be good or bad. I just hate it when I have a clear head shot to hit someone with a sniper rifle 100m away, but miss, but they hit me with a machine gun with one hit - one kill.
- Increased time to go prone after jumping from 0.3s to 0.7s. Good. Prevents dolphin diving. Even though people complain about bunny hopping, I've made several kills for bunny hoppers. I think they did well with the last patch.

I don't fly as much, but removing forced TK's on the runway ("runway grieving") is good. Stupid jerks run in front of your plane because they couldn't get it before you.

And another map. Could be good, I hope. I mainly play Wake Island, Jalalabad, and Karkand.

 

i tired beta 1 and the hit detection was a lot better. thats the thing i'm most excited about. the new map is alright, not that great. i heard that the office politics were to do with the in-game cd check but i'm not sure.

 

Glad to see that the new patch still doesn't address the over-powered nature of aircraft versus ground forces/emplacements. BF2 is a joke. I played for years and the experience is still the same: airpower rules, and without a "real" or significant threat from the ground (there are none) fighter jets/bomobers and attack choppers reign the landscape.

Quite frankly, the playing experience is unbalanced and will never be fixed which is why I play non-aircraft maps only.

 

Well I read an official statement from EA and they said the patch has been done for a couple of weeks now they are just delaying it because of office politics. They said they cannot comment on what the office politics are all about, but as soon as they are settled the patch will be released.

I read it over at kotaku so I am sure you could just search battlefield 2 1.5 and you'll get the article.

 

I'm with you there. Given the opportunity to voice my (feeble and single) opinion on updates for patches to BF2, I always indicated including a shoulder mounted anti-aircraft missile (stinger). Heat-seeking fire and forget, not manual control using anti-tank weapon. Always seemed to be on the bottom of their priority list.

It could even be an upgrade weapon for an anti-tank class. Sure the aircraft have flares, but two anti-air guys could down a chopper or plane. First missile would cause aircraft to flare, second would follow with solid lock.

Another option would be that the AA soldier would have to constantly track the aircraft through his site and the missile would then be locked on until impact. Or if they lost tracking or got killed while doing so, missile would switch to heat-seeking.

It doesn't keep me from playing aircraft maps though. Only real issue I've found is in Wake when the Chinese only have one flag left and it's not airfield. Then the raping is non-stop.

I also would like to see a 2 or 3-second invulnerability at spawn to eliminate raping at spawn points.

 

If you got 2-3 people on the AA sites all over the map, you can make it a real pain for the aircraft. Just gotta be smart when using the AA sites, don't stay on it too long and if you think he saw you get off it.

I think the issues that is more pressing is the J10 vs. F-35 disadvantage.

FYI, I hate 24/7 IO servers, but there are so few default rotation servers left.

 

The problem is, however, that if they own the other side of the island, you're screwed. Which happens frequently. I am surprised they didn't put an AA tank in that map too. That would help even the odds a bit too.

 

I have to say that the latest BETA (BETA 3) is possibly the weakest out of all the Betas. Gameplay feels incredibly slow after adding in prone deviation, the J-10 has been made into a Eurofighter (slow and sluggish), and they still refuse to do anything about nade spammers. I think what they should have done is make the F-35B better. Now the F-18 has an advantage over the J-10. And they should also make the assault class the only one with grenades since there is no reason to play that class.

 

Also, while using the F-35, fly high, like 600m+, the J-10's lose control at about 550m while the F-35 can fly well up to about 750m. Of course, use this tactic to mercilessly bomb the enemy and their airfield, it's not really worth trying to engage other J-10's.

 

glad to see this game still has an active community. I played this game alot when it first came out. I am tempted to fire it back up. I never flew the planes much mostly ground stuff but I had a blast.