Why not have this?...

[sluggCDN 0]

BIS seemed to be making a great deal of emphasize on the realism aspects of the gameplay yet completely disregarded a number of special effects which greatly increase gameplay immersion? Here is just a few elementary things: shellshock/blurred vision, buzzing ears and partial loss of hearing due to shellshock, loss of balance due to shellshock, black-outs as a result of blood loss, "shaking camera" effect experienced by a player when being within close range to an explosion.

Some may say well it's too much of Hollywood, but... Rainbow Six has introduced these elements and it made such a difference. Little things like that can amazingly increase the sense of immersion when a players feels like he is right in the thick of it.

OFP fans will of course call it a blasphomy after reading it , I will use the example of how I got sucked into BF2 after playing its demo. I will mention right away I'm a mild "anti-BF2-er"; I'm Canadian but played OFP the day it was realesed in Europe, before the NA release, I ordered it at an insane price from the UK the day it came out. So don't call me a noob whose after simple gimmicks.

BF2 despite its many shortcomings has a great gammut of special effects: shellshock, shaking camera, "buzzing ears", blurred vision. I remember my first experience of BF2 clearly. I was pressed up against a wall, taking cover from an enemy apc that was pouring 30mm HE rounds into the opposite side of my cover. My screen was shaking madly, the vision was all blurry and I couldn't hear anything because of the pounding noise created by explosion and shellshock. Now, I played quite a few game titles, but this was the first time I experience anything like this. I was literally taking cover behind my monitor feeling like I'm about to be torn into bits. This experience was what made me buy BF2. I look back at it as one of the "greatest" virtual combat moments I've ever had. Considering all this, how is it that BIS failed to see the potential of these gameplay elements, leaving ArmA as sterile as OFP ever was in this respect? The sense of immersion or the lack of it is what makes a title shine or fail. Introducing them into ArmA won't mean mimicking BF2 - this is a stock set of effects of any respectable FPS title this days and should be a standard.

Anywho something to consider for BIS in the upcoming patches?...

[froggyluv 2133]

Is something burning?

Oh, before you get flamed to death here by the defenders of All Things Sacred OFP, you have to remember that different aspects of games produce immersion for different people. Theres nothing wrong with the fact that BF2 does it for you, but they'll never do it for me. Some of those effects are cool, but they never upped the believabilty factor, kinda like candy for the eyes. To me, immersion happens from thoughtful, tactical planning and execution. From an unexpected 'crack' of a rifle and dirt kicking up near my person or stalking an enemy camp in the dark for 20 minutes before I make my move. Realism is immersion.

As far as shellshock, blurred or impaired vision or hearing, many modders have implented these effects quite well, SLX and WGL to name a few and they are surely coming to an ArmA near you.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

Yes, don't worry, what you want will eventually be available

as a mod like it was in OFP.

[Heatseeker 0]

Why not have everything?

My guess is time, they have put Arma together in a very short period and most of us will place BIS up and high but their team is not that large and i believe they have worked hard to get this far (and fortunetly still do).

Why no shellshock effects? Why no aircraft carriers? why no animals? We could make a very big list here but the answer is the same, not enough time.

Taking a good look at how Arma turned out im still surprised at how far it got, in some aspects i might have expected more but overall it blew my expectations away.

5 years after OPF nothing came close, now thats something to wonder about..

.

[CanadianTerror 0]

Quote[/b] ]I got sucked into BF2 after playing its demo

Quote[/b] ]This experience was what made me buy BF2

Quote[/b] ]I remember my first experience of BF2 clearly

Quote[/b] ]BF2 despite its many shortcomings has a great gammut of special effects

Quote[/b] ]Introducing them into ArmA won't mean mimicking BF2

My eyes are bleeding.  

[ck-claw 1]

From an unexpected 'crack' of a rifle and dirt kicking up near my person or stalking an enemy camp in the dark for 20 minutes before I make my move. Realism is immersion.

Hit the nail on the head!!!

[zee-ub00r-assi 0]

i totally agree that these effects would be really cool (and , to some point , immersion-increasing) , but they are not needed now ... arma does have enough immersion for me now .

example : made a quick spec ops mission , infiltration by boat , west of arcadia , i had some smaller squads and two-man groups patrolling in this area (thx to kronzky's amazing patrol script)

so , lil me was stepping thorugh the woods , grabbing my binocs every 50 meters ... since the area was huge and i didnt know where the enemy was , i got less patient and finally just kept running ... but out of the nothing an rpg came out of a group of bushes and extactly hit my medic ... gnarf ... seemed that a bigger squad found me ... we got totally f****ed up ..... the surprising thing : they came from behind ... they somehow managed to flank me ...

i think the AI increases immersion much ... not the AI of a single enemy , but the collective behaviour of them .

as far for theeffetcs ... i did not play ofp (only the demo) , but from what ive seen , the community seems to be great and well see many mods ...

