MP thoughts

[gammadust 12]

Personaly I don't use DOF, for cutscenes and video demos, all good, but in regards to gameplay I prefer to play without it since it comes with a certain sight disconfort and focusing delay which I do not experience in RL.

RTT to allow for better optics simulation would be welcome though depending on how taxing it would come on the performance.

In any case, any of these effects are pretty much dependent on their performance impact (5-10% max) for me to be convinced.

[james2464 176]

leplaisirquitue Jay Crowe

#Arma3 MP Session! Team Mike vs Team Bravo - it's the Men of Mnisek against the Brno Boys!

Looks like the MP on Arma 3 is really exciting guys! wow I can't wait to see what they've come up with, by the looks team v team

[froggyluv 2130]

I don't understand the above :confused:

Is that a Dev tweet ot something?

[NoRailgunner 0]

No, just two BIS devteams trying to find out who will pay for their next beer & pizza. :beeeers:

[royaltyinexile 175]

just two BIS devteams trying to find out who will pay for their next beer & pizza.

Yes, to clarify the rogue tweeting, we've started up a splendid weekly MP session between our teams.

It's a good way for us to try out the latest changes, discover those problems that can only be discovered playing against a sneaky opponent, and, of course, prove our natural dominance.

Best,

RiE

[Smurf 12]

Don´t forget to tell us who won......... with screens and videos if possible. :811:

[[evo] dan 79]

Don´t forget to tell us who won......... with screens and videos if possible. :811:

+1 to that

[james2464 176]

Yes, to clarify the rogue tweeting, we've started up a splendid weekly MP session between our teams.

It's a good way for us to try out the latest changes, discover those problems that can only be discovered playing against a sneaky opponent, and, of course, prove our natural dominance.

Best,

RiE

I hope you guys are working on a competitive MP platform that can be taken public with the new player base that will no doubt come with Arma 3. :D

[Maio 293]

I hope you guys are working on a competitive MP platform that can be taken public with the new player base that will no doubt come with Arma 3. :D

Of course they are. Just like they are working on that dev blog full of new info and media which Royalty told me about when he was a tad bit pinched after the X-mas party and of which I have zero evidence of it's existance.

On a serious note. Nice to see the devs are playing their own games.

On a second serious note. Throw us a bone here BIS :)

[froggyluv 2130]

Of course they are. Just like they are working on that dev blog full of new info and media which Royalty told me about when he was a tad bit pinched after the X-mas party and of which I have zero evidence of it's existance.

On a serious note. Nice to see the devs are playing their own games.

On a second serious note. Throw us a bone here BIS :)

Haha a chink in their media embargo!

Operation: Get Royalty Moar Beer in full effect

:bb:

:bb::bb:

[Nicholas 5]

Yes, to clarify the rogue tweeting, we've started up a splendid weekly MP session between our teams.

It's a good way for us to try out the latest changes, discover those problems that can only be discovered playing against a sneaky opponent, and, of course, prove our natural dominance.

Best,

RiE

This is good. A fun environment is healthy for development.

[onlyrazor 11]

This is good. A fun environment is healthy for development.

Oh, to hell with the fun environment! Screens, videos, now! :rolleyes:

[purepassion 22]

@RiE

When the games have ended and the warriors have returned from the olymp, thou shalt announce the mighty winner and he shall be worshiped forever!

[Maio 293]

@RiE

When the games have ended and the warriors have returned from the olymp, thou shalt announce the mighty winner and he shall be worshiped forever!

Allas... they must bare proof of their triumph in the art of e-sports, in the form of media or they shall fall in disgrace of the populus!

[Pummel 10]

In my opinion:

In terms of actual gunfights, Arma 2 is not much different to BF3 or CoD or whatever else. I know some people here look down on the other games, but to me they are all pretty much the same anyway. Yes it has bullet droop and stuff but once you've played over 100 shooters, and I'm sure I have, they all become a blur, and they all feel the same. You get the occasional one like Rise of the Triads or XIII or System Shock or something which tries to take things in a new direction, but my point is that running around with a gun in one game is pretty much the same as running around with a gun in another game. The graphics might change a bit and the feel of your character might change a bit, but it still is the same experience - to me at least.

So in terms of that, I am not that interested in ANY of these games. The only reason why I play Arma2, is because it provides something extra, on top of the usual run and gun thing. Firstly there are all the different vehicles, then there are the airbourne units almost providing a flight sim experience, thirdly there is the outpost and base building element, and lastly there is the squad command aspect. To me, this is the only thing that makes this game interesting to me. Everything else I have seen before, many many times, but this is all very new. I have seen similar stuff before, the SWAT games for example had pretty good squad based action and you could control them well too, but that was a very small scale. Same goes for the old Rainbow 6 games and Hidden & Dangerous and some others. As for vehicles, I've seen that before too, I remember when I first played Unreal Tournament (2004?) which had vehicles galore, and it was like a revelation, adding a whole new element to FPS's. You could transport people to the front lines, you could run people over, or you could blast stuff until you got taken out. With choppers/jets you have games like DCS A10/BS which do a better job, but again, they aspire to some day have human ground troops and provide a real warfare type experience, but they are a long way away from achieving that. The base building element too, and whatever else, I've seen all those before too, but I've never seen it all done in one game, at the same time.

