official complaint to BIS

[max power 21]

My original point stands though that BIS don't seem to have what it takes to make a game on their own.

Past releases should have given them the experience to get this game out in a more smooth fashion.

The past experiences you say? Like the ones that lead to the severence of the relationship with codemasters? Do you think they weren't trying hard enough to get a global publisher? I don't think your point does stand. I don't agree, at least.

Znashin has a very good point regarding the state of the industry now compared to 5 years ago, especially in terms of niche games. None of us were privy to the conversations between BIS and their potential publishers. Two things seem to be at work, though. BIS seems to be finicky about the amount of control they have over their finished product, and major publishers don't seem to want to take a chance unless they have a lot of control or the product is very commercial from the get-go.

I would imagine that some of the state the game is in has to do with that. I would also imagine that the early emergence of ArmA has some financial- or apropos of this topic, 'resources based'- reason (such as getting a big green shot in the arm to continue the project), and that their development schedule also has some financial or resources based reason.

I don't think any developer really has the clout to go it alone. Most of the 'independent' games on steam were mods to existing games that were snapped up by valve or weird minigames that didn't require a large team to get out the door.

I agree that it's not an ideal state of affairs but I don't agree that it could have been any different, and I certainly don't agree that codemasters were responsible for OFP being awesome.

[Paco454 0]

Last time I looked, my OFP had codemasters plastered all over it.

I was happy then.

Things seem to have gone to hell since.

Codemasters, remember DICE, he was the heart of that group, however big business took over, he left and went to EA. Codemaster wanted to change everything and wanted a big slice of the pie. BIS wasn't going to let the publisher rule the game as so many titles have been butchered to meet demands of the publisher. An example of one title which was almost totally rewritten to satisfiy the publisher was Flatout. Almost half of the features which were on the drawing board were cut. Publishing PC games today is big business in the US and publishers want the piece of the pie but they also want more, way more. Thats why BIS has always stated "we are gamers and we make games for gamers and not publishers."

In my view, Codemasters was good when DICE was there, but now they just plain suck!

PACO454

[BraTTy 0]

I have taken the time to make a small web page for all BIS complaints.

Lol ...where can I complain about the complainers

Sniperskull...your tagline is referring to some long time friends.I don't want anybody banned

Balschoiw..you should be ashamed wearing that VIP tag!

[CanadianTerror 0]

Quote[/b] ]we are gamers and we make games for gamers and not publishers

I think you lose a bit of the gamer when you start making them. What "gamer" would put out a product for other gamers that isnt done and then ignore them for months?

My last word ever on this is one that has been mentioned before and "probably" would have stopped most of the bitching if not all.

...an official word from BIS not defending the state of the game but just telling people what they were going to do to fix it up (make it stable and playable with no CTD). This may (or may not) get rid of the heresay and the guesswork.

That way people could get back to bitching about a lack of units, why the army is half marine and uses half cold war equipment and has bad flight controls.

[Paco454 0]

Quote[/b] ]we are gamers and we make games for gamers and not publishers

I think you lose a bit of the gamer when you start making them. What "gamer" would put out a product for other gamers that isnt done and then ignore them for months?

My last word ever on this is one that has been mentioned before and "probably" would have stopped most of the bitching if not all.

...an official word from BIS not defending the state of the game but just telling people what they were going to do to fix it up (make it stable and playable with no CTD). This may (or may not) get rid of the heresay and the guesswork.

That way people could get back to bitching about a lack of units, why the army is half marine and uses half cold war equipment and has bad flight controls.

I could not agree more, well put.

PACO454

[Paco454 0]

I have taken the time to make a small web page for all BIS complaints. the point of this web page is for BIS to track all the of the complaints/dislikes/bitching/moaning, all on one web page. you may view the web page from the flowing web page url.

BIS Complaint tracker.

Thanks,

Sniper Skull

Useless dribble and not to mention intentionally spamming the thread.

Reported.

PACO454

[shinRaiden 0]

I trump your report with the fact that this thread should have been aborted on the first post due to the complaints already covered in a variety of posts not searched by the poster. Therefore the entire thread was spammy from the start.

[sniper pilot 36]

Quote[/b] ]First of all it would be Marek who would answer the questions, not Suma.

Ondrej is the one leading the ArmA dev team. Marek is working on G2.

At least they are still working on Game 2!

