I enjoy ArmA!

[guyguy1 0]

Agree:

AI is too good at shooting. this is seriously ridiculous. they do not respond to supressing fire realistically, and they shoot with robotic rhythms/accuracy.

Damage Models are outdated/crappy

Beeping sound from destroyed vehicles is crazy

weapons are weird (weapon sounds for some guns are silly, but we can just DL a MOD for this problem. still, it's annoying that BI cannot give us authentic sounds and so we have to download legitimate ones for ourselves)

animations are much better than in OFP! kudos to BIS for that

Disagree:

AI pathfinding is much bad (i played it at a friend house a couple days ago, it was fine when they crossed a bridge we have version 1.05)

could you elaborate about the AI? i really hoped the AI would've been better since OFP (especially their aiming capabilities). ive only played arma 1.05 once and i didnt play with any AI soldier units (only tanks). like you, i'm kinda dissapointed too when i first played arma 1.05. Specifically, the damage models really ruined the experience. still the same old hit points for tanks and vehicles, and one shot from a mp5 to the chest or back of a fully armored up, adrenaline pumped, tough grunt kills him.

[W0lle 1048]

Quote[/b] ]I didn't really know much about ArmA, other-than it uses the same OFP engine, though hopefully heavily modifyed for improvments over Flashpoint, better graphics, which I had seen quite a few screen shots which looked quite impressive.

It does not use the same engine.

Quote[/b] ]Just getting to the editor you see there is only one major Island in ArmA "Sahrani", unlike the 3 major Islands you had in flashpoint, plus the desert Island, which In ArmA's case is the size of a shoe box, but Sahrani is much larger than the older Flashpoint Islands.

No one promised you anything else, previews months before the first release revealed that there is only one large Island.

Quote[/b] ]First impression of the editor screen was it looked basic, unfinished even, simple text over white backgrounds for the option buttons, and not even in nice looking fonts.

I don't see anything wrong or disappointing here. It's the same editor interface you had in OFP too. The screen is even bigger, I like the editor as it is now and I haven't heard many complaining about it.

Quote[/b] ]All the old features seem to still be there but while we have some new vehicles to try out, a few old favorites seem to have been dropped, Russian T80's, T55's, American M60's are no more, which I think is a shame.

Again no one promised you these vehicles, and checking reviews would have told you that before you purchased it.

The M60 isn't used anymore since years, so why including it in a modern environment? ArmA is not a sequel of CWC playing in 1985.

Quote[/b] ]Once in game I thought the graphics were quite good, considering I have a low cost graphics card at the moment, the new lighting effects are nice, with the sun totally blinding you if looked at and also your soldier now actually moves his feet around as you turn 360 degrees instead of simply turning on a dime without moving his legs.

At least something you find positive.

Quote[/b] ]Animation of soldiers going from safe walking to aware prone are good too, although I did like the animation of soldiers walking with their rifles slung over the shoulder, it did make the look awkward when fired upon and them switching to prone stance.

You can't serve anyone, I like the new animation much more then the vanilla OFP one. It just took to long until a unit in safe mode was responding fire.

Quote[/b] ]Sometimes the tank dosent even move for 20 to 30 seconds at the start of the mission preview, then does a u-turn and drives 3 miles round the city to get to the other side of the bridge.

To say this is a whole new game, and not an addon, this massive game error should of been sorted out before bringing ArmA out.

A lot of bridge crossing problems have been solved in the 1.05 patch. I have the impression that the AI has mostly problems when crossing a bridge with roads below it.

Quote[/b] ]First thing, hardly any sound of the AT round impacting on the hull, not much more when the tank detonates either.

Gone is the horrible bending and twisting of the model though when destroyed, but is replaced with a drastic instant texture change the split second it is destroyed, along with the tracks, machine gun and other various bits that do a flick now you see me, now you don't disappearing act, though the bits of debris, smoke and fire effects are a good improvment, it now has an annoying "beep beep beep" that sounds across the city louder than the explosion as the tank errupts ?!?!

