Bas

[Baphomet 0]

Not the missions I play at least. I don't know about you. I notice a difference. Then again I pay careful attention for it.

I recall a survey on OFP.info that indicated the majority of people just sort of tinker around with most addons in the editor, less actually use them. So go figure.

At any rate. You can't tell me these newer addons can even touch the performance increase you get when using stock units on huge missions.

That's absurd.

[offtime 0]

Not the missions I play at least. I don't know about you. I notice a difference. Then again I pay careful attention for it.

At any rate. You can't tell me these newer addons can even touch the performance increase you get when using stock units on huge missions.

That's absurd.

i agree that most of new addons are more like art and shoud be framed and hanged on the wall instead of played in ofp.

but BAS addons were just like that when i had old PC

couldnt play Tonal with more than 5fps

but now, tonal runs smooth and is still best ofp map :-)

making less good looking addons is not good solution

buing never pc's is

without moving forward we would still play doom 1

[Baphomet 0]

I'll agree with you there. And to their credit. I can use some of BAS' the older-yet-innovative for the time addons now in smaller scale missions when I feel like comprimising. Same with the RNI pack by earl and suchey. When I look back on it. They're not as bad as I thought. However for the hardware I had. They simply didn't fit my budget, performance wise.

My ambition for bigger missions tends to grow beyond the capabilities of my hardware. Despite how new my pcs get. So I have to lower my sights a bit and use stock units. It almost always ends up that way.

So I focus on gameplay enhancements versus appearance.

The only exception to that is object density on islands. Such as tonal or any other island that has dense vegetation, or intricately detailed terrain geometry. However this takes precedence for me over unit detail.

They did release a tonal lite, which they didn't have to. It was considerate. I just really wished at the time they had released a Blackhawk-lite for that addon as well.

Quote[/b] ]making less good looking addons is not good solution

buing never pc's is

I disagree with this. I simply won't buy a new pc for an addon. That just seems a bit off the wall to me.

I work hard for my money and an addon just doesn't cut it as far as justification for new hardware. People who can. I don't want to sound like an asshole, must have more money than braincells.

There are absolutely no limits to how detailed a free end user addon can get. And as I've mentioned in the past.

For some reason, the editing community has maybe consciously or unconsciously kept the OFP within a certain performance envelope which never really facilitated increased mission size without enduring the same lag you would with a slower computer and stock units.

So... really. My only option for super huge giant missions, with better performance than what I'd get with my older pcs, is to simply use older units.

[Wa_Va_Voom 0]

The BAS helicopters are still the best, though. Nothing has come close to the BAS Blackhawks and littlebirds.

They were pioneers introducing new workarounds for engine limitations

DKM:

-downwash script

-minimap script

-working Hud

-startup procedure

BAS:

-ropedown script

-some stuff they got from DKM

.

OWP's MI-26 has some nice things, but I wouln't call them functionsl, apart from the ability to carry vehicles inside  

Also remember BAS did some other cool stuff which we take for granted now.

They introduced the concept of JAM, and also did stuff which we all take greanted such as "the goggels up and goggels down" in infantry, rappling etc.

But in my oponion they (BAS) faultered like a Shakespear tragedy. They came with good intentions but through a mixture of the community (which some prominant addon makers told me are very spoilt) and their secrecy and regimental structure they became bitter and felt it was not worthid making addons in OFP.

Hopefully when Armed Assault comes out the old players in OFP who were against BAS or said silly things would have grown up and matured (I was 16 when i got OFP and now am 20) and the new talent and demand which will surely arrive allow BAS to thrive and help make this game or the next generation of this game more fun.

[Tigershark_BAS 0]

Greets to everyone who is reading or replied to this thread.

I just thought I'd share some reflections on some of the many posts made in this thread.

(Disclaimer: I am the founder of BAS and OFPEC and also started TJP in conjunction with Jellybelly for those who don't know)

First of all let me say that it is indeed very flattering to be remebered fondly by so many and I think I speak for the team when I say that, as proud as we are of our work, it is always humbling to hear how much enjoyment it brings to the community. It for this reason we first began making addons. In part it was because we wanted to see our own types of units in game (such as MH47's, MH60s etc.) but what really drove our quest for quality and excellence in what we do was providing the community with addons which were made to the best of our ability.

