State of Multiplayer match types. Now and 8-10 years ago.

[Atkins 10]

Sry about the name misspell...

PR installs to @PR folder so it works like a regular mod out there though has a separate .exe. Nothing to fear when u install it.

Check: http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f440-pr-arma2-general-discussion/107325-project-reality-arma2-v0-15-closed-beta-testing.html

Can't help you on the PR server policies. That is just how they roll. I see it as a good thing. Keeps the server owners on their toes and all servers up to certain standards. It has down sides but imo the up sides weigh more.

Ps. PR server fills during the EU evening time and reaches up to 70-100 players then.

Edited February 29, 2012 by Atkins

[Omninorm 1]

Well I think back to the days of Delta Force games... had some great PvP games. Don't see why ARMA2 / 3 can't have that as well.

[enforcer1975 0]

Well I think back to the days of Delta Force games... had some great PvP games. Don't see why ARMA2 / 3 can't have that as well.

They would rather lose to an almighty Ai than to the wits of a human ;)

Playing on a ACE Coop/TVT server long enough i always see the same players drop when they start a TVT and there are not really that much ACE Coop servers, even the hosting group can't explain why people don't like to join in TVT - it's the same mission just with one more party. I'd rather play against a person where suppression fire and wind has some effect :)

[zyklone 1]

What killed the CTI community was mostly the state of A1 multiplayer the years following release

- JIP as implemented is horrendous and makes competitive multiplayer impossible

- Linux dedicated server was not released

- Out of the box warfare is terrible

- Netcode was useless.

Unfortunately little seems to have changed concerning how multiplayer is viewed in BI, hope I'm wrong for A3.

[.kju 3245]

Don't disagree with your points zyklone (albeit I don't see them as drastic in terms of A1).

Why did you say little has changed/seems to have changed - do you mean your points or the lack of MP focus in general?

[Dwarden 1125]

What killed the CTI community was mostly the state of A1 multiplayer the years following release

- JIP as implemented is horrendous and makes competitive multiplayer impossible

- Linux dedicated server was not released

- Out of the box warfare is terrible

- Netcode was useless.

Unfortunately little seems to have changed concerning how multiplayer is viewed in BI, hope I'm wrong for A3.

i will take it from actual state

1. JIP is there, it works quite well, yet there are some irks (mass connect, mass disconnect situations) to improve

2. Linux dedicated server, while being miracle, is released most of time in sync sometimes even sooner than windows dedicated server

3. Out of box great MP scenario is w/o question quest for ARMA 3

4. Netcode was greatly improved and it's 4 major updates (significant) away from original ARMA 1

and as one of main fighters behind increasing MP focus and any MP improvements i would like to hear more targeted critic to bone :)

[krazikilla 5]

I would love to see more advanced PVP Scenarios.

Huge numbers fighting against other huge numbers of HUMANS, careing about all.

- Logistics (Transporting, Fuel, Repair, Weapon Systems, Mortars etc)

- Medavac (get injured people back to base/field hospital to bring em back to full health and a fightable condition)

- Objectives (Take that town, destroy that ammo stash, defend this bridge)

- Ambushes (Ambush enemy supply routes or attack movements)

- Supply Routes (Find fast and secure supplyroutes to bring in reeinforcements and ammo)

- Build FOBs

This needs a more clear command structure.

1 general

a few squads

Medavac groups

with a nice high command system which is DEFAULT in a new PVP Multiplayer Mod called: Real PVP 100vs100, Simulate the Battlefield.

But also include some fast action games for the fun in between and immidiate action.

Even i dont like it but look at battlefield a bit.

Will attract new players.

[Atkins 10]

I would love to see more advanced PVP Scenarios.

Huge numbers fighting against other huge numbers of HUMANS, careing about all.

- Logistics (Transporting, Fuel, Repair, Weapon Systems, Mortars etc)

- Medavac (get injured people back to base/field hospital to bring em back to full health and a fightable condition)

- Objectives (Take that town, destroy that ammo stash, defend this bridge)

- Ambushes (Ambush enemy supply routes or attack movements)

- Supply Routes (Find fast and secure supplyroutes to bring in reeinforcements and ammo)

- Build FOBs

This needs a more clear command structure.

1 general

a few squads

Medavac groups

with a nice high command system which is DEFAULT in a new PVP Multiplayer Mod called: Real PVP 100vs100, Simulate the Battlefield.

But also include some fast action games for the fun in between and immidiate action.

Even i dont like it but look at battlefield a bit.

Will attract new players.

To me it seems that PR is an answer to your requests;

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?132531-Project-Reality-Arma-2

It provides 90% of the stuff that you just listed and is only 1 mod with no extra addons or hassle. Now just new players will have to find out about this MP PvP possibility for Arma2.