We can all argue what the problem is and such and such, but what we need to do is find a solution!

I think they are spending way to much time on these new vehicles and weapons. I mean seriously here is what the priority list should look like from my point of view:

1) Bug fixes

2) Release of the Mod Tools

3) Engine fixes

4) All the other stuff

-Sure we have alot of bugs, but I belive BIS is competent and will eradicate most of them before Q2 starts.

-What we need after that are the mod tools, cause ill tell ya now OFP wasn't as fun as it is now without the addons!

-Then comes the Engine fixes (non bugs):

For one the Death animations, and how they complete the animation that they are doing before they die (i cant tell you how much i waste ammo on a guy thinking hes still alive only to realize he was just standing up to die...

HDR, and other engine oddities should come next.

So I think some of us are having a cow over nothing...or they are ingrates. I think all of us want this game to succeed.

Remember this game would of been much less. My message to BIS: Your still the best game developer ever IMO. Just work on your priorities and we should have the best game of all untill G2 comes.

Thanks for reading!

[sluggCDN 0]

Quote[/b] ]Just work on your priorities and we should have the best game of all untill G2 comes.

cannot agree more! Although there are a number of bugs that are real show stoppers (and I wined about them over and over again) I still believe ArmA IS A GREAT GAME !without Codemaster! or any other distributor who would turn it into another XBOX360 "porn" title. I bow before BIS for courage to go alone and do what they believe is right. They got the right direction yet need to prioritize and pay attention to details like again the OFP animation issue brought up by Sniper Pilot in the previous reply. Issues like this should have been figured out in the first stages of development. Otherwise you get the impression the devs lack professionalism. How can one have years of experience of developing a title and then introduce the same mistakes into its sequel.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Balschoiw..you should be ashamed wearing that VIP tag!

And that is why ?

Is this some kind of "either with us or against us" nonsense ?

So everyone who actually spaks out of what he thinks about the Arma release and the the BIS info policy is only acceptable as long as he sings along the choir of praisers ?

[maxqubit 1]

The proper way to do it would have been to finish the game ...

Imo you are never 'finished' with a game like ArmA. Take the AI, what is a finished state?

The strength AND the weakness of ArmA is that it has no limits. It wants to do everything (grass, swimming, bridgecrossing, cqb, ai, heli sim, team commanding, you name it)

I like ArmA, but i would agree it doesn't feel like a finished product ... but will it ever be a finished product?

Buying/playing ArmA you have to accept to some extend this unfinished/onging status of the product ... that could be hard to market for gamers who e.g. are used to the very polished state of e.g. RS:Vegas on 360

Of course a game can become unplayable if there are too many 'bugs', but for me, it is enjoyable nonetheless (albeit i'm only doing single player and mission editing)

So, you either play it now or when it bugs;) you too much, wait for a later version and hope for the best. I certainly hope the 505 release will be acceptable for the whole community and act as a basis to go on with this unique game/platform

[sickboy 13]

I have to revise my opinion and standpoint a little

Latest info I got in is the following:

As it seems... The current ArmA Publishers are only 3-4 men Companies. It also seems that at Morphicon there was only 1 guy that was handling ArmA, they didn't even have a proper testing arena....

As it seems, BIS does not want to be fucked over again like they were with Codemasters, and as such they choose these kinds of small Publishers in which it seems that BIS keeps the higher hand in controling the releases. The reason why 505 release is late is simply that a game cannot be released within a few weeks, and the 505 publisher was only established very late, which would explain the late-release

So in short, it really does seem that BIS tried/decided to get ArmA Released before x-mas in GER/CZ for the x-mas money...

And the ENG release is simply late because the publisher was taken in so late...

It also seems that there was only very small testing, mainly inhouse BIS, and a couple of single-pc tests at the Publishers, this would also explain why the performance bug with the protection system was only noticed at the day of release (It also seems that BI didn't even test 100 players, but simply thought '64 players on the xbox version? Then we will probably be able to take 100 on the pc version' )

The idea isnt bad at all, and it's getting more common for developpers to deal with small Publishers that only arrange the Advertisement and getting the game out. However now its only up to BI, no publisher with power (deadlines) and hard Quality Assurance guidelines....

But to my best guesses... BIS is too small to handle all this at once and the result you see; many bugs at the release and the need of many patches to work this out...

