An open letter to the ArmA community.

[Hudson 0]

Steps i think BIS could do to improve the negative feeling to-wards ArmA.

1. Sort the frikkin engine out.

2. Sort the addons out and put the missing features in.

3. Release the modding tools so the "geeks" can get to work (this is probably the thing that would help ArmA the most)

4. Get your arses in the forum with news updates as to how things are progressing, whats planned to be fixed in the next update, what features your considering on adding.

5. Arrange a time where we (The community) can get on-line and have a chat with all your developers to discuss our likes and dislikes and what we would like to see added (I'm sure no-one would complain if you took a few hours out of a day to do this).

6. sack the frikkin twat who designed the ArmA Campaign and replace him with the one who designed Cold War and Resistance (If its the same bloke biotch slap him for doing such a poor job)

I find myself going back to OFP more each day

fubarno1, you echo alot of my feelings. About the only thing I could add is.

7. Fix the frickin multiplayer. OFP in my opinion is the greatest game ever made. I have spent more time with my OFP since 2001 than with my wife! It is very hard for me to see the bunny-hopper games like counter-strike and GRAW have 50,000 people playing and OFP 500. Please dont let this be the case with Armed Assault. ArmA dosent stand a chance when you screw up the multiplayer like it is. A joke of a dedicated server, no linux support, and a MP demo that has to have a hot-fix release just so hosts can get a dedi running. Oh and did I mention the most sought after mission in the demo is a server crasher? Please oh please stop killing off the potential multiplayer community. The hasty release of the MP demo was a very bad idea. The demo is not doing alot of good for potential american sales or going to help BIS find an american publisher.

I loved OFP and Im sure I will love ArmA one day, I just dont see that time being any sooner than at least 2 years. I dont see BIS releasing the addon tools in the near future. Personally I think the sooner the better. I cant imagine anyone being satisfied with the vehicles ingame currently. Releasing the tools to the community now will only help the game in the long run. People want to play with vehicles and modpacks that add all the extra bells and whistles that they love, the ones BIS dosent have time to code. Having mod teams start work now will give a nice base of units to be played with at the time of the 505 release. Importing our old toys from flashpoint into ArmA wouldnt take that long. In a couple months we could be seeing some very nice work released.

Quote[/b] ]4. Get your arses in the forum with news updates as to how things are progressing, whats planned to be fixed in the next update, what features your considering on adding.

5. Arrange a time where we (The community) can get on-line and have a chat with all your developers to discuss our likes and dislikes and what we would like to see added (I'm sure no-one would complain if you took a few hours out of a day to do this).

This is one of the major things bugging me. Although I have to say I have seen Maruk and Suma posting these past two weeks. When there where problems in flashpoint we didnt have to have threads 10-50 pages long before we got a response from a developer. Right now there is so much speculation and rumor milling going on that nobody but the developers really knows whats what. I really like your idea in your fith point. This could help repolish the image of BIS loving thier community, and give us a real idea of whats going on. At the very least weekly or bi-weekly interviews with some of the major ArmA news websites. Just please BIS give us a bone or two every now and then.

[S.O.S 0]

Dont you have some trees to hug?

...but this forum has gotten so bad that i don't even wanna mod this game. < sadly im not alone on that one.

Sorry for continuing off topic but I have to say this to Sniper Skull:

You are definitly one of these guys which make these forums disgusting and: "sadly im not alone on that one. "

Your ignorant, selfish and a victim of your own missing ability not to be able to take critizim - something went wrong/is missing in your childhood. Maybe Maybe.

But at least you count to these kind of humans which accept anything even if it seems to be truely wrong, better lets not come to politics with someone like you.

@Thread author: Maybe request for cleaning your thread a bit.

[franze 196]

S.O.S, please take it to PM.

Keep it on topic from here on, please.

[oyman 0]

You's all's wrong's here's, Sniper's Skull's is's right's, you's guy's just's need's to's harden's up's.