[zyklone 1]

i will take it from actual state

1. JIP is there, it works quite well, yet there are some irks (mass connect, mass disconnect situations) to improve

Sure, it works.

It's fine for COOP and other game modes where the teams don't really matter. For PvP it's bad.

There needs to be better posibility for the mission to control what the players can do in the lobby, it needs to be scriptable with the possibility to lock slots, unlock slots etc.

2. Linux dedicated server, while being miracle, is released most of time in sync sometimes even sooner than windows dedicated server

Yes, this was fixed. Now it's been broken again with dll extensions of the dedicated server only available on windows.

4. Netcode was greatly improved and it's 4 major updates (significant) away from original ARMA 1

I have not played anything after the beta improvements so I can't say.

But has something like players throttling downstream to become immortal been fixed? Or do missions still have to fix that themselves?

and as one of main fighters behind increasing MP focus and any MP improvements i would like to hear more targeted critic to bone :)

It's great you're trying.

Perhaps there is hope for Arma3.

My suggestion would be to actually talk to the mission makers what they're having trouble with.

That's something NOONE did back in OFP/Arma1 days which was a big reason why someone like Cleanrock left. The same bugs which were worked around with loads of mission code in OFP were still there in Arma1.

[Atkins 10]

The state of the MP in Arma2 is now so that TG's PR server is the 1. in ranks. I suppose that gives an estimate of the demand for a solid PvP MP experience in Arma2...

[Prodavec 10]

I tried to invite a lot of my friends in ArmA community. Someone was bored because of gameplay (most of servers are against bots), someone because of controls and animation, someone because of high hardware requirements.

Also ArmA community has a feature: many admins try to ban people when community is a very-very small (to comparison with other FPS projects). We have 300-1200 peoples online in A2:OA.

For example Shitty Life RPG2 server with their admins ban everyone for everything and as result they have low online and high player flow. They have a donation shop but no reason to donate if someone will get banned because of bad mood of Armatec which doesn't follow his own rules. Disrespecting people like "why spam 141 dick"©ArMaTeC is depricated by all mature players.

I have no idea why people are so unfriendly in arma multiplayer, maybe it is related to the age of players or because a much more "geeks" with small dicks play arma?

[Opticalsnare 12]

Il be honest guys i havnt ever played ArmA2 online. The biggest problem for me is simply the mod support and just getting kicked out cause i either have a mod enabled, or the mod isnt the correct version and so on. I can understand that some mods shoundnt be allowed so i once spent like a hour sorting all the mods out and getting the up-to-date versions. When i tried to play online i still kept getting kicked so i simply gave up, playing without some of the mods im so used to and simply disabling them or simply playing with default A2 to me defeats the whole point in playing ArmA the whole game to me is about modding. Someone once said to me argh you should find a coop clan or friends to play with but dunno where to start looking..

Someone should just create a community server for anyone to join with a mod that is listed via this in this forum so people can just check the a thread on these forums and know extactly what mods are supported and if its not in the list obv it isnt supported unless requested. And then links can be given to the correct version of that mod and its keys so everybody can be happy. The server doesnt have to host a mission or whatever but can be just a sandbox perhaps there can be some kind of mission generator for people to try, or have people on the forums make their own missions and then play them voted by us the forumites.

Edited March 28, 2012 by Opticalsnare

[.kju 3245]

well for that should be a (working) server filter option: "let me play on all servers without sig check or that allow my addons"

and best would be to get asked what the game should do if you join with addons that aren't allowed like: "disable non allowed addons?"

[SG_Smokintodd 0]

For those that dig the PvP scene in ARMA, yet haven't tried PR:ARMA are really doing themselves a disservice. It, combined with the 1.6 patch is FPS, PvP magic.

Grab the DL, read the manual, and prepare to lose track of all time.

[ratszo 17]

For those that dig the PvP scene in ARMA, yet haven't tried PR:ARMA are really doing themselves a disservice. It, combined with the 1.6 patch is FPS, PvP magic.

Grab the DL, read the manual, and prepare to lose track of all time.

PvP magic..., i like that.

[oxmox 73]

When OFP was in full swing, there was no shortage of CTFs/C&H's/CTI's/S&H, etc. However since the inception of Domination/Evolution in Arma 1, Co-ops have been the dominant force on the server list. I find this perplexing because in every forum across the internet, every time Arma/OFP is mentioned - the AI is always mentioned after: "The game with all the brainless AI?" Yet, thats the preferred way to play these days... against brainless opponents.

