GAME2's elements in Armed Assault?

[rainbow 0]

Last times I was reading many articles and scans about GAME2. Today I found something interesting. On 5 and 6 page (PcGamer Scan from July 2005)(GAME2 part) is photo of SU34.

After that I went to GAME2 gallery. Just guess. I found screens where we can find parts of destroyed SU34 (on GAME2's engine it will be possible).

Nevermind, it was GAME2 element and it went to ArmA. Thx Bohemia

All scans of PcGamer July 2005 about GAME2

[Spoock 3]

yeah, few things are from the GAME2, but something is in VBS2 (firstly buldings)

[Heatseeker 0]

Imo Arma is game 2 !

Back then BIS anounced 3 projects, OPF:E for the xbox, Armed Assault for the PC and a future game (Game2) with "next" generation graphics..

Armed Assault was meant to be a tie over, using engine improvements achieved in the development of the xbox game.

Dont you think it turned out to be alot more? Just compare it with those early Arma and Game 2 shots and Arma will look closer to game 2... even behiond.

Other than graphics Game 2 had a diferent concept, to create a populated, dynamic world.. I dont know if any progress/work was made in those areas but since BIS have been focussing on Arma and the current engine i think not...

Lets have another look at Armed Assault and see whats in there:

[*]Rebuilt OPF content. Many rebuilt/ enhanced OPF artwork that sugest the recreation of the OPF game with better graphics.

[*]Whole new artwork. New Artwork that sugests the creation of a whole new game with a whole new setting*:

[*]Some (few) vbs1 material. That might have been used at the beggining of the project and with all honesty looks like crap compared to the new game content/art.

*The south Sahrani exotic architecture, civilian models and the large amount of black skins strongly sugest a new/diferent game... imo what this game should have been.

What went bad in Arma...

In two words: <span style='color:blue'>Game design</span>!

Or should we say bad game design? This is one aspect and maybe the only one that took a large step back compared to OPF, as if the design team didnt know what to do with this great game. We have a much improved graphics engine, great artwork, animation, gameplay but a not very appealing game theme/design.

Starts with the name: Armed Assault >> .

Moves to a mixed, strange and uninteresting game environment called Sahrani, a game world that just doesnt make any sense.

Carries on with the SLA and RACS.

Ends with the campaign...

[IronPyramid 0]

BIS has a team that has that's sole purpose is development on Game 2. So its been getting worked on for as long as we've known about it.

[stakex 0]

Imo Arma is game 2 !

Back then BIS anounced 3 projects, OPF:E for the xbox, Armed Assault for the PC and a future game (Game2) with "next" generation graphics..

Armed Assault was meant to be a tie over, using engine improvements achieved in the development of the xbox game.

Dont you think it turned out to be alot more? Just compare it with those early Arma and Game 2 shots and Arma will look closer to game 2... even behiond.

Other than graphics Game 2 had a diferent concept, to create a populated, dynamic world.. I dont know if any progress/work was made in those areas but since BIS have been focussing on Arma and the current engine i think not...

Lets have another look at Armed Assault and see whats in there:

[*]Rebuilt OPF content. Many rebuilt/ enhanced OPF artwork that sugest the recreation of the OPF game with better graphics.

[*]Whole new artwork. New Artwork that sugests the creation of a whole new game with a whole new setting*:

[*]Some (few) vbs1 material. That might have been used at the beggining of the project and with all honesty looks like crap compared to the new game content/art.

*The south Sahrani exotic architecture, civilian models and the large amount of black skins strongly sugest a new/diferent game... imo what this game should have been.

What went bad in Arma...

In two words: <span style='color:blue'>Game design</span>!

Or should we say bad game design? This is one aspect and maybe the only one that took a large step back compared to OPF, as if the design team didnt know what to do with this great game. We have a much improved graphics engine, great artwork, animation, gameplay but a not very appealing game theme/design.

Starts with the name: Armed Assault >> .

Moves to a mixed, strange and uninteresting game environment called Sahrani, a game world that just doesnt make any sense.

Carries on with the SLA and RACS.

Ends with the campaign...

First of all this really isn't an ArmA disscussion board...

Second, you can call ArmA "Game 2" all you want, but the name means nothing. That would simply mean that the original "ofp2", would just be called Game 3.

