ArmA 2

[Jacobss 0]

On arma-zone.pl is the new report from GC. New screenshots from Arma II and video from Queens Gambit. The text is in polish, but I think someone would translate it into English. I can't, becouse my english is very bad . In the text are the answers from Maruk and new information about ArmA 2.

http://www.arma-zone.pl/modules....pid=120

[Deadfast 43]

I can see that Admincz already too out bits from TiscaliGames.cz article.

Well, I've translated it all for other forum, so why not share here too

<ul>

We've taken a deep look on the fresh continuation of military simulation, previously called "Game 2" at IDEA Games kiosk at GC, and the chief of developing team, Marek Španěl had answered us a lot of questions, including details about datadisc for first ArmA.

You would hardly find more sunken kiosk at Game Convention. It was in the back of hall that was restricted only for journalists and not many people passing by had the idea, that presented project might stand up to the Operation Flashpoint 2 by Codemasters. Well, in the middle of all the "hot-titles" like Stalin Subway 2 no surprise.

However thanks to this fact I had a lot of time to ask the chief of Bohemia Interactive, Marek Španěl (note: aka Maruk), who was very compliant, about everything he could tell me in the current state of game. It's quite a lot, as you can see yourself in this preview full of hot informations.

[*]The plot

The complication of story is indicated by presence of 4 factions, hostile between each other, in fictional post-soviet republic Chernarus (note: in Czech it sounds pretty close to "Black Russia").

Pro-Russian faction invades part of this republic and starts to terrorize its inhabitants. The government is almost powerless against this, therefore they ask USA for help. And so, like a member of US Marines you're send to area to stabilize the situation.

However even Russia joins the game, using destruction of radical national anti-Russian army as cover. It (anti-Russian army) doesn't use too gentle behavior to civilian inhabitants either, therefore this Russian step looks legitimate for a first look. USA retracts all troops as and reaction to this. However you and few other soldiers get stuck here...

If you were following the orders all the way there, now you have full freedom of choices and it's up to you if you decide to look for shortest way out of the island, or if you decide to find out what really stands behind this conflict. The needs of civilian inhabitants were always on a second place - on a first place it was always mineral wealthiness of Chernarus - uranium.

Speaking of freedom of choice, it's not only about being able to go anywhere, anytime. Some factions are not automatically hostile toward you and you can join them. Of course, they expect little something as an exchange and you can mess up your relationships with someone else. Important is also you repute between civilians (in city around dozens of people) and it's again only up to you, if you help little village against attack by one of the terroristic factions.

No matter that the idea of playing by all sides of conflict has been already used several times, I can't remember a game which used it in such a huge open world - Chernarus is 300 km² and everything is created in 1:1 scale after Czech Central Mountains (note: map -marked in green, Wikipedia article).

[*]You're not alone

Most of the times you'll have a squad with 5 members, between which you'll be able to switch. "The game idea is, it shouldn't be all about save/load. When I loose a squad-mate, he'll get replaced in time. We don't want to frustrate playing with fear of life lead to saving all the time", said Marek Španěl (note: ah, god no... this may mean very crappy character story).

Video: Street combat - AI behavior, hand signals, RPK-74

In first ArmA AI players were walking in the middle of a street most of the time. We're not going to see it again in ArmA 2, because of significant AI behavior improvement. It takes cover carefully, without the need of special orders. The game gets a different feeling thanks to that, as you can see in GC video above. A little user friendly improvement might be reloading while moving (note: great !.

[*]New killing machines

Important role for USMC will be played by AAV (note: Amphibious Assault Vehicle) which will be often used for its adaptability. Russians will get modern tanks as is T-90, less protected, but amphibious BMP-3, eight-wheeled APC BTR-90 and anti-air Tonguska-M1.

American side will also get a new transport helicopter - C-130J Super Hercules and a new jet - F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Russia will get the Mil Mi-24 Hind, which was somewhat an icon of Operation Flashpoint and here it returns. You see yourself, how detailed the model is in another video below.

