What made OPF better?

[Sevan 0]

I have been playing ArmA for a long time now, but when I go back and play OPF I still have more fun. I'm trying to understand what factors make this happen:

Performance: I get much better performance in OPF for obvious reasons. I don't have to battle rapid and jerky FPS transitions that happen very common in ArmA. I've explained this affect before. I may be getting 75 FPS, then turn to a developed or wooded area and the FPS drops to 25-30. 25-30 is still decent, but the sudden transitions causes very jerky performance.

I still have not had any major time playing in the North Sahrani. Because the level of performance even on an 8800, makes it mostly unplayable. When I'm designing a mission or playing official or user-made missions, I have to specifically avoid missions in the North. There aren't any such "no-go" zones in OPF. In a way the performance problems are limiting my freedom of action and movement which is what makes OPF so fun. That leads me to the second area.

Maps: Sahrani and all the ArmA islands are a noticeable improvement over OPF ones in terms of detail and complexity, particularly in urban areas. However, what made the OPF islands better in my opinion was much more wide open and flat terrain. This gave a more realistic feeling. In ArmA islands geographic features are too close together, unrealistically. You no longer have the huge wide open spaces that you did in OPF, which gave a better feeling of scale. They just felt more realistic because transitions were always smooth and gradual. In Sahrani, political ideology seems to make geography change and even gives you distinct species of grass with no overlap.

While the Urban detail in ArmA and the size of cities is larger this is not a positive thing. Let me explain. The size of cities in ArmA has improved but not the AI to really let you utilize them. The AI works much better in the small, spread out villages of OPF. That's another thing that ArmA lacks, the small but large number of small villages. There may be some in the North, but as I said earlier performance issues makes me avoid the North.

Other Issues: The third major issue is that the graphical and game-play faults of OPF are/were acceptable. These were acceptable limitations of video game technology when OPF was released. ArmA has improved much graphically over OPF, but it makes the little faults stick out that much more. No vehicle entry/exist animations seem to bother me a lot more with better graphics, then they do in OPF.

This is still an incomplete list, there is/was something about OPF that made it more fun. And it seems to be a fairly common sentiment in these forums. I don't want this thread to be about complaining about ArmA or ranting about issues. I don't want it to be like the ArmA disappointment thread either. Instead, I intend for this to be a constructive comparison between OPF and ArmA.

[ricoadf 0]

I agree with the above comments, tho the north of the island isnt a major issue for me. The Campaign however was a huge disappointment. Apparently QG is better, I'm installing it right now and hope that its ones are better. If not then definently no ArmA II for me ever.

[mant3z 1]

oh please, stop crying

[vilas 477]

OFP is better in atmosphere, dirty, old 1985 atmosphere, cold as Cold War

default missions for OFP are super, i still play them

i enjoy almost all in OFP

when ARMA was advertised, i was really hoping to get another, more relistic war simultor, i was not expecting such super graphics as it is in ARMA

but ARMA has many bugs, it is better from patch to patch but is not good so far

in ARMA i cannot do camera effect in mission editor, in ARMA i cannot do missions like "crawl silently to the enemy base" because my soldier doesn't obey order "not fire" he fires and makes enemies wake up

in ARMA tactics and this alone-suicidal-engagaging units are horrible

god-knowledge-sniper-skills of enemy is horrible too

OFP was super game, for me it was the best game in the world for so many years

still when i play some OFP default mission i have this feeling like in 2001

playing ARMA i have feeling like something was lacking, something in sounds, environment

maybe ARMA is too "nice" to be a war atmospheric ?

[andersson 285]

One thing can be that you started playing OFP without expectations, arma is a sequell that you waited for.

If you only play on the south part of the island I can understand you get a little bored. Me myself play alot on the north part and prefer that before OFP everon.

The only thing I see that OFP had better was the campaign, but thats no news.... I would have loved to explore the north part in a CWC way.

I see no reason for  me to play OFP instead of arma, its all up to the missions for me as the arma engine is much better.

