Is ArmA III having the OFP:CWC vibe?

[antoineflemming 14]

And how the hell am I supposed to know the story if they changed it every 6 months. Ok, but still, serious conflict, global scale, no goat herders and pumpkin farmers.

They changed it once, months ago. Remember when they said that they would be dropping new intel, around march or april maybe, if I remember correctly. Well that's when they changed it. Might have even been when they first mentioned the community alpha. But, yeah, serious conflict. It's like on the brink of WW3. Although I don't really think it's WW3 unless there's more than just Iran, which I'm really hoping.

[frostwyrm333 1]

It is suggested that USA & China is more or less fighting in the Pacific and that Russia is expanding too. So East would be CN+RU+IR, lots of WW3 potential.

[mr burns 131]

I´m all in for a CWC or RES like campaign, like most of you.

All those campaign missions had a sense of uniqueness, and brought with them a feel of tension, which is totally missing now.

Also very important, they were simple enough to not be bug ridden by design!

Didn´t play ArmA2 campaign further when it turned Warfare, and haven´t touched OA campaign.

Not holding high hopes for ArmA3 campaign, now that we learned from PC Gamer interview the lead dev´s think that Flashpoint sucked :x

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/22/day-z-arma-3-interview-on-left-4-dead-skyrim-player-emotion-and-in-game-disease/

Buchta:: Even for us as developers, and for me personally, it was like… Alright, that makes sense, I want to do that. That was my immediate reaction. Because Arma 2, Arrowhead, Arma 3, I’d be doing all the same stuff again…

Actually, even with stepping up the process of playing the campaign, what you’ve seen today, it’s a productive idea… This new approach to campaign, it’s something fresh. It’ll be a pleasure. I’m really confident that the campaign can be interesting. But there will be some people, certainly, bitching about this… “It won’t be the traditional… Nothing beats old-time Flashpoint…†It’s bull*#&. Flashpoint is a terrible game. I’ve played it recently. I’m a bit sentimental about it…

Crowe: We need to quote that. Ivan Buchta: “Flashpoint is a terrible game!â€

Buchta: But yeah, let’s face it, it’s a terrible game. Terribly inaccessible, hard, frustrating…

Hall: And people love it! I still get people saying, you know, when they found out I was working on Arma 3 multiplayer, friends of mine, one of my friends, he was like, are you going to make the campaign like Flashpoint? He’s like, seriously, I still play the campaign in Flashpoint…

Dslyecxi: They so over-romanticize it.

I agree on the hard and frustrating part, but at least back then i always knew it was hard & frustrating because i fucked up!

Like the time in RES when i realized in 4th mission where you ambush a convoy of tanks and trucks, that i gotta restart the campaign to really be careful with my non-respawning team mates, picking up all rpg i could find, handing out binocs etc.

Or After Montignac, of course it was hard, and then again it is the one mission every OFP player has fond memories of!

[Tonci87 163]

Guys there is one additional thing that helped to make CWC campaigns so great: GUBA

Guba was the perfect enemy, charismatic, ruthless, brutal, evil and his nickname was "the Dentist". Perfect enemy. Guba gave the player an ultimate goal, to stop him.

The enemy Leader in HR was Akula Lopotev but he didn´t give you that "I have to stop this bastard feeling". Why? Well I think it is because you see Lopotev only twice during the whole campaign. CWC had many missions, and therefore many cutscenes. Many of those cutscenes were showing Guba and building up what is called "Feindbild" in german. You started to really hate Guba because of the things he did.

OA was even worse. Col Aziz appeared only once and you had really no good reason, appart from your orders, to kill him.

So I guess BIS should give us a new hateable character in A3.

[metalcraze 290]

CWC was also good because you were losing and retreating half of it. It had that uphill battle feeling.

Modern BIS campaigns are all 'Murica fuck yeah.

[zimms 22]

I agree with you, I really liked that 'we' didn't win every battle. Also the ~40 missions (I think) helped a lot to make you feel at home on those islands.

It was just great when you returned for some payback and thought "Omg if been here before, that's where we got slaughtered." Montignac anyone?