[shinRaiden 0]

I'd post what I think of the whining, ignorant, and utterly incapable trolls infesting these boards, but even sniper_skull might be surpised at the lengths I'd suggest they go with concrete boots and swimming. In fact, if get time to do any ArmA modding, the first thing I'm going to do is make a concrete boots addon, scripted to set pos the player all the way down to Davy Jones, and dedicate to the glorious community.

Now to back up my point.

The principal matter of the initial post revolved around AI complications. First and foremost, BIS is trying to do something nobody else even attempts to do. I cite as Exhibit A : Flashpoint AI. Exhibit B I don't have a public link for, however if you have access to it, you will want to look the IEEE Computer magazine, December 2006 issue dedicated to Unmanned Autonomous Ground Vehicles.

Why do I bring that later item up? It's because the OFP and ArmA AI is attempting to navigate in the same functional manner. As you can see in Exhibit A, there is no pre-defined pathing in OFP or ArmA, aside from the simple path LOD's inside building for CQB sanity. For external navigation, the AI in both BIS's games, and the DARPA sponsored Grand Challenge participants, both use similar path construction methodologies.

The AI constantly scans an area of N radius around its location, attempts to identify objects that are marked as collisions to avoid, or hotzones preferred for vehicular travel. After processing the go/no-go zones, paths are then explored through them, hopefully working out a solution for the final destination.

Contrast this with so-called maps in all other games, which are more comparable in reality to what we term to be missions. The AI can not truely roam, rather they exist on fixed track paths. This is the case with face-cave shooters like those based on the id and Valve engines, and also pseudo-outdoor games like CoD and BF series. You don't see complaints about the AI doing weird things in those games, only complaints that they're repetitive and boring. This is because they lack the fundamental ability to make any sort of free decision processing and pathing.

Bohemia Interactive products, to the best of my knowledge, are the only FPS products to even attempt to allow that sort of high-level AI functionality in the product, let alone have it fundamentally control at the foundational level. Furthermore, BIS has implemented an FSM system, that properly trained AI professionals and researchers can use to implement advanced academic models in.

The arguements should actually be turned into two different and vastly more relevant topics, with the first being a high-level academic inquiry as to whether that model is indeed proper, scalable, and practicle on standard PC platforms. Second is that the complaints are actually about the parameters in the model, and attempts to blame the model when the defects may instead be more accurately attributed to the parameters within that model instead, is a misleading and unproductive arguement.

-------------------------

The next arguement takes aim at BIS's motivation and intent in product development. The assumption is made that BIS are ungrateful leechs looking to fleece the community's pocketbooks for their own lazy and nefarious motives.

These speculations are fueled by individuals not privy to actual BIS internal development and management information, and are based solely on their own speculation based on their own personal opinions, and are therefore subjected to all manner of unsubstantiated biases. They attempt to discern BIS's collective and individual motives solely by reverse-engineering the tea leaves as they drop.

This is an utterly futile activity, normally only engaged by those habitual whiners looking for a conspiracy theory to statisfy their insatiable and impatient cravings. By attempting to extrapolate BIS's attitudes from the reference point of the presumed observer, they myopicly blind themselves to alternative and potentially more valid suppositions by ignoring the consideration BIS's actual view points or their possibilities.

All we do know are snippets such as OFP->RES, extended dev for VBS, Announcement of a OFP2 with hints of a 4 period/region epic, massive re-engineering for Xbox, an all new Game2, disappearance of the original OFP2 info, an interim product (ArmA) that for marketing promotion reasons had the interim nature downplayed - but fairly so given the massive re-engineering introduced, and VBS2 being a blend of various components of the ArmA release branch and the on-going Game2 development trunk.

What I spy with my little eye that is no less subjective than anyone else's, is that BIS decided it was in everyone's best interest to release an interim product. One opinion is that what we're seeing is OFP's game 1, Game2 was the abortive OFP2 that became the re-engineered Xbox Elite, and we're seeing now in Arma an early version of what could be technologically considered Game3, or even 4. In other words, OFP would be like Quake, Xbox like Quake2, Arma like Quake3, and 'Game2' maybe like Quake4.

