Talk:Battlefield 1942/Archive 1

Lack of Neutrality
To me, it seems that many sentences, particularly from the opening, are biased toward the game. They seem to say things like "it was very fun to play". We need neutralization of this article!!! --AlexForche 03:48, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The whole article needs a rewrite. Remy B 10:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Whoa, whoa, whoa... A re-write isn't particularly neccesary. I do think however that much of the opening paragraphs needs to be trimmed down and also re-worded/transferred to other sections of the article.--Mofomojo 20:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Extra Explanation
I think some extra explanation can be made for the gameplay of BF1942. Anyone can just run around Googling up hardware specs and release dates.

The game is based around "tickets". When a soldier dies, his team loses a ticket. If one team has the majority of the map's flags controlled, the losing team sheds tickets slowly. Flags are turned to grey "contested" status by having members of both teams in the area. If only one team's members remain in the area, a shot time later the flag turns to their side. This allows for better spawning opportunities, as well as the aforementioned enemy ticket loss.

Soldiers can heal wounds when in the area of a medic cabinet, or resupply ammo when near an ammo crate. There are repair pads in some maps for vehicles, that also resupply vehicle ammo. There are no places to recharge a Medic's kit or an Engineer's wrench.

Players choose among five "combat kits":

Assault: equipped with light machine gun and grenades. The Assault kit has the best main gun for infantry-infantry combat.

Medic: equipped with sub-machine gun, grenades, and medkit. The Medic can heal nearby freindly infantry by using the medkit, but the slowly regenerating kit has a limited "charge" at one time.

Engineer: equipped with a single-shot or (rarely, based on the map played) semi-automatic rifle, dynamite, land mines, and a repair wrench. The Engineer repairs vehicles and gun emplacements using the wrench, which works exactly like the medkit for Medic. The dynamite he places can be detonated remotely, though all the dynamite an Engineer places is detonated at once. His mines explode automatically when vehicles come close, but harm anything in the area once detonated. Any land or air vehicle moving across a mine is destroyed. You can have eight mines and eight dynamite packs out at once. If you put out another mine, the first mine you laid is removed. This is a nice feature to prevent old dynamite from cooking off (because it gets old). Just lay down 8 dynamites, which replaces the old 8 packs that were about to explode on their own. Mines also cook off after getting old, but you can retreive those by crouching and using the wrench on them.

Anti-Tank: equipped with bazooka and grenades. This combat kit is best suited for infantry-armor combat, because the bazooka takes so long to reload after a single shot. If the enemy soldier is not slain by the first shot, he (assuming he has some other combat kit than Anti-Tank) will then kill the Anti-Tank man. If you're more than 40 feet away, you can generally dodge the rocket if you concentrate on it.

Scout: equipped with long-range sniper rifle (single-shot, or sometimes based on map a semi-automatic), binoculars, and grenades. The Scout's binoculars are for calling in artillery strikes; a soldier in an artillery piece can choose to view through the Scout's binocular camera (set in place when the Scout uses them) to check where his artillery shells are landing.

Every combat kit comes equipped with a knife, pistol, and parachute. The parachute is finicky, it seems to open only if the soldier is far from landing, and even then only once every 5-6 attempts. Try clicking the parachute key many times.

I have a particular beef with the Engineer combat kit. In practice, if you get a clean shot at a target with the powerful rifle, you can generally get a one-shot kill. Such shots are uncommon. I see no reason why a Medic would be given a SMG while an Engineer is using a rifle that looks an awful lot like a Springfield from the American civil war ...

''Just thought I'd add some input here, I haven't played this game, and it seems alot like the other BF games, just alot more strategic, which I like. Anyway, springfield rifles were indeed in service with the American armed forces during world war two, mostly as sniper rifles or for boot camp and mark training. They were also used without scopes as coalition or sub-force infantry arms, for the pathfinders or sometimes in use with other armies. Though I agree with you for the first part, a medic would probably be carrying a Garand while members of the engineer platoons would carry pretty much anything, though it would suit the game if they carried SMGs. This might over-power them though.''

Anyway, there are some general usage guidelines for a combat kit. While you can change kits in the field by picking up a dead soldier's kit, don't count on having fresh corpses to loot when you need them. Assume that whatever kit you choose upon spawning, you will keep until you die and respawn.