At this point its near impossible to compare the two, at least graphicly. First of all, we have not seen an updated look at Game 2 in nearly two years. Who knows how far it has come since then. Remember the first ArmA screenshots we got when we also got the first Game2 shots? They were horrible. So if ArmA has come this far, one can only assume Game2 has made good progress as well. You can not possibly compare 2 year old Game 2 shots, with current ArmA shots.

Gameplay wise... ArmA is far from anything "Next Gen". Like it or not, its still the exact same gameplay as OFP. Sure, the graphics are better and the engine has been improved a rather drastic amount... but the GAMEPLAY is still the exact same. Alot of the old engine limits are still there, and many "next Gen" features of Game 2 are missing. There is no new game here... just better graphics and engine fixes. Its a fun game of course, its a better OFP so of course its going to be fun. But new and inovative? Not at all. It is what its suppose to be... a bridge between games.

Game 2 will have such features as dynamic destruction, dynamic campaign with RPG elements, real time physics which will let us walk in vehicles, randomly generated missions (as opposed to the static scripted missions in ArmA/OFP), and many other features... not to mention stuff we probly don't know about yet. To say ArmA is comparable to Game2 is horribly incorrect. Game2 will be the true sequal to OFP... as where ArmA is more of an update.

Of course it would be nice to get some Game 2 info... so we have an idea of what the game is looking like at this point. So we know just how it has changed in the last 2 years.

[funnyguy1 0]

First of all this really isn't an ArmA disscussion board...

Second, you can call ArmA "Game 2" all you want, but the name means nothing. That would simply mean that the original "ofp2", would just be called Game 3.

At this point its near impossible to compare the two, at least graphicly. First of all, we have not seen an updated look at Game 2 in nearly two years. Who knows how far it has come since then. Remember the first ArmA screenshots we got when we also got the first Game2 shots? They were horrible. So if ArmA has come this far, one can only assume Game2 has made good progress as well. You can not possibly compare 2 year old Game 2 shots, with current ArmA shots.  

Gameplay wise... ArmA is far from anything "Next Gen". Like it or not, its still the exact same gameplay as OFP. Sure, the graphics are better and the engine has been improved a rather drastic amount... but the GAMEPLAY is still the exact same. Alot of the old engine limits are still there, and many "next Gen" features of Game 2 are missing. There is no new game here... just better graphics and engine fixes. Its a fun game of course, its a better OFP so of course its going to be fun. But new and inovative? Not at all. It is what its suppose to be... a bridge between games.

Game 2 will have such features as dynamic destruction, dynamic campaign with RPG elements, real time physics which will let us walk in vehicles, randomly generated missions (as opposed to the static scripted missions in ArmA/OFP), and many other features... not to mention stuff we probly don't know about yet. To say ArmA is comparable to Game2 is horribly incorrect. Game2 will be the true sequal to OFP... as where ArmA is more of an update.

Of course it would be nice to get some Game 2 info... so we have an idea of what the game is looking like at this point. So we know just how it has changed in the last 2 years.

Well, you don't realise that Game2 was supposed to share it's engine with VBS2. (ArmA - VBS2 = the same engine) Besides, the difference between ArmA, and your Game3 may be quite minimal now. They also have the same engine, just not the same version of it. So Game3 compared with ArmA won't be such a breakthrough like the ArmA to ofp was. (I'm not talking about the tweaks as walking inside moving vehicles and destructable buildings, because it's already possible in ArmA and would be included in VBS2 out-of-box, so it's just a matter of upgrading it to next-gen standards, not to mention the RPG elements).

So no, Game3 isn't upgraded Game2 and doesn't look ultra realistic. It's upgraded ArmA.

The "first ArmA shots we got when we also got the first game2 shots" - these were just Ofp:E shots, that's all.

Imo BIS couldn't relase anything they planned for "ofp2" because they realised that's not possible either because their hardware/software weren't capable of coping with it, or nobody could run it with decent fps.

Try "populating" sahrani with civilians and stuff, and you'll know what I'm talking about. etc. etc.

Sure, Game3 will be something different than Game2/ArmA, they have the time, money and experience to do this. But what we play now as ArmA is just a realistic version of their ideal dream - Game2 with all of it's bell and wistles they were talking about. And that's ok.

[mr reality 0]

Dear me, i'm in a negative mood this weekend.

