Is it worth buying?

[ProfTournesol 956]

Yep, then you turn the blame against me. It's my fault for expecting that vanilla campaigns should be able to be completed and not have obvious game-breaking bugs. No, not little bugs like some guys arms going out of control, actual game-breaking ones where missions never end and where triggers don't activate unless I proceed in a VERY specific way.

No, at least the campaigns in ArmA II were able to be completed and the bugs were bearable. IF44, on the other hand, good god.

Don't get me wrong, i'm extremely pissed off by the game support being dropped and customers being left alone to iron the bugs by themselves, that's very unprofessional. But i still find the game quite enjoyable, with no major game breaking bugs (apart some troubles in the campaigns that i squeeze with endmission, like i did for Harvest Red at that time). Anyway i hardly play it anymore, i've better things to do ATM with A3 and A2 mods (and OFP).

[OMAC 254]

Well, you shouldn't buy such a game for its vanilla campaigns. I'm still struggling with the Manhattan mission of ArmA2...

This is a maddeningly obtuse statement. What does this mean? Possible translation: "I suck at playing ArmA 2 and related games, and can't finish any of the campaigns. Further, all BIS and AWAR campaigns are badly designed and/or bugged. Therefore, no one should play them, or even assume that they are playable. However, even if the IF campaigns are broken and/or bad, one should still buy the game."

However, the statement is correct in the sense that the Iron Front campaigns are still a bugged mess in v1.05, and should be avoided. Great moments can still be had in them, and they had great potential, but they were inadequately tested and were essentially dropped after game release.

with no major game breaking bugs (apart some troubles in the campaigns that i squeeze with endmission, like i did for Harvest Red at that time).

Campaign bugs that necessitate ENDMISSION are game-breaking bugs. But that doesn't mean that there is no fun to be had in Iron Front even in its current dead, broken state. But spending $30 on this game? I think not.

Edited April 6, 2013 by OMAC

[ProfTournesol 956]

This is a maddeningly obtuse statement.

Thank you for rephrasing my words. What's ironic is your signature, i wasn't beta tester myself.

Edited April 6, 2013 by ProfTournesol

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

All Arma related games and IF games should be just called or titled what they are Milsim sandbox editors, complaining about campaign bugs or whatever

I find rather pointless when you have a full fledged editor at your disposal to make any type of mission/campaign you want.

i think Awar, and friends should have spent more time on the content, and optimization/realism, and WW2 historical correct aspect of the game rather then

spending countless hours on the many missions especially mpmissions they have done.

I personally never buy any Arma type games for any included missions or campaigns, its all about the editor and what you can do and play with yourself,

missions are just a bonus.

Why a campaign was made and not thoroughly tested to make sure it works and finishes is beyond me, why go through all the effort to create something

but then not see it through so that it works or runs as intended.

I think were lucky enough to just have what they did release and patch. Sorry to see a game with such potential get shit on by the desire for money.

I think people that build WW2 games have no business making such a game if they are not truly involved, and or passionate about what they have created,

or are creating and are willing to listen to customers on how to improve and better their game, apparently Awar were to me at least I would have thought to

be like that to a degree, but other parties with their policies and need for money screwed that whole idea over, that means a game that was 100% possible

to mod was made impossible for what reason I still dont know to this day, but the sad truth to all this is that passion for WW2 history

has been extinguished and forced to move onto another platform.

Now all we can expect is a WW2 project on Crytek engine for WW2 from Awar, hopefully Deepsilver didn't follow them, and that they have made better decisions

on the whole situation, and learned from mistakes or bad decisions, not to say that it was all their fault.

1st mistake is to not allow modding, its an obvious fact that if you allow modding that the game would get more attention and have greater success

then if you limit everything to just what you as developers can do, BIS as I said many times before is a very good example of this from all their games.

Why any of these guys thought otherwise is probably the stupidest thing ever to cross their minds, especially when Iron Front was 100% moddable,

you guys only fooled the new guys to the game that dont have any Arma background/experience behind them.

[OMAC 254]

Look at the passion IF still evokes in us. There is a reason for that, namely that the game got under our skin because of the many things it did so well. And I mean really, really well. Then the disappointment set in. It is a damn, crying shame what happened, and didn't happen to this game. From my personal standpoint, all I want is that bug in Russian campaign mission 7 fixed so I can complete the campaign without cheating. That would make me very happy and fulfilled. I feel like an idiot for spending so much time tracking down bugs in this game (much of that time after game release, unfortunately), only to have a good number of those issues never addressed.