Shooting tyres is even more rediculas, why they change to a burt\rusted texture when shot and not the original going flat animation is beyond me, and frankly looks stupid.

Here I totally agree with you. That's one of the few things in ArmA that bothers me too, the new damage system is just hilarious.

Quote[/b] ]While shooting soldiers it seems very hard to headshot people now.

That's a bug which will be fixed in a future patch.

Quote[/b] ]Once you quit the preview and go back to the editor, where is the debrief screen now, telling you what you killed etc etc, for me it just goes back into the editor now, telling you nothing of what you just did in the preview.

Now when you're in the edior you usually edit something, no? Actually I don't miss this, because when I work on a mission I work and not having fun counting how many kills I made while previewing the mission. That's just nitpicking from you, nothing else.

Quote[/b] ]All in all, I have to say ArmA is a huge dissapointment, where BIS seem to have taken a step forwards in some respects, they also seem to have taken 2 steps backwards in either things they have not improved on, or taken out or have replaced with inferior sounds\animations or textures and so on, though crash detection is much better I feel ArmA only deserves to be called a graphically improved Flashpoint addon still broken in many aspects and others missing.

If you call it only a "graphically improved Flashpoint addon" why you then point out some facts like swimming, crash detection etc.?

Now that doesn't makes sense at all.

Quote[/b] ]Not what I expected.

Now that's what previews and reviews are for. Most of the issues you mentioned are long time known by game magazines and here in the forums.

[Heatseeker 0]

@Fekin-Detri..

Thats a large post but covering very little, you will find many great new features and improvements and plenty of bad things too. Some people will rather focus on the 'bad' than the many things BIS got wright.

I liked the OPF game more than i like Arma <span style='color:red'>(as a game)</span>, it was appealing, interesting and may i even say better designed, i loved its SP campaign and whole atmosphere, it sucked me into exploring the game like i never bothered with any other.

Arma doesnt appeal as a game that much, it strikes as a new platform with many new upgrades, features and possibilities. I have yet to read a post saying how good it is to have multiple vehicle turrets, groups larger than 12 units, interactive water, new vehicle classes (i.e. hmmwv with TOW launcher), shadows that cast on surfaces other than the ground, better damage models, sound oclusion, animated vegetation (remember speedtree?), better colision detection, new scripting comands, etc.

Is a rather large list!

Some things will not be noticeable to everyone (like animated wheels in first person view inside a vehicle ) but they are there and there are shitloads of things in Arma that could only be dreamed about in OPF.

I'll end with the headshot thing being a bug introduced with the latest patch, if you test it upclose you will see the tracer going for the torso while you shoot at the heads, should be fixed in the next patch... and dont just look for flaws but for the improvements too, OPF is now a great thing of the past .

Thread merged? You just got me confused here Wuelle, im drinking ok? .

[dirtylarrygb 0]

@Fekin-Detri..

Thats a large post but covering very little, you will find many great new features and improvements and plenty of bad things too. Some people will rather focus on the 'bad' than the many things BIS got wright.

I liked the OPF game more than i like Arma <span style='color:red'>(as a game)</span>, it was appealing, interesting and may i even say better designed, i loved its SP campaign and whole atmosphere, it sucked me into exploring the game like i never bothered with any other.

Arma doesnt appeal as a game that much, it strikes as a new platform with many new upgrades, features and possibilities. I have yet to read a post saying how good it is to have multiple vehicle turrets, groups larger than 12 units, interactive water, new vehicle classes (i.e. hmmwv with TOW launcher), shadows that cast on surfaces other than the ground, better damage models, sound oclusion, animated vegetation (remember speedtree?), better colision detection, new scripting comands, etc.

Is a rather large list!

Some things will not be noticeable to everyone (like animated wheels in first person view inside a vehicle ) but they are there and there are shitloads of things in Arma that could only be dreamed about in OPF.

I'll end with the headshot thing being a bug introduced with the latest patch, if you test it upclose you will see the tracer going for the torso while you shoot at the heads, should be fixed in the next patch... and dont just look for flaws but for the improvements too, OPF is now a great thing of the past .

