Battlefield 3 Physical Warfare Pack will be available without pre-order

If you don't want to pre-order Battlefield 3, EA has confirmed you'll still be able to access the Physical Warfare weapons and Back to Karkand DLC.

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Continuing what seems to be a franchise tradition, EA has further clarified how the upcoming "Physical Warfare Pack" for Battlefield 3 will work. Currently a pre-order bonus exclusive, the Pack unlocks the Type 88 light machine gun and the DAO-12 semi-automatic shotgun. "The three exclusive items in the Physical Warfare Pack were specifically chosen not to be overpowered or imbalance or break the game in any way," DICE previously insisted, suggesting that the unlocks would only be available for those that pre-order the game. "Owning these items will give you a more varied arsenal, but it will not give you a significant advantage on the battlefield."

EA has since updated its position, noting that the "Physical Warfare Pack is a time-based exclusive. If you do not pre-order Battlefield 3 at a retailer carrying the Physical Warfare Pack, don’t worry. We will unlock the contents of the Physical Warfare Pack for free to all Battlefield 3 players later this year." Essentially, EA is resolving this concern the same way they did when Battlefield: Bad Company drew similar ire.

The free Back to Karkand expansion being offered to everyone that pre-orders the game will also not be available when the game launches, EA reiterated. "It is not day one DLC and it is not on the base game disc." The first expansion for the game is being developed by a separate team at DICE, the same team that developed the Vietnam expansion for Bad Company 2. Offering it for free when it releases is "a sweet deal," EA says, adding that it will be available at the same time for people that did and didn't pre-order the game. "There is no segmentation of the community when we launch the base game."

Obviously, EA is trying to incentivize pre-orders as much as possible by offering early weapon unlocks and free DLC. But if you don't feel like being an early adopter, you now no longer have to fear that you won't be able to access all the content being created for Battlefield 3.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    June 16, 2011 1:30 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Battlefield 3 Physical Warfare Pack will be available without pre-order.

    If you don't want to pre-order Battlefield 3, EA has confirmed you'll still be able to access the Physical Warfare weapons and Back to Karkand DLC.

    • reply
      June 16, 2011 1:39 PM

      Backpedal backpedal backpedal

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      June 16, 2011 1:40 PM

      so they still need to update their FAQ since approximately 0% of this makes sense at this point

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      June 16, 2011 1:41 PM

      lol

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      June 16, 2011 1:42 PM

      I am terribly curious if this was the original plan (and they did not want to announce it), or if they stepped back on their hard stance on this they had earlier.

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        June 16, 2011 1:45 PM

        What do you think? Mix this with the recent "trying to blame Valve" scenario.

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        June 16, 2011 2:01 PM

        Of course it wasn't the original plan by EA, but im sure the shitstorm they created caused them to slap each other in the face and wonder to themselves "oops, wtf have we done"

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          June 16, 2011 4:17 PM

          They did the same with BC2. Original plan for sure.

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            June 16, 2011 7:41 PM

            Didn't BC2 have a shitstorm as well?

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              June 17, 2011 2:00 AM

              Yep, EA actually gave in after there was a significant organized boycott.

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        June 16, 2011 2:10 PM

        [deleted]

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          June 16, 2011 2:20 PM

          It is, but the fact that EA does this shit over and over again is infuriating.

          It's not like this is hats, it'd be actually fragmenting the community by making maps available. It's annoying.

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      June 16, 2011 1:55 PM

      Did we just get played?

      Anyone could've predicted what would happen based off of making exclusive guns, especially considering what happened in BC. So they play it up a bit, generate some hype, and then say they'll offer them for sale.

      Sorta defeats the purpose of something being 'exclusive' in the first place.

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        June 17, 2011 12:19 AM

        Where by "offer them for sale" you mean "offer them for free."

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      June 16, 2011 2:07 PM

      Doing this because BF3 is going to be Origin Exclusive and PC gamers will be more butt hurt over that.

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        June 16, 2011 2:31 PM

        Why do people keep saying this? It's available from all gaming retailers here (UK) already. It's also on direct2drive & gamersgate download services, the only two i checked.

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          June 16, 2011 2:54 PM

          The two that don't matter...

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            June 16, 2011 2:57 PM

            [deleted]

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              June 16, 2011 5:44 PM

              Steam is nice and safe, but I'm not in favor or a monopoly either. I love Steam, but if Origin is the only way to get it, I'll go with it. D2D was a nightmare to get working when I used it a couple years ago... I had password problems, logging problems, installation problems... pretty much everything that could go wrong with an install did (twice! with two different DLC expansion packs!) That is not to say I didn't get it working, but there was a point at which I was afraid I had lost $30. Really the only two products that have burned me that bad enough to avoid are D2D and GFWL. I hope they have improved.

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              June 16, 2011 7:57 PM

              If games are available at other digital stores AND Steam, it's not a monopoly...

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              June 17, 2011 1:45 PM

              I'm not not in favor of a monopoly. I'm just in favor of having good services to use. Everyone and their mom is doing a 'me-too' where they make a new service just because they think they can make oodles of money like steam.

              They aren't setting out to make a great content distribution system powered for users and designed around them. They're only grabbing after a piece of the pie like a frothing, blurry eyed horde which means their system will suck shit and be designed to only safeguard their assets and not their customers.

              The difference is drive. Money is a very poor motivator for making something really good. It takes more then a extrinsic motivator to make something amazing (as can be seen in most games for the last six years).

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              September 6, 2011 3:21 AM

              It's not so much the monopoly as the service. Steam usually works. I've one minor problem where they locked my account because someone accessed it from India, but that was resolved soon enough.

              EA on the other hand.. BF2 expansions Armored Fury and European something or rather took me six months to get unlocked, by which point I'd given up and switched games. In BC2, someone registered my key of Vietnam to get their special rifle so my key didn't work. A few hours later, the person on help desk instead of giving me my key and taking it off whoever used a key gen to register, they decide just to activate the rifle on my account and leave it at that. There's no actual key registered to my account, because of that the rifle is bugged out and works half the time, but no stars or anything.

              Steam has worked for me in the past. They're slow to get games on there and price gouge like every other store, but they work. EA.. Price gouge, don't work, have terrible customer service and in general like to ruin my day. There is a reason two million people log into Steam each day. It works.

              That and hats. This from a BF fan

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          June 17, 2011 5:07 AM

          People who assumed it was the end of it all when Crysis 2 got pulled from Steam but didn't update themselves as to what actually happened after it was clarified

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        June 16, 2011 7:34 PM

        I bet it will be over GameSpy Browser :P

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      June 16, 2011 7:51 PM

      I'm betting it was the original plan except for an ill-worded tweet by the lead designer sent the wrong message. Time to capitalize on "listening to the community"

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      June 16, 2011 8:07 PM

      misdirection

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