Arma 2 - anyone can drop a few words?

[Tolya]

I noticed that Arma 2 is out. Considering how awesome OpFlash was and how ArmA 1 was a fucking waste of time, I have trouble deciding. Movies look really nice - they seem to have finally implemented short range combat properly, along with adding some non-combat interaction (you have a linguist on your team who speaks Russian and for some reason it matters...?).

Anyone played it?

[defanatic]

This probably needs to be moved.

Not yet, but I suspect I shall.

[Lagmonster]

Aim for G&C next time.

[Tolya]

Whoops

Sorry about that.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand...

[CaptHawkeye]

Only the German/Eastern European version has been released so far. Considering how ArmA was fucking stupid and Bohemia is known for pandering to simhard nerds, i'm not too confident in its ability to be, you know, fun.

[Steel]

I had heard that this would be the hardcore sim game, while OpFlash2 would be a slightly more mainstream take on the large scale war game. Anyone got any info on that?

[nickolay1]

I had heard that this would be the hardcore sim game

Judging by some youtube videos, it's so hardcore that cold starting a Mi-24 and taking off takes an astonishing 30 seconds. The Ka-52 (and no doubt every other aircraft) is a fucking joke, too.

[Vympel]

OFP wasn't simhard, and neither was ARMA.

[CaptHawkeye]

They certainly weren't. But Bohemia and its fans like to think they were. Actually Vymp i'm happy you brought that up.

Their is a persistent notion amongst simhards to this day that Flashpoint was an "ultra realistic simulation". Even though it had things like hit point damage models, pin-point accurate super guns, name tags for friendly and enemy units, and plenty of other action game cliches. Being from 2001 isn't an excuse for these characteristics.

The thing is, nobody gave a shit about that. What made Flashpoint was it's truly non-linear, open world gameplay. But do simhards care about that? Nope. They're worried about the placement of a star shaped bolt pattern on Blackhawk model 3A-B16's tail.

[Vympel]

The thing is, nobody gave a shit about that. What made Flashpoint was it's truly non-linear, open world gameplay. But do simhards care about that? Nope. They're worried about the placement of a star shaped bolt pattern on Blackhawk model 3A-B16's tail.

That's incredibly anal. OFP was full of bizarre inaccuracies (god knows I noticed them) but it was a good game for its time because no one had really tried anything like that before, and so a lot of the stuff that sucked in it (like the user interface) got a pass from me.

Unfortunately they made OFP 1.5 several years later and it sucked because they hadn't improved the core gameplay any, it was Stupid Hard and buggy as all shit.

I'll be happy with ARMA 2 if it's got very few bugs, a reasonable difficulty level, logical user interface etc. But anything as fucking masochistic as the original ARMA is getting kicked to the curb.

[Commander 598]

What a load of horseshit. For one, the nametags were only on the lowest difficulty (Not that you could tell what difficulty you were on because of the terrible GUI), nothing was pin-point accurate (Except the AI when aiming at you), and what made it brilliant were the terabytes of user content that was generated over it's lifetime. The only thing "harder" about ArmA is that aircraft are a fucking bitch to fly because of touchy flightmodels and shitty control fuckup that happened with the addition of shitty leaning, which nobody fucking needed or wanted.

The number one thing I recall being wanted by pretty much all parties when we switched from OFP to ArmA was more turret spaces, for both mods and so base vehicles can actually have the extra weapon or two they've been missing. Making the whole game "bigger" was #2 I think...

As for ArmA2, from reading BI's forum it seems that their "micro AI" actually works so the AI can actually navigate urban environments now, and the AI doesn't headshot you from a km away anymore. On the other hand: The AI will occasionally still walk through solid objects and everything else may or may not be pretty much the same I'm not sure my internet's been too spotty to really read everything today.

[Vympel]

What a load of horseshit. For one, the nametags were only on the lowest difficulty (Not that you could tell what difficulty you were on because of the terrible GUI), nothing was pin-point accurate (Except the AI when aiming at you), and what made it brilliant were the terabytes of user content that was generated over it's lifetime.

I'm not sure if you're talking about ArmA or OFP, but I'm not judging ArmA based off it's efficacy as a vehicle for user generated content, I'm judging it as a playable game out of the box, which it just failed at completely.

he only thing "harder" about ArmA is that aircraft are a fucking bitch to fly because of touchy flightmodels and shitty control fuckup that happened with the addition of shitty leaning, which nobody fucking needed or wanted.

No, ArmA was harder because it had ridiculously idiotic single player missions that were unreasonably difficult. It was masochistic.

[Commander 598]

Oh right, I forget it had a campaign sometimes since I never got very far in any of them and the only thing I really remember about them is that they had hilariously bad dialogue.

Also:

I'm not sure if you're talking about ArmA or OFP

I was talking about OFP. The reason I played it daily for years had dick all to do with the missions or campaigns.

[Oskuro]

I was talking about OFP. The reason I played it daily for years had dick all to do with the missions or campaigns.

I'm all for modding, but I'm not about to pay 60€ for modding tools, and then wait and see if something worthwile pops up (wich isn't always the case).
If the game designers can't be bothered to make decent content, then have them slash the price tag to reflect this, otherwise, the content will be held to scrutiny, no matter how awesome the mod potential is.

[Tolya]

I had the original OFP on my harddrive for 2+ years. I went through the campaign in about a week and then just fooled around with tools, fooled around in multiplayer with custom-made missions and good company...

