official complaint to BIS

[kroky 1]

@BIS

After playing for 4 days with the german version of ArmA and patching it to version 1.01 I am really very disappointed what has been released to our community.

There are tons of bugs or shortcomings. It would be too time consuming to list them all.

The most obvious are:

- very bad performance even on normal settings

- very often no sounds, with Hardware Accelaration or EAX

on/off

- missions sometimes don't end

- level of detail of the units and vehicles are not sufficient

(the most of unofficial addons in OFP are a lot better)

It is obvious that Armed Assault has been designed with game consoles in mind. The control menus are showing it big time. Really disappointing.

Let's see how the community will react when the 505 games edition is out in Febraury 2007. I on my part predict that the community will be really disappointed. This could be the end of a very good relationship between BIS and the OFP community.

Sorry to say that. I was a big fan of BIS for the last 5,5 years. But the release of ArmA at its current state is an offense to us.

-

[Ian Malcolm 0]

- level of detail of the units and vehicles are not sufficient

Ok. I got all your points except this one. Honestly i didn't saw too many unofficial OFP addons even comparable with ArmA models. Do you have any example of model wich do you think is not detailed enough for you? If possible with comparable unofficial OFP addon. Thank you.

[Guest]

You better write them a letter or give them a call or they wont ever know about your "official" complaint.

[kroky 1]

Of course.

All the tanks, trucks and cars look good from 50m. As soon they are more than 100m away the level of detail drops so drastically that sometimes you even can't recognize the vehicles without zooming in with the binocs or the ACOG/Aimpoint on the rifle.

Yes when you raise the resolution to 1280x1024 or even 1600x1280 it's better. But then the game is just unplayable.

Second example. Some of the wrecked trucks/cars after explosion look even worse as those in OFP. Absolutely no details.

You want examples of better looking addons in OFP than ArmA? There are hundreds! Just download FFUR 2006 2.5 and play it in OFP. Or look at the addons from BAS (which are already 3-4 years old!!! RHS, LSR units, CBT vehicles, DKMM, KingHomer, Inquisitor, ORCSoh man... I could list them for the next 2 hours.

More examples? Looks at the weapons from SJB, they looks a lot better than the ones in ArmA!

There are of course some improvements to OFP. Water and ground textures are a lot better than in (vanilla!! OFP. (If you take Berghoffs nature packs, the foliage trees don't look better in ArmA.

It seems to me that BIS didn't put in enough time to optimize the graphics to run smooth on average systems people have today.

Besides this, gameplay didn't change at all in comparison to OFP.

Look at the improvements SLX mod has done for old OFP.

Hopefully the mod community will brind ArmA to a better state than it is right now. But I would have expected a lot more improvements from BIS. They had 5 years time to work on it. And they are professionals. The mod community are amateurs and they're doing a better job in a lot of areas.

The weakest point is the sounds. Weapons sounds are bad. Sound are not toned as they should be. When a chopper moves away you shouldn't hear it on the same loundness if it would be 100 m away.

When you move away from the shore you instantly don't hear the waves anymore. No fade out on any sounds.

Lot of shouted messages from the AI end abrupt without ending the message. Player sometimes can't shout any message. The voices are changing during a message. So the fist spoken word is from a different voice the second word from a different and the third again from the first voice and so on....

Another bug: the voice loops sometimes. Shouting 20, 30 times officer, officer, officer, officer, officer....

Another bug: when the soldier which operats M2 dies the M2 has the old muzzle flash bug. Muzzle flash will stay on even the M2 is not fired.

Another bug: when disembarking a ship you go to the water on to the shore. You have to swim to the shore and risk to lose your weapons.

Another bug: sometimes you're in command of other soldiers but you don't see the icon on the bottom of the screen. Hence you can't give them any commands.

oh guys I'm tired of writing down all the bugs. They are too many!

[bangtail 0]

I have to agree with Mr Malcolm, as much as I am not at all impressed with the current state of Arma, the models are definitely one of the high points.

