What was your Gateway Arma?

[froggyluv 2136]

Demo disc of Computer Gaming World. Had that same revelation moment as when I seen Doom - moving and shooting in a real 3d world -F Yeah!! When not out clubbing, played it everynite and then moved to the carribbean just when MP and mods were really becoming a thing. We had really bad internet down there and unbelievably a member of this community sent me a disc filled with FFUR, SLX, DoD and the precursor to ACE (forget what it was called) - from Germany..TWICE!! Tried BF and liked certain elements of it and Swat3/4 loved most of it but always came back to OFP.

 

Props to the DeltaForce voxel shout out above

[PuFu 4600]

demo disc in a local gaming magazine (long gone now) called Level that  i was getting each month at the time. it was late 2001 or early 2002. Back in that day i was playing just singleplayer games at home due to really really shit internet connection. Other games that used to occupy my time at that time were rainbow six 1 (i played that for sooo long), ghost recon , delta force - the main game we were playing in MP at the time over our made up local network (myself and few of my friends living next/across got UTP cables between ourselves). Other games i was into were the GTA ones (played all of them since the first 1, and Mafia 1 - still one of the best games i played story wise back in the day).

found it - it was 5/2001 - 

[ANZACSAS Steven 395]

I got hooked in OFP .Especially when the vietnam mods came out.Havnt been able to shake it since...:)

[Gunter Severloh 4063]

I used to get the gamer magazines, and they had demo discs in them, i was used to playing Call of Duty WW2, Medal of Honor Allied Assault,

Return to castle Wolfenstein, Delta Force 1,2, & 3.

    When i tried the demo for OFP that came off the disc from the magazine i had i forget the exact name of it, but the first mission i tried was steal the car, i found the game play rather hard,

i mean getting killed with one shot, i wasn't used to that.

 

      I had no clue where to go or how to do things, the other mission i tried was the mission Ambush i found the game so hard i put it down for a couple weeks then came back to it,

i ended up playing the ambush mission over and over again even learning how to use the editor and recreating the mission, been in the series since!

[Rich_R 1087]

Bought OFP first but couldn’t really handle the complexity of the game. Next bought Arma 2 and while it was better, never was really drawn to loading up the game. For whatever reason I gave it one more shot with the Operation Arrowhead expansion. Maybe it was the world fighting in Iraq at the time, or maybe the boot camp portion of OA but I was well and truly hooked from that point.

 

Its pretty much my go to game.

 

Loving the stories btw.

[PTV-Jobo 820]

I was really deep into America's Army Online. Bridge Crossing was my jam. Was unfortunately one of those who knew all of the drop shot techniques that usually wipes out half the opposing team before they have a chance to hit the bridge, haha. Ended up eventually getting adminship on the DNAF server, then from there got involved in a well known clan that frequented the server and before I could blink I was voted in as the new leader. Lots of good memories of those days. But eventually as I grew older, I wanted more out of my gameplay. Two friends of mine from Norway at the time told me about OFP. Everything sounded right up my alley, especially since due to my disability I couldn't join the military in real life, so to hear there was a game that would allow me to "escape" and kind of be the the virtual soldier I otherwise could never be because of my disease.....needless to say it peaked my interest a lot, haha. Unfortunately, I was already late to the game, so those friends told me that the guys who made the game released a demo of their new game Armed Assault. Tried the demo and here I am years later still just as much in love with Arma as I was back in the day as a kid. Here's hoping my old ass will be able to see someday an Arma 4 to enjoy next! *knocks on wood*

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

First contact with the arma franchise has been through day-z.

Enjoyed the hell out of it during the early days, was quite an experience meeting other players, fending off those zombies while trying to gather supplies, get armed and on top of that somehow trying to get a grasp of the gritty A2.

The more popular day-z became, the more uninteresting it became to me, since most servers got flooded by folks just interested in shooting each other (way better gamemodes out there for that kind of playstyle).

