Operation Flashpoint 2 officially announced

[Baff1 0]

Competition in small or niche markets usually lead to someone's and often everyone's demise. Simulation games generally have small markets and way too much competition for profitable products. Arma is a sim first, game second. I don't think you really want competition here.

Simulation games is the most popular genre in computer gaming.

Sim City.

The Sims. (Best selling PC game series ever)

Microsoft Flight Simulator. (Over 50 different expansion packs available).

This is neither a small nor niche market.

Operation Flashpoint was a massive international hit.

Particularly in Europe where it had excellent distribution from the outset.

It sold millions.

A no.1 best seller. Game of the Year.

It's about as mainstream as a game can get.

Quite apart from any number of combat flight simulators, infantry simulators and tank simulators on the market, and the literally scores of these titles due for release this year, combined arms sims are also about as mainstream as you can get.

Here for example are two more combined arms battlefield sims due for release later this year.

World in Conflict.

Frontlines: Fuel of War

I could go on to include the immensely popular and also no.1 best selling Battlefield series, however many people would like to argue that it is not a battlefield sim as the play is too arcadey for them.

There are currently 15 Battlefield titles on sale at my local game shop.

[Colossus 2]

The demo for Colin McRae: DiRT is released. Lets see what we are up against.

Gamer.no (torrent) - I have 1,4 MB/s on this one.

Gamershell.com

[xawery 0]

Not too impressive, I must say. Yes, everything is nice and shiny, the physics are somewhat nice, but how this engine could support a large scare war simulator is not apparent from this demo. If there is one genre which promotes 'shoebox' maps it's the racing niche.

It's impossible to say how flexible the engine is; for all we know, the devs won't even break a sweat adapting this to a war sim. However, a racing engine strikes me as an odd choice for the basis of a war game.

[Baff1 0]

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for PC is built on a racing car engine.

It uses pretty large maps. (About 1 GB each). But it is also pretty laggy and wasteful on Hardware resources.

With that as my only example, I'd say it would be adequate to do the job but unless the production cycle is long enough, it is unlikely to be refined for the specific demands if an FPS.

[karantan 0]

Not too impressive, I must say. Yes, everything is nice and shiny, the physics are somewhat nice, but how this engine could support a large scare war simulator is not apparent from this demo. If there is one genre which promotes 'shoebox' maps it's the racing niche.

It's impossible to say how flexible the engine is; for all we know, the devs won't even break a sweat adapting this to a war sim. However, a racing engine strikes me as an odd choice for the basis of a war game.

True, it can't be said how flexible the engine is, but also I can't see why (the core of) some graphic engine can't be modified to some particular needs, so for all we know the devs could had reworked it (almost) completely.

Don't know if this was mentioned before, but my 'biggest concern' for this game is that there would be nothing present like the Mission Editor, but just the (official) campaign ,,, and that's it.

[Freshman 0]

Quote[/b] ]Don't know if this was mentioned before, but my 'biggest concern' for this game is that there would be nothing present like the Mission Editor, but just the (official) campaign ,,, and that's it.

I can't believe that a company could be this stupid. It's like you tell them: Do this and you will have success! And they don't do it...

I think CM is a company with much experience on the game market and they know how to meet the gamers needs.

[karantan 0]

Quote[/b] ]Don't know if this was mentioned before, but my 'biggest concern' for this game is that there would be nothing present like the Mission Editor, but just the (official) campaign ,,, and that's it.

I can't believe that a company could be this stupid. It's like you tell them: Do this and you will have success! And they don't do it...

I think CM is a company with much experience on the game market and they know how to meet the gamers needs.

Well, from your 'lips' into the god's/dev's ears, Freshman  

[wolfbite 8]

Well i love ARMA but Bohemia need some competition. people keep saying how it looks like GRAW.... But if the ArmA AI acted like GRAWS id be really happy.. because the ARMA ai although better than ofp's still need a right kick up the arse..... Im lookin forward to how this ends up... And im also looking forward to game 2... Wich im sure will kick MAJOR ASS

[dm 9]

But if the ArmA AI acted like GRAWS id be really happy..

