Co-op Campaign: APEX PROTOCOL

[das attorney 858]

Not wanting to open a can of worms here, but that is simply not true. See Iron Front. See OFP: Red Hammer. Just because a common soldier is "on the bad side" doesn't mean he's a bad guy. If you want to consider morality, you should also know that war crimes are committed by each and every country in a war.

 

Not so much about morality but I always enjoyed playing as Germans more in WW2 games, mainly due to the equipment - they simply had the best stuff imo (with the questionable exception of a couple of aircraft maybe but that's another story).  

 

There's something about MP40's, MG34's, Stukas, Tigers, U-Boats and those cool half-tracks that fires up the imagination in a way that allied equipment never can for me.  Even their grenades were interesting, plus uniforms from Hugo Boss.

 

The attraction of playing as the British/Americans/Russians is a notion wasted on me.  "Bren-Gun-Carrier Commander" anyone?  ;)

[Alwarren 2767]

But in games, you usually play the heroic guy that starts out a hero and ends a hero. Or, as in Apex, starts without identity and ends without identity.

 

Take "Spec Ops: The Line" as an example of a game that explores the concepts of good and evil, and that's even one were you do play "the good guys". Seriously, I'd love to see a game where you play on the side of the bad guys and get to see how a normal person descents into committing evil acts, and see if you can climb out of that pit. It's certainly more interesting than the usual stuff where "drama" is measured by the number of "fuck" per minute said in dialogs.

[froggyluv 2136]

Not so much about morality but I always enjoyed playing as Germans more in WW2 games, mainly due to the equipment - they simply had the best stuff imo (with the questionable exception of a couple of aircraft maybe but that's another story).  

 

There's something about MP40's, MG34's, Stukas, Tigers, U-Boats and those cool half-tracks that fires up the imagination in a way that allied equipment never can for me.  Even their grenades were interesting, plus uniforms from Hugo Boss.

 

The attraction of playing as the British/Americans/Russians is a notion wasted on me.  "Bren-Gun-Carrier Commander" anyone?   ;)

 

 I absolutely agree and shamefully have to hide the screen when my Israeli born wife walks in the room. Evil notGlorious basterds but damn their equipment, look was pretty badass. It just feels like so much sexy metal..

 

Edit: actually i feel bad and then realise she has no idea what im doing so just tell her "Killin Nazis"

[das attorney 858]

Ha yes I can see that could be awkward!

 

That said, some men in the Wehrmacht and other branches, were professional soldiers and ready to do their duty, a lot were average shmoes off the street just trying to get by and then there were the really bad ones who came out of the woodwork and really got into their grim work.

 

I guess that goes for any military though, back then or now.  As Doug Stanhope says :

 

"As long as the people who kinda wanna go kill other people are going to go kill other people who kinda wanna go kill other people, you're killing all the right people and opening up all the best parking spaces."

[IndeedPete 1038]

Well, I think a lot of people confuse the paramilitary Waffen SS, which committed most of the crimes against Jews and ran the concentration camps, with the Wehrmacht (German Army) which basically did all that regular war stuff. I'm not trying to defend anyone's actions but there were a few shades of grey, even within the German forces at that time. Shades that could actually be very useful for a good storytelling. Unfortunately, this is still a very sensitive topic and thus games either put you in the boots of allied soldiers and/or apply a decent amount of satire, like Wolfenstein for example.

 

Still, I'd also love to see more controversial stories being covered in games. Or in Arma in particular. It doesn't have to be Nazis vs. Allies, fictional CSAT vs. NATO in the near future is fine. It's just that Arma's content feels very clean and straightforward. Harvest Red had at least some of these chilling moments with the raped woman, the massgrave, or the murdered American soldiers at Manhatten. Sadly, Arma 3 is completely free of any of these more touching moments. Even the AAF killing unarmed FIA in the Bootcamp campaign was no match in terms of atmosphere.

[R3vo 2654]

Sadly, Arma 3 is completely free of any of these more touching moments. Even the AAF killing unarmed FIA in the Bootcamp campaign was no match in terms of atmosphere.

 

 

There was a really good user made campaign which was about two brothers of which one died at the end. I don't know the name anymore and don't wanna spoiler anyway. But that campaign felt like it had some meaning.

[cosmic10r 2331]

Agree with what has been said...

Impossible to paint all the participants in any war with one brush...

The Charles brown /Franz Stigler incident shows that in many cases... things were never as cut and dry as they seem and many in the German army were honorable people doing a task that in some cases they did not even agree with...

