ARMA3 needs better ACCESSIBILITY for players to meet, chat and play out of the box!

[-Luc- 10]

Hi,

Buy BFBC2 and you won't enjoy it 2 weeks after purchase.

You don't like the setting ArmA 3 is in? Don't buy the game.

I wont buy; I am one of 11 who have said.

I dont want to play BFBC2 too... I'm for a good realitic simulator to reproduce RL situation...

You should read better my last post...

Thank you,

-Luc-

[krazikilla 5]

Somehow i understand the threadmaker.

I Love the simulation thingy in Arma, and the more realistic, the better. (For me its actullay too less realistic in many ways^^)

BUT, there is a problem, even if another guy loves this realistic simulation stuff, its very hard for him to get started. Not because he cares about the thingies learning ingame, but all the stuff around bothers them.

One example:

I showed a friend of mine some movies of ArmA2, he was interested.

He watched me playing it, played a bit for himself, and says: WOW, finally a nice realistic Combat Simulation, why i never heared of it??

He wents to the store buys the game, installs it.

I warned him, that he might need a few hours to get into it, he says, he is prepared and ok with that.

After 2 days, he sold the game on ebay.

Why? - Not because of the realism and simulation INGAME, but,

because of: Lack of Servers, Lack of PVP servers especially, LAGs, very difficult understanding gaming types, for him not understandable MODS (It took me like 3 hours to explain him how ACE works and finally get it running...), Copying Files around in diffrent Addon folders, not beeing able to join servers because of wrong addons OR wrong addon versions, without gettin help to find the right version. etc. etc.

This scenario happend with 3! of my friends. (ok not all sold it on ebay, but similar)

And no we are no Cod kiddies, we are all around 20-25 years.

And basicly the only game i am playing since 10 years is the OFP line.

I would love to have more players online, more great PVP Scenarios, more Servers to choose from. Bring in easier access to the game please, so i dont need to explain my friends 5 hours how to get started.

[-Luc- 10]

Hi,

Nearly the same when you see what the results can be. BIs made OA better with tutorial missions they were FAR better than A2, the panflet in the box and key shorcuts were better, you have this entire forum, wiki etc etc ... what else can possibly be done to sway a person who wont even look at it, not alot apart from move on and the ones that will it was meant for.

I was into Ghost Recon 1 and that was more of a game (kind of) and had that accessible type of thing. Later I got Arma1 and expected what I got on the tin, a few months of learning and working things out as it was a sim, ive never stopped learning it since, as its nothing like anything else.

Fun is run and gun, satisfaction is arma.

I have absolutely no clue where you get that information from, thats crap. If you check the Ivan E3 footage he stated nothing is taken away only added too. Disagree absolutely, but then its based on what you know so far, and so far we dont know everything to make such a sweeping statement, and we do know already what Ivan has stated.

Ok... we saw:

RAH-66;

Merkava 4 with Trophy and pulse gun;

A blend of Mi-28/Ka-52;

Iranian futuristic soldiers driving IDF vehicles;

Fictive boat

...

How I could create a Cold war or today scenarios with that stuff? Please tell me...

90% of what I saw will be unusable for something else than the future.

Thank you,

-Luc-

[ProfTournesol 956]

Somehow i understand the threadmaker.

I Love the simulation thingy in Arma, and the more realistic, the better. (For me its actullay too less realistic in many ways^^)

BUT, there is a problem, even if another guy loves this realistic simulation stuff, its very hard for him to get started. Not because he cares about the thingies learning ingame, but all the stuff around bothers them.

One example:

I showed a friend of mine some movies of ArmA2, he was interested.

He watched me playing it, played a bit for himself, and says: WOW, finally a nice realistic Combat Simulation, why i never heared of it??

He wents to the store buys the game, installs it.

I warned him, that he might need a few hours to get into it, he says, he is prepared and ok with that.

After 2 days, he sold the game on ebay.