[HKFlash 9]

And the awesome THIRD PERSON cutscenes? What about those? All BIS campaigns except for PMC have zero third person cutscenes.

[Lou Montana 101]

38 missions in OFP:CWC IIRC yes :) also yes, missing cutscenes and reasons to fight. It's almost "follow the briefing and you'll see". I quite liked Manhattan mission in Arma2 campaign, you felt really like "ok, you are set up in the country, now... now what ? do your job and find in this huge area your objectives. You're recon !" I didn't like the warfare either, but this is a different story.

I personally encounter difficulties to find good and believable scenarios for immersion missions since it's not "what are we doing here, what's happening" scenario anymore with all the technology, you know your HQ has thermal imaging recon, satellites, UAV, etc. It is losing this fear of doing bad (aka doing your own decisions, and hope it is for the best) and enforces the simple "you are part of the big chessgame, if you follow your role everything will be fine".

I still hope to find a good ambience in Arma 3 anyway, and am quite confident in it :)

[antoineflemming 14]

It is suggested that USA & China is more or less fighting in the Pacific and that Russia is expanding too. So East would be CN+RU+IR, lots of WW3 potential.

I also imagine certain Middle Eastern nations allying with Iran before RU and CN. Like maybe Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon. I know this is kinda off-topic, but I'd think Iran, having imperial aspirations, would solidify power in the Middle East, you know, carving out a sphere of influence in it's region, forming a powerful Middle Eastern power bloc, a mutual-defense alliance, before invading Turkey. You know, how Nazi Germany basically invaded all of Eastern, Central Europe and North Africa? I'd also imagine that Iran's targets for invasion would, above all, be Turkey and Saudi Arabia, two of its most powerful Eastern enemies. I'd consider the Jerusalem Accords, which ONLY halt Iran's illegal invasion of Turkey, to be a sort of appeasement measure. Iran would certainly not hold the Accords in high regard, and would set its sights on Saudi Arabia after being halted midway through Greece. THAT sets up a WW3 scenario. Perhaps we can discuss more in the fan-fiction thread...

As far as story goes, in addition to a good solid story, I hope there's a believable, plausible, realistic back story that takes into account a lot of the current political issues.

[onlyrazor 11]

I also imagine certain Middle Eastern nations allying with Iran before RU and CN. Like maybe Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon. I know this is kinda off-topic, but I'd think Iran, having imperial aspirations, would solidify power in the Middle East, you know, carving out a sphere of influence in it's region, forming a powerful Middle Eastern power bloc, a mutual-defense alliance, before invading Turkey. You know, how Nazi Germany basically invaded all of Eastern, Central Europe and North Africa? I'd also imagine that Iran's targets for invasion would, above all, be Turkey and Saudi Arabia, two of its most powerful Eastern enemies. I'd consider the Jerusalem Accords, which ONLY halt Iran's illegal invasion of Turkey, to be a sort of appeasement measure. Iran would certainly not hold the Accords in high regard, and would set its sights on Saudi Arabia after being halted midway through Greece. THAT sets up a WW3 scenario. Perhaps we can discuss more in the fan-fiction thread...

As far as story goes, in addition to a good solid story, I hope there's a believable, plausible, realistic back story that takes into account a lot of the current political issues.

I concur, the backstory mentions a proxy war between the US and China, not a full-out war. Some of those countries sound like they'd take sides.

[Edge 2]

Not holding high hopes for ArmA3 campaign, now that we learned from PC Gamer interview the lead dev´s think that Flashpoint sucked :x?

Perhaps I should clarify the statement about the good old Flashpoint. :) I meant mostly the controls and certain aspects of graphics, while I regard the campaign as something we should at least study. I have started playing the campaign recently, because it is simply a masterpiece: interesting missions, several twists of the plot, and particularly the smoothness with which the new features are gradually offered - as such, it is great example from which would like to draw inspiration.

However, after the years of improvements of controls and interfaces, and especially after what I experience when playing Arma 3 on daily basis, Flashpoint handles simply horribly. We, as devs, need to analyze our mistakes and plan to improve the product for you, and I think it is better to be honest than muse about the good old days. Of course, this does not concern just Flashpoint, but also the Arma games. There are many things which may seem fine to the player, but which makes us feel that we should have done them better or different.