I'd rather it didn't, because the GRAW AI is HEAVILY scripted to work in the "confined" spaces provided by GRAW maps. Put the GRAW AI in ArmA and it would never leave the town center

[4 IN 1 0]

if you put GRAW AI into arma they dont even know where to go, they will just stand still there and think "where the heck am i?"

[Baff1 0]

The ArmA AI doesn't know where to go either. Both use scripted way points.

GRAW uses cover.

[Donnervogel 0]

The Arma AI will engange an enemy by itself even without waypoints. With some waypoints it will even travel across half of the Map to do it without the mission designer having to specify where to go.

The Arma AI "uses" cover too. It just sucks at it. But then again it is a lot more complicated for it to do it. The enemy can be everywhere at different heights or different vehicles (aircraft) at the same time and the environment can have totally different features depending on the location. The task to use cover properly is significantly more complex for the Arma AI than for the GRAW AI. Additionally it appears to me that the use of cover is kind of a last minute addition to Arma and there is certainly a huge limitation with the current model system that the AI sometimes doesn't understand what objects provide appropriate cover in what situation and it is unable to interact with the object properly to shoot from cover. You will often see the Arma AI going to bushes or object and stand near them. This is their "taking cover" but then again it will see the object as an obstacle and step aside of it to be able to engage the enemy. Which obviously nullifies the use of it as cover. The thing is. Better AI for Arma would be possible but IMHO it would require a major overhaul of significant parts of the game. Since Arma is an intermediate product between Game 2 and OFP I think this will not happen in an extend to allow the full potential. But even if they did you would still be able to write AI that react better to a situation in a game like GRAW, simply because the possibilities are less. The OFP/Arma type AI has to be able to cope with every kind of environment and multiple types of enemy weapon systems/vehicles at once in an totally open and free environment as well as in limited urban environment... so you can imagine how much more complex this gets and that is is not possible to script a reaction fro every possible situation in advance.

[Sennacherib 0]

this is so damn funny after reading what posted Matt ....

CodeMasters (after ArmA was announced) said they already work on theirs own OFP2, now around the first official release they said it's ~2 years in development ...

now they say all what You see and hear is 'what they wish to be in project' and 'early stage development' and 'early work' etc.

guess the truth is approx this way ArmA was released, CM noticed they is demand for such title (omg shock) and quickly glued together plan for new game ...

oh well ...

easy to understand. maybe codemaster had some doubts, but after the release of Arma, codemaster is now sure to make a better product or to gain shares of market in this domain .

the goal of this kind of company is just to make money. and i agree with that.

no i don't criticize Arma.

[NeMeSiS 11]

the goal of this kind of company is just to make money.

Thats the goal of every company, developers cant eat their code heh?

[Sennacherib 0]

the goal of this kind of company is just to make money.

Thats the goal of every company, developers cant eat their code heh?

really, i'm not sure, when i read some posts in this forum

[mattxr 9]

Ive seen people in the codies forum saying OMG i loved Flashpoint i cant wait for Flashpoint 2 and it wont even be the same game they are expecting lol. They dont even knw ArmA Exsitts.

[Colossus 2]

I've seen that on several website.

Hopefully I've managed to convert or/and inform a few on the Gamespot forum

[Jester_UK 0]

The ArmA AI doesn't know where to go either. Both use scripted way points.

GRAW uses cover.

Not unless they fixed the AI after the demo it doesn't.

I took one look at that demo and binned any idea of ever buying it. The AI in ArmA even with it's faults is years ahead of what I saw in GRAW.

I saw a single AI rifle man standing in the middle of a cross roads (so having two possible walls (not to mention a large dirt bin and IIRC a car to take cover behind), trying to slug it out with what from the rate of fire I assume was either an opfor AI MG team or an entire squad armed with assault rifles. Was this a one off? Oh no. I saw it frequently.

At least in ArmA he'd have gone prone.

Use cover?

Not in this universe they didn't

[BraTTy 0]

I read the whole topic.

Only idea I have is that in Game2 include ALL ERAS of war (WW1,WW2,Vietnam etc..)

Then BIS could change the role to Most Realistic War Simulator

[Baff1 0]

The ArmA AI doesn't know where to go either. Both use scripted way points.

