Battlefield 3 senior gameplay designer Alan Kertz, aka Demize99, confirmed earlier this morning on Twitter that squad members can indeed only spawn on their Squad Leader, going back to the classic Battlefield 2 system, but Squad Leaders will be able to spawn on any of their squad members, providing a nice compromise between the squad systems from the Bad Company games and those of older Battlefield titles.

Despite all of us being told the other day that those of us who pursued a better gaming experience on our console of choice are "Bullsh*t" (quote from DICE) when it was the Sony PlayStation 3 being discussed DICE's actions have revealed that they will favor a console, just not Sony's. Ironically in a twist of events DICE has just revealed that although they publicly denied any potential benefit existed to learning the architecture of the PS3, they have created an "awesome" "special lighting effect" for the Microsoft Xbox 360 version of the console Battlefield 3 game.
 
First Person Shooter developer DICE rep Andersson "we have a special lighting solution on Xbox 360 as well that we haven’t talked about yet" was sent as a response to fan-asked questions about the game. Even though just days ago the developer completely shot down console owners on Sony's more powerful gaming hardware hoping to see an edge on the console version of the game, perhaps a higher player limit online or graphical enhancements, it appears now that DICE is actually favoring the least powerful hardware the game will be released on instead. Regardless of your gaming beliefs or development philosophy this is the perfect recipe for a PR disaster. Is this a publicity stunt or does DICE honestly think that gamers on PS3 asking for enhancements should be verbally abused while Xbox 360 owners get the only console enhancements. Either way, keep it classy DICE, or not...

The latest information that has come to light about the disparity between the PC and console versions (PS3, Xbox 360) of Battlefield 3 with respect to graphics has stirred quite a bit of discussion and in some cases misguided anger across the internet.  DICE graphics programmer Johan “repi” Andersson recently revealed on his Twitter that BF3 will run at 30 FPS (frames per second) on consoles, saying it’s “not possible to fit in vehicles, fx, scale and all players otherwise”.  He also confirmed that the game will run in 720p resolution on Xbox 360 and PS3.
 
See for yourself how the PS3 version shapes up (Andersson also tweeted that the 360 and PS3 versions have comparable graphics to one another) in this side-by-side comparison of the PS3 footage from the Jimmy Fallon appearance last week with PC footage. It’s best to watch it in fullscreen:
 
DICE and Andersson have taken some flak from misinformed console players who are displeased that the game will run at 30 FPS and 720p as opposed to 60 FPS and 1080p.  Andersson retorted that “huge levels, lots of players, great fx, destruction, vehicles and varied gameplay is more important than 1080p”.  He also points out that the vast majority of console titles are in 720p or lower.  This is true – most graphically impressive games like Crysis 2 run in a maximum of 720p on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and at 30 FPS to boot.  Halo 3 is another example of a game with 30 FPS.
 
To give an idea of what 30 FPS as opposed to 60 FPS means, consider this.  Movies you see at the theater are 24 frames per second, which is the most common industry standard for film.  Humans generally cannot detected differences in excess of 30 FPS (although this is something of a complex question to address), particularly when post-processing effects like motion blur are applied.  You can use this nifty javascript applet to play with various FPS settings to illustrate how negligible the difference in human perception of 25 FPS vs 60 FPS.  30 FPS will do just fine for Battlefield 3, like it does for the majority of other graphically impressive console titles.
 
What it essentially comes down to – and this is what many console players and even members of the press fail to properly understand – is that the decision to make the game run at 30 FPS and 720p is because to do otherwise would come at extreme expense to the quality of the graphics and even gameplay.  Console hardware, both PS3 and 360 alike, is quite dated by now.  Battlefield 3 is a truly next-generation first-person shooter, and its unparalleled graphics and ambitious 64-player land/air/sea vehicle gameplay requires PC hardware, which is half a decade more advanced and powerful than console hardware.  Even at 30 FPS and 720p, BF3 pushes console graphics and technology to the absolute visual limit of the console hardware’s ability without compromising the gameplay.  There are even platform-specific optimizations in the rendering components of the Frostbite 2 like SPU-based deferred shading on the PS3 and an unannounced “special lighting solution” on the Xbox 360.
 
The fact of the matter is that the extreme visual fidelity in screenshots like the one above can only come from an adequately equipped PC.  The debate between 30 FPS / 720p and 60 FPS / 1080p is silly not only because of the unrealistic demands gamers have for the aging hardware of the current console generation, but also because even at 30 FPS and 720p resolution, Battlefield 3 is arguably the most graphically impressive and technologically advanced game ever seen on a console, pushing the hardware to its absolute limits with platform-specific optimizations and state of the art rendering techniques.
 
Of course the Frostbite 2 engine can scale to graphical extremes like that above given modern PC gaming hardware – PC capabilities are vastly superior (and more expensive!) these days in terms of rendering and performance.  That’s no secret and only an idiot would contend the truth of it.  But the bottom line is simple: Battlefield 3 runs at 30 FPS and 720p because that’s all console hardware can handle while maintaining high player counts, massive-scale maps and vehicles, and the outrageously impressive graphics we’ve all seen in the trailers and gameplay videos.

For once this Battlefield 3 interview answers a few questions worthwhile. The most important of these being. The map in Thunder Run will not have a multi player version, but we can expect to see large desert maps with many vehicles. There will not be kill streak assets as DICE want’s every player to control their vehicle. Hopefully this means that all the vehicles we have seen in single player will make their way into multi player. DICE is looking to go the step further with Battlefield 3. They were disappointed with the support for E-sports in Bad Company 2 and want that to change. Also there will be a considerable amount of vehicle unlocks compared to Bad Company 2.  Finally, Karl-Magnus Troedsson answers a question about Mod Tools. He states that they haven’t given up the idea but it’s a hard one.