This simply changes my view on the situation, but in the end I still don't really mind because i'm having great fun with the game every day, enjoy editing/scripting a lot with it, and simply know that there will be updates coming out solving most if not all of the bugs and even add features!

For me ArmA brought back all it's money (€100) already bigtime (€35 for the game, €50 for the Diesel, driving from Holland to Czech and back at the release day, and €15 for food and drinks )

[charliereddog 9]

Kudos to you Sickboy for releasing the information which contradicts what so many are saying (you included).

Its always amused me that the 2 excuses trotted out in all the complaint threads are 1) OFP was much worse and 2) BIS will fix it.

1) This is relevant how?

2) BIS may well fix it, but they don't have to. Imagine if they said, "ah well, game 2 to concentrate on now. Can't devote the resources to fix ArmA since we're only a small team blah blah blah". Love to see the fanboy reaction to that.

[sickboy 13]

Quote[/b] ]Kudos to you Sickboy for releasing the information which contradicts what so many are saying (you included).

NP, fair is fair, we all handle with the details available and the rest we leave up to our imagination I just don't like discussions where everyone is just guessing all around while harming a party, while no-one actually knows for sure what the details are

Its always amused me that the 2 excuses trotted out in all the complaint threads are 1) OFP was much worse and 2) BIS will fix it.

1) This is relevant how?

2) BIS may well fix it, but they don't have to. Imagine if they said, "ah well, game 2 to concentrate on now. Can't devote the resources to fix ArmA since we're only a small team blah blah blah". Love to see the fanboy reaction to that.

1) Is relevant because if OFP was much worse, then ArmA is better and there has been progress, I would see this as something positive, altough not that relevant.. true

2) History shows us that BIS has taken care of their games in the past. Their game is still played after 5 years... which is of coarse not only the result of supporting your game for long, but still. I would rather believe, due to history, that ArmA will be as good supported in terms of fixes/updates, as OFP. And I do not think that they will throw support overboard in the next few days/weeks and leave us for dead until Game 2 comes out... (Would also be very harmfull for BIS of coarse aswell!!

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

that is all why I am so angry:

BI / Morphi released unfinished shit and took the full price.

If ArmA would be given/sold to me as an unfinished demo, declared like that - fine

BUT THEY DECLARED GOLD.

Anyone claiming here and now that ArmA 1.02 would get GOLD would accept everything.

But contract is contract. Even if some strange guys here trying to tell me I can not expect more for 42€, that is your thing, on my CD cover was not written " buggy shit, only half of the features are working".

Quote[/b] ]

Edit: you HAVE to stop thinking of ArmA as anything more than a game. To do so would build false hopes of attaining information or privellages that will never be granted to you.

@DeadMeatXM2

Was just an offer from my side, I am not eager to do that, but BI is not willing/able to do that.

That you think I do not have the right to get a proper documentation of a SW shows that you have a total sick mindset. If you say it is usual to deliver SW without doc I agree, but not that it is correct. A product is HW+SW+Documentation. Here no HW, but if doc is missing the delivery is not complete because I can not use the SW funtionality 100%.

If you have lower expectations - your problem, I want to have what I payed for.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Yea, Except that OFP was alot better. Remember that OFP was a 2001-game. I don't think I ever had any CTD issues with OFP. There was alot of desync, though - but they fixed it and they eventually had a pretty stable dedicated server software for OFP:Res... Why didn't they use their experience from them to get their priority straight? They lost unbelievebal many sales and got slammed by various magazines to release such an unfinished job as OFP.

Back them people were felling - ah, well... It might have been codies who forced them. Now they did it again, only worse but with noone else to blame. Pretty sad, really.

They initially and throughout development have stated that their main focus is multiplayer... And it still looks like they haven't tested it yet. No proper dedicated server software in 2007, lol) - it simply keeps crashing.

Anyway, I lost words for how incredible stupid that is. I'm just gonna await some fixes that might make what I hoped arma to be... (A simple stable OFP 1.5 with multiple gunner pos and JIP that's all I wanted ;-) ). Oh, and some editing tools so we can finish the game once again.

[sickboy 13]

BI / Morphi released unfinished shit and took the full price.

If you have lower expectations - your problem, I want to have what I payed for.