And because ArmA 2 takes place in near future, aside from already mentioned military vehicles, you can look forward to vehicles that are not used in current conflicts yet.

Video: Mi-24

About datadisc ArmA: Queen's Gambit

Two new campaigns: The Rahmadi Conflict, containing 3 wide missions, the second one is Royal Flush with 7 missions. United Sahrani is supposed to be remake/upgrade of current Sahrani, put 2 years ahead. Porto is smaller, but completely new island and creators are supposed to be paying pretty much attention to details.

Datadisc will contain:

- patch 1.08

- two new multi-player missions: Battle of Porto with system Capture and Hold for 40 people and Urban Raid - cooperative for 6 people in the middle of Porto city

-new aircrafts (DC3, A10, Su34), vehicles (HMMWV Limousine, MG mounted pick-ups, motorcycles) and firearms (6G30 grenade launcher, rifles - M16A4, M16A4 ACOG, M16A4 GL, M16A4 ACOG GL, AK74 PSO1, sniper rifles - M107, KSVK). Some of the named models are already in patch 1.08.

Standard version of Armed Assault will be required. Only details in localization are being finished now and the game is actually ready to go for DVDs. September 2007 is still in effect as a release date.

[*]Less is sometimes more

"In ArmA 2 we mainly concentrate on 2 game modes, not on game mode number like in the previous games," replied BI chief on question about multi-player.

One of the game modes will be about controlling the island, where teams are gaining territories, in return the team gets money/credits. Each team selects its commander that can use money/credits for buying vehicles and building factories.

It's a very interesting combination between FPS and strategy, which success proves mod for Half Life - Natural Selection or unofficial mission for Operation Flashpoint, which creator is even cooperating with BI. Of course this mode can take few hours.

Second MP mode is based on campaign and you cooperate with another human players against AI. Bohemia Interactive is trying to port as much goals/missions from single-player to multi-player as possible. The most important information is, that the game progress, including all changes in game world would save, so you could continue later. This upgrades the most popular ArmA mission Evolution.

[*]Technical aspects

Some people may be disappointed by physical model, that almost copy the one from first ArmA and doesn't allow as it's "competition" from next-gen FPS, such as Battlefield: Bad Company. You'll be again able to destroy smaller objects as boxes and dustbins. Building will collapse at once. It's a pity, but on the other hand implementation of more complicated destruction effect would take way too much of time and system resources.

The story is all set to autumn and if there wouldn't be for the orange tree leafs, the whole world would look very grimly. One of the industrial area's architecture looked like ported out of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., what isn't a coincidence, because both games are set to post-soviet countries. The game should fully support DirectX 10 and Windows Vista.

[*]When, on what and with who ?

In the end we spoke with Marek Španěl also about ArmA 2's console version, that should be identical with the one for PC. The only difference will be magnetic aim cross (note: autoaim, I guess), and as I was ensure by Marek, there will be no other simplification. The question is, for which console(s) the game is going to be released. It's all up to publisher, that's being searched for at the moment.

Also selection of copy protection is up to publisher, but the creators gained a lot of experiences in this area, so the problems with StarForce shouldn't repeat again (note: thank god). Release date is so far set to June 2008, but as Marek Španěl said, it can go up/down by 6 months .

Video: Industrial Area - AK-74 with Kobra

Note that author mixes up terms - calles Evolution a mod (in original, I fixed it here).

[Raptor 10]

thanks for the work.

[Colossus 2]

Awesome details. Looking really forward to ArmA 2 now.  

Speaking of vehicles, it would be fun if the Russians suddenly brings in

a T-95 or a Black Eagle prototype. Maybe even a BMPT.  

[Baron von Beer 0]

Just wish they'd dump the "Fictional island" thing already. At least this time they have the USMC going to said island.

Think multiple maps depicting regions of a non-island nation would be much more plausible/believable for a modern conflict involving heavy forces on both sides.