Love that story... interestingly the two became friends and ultimately died, 6 months apart in 2008 in North America after many years of friendship

A quick link to the story for anyone interested... never fails to move me

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2370933/A-Higher-Call-A-stricken-Allied-bomber-German-ace-sent-shoot-truly-awe-inspiring-story-wartime-chivalry.html

[das attorney 858]

Well, I think a lot of people confuse the paramilitary Waffen SS, which committed most of the crimes against Jews and ran the concentration camps, with the Wehrmacht (German Army) which basically did all that regular war stuff. I'm not trying to defend anyone's actions but there were a few shades of grey, even within the German forces at that time. Shades that could actually be very useful for a good storytelling. Unfortunately, this is still a very sensitive topic and thus games either put you in the boots of allied soldiers and/or apply a decent amount of satire, like Wolfenstein for example.

 

Still, I'd also love to see more controversial stories being covered in games. Or in Arma in particular. It doesn't have to be Nazis vs. Allies, fictional CSAT vs. NATO in the near future is fine. It's just that Arma's content feels very clean and straightforward. Harvest Red had at least some of these chilling moments with the raped woman, the massgrave, or the murdered American soldiers at Manhatten. Sadly, Arma 3 is completely free of any of these more touching moments. Even the AAF killing unarmed FIA in the Bootcamp campaign was no match in terms of atmosphere.

 

 

Yeah I think the characters make the game, and when I played the Arma 3 campaigns it felt like the characters are all snarky and wisecracking, much like teen-gamers are, and it felt much removed from how you would expect people to talk when under pressure.  Plus they didn't seem to have any sort of life of their own - like they didn't have any interests or opinions on things that weren't directly linked to the plot of the game.

 

Good point there IP about shades of grey.  It reminds me of the film "Platoon", where really it could have been set in ancient Rome or WW1 or anywhere; as it was less about the story of Vietnam and more about Good vs Evil  (Elias/Barnes) and how Sheens character reacts to their struggle around him.

[Wiki 1558]

Not wanting to open a can of worms here, but that is simply not true. See Iron Front. See OFP: Red Hammer. Just because a common soldier is "on the bad side" doesn't mean he's a bad guy. If you want to consider morality, you should also know that war crimes are committed by each and every country in a war.

 

Yes, but in Red Hammer, he eventually turns good.

 

What I mean is a game in which we do play, from the beginning to the end, a bad guy / someone fighting for the "wrong side".

 

Of course it can be done, but I think many people will consider it as a bad move.

Imagine a game in which you play as a Wehrmacht soldier from the invasion of Poland, then join the SS until the fall of the Reichstag?

Of course, with all the horrors that happen (with mission objectives such as "gather all the civilians in the building and burn it").

 

For example, look how the mission "no russian" in CoD MW2 was considered.

 

Or a game in which you play a Syrian soldier who defects then join isis.

 

Even though these would be "only games", there would still be a morality issue.

[das attorney 858]

Yes, but in Red Hammer, he eventually turns good.

 

What I mean is a game in which we do play, from the beginning to the end, a bad guy / someone fighting for the "wrong side".

 

Of course it can be done, but I think many people will consider it as a bad move.

 

 

 

I see it differently because I believe it is the job of the storyteller to get the player/viewer/reader into the life of the protagonist.  If they can do that then it doesn't matter whether you are idealogically opposed to what they are doing or not.

 

Look at the novel "American Psycho" for example - the main character is totally unhinged and his actions are frankly repulsive, but the story is told in such a way that you end up warming to him and wanting to know what makes him tick.  I'd definitely play a game that has even 10% of the character involvement that novel has.

 

Anyway, it's escapism and it's good to explore the darker side of our personalities, so having the option of doing some sort of unwholesome military campaign that would upset Daily Mail readers can be fun once in a while.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Anyway, it's escapism and it's good to explore the darker side of our personalities, so having the option of doing some sort of unwholesome military campaign that would upset Daily Mail readers can be fun once in a while.

 

And that's why we will probably not see any official content in that regard. Too risky, too costly, not worth putting up with the always-offended.

[das attorney 858]

True, but hopefully user created content can bring some depth to that side of things.

[dragon01 902]

I'd rather have a war in which the "good guys" are on both sides. IRL, that's how it usually plays out in symmetrical or near-symmetric warfare. Soldiers are, for most part, decent people. Conscripts can be louts if draft dodging is common in their country (as they will end up drafting those too stupid to dodge), but most professional soldiers and especially elites are just regular people who want to fight for their country. Just look at Russians in Crimea, for example, they were nothing if not polite. :) I think that this has a lot of potential for being played for tragedy, but for some reason, the only war for which it seems to ever come into play is WWI.

 

The thing with games which allow you to be a bastard is that they should also allow you not to be. Even Spec Ops: The Line does that, to a limited extent. In Wiki's example above, you may have an objective such as "Gather all civilians in a building and burn it", but there should be nothing preventing you from leaving the back door open. A game definitely shouldn't force the player to be a bad person, but it can have such an option (many games that do that even call you out for it later).

