ArmA Progress Updates

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Another month another screen shot and here was me thinking we might just of got the Demo this month... since the game is complete and released for some next month. Im sure then we will have our fair share of screen shots. Whats the deal over the demo and not releasing it. I have seen so many screen shots now, i feel i have had a walk through the entire game playing it frame by frame. Ok thats abit of an eggsageration but how many more screen shots am i of to see before its not. Do everyone a Favour and make them happy just release the demo.

[sarcasm]Yeah, you just press the "Make demo" button in the editor, and viola, insta-community-satisfier.[/sarcasm]

Really, even easier then i thought then. Do you want me to list all the games that have had a demo a month before release. Tell you what go look on IGN. or go buy a Pc mag.

Yeah, but making demo for ArmA and for, let's say, BF2142 is not the same, there, you just delete a few maps, and there you go, in ArmA, you need to delete the excess code from the config, delete half of the island, remove the model/texture files that are not necessary for the demo, modify the GUI to fit the demo, and what else not.

Also, if we ignore that, you're stating the month before the release date, assuming that the official European release date in English is somewhere in Q1 2007, you're still nowhere near that one month mark and BIS already stated that the demo will be released after the full game.

EDIT: Placebo beat me to it.

[txalin 2]

It has already been posted in a number of places that the demo will be worked on after the German/Czech/Russian/Slovakian/Polish versions have gone gold.

Is there too much time left until they gone gold? week? days? hours?

[ag_smith 0]

It has already been posted in a number of places that the demo will be worked on after the German/Czech/Russian/Slovakian/Polish versions have gone gold.

Is there too much time left until they gone gold? week? days? hours?

Considering that announced Czech/Slovakian/Polish release date is due in 21 days... my guess is soon.

I'm wondering about Soldner. Haven't it had fully destructible buildings in multiplayer? ... and don't try to tell me that world scale is much greater in ARMA, I know. Still, as a programmer, I think this is just a matter of smart approach and little simplifications (like having predefined destruction patterns).

[Blanco 0]

There's been a new preview from Invex (in Czech).

http://pc.hrej.cz/clanky/preview/armed-assault-dojmy-z-invexu-2006/

Apart from the old news, they dissect the shadows system: different shadow techniques for trees, moving objects and such and ambient shadows that can be dynamically affected by, for example... The flashlight! Also there gonna be a knife ingame. Acording to them, Invex version was quite unstable. That's about all.

(it seems to me, that we who are going to get it in November will be in similar situation like when OFp 1.00 was released and we were "gammatesting" it for US 1.20 release )

A flashlight... great. I guess a working searchlight is possible now.

And knives...great

[dmitri 0]

Does anybody care about AI? I just worry about that because all ArmA vids shows same AI enemy & friendly units - just run, "duck" and shootin'...

Yeah, it would be ok when "80's style mechanized frontal assault" - but MOUT will be available in ArmA right? I know that "Rescue Mr.Banane" vids were played by COOP. And there's no info about AI but the words like "AI has been improved"... man, HOW improved?

OH! PLEASE DON'T SAY "the OFP community will do that part with scripts, so we don't worry about AI"!!

I think the great feature that could change the whole Tactical FPS genre like "suppressive fire" and "supersonic bullet sounds" has been talked a lot in the community, but not declared by BIS...

I 2nd this.

Sorry for adding to the speculation, but:

I remember a recent quote from BIS that the AI would be "modular", could this mean that the AI's hardcoded routines are now moddable? Perhaps they did this to allow the community to alter the AI (knowing that there might be complaints about the AI post launch?).

AI is the only part I'm "worried" about. Everything else looks great.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ] could this mean that the AI's hardcoded routines are now moddable?

hardcoded is hardcoded, but I guess we will be able to define own behaviours and patterns for AI.

[KaiserPanda 0]

I'm wondering about Soldner. Haven't it had fully destructible buildings in multiplayer? ... and don't try to tell me that world scale is much greater in ARMA, I know. Still, as a programmer, I think this is just a matter of smart approach and little simplifications (like having predefined destruction patterns).

Soldner's buildings weren't dynamicly destroyable. They were just made out of sections that could be destroyed individualy. It's a pretty hackish and inefficient way to destroy a building. It looks bad, too; you can tell that it's made of large sections.

[nubbin77 0]

Quote[/b] ]Soldner's buildings weren't dynamicly destroyable. They were just made out of sections that could be destroyed individualy. It's a pretty hackish and inefficient way to destroy a building. It looks bad, too; you can tell that it's made of large sections.

