Well, I finally decided it was time to fire up BF2 and give it a try now that my WOW account has officially expired--and it's just as much of a blast as I remember. Thanks to the updated scoring system, I received two promotions on my first two kills--Lance Corporal to Corporal, followed by Corporal to Sergeant--and unlocked the first weapons for infantry and spec ops. Haven't yet tried them out, but I look forward to it. I also received the Chinese and MEC participation ribbons, also due to my past performance. A couple of questions/nagging issues, though:

1) Is the crouch feature broken? I wasn't able to crouch, and before you ask, no, it's not mapped to my numpad. It's mapped to the C key, and at first I thought it could be an issue with my Strategic Commander (or as Faxman calls it, the Crippler, due to my essentially being unable to game without one after 5+ years using it), but it also didn't work when I tried the straight-up keyboard. I didn't see anyone else crouching during the game, either, and I was actually looking for others so that I'd know it was just me...did the 1.3 patch break something?

2) I haven't yet purchased Special Forces or either booster pack--I want to make sure this is something I'm going to continue to play before I sink any more $$ into it. I did notice that some classes now have two unlockable weapons--I presume these are included in SF or one of the booster packs? What issues will I need to look out for when I install them over top of my patched-up 1.3 edition of the main game?

I'm looking forward to playing with some of you that I haven't talked to in a while! I'll try to get on Vent as much as possible, but I'm often watching the Yankees while I play, so that may not always be convenient. Let me know the servers you guys like to hang out in, and I'll make sure that those are the first places I look when I log on.