Thread merged? You just got me confused here Wuelle, im drinking ok? .

Another poster said this,

BIH make the engine, we will make the game...

Hold maps by Zaphod, the urban patrol script, CTF maps by several people are already showing the ARMA engine as unique. And provides amazing looking GFX with different styles of game play already.

ARMA has so many good points I could list several pages, but in general.

Best Graphics yet seen on the PC, so many firsts, ARMA has stolen much of Crysis's thunder.

Amazing positional audio surround on a XIFI card.

Total expandability, mods, missions even the engine.

Very stable multiplayer. By patch 1.05 already as stable as BF2 or Joint Op's.

Bad points:

The AI can shoot through bushes and generally ignores grass, the physics are generally odd, the inbuilt sound for some guns etc is "weedy".

The HDR is amazing when set to 16 bit or 32 bit, its a bit showey at 8 bit and more like an xbox 360 title.

To experience ARMA visually the way you really want yes you need a BEAST of a PC. But ARMA does work even on older machines. it just won't look so sexy.

Right now ARMA like BF2 before it is breaking any machine that is not optomised and being looked after.

You need a defraged performance Hard Drive, You need a decent GPU and CPU and RAM. You need to turn of VSYNC and Triple buffer and know how to.

ARMA was the first real test in years for your PC, more are coming this year. If you can run arma and make it look good you should be fine for all the next gen PC games hitting this year.

[Fekin-Detri 0]

If you read my post you will know I do mention quite a lot of new features and not just the bad aspects of ArmA, BUT W0lle didn't decide to quote them, and I never said I was promissed anything either W0lle, where you read me saying that I don't really know.

The actual post I did was the start of my own thread called "ArmA, My first impressions", but someone decided to merge my thread post with this thread, so that's why some of you might be getting the wrong impression from what I have been saying, as everything I posted was my first impressions of ArmA, and not posted in this thread called "I enjoy ArmA".

Basically, all in all, as W0lle stated, ArmA uses a new engine but this "new" engine still has the same problems with pathfinding, bridge crossing, waypoint stalling and poor animations for reloading rifles and entering and exiting vehicles and very choppy AI chatter that sounds like a voice synth etc, that should of been fixed with this "new" engine, without talking about other new features that don't work that well, like rubber hand grenades that often bounce way too far.

I loved Flashpoint, don't get me wrong, I want ArmA to be everything Flashpoint was and more, but when old issues have not been fixed by now for a whole new game I don't think this shows well for BIS and future games they will produce.

As for ArmA being the best graphics the PC has ever seen.... they are nice on full settings on a good system for the size of the Island, but not that good.

[Maddmatt 1]

...but not that good.

Only if you have it on a low resolution like 1024x768. When you turn it up the game looks much better.

[Fekin-Detri 0]

...but not that good.

Only if you have it on a low resolution like 1024x768. When you turn it up the game looks much better.

Oh I know knocking the res up way past that makes the game look better, but saying they are the best graphics the PC has ever seen I think is a bit OTT.

[4 IN 1 0]

you think it sucks, we think its not, its that simple, now can anybody tell me who is the one who merge the wrong post to this topic?

oh and i think 1024x768 isnt that bad as long as its your LCD mon native res.

[Maddmatt 1]

Oh I know knocking the res up way past that makes the game look better, but saying they are the best graphics the PC has ever seen I think is a bit OTT.

Name one released game with a huge detailed map and massive viewdistance with better graphics than ArmA.

[inthecutt 0]

cant think of any with the draw distance arma has

[dirtylarrygb 0]

cant think of any with the draw distance arma has

Only thing close to ARMA on any platform is just cause. And ARMA's engine has so many other firsts in DX9 or best attempt we have seen yet even JC pails in comparrison.

Get an 8800 fight at night, then say "HOLY FU*K", or see if a sunset is so pretty it puts you off fighting. On a top end PC ARMA is breathtaking in fact steals much of Crysis's thunder.

ARMA needs more pacthes and some bits fixed but they are minor compared to what you can already experience in 1.05.