[Variable 322]

Ok... deep breath.
I find Apex Protocol refinements OPREP as one of the most apologetic things I have ever read. I find every other sentence there infuriating and I think we would all been better off if it wasn't written at all. 

 

Once I manage to cool down a bit I'll elaborate.

[en3x 209]

Allow me to summarize:

 

Opsum: Month passed after release of expansion.Feedback was posted from userbase and

developers were paying attention during release.Motivation behind changes, where do they came

from and where are we right now, and where we are going.

 

My feedback would come from star citizen background of their own iterative development and the

way they share information and incorporate feedback.I feel like BI was never farther away from

community with communication.Because this is how system work:BIS have meeting, they design decision,

they announce very scarce pieces of information about it, months pass and then days AFTER release, feedback

is taken onboard and dealt with.What is wrong with this?Fact that we are not part of results of the meetings.We don't know

what their goals and motivations are so we can't provide feedback during months of silence.When content&features are released

things are set in stone and only minor things are fixed because of time constraint (considering months of developing beforehand).

 

After action report

2 major goals: co op MP and improvements on MP infastructure.You have analyzed East wind development to offer

more improvement on user experience, internal pipeline and standard of quality.

 

Work on apex doesn't stop, changes are inbound with adressing some of this issues.

 

 

 

Co op MP. This is what we knew before announcement and before release

"1-4 player co-op campaign supporting online drop-in/drop-out".There was no communication on SP part.You can't save,

you can't have AIs beside you and compaign would take simplistic design approach.This was NOT communicated and people

were disappointed.

 

You have analyzed East wind dev cycle.That's great but why were you again hardpressed to meet the deadline.Why were

assets not ready in time for release campaign.Why wasn't delayed then?Maybe release campaign after would be better idea.

Maybe setting better deadline release date?I don't know enough but this problem is keep coming back.

 

"let's take a moment to discuss the major improvements aimed at addressing some of these issues which you, yourself, can look forward to seeing very soon."

And here we go again with lack of communication.Major improvements like what?Some issues.Please don't hold back on

technical details that are most interesting.Again we don't know what is arma future.Why do we have to wait for official

post to outline major goals.Why not include us into choosing decision, or maybe telling us why and where are we going before curated entry?

[cosmic10r 2331]

I had a quick read and I thought it was great that they referenced most of the complaints and elaborated on what they can do it about it and why...

I'm getting too old to let things affect my blood pressure maybe lol

[Stalkermaster2015 60]

Man it's getting annoying not hearing any info on the Sp changes for apex protocol. Is there a timeline or pipeline for when the features missing will be added so that I can actually enjoy this campaign? Or will this forever be in the "Not recommended" Part of my review I'll post at a later date on steam?

[.kju 3245]

My advice: You guys should move on. There is lots of other good content out there, or most make their own anyway.

As they've explained BI has their own visions, it was their first attempt, they didn't look into what the community did to learn from it.

They were targeting a different audience. They made mistakes in communication and promotion. They will decide themselves if the numbers make it a success.

The same was true for A1, for A2, for OA, for A3 - so why are you guys still surprised.

What most don't realize or don't want to, is that BI first and foremost does their own thing, on their own and with their own measurements of success.

The engine is mod friendly and BI listens to some extend to feedback and wishes from the dedicated community, yet this part is not their prime focus and audience.

That aside I am not sure what really the target audience of that OPREP is meant to be - casual players don't read such in general, and its too long and complex too.

For the long term arma players and dedicated people, as the reactions so far show, will likely not cause a favorable reaction.

IMHO for all his "faults" and following problems, the straight talk from Dean (rocket) would do the A3 team much better than the communication strategy

used since the A3 alpha complaints about "lack of content" and what not.

[lexx 1387]

Man it's getting annoying not hearing any info on the Sp changes for apex protocol.

 

There aren't any.

[haleks 8212]

IMHO for all his "faults" and following problems, the straight talk from Dean (rocket) would do the A3 team much better than the communication strategy

used since the A3 alpha complaints about "lack of content" and what not.

 

Not sure I'm a fan of Rocket's comm, but it sure would make a change, haha. ^^'

 

My advice: You guys should move on. There is lots of other good content out there, or most make their own anyway.

True that, in fact for Arma3, the best missions I've played (I don't play much though) are mostly made by the community.

 

But what annoys me with "moving on", is that I know that BIS is more than capable of making good SP content : I have very fond memories of some SP missions from Arma2, and I thought the OA campaign was very enjoyable (more than the Arma2 one, actually). As for Arma3, I can't say the same sadly. The SP content, be it showcases or the campaign, were quite a let-down for me... I was expecting something from Apex, maybe that one mission I could truly call my favourite (as an SP player), but it turned out the focus was 100% (casual) multiplayer - and I'm not sure the shifting in targeted audiences was worth it.