[nephilim 0]

those blackouts and bleeding and whatever youve posted

has already been done for ofp...

fancy things like a blurry vision might be possible with arma.

but in ofp they werent due engine limitations.

[sluggCDN 0]

Quote[/b] ]I got sucked into BF2 after playing its demo

Quote[/b] ]This experience was what made me buy BF2

Quote[/b] ]I remember my first experience of BF2 clearly

Quote[/b] ]BF2 despite its many shortcomings has a great gammut of special effects

Quote[/b] ]Introducing them into ArmA won't mean mimicking BF2

My eyes are bleeding.  

CanadianTerror,

I'm sorry, did I embarrass somebody here or irreversibly damaged somebody's fragile sensitivities?.. tight lips and inner-beauty is what really does it for u I guess...

I sense constructive criticism isn't taken lightly in these quarters. I always had a feeling that BIS often concentrates on things that aren't that important and loses track of things that do matter. I won't argue the immersion is a subjective notion, but, I myself get a kick out of stocking an objective for hours before I finally strike. That's why I still play OFP and uninstalled BF2. But I also do believe that when a grenade goes off 10 feet away from my character certain things should happen in the gameworld around me, besides just a little puff and a few pieces of flying debrie sprites. BIS shouldn't be leaving it to the modders. How about instead of putting all that time into the absolutely disfunctional implementation of recoil and floating aimpoint (and leaving them as in OFP or FFUR2007) BIS would spend their resources on introducing the gameplay elements that are essential to a true combat simulation. Besides if u talk to ppl who ever held a weapon in their hands and tried ArmA they'd tell you aiming and recoil are not realistic in ArmA. So why not sweating doing something else. To sum it up why not putting aside things that will most likely be a flop and realizing things that are simplier, but overall will have a greater effect on the gameplay.

Going back to the sense of immersion and eye-candies, you can't just leave that much to player's imagination. I don't care about wild life or lag-producing grass which is just a pain at its current state. Or how about flies and butterflies in the game, - all that and no such elementary thing as shellshock effects. When you get engaged do you real pay that much attention to the grass or butterflies (I guess u should because as far as AI is concerned the grass doesn't exist) - no, you are busy dodging bullets and everything that comes with it. So why not developing more in the area that essential to combat simulation and lossing the eye-candy butterflies. I'm not even talking about the Harrier thing - introducing a VTO plane in to the game without the VTO feature. How many planes are there to choose from? But no, it's too simple, BIS wants a VTO plane that can't take off vertically. How about that?.. Are we supposed to imagine that we can take off vertically, but instead we just choose to take the runway? Gripping! I'm on the edge, got to plan that one out! 

[sluggCDN 0]

u see this is the thing - if the feature was already done by modders in OFP and it's a great features why hasn't BIS had it in ArmA? The fact that it's been done by modders and was received with applause by the community is enough reason to introduce it in ArmA, isn't it?

[CsonkaPityu 0]

It would be nice if arma supported such effects, but then it would only be good if these effects were realistic (to me atleast ). Blur should last long and should affect AI too (would need it's own animation sequence for "bumbling around disorientedly").

What such effects need to be accompanied by is deafness, like for example if you fire a machine gun for too long then... well think back to Saving Private Ryan, on the beach, everytime a mortar round hits near our valiant hero he goes deaf. The same effect only a bit longer would be useful.

If an abrams fires anywhere next to you your hearing should be "thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" for a looong time...

Quote[/b] ]I sense constructive criticism isn't taken lightly in these quarters.

Aah, don't worry about it it's just there's a group here that takes every opportunity to pick on BF2. It's a habit.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

While I must say that some things were made differently from OFP ( i.e. the infamous lack of inside views in vehicles, lag-inducing map view, amongst others), and some features remain to be implemented (walking on moving surfaces, partially destructible buildings, etc), I sure hope that ArmA will become in the future what everybody expects it to be... But with regards to eye-candy, if BIS won't do everything, I guess you can count on mods to bring it on as they have done for OFP in the past...

[shinRaiden 0]

Your odd use of the moniker "Special Effects" for what you demand as "Ordinary Effects" places your whole insatiable complaint on dubious standing.