No arrogance in that statement. I'm not saying they are the best just that we strove to make them the best that we could make them.

Having said that, there are many interesting points brought up in this thread which I would like to comment on, hopefully, objectively (well as objectively as I can given my potential bias on the subject).

Better Addons Today vs. BAS

======================

Hey, you are right. There are better addons out there today than some of ours. Ours may have been pioneering at the time but naturally peoples skills increase and the bar of quality gets lifted. This is a great thing! We like to think our addons may have participated in the process of addon evolution within the community. One upmanship and healthy competition can only benefit us all.

A couple of points to note are that in some cases (not all but some) these great new addons you see today are a result of bits and pieces of BAS work (such as gear models) that have been "borrowed" and improved upon. Again, not a bad thing really but a little credit where it is due.

Again, I hope this doesn't sound arrogant as it is not meant to be. I'm glad to see that our work lives on albeit in new higher quality addons by the community.

BAS being the only pioneers in the community

==================================

Look...we did some great stuff but we were not the only pioneers. As mentioned in other posts I personally (and I think most of the team agree with me) tip our hats to CoC, DKM, FDF, SJB and a number of other mods who introduced some fantastic stuff!

However, I do take isssue with the post that mentioned that we just "borrowed" stuff and re packaged it as our own. Almost all of our scripting was written by TJ, Rom and SelectThis and if we did borrow an idea it was executed from scratch with engine performance 100% in mind.

That is not to say other mods did it worse or even that their stuff was not pioneering. Like I said, we have a lot of respect for the efforts of others. Our spirit of co-operation with Earl and Suchey led to JAM which was a great initiative for the community and I'm glad to see it in it's 3rd version recently.

Note: I agree with gandalf the white the DKM's work tends to get overlooked. They were the silent achievers.

As Hellfish mentioned (and thanks for your kind post) I think where we differentiated ourselves in the community was our strive for quality. Our goal of releasing addons as "polished" as we could make them. Making them more of an "experience" rather than just a new skin.

Did we get it right everytime. No. Were there porblems we never saw? Yes. We are human and despite our best beta testing efforts problems did slip under the radar. Unfortunately, due the popularity of our addons we were inundated with emails and posts complaining about this and this unfortunately would effect our morale. Not making excuses for it but we are human and already very self critical of ourselves so it was hard to take extreme community criticism sometimes.

Why we left and other comments

=========================

This addresses the points raised by MilitiaSniper, STGN, Homefry and CanadianTerror.

We left because of both reasons. Yes, unfortunately we felt like the "bullshit" as MS put it, was getting to us. It shouldn't have but it did. Simple as that. At the end of the day, as much as we appreciated the support we got, the constuctive criticism and the excitement over new releases I think we became weary of the complaining and bickering. Again, not excusing this but stating it for the record.

We were also a little frustrated with engine. We felt we had reached a wall and our last project which never got released but which we felt had enormous potential could never get over the engine limitation hurdle. So we decided to take a break until we saw some improvements in OFP2 (or even ArmA if there are any).

AsHomefry pointed out we also did a lot behind the scenes for the community which also never got publicised but it was for the love of the game.

However, CanadianTerror raises an issue which I recognise. This was a critical flaw for us which developed over time and wasn't there in the early days. We began to take negative posts very badly and this contributed to our unfounded (in my opinion) criticism of being "arrogant". Dedicated to quality? Yes. Protective of our work? Yes. Arrogant? Well...no...but I can see now why people would have thought that way.

This break has been good for us and hopefully if we come back we approach this differently.

Matt Rochelle and our release policy

===========================

Believe it or not, this release policy is something I would battle with the team constantly and the responsibilty for our release policy (or failure thereof) rests on my shoulders.