Then I played my fair share of Takistan life in a rather small but active server, north government vs southern rebels, oh the times...

 

After that I discovered the editor and slowly descended into the depths of .sqf scripting.

I have looked upon all sqf has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me.

 

Cheers

[specialsmith 35]

No gateways needed. First introduction to OFP around 2001. Since then the path to ArmA 3 is the natural evolution. One needs nothing else than ArmA. I doubt if anything outside ArmA exists.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[112345678900 10]

OFP: R back in 2009 it came in a codemasters bundle with Soldiers: Heroes of WW2

[PuFu 4600]

7 hours ago, 112345678900 said:

OFP: R back in 2009 it came in a codemasters bundle with Soldiers: Heroes of WW2

that game had nothing to do with OFP, besides the name that was/is owned by codemasters (the original publisher for BI 2001 OFP).

[vafana 110]

From Delta Force to ArmA1 in 2007; I was amazed by the game, however at first was very frustrating, dying every 2 or 3 minutes not knowing from where the enemy is shooting... I uninstalled it, then after a while I installed it again and.... since then the ArmA series has not been uninstalled from my PC. Another game did not have this honor .

[112345678900 10]

16 hours ago, PuFu said:

that game had nothing to do with OFP, besides the name that was/is owned by codemasters (the original publisher for BI 2001 OFP).

Yep

[Beagle 684]

I played OFP mainly for the editor and mods but it was not until ArmA II that I really got hooked and began "wasting my life on it". When I finally visited Usti nad Labem (Chernagorsk) for real, I not only felt right "at home"m but also realized what detail BIS put into that gaming world....only 5 minutes into the czech rebublic not far from Hřensko, I "ran into" a Praga Truck and soon after, the exact same Tractor as in ArmA 2 sat there in Malšovice/Javory just like in the game, continuing to Hradek Blansko gave a good overview over the whole area that was in game, and it was very strange feeling  to know the sight, and every road already from the game.

[dmarkwick 261]

5 hours ago, Beagle said:

I played OFP mainly for the editor and mods but it was not until ArmA II that I really got hooked and began "wasting my life on it". When I finally visited Usti nad Labem (Chernagorsk) for real, I not only felt right "at home"m but also realized what detail BIS put into that gaming world....only 5 minutes into the czech rebublic not far from Hřensko, I "ran into" a Praga Truck and soon after, the exact same Tractor as in ArmA 2 sat there in Malšovice/Javory just like in the game, continuing to Hradek Blansko gave a good overview over the whole area that was in game, and it was very strange feeling  to know the sight, and every road already from the game.

 

I currently live in the Czech Republic. Years ago when I played ArmA 2 I wondered if the "real" Chernarus was really as crumbly as the game made out.

 

Turns out, it is every bit as crumbly 😄

[joostsidy 685]

6 hours ago, Beagle said:

but also realized what detail BIS put into that gaming world....

 

I visited Lemnos (Altis) to have a look at the real thing. I had similar feelings as you: it looks creepily familiar! Even things I thought about as unrealistic in Altis, such as the numerous car wrecks, old fashioned phone booths, or all those little beach places; they are there on the real Island. Main airport, Kavala, Ghost hotel: exellent work. After the church, turning right at the gas station in one of the towns really gets you to the docks! Now I'm cursed with weird overlapping memories 😆

[kronovan 5]

The original Ghost Recon (PC) was my gateway. I was working in the computer biz at the time and had a few customers that ranted on -&- on about it. I bought it and was very impressed - much better attempt at realism than any shooter I'd played up until that time. I discovered OFP a few years later and was really impressed how it upped the realism and was extremely challenging. I was also into simulation games around the time, so that BI included helos & tanks with an attempt at simulation, was just icing on the cake!

[Von Quest 1163]

Pong on the Atari.

[stburr91 1009]

3 hours ago, Von Quest said:

Pong on the Atari.