Perhaps the fact that I am only indirectly involved in the campaign development will slightly raise your hopes for its quality. :)

[SpecOp9 0]

I have the feeling the campaign will be nothing like CWC and Resistance, which actually had cutscenes and story to it. They just seemed to make a bunch of missions and call it a campaign now, which is pretty upsetting.

[ProfTournesol 956]

... with which the new features are gradually offered....

Hoping they won't make the same mistake as with Harvest Red, only showcasing new features and forgeting that people wants to enjoy the campaign, not try new features.

[metalcraze 290]

Perhaps I should clarify the statement about the good old Flashpoint. :) I meant mostly the controls and certain aspects of graphics, while I regard the campaign as something we should at least study. I have started playing the campaign recently, because it is simply a masterpiece: interesting missions, several twists of the plot, and particularly the smoothness with which the new features are gradually offered - as such, it is great example from which would like to draw inspiration.

However, after the years of improvements of controls and interfaces, and especially after what I experience when playing Arma 3 on daily basis, Flashpoint handles simply horribly. We, as devs, need to analyze our mistakes and plan to improve the product for you, and I think it is better to be honest than muse about the good old days. Of course, this does not concern just Flashpoint, but also the Arma games. There are many things which may seem fine to the player, but which makes us feel that we should have done them better or different.

Perhaps the fact that I am only indirectly involved in the campaign development will slightly raise your hopes for its quality. :)

When people say "OFP was great" they (we, me) talk about the campaign. Of course controls suck, movement sucks, gameplay is very simple and in fact quite arcadish compared to what we have now.

But Cold War Crisis was just so memorable and smoothly proceeding (like in OA campaign you jump into a new role every mission, it's too rushed). Every mission was completely different and often unpredictable.

I mean in modern BIS campaigns you have the briefing, you have the task, you go and... complete it.

In OFP every 2nd mission was "here's the task" and then about halfway into the mission "oh snap, it doesn't go according to plan" and mission gets changed, often dramatically.

After all US got beaten out from Everon at first and it was great. Fighting an uphill battle on Malden and supporting resistance on Everon for a future invasion was great.

The landmass of all islands put together is probably smaller than Chernarus and yet CWC had 40 missions and it felt like each hill you take matters.

Edited June 25, 2012 by metalcraze

[mr burns 131]

Perhaps I should clarify the statement about the good old Flashpoint. :) I meant mostly the controls and certain aspects of graphics, while I regard the campaign as something we should at least study. I have started playing the campaign recently, because it is simply a masterpiece: interesting missions, several twists of the plot, and particularly the smoothness with which the new features are gradually offered - as such, it is great example from which would like to draw inspiration.

That´s certainly reassuring, thx for clarification :)

When people say "OFP was great" they (we, me) talk about the campaign. Of course controls suck, movement sucks, gameplay is very simple and in fact quite arcadish compared to what we have now.

But Cold War Crisis was just so memorable and smoothly proceeding (like in OA campaign you jump into a new role every mission, it's too rushed). Every mission was completely different and often unpredictable.

I mean in modern BIS campaigns you have the briefing, you have the task, you go and... complete it.

In OFP every 2nd mission was "here's the task" and then about halfway into the mission "oh snap, it doesn't go according to plan" and mission gets changed, often dramatically.

After all US got beaten out from Everon at first and it was great. Fighting an uphill battle on Malden and supporting resistance on Everon for a future invasion was great.

The landmass of all islands put together is probably smaller than Chernarus and yet CWC had 40 missions and it felt like each hill you take matters.

+1

As said in my earlier post, it was unique and you still get flash(point)backs from it :D

[froggyluv 2130]

Well sounds like I'm in the minority here but I'd rather have groundbreaking new features then a good story. Yes, CWC/Res were very enjoyable and I do very much remember many moments - but thats also in the context of a new type of genre defining engine to experience them in. I also remember my first editor mission -something about a mass of Russian tanks attacking a church and player as an AT defender on a snow map - it was glorious with soundtrack and all! But again, much of the memorability was the newness of this engine and gameplay. I think they tried to give us plot curveballs ie..Lead murdered in front of you in Harvest Red etc.. and branching plotlines in which you get to decide what you want to do -or do it at all.