Medic and Engineer are best used for base defense, though a Medic can press an attack while an Engineer cannot (because of his poor main weapon). Medics are great when you have no armor to repair at the base, or the map uses little armor to begin with. In tank-heavy maps, Engineers are the better choice. You're more likely to need to repair a freindly tank (or your own tank) than a freindly infantryman. Oddly enough, an Engineer can sometimes take down a tank in melee by throwing a mine on it. This generally results in the death of the engineer, but it does guarantee a death to the tank.

The Medic and Assault are both similar. The Assault can sometimes win a gunfight that a Medic would lose, but if you are a Medic you can heal the minor wounds you accumulate to be better prepared for the next gunfight. I generally choose Medic, because otherwise I would be running around at half health and an easy target for someone with Medic OR Assault kits.

I don't believe it mentions in the manual, but points are scored for killing an enemy (1 point), for turning a contested flag to your side (2 points), and killing a teammate (-2 points). The Score is used to determine player rank at the end and medal allotment. If Score is equal, the one with the higher Kill count gains the higher position. If Score and Kills are equal, the one with fewer Deaths is given the position.

General Strategy: Always reload as soon as your gun is empty. If you see an enemy in mid-reload, dodge behind cover, switch to pistol and do your best. If you see an enemy far away from you, throw a grenade ahead of him along his direction of movement. Throwing all three is better. Don't conserve ammo. You'll die anyway but with a full clip.

When parachuting, you can use all your weapons just fine except the bazooka. It will fire once, not reload until you reach ground, then the reload process is faulty. You need to click the fire button to activate a reload.

When throwing a grenade, if you run forward and jump, then before the apex of the jump throw the grenade, it travels much farther. With practice, you should see the grenade fly outward as you reach the maximum height of the jump.

Vehicles in general: You can switch positions in a vehicle automatically. This is great when tracking an airplane with flak guns from a ship, because you can fire until you lose sight of him, then move to the other side of the ship to pick him up again. Or, fire the front guns of a ship then move to the back (and repeat). Drive a tank, but when you see an airplane switch to the cupola machine gun to shoot him down.

Planes: I am a bad pilot. Don't ask me about flying. When you parachute out, try to rear the plane upwards at the last moment, so you have a slightly higher jump altitude. Also when you are parachuting in, you are an easy target, so open the chute at the last possible moment. Since you can't open the chute when too close to the ground, you have to learn the distance yourself. As a side note, when you get thrown skyward by an explosion, much of the damage is upon landing. When you are airborne, madly click the parachute key. Rarely, you'll open the chute in time to save yourself and the soldier who blew you up won't assume you're still alive. Unless he saw the parachute of course.

Tanks: Be patient if you feel you will get a better shot later. Tanks take more damage from the sides, and a lot more damage when struck in the rear. They also take more damage from direct hits than glancing blows. Beware infantrymen throwing grenades and engineers running toward you with mines. Oddly, mines destroy a vehicle if they're laid upon it ... Some tanks are much better than others. German and Russian tanks are very good, while Japanese tanks are very weak. Speed and handling decreases as armor strength increases, though you'll hardly bemoan the loss of speed when in a Tiger. If you can, do battle while on a repair pad. The extra benefit lets you win most tank duels that you'd otherwise lose. If someone else is on the pad, rather than sitting back and shooting them, drive up very fast and nudge them off it. This puts you at a disadvantage in that you are firing down and they up, but at least you're being repaired and they aren't.

Ships: Small lander craft are easy. Don't try anything fancy, just get to shore and get out. Always leave with at least two other people in your lander, at the least you'll have two more bodies in front of you to absorb bullets. With larger ships, keep away from shore to avoid spotting by enemy snipers. Subsequently, you'll need to have a freindly sniper on shore spot for you. Large ships never run out of ammunition, though the risk of team-killing with a battleship shell is ever-present. Use depth charges madly whenever you see the sonar blip of an enemy sub. The explosive radius is pretty wide, so don't worry about aiming. Submarines: Stay at the waterline unless you're avoiding enemy fire. If a battleship you're attacking starts returning fire, flee and return in a minute or two. When fighting another sub, stay abov the surface to see if he is around you also on the surface. The sonar beeps aren't accurate enough to navigate underwater. Aircraft Carriers: Driving a carrier is pointless. It's nice for the pilots if you're driving because they can lift off faster, but it's better to have another man at the flak gun turrets than having all the pilots out 3 seconds faster.