The true irony here is that A2-related games have such a passionate, dedicated community, who contribute any way they can, all for free. And then, on the other hand, we have a talented game studio that cannot or will not fix obvious issues with their game even though they poured their hearts and souls into its development at the outset. I will pay $10-20 RIGHT NOW to have the principal campaign bugs fixed in a patch. That's how much I enjoyed playing and editing in IF, even with all its flaws.

The bottom line for me is that I don't waste my time with crappy games that are cheesy and have no potential. The two IF campaigns are about 95% done, and, when done, will be the most creative, original, immersive, difficult, varied, and enjoyable official campaigns ever created in the Armaverse since OFP CWC and Resistance (and now CWR2 ;)).

Edited April 12, 2013 by OMAC

[seamusgod 1]

nothing worse than dropped support. thanks for the info, guys. won't be bothering with this.

[chrisb 196]

I got the game when it first came out, the maps are really high quality imo, plus the units, vehicles, aircraft etc, that come as part of the package, they’re all great.

I tend to agree with Gunter, its all about the Editor for this whole series and IF is part of the series to a degree. When playing a console game, you tend to get very little, campaign and that’s it, maybe a level you can unlock, thinking back now, long time since I played any console stuff (OFPElite the last), but on the whole console games were enjoyable. Now you pay £40-50 maybe for a new console release and get very little when put against IF, and IF is cheaper now because of the problems.

I thought when it was released, then followed very quickly with the statement saying there had been a misunderstanding between AWAR and BIS regards mods etc, that the game was pretty much doomed, in-fact I was really hoping it would be A2 compatible (maps etc) to be honest, later on down the road, but still.

I enjoyed making a few missions, haven’t touched it for a long while now, but the Editor was basically A2’s, so very easy to get around, and it did play well. I don’t play any campaigns, haven’t in the whole series. The first time I really got involved properly with the Editor was with OFPElite (orig xbox). It was a simple but fantastic piece of work, especially getting a lot of the basics into the xbox from a pc game, not an easy job.

I had and still have OFP (pc) but never really got that involved, casual mission maker really for that. As said I have never played any BIS made campaign (been lost in the Editor) that’s all I really wanted, was the editor side. Moved fully into the series really with OFPE.

That’s why, imo, it is worth buying IF, play the campaign if that’s what your buying it for, then make some missions, you can generate yourself several new games without much effort, simply by making a few missions. O.k its on its last legs really, support wise, but there is life out there for some MP if that’s what you want and I dare say missions will keep being made for it for some time. It stands as more than just a game, with the editor it stands head and shoulders above a game, as does each of the series it came from. I would happily pay £30-40 just for that, no campaign, just the editor, it’s a new game every-time you want one.

I got Carrier Command when it first came out, think thats possibly the same, lagging behind, difference is it has support, but its o.k. don't play it now, but its there should I want a change, worth the money. Just bought TOH, didn't think I needed that, but with kju's new mod AIA, it really looks promising for cross-over content, more than is possible now, hope so anyway. Oh also TOHinds, then I believe there's a free DLC, so in for some serious cross gaming. Now wouldn't it be nice for that to have happened with IF. BIS, I wish you could have brought it into the family, IF, when trouble started, can understand perhaps that it may have been difficult or even impossible, but would have been nice, with cross-gaming, great opportunities..

IF deserves to survive, others involved, perhaps don't deserve the same, within the industry, but as a game and for the Editor its well worth having..;):)

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

Still missions being made for this, I just released a new campaign for it today!

Plus coop groups.

Theres other things going on as well if you look a bit harder then the thread here I think you will discover IF will exceed the official support in many ways very soon. ;)

[sander 14]

With regard to IFL1944 I agree with the preceding two posters that it is worth getting. Support may be dropped, but in the current V1.05 it is generally playing allright for me, unlike the sorely broken V1.03 version. An added advantage of the cessation of developer support may be that it can now be found in a bargain bin and picked up at a lower price than at release, though I do not regret buying it after release as it was mid price to start with.

The quality of the content of both the game and the DLC is high. The models and texturing work are on average rather good and the maps are without a doubt amongst the finest released for this engine. The editor is the same as A2 so it is easy to create new missions although one has to play a while to understand the different capabilities of the weapons and vehicles and adjust mission set ups accordingly. Default campaigns are still bugged, but in my opinion more involving than any in the A2 universe.