To me that is what Arma 3 should be all about. BIS should play to their strengths, and these are their strengths. Somehow they are able to provide a far broader experience than any of their competitors. There may be a few sacrifices, bit less graphical detail to BF3, AI not quite as good as whatever else, etc.. but in general, these Arma games are in a league of their own.

Having said that, I think Arma2 does a really bad job of playing to its strengths and selling itself. The original campaign in the original game for example, you could not drive any tanks or choppers or planes, you had very limited team control, and you very virtually zero base building. It was so bad, they would have been better just not having a campaign at all, because it does more harm than good. A lot of players didn't even make it to the multiplayer aspect, because their first experience of the game was Harvest Red and it was so bad, they quit forever. Are these people quitters? Maybe, but they are potential customers that are being lost unnecessarily. But more importantly, besides the well trodden gripes against Harvest Red, the multiplayer aspect of the game was badly done too. Besides the not so great server browser etc.. the actual multiplayer experience is extremely hit and miss. In some of my first few games, it was a tiny team deathmatch on a tiny map. I liked some things, like being able to go around the side and lie down in the grass and snipe at people, but generally it just felt like all the other shooters out there, only not as fun. Then I played some other mode where you are supposed to capture parts of a town. The scale was far bigger this time, but the gameplay was horrible. I don't think there was any enemy players, it was mostly (or entirely) enemy AI, and generally they would be hid somewhere and you would go looking for them and they would instant head shot you 1 millisecond after you went around a corner. Then there was some other mode which was big and promising looking, but I had no idea what was going on and there were no instructions what to do and it wasn't user friendly at all, it also took forever to get anywhere on the map. I had almost given up on the game until I came across CTI, but unfortunately this mode is almost entirely player made. Luckily they have done a great job (Benny etc), but still, it feels a bit under-developed and yet this in my opinion is by far the best experience this game has to offer.

But whichever mode the individual likes, none of the options really cater to you very well. The run and gun modes are a bit chaotic and silly, the big modes are a bit unweildly and too slow paced etc.. and ultimately lacking the depth that you might expect, and none of them really seem to 'nail it'. Obviously it does a good enough job to keep this many people playing..... but still, I think in the future they should look at improving that experience. I would even suggest ignoring the single player campaign entirely (unless they can push the boat out sufficiently to make sure it's REALLY good this time). But the multiplayer needs some love. The armory and mission editor are all important tools, but the multiplayer is what brings in the large numbers of players, and keeps them playing and therefore attracts even more new players. There needs to be just a few REALLY good multiplayer modes, and they need to be perfected by BIS. The main selling point for me would be for people to make their own scenario missions, write a text intro, and then play through it with real people. You can do this in Arma2, but for whatever reason, people rarely do it. Besides that mode there needs be another one for people who just want to run and gun and don't want vehicles involved, for that mode there needs to be a huge selection of weapons and ideally some kind of money system where you need to earn money from kills to buy better weapons so you can't just start with the best, you start with an AK47 and work your way up, or spend your money on grenades or mines or something. Then there needs to be full on warfare mode, with a gigantic location full of cities and two teams, earning money, building bases and front line structures, some driving tanks, some flying choppers, etc.. but again, these modes need to be perfected, not just a few basic ideas and then rely on the modders to do all the other work. With Unreal Tournament 2004, they knew that their big selling point was the Onslaught mode, and they did a really good job of it, supported it well with plenty of maps, then hyped it and watched the game sell well. I think BIS need to do the same kind of thing. Realise that it has the potential to provide some really great multiplayer experiences, but then do whatever they need to do to make sure that their game actually delivers this.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Pummel

[CameronMcDonald 146]

So, tl;dr - you want a better campaign and more variety in MP missions at release, namely a CTI mode?

The main selling point for me would be for people to make their own scenario missions, write a text intro, and then play through it with real people. You can do this in Arma2, but for whatever reason, people rarely do it.

People are already making their own MP scenarios in the series for 10+ years - what do you mean?

[Pummel 10]

Yeah it needs a killer campaign, or just don't have one at all. And yes it needs well made multiplayer modes at release, especially CTI (although even that could do with some improvement).

People are already making their own MP scenarios in the series for 10+ years - what do you mean?

My only issue with those is that I rarely see them being played. When I used to play the demo of Arma2, there were lots of fun scenarios and when I made one of my own, I would always get people joining pretty quickly. But now that I have the full game, I see occasional ones but it's rare and even rarer that they aren't password protected, and when I make my own scenario, nobody joins. To me at least, those player made multiplayer scenarios are one of the best parts about this game. Nothing else can do that.

I'm not sure why these scenario missions are not very common, but whatever is causing that should really be fixed imo. One thought I had is that maybe their length is too unpredictable for people. In other words, sometimes a scenario goes on for an hour or so, and some people only want to play the game for 20 minutes or whatever. So maybe there could be some kind of indication on the server browser how long the scenario is.