To quote the Wiktionary,

Quote[/b] ]... carefully considered and meant to be helpful ...

is not evidenced by your whining and demanding complaint.

In the first place, you state

Quote[/b] ]BIS seemed to be making a great deal of emphasize on the realism aspects of the gameplay yet completely disregarded a number of special effects which greatly increase gameplay immersion?

If in fact realism is your intended purpose, you would make even a half-assed effort to cite credible academic studies of virtual representations of psychological and physiological stresses, loads, and sensations. Citing the random video game in no ways lends credibility to either the game cited, or the request tendered, as to the veracity of the claims.

Secondly, you're hijacking the topic you started and trying to cover with FUD fair rebuttals of your complaint. If you have a complaint about the harrier, stick it in that thread if you have anything productive to add. Same with weapons handling etc. Except that everything that could be said in terms of complaints has been, so shotgunning them all here while trying to cover up a tired old BF trolling is by all means fair game for rebuttals.

But the most important point overlooked here, is that if BIS were to satisfy every last request from every end abuser, then it would cease to be a modders game and only be a players game. That would ultimately destroy everything that the entire legacy has stood for. There are any number of ways that you the gamer can modify the product to add in yourself the functionality you insist on.

I'm sure both the community and BIS would appreciate it and pay some attention if you productively explained what you wanted to see, why it matters from a reality perspective, and how to simply implement.

Otherwise,

[deanosbeano 0]

Would be nice to see some features like shell shock and buzzing from the devs thats a fair comment, but there are lots of more important things like a good campaign and decent fps etc that need to come first.

i hate to say it but i am sure the community will add whats needed

and if they add something that is not needed ,well it will be on the archive section in some community site ,should the need arrise for it in future maps.

realism ,realistic,lifelike or simulated realism ?

some people mix up the meaning of these words and others take advantage to the nth degree in order to rubbish any idea that a game could ever possibly become more realistic by means of simulated realism.imo this has quashed some very good ideas and debates ,people should be careful what they rubbish and remember that from little acorns do great oaks grow.

[Heatseeker 0]

I only noticed now since someone mentioned it, yes it would be ok but i cant say i really miss these effects.

Arma already is one of the largest oaks that im aware of .

BF2 has these good effects but what else does it have? Arma has alot more to it, starting with the sp/coop and a.i., thats something the many BF2 programers didnt have to worry about.

If BIS had more time to work on Arma i would rather see this time spent on something more worth it, like improving the tracked vehicle simulation and including the tank interiors that many people miss, priorities...

For now i believe its logical that they are fixing and improving whats already in there .

[l mandrake 9]

If in fact realism is your intended purpose, you would make even a half-assed effort to cite credible academic studies of virtual representations of psychological and physiological stresses, loads, and sensations. Citing the random video game in no ways lends credibility to either the game cited, or the request tendered, as to the veracity of the claims.

What a murderous piece of English. Makes me queasy when folks try to sound articulate by ramming lots of long words together...

Anyway why are you slamming the guy for describing the effects he would like to see in ARMA in terms of those used in another popular game? This just makes it easier for the large number of readers who have also played BF2 to understand what he means.

It strikes me that there is a strong, primitive tribal reaction from many regulars on this forum to any peceived criticism of BIS products, which is immediately rebutted with either explicit or (as above) veiled abuse. It really is quite pathetic in the context of a discussion forum which exists precisely so that everyone can express their own opinion.

Personally I would welcome a few more screen-shaking, vision-blurring and audio mashing effects (yes like BF2's - get over it all you BIS flag-wavers) because these would further increase the immersion for me. And I don't think it's unreasonable to ask (note ask, not demand) for these to be included in a 2007 title instead of just hoping some 3rd party modder gets round to adding them later on.

Mandrake

[Jack-UK 0]

Im sick and tired of those who do not value comments because of people playing a different game such as BF2. Grow up. The world doesnt revolve around ArmA (yet lol).

People like different games, i enjoy a range of games, i dont hate all other military games just because i think ArmA is the best.

I would love to have shellshock effects and stuff like that, would be great, blackouts, blurred vision, would be cool, definately increase immersion. A good addon idea maybe?

[celery 8]

Mandrake, please don't start a fight of verbal acrobatics as you are clearly the best, you would only put everyone to shame.

Effects would be nice, but do you know how an explosive impact feels like, and how it should be interpreted onto a computer screen? The special FX of BF2 and Call of Duty are taken from movies and the studios made those effects purely for atmosphere. In ArmA you would rarely have the chance to enjoy those effects anyway because you would already be dead, in reality they use deadly frag grenades and HEATs instead of cannon balls.