Its hard to write a compelling story - I challenge anyone here to do so. Now do it again!

:p

Just ask Lucas/Scott/Spielberg etc...

[arigram 0]

The Arma way is giving the players the environment to make their own memorable stories and forcing movie-like directed storytelling for the sake of bringing in a larger crowd from linear shooters has been mostly unsuccesful.

I believe the largest contribution of Rocket's experiment apart from internal engine improvements has been the verification of the value of free-form gameplay and a brutally challenging environment that inspires players and respects their creative thinking that has been the heart of Arma.

Minimum direction that inspires players to explore the environment and the solutions to the problem by themselves while being challenged by the realities of surviving should be the approach.

[instagoat 133]

Good player made missions are of course important. But, coming from a regular gaming background, and being in the game for the scope, tactics and combat and not strictly military accuracy, most of the hyper-realistic stuff offered didn´t really sway me.

No stuff like abandoned armies or the fantastic horror/vampire hunting/dark magic cult type of missions. OFP was -excellent- for horror. Nobody picked up on that for Arma. In fact, none of the more outlandish aspects of the modding of OFP returned in any of the arma games, maybe outside of the two or three mecha addons and the macross valkyrie. Arma has come down to being about maximum realism, and not creative emergent gameplay, as far as the community goes. MIND, though, I have not paid attention to a lot of what´s been going on mission wise, the last I installed was the delta force campaign by the guy who did the seal team six camps (none of which I finished, yes, I suck that much.). Back then, everything was a little lackluster in terms of the stuff I was looking for.

OFP was also good because it was -new-, it was -fresh-, and when it hit the market nobody shot anybody down because the stuff they wanted to do was turning the game into "CoD", or was "unrealistic", or was "Not good looking enough".

I remember one modder who made a crude XM177 from the sample models when Arma 2 was released. Instead of praising his valiant first efforts, many immediately jumped him and told him how wrong his model was, and how the scope mount didn´t work and whatnot. That kind of response isn´t exactly encouraging. On the other hand, modders who practice enormous attention to detail when it comes to irl equipment they put into the game get praise almost exclusively. I would wish that this exclusivity would stop with Arma 3, and -any- mod will be welcomed again, or at least not shunned simply because some people are scared of mainstream games.

My ramble on that point, for what it´s worth.

[LeeManatee 4]

i never liked rpg elements and so on what i seen at arma 2. it will be extremely great if campaign missions were about massive assaults of towns and stuff like that. i don't want some gold flush/pmc or razor team type of game. massive conflict. and to feel like a small part of the war machine. from this perspective arma 1 "beaten dog" was really memorable and interesting mission.

if only arma 3 will have more missions like this.. really. why the hell i need to play as some leet spec ops operator or to command bunch of soldiers in micro conflicts?

SCALE. this is what can make arma 3 campaign really great. to show that you are not the only one who fight against enemy, but you are small part of the war machine.

several squads attack something and several squads defend it and some tank platoons, and helicopters firing at ground vehicles and infantry, and planes in sky trying to take each other down and some artillery.

CHAOS. but organized chaos. symphony of war. this is what i ( and i'm pretty sure everyone else ) want from arma games in 1st place.

what the point of huge map if everything happening in local scale?

[tremanarch 6]

then the AI maybe needs some kind of suppression fire function, or otherwise fights wont last long without scripting ot continious reinforcements...

WHat i want is shooting sounds far away maybe a chopper burning flying over our heads, maybe something like that.. and when you cross that town 30 minutes later by chance there are the left overs and burning vehicles of the fight...

And It is not so unrealisitc if AI would search for cover and shoot randomly at a direction and maybe progess very slow but constantly shooting here and there and search next cover quick etc..s ome behaviour that makes sounds ;) not only kills.

story wise that could be reasoned by that the AI soldiers and the conflict is maybe more between reservists and not toally professionals or something...