[4 IN 1 0]

cant think of any with the draw distance arma has

Only thing close to ARMA on any platform is just cause. And ARMA's engine has so many other firsts in DX9 or best attempt we have seen yet even JC pails in comparrison.

Get an 8800 fight at night,  then say "HOLY FU*K",  or see if a sunset is so pretty it puts you off fighting.  On a top end PC ARMA is breathtaking in fact steals much of Crysis's thunder.

ARMA needs more pacthes and some bits fixed but they are minor compared to what you can already experience in 1.05.

you know, i couldnt agree more

[Fekin-Detri 0]

you think it sucks, we think its not, its that simple, now can anybody tell me who is the one who merge the wrong post to this topic?

oh and i think 1024x768 isnt that bad as long as its your LCD mon native res.

I don't think the game sucks at all, all I am saying, what everyone is ignoring, is that Flashpoint has some issues that I think needed to be addressed and sorted out before making a whole new game and porting over the same problems that Flashpoint had.

As for graphics, yes full settings AND taking into account of draw distances that ArmA has, then yes they are probably the best the PC has seen to date, but taking into account the scale of draw distance ArmA has knocks down the amount of games it can be compared too to nearly nil.

But taking the view distance out of the comparrison then there is a lot of other games that could be judged as having better effects, but only because the playing enviroments are greatly reduced in size.

That is why so many people start saying so n so game looks better because it has this and that, but dose not take into account of the vast scale Flashpoint and now ArmA has.

Anyway, instead of getting flamed for a simple thread that I started which were just my first impressions that got merged to this thread, I don't really see any point in this anymore.

My post was simply my first impressions of the game, and looks like I have touched a few nerves by stating facts that I found, making me lean towards the notion that on this forum you cannot post what you think if it does not give 100% praise to the game and not point out what you think is wrong aswell.

Could be because it's the official forum I guess maybe

[Monkwarrior 0]

I agree with you Fekin, merging different topics has it's flaws.

In this case it gave the wrong impression, because I'm sure every opinion can be voiced on this forum.

Monk.

[dirtylarrygb 0]

you think it sucks, we think its not, its that simple, now can anybody tell me who is the one who merge the wrong post to this topic?

oh and i think 1024x768 isnt that bad as long as its your LCD mon native res.

I don't think the game sucks at all, all I am saying, what everyone is ignoring, is that Flashpoint has some issues that I think needed to be addressed and sorted out before making a whole new game and porting over the same problems that Flashpoint had.

As for graphics, yes full settings AND taking into account of draw distances that ArmA has, then yes they are probably the best the PC has seen to date, but taking into account the scale of draw distance ArmA has knocks down the amount of games it can be compared too to nearly nil.

But taking the view distance out of the comparrison then there is a lot of other games that could be judged as having better effects, but only because the playing enviroments are greatly reduced in size.

That is why so many people start saying so n so game looks better because it has this and that, but dose not take into account of the vast scale Flashpoint and now ArmA has.

Anyway, instead of getting flamed for a simple thread that I started which were just my first impressions that got merged to this thread, I don't really see any point in this anymore.

My post was simply my first impressions of the game, and looks like I have touched a few nerves by stating facts that I found, making me lean towards the notion that on this forum you cannot post what you think if it does not give 100% praise to the game and not point out what you think is wrong aswell.

Could be because it's the official forum I guess maybe

General view of ARMA is the positives outweigh the flaws.

There are game play and visual flaws in ARMA, there are in all top games.

But there are two types of people in the world, postive people who go see a film like Star Wars and say wow that was cool I have never seen stuff like that before and spout out 10 points of praise before 1 negative person say "The storm trooper banged his head on the door, from that point i thought the film sucked".

Problem is BIH unlike so many games companies let the negative people polute their own boards so positive people get ever so defensive. Please try a negative comment on a UBISOFT BB...

There is nothing wrong with 1024 res, its the standard of older PC's and small monitors for games. It is now the standard res of web browsers world wide. But most gamers are now 1280x1024 or better and widescreen is moving fast. Over the next few year 1080 dpi res may become standard for PC games thats almost 2000 lines res.