-------------------------

The author then continues to lambast BIS's release management as being entirely unacceptable. This being attibuted to a variety of bugs, defects, wish lists, and hyper-fidelity simulation requests being made between the initial release and the first two patches.

This on the surface is clearly deliberate, willful, and malicious belligerance. There is no excuse for this sort of attitude, as is clearly evidenced by OFP that BIS chose to continue free as in no-cost support development of patches and upgrades over the following couple years, adding in significant upgrades and enhancements going from the initial revision 1.00 to the latest revision of 1.96, then continuing development by radically re-engineering the fundamental engine even further.

The most severe and consistently reproducable problems that I've seen are solely due to the decisions of the publishers regarding the security systems of choice. Perhaps BIS could have been a more firm advocate for the community, ultimately however that decision was not theirs to make.

-------------------------

Finally, the last insult the author spews at BIS is suggesting that the new community Wiki resources are a sham excuse for suborning the community into gullible testing roles. A simple search of the content posted there, particularly the information posted earliest in the logs, reveals that BIS has not only released more technical info than they did for OFP in it's entirety, but also released that information before ArmA was released, as opposed to the lengthy and equally castigated delays in the data releases for OFP.

I'm not saying that the community is in any way obligated to BIS, I'm saying rather that they're abused if they release the content late, and insulted if they release it early, so what motivation or use is there to release the information at all, if it only to be used as a means to abuse BIS further? That's a clear cut case of biting the hand that feeds you out of sheer self-rightous arrogance.

-------------------------

The above summation of arguements is why I wholeheartedly agree with sniper_skull and wonder why the moderators are so excessively lenient in allowing this subversive and decisive attitude to spread unchecked throughout the forums and community. I understand that there are a great many 'new registrations', but the civility that sustained the community has been shot out the window by the incitement of an arrogant few.

[franze 196]

You's all's wrong's here's, Sniper's Skull's is's right's, you's guy's just's need's to's harden's up's.

oyman +1 WL for spamming. If you have something worth posting, then post. If you don't, keep away until you do.

[guerilla -MCY- 0]

first everyone is like "release date ? release release release" and then BIS do a early release, i guess 14 months after finishing with their xbox version and then you want them to wait for a bugfree gold version ? those of you remembering the vanilla ofp 1.0 know about the old bugs and the improvment and additional addons till 1.96. that history keeps me optimistic for all 2007 upgrades. i've got aswell alota ctd's, ctf is far away from what it used to be, where's the good old cti ? the controls are feeling like i would play a x-box game but still, i rather play a 70% finished ArmA than anythink else on the market and i got alot lastest mainstream games on my hd

[CanadianTerror 0]

Im still laughing at how biased Shin's post is.

You can sure tell who the company men are.

People have a right to comment/bitch about a buggy game that they paid for.

Its called "Being responsible for your product".

Thats what happens when you take their money.

Quote[/b] ]That's a clear cut case of biting the hand that feeds you out of sheer self-rightous arrogance.

Who feeds who exactly? Talk about arrogance.

[Jezza_NL 0]

As far as I'm concerned, the game is not worth the full-price I paid. However, I'm most willing to be compensated for through two things:

-The Flashpoint elite initiative, bringing the original CWC and RES campaigns including units into ArmA. These should be available for download completely free of charge.

-I'm expecting more patches that will take care of bugs and improve game-performance issues.

[Paco454 0]

Shin's post makes me feel like I should have gone to Yale harvard or maybe gravel Alberta. A dynamic use of words to spell out the "whatever". It doesn't make any difference. The in's and outs and critical, "moreovers" and insider "what is" and "what if's" and "what are's", it's not my intention nor is it my obligation to know this. As a person who has paid for this game, I expect better, I expect the game to be worthy of the hype that was handed to me. In no way was the game ready, in my view, for public release whether it was version game 2 or 3 or whatever high powered words you attach to it.