The game isn't half finished, there are just many bugs

And you get what you have paid for.... Look at all Windows versions, had crazy many bugs, especially at release, altough with XP it was a bit less I think... and Vista seems to even do better, still these are products of 250 euro retail price, they get updates every week or month, and this is Microsoft we're talking about, huge huge huge

In the end, you get what you paid for, your game will be patched and the bugs will be fixed, so for now you maybe paid 42 euro for a game that has many bugs, but these bugs will be gone in a matter of weeks....

It has been a bit quiet after the v1.02 release, but the v1.05 is hanging at our doorstep, you can't expect every single thing to be fixed in this release, but many things are, look for instance to the demo changelogs

I know it might be unfair that there was not a "Product under continues development and improvement" sticker, I give you did... but you will get what you have paid for, simple as that!

Quote[/b] ]Anyway, I lost words for how incredible stupid that is. I'm just gonna await some fixes that might make what I hoped arma to be... (A simple stable OFP 1.5 with multiple gunner pos and JIP that's all I wanted ;-) ).

Which is highly probably what you will get anyway...

We can run with 22 players rock-solid playing 1 coop mission for 5 hours btw, I guess your crash-experience is mainly with 60+ players or?

========

BTW Can we all agree that argueing with eachother about these matters every day since release day 11 November, is somehow a bit... downletting/to cry about/unproductive? All I have been saying in the meantime is why waste our time on this, it doesn't change anything, you only get even less-happy faces, shitloads of guessing, hoping, etc. etc. to what end??

Why can't ppl just leave it for what it is and 'wait and see', or send an email to the appropriete channels?

How many threads have now been made & filled with ongoing complaining and near-flaming to eachother without real result?

Telling us (The other Customers/The Community) every day, in anger, that you paid 42 euro for a game that is unfinished in your eyes is getting boring and dull

And I surely can't understand why ppl wouldn't want to use their time differently, but that seems to be only me who's thinking that

[charliereddog 9]

Quote[/b] ]2) History shows us that BIS has taken care of their games in the past. Their game is still played after 5 years... which is of coarse not only the result of supporting your game for long, but still. I would rather believe, due to history, that ArmA will be as good supported in terms of fixes/updates, as OFP. And I do not think that they will throw support overboard in the next few days/weeks and leave us for dead until Game 2 comes out... (Would also be very harmfull for BIS of coarse aswell!!

History has also shown that Germany started 2 world wars. Should we all be looking in that direction for trouble next time? No. My point was simply that in the same respect people are saying "no-one forced you to buy it", BIS *Could* turn round and say the same thing. nb. I don't expect that to happen but I'm simply saying blind faith in anything is not a good thing.

[sickboy 13]

No. My point was simply that in the same respect people are saying "no-one forced you to buy it", BIS *Could* turn round and say the same thing. nb. I don't expect that to happen but I'm simply saying blind faith in anything is not a good thing.

Yes, history in business means a lot.... if I have been helped properly many many times in a certain computer shop, then I will buy my stuff mainly there because I know that next time I have a problem with my PC, they are there for me.... If I get helped badly a few times, I will probably start looking elsewhere...

Sure, it remains to be seen if BIS will patch the game as much as or as good as OFP, but I do have faith in that, if you have not, that's your choice, but you don't have to tell me everyday about it

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

lol sick!

You are also one of those telleing me what I am allowed to expect and what not.

Since expectations are a very personal thing humans invented long long time a go a nice but still tricky thing: THE CONTRACT.

Well, I have one with Morphicon telling me that I can play together with 99 others without problem. Ok, soft paragraphs, could mean that this works only 800x600 and 12 FPS. But atm not even that.

Then they claimed that I can edit extensivly missions and addons.

Now they are obliged to tell me how.

Buy a car for 63.000€, if there is no manual for Navi, Radio, whatever you don`t need to pay the full price cause you can`t use it.

And comparing one shit with another bunch of shit doesn`t help to improve anything, it just shows whats usual.

If BI/Morphi asked even only 1€ for the game I do not care, contract is contract, it is their business to make a proper pricing and btw a few hundred bugs a year would be acceptable for me if I get the support and documentation that I expect.

[sickboy 13]

lol sick!

You are also one of those telleing me what I am allowed to expect and what not.

I'm not telling you anything, except my view and vision on it, and it's either a take it or leave it, your choice...

But I had it with these discussions, they simply never end, and i'm too stupid to think I can show ppl the light and make them stop wasting their and other's time by argueing between eachother (To no end), in the meantime i'm wasting time aswell

Sooo, have fun banging ur heads against the wall, bitching against other customers and walls all day long, i'll leave you boys to it

[Luciano 0]

Sickboy, your justification to argueing blindly doesn't fit with reality.