E

[Ian Malcolm 0]

All the tanks, trucks and cars look good from 50m. As soon they are more than 100m away the level of detail drops so drastically that sometimes you even can't recognize the vehicles without zooming in with the binocs or the ACOG/Aimpoint on the rifle.

Ah. So this means there is something wrong with your system, so you see bad LODs at not too big distance.

Quote[/b] ]

Yes when you raise the resolution to 1280x1024 or even 1600x1280 it's better. But then the game is just unplayable.

Yes. The game is pretty system demanding, but i was asking about the models.

Quote[/b] ]

Second example. Some of the wrecked trucks/cars after explosion look even worse as those in OFP. Absolutely no details.

Nonsense. You probably didn't played OFP for quite long time. You mean that skewed stretched darkened things were better than ArmA damaged models? I'm afraid most of the people will disagree with you.

Quote[/b] ]You want examples of better looking addons in OFP than ArmA? There are hundreds! Just download FFUR 2006 2.5 and play it in OFP. Or look at the addons from BAS (which are already 3-4 years old!!! RHS, LSR units, CBT vehicles, DKMM, KingHomer, Inquisitor, ORCSoh man... I could list them for the next 2 hours.

Well... with all respect to authors of those MODs and addons, they aren't better. Maybe some are almost same good. I'm saying that as a man, who had most of them opened in O2. Yes. Many of them had great working things on them, scripts and functional stuff... but comparing just plain models - there is very few comparable addons.

Quote[/b] ]

More examples? Looks at the weapons from SJB, they looks a lot better than the ones in ArmA!

This is really just a matter of opinion, but many of those "great" looking weapons are nice looking only because they have insane polycount and insane amount of hi res textures... simply said - nice but highly unoptimized.

The rest of the post is out of my original question.

[shinRaiden 0]

1) BIS is trying to do things on their own, independent of deep pockets, in an isolated part of the world nobody cares about. (That's not an insensitive remark, it illustrates the ambivelence to the percieved irrelevant outside world.) Now if you can't figure out on your own what impact the lack of media, money, and management has on development, I'm not going to bother explaining.

2) BIS is trying to release a product for radically different markets, for the "more money than brains club", for starving students, for casual gamers, for simulated veterans and the criminally insane, people from all budgets and backgrounds.

3) BIS thought it might be worthwhile to give the community a snapshot of the really-really long range pie-in-the-sky vision early.

So what does this mean? It means that we're seeing something I've been warning the community to no avail for some time, that we the world are surging past the point of no return where games aren't practical or fun anymore.

If you're not already making professional level content as your day job, using the latest advanced techniques in 3d modeling and GPU design, face it, you're screwed. There once was a day when anybody could make a little something in their spare time that was helpful and productive, but not anymore. If you're not already working with multi-million polygon modeling systems with enterprise-level development systems backing you up, with someone else paying your bills for the tools required to get the job done, anything you try to make will be crap compared with what else is out there.

Now just because BIS is a corporation, doesn't mean life is all that much easier. They have tools and talent and time, but that doesn't make the work any easier.

The other issue is the insanity of the hardware revolution. Sure I'd love an 8800GTX, or two or three of them. But hardware costs, particularly GPU's, have skyrocketed far beyond the typical inflation rates. Yet people still choose to pay $600 for a graphics card, $800 for a CPU, and all sorts of insane money, all to gain that last 1% of 'perfection'. That impracticle and rediculous market demand, has been combined with another more dubious force. In order to sustain the artificial and inflated market growth trends of the late 90's, Moore's Law has been copycated from the research departments and imposed on marketing. So where someone would prefer to upgrade every ten years or more, the industy, not satisfied with the 3 year update cycle they've already imposed, seeks to thrash the market to yearly, if not quarterly turnover.

The result is that instead of there being common denominators in the hardware population, now nothing is certain. Just because I have certain results on my system, does not any more predict or hint at what sort of potential results you might have.

This is not a slam on BIS, or a slam on the community, rather it's a sobering reminder that we've gotten past the point of rediculousness, and long past time to reconsider this self-destructive cycle. However, as all delusional obsessions go, it will be extremely painful to overcome.

