Why don't people play Coop Missions??

[idf fighter 10]

All I see people playing is Domination. Why aren't people playing their own coop missions they created? I'm still new to Arma 2 but I remember in Flashpoint people were always playing their own edited missions online. I know people post their single player missions online where you can download them, but its fun to create your own mission and have others try it out along with you. Is there an explanation why people don't create and play their own multiplayer coop missions online with others?

[maturin 12]

Because pick-up multiplayer sucks.

But people do play co-op, and often Insurgency, which can be co-op.

I would venture a guess that the most common type of gameplay online is co-op missions on closed servers.

[Murklor 10]

Simple: Because many - if not most - of us want an easily recognizable setting with known objectives, repetetive over either minutes or hours with no loss of content/enjoyment for either you or your fellow gamers.

Thus, Domination is dominating. You can just hop in and KNOW you have to take the red town.

I have nothing against single missions, but its a more serious commitment. You cant just join a specifically designed 12 man mission as that single AT soldier, play for an hour through objectives and much fun and then say "oopsies, time to go to work" and just leave, effectivly ruining the mission for everyone else. Arma II MP doesnt work so well that when one person leaves, another is instantly substituted (I know it can be AI but that's hardly up for the task of MP gaming on a small friendly side, as can be seen by the slaughterhouses Domination turn into, lol). Or on the other end, maybe you have 2 hours to game with but end up in a series of 30 minute missions where 20 minutes is just getting to the objective, so in the end you'd spent most of your time running through a desolate desert or something.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Its how you play the missions. You can play CTI missions like Domi or Evo or INS like big coop missions or just simple run-and-gun fun lasting for hours.

Finding servers where ppl play them as a team can be a bit tricky, but its possible.

[galzohar 31]

It's tricky because those missions don't encourage it in any way.

Unfortunately if you want to play serious missions, you first need serious players, and those will rarely visit public servers. And on top of that you need missions that are actually both serious and good.

BTW if you are from Israel, check my sig.

[shay_gman 272]

Because it's all about fast cars and easy women this days...

Now seriously, the best way to get into coop is getting into a clan.

[eggbeast 3673]

or playing evolution - pop into our server for a try out

[sickboy 13]

Recurring subject, discussed to death in several threads already.

[idf fighter 10]

Recurring subject, discussed to death in several threads already.

Sickboy, if you dont mind posting the links to those threads that would be great. Everyone else thanks for the honest replies. Looks like I'll need to get into a clan or something. how do I get into private servers? I suppose I need an invite. Thanks.

---------- Post added at 10:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 PM ----------

It's tricky because those missions don't encourage it in any way.

Unfortunately if you want to play serious missions, you first need serious players, and those will rarely visit public servers. And on top of that you need missions that are actually both serious and good.

BTW if you are from Israel, check my sig.

Not from Israel, but I guess you could say I'm a zionist. I like the Golani patch.

[b00tsy 28]

)rStrangelove;1960444']Its how you play the missions. You can play CTI missions like Domi or Evo or INS like big coop missions or just simple run-and-gun fun lasting for hours.

Finding servers where ppl play them as a team can be a bit tricky' date=' but its possible.[/quote']

Agreed. Domi is great for coop is you play it like that. Especially if you limit the use of parajumping and arty strikes and use choppers/jets for bombing and transport it is already much more interesting. Although on public servers there is to much BS from newbs TKing, not playing their official role (as engineer or medic) and the rambo's that drive friendly armor into a hot ao's etc. Would love to play domi on a closed server for once with the more tactical players.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Would love to play domi on a closed server for once with the more tactical players.

If you find a good one PM me plz

[Tankbuster 1736]

I'm relieved this thread hasn't turned into the usual Dom bash fest. :)

Unmodified, it can get a bit "wash, rinse, repeat", but the server admin can make a great difference just in the mission parameters. It's testament to Xeno's work that it's so flexible.