Edited February 5, 2012 by Pummel

[james2464 176]

I can't wait to see how PVP will run, hopefully it will bring a solid multiplayer base with huge player numbers :D

Twitter

Jay Crowe @leplaisirquitue

@James2464 #E3 and #GamesCom are already confirmed! As for PvP, yes, there are experienced designers dedicated to making something great...

[ddeo 10]

I did read through whole 12 pages and I must say there was really lack of MP talk in this thread. Mostly, I saw people speaking about unfluid movement and animations, isn't it wrong place to talk about it? Also I don't think it's the main problem of the MP in Arma. I personally like playing PR and I saw few people talking about it in this thread, lets develop this.

Default Arma 2 PVP is very chaotic, on most public servers people don't work as a team, but lone wolfs, which makes PVP very boring and in the end people, because they are bored, are starting doing weird things like shooting their teammates (hello to Arma 2:free experience here), also there is lack of communication. I think project reality fixes those things and makes game more interesting, because people are working together, how PR does it? For example in BF2:PR to pick up better kit (weapon, class) you need squad (on some servers you can't even play without squad because you will get kicked from the game), when you join squad there will be leader, who will in most cases give you orders and objectives, if you will not do them he might kick you out of the team and you will be not able to pick up your class again when you will die and respawn, you will have to join another squad again. This will make you think what is more cost-effective (running and gunning without proper equipment on whole map without team, or joining team, getting better equipment and starting playing with your team.) You may ask what if leader is unexperienced? It doesn't happen often because from my personal experience nobody wants to be in charge of things when he has no experience in it, new people will most likely try to join already existing team and learn to play with more experienced players. :) One more thing, most people don't want from start to run around without purpose, but they are not sure sometimes what to do and the effect of this is that they will get bored and leave the server when you have too big map for battlefield, on which they can't find themselves. After joining the team, team leader is giving them objectives, and from huge battlefield they finally can find place for themselves, to help the team. Very important aspect of this kind of gameplay is that there needs to be communication, markers and text chat are ok, but in PR almost everybody is using microphone, which plays key role in this kind of game because speaking to microphone doesn't stop you from moving and doing your stuff (not to mention faster and better communication). Also punishments for teamkills, etc should be very big, that way teamkillers will not ruin the game experience of other players, because teamkilling will not happen that often. I would write much more, but I think I made this post already too long and there is a lot to talk about already. :) And remember it's just suggestion, one of the ways to improve PVP in Arma by concentrating on work of smaller groups of squads and giving players awards in gameplay for doing teamwork, NOT awards in giving experience points to players profile, or unlocks like in call of duty/bf3.

Edited March 15, 2012 by ddeo

[purepassion 22]

The squadsystem is an outstanding idea :) I totally agree that unorganised behavior resulting in chaos and frustration which ultimately leads to stuff like random teamkills is one of the major problems of current open Arma multiplayer. Encouraging and supporting teamplay in form of e.g this squadsystem would most likely help (new) players who usually feel lost and thus better their multiplayer experience. The concept is of course very rough but I really see movements in the right direction ddeo! :)

[twisted 127]

Tried to play mp last night. Eventually found map with a reasonable ping and a few people playing. This took longer than i tjought because the filter by ping and filter by number of pkayers function was acting up. It was coop not pvp like i had hoped, but fuck it i wanted sone arma2 mp action. So i click join, and then get kicked before game starts fir me cause i had ukf weapons and ace2 addons.

Be lovely if mp had the option to automatically only use vanilla components if a server requests it.

Minimising frustration would help mp atma be more popular in future.

[james2464 176]

Tried to play mp last night. Eventually found map with a reasonable ping and a few people playing. This took longer than i tjought because the filter by ping and filter by number of pkayers function was acting up. It was coop not pvp like i had hoped, but fuck it i wanted sone arma2 mp action. So i click join, and then get kicked before game starts fir me cause i had ukf weapons and ace2 addons.

Be lovely if mp had the option to automatically only use vanilla components if a server requests it.

Minimising frustration would help mp atma be more popular in future.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?132531-Project-Reality-Arma-2 all you have ever wanted.

realitymod.com

[PuFu 4591]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?132531-Project-Reality-Arma-2 all you have ever wanted.

realitymod.com

This subforum is about A3, NOT about addons or mods, of any kind. So please stop acting like a advert billboard without discern everywhere you post. PR is NOT everything i ever wanted, far from it

[NoRailgunner 0]

@twisted that could be avoided if the mp browser would have a little window showing at least some mission/server relevant infos about what is required and allowed to join/play on this server. Addons/mod renamed or re-mixed into "@Stuff", "@OMG" and similar don't help either.

[[evo] dan 79]

@twisted that could be avoided if the mp browser would have a little window showing at least some mission/server relevant infos about what is required and allowed to join/play on this server. Addons/mod renamed or re-mixed into "@Stuff", "@OMG" and similar don't help either.

This, so many times I have tried to join a server, to get messages about not having mods, and then seeing in the list all the other mods I am running + @(insert clan name here).