ArmA is just ... disappointing

[KELLO 0]

Ever remember a game called soldner??

This too was released at multiple times accross europe, not sure it even made the states......

ArmA is reminding me of this game.....i have yet to see a full 65+ server, let alone the 100+ that was touted about in November of last year...4 months down the line from the 505 release, good servers are few and far between....I had four servers up & running arma at the start of the year, as i anticipated, like the rest of us, that this would be the next big thing for us ofp fans, but alas the 1 demo server i hosted seemed to get more hits than the other 4

Dont get me wrong i think ArmA is a great game, but i think the game should have been released with 505/BiS hosting a few servers themselves,aka BF2( i know its a swear word but the figures tell you it works)... or at least giving an incentive to the server companies that enquired about the game, a reason to host ArmA 24/7....The answers that were given were vague at best...

For one the sprocket licencing problem is still to be resolved, with regards to the patches, and i'm certainly not gonna spend another day uploadin all the files to a dedicated server again, because the patch fails to install on a dedicated server... this game is primarily supposed to be an online game, or so i thought  not much in the way of support for server Admins who are new to the whole opf/ArmA style...

The patches have improved gamplay alot, and while it is very refreshing to see such great dedication towards getting the game right, if no-ones around to play it whats the point??

In short BiS....you have made a brilliant game...but...you could have done the whole release and marketing of this game a lot better...

[Gunney 0]

Ever remember a game called soldner??

Soldner is a steaming pile of shit that only like 24people tops play. While it is taking some time to release patches, Soldner still has like a million bugs and it's like 3+ years old. Like KELLO said dont let this game turn into Soldner(I dont think that is possible if you have a competent dev team)

[Silvio Camolesi 0]

For my understanding, this thread is about "disappointing", so this is the place to cry, to complaim, to yell our frustration with this game that was supposed to be great, but it is not.

This is not a "feature request" thread, neither a "bug report" thread. This is a "disappointing" thread, and it won't stop until BIS achieve the reasonable.

Many things here are just features request, and other are just bugs report. But the majority is none of them. The complaints are about the wrong way that things work, not cause they are bugs, but because they are bad.

As example, AI pathfinding is not a bug issue. It is bad programming, bad ideas working without any problem. It works without errors in the way it was programmed to work.

In the same way other things were born wrong in their concepts.

And that is fearful, cause if it is not a bug, probably it won't change, because there are so many bugs to correct that it is supposed that the team is working to fix them, not to change the concepts behind the code.

For my understanding, this game needs urgently of better AIs.

They are killing the game, and it has been fast. The game not even was born, and it is already gaining bad fame, mainly, almost exclusivelly due the stupid AIs.

So, please BIS, concentrate your enforces to improve the AIs, cause in the way the things are going, they will become the most notorius artificial grave-diggers ever made!

[CanadianTerror 0]

Dont complain about the complaints in the complaint thread please.

Arma can be disapointing because of bugs, bad programming or bad planning.

@Silvio Camolesi

Besides, its the mods job to kill the fun, not yours.

[Silvio Camolesi 0]

Dont complain about the complaints in the complaint thread please.

Arma can be disapointing because of bugs, bad programming or bad planning.

@Silvio Camolesi

Besides, its the mods job to kill the fun, not yours.

bugs can be correct, bad programming is a bit difficult but you can change your style and your alghorithyms, but a bad plan is almost impossible, except if you make a new game

[psycosmos 0]

Every source for sound is 3 dimensional. Even a bullet. This is because of your two ears. If you have a single source with mono just upmixed to 5.1 does not really work. Upmixing a stereo sound will lead to a much better positioning, since you can split the two channels over more speakers. At least that is what some sound engines are capable of.

The other issue is the detail a mono source can reproduce. Every stereo sound has much more information for proper recreation, I am no expert, but I can tell just by listening to (my) sounds in mono and stereo on a 5.1 surround system.

We have decent gfx but prehistoric sfx. And in a military environment sfx create more immersion than simple eye candy.

Couldn't you compensate for that by using a higher bitrate and sample rate for the sound? Since you are changing it from two channels to one, you can afford to double the bitrate. I'm no expert either though, but I don't see how having two channels originating from the same source will do any good.

I realise ArmA could do with improvements to the sound engine though, I miss some effects which I have heard in other games.

Well, ThePredator at least warned us that he's not an expert.

I've been active in music production for about 7 years now and have a pretty good background knowledge about physics too, though I probably forgot most of the physics because of the music. That doesn't necessarily make me an expert, but I think I have a good idea of what I talk about.