My crappy negative opinion on this would be that game2 does not and has never excisted. All those screen shots were just alpha versions of ArmA. ArmA is not a stop-gap. How can a development team of 7 or so people create a game with so much complexity. Cryotek has 50 or so devs, but there game world is a 50th of ArmA. Look at Stalker for an example, it was delayed for 6 years or so with a far larger dev team than BIS and when the game was finally finnished the graphical quality was 5 years old.

BISs scope has reached its peak, populated islands the size of Sahrani and a full physics engine on everything from realisticly destroyed vehicles and buildings, terrain deformation to correct impact ballistics can not be done with todays PCs installed with SLI and dual core. PCs in 5 years time wont even be able to handle that kind of realism, so how can they start to make a game when the system is nowhere near being available, or affordable. A game of this scope and magnatude is just not feasable.

This is in noway an attack on BIS as they have pushed the boundaries of military simulations, i just can't see how a dev team that creates ArmA with bugs that were in OFP ver1 and needs 7 updates before the US release, can create a game so complex in less than 10 years. If game2 is ever released it wont be in my gaming lifetime.

Please, please can someone tell me different or at least i'd like to read a possitive side to what i've written.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Dear me, i'm in a negative mood this weekend.

My crappy negative opinion on this would be that game2 does not and has never excisted. All those screen shots were just alpha versions of ArmA. ArmA is not a stop-gap.

Well, weve already seen footage from Game2 (back when we called it 'Next generation PC game' and ArmA was still supposed to be an CWC remake with the OFPE engine) from the E3 2005, it was pretty vague but you might remember the forests and the building which got destroyed dynamically.

(Took me a while to find a pic, the video seems to be completely lost)

Anyways, its clear that they ported some Game2 things to ArmA and alot more things to VBS2.

[Heatseeker 0]

The idea of populating an island and creating dynamic events was just a concept that nobody saw, it might be a goal that wont be achieved anytime soon. The destruction model is for all we know wip, maybe they can make a few buildings like that (the Arma bridges) but not every single building on a large and detailed environment...

The one big thing we saw about game 2 were "next gen" graphics, next generation back then... have a good look at Arma and all its advanced graphical features, its all used in there.

The populated and dynamic world with rpg elements sounds good but what about editing the game ?

I think BIS used game 2 to show potential publishers that they were not behind in terms of graphical technology .

Edit: Its a fact that Arma turned out alot more than a OPF remake using the OPF:E engine...

[rainbow 0]

The destruction model is for all we know wip, maybe they can make a few buildings like that (the Arma bridges) but not every single building on a large and detailed environment...

Dynamic Destructions will include all buildings. It has been written in one of the articles about GAME2 (probably SIMHQ).

[NeMeSiS 11]

The idea of populating an island and creating dynamic events was just a concept that nobody saw, it might be a goal that wont be achieved anytime soon.

I actually think this is quite possible, populating an island in a believable way was already possible in OFP using DAC. Ofcourse it would need some changes, after all we dont want all AI's to walk around randomly but instead they should get a certain task (take town x for example), and while the town gets attacked the other side should send some AI's to defend that town.

You know as well as i do that making scripts for this to happen dynamically it possible in theory(Look at DAC, and that was unoffcial, imagine what a team of full time developers can do!, ok it would be hard and take alot of time but hey, its not like Game2 is going to be released within the next few years.

[SHWiiNG 0]

Personally i think we need a good solid Dynamic campaign to fully reveal Arma's potential. This will certainly draw ARMA above other such titles.

Itll be interesting to see what ideas current or developing Dynamic Campaigns will incorperate from those highlighted in those Game 2 Articles.

Like independent AI, following an AI commander, reactive movements, oh and the possibility of hiding out in a forrest lol

[Mr_Tea 0]

And the possibility to burn down Forrest, in which Enemy's are hiding out.

That would give us to option to make areas impassable, at least for the time the wood is burning.

[Heatseeker 0]

The idea of populating an island and creating dynamic events was just a concept that nobody saw, it might be a goal that wont be achieved anytime soon.

I actually think this is quite possible, populating an island in a believable way was already possible in OFP using DAC. Ofcourse it would need some changes, after all we dont want all AI's to walk around randomly but instead they should get a certain task (take town x for example), and while the town gets attacked the other side should send some AI's to defend that town.

You know as well as i do that making scripts for this to happen dynamically it possible in theory(Look at DAC, and that was unoffcial, imagine what a team of full time developers can do!, ok it would be hard and take alot of time but hey, its not like Game2 is going to be released within the next few years.

