XO!!!! This makes me happy. I love BC2.

As far as I can tell, there aren't that many plugins or mods or anything to tinker that much with yet. There are a couple I like though.

1: Rush/Conquest rotation. I like both types but I dont want to play them exclusively. I like servers that rotate.
2: Hardcore, no killcam, but spawncam. I hate it when I can't tell whether spawning will end up in my immediate death. =(
3: Streak reports. They're fun, but make sure they don't spam it on the screen.
4: Don't have rules spamming in the chat box, its annoying.

Hardcore takes away the crosshairs, so you have to use ironsights/scopes. It also increases the damage a slight amount so you cant take as many hits before you go down. Also takes away the mini map, so no radar and shit.

Its a fun game. CMS has a server and is currently GWDR's goto place.

Hardcore sucks In my humble opinion. Giller and I may disagree here but I find hardcore (noobcore) to be where all the noobs tend to congregate too. Teamwork doesn't get you as far and everyone just goes for scrub shots with the sniper rifles since head-shots are almost pointless. Spotting becomes useless as you have no radar which has always been a staple of battlefield games. I'm a big proponent of Battlefield being as Team oriented as possible and hardcore takes away that ability. Skillwise you need to know how to concentrate your fire and burst properly. In Hardcore you can get away with not knowing how to do this as only a couple of randomly placed bullets will kill you.

Vanilla I believe does a much better job balance wise. While it certainly has it's issues, it creates a far more fulfilling and balanced gaming experience. To me it seems like DICE threw in Hardcore as an afterthought after COD had so much success with it.

My Preferred Settings:

Vanilla, 24-32 man
Rush/Conquest Mix for reasons Giller mentioned
No killcam but yes for Spawn Cam (Honestly I'm meh about Kill Cam. I could care less if its on or off.)
Friendly Fire ON (However when you activate this setting the server gets listed as hardcore even though everything else is vanilla) (most servers play with this off but I like it when its on as it reduces mindless Carl Gustav Spam and grenade spam wars.
Auto-Balance Plugin and Streak counting are a must as well.

At the moment it definitely sounds like:
- Rush/Conquest Rotation
- No Killcam
- Spawncam
- Streak reports
- Limit automated chat spamming (a given, in my book)
- Friendly fire on (and a script to detect team-griefing and punish accordingly)
- Autobalance on; I agree it's annoying but I think it's sorta a must

I'm still uncertain about Hardcore mode. I see pros and cons both ways but
a) I agree the minimap is something of a Battlefield staple and helps keep squads together, and
b) I still worry about client mods to re-add crosshairs and give people an unfair advantage

In other news...

Bought it yesterday and started through the single-player campaign to learn the game. It's definitely "intense", as I figured it'd be; so different than TF2 that it's amazing to think they're in the same genre. It definitely takes some getting use to. =P

I love it when people just go sniping in hardcore. THEY ALWAY fucking lose the game. Battlefield isnt about just fragging. I will outscore a recon sniper almost every time, even if he has a 3/1 KDR, which makes his balls tingle.

You can have a Negative KDR and still be the ace player, if you actually are team player and contributed to the win.

Im not advocating hardcore only...I play on them equally with vanilla. I just roll with whatever the server has.

I think hardcore is a crapshoot. I find it takes more concentrated fire on realcoreto kill efficiently and thus requires aim. With spotting and the mini map active you need to think more tactically about how to approach you're enemy. In hardcore flanking is almost unheard of but in Realcore you can work together to efficiently roll over unknowing enemy's. Finally a coordinated squad is at a disadvantage in HC because even if they manage to ninja behind enemy lines they can all be killed quite easily. If a full squad breaks through a choke-point in Realcore for example there's a good chance that they can force a good number of defenders to abandon the choke-point which allows your team to bust through. In HC on the other hand if one guy luckily gets behind this squad they all die immediately. A coordinated squad should be neutralized by another coordinated squad not some schmuck that gets lucky.

Hardcore rush is almost impossible to win as well......

Off-topic I think the creation of hardcore is one of the worst things to happen to FPS games. It effectively splits the games user-base between Realcore and Hardcore. The old battlefield games didn't have this and the community was well-unified. Back then we picked servers based on the little things. K/D ratio should also be removed from Rush mode. This virtual figure causes people to rage quit if they are dying too much and makes people tentative to push. Kiddies seem to think this mythical figure matters. For example some scrub got mad at me for reviving him in the front lines even though I cleared the area. He said he kept dying up there I replied, K/D doesn't matter tickets do. If you need to sacrifice yourself to advance position do so. For fuck sakes. /rage off


Again though it doesn't really matter to me, though I prefer Realcore. I roll on both types of servers.

24 or less. a 32 man server ruins the game play. I will not play in 32 man servers.