When the mission modifiers get hold of it, then it can get really good. I've seen version where there's tons of high power assets and others that are purely infantry against a overpowering enemy, but deep down, it's still Dom.

It's true to say some of the code is poor. Much of it was written 4 years ago and the mission never got the benefit of a total rewrite during it's development. This means some features are irretrievably broken and that's a real shame.

[idf fighter 10]

I agree, Domination can be fun, I found 1 game where everybody was tactical, one guy was purely the transport pilot and he showed up after everytime we took a town. Just pop the smoke and he'd be there. Those games are fun but theres just too many with lone wolfs running around.

[160thSOAR 10]

Yeah, I used to play Domination every night. Not so much recently, as I tend to just sit around on TS3 more and chat with clan people.

Good Domination is awesome, while terrible Domination is one of the worst ArmA2 experiences.

The 7th Cavalry server is a very well-adminned Domination server, and you need permission to fly aircraft, or you WILL be kicked. I flew as dedicated transport pilot a lot, but I have to say that my most fun experiences came from being on a dedicated side mission team. Several times, about 5 or so people of us would organize a sidemission team and switch into another TS3 channel. We'd take a few MTVR's, an HMMVW, a Stryker MHQ and an MH6 and make a little FOB at the mine near Feruz-Abad.

The great thing about this was that you got away from the huge battles of regular Domi. You could still get that "Oh shit, a tank!" feeling, and actually be afraid when you saw a place crawling with enemies. Sometimes you had to recognize when getting in and just completing the objective was more important than shooting your way through the enemies to it. I once landed the Little Bird inside a hangar we had to destroy, my buddy threw about 5 satchels on the corners, and we were out before the enemy could get their boots on. And once we got tired of smaller-unit stuff, we could always rejoin the larger fight. :) It was, and still is, very fun. I'm just trying to explore other things like CTI and Berzerk now.

Edited June 23, 2011 by 160thSOAR

[Tankbuster 1736]

Good Domination is awesome, while terrible Domination is one of the worst ArmA2 experiences.

The 7th Cavalry server is a very well-adminned Domination server, and you need permission to fly aircraft, or you WILL be kicked.

I know 7th Cav, been in there a couple of times, so have my guys. You have some good ideas, some of which I've 'borrowed' :)

Being the dedicated pilot is often much more fun than some imagine. Even if you're not shooting up the enemy or killing armour, there's a lot of fun to be had flying transport. It's a special kind of stress trying to get a chopper full of human players down under fire while there's another group desperate for an ammo drop.

[Murklor 10]

The 7th Cavalry server is a very well-adminned Domination server, and you need permission to fly aircraft, or you WILL be kicked.

I was on 7th cav last night. They had obvious issues enforcing this rule, lol. But they tried quite hard at least. Lots of chatting :)

Unfortunetly it was the usual game when it starts off decent, then it begins to lag, then enemy soldiers have a movement interpollation rate of about 1 second so you cant even hit them while firing a machinegun in their general direction or they take 10 .50 cal sniper rounds to head to react to the fact they died a minute ago. After a while I think the server crashed.

When Arma II Free is released I am sure I will once again try to make a simple, fool-proof, trimmed down Domination mode that's Kb of script rather than Mb. Then I will realize that the project will fail and give up with a big sigh, because everyone is already playing Domination :p

[Tankbuster 1736]

When Arma II Free is released I am sure I will once again try to make a simple, fool-proof, trimmed down Domination mode that's Kb of script rather than Mb.

You can try and trim it, and I have been doing so for a while. When you look under the bonnet, you'll see what a lovely piece of work this mission is. Gaze in wonder at Xeno's method for running code on clients, for example. It's very clever. You will never take out most of the code and retain the features, it just won't happen.

Much of the code is never actually used, not because it's redundant, although some is, but because each mission is capable of supporting ACE, revive, ranked, Everon and a multitude of other options, all within the one mission package. It's quite cunning. :) You can strip out some of this code, as I have, but you won't really improve performance.