The selection of units and gear in the game is good. There are various armoured vehicles for each side with differing handling characteristics and the armour combat system developed for IFL 1944 make vehicular combat a lot more enjoyable than in Arma II. The infantry disposes of a good range of small arms and light support weapons and the bolt action rifles and SMG's force a different playing style with higher expenditure of ammunition in firefights due to the lack of magnifying optics and other aiming aids.

Regards,

Sander

[Dwarden 1124]

following text represents my personal honest opinion and isn't BI company statement:

honestly the game itself was quite good, the assets very good, if it was properly updated little longer it could achieve quite some audience

the positioning of the game could fit just in-between Red Orchestra 2 and WW2online (in terms of gameplay and scale)

sadly these who were responsible for the post release plan decided that milking $ is easier w/o any effort ....

it's such shame waste of good assets and I fully understand everyone who worked on project that they not happy about this ending ...

[Guest Ti0n3r]

If you can look past the fact that the devs ran away, then yes. Pretty much all of the new content like units, weapons or worlds are of very high quality. Gameplay is also great imo. "Advanced AI" module combined with weaponry from this era changes the pace and feel of firefights for the better.

This is from the point of view of someone who has spent 100s of hours in the mission editor. Without it I would probably have forgotten about the game long ago, as the two campaigns still feel rather glitched.

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

the positioning of the game could fit just in-between Red Orchestra 2 and WW2online (in terms of gameplay and scale)

I dont know about that Dwarden, at least on the side of WW2Online, i played that MMO many times, and the scale of it is massive, the map you play on is 1/2 scale

of western Europe, its like 300K Sq Km, it would take you days to cover the map.

If you can look past the fact that the devs ran away

Devs didn't run away, the investors for the game stopped investing in it.

The publisher DeepSilver through in the towel, they were only looking at the game for the numbers not the game itself.

Devs had no choice but to move on, so they moved on to another project which will be a WW2 project on the Crytek engine.

Devs did 50% of the work on the game for free btw.

[zorrobyte 30]

I personally believe as a developer of community content that Lib44 is a disgrace to the Arma community as they did not allow user modifications. Take this info with a grain of salt as I have not yet played since they ran away and announced that they are going to the Crysis engine which was some weeks ago.

[bonchie 39]

It's worth it if you get in with a good MP game.

I play with SimHQ on Saturdays. There were about 20 people there this past week.

I haven't tried any user made SP missions yet but if done well I could see there being plenty of value there as well. The core of the game is great. My only real complaints revolve around the lack of MP player base. Had the game been released in the state it's currently in (v.1.05) it'd probably being thriving.

But most bailed on it before it got fixed.

Edited April 15, 2013 by bonchie

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

as they did not allow user modifications

I think it was out of their hands, considering IF is on Bis's engine, and DS is the publisher, the Devs really have almost if any say into the matter.

I have spoken with people I will not mention here, that Awar was sad about the whole situation, so them running away is not entirely true.

If you want to blame anyone for IF's demise blame BIS and Deepsilver, they pulled the plug, Awar just had no choice but to move on to another project,

and considering 50% of their work they were doing for free i feel that they made the right decision, and no they are not abandoning IF, as said it was out

of their hands, they cant do anything to or for the game when its not in their best interest be it they wont get paid for their work, nor would they be allowed to.

Moving onto the Crtyek engine only means another possibly their work actually being fruitfull and them actually getting further and staying with it

whatever it is they are creating, a WW2 project is about all I know.

@Bonchie, I seen your group on SimHq you guys have a bunch there, we also have several coop groups on the IF Fan Forums that are active,

so the game is still going for mp.

[Phantom Six 25]

A game on this engine ain't too great without the mods. Yeah, you can make missions, but then there's always ARMA which has more to offer.

[jblackrupert 14]

Devs didn't run away, the investors for the game stopped investing in it.

The publisher DeepSilver through in the towel, they were only looking at the game for the numbers not the game itself.

Devs had no choice but to move on, so they moved on to another project which will be a WW2 project on the Crytek engine.

Devs did 50% of the work on the game for free btw.

They sure liked to blame everyone but themselves for everything that went on.

They played the victim card and you guys running that fan site bought it hook line and sinker.

No matter what people do, scam, lie, cheat, steal, even murder.... there's always people who will line up in droves ready to defend them.