As I mention to JW, I said the WIKI was for use, the opinions of which are to be that of whomever see's fit to see as is, for me I concider it a "out of house method of reaching their goals at the expense of the gamer who buys it".

You make some valid points shin so I won't take that away from you but supporting sniper who has not contributed to this subject with anything meaningful and so to support him really sends a message who you really are are. Not to call your remarks long winded, but to call attention to your personal attack of my post through a long, winding, drag thur the bush, flip and rearrange of my post to make it appear your higher education is worthy of a higher hall montior staus and bias then anybody else's, only leaves a bad taste of, heavily peppered moldy cabbage it one's mouth.

My post is to the point, I was lead to believe the game was suitable for release and it's nothing more than a bug ridden piece of "Good art work", suitable for complaints, subject to questions about the movtivations of it's release. Thats the bottom line, your education and high powered words will never change that.

Dear BIS, it's clear I've opened a bigass can of worms here and I'm thankful my post has not been locked and this issue is being looked at, but I would like to say one thing, have faith in the community, were than more willing to help test but keeping information from us only results in questions and about motivations and then were subjected to long winded posts by highly educated college professors and minor flees when we complain, when all we want is straight forward answers. My question about multi joystick support is being avoided as prime example.

Let me make myself clear, I LOVE THIS GAME, I bought it and I support you. I wouldn't waste my time complining about if I didn't like it. I'd fight tooth and nail to make it better. I think what I'm trying to say is, BIS should've come to us, the community to help them instead pulling the wool over peoples eye's. I feel cheated. I certainly don't need a college professor and wandering flees, to tell me that.

Thankyou all again for responses,

PACO454

[froggyluv 2130]

First you want to sue BIS now you love the game - that'll hold up in court

Get over it bro - it's a computer game

[Sc@tterbrain 0]

The sad part is this thread has become one more example of lots of talk and speculation and NO answers from the people who can provide them.

It's quite obvious we have not only quite a few VERY dissapointed people, but also a few that defend BIS aggressively.

And so we argue and debate among ourselves the intentions and motivations of others (i.e. BIS).

And who have we NOT heard from?

I think its great we have a community that is so invested in something we all enjoy, but we don't have the answers!

Only BIS has the answers!

For me the lack of response leads me to feeling the future is grim for this franchise, and this company.

No comment = no future.

[Ironsight 1]

Shouldn't this topic get merged in here?

[raedor 8]

I guess it's better when you all accept Franze's decision and post related to the topic.

Every further post discussing Franze's decision here will result in WL/PR.

[kavoven 4]

I think Paco454 is right with his opinion. However, the most important point is BIS behaviour regarding the contact to the community.

I know some similar "Bug-Case" from Gothic 3, which came out in october. It was really buggy, had many performance issues and everybody was really screwed up, because the game lost it's original character. Many people were angry of beeing used as beta testers and so on... Might have been a copy of these forums.

But the developers then didn't hide, but had very intensive contact with the community. The first major patch was already available on the release day, and during the next 2 month the game became completly playable and they even fixed some of the performance issues so that people could run the game quiet smooth. And now it has been voted as the game of the year in the "PC-Games" (largest mag together with another one) and everybody says that it was really good that the developers were present in the forums and on the newssites.

And by standing up and only saying

"Ok folks, yes, we know, we made a pretty stupid thing and made many, many mistakes. Please accept our appologize, we will do everything we can and concentrate all our power on patching the game."

most people were calming down and the situation was much more relaxed.

But the only message we get from BI is that Placebo is leaving. Great.

So my solution would be:

1) One real appologize from BIS

2) The leaders of each part (graphics, sound, AI, mission design) should be present in the forums and tell people, were the exact problems are and what they're doing to fix them.

