Players should NEVER have to install add-ons

[polar bear 10]

IMO the last thing I want are a bunch of COD dorks complaining that A2 doesn't have throwing knives. If they're too lazy or incompetent to install addons to A2 they shouldnt be playing it. I would LOVE a wider audience to Arma 2, but I don't agree with 'dumbing' it down, its NOT hard.

I think the key is to dumb down the things that are not central to the game.

Being able to script practically anything? Absolutely key to the ArmA 2 experience.

Having to deal with a more sophisticated UI with a lot more controls to learn than your average run-and-gun FPS? Absolutely a key part of providing a more realistic simulation.

Having to navigate poorly designed websites, search forums to find out what version of what mod you should get, and then painstakingly open README's and follow poorly written instructions possibly not written in your native language? Just so you can play a round on someone else's server? Not really so key.

I have only been playing Arma for a few weeks now but already I'm scripting my own missions and loving it. I spend hours poring over people's example scripts learning what sorts of interesting things I can do with the game platform but I have ZERO patience for wading through someone's poorly written README trying to figure out which directory to put what file in and so on.

So I figure I'm Arma's target market--a gamer that has a software dev background and loves to script stuff, but I really don't have any interest in manually installing modules. I just want to write them and play them and hopefully some day share them with other people and I want it to be EASY to do all that.

I want all the crap boring details about downloading and installing taken care of by the platform so I can concentrate on the fun stuff--like scripting and above all playing.

More to the point I want new players into the fun stuff ASAP so that the community grows: It's a LOT more fun when there's a big community with lots of players and of course it will ensure that BIS makes money providing us with all this fun if there are more players, even if some of them are COD weenies who ask for throwing knives and don't really know how to edit a config file.

Edited August 7, 2010 by Polar Bear

[[asa]oden 0]

You have some valid points, Polar Bear. But those "I cannot execute instructions from a readme file" players usually join the missions getting a taskHint popup in their face telling them what to do and still, the first thing they spam out is "WHAT ARE THE MISSION OBJECTIVE?" and God knows - if that is what community growth is all about then I'd rather have the ArmA community stay small without those ritalin monsters.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

I'm getting so sick of all the ignorant replies. There are really people like that. There the people I help on TS who really do struggle with any element of a computer. But they can play the damn game so why not make it easier for them? Its down right insane to be saying this stuff, its like i'm talking to people who defend their point for the sake of defending their point, regardless of whether or not it really makes sense. If they could just sit back and say, if BIS can do this, then it would be nice. And let BIS decide if they can do it. Because when you attack such suggestions, and you don't really know what your talking about on that matter, then you leave yourself open for an argument with someone that disagrees with you. "COD dorks", "ritalin monsters", what really seperates these things from the hatred of racism?

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

Wait a minute, you know people who can download install and run TS but can't download a file and put it in a folder?

Sorry but they're not trying hard enough FPDR

/thread

[Yoma 0]

Duplicate of duplicate of duplicate of duplicate of duplicate of duplicate thread.

BIS have confirmed to be working on a sync solution...

Why bother discussing it any more?

You're asking them for something they allready know from the OFP days and that they confirm to be working on. In the meanwhile enjoy one of the tools to get your addons or do some manual work. It's not rocketscience...

Pointless thread.

[khugan 24]

Polar Bear, no flame here, but I could sum your post up with one sentence. "They shouldn't even have to think..." (from you post) I think your dead wrong. I think you don't understand what Arma is.

I don't see Arma as a game as much as I see it as a hobby. Like a remote control boat, plane or car, when you have a hobby you tinker, you tweek, you adjust. You do trials and experiments to see what happens.

For me, Arma's charm is that it gives you tools to do very fun things and a world where those things are almost limitless. This close community that spans continents and has surrounded this game for so long is proof of what I am saying. Pick a game that is how you describe and go see it's forums. I don't want Arma reduced to a single common denominator or "Joe". I want it to remain the fun that it is. A place where you get an opportunity to think.