To get to the point: It doesn't make much sense to use stereo files because sound sources in war and nature are basically in "mono", the sound is generated at one point or by a whole object or parts of it. Stereo hasn't to do anything with this per se, it's just a method used to reproduce sound in a way that is closer to what we can hear with both ears in nature. It's the computers jobs to make a good stereo (or how much channels you want) sound out of a mono file in a game. That's it, the rest of this post is basically just further information on how it works, so you can skip to the end.

Simplified (though not simple), we don't have two ears because sources of sound in nature are in "stereo" as ThePredator said (the sources aren't stereo themselves, though what happens afterwards is a totally different story), no, we have two ears to be able to judge from which direction a sound originates, like the sound of a predator when hunting 20000 years ago (just had to include a predator). This is basically achieved using the difference in time it takes to reach both of our ears and also the difference in Volume (movement of the head comes into play at a point too). The ear closer to the source will hear it first and louder, so it has to be in the direction of the source, the longer it takes to reach the other ear too, the more it's in first ears direction. It's actually pretty impressive if you think about it, because the biggest time difference between both ears at about 20 cm distance between them and 344 m/s speed of sound is 1/(344/0.2)=0.000581 seconds, half a millisecond!

We use multiple speakers to simulate this effect with stationary sources of sound as the speakers/sources of sound do not actually move themselves, but you get the impression mainly because of different volumes and also small differences in timing for the same source sound on the different speakers. Our brain is "tricked" into thinking that there's only one source for a certain sound when there actually can be multiple ones (for example you can hear something in the centre, if two speakers play exactly the same signal. You don't hear that there are actually two sources of sound in this case, if you don't start to physically move around yourself.).

To simulate this successfully with multiple speakers, you either have to record all the mono sources of the sounds with an according amount of multiple microphones together at once (recording a symphonic orchestra as example), or you can do it by using mono records and let your computer do the work (what games basically do, lots of music producing too).

Though, you actually could use stereo recordings as source to enhance certain effects on sounds, like reverb and echo if the computer places the sources in the stereo field, but the problem is that this is not accurate as these effects are not really part of the soundsource but should be an effect of its surroundings and how it reflects the source sound, also you could just get a similar but not as good effect when using mono sources which had these effects applied. Because the surroundings change depending on where you are, this should also be done using a mono source that gets a computer treatment with the according effects that include how the environment is made up at a specific point in the game. That's also why recording studios are especially made up to not reflect sound and to get a clear, non influenced signal that can be processed with these effects according to the wishes of the audio engineer/band/producers later.

Damn, I'm too drunk for this right now.

OnTopic: I'm not dissapointed by the game.

[Bayonet 0]

<<---someone needs to go to the bananaphone room. This games doesn't work as advertised. Aren't there laws against that? Last night 40 members of ShackTactical could not join our own server for Sqd Night. Over the past 2 weeks attendance was at 100% however participation was limited to 50% due to constant crashing issues. ARMA's performance last night was so pathetic, that it is now on hold as a Squad activity, to be replaced by OPF, until this situation gets unfuct. 7 year old OPF is working better.

From another viewpoint, as a guy who also likes to pub with mature peeps, I also find ARMA greatly lacking. Try to find a server. OK wait, it's not that easy. First find a server that runs your version. Then, try to find one with some peeps in it. My preference is higher? numbers like 10-15 (which is still extremely low compared to advertised ARMA abilities). OK-there's 3. 2 playing EVO(sigh) and the other one's doing it's BF2 impersonation of Beserk.

Bottom Line-If you haven't bought it-DON'T, until you see more positive posts.

-If you have, welcome to a lemon, please take a number and join the queue of disappointed.

Yeah, the game has potential, but I didn't pay for potential. The game was advertised as a complete and finished, working product, and it is NOT.

I guess BI knows how MicroSoft feels about Vista, eh?

[vilas 477]

somebody said that we writing ARMA is a crap

ARMA is not a crap, it is very big work of BIS but it has so much bugs, for me it is released to early

this topic is about things to change/improve to make from buggy game the best game in the world

if they improve HDR, AI behaviour, colisions of vehicles, graphic performance (texture, LOD, CTD ) it will be super

now is far from "super"

OFP was super, because it was first such game, in its time it was revolution, other games were not competition for OFP (large area, user addons, environment, usable vehicles, mission editor) it was shooter+simulator+strategy

RTCW, MOHAA, Project IGI were not competition, because you coldn't get into vehicles, only IGI had big area

but it was 7 years ago

[4 IN 1 0]

for now there is only ONE major thing that i get disappointed, the community, dont ask me why, dont piss on me if you disagree(well i dont give a #### anyway), i just think it sucks(dont get me wrong mods, you have my respect to you guys)

[mattxr 9]

What dissapoints me is MP, That Sucks Long Time.

