It's been hinted that EA admires Activision's Elite system for Call of Duty and is interested in doing the same thing for Battlefield 3. And now according to rumors, Battlefield Premium will be going live on June 4th. No pricing information has been released, but it is probably a monthly subscription service.

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John Ricitiello said:

This service is also expected to be demoed at E3 this year, so remember to follow FPSGeneral as their team will be at E3 covering all things BF3 and shooter related.

A few days ago, many gamers were pretty frustrated to find that all the official console servers for Battlefield 3 had disappeared for no real explanation. The news reported soon after was that EA was simply selling off it's server capacity to the community, leaving no space for official servers. Gamers expressed their concerns and frequent problems with individual server owners. Since earlier today, EA has reinstated official servers for Battlefield 3.

Reminder: this only effects console players, PC players will notice no change in server availability. More news came a couple minutes ago warning of server downtime for PS3 players. Starting on the 16th at 11am EST, multiplayer access may be interrupted until 7pm EST, an expected maintenance window of eight hours.

This weekend was supposed to be the surprise Battlefield 3 "double xp" weekend, where players would earn twice the points during games. Issues were quickly found, and the weekend halted for those Battlefield 3 players on the PC. The glitch that caused the issue doesn't appear to have been discovered. However, the event has been rescheduled to a later time--in two weeks: May 26 - 27.

@Battlefield said:

You probably saw the post last Friday concerning the future of EnterBF3 and FPSGeneral. A lot of discussion on the forums has occurred over the past few days, angering many. The website will be merged into FPSGeneral in the near future (no date as of yet). I'm confident that the future of the community will live on at FPSGeneral. I've worked with Curse directly to help ensure a seamless transition and will still feel like home when the time comes. This is what we''re planning on having over at FPSGeneral feature wise:

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We're still seeking suggestions and ideas for the website, if you have ideas, let me or NateRios know via PM.

As BF3's following winds down, other promising shooters are coming along--like PlanetSide 2. FPSGeneral will also have information and news concerning the latest in FPS gaming. Here's a few features of the site: editorials, sharing thoughts and insight on the FPS genre, regular contests and giveaways including promotions with major gaming peripheral manufacturers, official tournaments, with prizes and winnings, diverse forum community, open to discussing any game, big or small.

I do want to note, that I am in support of the transition and see this as the future of this website. When the new design came along in October, it was quickly embraced by the community here. I'm expecting the same situation once the transition is complete. This transition will also ensure the community's longevity, carrying it into future FPS games after BF3 has come and gone. Again, if you have suggestions for the transition, let us know! Also, I'd like to shamelessly plug the last part of this post with a Happy Birthday to Knightbird!

In EA's latest press release, they revealed new information concerning player counts and the future of the game. During the month of March, BF3 had 6.3 monthly active users. While this doesn't dictate that six million people actively play the game, but six million individuals played the game at least once in March. Pretty good figures and higher than many estimates. However, some 13 million copies of Battlefield 3 have been sold, a near 50% play rate among buyers. Have you played BF3 in the past month?

A hint towards new content was also made. The community has known about Close Quarters for a couple months now, but this will be released in June. EA claimed that new content would also be available in May.

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The Battlefield Podcast is back again this week, a week early even :).

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The fellows who record the Battlefield Podcast are now running a dog tag contest through May 10th. "We're running a Dog Tag Hunt contest with two Subway Zoom t-shirts form the DICE store being the top prizes."

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We're happy to announce that in the coming days we will be launching FPS General, a brand new web community centered around first-person shooters like Battlefield 3!

FPS General will cover everything from Battlefield 3, Black Ops 2 to Tribes: Ascend, Team Fortress 2 and PlanetSide 2. If it is an amazing first-person shooter, we will be bringing you up to the minute news, media and intel on it. This also entails third-person shooters, although we will be a little more demanding in the quality of TPS games that we cover.

The community includes a full YouTube channel, a comprehensive forum and will feature guides, walkthroughs, summaries and so much more for every major first-person shooter on the market.

Launch is tentatively scheduled for next week, and the account that you registered for EnterBF3.com with will get you access to FPS General so don't worry about creating a new account or any of that fuss. Just jump on over and join what is sure to be the biggest FPS community on the web!

Post-launch, we are going to be rolling all of our first-person shooter properties, including EnterBF3.com into the FPS General, to provide a unified first-person shooter community for readers to get the latest news and discuss their favorite FPS games.

We'll be sure to post a follow up when the site has officially launched and we can't wait to see you all there!

Patrick Bach, who is standing in temporarily as DICE's CEO spoke at last week's European Showcase. Bach spoke about Battlefield 3's continuing support and said that it could extend into 2013.

Close Quarters is the next major release for the game and is due out in June, with two more too follow later this year. If support does continue, then there's the potential for more patches and content to be released well into 2013. The only concern that's surrounding 'continued support' is the Medal of Honor series and any future Battlefield games. MoH: Warfighter will release on October 23 later this year and will carry on the story line of it's 2010 predecessor.

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Speaking about the level of support, Bach said that the DICE team is very aware of the bugs in BF3 and is working to provide support. But will an 18 month timeline of support interrupt the development of Battlefield 4? "Right now, we haven’t had that planned out yet." EA has the final say in whether or not BF3 will enjoy an extended life, but two elements—completely controlled by the community will help determine BF3's lifespan: the success of MoH and the fanfare surrounding Battlefield 3.

The guys from the Battlefield Podcast are back this week covering the latest BF3 news. Give it a listen below.

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