[polar bear 10]

Polar Bear, no flame here, but I could sum your post up with one sentence. "They shouldn't even have to think..."

...about things not related to the game play. Yes. ABSOLUTELY.

I don't see Arma as a game as much as I see it as a hobby. Like a remote control boat, plane or car, when you have a hobby you tinker, you tweek, you adjust. You do trials and experiments to see what happens.

Sure, but if, say, you like to tinker with model trains, that means you want to spend all your time tinkering with your trains. You don't want to have to spend all your time trying to figure out how to get your shiny new train out of the impossible to open package it came in or arguing with the postal service about how they messed up delivering your order to the wrong address. All that stuff keeps you away from tinkering with your trains.

I absolutely understand what ArmA is, but you HAVE to distinguish between the things people enjoy tinkering with--like script writing, mission creation, and so on--and things that just frustrate people. Especially when it frustrates new people it limits the potential of the game by keeping good players away.

Think of this way:

Someone who knows nothing about ArmA at all who sees a promotion for it and thinks "Gee I'll try it out" really is not invested in the game enough to want to muck around reading your lame README that isn't even written in their own native language (because hey, they're Chinese or Italian or whatever).

You want to make it EASY for them to get hooked on the game. You want their first experience to be fun, a whole series of "hey, I didn't know you could do that" discoveries that lead them to a vision of what ArmA is all about.

What you DON'T want is this talented and capable future member of the community to throw up their hands in frustration and never give it a chance because something was stupidly hard to figure out without reading the right forum messages on the message board they've never heard of before which--sure--if they had heard of it, would have shown them what to do in about 5min, but they didn't know to look there because they're a n00b.

This "ArmA is for hardcore people who like to twiddle 2's complement bits in their hex editor and anyone who can't do that should go play on an XBox" attitude really seriously limits the game.

Let me be blunt:

I love ArmA and the community and all the things that the community has created. When I ask questions here I find people are very helpful--but I also hate how insular the community can be sometimes, how closed in on itself, how it's determined to keep new people out, and fail to expand and spread the game around to more people. I hate that. All the time on ArmA servers I hear people saying things like "Go back and play COD" to new players, basically condescending and telling them get lost stay out of my game. What's with that? Really if you care about the game you want it to reach new people.

And by the way no I don't think that you HAVE to be a tinkerer to enjoy playing ArmA either. You might just like the open-ended missions and the realistic simulation. Some people (e.g., me) like to tinker and write scripts. Other people maybe just want to play virtual soldier.

Edited August 7, 2010 by Polar Bear

[jblackrupert 14]

BitTorrent - Bandwidth problem solved

If page long or more tutorials are needed then theres something wrong with the system.

Arma has a small section of community (As do all simulator games) that are like Trekkers or the kids you remember in school sitting all alone in a dark corner of the school yard

playing D&D.

Star Trek is/was a great show and D&D can be a lot of fun but go to a Star Trek or D&D convention and you'll find yourself

surrounded by a bunch of people who seriously know how to suck the fun out of a room and make you want to run for the door.

No matter what you say or any great ideas you come up with, those people will always come along and spout off any excuse

to shoot it down. God forbid Arma 2 could be fun. They won't have any of the that. ignore the social cripples.

The whole Arma becoming COD because of a browser/addon update is bullshit and they know it.

Edited August 9, 2010 by jblackrupert

[Jack_Ryan_ 10]

Agree. When you go to join a server, you should have the opton of d/l required mods, or not.

[tyler4171 10]

ArmA servers I hear people saying things like "Go back and play COD" to new players, basically condescending and telling them get lost stay out of my game. What's with that? Really if you care about the game you want it to reach new people.

Let me just throw a rough example out there ok?

Perfect example would consist of a recent encounter I had the other day with a CoD player on Domination:

My squad decided we would drive to the objective about 5km away from the airstrip, sure, you may ask: "Why not fly". Simple answer, the objective needed armour support. So we get to the Objective and the CoD player still believes in his "bullet sponge armor" and rolls the M1, by himself, into 3 T-72s, not only getting him killed but me and the others there to support the vehicle.