1: Hardly No Players

2: Cheaters

3: Mission Editing Issues [setpos etc]

And lots more. BIS Can we have the Modding Tools so we can make it better for you Unless you give us a animal pack then we will leave you alone i guess

[vilas 477]

Polish developer is also *** but this is not diapointing in game as engine

writing about wrong community ?

if you expect people to be happy of engine that has pulsing HDR, AI spoting you like hell throu bush, BMP flying in the air because it colides every time when it goes in column with T72

[baddo 0]

The goddamn shitty way they released it all over the fuggin' world, with shitty companies like Sprocket who have nil for customer support and an irritating platform. That and the complete and utter lack of TOOLS! Damnit i'm tired of hearing "when its done" from everyone under the sun, "when its done" just happens to be six months from now when i've lost hope and patience for a game that is really great.

The six-pages long rant about VBS2 you can insert here, about all the features we're missing for no damned reason and how ArmA could step into the next generation if we got to use a real time editor. You might as well kneecap an olympic runner.

Hehe... is that even funny...

Tools. You bought a computer game not a tool package, right? At least that's what I believe I have done. Don't get me wrong friend, I am waiting to see the "tools" too, but a little bit more patience is needed I think. As we all know by now, BIS & publishers released a way too buggy game. Unacceptable but irreversible now. If it weren't so we could probably have the tools already. But I think we have to live with the situation as it's not upto us when the tools are going to be released. I am sure BIS knows we want the tools, and I am also sure they work as they have planned and prioritized. It's useless for us to start planning their work, as we are not BIS managers.

VBS2.

Quote[/b] ]The six-pages long rant about VBS2 you can insert here, about all the features we're missing for no damned reason

Hey friend, I think you bought the wrong product accidentally then... I mean you can't seriously think that you are entitled to have the same features in Armed Assault as in VBS2?

[vilas 477]

yes i also only do addons, i don't play

HDR pulsing annoying so much, after 20 minutes crash to desktop

i can not be happy with playing game that crashes in the middle of one mission

at least before game crash i can see my addon

but if was not making addons - this game would be totaly useless, because it was working good (graphically) only in 1.00 and 1.02

since 1.05 there is so much graphic problems ...

the most annoying thing is that i had to bought new PC to play it in december 2006

[Blanco 0]

for now there is only ONE major thing that i get disappointed, the community, dont ask me why, dont piss on me if you disagree(well i dont give a #### anyway), i just think it sucks(dont get me wrong mods, you have my respect to you guys)

I totally agree.

[wamingo 1]

I opt to rename this thread "Poor things about ArmA", or something to a similar effect, because entirely too many of the posts here are completely ambiguous rantings like "Arma just stinks" and "uninstalled, bye!" and complaints about complainers. Neither is constructive I'm afraid. Force people to be a little more specific about their complaints with the game, so we don't have so much useless crap no one is interested in. All it will do is help those who come to these forums to confirm their fears of the game.

I'm all for freedom of speech, but this thread invites people to vent their frustrations in destructive ways. Plus it'll last until someone locks it and until then it's mostly spam.

[maddogx 13]

I opt to rename this thread "Poor things about ArmA", or something to a similar effect, because entirely too many of the posts here are completely ambiguous rantings like "Arma just stinks" and "uninstalled, bye!" and complaints about complainers. Neither is constructive I'm afraid. Force people to be a little more specific about their complaints with the game, so we don't have so much useless crap no one is interested in. All it will do is help those who come to these forums to confirm their fears of the game.

I'm all for freedom of speech, but this thread invites people to vent their frustrations in destructive ways. Plus it'll last until someone locks it and until then it's mostly spam.

This thread is for collecting those posts in a single place instead of people creating a new "ArmA sucks" thread every couple of days.

Be thankful that it exists.

[Thomas Ryan 0]

Now, I'm one of those no-lifers (just kidding ) who played OFP from the very beginning. Those were awesome times. Now, 7-ish years later and ArmA has been released. Before that, there was huge hype over the game in the community, and the game turned out to disappoint most. Much like Spider-Man 3 eh?

For me, I was extremely happy when I first got ArmA. But I became worried as the complaints came flooding in. Now, after a couple months of playing the game I am thoroughly disappointed, mainly because I just don't find the game enjoyable. I don't know why, maybe it's the terrible performance (Normal preset at 1024x768 on an exceeding-minimum-specifications computer at ~20FPS), bugs, bad SP campaign, etc. But I just can't find it in me to enjoy it.