I found some features were busted, like the wreck markers, so we took them out and that's helped a little. Have a look in the server RPT and you'll get an idea of what's broken and what's working. Try to fix or remove the broken bits.

There's other bits that don't work as intended. In Two Teams, both sides can see the arty targets and we couldn't fix that so we took them out. We feared it might be a problem with friendlies not seeing arty targeting on the map, but it actually improves the game as the arty operator now has to inform his guys where the stuff is coming, either by manually marking the map or in comms. We like it this way now.

If the mission is running persistent and the server really begins to bog down, there is a last resort fix. Get everyone to quit, except the admin who monitors the server, it will recover in a minute or so, then get everyone to rejoin in a orderly fashion and play on. Job done.

[b00tsy 28]

Lol I get kicked of the servers when I try to provide transport with a heli, while I rock as a chopper pilot. Or some dumb shoots you in the head while sitting in the pilot seat waiting for units to board the chopper. I like The Cav server too when there are admins around, to bad they restart domination like everytime half way because of bugs in their edited version.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Probably better than mine that bugs out (5fps on server) after first target, lol. I've given up, yet I keep adding useless stuff to it. :D

[Murklor 10]

You can try and trim it, and I have been doing so for a while. When you look under the bonnet, you'll see what a lovely piece of work this mission is. Gaze in wonder at Xeno's method for running code on clients, for example. It's very clever. You will never take out most of the code and retain the features, it just won't happen.

Yeah I know and I dont even understand half of it. I've tried modifying it and its like picking out a needle in a barrel of snakes. A remake is probably a better idea. But as I said, there's little point because everyone is already playing Domination ;)

[ZZEZ 10]

Usually on United Operations we play community made COOPS and once we go above 40 players on the server its TvT time, I am not sure if thats what your looking for since its a ACE/ACRE community and not a public server, however anyone can join.

[RedDogBOM 10]

I'm not really sure I understand all the responses to the primary question. We have discovered that most people don't really know the difference between a dedicated Multiplayer server versus a singleplayer server that host a game online.

We at BOMSF have had a dedicated Coop Server up and running for almost a year now with no real issues of lag or scripting overhead. Now we don't run any expansions or mods, just custom made Coop maps that are humans versus bots. We always set the timer at 60 minutes or less to speed up game play, plus we have customized our missions to mimic a faster pace, arcade style of running and gunning. We have found our members prefer to play shorter faster CQB style maps, and thus we tend to keep them small.

Compared to any other game engine out there....well there is no comparison. This game is so highly customizable that there is almost no end to the amount of interesting things we can get this game to do. The biggest issues is the coding and scripting differences between S.P. and M.P. What works for one does not always work for the other.

[Dwarden 1124]

there are thousands of community made missions and lot of people still not realized all the fun they missing :(

[Overlord 0]

This is probably stated in hundreds of posts already, but with a game/ simulator as versatile as AA2, there is always room for everyone to find a gaming style of their own preferences.

Several coop servers is locked, due to random players connecting, not following server rules, and destroying the mission/ fun for other players. And with large-scale islands, a mission can take quite a bit of time. Nothing for the "spray and pray" type of player.

[galzohar 31]

there are thousands of community made missions and lot of people still not realized all the fun they missing :(

But only a relatively small portion of those are actually good, and then an even smaller portion of those actually matches the number of players you have to play with, and to add to it, any mods compatibility (in case you use mods the mission didn't take into consideration) and/or requirement (in case mission uses mods you don't have). To be honest one of the biggest game killers is difficulty of finding missions to play, and not just any missions that will likely end in frustration due to bad design, bugs, imbalance, player requirement, mod compatibility/requirement or any combination of those.

Of course this has its solutions that help making the game fun, but not everyone are up to what it takes to make it happen. If you just want to log in and play something and so do everyone else you're playing with, you'll probably end up either playing the same few missions that run on all servers, or find yourself playing some random missions that don't work and/or don't work for you.