Shell shock is a state of psychological breakdown and doesn't have much to do with how close something explodes to you.

[baddo 0]

Hi

sluggCDN, I understand what you are after and I support you. Most of the responses you have received in this thread this far have been exactly what you can expect on these forums, unfortunately.

Talking about what features the mods already included for the ancient OFP is a totally worthless and counter-productive reply to what sluggCDN has proposed.

Talking about your eyes bleeding, go see a doctor please, we are not interested.

Talking about addon makers adding the proposed features into the game is... well are you serious? Think about it. You buy a game, not a game engine stripped to the bones right? For me it's not an option to wait for hobbyists to add features and content into a game. Features and content must be in the game when I buy it. If something gets added after paying, then good, but I am not expecting, or even worse, demanding it.

I had a longer reply but Mandrake5 basically said in a nicer form what I had to say so I'll leave most of my ranting out.

Happy weekend everyone, don't be so crumpy and blunt we love the same games don't we?

Cheers all,

Baddo.

[Daniel 0]

Well said Mandrake. Perhaps BIS didn't have the resources to include such effects, but no doubt they would increase the immersion. It can only be a step in the right direction.

[BHack 0]

I agree, the game would have been better with the effects.

In fact, most of the special effects in this game are pretty underwhelming. Muzzle flashes and tracer fire look like they came from a 7 year old game. Smoke, explosions, and many other things could use improvement.

That being said I don't think that should be a priority for patches. There are too many more important issues to work on at the moment.

[sluggCDN 0]

Mandrake5, thank you for the support and actually READING what I wrote.

I just get really tired with the pseudo-intellectuals that use the forum for self-asserting rhetorical escapades. A forum should be primarily used to get feedback to the developers to help them better understand consumer needs and to ultimately improve their product. But it's my humble personal opinion.

Yes, I did use BF example because many ppl here tried it and they can relate. I could've used Ranbow Six example for that matter.

Shellshock is not entirely a psychological state it. It's the psychological state induced by external physical factors i.e. explosion blast wave when your hearing and vestibular apparatus (balancing) are affected and not functioning properly. There are clear sysmptoms experienced by an affected person, again deafness, poor balance, lack of focus, disorientation, high pitch ringing in the ears. All this can be easily simulated in ArmA. Probably as easy as righting a script that generates random flying path for a friggin' butterfly.

The reality is less predictible than u think, ppl do survive near hits of frags, mortars etc. All depends on how lucky one is. Here is a hypothetical sutuation: a person is dashing across open space for cover, he's got two ppl running 15 ft ahead of him. A mortar lands in front of the two front runners, they absorb all the shrapnel, screening off the guy behind them. The latter is knock down by the blast wave, partially blind, out of balance, and can't hear anything for another two days. How hard would it be to simulate buzzing ears, blurry vision, and a knock-down in ArmA. There is nothing cinematic about it, - just a hard-core reality. Screen-shaking is another way to simulate what a person experiences when hit by a blast wave.

Consider this (speaking from my own experience) - every shot is like a very loud firecracker going off about 10 inches away from your ear in the gun's chamber. An average assault rifle fires around 600-800 rpm; that gives you approx. 10-13 shots a second. For those who never fired a shot try setting off a firecracker that close to your ear. How well do you think you'd be able to hear after that? Unloading just a clip from a standard issue m4 rifle without ear protectors will guarantee you a loss of 50% of you hearing for at least 30 min. And that is just small arms.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

Suggesting that mod groups will add these features is not at

all "worthless and counterproductive". You can bet that these

will be added by mod groups just as much as you can

bet your 'nads that BIS likely won't be adding any of

these "features". And much as it would be nice if the

developers actually eagerly scoured these forums for

suggestions for improvement it just doesn't look like that is

the case.

[sluggCDN 0]

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">And much as it would be nice if the

developers actually eagerly scoured these forums for

suggestions for improvement it just doesn't look like that is

the case.

Now, that would be counter-productive - why would they need a forum for then? - a free sandbox for raging closet-orators? A forum is an invaluable tool to collect feedback from end-users, don't you think?

[froggyluv 2133]

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">And much as it would be nice if the

developers actually eagerly scoured these forums for

suggestions for improvement it just doesn't look like that is

the case.

Now, that would be counter-productive - why would they need a forum for then? - a free sandbox for raging closet-orators? A forum is an invaluable tool to collect feedback from end-users, don't you think?

They keep their finger on the pulse of what are major issues to the community ie. the helo flight model,  rather than smaller preferences ie. effects that can be modded.