[Cannon Fodder 0]

One of the things I have particularly enjoyed when playing through some of the larger dynamic missions for ArmA is playing as a small group of special forces soldiers. Loading up with ammo, gearing up your men, driving a stolen 4x4 deep into enemy territory, ditching in a forest, checking the map and moving into position... Simply awesome and a massive amount of fun. If the fully dynamic campaign allows for genuinely randomly generated targets of opporunity, a continuing day/night cycle and the ability to manage your men and weaponary to a greater extent than ArmA does, we could be on to a winner.

Literally nothing would beat cleansing a town of an unwanted enemy presence, moving slowly and advancing from cover to cover in deserted town streets under the cover of night. What would make this even more special is if said 'mission' was generated randomly, and this particularly atmospheric situation was just the lucky outcome of a robust campaign. How about news of a high-ranking enemy officer's location, generated by pressing people for intel, so that an operation deep behind enemy lines would be needed? Loading up, heading out... It could be awesome. It could be. The possibility is there.

[guerilla -MCY- 0]

instead of fixing all CTF problems, they're not gonna support it at all as it seems, well at least they're honest this time, so i can move on to another game for some real challenge and buy arma2 if i wanna see my homecountry....

[simulacra 0]

Wake me up when Arma 2 isn't arma 1 with new trees, I wont accept anything less than completely new technology since the current one is really bad

[sdoc 0]

have you already considered what a Destructible Building system would mean on a MP server, runing for several hours in CTI, on a 300 km^2 island, with two dozen players online?

Now tell me what advantages it would bring compared to a destruction model with different destruction stages.

It's a war game afterall, it's not 'Deconstruction Manager 2'. If there were destructible buildings, people would look at it a couple of times in the editor, maybe impress some friends with it. And that's it. In play you ain't got the time to take note of such details anyway, as theres someone who's trying to blow you up.

on a sidenote, don't make jokes about new trees. if they're done very well they could save quite a lot of resources!

[quicksand 0]

Hooray,I am so glad they followed the path showcased in ArmA that proved so beautifully that character story and making players care about their role in the game is completly useless for immersion and motivation.

Oh wait they didn't.Armed Assault was a blistering failure in this compartment,the overwhelming majority of players hated the campaign.So they are doing the same thing again?

This makes me suspect that Codemasters was the sole reason we had such a good story in Cold War Crisis(I rank it very highly,for me it was a very emotional experience),if so I am stuck hoping for the best in Operation Flashpoint 2.

I've been a loyal fan for years that bought all that games they released including 2 copies of the crippled ArmA.For better or for worst I sticked with them.But they just don't listen.We complained so much about the lack of depth in ArmA single player experience and they still want to keep their stupid toggle between players feature.Thumbs down BIS!

[SaBrE_UK 0]

You may be right about it being bad, but you haven't played it yet, and none of us know if it'll be good in another way so judge when you try it

[Guest Ti0n3r]

The ArmA campaign was in my opinion, a joke. Both in terms of mission design and immersion, and I think at least 90% of the people around here agree on that one.

So surely BIS won't ignore us and make that same mistake again. I'm sure they won't... To me it sounds more like it's going to be something totally different this time. From what I've read so far.

[Benoist 0]

It's not going to be a "linear" campaign?

I would like one campaign like a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. one, but i think that a campaign with a story arc like the one in the OFP would be awsome.

[Barely-injured 0]

I dont think it is not fair to compare the campaign of ArmA to that of OFP as each one was designed for a different purpose.

In OFP the campaign was almost linear and completely story driven as was most of the games of the time however it didnt showcase all of OFP's engine potential and the whole game was centered around the campaign (just dig out an old OFP trailer if you can find one you will see that they advertised the game completely based on the campaign sometimes they didnt even mention the editor). Not many people even imagined back then what else that could be done in the game and how capable was its engine until the missions and addons started to pour in.

