new americas army is out

[Heatseeker 0]

Passed SF training long time ago but still 700 exp. away from 14 honor...  

Keep trying, the SF training is passable... Even I can do it.

700 exp. is nothing, on SFhospital your honour will increase fast so you can play has SF sooner . Go for the RPK has IF, you can get some kills in cqb with it, just dont be caught in the open by someone with a 203 and a 4x acog scope, try to survive the rounds and give medical treatment to your team members.

After you reach 20 honour points you shouldnt have to worry about honour anymore, just be carefull to avoid friendly fire and colateral damage.

I used to play Hospital, i always try to pick a rpk and give my M4 to the VIP on escort, then go for extraction thru the garage back exit and clear the helipad, it was fun if the players were mature, civil and friendly .

[Pathy 0]

Yeah, it's just difficult to find servers with people like that - last night i played some bridge to repolish my skills, and when i joined almost everyone was on defence so i went assault.

At one point it ended up 2 of us on assault, 10 on defence, defence hurling insults at us, calling us noobs, campers, ect - as if we were going to rush them just the two of us

Funny thing was we took our time, worked close together, supported each other and communicated well, and came very close to beating the defence team several times.

[Thunderbird 0]

Tried a few minutes ago the new version and noticed a bunch of nice enhancements, now when you load up the servers screen you don't have to search a lot to find an Honor server cuz they always do appear at the top of the screen, quite usefull as feature.

Regards

TB84

[BlackScorpion 0]

Passed SF training long time ago but still 700 exp. away from 14 honor...

Keep trying, the SF training is passable... Even I can do it.

700 exp. is nothing, on SFhospital your honour will increase fast so you can play has SF sooner . Go for the RPK has IF, you can get some kills in cqb with it, just dont be caught in the open by someone with a 203 and a 4x acog scope, try to survive the rounds and give medical treatment to your team members.

After you reach 20 honour points you shouldnt have to worry about honour anymore, just be carefull to avoid friendly fire and colateral damage.

I used to play Hospital, i always try to pick a rpk and give my M4 to the VIP on escort, then go for extraction thru the garage back exit and clear the helipad, it was fun if the players were mature, civil and friendly .

Yeah, thanks... Actually I did what you said, played SF Hospital few hours after my previous post, before you told me to. Got 16 honor ATM, and I do like the modable M4!

[crassus 0]

Anyone run into this: I've uninstalled a lot of game demos and a couple of big apps because the AA installer keeps telling me I've X number of gigs on my C: drive, "not enough" to even begin installing AA, yet I've more than enough!

I've gone so far as to sit through another download of AA, just to make sure my original copy wasn't corrupted.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Yeah, I ran into that, AA is about 2 Gigs in size and I think it needs some space to run the installer and it puts the temp stuff onto C: drive, and i installed onto D: drive, I uninstalled alot of stuff too, and after I got about 2.4 Gigs free, installer installed just fine.

Hope it helps.

[WhoCares 0]

I wonder whether my 32 Honor account is still operational - I left the game when SF came out as my PC wasn't able to handle it. I can still login with it on their website, maybe...

Might give it another try, Weapons Cache (SE), Radio Tower  and Mountain Pass (SE) were all quite nice. Also some of those MILES maps like the one with the trucks or Mountain Ambush, esp. on live-fire days ...

Edit: Just played a little bit again. First and most important my account and stats are still active and valid.  

Just to get the mood again I just played a bit with the various trainings:

Markmanship: 38 in the first attempt  

Now the new MOUT (Shoot House) si a whole different thing - needed two or three runs to just be able to identify friend/foe and then another three or four to be fast enough   But fun nevertheless!

Last but certainly not least I made the SF Training. the class I finished with 86% without studying the pictures on the wall - how could I know that the BTR has also some grenade launchers on the sides (well, I hope they were not talking about the smoke grenades, now that I think about it    And finally the E&E - now that one took me quite a while - sometimes it seemed they can look through stone... Ah well, I made it as well after more than an hour crawing all around the map    

Couldn't resist to play the first SF mission and right away collected 121ROE for shooting a friendly IF Stoopid game made me Squad leader right away, after about two years absence and not knowing the map

[WhoCares 0]

There is a new version out:

America's Army 2.7 Overmatch A meager 2.5GB download (for free, as usual; >3GB installed)

For this game it is quite a step forward with many new features, in particular as it now has its first drivable vehicles and Bots allowing for Coop missions.

I do not call them AI, as anybody that bashed OFPs AI should check these guys out - sometimes they seem to have a bright moment but often they just run around like headless chickens or stand around and watch some walls ... (or through walls   )

So far there are two Coop missions with these guys and despite the quality  (or lack of it) of the Bots they are quite fun, with variable objectives which make them somewhat less repetitive.

A mission designer is proposed in a future release; though only officially approved missions would become available on official/honor servers.

The vehicles are M1114s with remote controlled 50cal or MK19 grenade launcher (CROWS) - properly operated these can be quite fun.  

Also nice is the Javelin Fire-and-Forget AT weapon - almost boring: lock, shoot and that's it - I have not yet seen a miss so far...

[CsonkaPityu 0]

The AI can actually surprise pretty well. Most of them are dumb as bricks but sometimes CM3 Bregga (this guy shot a whole bunch of guys once - he is topside on Interdiction) or CW4 Revden will sneak up to you and *pow*.

Considering that the AI isn't scripted at all, it's pretty impressive.

The vehicles destruction anims aren't too nice though (except for the humvee).

Little tip for those who can't load the new maps: bring up the console and launch the new maps in offline mode once, then the game allows you to load the maps online too.