Really, the only reason I continue to play ArmA is due to the community. If the community didn't go on to ArmA and stayed with OFP, I would be overjoyed. Sadly, that is not the case.

ArmA was advertised as a finished game, which nowadays (you should all know this before buying a game) means nothing. Take EA's games for example, BF2142 has had numerous patches to fix it and still it's not working properly (already uninstalled and gave away "it" for free). However, with the terrible performance being my main issue, I just don't enjoy playing it as, well, I can't. Some of you may be happy with 20 FPS, but when I play other games (I know, not at the same scale as ArmA) I get much a much higher FPS on average with all settings at maximum.

I would have been pleased if BIS released ArmA looking like OFP:E back then, as long as I had the engine improvements, I couldn't care less about the graphics. OFP:E graphics would mean low-system requirements while still looking better than OFP. However, BIS weren't stupid and the knew that you needed good graphics in order for the game to sell.

As soon as ArmA is patched to as bugfree as possible, optimized as much as possible and all the kiddies playing MP at the moment are gone, I have a feeling I'll enjoy ArmA much more. Until then, it's just sitting on my hard drive, and opened rarely.

[Jester_UK 0]

wamingo

Quote[/b] ]Of course I'd be happiest if unconstructive threads were just deleted. They don't deserve a spot at all.

That sums up about 100% why this thread was started by a MOD when the Fanboys lose control of shooting down every one that says one bad thing about ArmA.

Arma isnt just disapointing, its the biggest pile of flaming crap ive ever installed and bought for my enjoyment. Wamingo wants us to all go away because we should be just happy that BIS let us have Armed Assault and after 10 patches[Maybe] it might work.

Just out of interest, why do you think you deserve special treatment? The tone of your post (and many others) seems to be that if you have a problem with ArmA you deserve the right to say anything you want without consideration of your presentation. If someone disagrees with your point of view then they have to phrase what they say oh-so-carefully so as not to hurt your feelings. If they don't they're a "fanboy."

Maybe if you (and the others who post in the same tone) tried changing your approach to the way you phrase what you say (note I said change how you phrase it... not change the actual message itself), then maybe you'd get a different response from those that are in fact enjoying the game.

Maybe you should try posting some actual facts instead of an insulting diatribe that means nothing, says nothing and acomplishes nothing?

[whisper 0]

wamingo

Quote[/b] ]Of course I'd be happiest if unconstructive threads were just deleted. They don't deserve a spot at all.

That sums up about 100% why this thread was started by a MOD when the Fanboys lose control of shooting down every one that says one bad thing about ArmA.

Arma isnt just disapointing, its the biggest pile of flaming crap ive ever installed and bought for my enjoyment. Wamingo wants us to all go away because we should be just happy that BIS let us have Armed Assault and after 10 patches[Maybe] it might work.

That's the problem.

People unhappy saying ArmA is complete crap, never works past 5 FPS and is nothing more than OFP. Ie complete bollocks

And OTOH people saying that BI is god, did a perfect game without a flaw and flame away every1 stating ArmA is wrong in X, Y, Z. Ie complete bollocks.

I know for a fact ArmA works fine. I know for a fact it has some big issues that needs resolving.

In between these 2 crowds, what shall I do? I get insulted either way... Talk about comunity....

[Jambo107 0]

Why are you posting in here Jester? Your not adding anything to the topic nor are you helping getting the point across.

People have for month posted in a gentle manner, a harsh manner and a neutral manner and for what? To be shot down by a fanboy or a mod. This is a topic to let the Dev's know how we feel why we are disappointed, if you check all the posts you can see people have left reasons.

'why do you think you deserve special treatment? ' We have a bought a game that is not what was advertised or made out to be and this is our chance to change Arma for the better.

[NetWalker 0]

Jester, if you don't agree with us, just don't post here. There is another thread where you can post saying that ArmA is awesome. This thread are for unsatisfied customers like me and many others to show our complaints about the game. I don't care if they are construtive or non-construtive. It's our point of view and we all that paid for this "game" have the rights to express whatever we want to. I said before and I say again, Arma, as is today, is crap. You can't have fun with a game that has so many bugs and is has so many performance issues. That's what we are saying here. Everyone can say the manner they think better. ArmA needs a lot of work from BIS until it becomes a title that deserves respect. Until there, I will stick back to OFP and other games.

[W0lle 1049]

The goddamn shitty way they released it all over the fuggin' world, with shitty companies like Sprocket who have nil for customer support and an irritating platform. That and the complete and utter lack of TOOLS! Damnit i'm tired of hearing "when its done" from everyone under the sun, "when its done" just happens to be six months from now when i've lost hope and patience for a game that is really great.