The dificulty is doing it all in real time and not like in the GTA games . And... ensuring that the user can create a mission with full control over the events.

What i like about Arma and OPF is that we can use random elements in a full, real time environment. It doesnt feel fake.

[NeMeSiS 11]

The idea of populating an island and creating dynamic events was just a concept that nobody saw, it might be a goal that wont be achieved anytime soon.

I actually think this is quite possible, populating an island in a believable way was already possible in OFP using DAC. Ofcourse it would need some changes, after all we dont want all AI's to walk around randomly but instead they should get a certain task (take town x for example), and while the town gets attacked the other side should send some AI's to defend that town.

You know as well as i do that making scripts for this to happen dynamically it possible in theory(Look at DAC, and that was unoffcial, imagine what a team of full time developers can do!, ok it would be hard and take alot of time but hey, its not like Game2 is going to be released within the next few years.

The dificulty is doing it all in real time and not like in the GTA games . And... ensuring that the user can create a mission with full control over the events.

What i like about Arma and OPF is that we can use random elements in a full, real time environment. It doesnt feel fake.

Tried DAC? Definately didnt feel fake and it was easy to populate entire nothern Everon without lag on an XP1800+ 768mb ram, FX5200. Imagine what is possible on a PC in 3 years with dual core optimizations (which are probably going to be required if they want to keep it sane..)

[churnedfortaste 0]

I just hope game 2 is actually impressive, not punch-in-face-worthy amateur crap.

[Jack-UK 0]

I dont care how long it takes, personally i hope they continue with ArmA for a while and release Game2 no earlier than 2009...

I want quality I stuck with OFP since 2001 till ArmA... i can wait for Game 2

[Törni 0]

I have this funny feeling too that Game2 is just pimped and tooled up ArmA with a narrative and roleplaying elements. All those screens I have seen so far are either very old or look surprisingly similar to Armed Assault engine.

That is ok since I like ArmA. It leaves room for the user content and developement.

[dm 9]

I have this funny feeling too that Game2 is just pimped and tooled up ArmA with a narrative and roleplaying elements. All those screens I have seen so far are either very old or look surprisingly similar to Armed Assault engine.

You'll find its the other way round - ArmA is an "early" fork of the Game2 engine, minus the afforementioned narrative and roleplaying elements.

How the ArmA/Game2 engine evolves from here tho is something only time will tell.

[kroky 1]

After all, the deciding factor for Game2 will be the money.

1. The money that BIS can afford to invest in the game.

2. The money they plan to get out of the market.

(Don't forget that the PC gaming market, diminishes in

comparison to the console market, which sucks of course)

3. The money they have as own reserves. (Means the time of

development of the game is limited by it.)

Taking into consideration the money shortage BIS experienced during the long time from OFP to ArmA I don't think they'll invest another 5 years in development before releasing Game2. Saying this, this means that the improvements from ArmA to Game2 can't be that huge. Simply because of the lack of time - or let's come back to the beginning of my post - because of the lack of money.

PS. Still I think we will enjoy Game2.

[Jack-UK 0]

Well i know a mate who had a PM from suma a while back because we were debating about the ArmA engine

And he said that the engine is constantly being improved, there is no 'new' engine, it is one single engine which is constantly being improved, therefore the engine we are using is part of the way to game 2, it evolved from OFP elite, to arma, then from ArmA it will evolve into Game 2 (unless an expansion is there beforehand with engine modifications).

So yes, there will be some game 2 elements in ArmA. Its the same engine, just improved

[sniper pilot 36]

Well thats obvious, and they've at least stated that once before... They keep upgrading their "baby"... one day it will grow mature...

[DBO_ 0]

if game2 is to come anywhere close to its scheduled release date (idea games game2 release 2009) ,then game2 will simply be arma rewrapped in a rpg format which for me would not be bad thing as i like sp on all bis games but arma campaign was simply lacking in fluidity rpg could put this right maybe .

[chipper 0]

They should make Game2 an MMORPG how cool would that be.

[mickuzy 0]

Word on the street is Arma is a semi done up version of Arma 2. Now best example is seeing a hot girl going for a jog, not particularly nicely dressed but still good to watch. Thats Arma. Now going out to the richest place and town and seeing the same girl but this time all dressed up and more inviting. now thats Arma II