Edited April 16, 2013 by jblackrupert

[ProfTournesol 956]

No matter what people do, scam, lie, cheat, steal, even murder.... there's always people who will line up in droves ready to defend them.

As well as game haters since the first day.

[scrim 1]

At this point I don't care who caused most of it, the devs are still to blame. All throughout this thing they've said "just wait a little longer" time after time, only for it not to have any meaning most times, and they're still saying it. If it's someone who has caused problems all those times, they should've learned not to make empty promises by now.

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

Yeah, you can make missions, but then there's always ARMA which has more to offer.

Again like Beagle why are you still here in the Iron Front section, if Arma has something more then you seem to be wasting alot

of time talking shit about a game you dont play.

you guys running that fan site bought it hook line and sinker.

The Fan forum as its correctly worded is not kissing Awar's ass, nor anyone related to the Iron Front game officially.

I dont know about you guys but i think in the past year i have made enough posts about the inability, and or prevention, and

decisions about modding for the game to prove that I'm not buying anything, Im as much as disappointed and angry about the whole situation about this as any of you,

but some of you that are negative, and consistently have been, you guys are seriously useless, you dont come up with any solutions, you dont do anything

to change the situation, nor support the existing community players of the game, by either building missions, setting up coop groups, making textures

to add to the game which has been done, scripts, ect,.

I play the game for the game, I love the Eastern Front, it is one of my favorite theaters in WW2, this is why I stayed with IF, this is why I play it still,

plus I run a website supporting the community's work for the game along side 2 other ww2 mods, and more in the future,

i bought the game when it released because I'm a dedicated WW2 buff, a fan.

I been playing WW2 games since before BIS released OFP, and when they did and I44 mod demo came out I went ape shit over it, even with

other ww2 addons released, i went crazy, making my own missions in the editor, was real fun, I enjoyed every bit of it, and still play with WW2 OFP related mods, and content.

However with Iron front in particular knowing that with the Arma2 engine being used made the game a built more intriguing for the fact that the

game can be modded, but apparently what drove me mad was that it was not allowed.

That whole setup "modding Possibilities" is nothing but a big scam to suck more money out of the community, say you work hard on all sorts of content that

have to get a license to have it in the game and so the only people that make money off of your smuck dumbass is deepsilver, and the others.

All we ever wanted was the game to be fixed in certain areas, and for new content to be added, but that was to tough to figure out or cost to much "money".

Hello! The communities work is free!!! let us add content and patch the game!

I tell you what for this game Im not going to sit here and shrivel up like the rest of you and do nothing, I bought the game, its my game I can do what the hell i want with it.

I spent my hard earned money for this game, i spent time earning the money to buy this game, its hard when you have multiple debts, and other things to

come up with the money to buy something you want to enjoy, sorry but i will make the best of it, rolling over and dying with it is not an option for me.

[scrim 1]

Maybe it is because this thread is named "Is it worth buying"? Clearly, many who bought it are advising against others buying it, and this seems to be a quite relevant thread to do it in.

[jblackrupert 14]

As well as game haters since the first day.

Show me where I've ever said the game itself was shit.

Just like Dragon Rising, there were lots of people warning that the signs were not good

Some people are just gifted with the ability to spot the warning signs that others are unable or unwilling to see.

Someone of the official forum was purging posts, you were a moderator there and you choose to deny it was happening

and willingly vilified those who complained about it. There were several people reporting it, not just me.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Someone of the official forum was purging posts, you were a moderator there and you choose to deny it was happening

and willingly vilified those who complained about it. There were several people reporting it, not just me.

No posts was ever deleted apart from spams since i moderated that forum. But i hardly saw you on that forum, that's funny. Haters gonna hate.

[jblackrupert 14]

No posts was ever deleted apart from spams since i moderated that forum. But i hardly saw you on that forum, that's funny. Haters gonna hate.

Birds of a feather flock together.

Guess they can rely on you for their next pump and dump title.

[sander 14]

sadly these who were responsible for the post release plan decided that milking $ is easier w/o any effort ....

it's such shame waste of good assets and I fully understand everyone who worked on project that they not happy about this ending ...

Can this be taken to mean the paid alpha will at some point finally be finished into a proper releaseworthy version after all this time? Iron Front Liberation 1944 at least received support with the last V1.05 release being quite decent in most respects.

Regards,

Sander