Jeeps: Drive like crazy. If you played any modern-style driving game, like Grand Theft Auto 3, it will serve you well. It seems an appropriate time to mention that land vehicles fare poorly in even shallow water. Jeeps in particular tend to explode upon touching water.

APC: Armored personnel carriers. Never leave the base without at least two other soldiers in it with you. One can man the machine-gun cupola, while the third one is a nice addition to the strike party. APCs heal like a medic cabinet and resupply like an ammo crate, to those inside. To nearby vehicles, they resupply like an ammo crate. If you want to besiege an spawn while others capture it, you'll benefit greatly from APC support.

Gun Emplacements: People tend to be very good at picking off entrenched gunners. I would never take up a gun emplacement unless it was from a surprise position, such as when the enemy is rounding a hill at medium range, or when the gun is sitting in the window of a bunker. Even AntiAircraft guns are dangerous to be in unless you have some infantry around to protect you from enemy soldiers. Coastal Defense guns are great, they deal as much damage as a single Large Ship gun, but the large ships tend to fire in volleys of 2-5 shells. Further, a coastal defense gun can take only a single shot from an enemy ship. On a side note, it is common to try to get a man out of a defgun by throwing grenades into the doorway at the back. Since everyone carries three grenades, count three blasts then exit firing. The third grenade won't destroy the defgun. However, four packs of dynamite certainly will. If you hear a "clink" sound, get out immediately as it is an engineer trying to blow you up.

Specific Map Strategy: I'm kinda tired at the moment. So all you get is the most important example I can think of, Stalingrad.

The German tanks are penned in halfway through the map by the railroad. The Russians are penned in likewise. Running over the rails results in SERIOUS damage to your vehicles. A jeep at half speed will blow up immediately. A tank at full speed will blow up in about 2 seconds. Drive at a crawl, or better still bombard the enemy from your side of the tracks. Both sides have an ammo crate in a very nice spot for this.

Well, I guess I can think of another off the top of my head. In Berlin, it's important for the Russians to get out of the alley they start in. They have two modes of escape, the main way with two tanks for their use, or the back alley. The Russians need to run forward immediately and throw grenades at the street, to kill the Germans who are doing the same. Capture those two tanks at all costs. Infantry should escape through the smaller alley, taking cover behind barrels. When the building at the end of that small alley is taken (no flag, but it's pretty dang important), station a man at the first flight of stairs to keep people from coming up. Others should snipe at the first German flag from the windows and try to avoid grenades (or hope the germans players are bad shots with them). Losing the back alley or the first two tanks spells disaster for the Russians. Losing both pretty much ends the game, resulting in an exercise in point-gathering for the Germans.

This illustrates an oddity of the game, that the first spawn batch is caught by only a few players (those whose computers loaded the map quickly enough). In that first spawn, the game can be won or lost by the Germans capturing the tanks or the alley (or not). So generally the first time the server plays Berlin, the Russians lose. Simply put, they need everyone on their team to keep the Germans back right away. Since the map doesn't reload for rematches of the same map right away, the Russians are on even footing after the first play. --- Butting in here for an explanation of some good Omaha Beach strategies, as I play it all the time. Some important things to remember as Allies: get to the beach as quickly as possible in the beginning. The battle is won and lost here in most games. If you can get to the beach quick, it's that much more time you have inside the flag radius and you can throw grenades to ward off Germans jumping down the trench cliff. To take the middle flag, usually you're going to need to be a Medic or be very skilled at Assault. Master throwing grenades to places on top of the ramps where Germans hide. Then once you're in the trenches, BE AWARE. If it looks like you're about to be ganged up on by too many Germans to kill, get out a grenade and rightclick to drop it at your feet. The guys that killed you will get a nasty surprise. More later on Axis strategy.VetteDude 00:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