[Fekin-Detri 0]

So dirtylarrygb, since I simply stated that there are still some old problems that I thought should of been fixed by now, you brand me a negative person of this world.

You also see it as a problem that BI have allowed my ever so negative post to be allowed to stay without being deleted as a problem to you.

Do you not think that your line of thinking is also negative ? or should I and anyone else who might want to point out either bugs or problems in ArmA run them past you first as to wether they can post such opinions ?

Quite a sad state of affairs when you really think about it, or does freedom of speach not apply where you come form.

[dirtylarrygb 0]

So dirtylarrygb, since I simply stated that there are still some old problems that I thought should of been fixed by now, you brand me a negative person of this world.

You also see it as a problem that BI have allowed my ever so negative post to be allowed to stay without being deleted as a problem to you.

Do you not think that your line of thinking is also negative ? or should I and anyone else who might want to point out either bugs or problems in ArmA run them past you first as to wether they can post such opinions ?

Quite a sad state of affairs when you really think about it, or does freedom of speach not apply where you come form.

So you like arma, but find it has flaws?

Did you make a post saying "wow this game is great?" then point out there are a few issues?

Glass half full or empty?

People who disagree is to be expected. You provide counter point views that are logical you will change peoples views & vice verse.

Best GFX on the PC yet, well only Oblivion and Just Cause come close for out door enviroments. And ARMA blows them away and then some. In fact ARMA stroll up and shoots Oblivion in the back of the head with a SWA and takes the crown for now. Alan Wake and crysis are not out yet are are very different games, they may look better than ARMA but they are not an FPS military SIM. yes HL2 Q4 R6:V do indoors fab, but almost no outdoor they make tunnels you travel down NOt a world. I suspect if you added in door furniture and fancy shaders for the glass etc etc 95% of the world PC's would implode trying to run ARMA. Oblivion side stepped this by having an indoor engine and outdoor. ARMA is using the outdoor engine for both. last game to try that was Joint Op's.

Your posts are not that "negative", I stated people defend ARMA and are "over protective right now" as many posts have been so totally negative.

You have stated flaws in OPF and ARMA, OFP sold 2 million copies? Some people played it for 5 years. These flaws can't be that bad?

AI: yes, it shoots you through bushes, some times its does daft things. But in general in COOP missions I see the AI behave in ARMA about as smart as most humans players did in BF2. So considering the size of the enviroment that's pretty good and modders are already improving it.

GUI & control command system: Well its no worse than World of Warcraft, I used a skin in that. perhaps people will make GUI skins for ARMA?

Physics: Aegis or havok would be better than current in game Physics, which are ok and generally don't spoil my game. but they can produce odd results.

Graphics: You need a modern PC to enjoy ARMA looking good, that statement does not apply to Superme Commander, Company of hero's, Alan Wake, Crysis, Stalker etc etc etc?

Editor: It's simple but allows powerful scripting, not improved much from OPF but that never stopped the amazing work people did with it.

Audio: Most Current weapon sounds suck, sorry you nailed me there ;}

What did i miss?

[kronzky 5]

A few notes regarding policies here:

• Negative posts (unlike on most other official boards) do not get censored or deleted.

• There is no point in having dozens of discussions covering the same subject or viewpoint. Therefore, sometimes threads get merged or closed. This has nothing to do with whether those subjects were positive or negative.

• Discussions have specific subjects (titles). People reading those subjects are expecting something relevant inside. That's why we try to keep discussions on topic.

...End of public service announcement...

[Fekin-Detri 0]

[

Quote[/b] ]So you like arma,  but find it has flaws?

Did you make a post saying "wow this game is great?" then point out there are a few issues?

Yes, I do like ArmA, but the biggest dissapointment was that I was still having the same old Flashpoint problems.

I started a thread called My first impressions which stated the good points I found, and the bad, then my thread got merged with this thread called I enjoy ArmA, which was written by sektor, which meant I no longer had my post in my own thread, but now have my post in somewone elses thread instead, which I think made people think I was maybe highjacking sektor's thread saying what I thought was wrong with the game putting down what sektor has written, when that was not the case.