In ArmA the campaign was designed for a different purpose it was mostly a tech showcase if you will, it was not the main focus of the game. It dumped the storyline because it would not allow for such a flexible different roles and characters and assignments, besides they tried to make it more sim like because you are just another soldier in the war ( I mean in lock on or falcon 4 you dont get any bigger storyline then ArmA one). Where the campaign did suck however is in the poor mission design with unrealistic implementation, it seems to me that the campaign was made in a rush because like I said the campaign was not the main focus of this game. But i didnt lose faith in BIS missions yet because when they focus on it they do get good stuff out like "Blood sweat and tears" (there were rumors that this one was not actually done by BIS, is that true??).

I personally dont mind either approach to the campaign of ArmA 2 as long as the game is capable of doing both (already apparent in ArmA 1) and as long as the mission design is not as bad as the one in ArmA campaign. And of course if they could pull of that idea of a semi-dynamic or dynamic campaign with decent quality it would definitely be awesome.

[colkurtz 0]

What about indoor combat in ARMA2, will the AI be able to navigate their way into a building and fight effectively from or inside it?

[stakex 0]

have you already considered what a Destructible Building system would mean on a MP server, runing for several hours in CTI, on a 300 km^2 island, with two dozen players online?

Now tell me what advantages it would bring compared to a destruction model with different destruction stages.

It's a war game afterall, it's not 'Deconstruction Manager 2'. If there were destructible buildings, people would look at it a couple of times in the editor, maybe impress some friends with it. And that's it. In play you ain't got the time to take note of such details anyway, as theres someone who's trying to blow you up.

on a sidenote, don't make jokes about new trees. if they're done very well they could save quite a lot of resources!

Well obviouslly a dd system could not run well on MP... but there is alot more to gameing then online play. As far as Im concerned, I had fun with OFP for years and I only played alittle online with one of my friends.

DD would have added a whole new element to the game. Someones hidding in a building? Instead of hitting the static building with 4-5 rockets to knock it down all together, you could blow apart one part of the building to kill the person in the building. Its far from just a minor detail.....

[smellyjelly 0]

It would be cool, but then every building would need an intererior, furtniture, ect. That would take way too long.

[Kabuto 0]

It would be cool, if Bohemia Interactive takes a look on OFP and can overtake the stuff that is better in OFP (as in ArmA) into ArmA 2.

- faster animations ...

... i stoped playing ArmA, because you feel like a 90 years old man with this robot animations today,

- correct recoil animations ...

.... in ArmA the recoil of a weapon, has only a effect on the shoulders, that looks unnaturally. Recoil should have influence on the whole body. And OFP has already a proper animation.

- the helicopter controles ...

... in OFP i was able to give my gunner a target by mouse click.

If i was pilot of e.g.AH1 and saw a guy running, i could click him and my gunner does his bloody job.

Today if i fly a AH1, i feel "challenged", because i can't "communicate" with my gunner.

[sniper pilot 36]

The game takes physics to the extreme, so not only do vehicles (be they land, sea or air) look far more convincing then before but actually features a fully integrated destructible model that helps to bring buildings down with unmatched realism – a mortar fired from a tank crashed into a building and left a wake of destruction, which continued to collapse after a significant time all based on real-world forces. Wandering into such a derelict building can be a hazardous occasion, as Marek explained when a precariously balanced bit of debris fell on his head. Nothing about this is scripted so you’ll never see buildings or vehicles destroyed in the same way; it was honestly remarkable and highlighted just how far Operation Flashpoint 2 is above the vast majority of physics-driven titles out there. Bullets as well react differently based on a variety of factors such as the angle of impact and the target structure along, significantly highlighted with trace fire shooting off in the horizon; it’s something that BiS like to call kinetic energy, the dispersal of energy from the bullet to the point of contact and whether it penetrates or deflects.

Wow... If they don't include that... then i hope they delay it until they do...

[Dwarden 1125]

the thing is that correctly used physics improves not just falling of some building wall but also vehicles handling, crashes etc.

complex physics in MP is possible too , some titles already experimenting with that (e.g. Ageia for UT2007) ...

in 2008 You see tons of titles with 'well' done physics ...