And for some strange reason it didn't bother me that the AI was taken straight from a WW2 naval combat game. The problem began when BAS released their famous Delta Force addons and I tried to make some urban combat scenario. And that's when it all went to hell.

That is the main reason Arma sucked for me. See, with an open world as huge as that, you could stage almost any combat scenario. But apart from upping the number of polygons, making bigger textures, sharpening up loop animations (oh, how I banged my head against the wall because of that...) they didn't do shit.

When I saw the first screens of Arma I was delighted because I saw that they decided to utilize complex urban environment. Cities were larger, more city-like (and not a collection of cottages) so I thought hell... they probably implemented a good AI system to go along with it. But no... it was as stupid as ever. And when I couldn't make two Humvies properly follow each other in the desert I said fuck it.

So the only chance Arma2 has at breaking the horrible mediocrity of its predecessor is actually having an AI which at least gives a good impression. Otherwise it will be just a collection of modding tools, vehicles and weapons. And that would be a shame.

[Acidburns]

Alec Meer wrote a hands on preview article on Eurogamer. It has a little information on the translator thing. It seems they are at least aiming for a more freeform campaign. He claims that it is less buggy that Arma 1's release but that is hardly much of an achievement.

And what of ArmA/OFP's other legacy, of embarrassing bugginess? Well, from my hours with this build, it certainly seems more robust than those did on release, but it would be a lie to say it was free of teething problems. Presentation values are significantly higher, the ArmA engine enjoying some mouth-watering treats to its lighting and draw distance, while the dialogue and story has this time been handled by a native English speaker rather than suffering dodgy translation. There are spots of missing or inaccurate text and this build suffered a couple of lock-ups, but generally, it seems a lot more polished than its predecessors.

I'll be waiting for a more in-depth review before purchasing I think. The troop AI in Arma was utterly useless.

[Commander 598]

I figured this would be of interest: ArmA 2 ingame AI observations.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Estarcream

[Tolya]

After seeing one movie I can conclude that AI is about just as smart as a casual public server player. Which isn't maybe high praise for a human, but for a computer... not bad.

Seriously, watching the Town Battle from overhead reminded me of a public server multiplayer match.

[Steel]

After seeing one movie I can conclude that AI is about just as smart as a casual public server player. Which isn't maybe high praise for a human, but for a computer... not bad.

Seriously, watching the Town Battle from overhead reminded me of a public server multiplayer match.

Looking at the town battle it looked much better than the average player. If you get a bunch of competent people then I'm sure they could work better, but it looked like the AI was doing its job. As long as they've got the AI sight working well so it cant shoot you through some bushes and they've made short range rifle combat more wieldly then this looks good. Hopefully by the time it comes to a UK release they'll have ironed out any bugs in the first release version.

[MKSheppard]

Does it now have a random battle generator? Please say Yes; because otherwise, all that cool generated content is useless.

[Stark]

Looking at the town battle it looked much better than the average player. If you get a bunch of competent people then I'm sure they could work better, but it looked like the AI was doing its job. As long as they've got the AI sight working well so it cant shoot you through some bushes and they've made short range rifle combat more wieldly then this looks good. Hopefully by the time it comes to a UK release they'll have ironed out any bugs in the first release version.

Reading this in relation to an ARMA game just made me laugh.

AS LONG as the AI isn't full of cheating. IF ONLY it doesn't have bugs. HOPING the marketing footage is at all representative of play...

[Steel]

Looking at the town battle it looked much better than the average player. If you get a bunch of competent people then I'm sure they could work better, but it looked like the AI was doing its job. As long as they've got the AI sight working well so it cant shoot you through some bushes and they've made short range rifle combat more wieldly then this looks good. Hopefully by the time it comes to a UK release they'll have ironed out any bugs in the first release version.

Reading this in relation to an ARMA game just made me laugh.

AS LONG as the AI isn't full of cheating. IF ONLY it doesn't have bugs. HOPING the marketing footage is at all representative of play...

If you look at the link above you'll see that it is a player recording, not marketing footage.

[Stark]

LOL oh yeah that makes it way more likely all this hope is validated... somehow. I'll stick to NOT expecting BI to have made a game that isn't broken.

I've got to start planning some 'ArmA purchasers were beta testers' burns, just in case.

[Tolya]

AS LONG as the AI isn't full of cheating. IF ONLY it doesn't have bugs. HOPING the marketing footage is at all representative of play...

Arma2 is full of bugs and that is already a known fact.

[Tolya]

If you look at the link above you'll see that it is a player recording, not marketing footage.

Still, that video isn't saying really much. It's way better comparing to Arma and those bots hump the ground like idiot BF2 pubbers... but to make sure you would have to get the game which is a bitch because you have to pay for it. Which may be ok for diehard OFP fanboys who would even buy a petrified horse's penis if it had BI logo on it.

I on the other hand make a point of NOT supporting lazy developers with my money. I once bought Brigade E5: New Jagged Union from a discount bin and I refuse to do it again.

Oh, and I've read that the AI uses objects as cover. Which is a lazy-ass propaganda since no one clarifies its about STATIC objects like houses and trees and not DYNAMIC objects (like IFV's or cars) A video on that youtube channel shows that you can put a bus in the middle of the firefight and everyone makes a point by NOT going near it.