As Axis on Omaha, get to the beach quick and in force if you want to stop the Allies from gaining ground. The cheap 'n00b' way is to throw grenades into LCVPs that are landing, as soon as the ramp starts to go down. Having failed to keep the beach flag white, the trenches are still a pretty good defense. Keep a tank on both ramps and actively kill Allies coming up them with grenades, guns, anything. The most crucial thing, unless the other team has some super players like you find on 24/7 Omaha servers, is to watch the top. Generally against normal-skilled opponents, the Axis can keep the trenches flag. If the Allies manage to tak a jeep all the way to the Garrison flag though, you are done for. You've lost the advantage of knowing where the enemy is coming from and the Allies now have defguns to fire on the trenches. Some people say that the MP40 puts you at a disadvantage on this map, but if you practice with it, you'll be fine. The Thompson just has a shallower learning curve due to a faster firing rate. ---

I think it's important to retain certain rules, gentleman's agreements about playing BF1942. These are some of them, most people don't seem to care at all. It's a good indication of how freindly a server is, if they ascribe to some of these.

1: Do not move into the uncapturable bases (there are some in most maps). It's perfectly fine to bomb them, or blast them with artillery. Don't drive into the airfield with your tank and kill 30 people before being downed by a plucky engineer who died four times trying. It doesn't show skill, it shows that you can take advantage of a quick turn of events just like everyone else.

2: Don't complain about newbies on your team. Everyone was a newbie sometime. More importantly, do you want that newbie to think (know) you're a pompous oaf when he's ripened enough that you'd want him on your team? Or your little BF club?

3: If you can't fly, don't take a plane. If you can't keep from beaching a ship, don't take ships. Other than that, feel free to learn how to play with the other vehicles. The ships and planes tend to make or break a battle, and you don't want sore feeling if you beached all the ships and downed all the planes as soon as they came available ...

4: Do not damage your teammates. This is as bad as team-killing but you don't get negative score for it. This generally comes about when someone wants a plane and another soldier took it. They fire at the plane enough to make it start smoking, so the pilot loses it very quickly (and it respawns sooner). It can also occur with tanks, because a bazooka strike at the front or side never kills a tank (a shot at the rear usually does though). Jeeps can be damaged by infantry gunfire like planes, and most people like to use jeeps as quick taxis.

5: Do not use an armored vehicle as a taxi to the planes. Jeeps were meant for that. If you do this, you're leaving that tank unused for at least 1-3 minutes. At the start of a game, that can make a big difference.

6: Don't mine unoccupied vehicles. If you spot an enemy infantryman coming, it's better to use the vehicle to kill him. At least then you get to keep the vehicle. But if you habitually mine empty rides, you'll find freindly soldiers consistently blow themselves up on them. And you get the score penalties.

-Dan Smith (Asa Graves is the BF handle I use)

The rules don't belong on wikipedia. --Everett3 21:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Please take this extremely bulky load out of talk? besides if you want strategies you can go find a game site for that, wikipedia is not what that is for. i actually wrote up an article about the demo, i can re-write it for gameplay.Fliptopsean, a.k.a. Face 04:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Relevance of the "See Also" section
I removed the see also links because they did not add any signficant understanding of the topic at hand. It'd be more interesting if you compared and contrasted BF1942 to those other games in actual sentences. Or create a category for WWII first-person shooters. Since my changes have already been reverted once without explanation, I won't change it again until there's sufficient time for discussion. --Mrwojo 13:59, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Gameplay statistics and player rankings
This section seems largely irrelevant to the game itself. This article is about the game, not about sites that follow the users of the game. At the most it deserves a one line note that there are third-party websites which track BF1942 servers. What does everyone else think? If the consensus is that it the text doesnt warrant an entire section, I'll remove it. Remy B 08:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no article, or even a stub, about the tracking websites. Perhaps one should be made, a one-line mention made to them in the BF1942 article, and a cross-reference link to the tracking article put in? I put a whole five minutes into partly explaining the GameTrack.org ranking system, so I'm a little biased towards keeping some remainder of a mention :) VetteDude 03:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think making a small article about the tracking websites is a good idea, as it would keep the information and put it in a more relevant place. It could also be a good place for other people to write about tracking sites of other games too. Remy B 05:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I have added the split section tag to the article to see if anyone else has comments on the section. Remy B
 * This adds nothing about the game, just about the EA infrastructure. Remove 63.224.61.82 23:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be better to include this in an article about gamer statistics instead? And combine this with the stats tracking in Bf1942, Bf2, Enemy Territory and so on? Bjelleklang -  talk 12:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe that is what is being proposed. -VetteDude 15:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It's done. Be Bold.  Kaisershatner 17:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Requirements
I'm not familiar with Wikipedia procedures on game articles, but shouldn't the game's requirements, ratings, etc (everything before the "Battlefield 1942 is an expansive...") be put into it's own section after the intro?VetteDude 18:32, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks better now --PTSE 03:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Having the system requirements crammed into such a space makes them untidy and hard to read. Perhaps they should be moved into it's own section after the 'Gameplay' paragraph? Doing this seems to work well on other pages, such as the World of Warcraft. Tehvolt 05:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not interested in listing out requirements like a guide nor is it a technical list (see WP:NOT). A summary in the infobox is more than enough. --Scottie theNerd 07:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Clean up
you editors got to be kiding me!
 * This needs clean up!