Anyway, Im not one for arguing on message boards, and normally ignore people who come to forums and just post complaints that this should be like this and that should be like that, but people saying that something is not working propperly is a different matter.

Anyway, hope this helps to solve some misunderstandings.

As for now, I like ArmA a lot better than the first time I played it, working round some of the problems I have with it, but I still stand by what I said in my first impressions thread of the game, as that is exactly what they were, first impressions can never change.

Anyway, nice screen shot posts in the GPU comparrison thread.

[Frans 0]

But in general in COOP missions I see the AI behave in ARMA about as smart as most humans players did in BF2.

Absolutely brilliant

[whisper 0]

If you read my post you will know I do mention quite a lot of new features and not just the bad aspects of ArmA, BUT W0lle didn't decide to quote them, and I never said I was promissed anything either W0lle, where you read me saying that I don't really know.

The actual post I did was the start of my own thread called "ArmA, My first impressions", but someone decided to merge my thread post with this thread, so that's why some of you might be getting the wrong impression from what I have been saying, as everything I posted was my first impressions of ArmA, and not posted in this thread called "I enjoy ArmA".

Basically, all in all, as W0lle stated, ArmA uses a new engine but this "new" engine still has the same problems with pathfinding, bridge crossing, waypoint stalling and poor animations for reloading rifles and entering and exiting vehicles and very choppy AI chatter that sounds like a voice synth etc, that should of been fixed with this "new" engine, without talking about other new features that don't work that well, like rubber hand grenades that often bounce way too far.

But this is still going past some other new features, mate.

- improved ballistics : ricochet, penetration.

- 3D Ironsight and excellent Ironsight view while on the move in 1.05.

- Enhanced view distance.

- Bigger (and in fact unlimited) island and possible islands.

- Better handling of high number of AI units on screen.

- Join in Progress. (even if that could be seen as a "minimum feature" that should be present in any decent MP game).

- Increased number of possible players in MP. So far, ArmA has been quite good, too bad the dedicated servers crash past a too high number of players

- Unlimited (?? anyway, higher than 10) number of soldier per squad.

I don't know for you, but all this is big improvements for my game experience. I won't ignore them over a few glitches remaining from OFP

[JimLad 0]

ArmA stealing Crysis' thunder? Please . Not even in the same league, but hardly surprising given Crysis will have a much larger budget.

[dirtylarrygb 0]

ArmA stealing Crysis' thunder? Please . Not even in the same league, but hardly surprising given Crysis will have a much larger budget.

Crysis makes everal technical points in both Video and documentation, as Crytek want to license the engines for other people to make the game.

So first of all Crysis will use DX10 as well as 9. So some of the effects in Crysis can't be done in DX9.

Crysis like Farcry is an Outdoor, with good indoor Graphical Engine, its provides A-B maps. Linear gameplay much like DOOM, QUAKE, HALFLIFE, So it will always be capable of more detail than ARMA as it's only worrying about much smaller areas.

ARMA loads 400 SQ KM of a world fully detailed sandbox, mission designers add people not trees!

So if you take the Crysis island and detail it to the level of the ARMA Island I suspect the Crysis engine will have a fit.

Crysis and Alan Wake make a big deal about time of day effects. ARMA has them already (so did OPF) In essence everyone is playing catch up.

Subsurface facial rendering, appear Crysis only and most probably a Dx10 only effect (although many Dx9 nvidia demo's have shown this). So far Oblivion holds that crown for the most realistic human characters.

Volumetric Clouds: already done by Just Cause, Crysis's clouds look even better. 2d cloud shaders in ARMA are the best 2D effort seen so far. They are generally very realistic. Would be nice to have volumetric clouds in ARMA even cloud layers. Fighting in jets would be really insane then, flying through the clouds.

View distance: ARMA currently produces the most realistic effects at a high range, Flight SIMs can beat that but look no where near as good at ground level. Crysis and Alan Wake also have high View Distances at look great at ground level. Oblivion and Just Cause held that title till ARMA.