Why? - Not because of the realism and simulation INGAME, but,

because of: Lack of Servers, Lack of PVP servers especially, LAGs, very difficult understanding gaming types, for him not understandable MODS (It took me like 3 hours to explain him how ACE works and finally get it running...), Copying Files around in diffrent Addon folders, not beeing able to join servers because of wrong addons OR wrong addon versions, without gettin help to find the right version. etc. etc.

This scenario happend with 3! of my friends. (ok not all sold it on ebay, but similar)

And no we are no Cod kiddies, we are all around 20-25 years.

And basicly the only game i am playing since 10 years is the OFP line.

I would love to have more players online, more great PVP Scenarios, more Servers to choose from. Bring in easier access to the game please, so i dont need to explain my friends 5 hours how to get started.

3 hours to install ACE ?

[Primarch 10]

Hi,

Ok... we saw:

RAH-66;

Merkava 4 with Trophy and pulse gun;

A blend of Mi-28/Ka-52;

Iranian futuristic soldiers driving IDF vehicles;

Fictive boat

...

How I could create a Cold war or today scenarios with that stuff? Please tell me...

90% of what I saw will be unusable for something else than the future.

Thank you,

-Luc-

How do you create future war with OFP stuff?

You don't like the setting? Don't buy the game, they are not catering to "hard-core, manly men only like 'nam stuff with 'nam weapons" crowd this time. You have OFP and ArmA to create whatever scenario you wish, no need to copy paste the setting here too when they finally can create a setting they are interested in.

[mrcash2009 0]

How I could create a Cold war or today scenarios with that stuff? Please tell me...

Arma 2 & addons, what's the shock? My point is yet again its spoon feed me time, Arma3 focus unit wise will be that and that's no secret. But, its the same engine and same approach, unit mods addons and so forth, things from previous end up the next that always happens. If you dont like that, this is what arma is ... so its not "confined" at all. Just ... "starting out with". The rest follows, if you dont like the thought of that then stick with arma1/2.

90% of what I saw will be unusable for something else than the future.

Because that's its primary focus for vanilla units, or I should say that's the lego in the box when it lands on your pc at the beginning.

Its a bit like buying a house with fixtures and fittings, complaining about the fact you dont like the fittings, even though the house can be emptied and then changed as you would like later. Vanilla units is only part of what Arma is when you get it.

BTW you do realise that any units can be used to just "fight" future theme or not, its not like becuase they are focused on future you can never touch them :)

Edited June 17, 2011 by mrcash2009

[krazikilla 5]

3 hours to install ACE ?

Yes, i explained him over teamspeak. Just some troubles in which we ran into (i dont know it accurate anymore, but something like this):

- Downloading the full Ace version from somewhere

- installing it

- checkking all the folders

- something whith extracting went wrong

- deleting all

- reeinstalling

- comparing folders - OK

- opening the game

- forgot to load ACE

- explained how to use the Parameters to start arma

- forgot CBA

- started all correctly

- tryed to join an ACE Server

- wrong version, we need to update.

- configuraring the ACE Updater WEb Browswer thingy

- Updating

- some .pbo's didnt extract automtaically which we found out by joining a server again.

- searching the pbos and extracting them correctly

- finding a ncie server with ace

- joining

- get a big notice, that we are using a NEWER version then the server is running

- searching another ACE server with over 10 players

- not found

- going to sleep.

[mrcash2009 0]

I might be a bit off topic but theres a thread about auto updating mods which might be worth posting in ref that.

[krazikilla 5]

sry, was just answering ProfTournesol.

And ye autoupdating mod, is also a part of better accessibility

[-Luc- 10]

Hi,

Somehow i understand the threadmaker.

I Love the simulation thingy in Arma, and the more realistic, the better. (For me its actullay too less realistic in many ways^^)

BUT, there is a problem, even if another guy loves this realistic simulation stuff, its very hard for him to get started. Not because he cares about the thingies learning ingame, but all the stuff around bothers them.