[mr burns 132]

Played the new version last week or so but it didn´t last long on my hd. Neither noticed new maps nor bots or something else making it a keeper..

The most annoying "improvements" gotta be the new stupid damage system making headshots not always lethal and especially these messages:

Nothing against FPS Doug but this is just too much

Well at least they´re taking care of my account since v1.0

edit: looking at the screen it´s possible i just been to the wrong server, whatever..

[martinovic 0]

That's 2.6... it says so in the upper right corner.

[WhoCares 0]

There was some kind of hacked version of 2.6 available, turning every map into Special Forces and similar stuff, I think these messages were also part of that.

I haven't seen such messages in the new version 2.7, but I haven't played on many different servers, ...

In SnakePlain are also some tough guys, esp. in the building around the eastern gate, fast and precise with their guns, but otherwise it happens too often that a bad guy looks straight into a wall or watches a player reloading for 5 secs and not opening fire...

[Nemesis6 0]

You still can't play the bad guys, can you?

[mr burns 132]

Nope, patriotic BS as always but it should´nt bother you as it´s still very satisfying to rip off enemy hardware.

[Nemesis6 0]

Still, I don't understand why they haven't opened the game up more. If anything, showing the enemies' weapons, tactics, or lack thereof, should open ones' eyes more to the might of the American military. I mean let's be honest, if someone gets to actually try to fight an American soldier with realistic weapon specifications on his AKS-47, he'll be crying for that "surrender" feature soon enough!

By the way, have the graphics been updated since I tried the game in like... I think it was early in 2003.

[CsonkaPityu 0]

Well, they increased the minimum specs to 2.4Ghz, 512MB RAM and 128MB video card, but i haven't noticed all that much, but my computer is exactly at the minimum specs so maybe that's my problem. They added hardware T&L. The visiblity on Snake Plain is pretty far and explosions have been improved.

Urban Assault looks exactly the same but newer maps look better.

[WhoCares 0]

Depending on the game version and the missions you played it might have change more or less: America's Army Timeline Then & Now (these comparisons are done against v2.4!

End of 2003 came out v2.0 using a new Unreal engine. All later versions are still based on this game engine, so changes since then are probably less dramatic.

And as OFP-Gamers, eye-candy isn't that important to us anyway  

A mission designer is also planned for the near future (prob. still this year), though on official ('honor' servers only approved missions can be played.

[j w 0]

http://www.surfacezero.com/uploads/burns/kaputt.jpg

LMFAO

Just seeing that makes me run from the game.

JW

[crassus 0]

From Mr. Bossant's letter:

Quote[/b] ]I can tell you we've been thinking about this for a long time wondering how we might do things differently, what we got right and what would make it better if we had the chance. That chance is coming. We've learned a lot along the way and so we are quite certain we can go a lot further

I've played AA on and off for awhile, and with each "new" version of it I'm always left shaking my head wondering how it is Infiltration, a mod of a game built using an older version of the Unreal Engine, has more realistic features in it than AA.

Oh yes, Mr. Bossant, you have been thinking, but apparently the execution has yet to occur!  

[ebns72 0]

Wow...was playing the new version, and the new map "Snake Plain" Reminded me a lot of operation flashpoint multiplayer.

Flashpoint players will really like this map. It is a co-op map with AI! Basically you just start on a huge terrain with two hummers and you have to assault this enemy camp and destroy some objectives. It is very open-ended, and there are enemy tanks and vehicles that deploy troops and such even!

I was pleasantly surprised with that mission. I hope we will see more AA maps head that direction in the future.

[EiZei 0]

Hmmh, in order to drive the humvee you apparently have to buckle up, turn the ignition put the gear on and not forget to put on park after you exit, now that's something you dont see even in ofp.

[NeMeSiS 11]

http://www.surfacezero.com/uploads/burns/kaputt.jpg

LMFAO

Just seeing that makes me run from the game.

JW

Thats not im my version, what the hell is Mr Burns playing?

[mr burns 132]

http://www.surfacezero.com/uploads/burns/kaputt.jpg

LMFAO

Just seeing that makes me run from the game.

JW

Thats not im my version, what the hell is Mr Burns playing?

wth was i playing

imho it depends on the server as i can also remember having played some games w/o those stupid messages. just don´t connect to any 2.6 servers.

[CsonkaPityu 0]

It's funny when non-english servers have that very same messege for headshot in their own language. You can learn to tell someone of a headshot in hundreds of languages with americas army!

[WhoCares 0]

Wow, it's working:CBS News: Like The Video Game? Join The Army

Quote[/b] ]In a recent informal survey of recruits at Fort Benning, Ga., which was conducted by the Army's video-game development team, about 60 percent of recruits said they've played "America's Army" more than five times a week. Four out of 100 said they'd joined the Army specifically because of the game. Nationwide, the game counts some 7.5 million registered users, making it one of the Top 5 online PC games.

The Army announced earlier this month it expects to exceed its 80,000 recruiting quota this year after missing it in 2005 for the first time since 1999. Officials say a range of recruitment tweaks — including easing up on the tattoo policy and up to $40,000 signing bonuses — have played a role. But few other ideas have been as effective in galvanizing potential recruits as "America's Army."

While I think they got some numbers wrong (I think the 7.5 million should be worldwide, not nationwide, it's listed as the total number of registered players on the main page; also not accounting for multiple accounts...), seeing that ~60% of the recruits play(ed) the game regularly and ~4% stating they joined the army because of the game, that's some surprising high numbers. (with ~80000 recruits/year that's ~3200 joining because of the game )