[Radnik 18]

speaking of physics...I have a question for developers; is this will be in ArmA 2 options:

Quote[/b] ]The terrain shall unlike ArmA be totally deformable, namely physically correct. e.g. you can theoretically gain access to a house with a well aimed shot in a house wall. Of course only, if you don't damage the bearers too much. Game 2 uses the open source ODE physics engine.

The mimics of the faces shall be very detailled and you shall be able to tell the current state of a single soldier.

and this:

Quote[/b] ]A system called "Linda" shall simulate a hyperrealistic vegetation and even a whole ecosystem, where knocked over trees grow again. The tree growth shall change depending on if the tree is standing in a wood or lonely on a field.

I found this article on my hard drive...dunno from where and when...

[baddo 0]

Speaking of "physically correct" sounds exactly like totally impossible to achieve, such words should be dropped. I take it that didn't come from BIS' mouth, they should never state such things and I don't believe they did.

In games physics are big faking (dedicated physics processors don't remove that) and that is not changing anytime soon. Even in scientific/engineering tools physics/deformation/stress simulations and results are not "physically correct". And those tools can take quite a while to calculate even a small simulation. That's why realistically deforming/breaking materials will not appear into computer games, faking it to some level is possible of course, but the word "realistically" should not be used when it in fact is faking.

[sniper pilot 36]

Speaking of "physically correct" sounds exactly like totally impossible to achieve, such words should be dropped. I take it that didn't come from BIS' mouth, they should never state such things and I don't believe they did.

In games physics are big faking (dedicated physics processors don't remove that) and that is not changing anytime soon. Even in scientific/engineering tools physics/deformation/stress simulations and results are not "physically correct". And those tools can take quite a while to calculate even a small simulation. That's why realistically deforming/breaking materials will not appear into computer games, faking it to some level is possible of course, but the word "realistically" should not be used when it in fact is faking.

You can fake stuff realistically...

example:

I pretend to talk on the phone, and in my opinion I can fake talking on the phone just as good as i would of talking on the phone and there was someone real on the other side...

So yes i could call it realistic, it just depends how good of an actor you are.

[baddo 0]

Well you can fake physics in games, but don't call it "physically correct". It is far from that, was my message.

Especially if you try to fake dynamic destruction, you are not going to be able to fake it well-enough to rightfully call it "correct", it's practically impossible to achieve in games.

It might be good-enough to fool people who play games, and that is what matters for game developers. But the word "correct" should not be used then.

As an example, look at the relatively simple vehicle destruction model in place in ArmA. Now try to think how you could make it "correct". That requires some serious Engineering work. Start by studying Strength of Materials and Dynamics, and you'll soon understand you won't get your game simulation no where near how such real objects break.

I am maybe nitpicking a little bit here If the game developers are able to make people think something is "realistic", then that is good-enough for them of course. Just that I wouldn't call it "correct" as it definitely won't be that.

I won't talk about this anymore in this thread

[stegman 3]

speaking of physics...I have a question for developers; is this will  be in ArmA 2 options:

Quote[/b] ]The terrain shall unlike ArmA be totally deformable, namely physically correct. e.g. you can theoretically gain access to a house with a well aimed shot in a house wall. Of course only, if you don't damage the bearers too much. Game 2 uses the open source ODE physics engine.

The mimics of the faces shall be very detailled and you shall be able to tell the current state of a single soldier.

and this:

Quote[/b] ]A system called "Linda" shall simulate a hyperrealistic vegetation and even a whole ecosystem, where knocked over trees grow again. The tree growth shall change depending on if the tree is standing in a wood or lonely on a field.

I found this article on my hard drive...dunno from where and when...  

You know, the longer this game takes to come out the better.

It sounds really power hungry.  I've only just got a pc that can only just run ArmA.

[Edit] - I think might have mwentioned this allready! sorry for repeating my self.