UK Ministry of Defense Wants Sims as good as...

[Kakihara0513 10]

Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3......

http://kotaku.com/5871848/the-uks-ministry-of-defense-wants-simulators-as-good-as-battlefield-3-or-modern-warfare-3

Something seems wrong about this... aside from the fact the author didn't mention ArmA, but instead assumed the other OpFlash games are BI.

[abs 2]

Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3......

http://kotaku.com/5871848/the-uks-ministry-of-defense-wants-simulators-as-good-as-battlefield-3-or-modern-warfare-3

Something seems wrong about this... aside from the fact the author didn't mention ArmA, but instead assumed the other OpFlash games are BI.

The author actually mentions BI and Arma (and VBS) in the opening paragraphs.

However, the author is also lacking in knowledge. VBS not updated since 2007? I dismissed the legitimacy of the article after that.

Abs

[metalcraze 290]

It's Kotaku - the yellow press of gaming.

[Colossus 2]

However, the author is also lacking in knowledge. VBS not updated since 2007?

I was reacting to that too. The whole article seems dodgy to me, like:

quote]... you can buy a commercial game that will be far more realistic than the sorts of tools we were using.I really hope, for his sake, that he's only talking about the visual realism of commercial games. "Realism" commercial games can, to some extent, provide better then the "sorts of tools" they are using now. In which case, I agree with him. A bit at least.

*After reading the original article at The Guardian I have a feeling this was taken out of context.

Though, like Jay Crowe posted on Twitter (PDF), it could be more of an distraction then a effective use of the visuals. After all, in terms of VBS2, simulations are there to provide a safe environment to train communication, decision and reactive skills under possible stressful situations. You could of course do all this in a real-life war game, but obviously that would cost more time and money. But I see the use for visual improvements if it's about identifying threats like mines or IEDs out in the field.

Edited December 30, 2011 by colossus

[Dwarden 1125]

the article seems like mix up of several articles w/o any knowledge , result is quite messy ...

MOD UK is for sure aware of VBS2 2.0 and road ahead ...

also bored by playing VBS2 ? wth soldiers are playing it for fun and not training with? :)

[Colossus 2]

So it seems. It was rather strange that he made, what I thought to be, contradictions to himself. I don't know why they dragged MW3 and BF3 in to all this.

Let me just get to a Neanderthal level: VBS2 good he says? Yes, indeed. :)

Poulter said a commander who came back from Afghanistan told him that two soldiers in his unit had drilled themselves so much on Virtual Battlespace2, he was sure the training had saved their lives when they came under fire. "It has been invaluable. It is being taken seriously. It's not just a game," said Poulter.

The Guardian Edited December 30, 2011 by colossus

[Dead3yez 0]

The author of that Kotaku article obviously has no idea what they're talking about.

[UGLY58 10]

simulations are there to provide a safe environment to train communication, decision and reactive skills under possible stressful situations.

Given that the MOD has limited funds and already has VBS2 licences the chance of this dream becoming reality is very slim.

What the MOD fails to do time and time again is create suitable scenarios to push guys hard enough so they don`t get bored. VBS2 is suitable for small team training, it is a fighters simulation, not a command task trainer !

[Dwarden 1125]

simulations are there to provide a safe environment to train communication, decision and reactive skills under possible stressful situations.

1. Mumble server

2. Mumble Client

3. Drill Sergant in Bad mood as channel commander

that gives enough room for safe communication under stressful situation :)

[djfluffwug 10]

Reading that article then the comments was a pretty funny experience for me.

Seems both the author and the commenters had no idea what they were talking about.

[dmarkwick 261]

I think the only people this will interest are the clueless gamers and the clueless newspaper readers. Other than that... it's clearly nonsense. We here know it's nonsense, and military training personnel will know it's nonsense. It's just a mish-mash of barely researched column-filler.