He didn't use the word "dynamic", he said they were "fully" destructable. They (soldner's builidigs) aren't perfect, but they are better then crumpled buildings or disappearing buildings. So it is not great / perfect, but it is BETTER. And that's what ARMA: BETTER (and will be the BEST of all computer games), but it is not and will not be PERFECT. People need to get over that fact. Pull yourselves out of fantasy land and deal with the reality a computer game can't be made 100% realistic right now. Please be reasonable with your expectations

[KaiserPanda 0]

Oh, whatever. I'm tired.

That kind of destructable building isn't very reasonable, either. Every section of the building needs a separate model, etc...

[Locke@Germany 0]

Hi,

just saw the four small clip's and instantly fell in love with the swimming possibility  .

However the building destruction could be improved alot, i remember the old Comanche series of Arcade-Helo-Games from Novalogic and Delta Force had something wich looked quite good for the time it was released. If i remeber correctly the building started to collaps more slowly and there was alot of smoke and dust, so you couldn't see that the building actually was slowly sinking into the ground and was then replaced with some destructed model.

In comparision to this the destruction-sequence of the building in the video seem's much to fast, as if it had no mass at all.

While not really great it's still a very huge gameplay improvement over OFP.

Hope the AI will also be able to use this to their advantage, meaning: If an enemy (squad) is hidden in a building ,the building itself does not represent any tactical important installation and heavy weapons that could destroy the building are available, instead of cleaning the building room by room they just destroy the whole building.

Bye, Locke.

[ag_smith 0]

Quote[/b] ]Soldner's buildings weren't dynamicly destroyable. They were just made out of sections that could be destroyed individualy. It's a pretty hackish and inefficient way to destroy a building. It looks bad, too; you can tell that it's made of large sections.

He didn't use the word "dynamic", he said they were "fully" destructable. They (soldner's builidigs) aren't perfect, but they are better then crumpled buildings or disappearing buildings. So it is not great / perfect, but it is BETTER. And that's what ARMA: BETTER (and will be the BEST of all computer games), but it is not and will not be PERFECT. People need to get over that fact. Pull yourselves out of fantasy land and deal with the reality a computer game can't be made 100% realistic right now. Please be reasonable with your expectations

Yeah, exactly. I think that would still be a better option than simply sinking buildings into the ground.

[mickuzy 0]

Quote[/b] ]Soldner's buildings weren't dynamicly destroyable.  They were just made out of sections that could be destroyed individualy.  It's a pretty hackish and inefficient way to destroy a building.  It looks bad, too; you can tell that it's made of large sections.

He didn't use the word "dynamic", he said they were "fully" destructable.  They (soldner's builidigs) aren't perfect, but they are better then crumpled buildings or disappearing buildings.  So it is not great / perfect, but it is BETTER.  And that's what ARMA: BETTER (and will be the BEST of all computer games), but it is not and will not be PERFECT.  People need to get over that fact.  Pull yourselves out of fantasy land and deal with the reality a computer game can't be made 100% realistic right now.  Please be reasonable with your expectations  

hit the nail on the head. plus it sounds like the 505 relased countries are gonna have an improved game, on top of the previously released countries. it sounds good, sounds alot better than what we have got (in ofp and in any other games), bis didnt have to implement any buidling destruction, so lets stop complaining and do them good publicity by only quoting whats right with the game

[Higurashi 0]

Does anybody care about AI? I just worry about that because all ArmA vids shows same AI enemy & friendly units - just run, "duck" and shootin'...

Yeah, it would be ok when "80's style mechanized frontal assault" - but MOUT will be available in ArmA right? I know that "Rescue Mr.Banane" vids were played by COOP. And there's no info about AI but the words like "AI has been improved"... man, HOW improved?

OH! PLEASE DON'T SAY "the OFP community will do that part with scripts, so we don't worry about AI"!!

I think the great feature that could change the whole Tactical FPS genre like "suppressive fire" and "supersonic bullet sounds" has been talked a lot in the community, but not declared by BIS...

I 2nd this.

Sorry for adding to the speculation, but:

I remember a recent quote from BIS that the AI would be "modular", could this mean that the AI's hardcoded routines are now moddable? Perhaps they did this to allow the community to alter the AI (knowing that there might be complaints about the AI post launch?).

AI is the only part I'm "worried" about. Everything else looks great.

Well, it might good thing that we will be able to modify AI's various parameter. But it would be great if we could do it more easier way - I mean, for example;"In the mission editor, just put friendly & enemy squads in the middle of an urban area, and when two squads engaged each other, both untis takin' cover behind objects like car, one team surppress one team move, using grenade to clear out the enemy hiding place..." I just dreamin' the AI like this without scripts...

I wouldn't deny the community's effort to making AI's more smarter by themselves, but I think BIS should focused on the AI more. It's not enough to only decrease bugs from the original OFP. BIS has been said about improvement, I couldn't see what is the point of "improved" though.

However, all I can do is just sittin' and prayin'.

The Armed Assault is my last hope anyway.