One example:

I showed a friend of mine some movies of ArmA2, he was interested.

He watched me playing it, played a bit for himself, and says: WOW, finally a nice realistic Combat Simulation, why i never heared of it??

He wents to the store buys the game, installs it.

I warned him, that he might need a few hours to get into it, he says, he is prepared and ok with that.

After 2 days, he sold the game on ebay.

Why? - Not because of the realism and simulation INGAME, but,

because of: Lack of Servers, Lack of PVP servers especially, LAGs, very difficult understanding gaming types, for him not understandable MODS (It took me like 3 hours to explain him how ACE works and finally get it running...), Copying Files around in diffrent Addon folders, not beeing able to join servers because of wrong addons OR wrong addon versions, without gettin help to find the right version. etc. etc.

This scenario happend with 3! of my friends. (ok not all sold it on ebay, but similar)

And no we are no Cod kiddies, we are all around 20-25 years.

And basicly the only game i am playing since 10 years is the OFP line.

I would love to have more players online, more great PVP Scenarios, more Servers to choose from. Bring in easier access to the game please, so i dont need to explain my friends 5 hours how to get started.

I'm agree with you.

The bigest accessibility problem is that we have to download XGigs to be able to play. That's why I'm saying we need good content from the start and MODs and ADDONs are not the solution, they are a plus.

I'm turning 30 too and I understood then young people (not everybody but a lot) want something easy, fast and flashy. Some of my younger friends are like that when we play OFP or ARMA. First they want an assault rifle, 2 minutes later a sniper. Because they died, they ask for a tank a tank the next play because they think they will kill more and faster... Again, they die and are frustrated. They are always going alone and die fast... It's not only in the game, it's like that in life too...

I understant that BIS want more customer and they give what most of the youger people want, that's ok, but I think we are lossing the specificity of tha serie... Plenty of other game offer that.

Only my opinion, maybe I'm an stupid, ignorant, disconnect person but its what I think...

-Luc-

[ProfTournesol 956]

Yes, i explained him over teamspeak. Just some troubles in which we ran into (i dont know it accurate anymore, but something like this):

- Downloading the full Ace version from somewhere

- installing it

- checkking all the folders

- something whith extracting went wrong

- deleting all

- reeinstalling

- comparing folders - OK

- opening the game

- forgot to load ACE

- explained how to use the Parameters to start arma

- forgot CBA

- started all correctly

- tryed to join an ACE Server

- wrong version, we need to update.

- configuraring the ACE Updater WEb Browswer thingy

- Updating

- some .pbo's didnt extract automtaically which we found out by joining a server again.

- searching the pbos and extracting them correctly

- finding a ncie server with ace

- joining

- get a big notice, that we are using a NEWER version then the server is running

- searching another ACE server with over 10 players

- not found

- going to sleep.

You were not lucky, but selling the game because of this is just childish. Most mods are very easy to install, as easy as other games such as TotalWar for example. Copy and paste, add a parameter and that's all. You even can load mods ingame now.

[Zipper5 74]

In my view, BIS aren't in competition with Call of Duty nor Battlefield, nor should they be. ARMA 2 is the king of the infantry simulation genre, and we all saw how trying to make such a game more accessible went.

Perhaps it could be done right if done by the right people, and I certainly wouldn't choose anyone other than BIS for the job, but I am of the opinion that I don't want the core fans of the series to become alienated by the sudden "ease-of-use" and "everyone can play" requirements of every so-called "accessible" game. Besides, more people are interested in the ARMA series than ever, especially after E3.

[mrcash2009 0]

The bigest accessibility problem is that we have to download XGigs to be able to play

You dont, you can play vanilla, your referring to servers of which is open to them to use that if they wish, set your own up or find ones that dont, but its never been created so you can never play it without a mod.

First they want an assault rifle, 2 minutes later a sniper. Because they died, they ask for a tank a tank the next play because they think they will kill more and faster... Again, they die and are frustrated. They are always going alone and die fast... It's not only in the game, it's like that in life too...