[CanisDEK 1]

All the tanks, trucks and cars look good from 50m. As soon they are more than 100m away the level of detail drops so drastically that sometimes you even can't recognize the vehicles without zooming in with the binocs or the ACOG/Aimpoint on the rifle.

Ah. So this means there is something wrong with your system, so you see bad LODs at not too big distance.

Quote[/b] ]

Yes when you raise the resolution to 1280x1024 or even 1600x1280 it's better. But then the game is just unplayable.

Yes. The game is pretty system demanding, but i was asking about the models.

Quote[/b] ]

Second example. Some of the wrecked trucks/cars after explosion look even worse as those in OFP. Absolutely no details.

Nonsense. You probably didn't played OFP for quite long time. You mean that skewed stretched darkened things were better than ArmA damaged models? I'm afraid most of the people will disagree with you.

Quote[/b] ]You want examples of better looking addons in OFP than ArmA? There are hundreds! Just download FFUR 2006 2.5 and play it in OFP. Or look at the addons from BAS (which are already 3-4 years old!!! RHS, LSR units, CBT vehicles, DKMM, KingHomer, Inquisitor, ORCSoh man... I could list them for the next 2 hours.

Well... with all respect to authors of those MODs and addons, they aren't better. Maybe some are almost same good. I'm saying that as a man, who had most of them opened in O2. Yes. Many of them had great working things on them, scripts and functional stuff... but comparing just plain models - there is very few comparable addons.

Quote[/b] ]

More examples? Looks at the weapons from SJB, they looks a lot better than the ones in ArmA!

This is really just a matter of opinion, but many of those "great" looking weapons are nice looking only because they have insane polycount and insane amount of hi res textures... simply said - nice but highly unoptimized.

The rest of the post is out of my original question.

Ian stop being such a nob

Wrecked vehicles look worse than OFP. In OFP when you hit a tire it would become flat. In ARMA it turns into a rusty iron tire. That's lame. Generally every destroyed vehicle uses the same annoying rusty vehicle overlay texture. It looks stupid when you fire at a car and then suddenly it turns rusty.

And what exactly is wring with his system because the models change at higher than 100m range? That was changed compared to OFP too as far as I can see.

There are a few other problems with ARMA as well.

1. CTI is not even finished. You can spawn at the enemy base.

2. The fact that you can easily aim with the saw-249 using the quake crosshair while standing and easily hit targets is lame. It's completely arcade. There should be no such reliable shooting from the hip.

3. AI gets stuck on bridges, stairs etc. And it's not just once in a while... it's pretty damn often. Sometimes even the player gets stuck when exiting a vehicle.

4. Sometimes in MP the weapon (AK-74) doesn't show up in your hand. You can still shoot and aim but the model is not there. At times you randomly spawn without a weapon at all.

5. Lots of people have connection problems in MP.

6. Shadows disappear in MP.

7. The grass doesn't work very well. While it blocks your view while prone, it does absolutely nothing at range to hide someone in it.

8. The reload animations are nothing but a "copperfield wave of the hand" reloading. Also you still can't move and reload.

9. The weapons are zeroed in at a certain range it seems. But it would be wonderful to be able to control this ourselves instead of it being fixed.

10. You can't see if a server is dedicated or not...

11. Vehicles are used and then gone. For a game like ARMA where a game could last several hours you either need a shitload of vehicles or write your own vehicle respawn script. It's dumb that this option wasn't part of the server setup. Generally we need more server options.

12. The sounds... lol... they are just really messed up. Helicopters sound like they are inside your head when they are 1000m away. Generally all vehicles are too loud and you can hear them too far away and sound isn't blocked by hills (if it is it doesn't work reliably). Helicopters are the worst though... they can ruin a game for you.

And last but certainly also the least.