The six-pages long rant about VBS2 you can insert here, about all the features we're missing for no damned reason and how ArmA could step into the next generation if we got to use a real time editor. You might as well kneecap an olympic runner.

48h PR for swearing and name-calling.

You have been warned on page 1.

I opt to rename this thread "Poor things about ArmA", or something to a similar effect, because entirely too many of the posts here are completely ambiguous rantings like "Arma just stinks" and "uninstalled, bye!" and complaints about complainers. Neither is constructive I'm afraid. Force people to be a little more specific about their complaints with the game, so we don't have so much useless crap no one is interested in. All it will do is help those who come to these forums to confirm their fears of the game.

I'm all for freedom of speech, but this thread invites people to vent their frustrations in destructive ways. Plus it'll last until someone locks it and until then it's mostly spam.

It won't be renamed but I do some cleansweep here too as you're right, the majority of posts here are neither constructive nor useful at all.

[Jester_UK 0]

Quote[/b] ]Why are you posting in here Jester? Your not adding anything to the topic nor are you helping getting the point across.

Nor are posts like the one I quoted. There are ways to get a message across and ways not to. If you can't tell the difference you have a problem.

Quote[/b] ]People have for month posted in a gentle manner, a harsh manner and a neutral manner and for what? To be shot down by a fanboy or a mod.

I've seen plenty of number two on these forums, but not much of either numbers one or three. If you do a search of these forums you'll find that those that were posted in a mature and reasonable manner got (in most cases) a mature and reasonable response. Those that didn't.... well didn't. They got the shoot down treatment you mentioned. Put bluntly, they got what they asked for.

Quote[/b] ]This is a topic to let the Dev's know how we feel why we are disappointed, if you check all the posts you can see people have left reasons.

Quote from the post I was replying to:

Quote[/b] ]Arma isnt just disapointing, its the biggest pile of flaming crap ive ever installed and bought for my enjoyment.

Please tell me how that explains why the poster is disappointed?

There are people having genuine issues with ArmA. There ARE problems with ArmA. But posts like the one I replied to initially don't accomplish anything. Your supporting him is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction. If it wasn't for posts such as the one I originally replied to cluttering up the forums then the chances of getting your message across to the devs would be greatly increased. EVERY post such as the one I originally replied to actually hurts your effort. Every post like that minimises the impact that properly and maturely phrased posts make by drawing attention to themselves and so away from the ones that matter.

Quote[/b] ]'why do you think you deserve special treatment? ' We have a bought a game that is not what was advertised or made out to be and this is our chance to change Arma for the better.

Still doesn't entitle you to special treatment. If you bought the advertising blurb as being gospel truth and ArmA as a product that will fulfill everyone's fantasies then more fool you.

And so long as you condone and support the type of posts that I made my initial response to in this thread, then your chances of changing ArmA for the better are nil....... Because as long as those that really want to improve ArmA don't distance themselves from that type of post, no-one is going to take you seriously. You'll unfortunately be tarred with the same brush, labelled a "Whiner" and dismissed as such.

[Kevlar2007 1]

I must say that I am very disappointed with ARMA. I have it now for more then 6 Months and I still can't play it with decent FPS (constant 25 FPS and above). Most things that I find wrong and disappointing was already mentioned in recent posts and I second that.

ARMA is for me dumbed down OFP with better graphic but this graphics make it not playable but graphics is the least important for me. It gives me only frustration and not fun contrary to OFP which gave me more fun then frustration.

As a sequel of OFP I have expected that ARMA will be better OFP with most annoyances from OFP solved but in contrary ARMA is it current state worser than last versions of OFP with old and new bugs and features that can't be used because of performance issues.

I also feel betrayed by BIS cause I paid them for the game I can't play properly and only do BETA testing for them for months. I won't buy any new game from BIS in the future because I don't trust them any more. There is almost no communication with customers and all this patching is taking so long and giving almost no progress and even introducing new bugs. I have no hope that important issues will be addressed in near future which will be necessary to make ARMA a true sequel of OFP, so I consider this game as complete failure.

[Heatseeker 0]

How about some honesty?

I see lots of people complaining about Arma due to performance issues.

Well, you wont enjoy the game if it runs bad, even in low details. Aiming and shooting with poor FPS is frustrating so you need a beefy PC.

If it runs great with decent FPS you are much more likely to love it. I think this is where much of this disapointment derives from, many people come up with excuses and pick on everything because they cant run the game well enough to enjoy it..

It would be honest to complain about graphics detail scalability, making the game much more forgiving in low settings and lower end PC's.