You see, I think one of the things that made us successful (and also perhaps hated by others) was our success at not only building great addons for the community but also how we "marketed them". I believed that by informing people of what was on the horizon we would strengthen a growing fan base. It worked and I think BAS' reputation is cemented firmly in the community but the side effect is that there was a lot of dissapointment in both the time between release and advertising and also the fact that some addons never got released.

My team constantly told me that they wanted to limit the "marketing" to just before release but I kept on pushing through. I can arguments for both sides here but I still believe that without our "marketing" activities BAS wouldn't be remembered as it is today. However it has been a great learning experience and our strategy will change if we come back again.

Wa va voom makes some good observations on our demise and I can promise we have being reading and listening and hopefully we can do better next time around.

We all must accept one thing though. We all know that sometimes merely being successful and "elevated to gods" by the community is enough to stir up feelings of jealousy and hatred. This unfortunately is human trait we see in everyday life. Unfortunately some of this shit being thrown around landed and stuck on us tarnishing our image. I'm not saying we are not responsible for some of the criticism leveled at us but we must also admit that some of it was just motivated by feelings of jealousy.

Tonal and other achievements

=======================

Glad someone borught this up as I still believe Tonal to be the most complete island addon first released for OFP outside of BIS. You got an island, background info on it, African rebel and government units and equipment, a campaign, custom soundtracks, comprehensive readme on how to use the island, easter eggs throughout, new structures and textures. It was quite an achievement. (FDF made a great followup to this concept btw)

I say this not to blow our own horn (well...maybe a little) but more so to help people understand our achievements rather than talk about us as mere "repackagers" of other peoples ideas.

As mentioned before, we also paid much attention to the mechanics of addons. Each had a full set of LoDs made specifically to address performance. Poly counts were as low as could be. Every addon was crafted, yes CRAFTED, to offer a maximum experience at maximum performance.

I hope this doesn't come across as arrogant. It really is not meant to be. I am just trying to illustrate how much effort and love went into these addons and why I guess we so fervently defended them in the face of fair and unfair criticism. This is not to say we were the only ones doing this. Other teams and individuals do the same and there are many addons out there who share the same attention to detail both behind the scenes and in the "eye candy".

The future for BAS

==============

Like I mentioned at the begining of this post. It is indeed very cool to be remembered by many even if they feel some of our addons have aged. Again, I would like to think that BAS helped in some small part to make these new crop of addon the high quality that they are through the constant "raising of the bar". Some of our addons may have slipped under the bar but we are proud (as Ebuds posts demonstrate) of our achievements and we hope one day to build on that.

Just because we haven't been making addons for OFP doesn't mean we haven't been honing our skills. We have made some stuff for VBS and in the background we have been developing our skills and techniques in preparation for maybe getting back into the game.

We'll see.....we are still working on things internally and we have many cool plans in the works but we can't say we are definitely back for ArmA.

Once again, I hope this post is taken in the spirit it was written. These are reflections and not meant to be arrogant. Seriously. I wanted to thank those who had good stuff to write about us and also acknowledge to those who criticised that they make some valid points which we will take on board for future activities.

Kind Regards to you all,

Tigershark

PS. I just wanted to say a big thankyou to all members of BAS past and present. I may be the public face of BAS but it is really the drive, creativity and dedication of the other teams members that made/make BAS what it is. Some of the pioneering features of BAS owe their lineage to people such as SelectThis (incredible knowledge of engine and modeling), Ebud (the texture master), TJ (mission and scripting guru), Rom (one of the smartest people I have met and scripting genius), DM (an incredibly agile character who has increased in skill and knowledge of the OFP exponentially), Nagual (his vision and superhuman effort on Tonal has left a lasting legacy on OFP), Cassandra (the music on Tonal was her baby), Eviscerator (early pioneer of model editing) and the scores of advisors, testing and ideas people..Damocles, OFPEditor, Fer, Katerina, NedFox....the list goes on!

Hats off to you all.

[Gordy 0]

Nice to see you're still working together.

I remember when I used to play OFP for the first few months I had no idea what an addon was until I saw a BAS web-site. I freaked basically in awe. A frontier fell open.

Thanks and respect BAS.