13. The horn on vehicles are limited to a short honk... you can't keep the horn pressed!

[lethal 0]

also not trying to slam BIS but i *completely* agree with the remark about the trend in hardware and its life-expectancy (sp?).

i'm getting sick and tired that for EVERY new game i purchase i also have to purchase new hardware to be able to run it at a level of detail even remotely similar to the one advertised

not bis fault but i really think game companies should take a long hard look at this trend and realize that if they keep supporting this, they're gonna loose customers rapidly. i mean who the hell can afford the latest and greatest in hardware all the time? i think hardware should serve the developers and gamers not the other way around...

sorry for ranting about this, but that post really struck a nerve

as for the criticism about the UI being 'console-friendly' - i just don't see it. i have ofp and it's expansions and i must say that if this game is made for consoles then ofp was, too.

but i agree that arma can still use a lot of polish - i hope bis is taking this seriously.

[Ian Malcolm 0]

Wrecked vehicles look worse than OFP. In OFP when you hit a tire it would become flat. In ARMA it turns into a rusty iron tire. That's lame. Generally every destroyed vehicle uses the same annoying rusty vehicle overlay texture. It looks stupid when you fire at a car and then suddenly it turns rusty.

Do you understand the difference bet ween "looks" and "works"? Destroyed vehicles (after they explode and burn for a while) looks way better than OFP ones. Ever saw burned vehicle? Surprisingly looks "rusty" and not black.

But yes. I have to agree, that empty wheels are pretty silly looking when rusty and in OFP they worked and looked better.

[Heatseeker 0]

It seems like a new trend to depreciate current Arma flaws without looking at its future. How about a little positivity? Not being able to keep the car's horn pressed sounds very insignificant compared to all the new improvements... the way some people post makes it sound like there are no improvements whatsoever.

You can complain about the hw requirements but think about all the hours you can get from a game like Arma and its longevity, this is not splinter cell 21 or BF5362 play and throw away, the game offers so much and is so much larger and full of potential. Even if it was released early what makes you think it wont be patched? Maybe some of you werent around when OPF version 1.0 came out, How many bugs there were and how hw intensive it was back then? How much it was improved..

The comparisons betwean BIS and "comunity" work are simply ridiculous, sure many people created impressive work but overall not close to what BIS already had in... 2003/2004 let alone Arma, that can only be considered trolling.

Arma is finally out, soon it will be available worldwide, patches and tools will follow, imagine all that will be possible with the new engine, wheeled APC's, car class with missile mounts, multiple turrets, larger and more detailed environments, real water, more units and larger battles and all in incredible graphical quality.

I think the future looks bright, better than ever .

[Mr_Tea 0]

I hope for an official expansion, that will add a little more content and a new campaign maybe.

For ArmA`s performance, i must say i`m impressed.

It looks better and runs better on my system, than expected.

Arma mostly benefit from my new videocard with 512MB ram i think.

Very often no sound? With onboard sound, but not with a "real" soundcard.

Level of detail depends on the hardware you use. ArmA can look very good, but you need modern hardware to let it look good on you`re monitor.

Shure, there is much that need to be fixed. But many weird problems have vanished with the first patch.

[olemissrebel 0]

BIS doesn't create the game for you, they create it because they enjoy it, and to make money, so if you don't approve, don't play it.

"2. The fact that you can easily aim with the saw-249 using the quake crosshair while standing and easily hit targets is lame. It's completely arcade. There should be no such reliable shooting from the hip."

that is incorrect. i'm an infantryman in the US army, and can say for a fact the saw is at least decent in ArmA. it is used in CQB, and with reflexive fire drills just as much as the m4. it actually IS possible, although rarely done, to shoot from the hip, and it's really not that difficult, much less difficult to hit naything with the saw. then again, what would most of you know about military life other than through flashpoint and i do mean that in the nicest way possible

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Sure SAWs can be fired from the hip.

Damn I hate whingers. I could never go back to OFP after touching Armed Assault. If you've got nothing positive to say, go and write a petition or something. Or send PMs, stop cluttering these forums with your trolling.