3) Tell everybody what they plan to do with the modding tools and when they think that they'll be released.

[sickboy 13]

Anyone ever thought about the fact that these are community forums, and nothing more?

How about support@bistudio.com support@idea-games.com support@morphicon.de and support@jrc.cz  or something for support on the game, questions answered etc. etc ?

Saves us discussing with eachother

[gonk 0]

I guess we still like the way OFP came about. Release a Demo very early... Take comments from the forum to improve and debug. release game and then mod tools. This one has been made like every other game. I am sure with time it will improve but it just does not feel the same...

[JRMZ 0]

OFP v1.0 wasn't really bugfree either folks.

Give feedback now and have a smooth running ArmA later.

That's the deal, take it or leave it.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Sigh...

What BI have done in their advertising and PR campaign is no different to what any other company does when selling their games. Infact BI uses purely ingame footage for their PR, unlike some games which use FMV for their advertising...

As for

Quote[/b] ]The hype before this game was released went back years in advance. BIS spent years, it appears, making the game. Plenty of time to do it’s work. One would think after years of development

I'll repeat myself for the billionth time..

Quote[/b] ]Wrong, wrong and wrong again.

Why does everyone automaticlly assume that ArmA development started the second BI was finished with OFP:R.

ArmA as we know it only really came into existance in late 2005, infact I'm more inclined to suggest that in its current state it probably didnt come into existance until early 2006.

Look at it like this: in mid 2005 (at E3 or whatever expo it was) BI announced ArmA. Look at the screenshots of ArmA back then, it was the OFP:E engine brought back to PC. Look at ArmA now, it's totally different and looks a bit like Game2 was starting to look like ~10 months ago. What can we deduce from this? We can deduce this: ArmA as it was when it was announced, is NOT the same ArmA as we have now. Therefore, ArmA we have now is <1 year old. Not bad when you consider the dev time for most other games (excluding the bullshit movie tie ins and all that other crap).

...

That's wrong.

ArmA got into development in early 2005.

It was presented at E3 2005 which was in May.

[sickboy 13]

i'll post it once more before my post ends up without being read and ppl continue rabbling

Anyone ever thought about the fact that these are community forums, and nothing more?

How about support@bistudio.com support@idea-games.com support@morphicon.de and support@jrc.cz  or something for support on the game, questions answered etc. etc ?

Saves us discussing with eachother

[Sc@tterbrain 0]

i'll post it once more before my post ends up without being read and ppl continue rabbling

Anyone ever thought about the fact that these are community forums, and nothing more?

How about support@bistudio.com support@idea-games.com support@morphicon.de and support@jrc.cz  or something for support on the game, questions answered etc. etc ?

Saves us discussing with eachother

Exactly my point with more options. I have sent my emails and await a response.

Weather or not I get one remains to be seen.

Individual emails in response to the questions at hand...not necessarily the best way to go...

[sickboy 13]

i'll post it once more before my post ends up without being read and ppl continue rabbling

Anyone ever thought about the fact that these are community forums, and nothing more?

How about support@bistudio.com support@idea-games.com support@morphicon.de and support@jrc.cz  or something for support on the game, questions answered etc. etc ?

Saves us discussing with eachother

Exactly my point with more options.  I have sent my emails and await a response.

Weather or not I get one remains to be seen.  

Individual emails in response to the questions at hand...not necessarily the best way to go...

That's very possible, but then setup a workgroup of ppl and a site where ppl can file complaints, bundle that and send that... it's at least better than dragging eachother out of the pub and start bashing eachother

[Sc@tterbrain 0]

Sickboy makes very good sense here.  We have made no progress bickering with each other.  

If your unhappy, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

The emails addresses are there.

Thank you sickboy for some rational suggestions.

[Delirium 0]

As I don't live in the BIS planet, as some of you obviously do, I have few seller - customer relationship questions from the real world:

1. What would you do if you bought a TV set that has a remote that when pressed button number 1 switches to 8 and next turns up the volume? Would you say that it is within warranty limits? Wouldn't you like to make a complaint everytime volume button swithes off the TV?