Sure, there are a few pvp servers out there, but they are no longer the dominate force when it comes to Arma/Arma2. I was wondering why you guys think this is and do you think it will change come Arma3 or will the "evolution" or Evolution/Domination continue to "dominate" the multiplayer server list?

Comming back to ARMA after a while, I did wonder that most servers are only hosting coop. The CTI mod community still did not take the chance to fix the unbalance between units, players still can buy for a very cheap price any infantry high tech weapons and kill tanks or vehicles in one shot without risk. They can still gear up with the DRM + 3 rockets smaaw which has a similar range. Disappointed aswell that you can still spawn endless AI units in a huge squad with no weapon restrictions..i.e. everyone knows how a tank looks like if a squad of 12 AI units with high tech rpg meets such one. No wonder this game type went down the drain.

Talking about public servers. What I noticed is, that you dont see any CTF gameplay anymore and bigger pure pvp servers..except the current PR beta server. But honestly, I had to giggle this weekend after I saw 3x roleplaying games on top of the server list with more than 40 players online each and only one pvp server (cti) was in the top ten.....sad.

And by the way, the so loved ACE2 modification seems to be vanished from the bigger public pvp servers aswell....

Edited April 4, 2012 by oxmox

[xeno 234]

And by the way, the so loved ACE2 modification seems to be vanished from the bigger public pvp servers aswell....

ACE was never used much on public pvp servers but it is used on closed PvP servers like last weekend with 173 players playing at once on one server :)

(Edit: Plus all the other groups using it it were about 300 players playing PvP with ACE :), but again, closed groups)

Xeno

Edited April 3, 2012 by Xeno

[.kju 3245]

As always public play is non addon play unless BI adds automated addon download. No surprise there.

[Prodavec 10]

I play there, it is russian server :P Tushino Serious Gaming with ACE mod and radio :) Most of players are from ex-USSR countries and a few from Europe.

Every weekend it has online 120-170 players and 5-30 player in other days (playing small PvP maps)

[nomad_man 10]

Prodavec, unfortunately ping to russia from north american isn't acceptable for a pvp play :// otherwise i'd join you guys gladly

[Prodavec 10]

nomad_man

I understand, ping is very important in PvP/TvT-based games.

I mean generally as Xeno has said ACE is popular on closed servers / communities. I believe there're a few communities in North America like Tushino Serious Games: ShacTac, 15th MEU, etc...

One of the problem that makes ACE isn't so popular on public servers as I/we wish - automatic addon syncing (redirecting to http/ftp server(s) like in CoD/CS to download latest version of addons).

Other issues are not related directly to the game architecture: difficulty level, more complex controls, game mode: classic TDM/AAS/CTF are less popular in ACE community than dedicated missions, but that missions cant be played for "JIP" (not for technicaly jip-clients) players, because closed community is closed for public. :)

Edited April 6, 2012 by Prodavec

[Tankbuster 1747]

The mass amount of Domination servers [Mostly sitting empty 24/7] wouldn't be such a big deal if they'd just switch to TWO TEAM version.

But then again I've been on a couple of Two team servers that were running for awhile and there was a lot of rage quitting because many of the Coop-op/Domi crowd are afraid of opponents that can out think them

as opposed to the fish-in-a-barrel AI.

Well said mate. Two Teams rocks.

[xeno 234]

Every weekend it has online 120-170 players and 5-30 player in other days (playing small PvP maps)

The Tushino guys are doing a real great job there, my respect. I think there is no one else in the whole ArmA community who knows how to handle this huge number of players, well done!

If we just could convince BIS to put even more effort into MP as this is where the game really shines and not Singleplayer...

There is enough room for whatever game mode.

Xeno

Edited April 6, 2012 by Xeno

[Prodavec 10]

Xeno

Can I repost your message to the Tushino forum? It sounds great.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Prodavec

[nomad_man 10]

I mean generally as Xeno has said ACE is popular on closed servers / communities. I believe there're a few communities in North America like Tushino Serious Games: ShacTac, 15th MEU, etc...

ShacTac is completely closed, they won't allow anyone from outside. MEU first time i heard of them.

I really want to be able to drop in for a game without a prior registration and drop out.

One of the problem that makes ACE isn't so popular on public servers as I/we wish - automatic addon syncing (redirecting to http/ftp server(s) like in CoD/CS to download latest version of addons).

I dont' have a problem keeping addons up to date. It's a hassle but a necessary compromise.

Other issues are not related directly to the game architecture: difficulty level, more complex controls, game mode: classic TDM/AAS/CTF are less popular in ACE community than dedicated missions, but that missions cant be played for "JIP" (not for technicaly jip-clients) players, because closed community is closed for public. :)

So how do you guys deal with the clients that crash out?