Now you see them...now you don't

[-BZ- Wardog 0]

I am a relative Newbie to OFP but not a newbie to online gaming and for that matter game, testing, development and mechandising...

So...pardon if I ask what appear to be "easy" questions..but frankly leave a veteran online gamer abit puzzled.

1st...Friend or foe?

I've noticed that unlike most online games, opposing forces are not( apparently by game esign) easily distinguished...Meaning..they all "kinda" look similar...Well this spark of realism, might be balanced with practicallity IF when I targeted(pointed at) a foe, I got a indicator he was a enemy by just having my crosshairs turn red( like in cadet mode in sp)..But so far I don't see that happening in MP..I point at a "enemy" and I must in a split second discern..friend or foe?....yes..I got the advice before.."learn to recognize textures"...well..I have a very poweful pc and typically run 1024x768 in 32 bit color without a problem..but even at that res..its tough to decern the helmet shape of a West trooper form that of a EAST trooper at all but near point blank range.

If I was gonna design this game( which I have some experience in) As much as it would remove a part of the realism..I would allow the "targeting" of foes to be a bit easier(by making foes show up as red[when targeted] ) as opposed to green when friendly forces.Guys...please refrain from flames and protests..I appreciate the game as a great game..but I do think realsim should be balanced with "fun" and in this case..a little easier identification would[to me] be helpful., Perhaps game designers could give a game host a option to allow "Friend /Foe" ID.

"Now you see them..Now you don't"

I know netcode is improving..but last nite I observed a few occasions where I watched a "trooper" avatar appear to be there 1 second..and completely gone the next..only to re-appear a few meters away..a few seconds later..In my other online gaming we call this "Visual world vs Predicted world " adjustments...I want to know if this is a common problem, and if so..are the more recent patches "fixing" this problem..if not.. In my other online games we have found a adjustment called "multi-world" frequency that allows each player(depending on the capabilities of his PC) to adjust the time between adjustments for "predicted vs visual world" so that the "now you see them..now you don't" effect is greatly reducable.My question is..is there anything similar to allow Higher powered PCs to reduce the time interval between predicted world and visual world?

Lastly..cheating...

I am a veteran of the Battlezone world I and II..we all celebrated the ground breaking marriage of action/ and real-time strategy that was(and still is)Battlezone..But sadly I watched BZ 1 die a premature death due to hacking(script kiddies).But BZ 2 in it's brilliance implimented and near "hack-proof" code called "lock step"...in this system a host machine checks the assets of all players vs a accepted (and appropriate set of game assets) every few seconds..IF a player hacks/supliments, augments/alters his game assets the host machine kicks that altered asset player(boots his ass) and the game proceeds smoothly ...and now..although over 2 1/2 years old..BZ 2 remains essentially hack free..to the joy of its players....I have noticed the "modified Config" thread started, then locked here on the board..I only ask..in fact encourage the devs to impliment a similar "lock step" system to prevent the hackage(that killed BZ 1 and many other similar games) from infecting OFP...I saw you were considering to give host the option to "kick" modified assets I encourage this...and ask you to "universallize" that which IS acceptable..your game will be better and live longer for it...Better life through game vigilance I always say....

[Placebo 28]

As these issues are MP related I'll move it to MP