I will clean it up later
 * &gt;x&lt;ino 20:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Tobruk shows the US v Germany. It is England v Germany.

Mod comparison
Is it just me or is the comparison of mod popularity in mid 2004 totally useless information? Remy B 13:15, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Operation Aberdeen
The link for Operation Aberdeen on this article redirects back to the same article again. Same as typing it on the searchbox. Has this military operation ever existed? If so, should there be an article made for it so 'Operation Aberdeen' links to that particular page please?
 * It was a stub that go merged. See this --Voidvector 21:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Mod
I remember a major mod that added many features including the ability to play as Poland.

Probably Forgotten Hope, which, for some reason, has had all reference to it removed from this article. Dp76764 23:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Probably because it and the Forgotten Hope 2 articles were deleted. King nothing 00:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Battles Removed?
(diff) (hist). . Battlefield 1942‎; 08:53. . (-2,043) . . Scottie theNerd (Talk | contribs) (→Battles - Removed battle list as per WP:NOT) How exactly does WP:NOT apply to this change?? Dp76764

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of information. A full list of battles inflates the article without adding anything meaningful. The general does not need to know every single battle in the game or which sides are available in every stage. Such information is trivia and therefore not encyclopedic. -- Scottie_theNerd  20:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Have you looked at the Battlefield 2142 entry? It also has a similar listing of maps. Not sure how that list is applicable and this list isn't? Just wondering ...Dp76764 02:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. We should be improving articles according to accepted guidelines; not making them look like each other. Battlefield 2142 is not considered a high-quality article and should not be used as a reference point. However, the list on the BF2142 article is very short and concise compared to the lengthy list edited previously here. -- Scottie_theNerd  09:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough! Dp76764 19:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Does it really need more sources besides EA and DICE? You'd think that the CREATORS of the game would be a credible source, no? Icarus999 11:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see any references...--ZXCVBNM 01:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Expansion
I think that Expansion need to have separate articles.Vojvodaen (talk) 06:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Battlefield 1943 info
Battlefield 1943 won't be "shipping" in summer of '09 or with Bad Company 2. It actually says in the press release used as a reference that it will be released digitally on the PSN, XBL and PC. the actual quote from the press release: "available this summer via PlayStation®Store, Xbox LIVE Marketplace and on the PC" Therefor the section needs improvement. I might do it myself.--Ashitaka96 undefined 07:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Road to Rome
If Secret Weapons of WWII has its own article, shouldn't Road to Rome have its own too. Legend6 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:10, 23 March 2009 (UTC).


 * If you want to make it, go ahead. Nohomers48 (talk) 23:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Rankings section
Removed again, due to lack of notability and adequate sourcing. DP 76764 (Talk) 01:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Reception section?
I know this is a bit late, but shouldn't we include a reception section? (All the other (released) Battlefield articles have one)? FstrthnU (talk) 03:09, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Absolutely! Here's a link to get you started:   DP 76764  (Talk) 03:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

List of weapons
Can someone who owns the game make a 'list of weapons' page for this game please? Similar to the one Battlefield 2 has.

list of weapons- Whalter p38, colt .45, Mauser K98, Thompson SMG, STG 44, MP 40, Bar 1918,

No. Its against wikipedia policy. This isnt a game guide.81.23.50.232 (talk) 03:34, 15 March 2010 (UTC)