 

The community sure delivers in terms of quality, and that's definitely a good thing, but Bohemia should be the one setting the standards when it comes to story-telling, compelling gameplay or just plain immersion - not the modders.

I truly love Arma3, but it's also the episode wich has the weakest play value in my opinion (when it comes to stock content, let's be clear). And that pill is hard to swallow. :/

[froggyluv 2136]

 My feelings on the switch to MP emphasised Campaign is already stated and cemented so need to beat a dead horse. BI has given us an awesome 3d editor with unprecedented ability to outfit our guys and control their subSkills but with this seems to have left us to fend for ourselves storywise. The thing that worries me is that while Ill always take great new functional features over story -its the type of story which will predict which direction BI resources and even game functionality go.

 

 BI this game will never, ever be a PvP giant so even if the priority is now co-op,  AI will always need to be advanced or you will lose that base as well. Only spent a few minutes in Apex but wasnt impressed at all with the Ai standing around waiting for combat like brain dead robotrons. Their behaviour needs to be flushed out or the game will join the horde of 'games that get samey'.  The attention to making troops distinct is very lacking and very noticeable as the Cook is basically equal to the special forces Venom guy (or whatever they called).

 

 You want us to create our own stories and while again the 3d editor is amazing ,we cannot effectively change their behaviour in a meaningful way. You tell us about great trip to mocap studio but where are the mocaps mission makers can actually use? Some new civilian reactions, distinct responses from Spec ops to tank Crew and accompayning banter? This is the stuff that we'll keep ALL camps happier. When I look thru official missions am generally appalled at the lack of variance in AI skills as if it doesnt really matter what their class name is -they all equal. Its like giving someone a chessboard with all pawns -you can only do so much make a lively experience.

[Variable 322]

My advice: You guys should move on. There is lots of other good content out there, or most make their own anyway.

We should move on? We HAVE moved on, just look at the date of the last post on this thread before the OPREP. And then BIS came up with this aplogetic, full of false-reasoning-over-trying-to-justify-failure OPREP.

That aside I am not sure what really the target audience of that OPREP is meant to be.

That's because you are looking at the wrong place. The target audience is not any player group. I'll leave it at that...

[bad benson 1733]

i wasn't expecting SP capability, i also wasn't hoping for A2 style stuff (i thought most of it was awful very buggy and not interesting story wise, although i personally focus more on game mechanics than story anyways). i was just hoping for simple COOP along the lines of L4D and similar just in terms of respawn and progression mechanics. instead it was a total mess at the core.

for me personally the problem isn't accessibility. i don't feel it's even close to any accessible COOP game i've played. on the contrary, using a lazy generic respawn system and not having a fail state is simply, excuse the french, shitty and lazy not fitting the small coop set up.

 

i just feel like by saying the problem is focus on a certain audience is giving BIS a pass on some straight out design flaws and we're not doing the design work that goes into some arcadey games justice. to each their own. but bad design is universal.

 

i kind of thought that there is not much you can do wrong here because other games showcase how simple and proven certain mechanics are to keep things challening but not frustrating. hence my initial optimism. but nope. 

this feels like someone's homework assignment. like some superficial excercise without showing any insight on what makes playing together in a small team actually fun. it's sad because the production stuff is great. just doesn't fit the actual substance (or lack of).

 

i'm just making this post because, while i can understand the main complaints about SP and stuff, i personally feel this could've been great as just an MP focussed thing. and i honestly hope there will be another attempt at this in the future. i've been making my own experiments inspired by what i experienced trying this out. and the conclusion is: it is very possible to make arma into a smooth guided experience focused on small coop. i'm actually having the most fun i had in a while with this game.

 

so i really hope to see more stuff like this in the future. i kind of feel like this could be the thing for official content next to SP scenarios. i see much more potential there instead of large coop which is mostly covered with great variety by the community.

Edited September 10, 2016 by bad benson

[Varanon 892]

My advice: You guys should move on. There is lots of other good content out there, or most make their own anyway.

 

Why would BIS bother with any playable content then in the first place ? That's what is bothering me about the whole thing.

 

I agree that there is a lot of good content out there, and that making your own stuff is great, but a game is also defined by the playable content delivered along with it, and with APEX, that is lacking.

[bars91 956]

The OPREP is really missing the point by a continent...

 

Iv'e seen lots of people here in short film/video industry sink their rep and quality standarts, just because they wanted to "not derive from their vision" instead of asking for constructive criticism and listening to people who know their shit.

 

Unique vision and concepts is ok, but only when quality standarts (at least the industry ones) are not harmed. APEX was a disaster QA and design wise. All over the place and uninspired at it's best moments.

 

BI can produce quality stuff.

Eagle Wing FREE mini-campaign was super immersive and full of character.

Yes, the voice over was cringy at best, but it was not important because of the overall immersion!