GRAW uses cover.

Not unless they fixed the AI after the demo it doesn't.

I took one look at that demo and binned any idea of ever buying it. The AI in ArmA even with it's faults is years ahead of what I saw in GRAW.

I saw a single AI rifle man standing in the middle of a cross roads (so having two possible walls (not to mention a large dirt bin and IIRC a car to take cover behind), trying to slug it out with what from the rate of fire I assume was either an opfor AI MG team or an entire squad armed with assault rifles. Was this a one off? Oh no. I saw it frequently.

At least in ArmA he'd have gone prone.

Use cover?  

Not in this universe they didn't

Yup the wingmen in GRAW are horrible.

On the other hand the enemy AI is ducking behind walls, and while one lot is supressing you another lot is flanking.

Your wingmen use suppressive fire, and the enemy ducks behind cover. If you equip them with a grenade launcher, they will use it.

When you watch you wingmen advancing down a road, they try and maintain cover against a threat, but they react poorly to multiple threats and only seek cover versus one at a time.

If they have been flanked, they can't cope.

With regards to the other chaps point about having to deal with enemies on different levels at different heights. GRAW does that too. It's in no way more complex since co-ordinates are given as a 3D location. X Y Z. The calculation is equally complex.

[Donnervogel 0]

Quote[/b] ]With regards to the other chaps point about having to deal with enemies on different levels at different heights. GRAW does that too. It's in no way more complex since co-ordinates are given as a 3D location. X Y Z. The calculation is equally complex.

That's not what I have said but somehow I get a deja-vu saying this to you...

anyway here is what I said

"The enemy can be everywhere at different heights or different vehicles (aircraft) at the same time and the environment can have totally different features depending on the location."

GRAW does not work like that and neither does it's AI. From what I have seen (demo experience only) the AI has predefined possibilities and predefined places that tell them where there is cover for what. Obviously it's use of cover is superior I don't argue that. But it is a completely different kind of AI and it would not work in an Arma environment like that. In the Arma environment the complexity for the same AI would increase hugely. I think you underestimate this. But for example pathfinding algorithms can be very complex so they need to be reduced to produce only "acceptable" results instead of the best ones because it is simply too complex to get the best path. But having confined space with predefined "roads" and such alone will reduce the complexity by a huge factor so you can not only make a better pathfinding (by using better approximations), you can also divert spare ressources to other problems.

One can go on like this. The thing is that you simply can't compare those two AIs. They are something totally different.

[maxqubit 1]

But you can always argue what the point is of a big beautiful island when something as basic as 'taking cover' isn't 'solved' ... I'm well aware (as in i can imagine) how complex this thing is but THE road to go is:

1. Make proper non-predefined 'take cover' AI (if even possible)

2. Put THAT on a big island with cities, objects, hills, crests, etc.

Just don't (try to) do it the other way around:)

[NeMeSiS 11]

But you can always argue what the point is of a big beautiful island when something as basic as 'taking cover' isn't 'solved' ... I'm well aware (as in i can imagine) how complex this thing is but THE road to go is:

TBH i dont like the taking cover feature in GRAW, it may look smart, but every firefight ends up the same: Waiting until the enemy pop ups behind his cover and then shoot him in the face.

Thats not smart behaviour, hell, its alot more simple then BI did and while it may look quite intelligent, after a while it gets very repetitive because the AI cant set up a proper counterattack. (On the other hand, the ArmA AI cant set up a proper defence by itself, which makes them look quite stupid at times)

[Donnervogel 0]

But you can always argue what the point is of a big beautiful island when something as basic as 'taking cover' isn't 'solved' ... I'm well aware (as in i can imagine) how complex this thing is but THE road to go is:

1. Make proper non-predefined 'take cover' AI (if even possible)

2. Put THAT on a big island with cities, objects, hills, crests, etc.

Just don't (try to) do it the other way around:)

well I agree with you and it certainly will happen as we get increased CPU power with multi core systems now. It is only logical to expect more from the AI in future. But I would not expect it from Arma. At least not without a major expansion.

[memnoch 0]

And if it meant sacrificing something then take away waving grass and trees.