In Lame-man's terms:

Some of us hate the lone-wolf shit that CoD teaches people, on the front of the box for ARMA II, it says "Ultimate Military Simulator". So there is "Mr. Clueless" buying a game he thinks will be like CoD becuase he thinks its "UB3R Realistic". If you wish to continue this with me, do so over PM. As for your question I believe its been answered.

[Pulverizer 1]

Other games that have autodownload of maps and mods don't seem to care about any of these imaginary problems. Downloading maps and mods has been integrated in countless online games ever since QuakeWorld, and it's always optional.

If the server owner doesn't have a separate web server for redirecting the downloaders or cannot afford the bandwidth, then he can simply choose to not set up the autodownload. Doesn't mean all the other servers should suffer without the feature because of him.

[lugiahua 26]

I remembered that back in Half Life 1 it did has this function, but it was terrible anyway.

Sometimes it took hours to download an simple update from game servers...

[whisper 0]

Other games that have autodownload of maps and mods don't seem to care about any of these imaginary problems. Downloading maps and mods has been integrated in countless online games ever since QuakeWorld, and it's always optional.

If the server owner doesn't have a separate web server for redirecting the downloaders or cannot afford the bandwidth, then he can simply choose to not set up the autodownload. Doesn't mean all the other servers should suffer without the feature because of him.

^- this :)

Check ID-Tech engines for specifics.

Simple settings on the server to tell if the download should be done through the game server itself, an external web server (which can appear to be hosted on the same physical machine, or not), no download at all.

On client side, you get the option to download and reconnect to same server, or skip and go back to server list.

Simple and efficient

[JojoTheSlayer 35]

I would rather have a 3rd party program that everyone confirmed to and was supported by BIS.

As in you could get the program ingame by clicking a option or something. The only thing you needed to learn was that programs interface. Right now those programs that are out there ether dont have all the features, are somewhat hard to use and downloaded mods dont really conform to any real standards. Many mods are NOT unzip and move to folder or install.

Example, right now I use three 3rd party programs for Arma 2:

Arma II Launcher 1.3 - Easier mod managing and quick online game browser.

Addon Sync 2009 - Getting special mods from some servers (eg, ACE2 1.3 for Arma 2 none OA. KH)

Six Updater - To keep ACE2 OA in sync.

Edited August 11, 2010 by JojoTheSlayer

[maruk 80]

Did not we confirm that we are planning to work on some solution to in -game addon downloading?

If not, here I confirm it.

We are in touch with Yoma as he made such tool that already is commonly used.

We are also aware of various aspects of hosting servers.

There is no exact information what and how we will implement but it is fairly safe to expect that first we will look at option to redirect traffic unrelated to real time mp session (e.g. mission files, custom sounds etc.) to different mirrors before we can even consider going further with some form of built in addon sync.

[Scrub 0]

Yes! Thank you for the renewed confirmation of that. This will be unbeliveably appreciated (then, like all seamlessly integrated systems, will be forgotten until it breaks. wink wink. lol.)

[tacticalnuggets 24]

I'm so excited! Don't at all think we are bashing you BIS, we are all very excited for developments like that, and I think that the reason for so many of these threads popping up is because its becoming a very popular solution to solving low players online/people having some problems with addons. You will probably have a lot more people playing your amazing game in multiplayer.

[polar bear 10]

Did not we confirm that we are planning to work on some solution to in -game addon downloading?

If not, here I confirm it.

We are in touch with Yoma as he made such tool that already is commonly used.

We are also aware of various aspects of hosting servers.

There is no exact information what and how we will implement but it is fairly safe to expect that first we will look at option to redirect traffic unrelated to real time mp session (e.g. mission files, custom sounds etc.) to different mirrors before we can even consider going further with some form of built in addon sync.

Awesome. Thank you!

[mcarma 19]

How about a program to manage add-ons?

[PuFu 4600]

How about a program to manage add-ons?

wow, that is something that has never been discussed before in this VERY THREAD!

FPDR