2. Has the Armed Assault pack had written on it "not fully enjoyable gamplay experience" and 50% off the price?

3. Considering complexity of PC component market, varied performance is acceptable but only to the point where it gets ridiculously usless. Top rig and only 20-30 FPS on low-mid detail which is basically pretty much the same the avarage PC out there.

4. I'd like to remind a case of COD2 advertisment and customer complaint that lead developer company to seize using pre-rendered footage as gameplay example. Would human played vehicle, pretending AI apply? Unfair practices?

5. Define the general purpose of the forums of any kind? Could it be communication, problems solving, support, new ideas sharing, general unrelated converation among people that share same interest (OPF, Arma) maybe?

Why do you so called "old date" forum members suppose that you have any better right to jugde what is right to say and what isn't? What makes you better than any other? I'd like to know, because so far, I see that you behave as some religious orthodox believer that will not allow any scratch on your Icon. As the original thread started there is sth wrong with this game. Why? Because, it is not as some of you say, that its developement started in 2005. Arma represents ideas, engine, its advantages and faults that were conceived far earlier than Arma. It wasn't developed from the 1st line of code in 2005. You can also add that BIS is some years richer in its developement experience. It f... should at least, because if it isn't that it was a complete waste of time. WIKI is no excuse of any kind for that matter.

Now, question is: Why would game developer in normal circumstances allow a release of a product that is not finished? And let's be clear about that: it is far from being a RC 1 product. Some of you say OFP wasn't better at it's release. SO?! Has it become a general practice for BIS, now? So, how is it going to be? Game 2 will be playable a year after a release, just because?

BTW,

I haven't seen a text on the box saying "if your game is unplayable it's your problem, sucker", have you?

Now some "brighter" ones may ask:"what do I come here and complain?" Here's the answer:

Because, I can stand when people with no dignity and self respect make other to think like that about themselves just because they feel like it. And this is exactly what is happening here. You are telling people that it is fair and right to be cheated out of their money for sth that supposed to be but it isn't. IF I'm buying a Porsche I don't expect to find a do-it-your-self-in-a-barn kit.

Now, see you all good people when it's playable again. I must say that the rest of you is a good fun to watch. Respect yourselves people.

I hope I was polite enough, huh? Happy new year!

[sickboy 13]

Quote[/b] ]Thank you sickboy for some rational suggestions.

NP

...

I can only refer to my earlier post m8, I understand what you mean, but blasting about it on a forum, against eachother... ain't gonna do anything good except trolls, flames and more trolls and flames I'm bad in reallife examples, but I guess it's understandable that taking it out on eachother isn't the way.. and doesn't do anyone good and actually in the end is all just a waste of time (just my pov! )

Old post:

Quote[/b] ]

i'll post it once more before my post ends up without being read and ppl continue rabbling

Anyone ever thought about the fact that these are community forums, and nothing more?

How about support@bistudio.com support@idea-games.com support@morphicon.de and support@jrc.cz  or something for support on the game, questions answered etc. etc ?

Saves us discussing with eachother

Exactly my point with more options.  I have sent my emails and await a response.

Weather or not I get one remains to be seen.  

Individual emails in response to the questions at hand...not necessarily the best way to go...

That's very possible, but then setup a workgroup of ppl and a site where ppl can file complaints, bundle that and send that... it's at least better than dragging eachother out of the pub and start bashing eachother

First stop could be a thread designed to acquire/harvest the facts, I think it should be written in a proper format,

predefined and included in the first post, which everyone should use as a template, including system and driver specs (everest could be used to generate a report)

last bit could be personal opinions and view, but let's try to keep our demands etc civil of coarse ..

This could aswell be built as a simple form website where ppl can fill the form and leave their views and e-mail address to sign it...Anyone else more ideas?

Happy friggin' New Year too btw