[Tonci87 163]

Perhaps I should clarify the statement about the good old Flashpoint. :) I meant mostly the controls and certain aspects of graphics, while I regard the campaign as something we should at least study. I have started playing the campaign recently, because it is simply a masterpiece: interesting missions, several twists of the plot, and particularly the smoothness with which the new features are gradually offered - as such, it is great example from which would like to draw inspiration.

However, after the years of improvements of controls and interfaces, and especially after what I experience when playing Arma 3 on daily basis, Flashpoint handles simply horribly. We, as devs, need to analyze our mistakes and plan to improve the product for you, and I think it is better to be honest than muse about the good old days. Of course, this does not concern just Flashpoint, but also the Arma games. There are many things which may seem fine to the player, but which makes us feel that we should have done them better or different.

Perhaps the fact that I am only indirectly involved in the campaign development will slightly raise your hopes for its quality. :)

True words.

When people say "OFP was great" they (we, me) talk about the campaign. Of course controls suck, movement sucks, gameplay is very simple and in fact quite arcadish compared to what we have now.

But Cold War Crisis was just so memorable and smoothly proceeding (like in OA campaign you jump into a new role every mission, it's too rushed). Every mission was completely different and often unpredictable.

I mean in modern BIS campaigns you have the briefing, you have the task, you go and... complete it.

In OFP every 2nd mission was "here's the task" and then about halfway into the mission "oh snap, it doesn't go according to plan" and mission gets changed, often dramatically.

After all US got beaten out from Everon at first and it was great. Fighting an uphill battle on Malden and supporting resistance on Everon for a future invasion was great.

The landmass of all islands put together is probably smaller than Chernarus and yet CWC had 40 missions and it felt like each hill you take matters.

^this

I would say the entire first half of the CWC campaign had this "Oh my god we are loosing" feeling to it, and that was great. Just look at all those modern FPS today, they are all about some bad ass guys seriously kicking ass and steamrolling the enemy. There is no Drama. It was the same back then, and then came Flashpoint and suddenly you didn´t feel like an almighty hero, but like a soldier in a war that you were going to loose.

The HR Mission "Delaying the Bear" where your convoi is intercepted by russians was a very nice mission because it was totally unpredictable. After completing it I thought that the campaign is going to confront me with some nice guerilla Missions and stuff like that, but there were only two missions left... with warfare

[NoRailgunner 0]

Guess the A3 campaign will have a different "vibe" and that can be great! Hopefully its not about simple black-vs-white / blue-vs-red crap that one can watch and play in many/all action games. Something that is challenging and forces the player to think and act like a human and not like a SuperfutureSEALSASOMGSpecialForce fastmover operating mostly-only with all the cool blingblings. :)

[dekster 1]

I hope it will be something like:

we're in total war with Iran/a force from the east and we lack resources, you have to go to Limnos a small island and try to keep them at bay. (with limited resources and try to sabotage the iranian forces and keep them at bay)

After a while when you seem to be quite succesfull, Nato will give you more support ending with a conquest of the island to establish a base.

A bit like Malta in the war, a few Brittish forces where put there (to man the AA), the germans/italians couldn't attack the island and after a while the supreme command was so impressed they stationed some fighterplanes (hurricanes) on the island.

[HKFlash 9]

I don't think that the ARMA III campaign will work like that Dekster. According to Jay Crowe/ RoyaltyInExile the campaign will be divided in 3 phases.

First phase is the defense of Stratis against invading Iranian forces which is great because that means the player faction (NATO) won't have the initiative and will have to fight against an overwhelming force.

[.Taffy 10]

Guess the A3 campaign will have a different "vibe" and that can be great! Hopefully its not about simple black-vs-white / blue-vs-red crap that one can watch and play in many/all action games. Something that is challenging and forces the player to think and act like a human and not like a SuperfutureSEALSASOMGSpecialForce fastmover operating mostly-only with all the cool blingblings. :)

Before they altered the website the Faction list included Militia (collaborating with Iran) Resistance, Smugglers etc. These various groups with their own inevitable conflicting interests could have the in game atmosphere you described. Unfortunately only Resitance is left (in addition to NATO, Iran, Civilian). However they are alluded to somewhat in the Personnel descriptions, so may still play a part.