Then, as been said, they need to either learn how a sim works or play the already flooded market of existing games that Taylor to their needs. You have just explained the prime reason they should be separated to a point. Why should Arma then be simpler to encourage that type of person in to then not learn much further and jump on servers nice and easy and then prat about acting the same, they would just get kicked. I cant see them suddenly going, ah wow ... the editor and then become scripting mission makers and realising the holy grale all of a sudden when they got drawn in by simpler features, they would keep it at that level and then carry on until bored.

Learn it & respect it, or get bored and go back to playing the other games, simple really.

Edited June 17, 2011 by mrcash2009

[krazikilla 5]

You were not lucky, but selling the game because of this is just childish. Most mods are very easy to install, as easy as other games such as TotalWar for example. Copy and paste, add a parameter and that's all. You even can load mods ingame now.

Did you actually read my first post? :j:

[Primarch 10]

You were not lucky, but selling the game because of this is just childish. Most mods are very easy to install, as easy as other games such as TotalWar for example. Copy and paste, add a parameter and that's all. You even can load mods ingame now.

HOWEVER! The game feels really fucking unrewarding and super frustrating to play in multiplayer because of the warping after messing with the game for 20hours to get it running once.

[Zipper5 74]

HOWEVER! The game feels really fucking unrewarding and super frustrating to play in multiplayer because of the warping after messing with the game for 20hours to get it running once.

You have a bad PC or can't use one if it takes you 20 hours to get ARMA 2 running in MP.

[Primarch 10]

You have a bad PC or can't use one if it takes you 20 hours to get ARMA 2 running in MP.

Have you ever used ACRE, or perhaps installing it without 100% luck?

[ProfTournesol 956]

HOWEVER! The game feels really fucking unrewarding and super frustrating to play in multiplayer because of the warping after messing with the game for 20hours to get it running once.

I don't play this game for MP.

[oktane 0]

It is so hard to find COOP missions that players are playing in open public rooms beacuse of some of the reasons i stated above. COOP missions is what made OFP what it is. Warfare,dom in my view is killing the feel of OFP.

JIP (Join in Progress) ruined everything, as far as people setting aside the time required for long coop matches, and being totally invested in it. Now'a days, people are in a huge hurry, if they aren't entertained pretty quick, they go somewhere else where shit is blowing up. But if they hadn't done that, maybe the game would be dead, who knows. I'm just adding this nugget of info as an old flashpoint player... when you played with people, they stuck around, because it took a long time to get in a match and there was a certain value to getting a slot on a good server like Karr's (RTS) or Radishville. You sat and waited, sometimes for more than an hour, for a new mission to start. There was no spectating, just a simple screen with the player list, mission timer, etc. It really weeded out the impatient people, griefers, things like that.

But it was a different time. So more to the point, I do not think you will ever get anything close to flashpoint/res MP coop gameplay or even the behavior of those players (patient gentlemen for the most part) ever again.

Besides that, without these gaming groups ('clans', swearword round here) that you disregard, those old flashpoint servers wouldn't have existed. What makes those servers exist in the first place is groups of guys getting together to shoot the shit, shoot guba's UAZ and each other, drink some beer, make new friends, etc. They donate to pay for the server. (unless one was an IT guy with a server under his desk at work.. :D)

That aside, even hosting your own coop brought in people that were more patient and respectful that you would get today. You may sit in the mission start screen for 15-30 minutes before someone showed up. (remember, no JIP) But when you started it, chances are they would stay with you till the end or you died. (sometimes no respawn on the better coops) They knew not to dick around and shoot needlessly, shoot out the tires of cars, spam the guns in choppers, those are all signs of impatience and boredom, typical today.

To play good coop in todays world, you need to find some guys to play with, simple as that. There is no successful public coop now, unless an admin is there constantly kicking dummies off and the mission can handle such setbacks as FF, satchels in the base, etc.