This is like the third thread today in which people like yourselves with nothing better to do are vomiting up, much to the displeasure of those who actually like the game. Sheesh, so a few creases need to be ironed out. I'm running the game on a barely-recommended specs computer, it runs on 800x600 resolution, I get occasional lag, blah blah blah. Who cares? You don't see me whinging about it.

I don't know why there's a sudden outburst of spoilt brat mentality out in these forums, Flashpoint had many many many more bugs than Armed Assault, and it caused barely a stir because the game itself kicks ass. I reckon Armed Assault is in much the same mould, except people are complaining about things as mundane as "ah man, my soldier doesn't pull back the cocking handle of my M4 exactly as described in my downloaded US Army field manual." Sheesh, I jumped for joy when I saw that "Copperfield wave-of-the-hand" as it was so aptly put, at least the magazine from my AK buggered off.

I think I'm done here, I'm off to knock out that campaign once and for all.

[bangtail 0]

Sure SAWs can be fired from the hip.

Damn I hate whingers. I could never go back to OFP after touching Armed Assault. If you've got nothing positive to say, go and write a petition or something. Or send PMs, stop cluttering these forums with your trolling.

This is like the third thread today in which people like yourselves with nothing better to do are vomiting up, much to the displeasure of those who actually like the game. Sheesh, so a few creases need to be ironed out. I'm running the game on a barely-recommended specs computer, it runs on 800x600 resolution, I get occasional lag, blah blah blah. Who cares? You don't see me whinging about it.

I don't know why there's a sudden outburst of spoilt brat mentality out in these forums, Flashpoint had many many many more bugs than Armed Assault, and it caused barely a stir because the game itself kicks ass. I reckon Armed Assault is in much the same mould, except people are complaining about things as mundane as "ah man, my soldier doesn't pull back the cocking handle of my M4 exactly as described in my downloaded US Army field manual." Sheesh, I jumped for joy when I saw that "Copperfield wave-of-the-hand" as it was so aptly put, at least the magazine from my AK buggered off.

I think I'm done here, I'm off to knock out that campaign once and for all.  

So what, unless we want to sing it's praises we shouldn't post? Last time I checked, people are entitled to their opinions. You like the game, some of us don't (In it's current state)! Don't take it so personally. Everyone has an opinion and not everyone shares yours.

E

[Timblesink 0]

Sure SAWs can be fired from the hip.

Damn I hate whingers. I could never go back to OFP after touching Armed Assault. If you've got nothing positive to say, go and write a petition or something. Or send PMs, stop cluttering these forums with your trolling.

This is like the third thread today in which people like yourselves with nothing better to do are vomiting up, much to the displeasure of those who actually like the game. Sheesh, so a few creases need to be ironed out. I'm running the game on a barely-recommended specs computer, it runs on 800x600 resolution, I get occasional lag, blah blah blah. Who cares? You don't see me whinging about it.

I don't know why there's a sudden outburst of spoilt brat mentality out in these forums, Flashpoint had many many many more bugs than Armed Assault, and it caused barely a stir because the game itself kicks ass. I reckon Armed Assault is in much the same mould, except people are complaining about things as mundane as "ah man, my soldier doesn't pull back the cocking handle of my M4 exactly as described in my downloaded US Army field manual." Sheesh, I jumped for joy when I saw that "Copperfield wave-of-the-hand" as it was so aptly put, at least the magazine from my AK buggered off.

I think I'm done here, I'm off to knock out that campaign once and for all.

So what, unless we want to sing it's praises we shouldn't post? Last time I checked, people are entitled to their opinions. You like the game, some of us don't (In it's current state)! Don't take it so personally. Everyone has an opinion and not everyone shares yours.

E

You don't like it, you don't like it, but we don't want to hear about it.

[bangtail 0]

I don't "not like it". I think it has incredible potential. At the same time, I don't want the forum to become a place where you can't voice a concern.

E

[Timblesink 0]

Whatever the case, "Troubleshooting" is hardly the topic to post stuff like this in.

[Placebo 28]

Pretty clear this isn't a troubleshooting thread, moving to General........