BIH: could increase ground detail to try and match Crysis, but then even 8800 owners would be saying "holy cow 3FPS", ARMA works very differently to Crysis and Alan Wake.

Volumetric Light: Both Crysis and Alan Wake have shown amazing real time samples yet to see who wins that. ARMA displays the best seen yet dynamic ligthing effects seen in a PC title. Nothings even close right now.

AI: yet to be seen, should be easy to fake more intelligent bots in smaller world sizes. How will Crysis and Alan Wake avoid the bot that can shoot me through the tree/bush? Far Cry had exact same problems and just gave you thermal vision to even the odds.

Crysis and Alan Wake may produce GFX detail 2-4x the complexity of ARMA but at the cost of reducing the Map Size and Map freedom by a factor of 10.

Crysis is a Linear RAILS game, this is a game term to described you playing on rails, you go A_B a new map load then you go A-b again. It's yet to be seen if Alan Wake is a real Sandbox or if areas or loaded like maps.

Oblivion, ARMA, Just Cause give you a huge Sandbox all ready detailed, you go anywhere, anytime you never find a blank area that was not detailed by a mission designer.

Shadows and lighting: it will be intresting to see if Crysis and Alan Wake can beat ARMA in DX9. ARMA is really pushing the limits of current technology, hardware and DX9.

Physics: yet to be seen if Alan wake or Crysis wins that both have produce videos that show amazing in game physics.

Playabilty and Long term value: Finish Crysis Alan Wake, then play a bit of multiplayer then return to ARMA?

[Scrub 0]

Volumetric Clouds:  already done by Just Cause,  Crysis's clouds look even better.   2d cloud shaders in ARMA are the best 2D effort seen so far.  They are generally very realistic.  Would be nice to have volumetric clouds in ARMA even cloud layers.  Fighting in jets would be really insane then,  flying through the clouds.

NIM weather's clouds are already pretty damn nice, I can see some possible tweaking improvements in the general forms and frequency that could make them even better. The shadowcasting onto the clouds is bar-none amazing to see.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Having just played the "Just Cause" demo I have to say it is an atrocious pile of crap.

I wrote better AI on a ZX81. Awful physics. Terrible controls. The graphics are cartooney. Million shots to kill you Rambo play (needed I suppose to cover up that terrible control system) Models look like stick figures and the joints just seem to bend all wrong like their bones were alien or something.

The only good things I have seen in it are: the water looks nice, and I like that the AI drives on one side of the road; though I saw an awful lot of crashes, like a island full of alcoholics on party night.

It is full of silly Matrix anims and PlayStation style play. View distance is faked, the minute you start moving the screen goes lame as whizzy fog magazine cartoon style to cover up that the engine cannot hack it.

By the look of it there are some fundamental and probably irreparable design errors and faults in the engine. Any game based on that engine will need a decade of hardware development to match ArmA.

So as it stands I do not see an engine to match ArmA at the moment.

ArmA does not have any design errors in the engine. The basic framework and design is sound. It is that fundamental foundation of ArmA that is the reason so many modders, developers and magazine editors and journalists see its potential as an engine. I speak to a lot of them and the thing they all say is that:

ArmA's greatness is yet to come. Once we have the US Atari release I think BIS will be concentrating on getting out the tools and setting up licensing methods for the Mod teams to start producing serial content for the ArmA engine as well as entirely new games based on it.

When that happens I expect the ArmA "Real Virtuality" engine to surpass the Quake, Half Life and other engines and probably be the main development environment for games for the next decade. That is what moved the quake and half life engines into the 100s of Million dollars market and what will make BIS the most money.

That will be good for the community as we will get make what we want, the more professional modders and developers will get the opportunity to do the job they would like to do and make living at it but most importantly the community will enjoy masses more content.

I was watching the UK Charts and ArmA is still in the top twenty over a month after release. The latest BF was in it for only three weeks and that was with them dropping the price to around five UK pounds it never even reached ArmA's level of sales or position in the chart.

I am thinking Atari must be very happy bunnies at the moment.

Kind Regards walker