[Shinbusan 0]

I don't get comparing BAS - any other GREAT team. BAS members ARE legendary. Some of them MADE this scene, they give us life for years. I played OFP and I stopped. After a while I came back and when I saw what SEB / BAS / individual memebers of them did, my love for OFP returned. Of course few times I was angry on BAS, but I am a human being, isn't? But still I think they made scene alive for years, they inspired a lot of talented people. Without them, there would be no OFP today.

Yes, I stoped to use BAS Deltas / Rangers, I exchanged it for Laser's, but I LOVE Tonal now, because before I couldn't enjoy it, and now I can. And I think it is beautiful piece of work. I use and love BAS helos, I still play a lot against BAS OPFORs.

Don't even talk about ideas they made or incorporate to their work. What more, they made mission makers to use their addons and that is something too, if you remember how many addons there is.

BAS IS A LEGEND.

[Rikki Tikki Tavi 0]

Well thought out post Tigershark, thanks for clearing stuff up.

[sv5000 127]

Tonal still rocks

Big love to BAS for your stuff

Fight the hate people

[Shashman 0]

And hate the fight!

BAS work was, to put it simply, of a level of "professionalism" I have not witnessed since, in the OFP community. From the "marketing" as Tigershark put it, to the finishion of their work, to their mere presence in the community.

There were some aspects of the "studio" that certain people (myself included at some points) disliked, such as the elevating to the status of 'Gods' that the "studio" got. Also, the reaction of certain members of the "studio" to certain types of criticism. Criticism makes us better, people!

I am an artist (photographer), and as much as I love positive feedback on my work, criticism just makes me improve for the next assignment. If someone was to tell me "Dude... That photo sucks arse!" I'd merely disregard the comment (if I was in a good mood ) or at worst, point out the fact that such a comment is not only disrespectful, but unconstructive. On the other hand, had the comment read something like "I think the lighting on this shot could perhaps be enhanced, as this feature of [subject] is not receiving enough emphasis", then I would take note and thank the person for the feedback.

There are kids, there are spoilt brats, there are whingers, whiners, shit-stirrers in the community, but most of us are respectful, learned and thankful for the work you put so much effort into, and presented to us on a silver platter.

Good luck with your future endeavours, and hope to see you back in the "mainstream" OFP community soon

[BraTTy 0]

Good stuff Tigershark ! Always glad to hear from ya.

I always get left out of the lists of pioneers tho and I didn't have no fancy team to go with it.

[Tigershark_BAS 0]

Good stuff Tigershark ! Always glad to hear from ya.

I always get left out of the lists of pioneers tho and I didn't have no fancy team to go with it.

I'm sorry:( What pioneering achievements would they be out of interest?

[DKM Jaguar 0]

Nevermind.

[sanctuary 19]

All i can really remember is that i didn't tried BAS stuff when they were released as i got the Resistance expansion a bit late.

The 5 first community works i downloaded are (in this order) :

-Marine Assault Pack (my all time favorite)

-all BAS works

-Sebnam pack 2

-FDF mod 1.0

-DKMM works

From all that came then left my OFP install, these mods and addons (updated of course for FDF) are always present on my hard drive and i continue to play with them.

That sum up all the good i can think of those not only pionneer , but always very good now, addons achievements and their authors.

Never really understood why BAS had to deal with angry users when they were always working on OFP.

[crave22 0]

BAS, you are not ledgends of OFP editing. You are GODS. At one time you were the OFP editing community. When I feel like going old school, I pull out the BAS Rangers. I still love to play with them.

You guys, like everyone else said, were pioneers. Not the only pioneers, but still pioneers. Your methods of OFP editing are still in use today. You guys deserve more than a pat on the back. You deserve a (forgive me) w00t. Not only you do, but so do all the other pioneers (all of which were mentioned in this thread). Good luck, BAS!

[CanadianTerror 0]

Quote[/b] ]You are GODS. At one time you were the OFP editing community.

I actually think there's too much of "that" type of post.

It's one thing to treat a good modder/mod group with respect and its another to just post like that.

People see a few too many of those posts and then a mod/mod group says/does something that might not sit well with some people and...