[craigsa 0]

BIS doesn't create the game for you, they create it because they enjoy it, and to make money, so if you don't approve, don't play it.

?? Are you kidding ? Actually without players like ourselves BIS would not have even attempted to make AA. Profits only come afterwards.

[456820 0]

Personally i much prefer Ofp over ArmA in its current state - that doesnt mean i wont change my mind but currently give me a copy of ofp anyday.

Yes there are many improvements including graphics, animations effects etc but there are also many downsides along with them.

The graphics and units all seem to have a kind of 'cartoony' feel weather or not this will be sorted out with addons is unsure at the moment.

There are also many bugs much like when ofp was released we cant quite call that buggless can we? But patchs will over time take care of all the bugs.

[Soldat32 0]

As an Airborne Infantryman in the U.S Army I have to agree with olemissrebel on what he has said.

And god do I dislike hearing a lot of the whining of civillians who play OFP/Arma that have never fired most of these weapons if any in the real world.Whining about things like recoil.Well people recoil does exist Im here to tell you.And as for firing any weapon from the hip?What a complete waste of ammunition.

The only flaw I have noticed so far in armed assault though is the troops depicted in it wear Army ACU camo yet the officers and some NCO's in the game wear Marine caps.What is up with that?Marines have their own digicam they dont wear ACU.:D

Oh and that viewpoint in the truck...yes its too high but just wait mods will fix much.Cant wait for all the beautful things that will be coming.

Other than that so far so good.

As far as OFP.Yes I still do play it all patched up with Mods as well.Hey its a classic and great stuff is still being released for it.

[frederf 0]

The game is clearly missing a lot of polish and "common sense" things that would jump right out at you if you took the time to comb over the whole game. Heck I could've written a 50 page report on all the little things to readjust if BIS would have given me a copy and a month to work on it.

My conclusion is that the game will be good, once the polishers get to it (read: us). I do not think BIS had the leisure to review and hone their work for 3-4 months, or the final product would have been better. I don't want to say "rushed" but then again that's what I'm hinting at. I assume that BIS didn't have any extra time for lolligagging and it shows.

The only reason I say this is that while playing ArmA, any beta- or play-tester with half a brain would've picked out lots of the flaws and niggles.

As far as performance goes I'm continually surprised at how well it performs. Yes, the high detail models load slow quite often. Yes the AI is still lacking, it's unfortunate because a great AI would make the game 10x better. It has been improved and it's a very difficult field to work in (especially within performance/time constraints). I'm going to take the 'it's mildly better' kinda understanding approach.

[somebloke 0]

Do bear in mind that the English version/other versions will be out in a few months, by which time i'm sure a few fixes/patches/other things will have been created.

[Shadow NX 1]

I think it would help to know what BIS would say about these complains.

---

In other words even a lil statement would do, or ( i doubt it though ) even a 1-2 hour chat with 1-2 developers where we could have a Q/A session.

---

Think about it BIS, probaly they think its unproffessional but i think people would love to see theyre taken seriously and it always show that developers really care if have a bit time for the people that buy and most important keep their product alive and intresting with addons, mods and missions... cause seriously where would OFP be today without all the awesome addons created?

As we say here "the customer is the king" ( yeah im a salesperson... is that obvious? )

The more i play the campaign the more i like ArmA but damn it has moments where i just think even in old OFP that would have worked better... insane wayfinding for example...

Nothing more annoying than AIs that cant even drive their Hummvee on a flat road without killing civillians or smashing into walls every second crossroad.

Theres so many lil things that sum up and overshadow all the positive new things, at least for me.

I dont consider that as whining... i just state that i as a customer wish to get a at least 90% working product and also that i think it would benefit everyone here if BIS took a lil of their time to give the community some answer on what will stay and what will be fixed.

Best example is the choppers, even if BIS loves that current flight model if 90% of the players hate it they should consider changing it.

All i want is to make sure ArmA keeps the OFP fanbase and attracts more people and atm i cant really recomment ArmA to everyone.