And ditto your "Everything else looks great". - oh, please don't forget about the supersonic bullet sounds, bro!

I noticed this in the ArmA's community wiki... is that true?

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]"In the mission editor, just put friendly & enemy squads in the middle of an urban area, and when two squads engaged each other, both untis takin' cover behind objects like car, one team surppress one team move, using grenade to clear out the enemy hiding place..." I just dreamin' the AI like this without scripts...

From what we know right now AI will have embedded routines for CQB and will make use of cover.

We´ll see how that works with the demo.

I´m curious on the modable AI aswell, but I guess BIS will serve us some smartass AI anyway

Quote[/b] ]oh, please don't forget about the supersonic bullet sounds, bro!

I noticed this in the ArmA's community wiki... is that true?

Looks like

[low light 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]oh, please don't forget about the supersonic bullet sounds, bro!

I noticed this in the ArmA's community wiki... is that true?

Looks like

I was shocked to see this in the Biki. I was excited about the concept when I saw it on Dslyecxi's site but when it was said that it might appear in Arma, well...

Even though it appears in the Biki we can't say with 100% certainty that it will appear in the final game, mainly because as it says on the top of this page

Quote[/b] ]

Disclaimer: Preliminary information

This page describes a product which is not yet released, and therefore it contains information which may change significantly.

[Higurashi 0]

Quote[/b] ]"In the mission editor, just put friendly & enemy squads in the middle of an urban area, and when two squads engaged each other, both untis takin' cover behind objects like car, one team surppress one team move, using grenade to clear out the enemy hiding place..." I just dreamin' the AI like this without scripts...

From what we know right now AI will have embedded routines for CQB and will make use of cover.

We´ll see how that works with the demo.

I´m curious on the modable AI aswell, but I guess BIS will serve us some smartass AI anyway  

Quote[/b] ]oh, please don't forget about the supersonic bullet sounds, bro!

I noticed this in the ArmA's community wiki... is that true?

Looks like  

I'm glad to hear that.

Thanks for info, man. I can't wait the demo even if it will be released after ArmA gone gold.

Now let's pray together!!  

@low light

Yeah, I saw that site too and really impressed! It's not surely 100% but if it's featured, ArmA will ROCKS the whole Tactical FPS genre. It's like "that's why ArmA is called Most Realistic Combat FPS".

[Stendac 0]

i was thinking on that like a provisional solution to avoid new delays, to give BIS time to improve the real dinamic one and release it in a patch    

Yeah, it's just a halfway solution, but it still creates new problems that will take time to work out.  Time is something that BI no longer has.  And what works for a RTS might not cut it for the close-up perspective of an FPS and the more complex AI interaction.  We'd better not expect much in terms of building destruction.  I think the best we can hope for right now is a better looking post-destruction model for the buildings.

Quote[/b] ]I'm glad to hear that.  

Thanks for info, man. I can't wait the demo even if it will be released after ArmA gone gold.

Now let's pray together!!  

Wow, the tantrum wasn't necessary after all.  The previews have been over this.  

Cool, the AI will seek cover BEFORE they reload.  I wish I'd learn to do the same...

[KaiserPanda 0]

making AI's more smarter

I'm sorry, but... can't not laugh at that.

[chipper 0]

making AI's more smarter

I'm sorry, but... can't not laugh at that.

lose the more

[Sertorius 0]

making AI's more smarter

I'm sorry, but... can't not laugh at that.

I agree, it would help if they were minimalistically dumberer.

[Postal69 0]

HAHA we problaly crashed there servers, checking for updates.

[andersson 285]

@BIS

I have read some concern about rolling with AT and backpacks on their backs. Isnt it possible to restrict the rolling when you have something in the secondary slot?

[Messiah 2]

Arma made it onto PC Gamer UK's most wanted list top 5 - They predict a February release

[bravo 6 0]

@BIS

I have read some concern about rolling with AT and backpacks on their backs. Isnt it possible to restrict the rolling when you have something in the secondary slot?

right on, hope BIS restrict somehow that movement

Arma made it onto PC Gamer UK's most wanted list top 5 - They predict a February release

damn damn damn

[robert(uk) 0]

I'm wondering about Soldner. Haven't it had fully destructible buildings in multiplayer? ... and don't try to tell me that world scale is much greater in ARMA, I know. Still, as a programmer, I think this is just a matter of smart approach and little simplifications (like having predefined destruction patterns).

Soldner's buildings weren't dynamicly destroyable.  They were just made out of sections that could be destroyed individualy.  It's a pretty hackish and inefficient way to destroy a building.  It looks bad, too; you can tell that it's made of large sections.

IMO the destructable buildings in Soldner were actually very good. Okay, so they tended to look the same after a while, but considering it was done on a scale map of Siberia, I think that was pretty impressive...