It makes me wonder how much of the stuff I read is similarly trash, particularly on subjects I don't know much about. My guess is: most of it :D

[walker 0]

Hi all

As others have pointed out the guardian article appears to be the kotaku primary source.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/28/ministry-defence-war-games-xbox?mobile-redirect=false

That guardian article is just pointing out that the MOD, after learning that games based spin offs, can perform vastly more training than the limited primes products and at a fraction of the cost, the MOD is naturally enough looking at other games.

VBS showed what was possible, but any competitor has to take the same route as BIS. They have to modify an existing engine as a cash cow to allow it to be used by customers in a new way.

That requires a stable platform, eg a game that has been proved to work and hardware ditto. A modifiable engine. NB Source code modification is not the same thing! It needs easy to use modding tools that have been tested by an open community or they will be buggy and geeky.

Finally it needs a community of developers from which to draw on. Preferably with a high percentage of military personnel who modify the game.

The problem for any competitor to VBS is that BIS are not resting on their laurels.

The telling quote from the guardian article is this one:

...Poulter said a commander who came back from Afghanistan told him that two soldiers in his unit had drilled themselves so much on Virtual Battlespace2, he was sure the training had saved their lives when they came under fire. "It has been invaluable.It is being taken seriously. It's not just a game," said Poulter...

Kind Regards walker

Edited December 30, 2011 by walker
sign-off and spelling

[metalcraze 290]

also bored by playing VBS2 ? wth soldiers are playing it for fun and not training with? :)

That made me chuckle

However many people (non-military of course) seem to think that real war is what they show you in BF3 MP or CS so they are brainwashed into thinking war is fun by those games.

Gaming press is also where failed journalists go because real media doesn't want them and Kotaku seems to be a home to worst ones.

The telling quote from the guardian article is this one:

BIS games save lives :salute:

Edited December 30, 2011 by metalcraze

[zap44 11]

Not exactly on subject but related and may interest thread readers http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/December/Pages/GamingTechnologyPutsSoldiers%E2%80%99BootsonGround.aspx

[maturin 12]

Kotaku does a good job being entertaining and informative, as befits a news blog with specific low-brow aims. It's the more serious gaming press that is truly wretched, full of sell-out reviewers.

Don't knock them too hard for doomed forays into actual journalism.

[Madus_Maximus 0]

Kotaku does a good job being entertaining and informative, as befits a news blog with specific low-brow aims. It's the more serious gaming press that is truly wretched, full of sell-out reviewers.

Don't knock them too hard for doomed forays into actual journalism.

If you think they have any integrity or ethics then all you have to do is look at how they handled the whole Halo 3 thing with the stuff Bungie sent members of the "press", just so they could troll the fans.

That website, along with the whole Gawker network is a hive of scum. They're the same people who think it's perfectly OK to go around CES with universal remotes and turn people's displays off in the middle of demo's. They're vile wretches and deserve nothing but to be ignored so their advertisers pull out of paying them because they're not getting the page hit quota for the day.

[Baff1 0]

That made me chuckle

However many people (non-military of course) seem to think that real war is what they show you in BF3 MP or CS so they are brainwashed into thinking war is fun by those games.

War is fun.

A lot of people go to war for the love it. It's a volunteer army in my country and the pay sucks.

Plus any training exercise that is not fun is not a very good training exercise.

Fun is the best way to learn and a great motivation to train.

[djfluffwug 10]

War is fun.

A lot of people go to war for the love it. It's a volunteer army in my country and the pay sucks.

Plus any training exercise that is not fun is not a very good training exercise.

Fun is the best way to learn and a great motivation to train.

Mmm. The fun of having shrapnel burn into your face :D

[st_dux 26]

However, the author is also lacking in knowledge. VBS not updated since 2007? I dismissed the legitimacy of the article after that.

I think he means to say that VBS2 has used the same engine (the ArmA 1 engine) since 2007, which is true. The improved visual fidelity and AI that ArmA 2 brought, among other things, still haven't found their way into VBS2 yet (it's on the horizon, though, with "VBS2 2.0").