There's an egotistical reputation attached to you whether you like it or not.

Just my 2 cents.

[VipHeart 0]

In my opinion BAS will forever be one of the greatest teams which made addons for OFP!

But as I said only ONE of the greatest. I'm simply no big fan of those extreme superlatives. That the OFP scene became what it is today was a slow process in which a lot of superb teams contributed their work. Focusing only on them is simply unfair for all the other "pioneers" like Lonewolf, Keygetys, Fliper, DKM and the many others.

There were teams which produced more stuff even faster, there were others who broke more engine limitations (although these aren't really limitations - otherwise the wouldn't be brakeble ) and maybe there were a lot of crews which didn't appeared as "arrogant" as the BAS boys sometimes to some did - yet I will deffinitly remember BAS as the ones with almost the best marketing and released quality.

They were/are amazingly professional regarding how they organized and worked together (something which really really impressed me - i've been a small contributor to some of their stuff so let it count as first hand experience)!

So there's really only one thing which I personally felt disappointed by: That the left this way

[fer 21]

*takes 'press officer' uniform out of storage*

Hmmm, how did those 'BAS press releases' used to go? Oh yes, now I remember ...

*** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***

04 October 2005

Ballistic Addon Studios

BALLISTIC ADDON STUDIOS ALIVE AND WELL

Ballistic Addon Studios (BAS) is pleased to announce that reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Following the team's decision in early 2004 not to undertake further development projects for OFP1, various original members of BAS have been busy pursuing other activities in the OFP and VBS arenas. Current projects cover a broad range, from development of addons for VBS1 to engine-agnostic R&D.

DeadMeat, leader of BAS, commented: "BAS certainly remains active in the exploration of new ideas and concepts in the OFPx arena. Whilst the release of new addons for the OFPx engine is not currently planned, please rest assured that the situation is regularly reviewed. As before, BAS is committed to bringing the community the very best standards of quality and innovation - and those criteria continue to drive the team's evaluation of all candidate projects. Perhaps most encouragingly, BAS also features some new members, who bring fresh talent, perspectives and ideas to the team."

"Like everyone in the OFP community, the BAS team is looking forward to ArmA and the mysterious Game2 - not just because these games promise to be superb in their own right, but because this community will undoubtedly build on those foundations to make experiences that are truly outstanding. Whilst our method of contributing may change over time, we still hope to be part of that effort."

Now, just as in 2003/4, the team would like to remind players that BAS is an all-volunteer, non-commercial team working for the OFP community in our spare time. As always, we thank you all for your continued support.

For further information please contact:

DeadMeat - <deadmeat@ballisticaddonstudios.com>

Fer - <fer@ballisticaddonstudios.com>

http://www.ballisticaddonstudios.com/

[stgn 39]

STGN

[nephilim 0]

after reading these pages the whole thread seems to be quite childish isnt it?

BAS has achieved alot as we all know that the whole team ( i think) made their hobby a job, and noone can tell me that

hed refuse an offer by a company like bia/bis to work for them.

indeed their deltas are old but to the time theyve been released they were to notch.

time goes by people evolve and their skills get better.

everyone who edits ofp knows that.

its also very reasonable bas ceased making addons for ofp.

it simply get old although now the best addons ever made are created.

why? because there are people in the community that are doing this for so long just like bas.

and if people tell that someones addon is shit they should look at their stuff, it might be even worse.

bas did and still do greate things, though maybe not for ofp but for vbs1 and will for arma or ofp2

so stop all that mockering ok

if you dont know, then get to know about something first

or just shut up, before you start such a topic like this..

spasibo -.-

[thirtyg 0]

*takes 'press officer' uniform out of storage*

Hmmm, how did those 'BAS press releases' used to go? Oh yes, now I remember ...

Didn't they go like THIS when DM did them?

Seriously though good to know that BAS is stepping backing into the OFP fold, be interesting to see what gets done.

[Placebo 29]

Whilst it's nice to know that people respect and remember those who do good works this thread really is outside the A&M:D remit.

If/when BAS announce a new project they are welcome to start their own thread