 

 

Admittedly, I'm old enough to remember pong, and pac man,  river raid, pitfall, the list could on, and on. 

[maxl30 81]

My first Arma was A2, i played this a long time with my friends and buyed also Arrowhead, i am a true kid of Chernarus, before the second WW2 breaks out my famaly lives a little bit near the real world location of Chernarus, i was also there in holydays, CZ is still a beautyful country.

[Lord of Ruin 14]

On 2/5/2019 at 10:33 AM, Oldcrow0999 said:

I thought this would be a fun one to do. What was your gateway Arma or the Arma that got you started? For me it was Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis for the Original Xbox.

 

 

Yes sir, it was OpFlashpoint, and the 2 follow ups that brought me here, so many years later.

 

I played Delta Force, and then SWAT 2/3/4, along with Commandos and the prerequisites Quake/BF1942 but didnt play the transition of OPF into ArmA, which saddened me greatly.

 

If OPF was a gateway, then BI should be in big pharma.

[Lord of Ruin 14]

On 2/6/2019 at 6:20 AM, lex__1 said:

After Delta Force, in the year 2000, there was still an interesting game - Project I.G.I
Quite interesting, for that time - excellent graphics and game interface

  Hide contents

 

YES! I'm Going In was another one that taxed my builds, I had forgotten the hours that this game provided. Cheers buddy.

[EDcase 87]

On 2/5/2019 at 5:23 AM, beno_83au said:

Seeing the original OFP demo on a PCPowerPlay CD, back when developers/publishers released game demos before the full game came out. So that was all that was available for a while, and i played the shit outta that demo. 

Same with me.

Got every version after that right up to now... (I usually bought 2 copies so I could play with friends on LAN)

 

'DeltaForce: Joint Operations' and 'Vietcong' shared my OFP game time for a while.

 

ARMA3 is my only game for the last few years.

[target_practice 163]

Like most newer players I heard about Arma through DayZ.

The mod really appealed to me, and I initially had no interest in Arma itself, but needing to buy an entire seperate game just to play it put me off somewhat. Even so, I saw that Arma 2 had a demo on steam and thought "why not" and gave it a try.

I quickly found it to be far more interesting then DayZ, which I soon forgot about, but still decided not to buy it at the time.

 

A few months later I was intending to buy OA, but then steam sent me an ad about the Arma 3 alpha, and on impulse I bought that instead.

I spent the next few months being horribly confused by everything in the game. To make matters worse, my then-dreadful internet prevented me from playing multiplayer, and the editor appeared impossibly arcane, limiting me to the small selection of scenarios which came with the game at the time. All in all, this left me thinking I'd made a terrible mistake buying it, and I didn't touch the game again until near the end of Beta.

 

Six years on though, now with internet fast enough to play multiplayer and plenty of time spent mucking around in the editor, I can confidently say it was one of the best purchases I've ever made.

[andersson 285]

I had daydreamed with a friend of freedom to drive vehicles in novalogics delta force. Later I read about OFP in a PC mag and instantly fell in love due to the ability to aim down the iron sight. I had just bought a new computer to play AvP2, which for me was a big dissapointment after avp 98, so I borrowed the OFP cd from a friend and was hooked. Bought my own cd the next day.

[Varis 34]

Maybe it's the sad developments after BF2 that pushed me towards ARMA. A2 was on my radar years ago but never felt the final urge to try it out, perhaps the genre's reputation is not quite as welcoming to the public as it should. Then they started hyping A3, and I was interested, but kind of never noticed a sale or something to pull me in. Until 2 years ago when they went for Humblebundle... soon I had all the DLCs and now even have a 2nd copy of Apex Edition just in case.

 

ARMA is something which grows on you slowly - you do hit plateaus working through what the community and the sandbox model can offer you. I'm still to try out the custom mission/milsim side. Coming more from a mainstream PvP background, there's always been some jewels to be found at the bottom if you keep prospecting and digging long enough.