Here's part of my review. I didn't finish it as I want to make a big one to cover everything.

Arma- The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I anticipated this game for quite some time now. Back when the sequel used to be OFP2 and it had a “3 theaters†of operation theme.

I noticed that whenever somebody brings a negative point (yet still valid), they get countered with twice as many points that don’t answer the question, nor do they explain anything. Instead, they try to switch the blame to either the publisher, the player, or anything but BIS. I even heard comment as ridiculous as “This game is too good for its time, wait till 08â€.

So I won’t try to blame anyone, but I will simple state facts. They will deal with why I won’t buy this game in the near future, and will also argue many arguments that have no merit.

The Bad: No matter how much people try to hide it, the fact is ARMA was rushed, and in its state is nothing but a beta. So the facts are:

1. Arma was rushed

2. It contains more than the “standard†number of bugs you would find in most games out on the market

3. No proof of a beta test, in fact all evidence proves there was no such test

No matter how much we try to defend BIS, there is no denying that the customers deserved better.

Playability:

I don’t know how anybody could enjoy this game in its current state.

The single player aspects of the game are so poorly done, there’s no point in playing any mission, not even the campaign, which is a joke. Some people say that BIS made the campaign like that on purpose to show how war really is. Well great, only their missions are so ultra unrealistic, it puts Rambo to shame. The fact is such a campaign is very easy to make and doesn’t require a lot of work, so one more poof that BIS tried to get it done fast and poorly with the excuse “Well that’s how war is likeâ€. Only war isn’t like that at all. So unless you plan on making your own campaigns (You’ll run into AI bugs like having AA batteries that can’t shoot any airborne vehicles), there’s no point in playing. Also because of all the obvious bugs, I doubt any serious mission maker will try to make anything decent.

The multiplayer is so filled up with bugs, its basically unplayable. Unless all you play is coop. Only the problem is that no decent missions are out so your hopes are to rely on the community. We were told there will be servers supporting 100 people. Right. You’re lucky to play on a 40 men server without horrible lag. Because of all the bugs, playing online kind of sucks at the moment.

Besides graphics, there really are no improvements since flashpoint (playability wise). Bigger islands add different problems such as loading, so they don’t make things better at all.

……

[Thunderbird 0]

Since, having not tested ArmA yet, I can't put my grain of salt here, but according to the amount of negative comments and opinions about it, I think it would be nice that some people would be more indulgent towards BIS, I'm sure there are a lot of reasons behind the first bad step of ArmA, not that I'm trying to legitimate "the failure" but just look at the past few years and see how they improved OFP from its initial status.

Keep in mind that patience is a virtue, let them get a step further and help them instead of throwing rocks on them, basing myself on what I have seen so far, I'm sure they know what they do.

Regards,

TB

[-23rd-_2Lt_Griff 0]

My personal view is that BIS have made mistakes yes.

Some things that have happend over Arm A publishing make the consumers feel as if it was rushed, and poorly planned. We will never know the full reasons and stories behind the way they chose to release it the way they choose. All we can do is accept it was released the way it was.

Same goes for the bugs. I am angry over some of the bugs that have cropped up. However I must accept the fact the bugs are there and not winge about them. Instead I wait and, play the game as it is. I wait untill the patches slowly work through the bugs and polish the game.

Yes it is a rubbish thing to say, and the fact is, yes you have payed money for the game and expect it to work out of the box. All I can say to that is that, there is nothing we can do about it now, apart from put up with it, play the game, and let BIS sort out the problems.

Those who choose not to play the game, and leave the community, well thats a big shame, but we must learn to accept it and move on.

Basically a summary if you cant be bothered to read this post is, yes there are problems, accept it, enjoy the game for what it is now, and soon in the future, with the magic of pathing, we will enjoy the game even more for what it becomes.

[whisper 0]

The multiplayer is so filled up with bugs, its basically unplayable. Unless all you play is coop. Only the problem is that no decent missions are out so your hopes are to rely on the community. We were told there will be servers supporting 100 people. Right. You’re lucky to play on a 40 men server without horrible lag. Because of all the bugs, playing online kind of sucks at the moment.

I wonder how on earth did I play on MP ArmA with that many people, really.....