Without investment and sacrifice on the part of the player, there will not be quality gameplay... pretty simple. (in time, patience, etc)

Also, EVO/Domi is not the boogieman here.. Xeno made that map because people like it, it's what his fans wanted. It is more of a symbol of the modern times, or the new player base of the game. It is possible to play it old school, realistically.. it's very adaptable, quite fun that way. But most will use all the gimmicks to save time, get to the action, like I said, investment, sacrifice. (crawling 20km wounded on your belly, unheard of!? Just respawn stupid!) This disconnect (patient folks who take it a bit more serious so that it means a bit more vs the folks who like the action all the time) is what causes the problems. Nobody wants to flog themselves when other people are taking the easy, action packed route, it's frustrating. Everyone working together, playing in the same 'style' if you will, is what works.

I'm an old fart, when I want to play a good no-respawn coop for 4 hours straight, I do so on the LAN, because I have given up on trying to find those quality players with that discipline is futile these days. :o There are groups of course, but they are kind of intimidating to a person with little gaming time.

Cheers

PS: Remember.. Operation Flashpoint and Resistance were pretty arcadey if you look at it from a sim prespective. What made it different was the AI, freedom of choice, MP with time investment, huge scale, community addons..

Edited June 17, 2011 by oktane

[Primarch 10]

I don't play this game for MP.

I do, and that is the reason I'll pass on every BIS game until they fix the warping somehow or the technology advances enough so servers will have no problem in running the game.

[krazikilla 5]

In my view, BIS aren't in competition with Call of Duty nor Battlefield, nor should they be. ARMA 2 is the king of the infantry simulation genre, and we all saw how trying to make such a game more accessible went.

Perhaps it could be done right if done by the right people, and I certainly wouldn't choose anyone other than BIS for the job, but I am of the opinion that I don't want the core fans of the series to become alienated by the sudden "ease-of-use" and "everyone can play" requirements of every so-called "accessible" game. Besides, more people are interested in the ARMA series than ever, especially after E3.

I think that a few, pretty easy improvments could gain a lot, this doesnt mean to get in any competiton with battlefield or CoD. They are, thanks BIS diffrent Gametyps and not for the same type of players. Cod and BF are Arcade Games. ArmA is a simulation(near) Game.

- more tutorials how to get started

- easier Mod installing

- easier Mod choosing (like automatically when you join a server for example)

- better ingame Gamebrowser

- maybe some official Servers with no mods

- mayybe improve the ingame action menu handling

- thats it, DONT CHANGE anything about the game itself, DONT get close to a OFP:DR

That doesnt mean to make it any less "simulation like" that just means that simulation fans, who are not that techniqually talented, can also play the game and its nice mods.

Some people just dont like, as my mate told me: "i need more time to configure the around-game thingies, then to actually play it."

Sure, we will get more kiddies at the beginning, but i am also sure that a lot of serious interested players will more stay with the game, when the "Aroundings" are easier to handle.

Edited June 17, 2011 by KrAziKilla

[Zipper5 74]

Have you ever used ACRE, or perhaps installing it without 100% luck?

That's not ARMA 2. Why are so many people of the opinion that ACE + ACRE are vanilla ARMA 2 features? You are saying ARMA 2 is difficult to set up when in actual fact it's specific mods you are having trouble with, thus giving a false impression of the game which, sadly, seems to have caught on like wildfire.

[mrcash2009 0]

I know since the recent betas BIS are already trying to address all manner of things like this. Then again this thread was not about MP networking issues.

[-Luc- 10]

Hi,

[...]

I'm an old fart, when I want to play a good no-respawn coop for 4 hours straight, I do so on the LAN, because I have given up on trying to find those quality players with that discipline is futile these days. :o There are groups of course, but they are kind of intimidating to a person with little gaming time.

Cheers

I'm agree with you...

I'm an old fart too...

-Luc-

[mrcash2009 0]

but they are kind of intimidating to a person with little gaming time.

But then they probably have more "sim" time :)