EDIT: In some way I can understand Vilas, OFP AI was easier to control and there was a nice gritty feeling. But as I dont play around with camera movements and try to play/make quit open and random missions I think that arma AI is better. But I can understand the frustration if you try to micromanage the.

[Sevan 0]

Quote[/b] ]still when i play some OFP default mission i have this feeling like in 2001

playing ARMA i have feeling like something was lacking, something in sounds, environment

maybe ARMA is too "nice" to be a war atmospheric ?

yes, thats exactly the kind of experiance I have. I'm trying to understand why that is.

Quote[/b] ]as the arma engine is much better.

agreed.

[andersson 285]

Quote[/b] ]still when i play some OFP default mission i have this feeling like in 2001

playing ARMA i have feeling like something was lacking, something in sounds, environment

maybe ARMA is too "nice" to be a war atmospheric ?

yes, thats exactly the kind of experiance I have. I'm trying to understand why that is.

Quote[/b] ]as the arma engine is much better.

agreed.

I believe it is so because the missions in OFP was very good. The missions in arma are a disaster and Im not sure I bothered to finnish one of them...

[456820 0]

I too have started playing OFP much more recently. The GUI is better in all ways, campaign and misions were better, even though the graphics arent great they look better then ArmA on very low and it actually runs on high fps even then.

Atmosphere is better, when I go back to play OFP I feel scared/worried for my squad when sneaking up to an enemy camp (Of course in OFP you c ould do that cause in ArmA your god damn squad open fires)

The OFP AI did nearly exactly as you say, in times in ArmA Ive had my second in command take command even though I was still alive and then the rest of the team just didnt listen to me

Personally I think OFP is just the much better game despite it being 5/6 years old now.

[Journeyman 0]

I agree there was a great 'atmosphere' in OFP and for any game to be good it needs atmosphere. OFP was slightly historic of course and any piece of history usually invokes a degree of atmosphere. I find this too with other historic war sims like Vietcong and COD where the historic events create the feeling of remembering something from the past. I never get the same feeling with modern war sims. There's more to it that just period of course and I think location is also important. I found CWC more atmospheric than Resistance for instance. The CWC islands were somehow quaint and surreal whereas Nogova was bigger and more varied but lost some of that appeal.

The rest is just down to gameplay differences and the many issues that ArmA still has. I also hate the grass in ArmA! I preferred to play with it off, but that doesn’t work in multiplayer. The grass should have been much sparser and faded for longer rather that a thick mat of FPS killer appearing a few yards all around you!

The story in ArmA was shit too compared to OFP's brilliant campaign! I could have thought of a better on in my lunch break! The voice acting was much better in OFP and last but not least there was some continuity with your character. It played a bit more like an RPG whereas ArmA doesn’t really give you a character.  Just my 2 cents!  

[Lepardi 0]

Atmosphere. Better atmosphere. Armed Assault is more like a plain simulator, it doesn't have the plot. The atmopshere.

"There's a conflict happening there, go and kill all/blow a gas station."

[SeppSchrot 0]

While the Urban detail in ArmA and the size of cities is larger this is not a positive thing. Let me explain. The size of cities in ArmA has improved but not the AI to really let you utilize them. The AI works much better in the small, spread out villages of OPF.

[...]

Other Issues: The third major issue is that the graphical and game-play faults of OPF are/were acceptable. These were acceptable limitations of video game technology when OPF was released. ArmA has improved much graphically over OPF, but it makes the little faults stick out that much more.

Hello,

I think these two points show that OFP has a more harmonized environment. Most aspects actually matched together and it was as accurate as it needed to be in respect how exact things could be rendered. The AI was just smart enough to handle the level of the detail of the environment and the animations were just smooth enough for the rather clumsy polygon models.

Because most things fit together it does not disturb the players as much.

ArmA suffers from making progress in just some areas but leaving behind others. Very evident to me is the half-hearted command "interface". Being consistent in OFP it now has been ripped in several parts with many overlapping parts.

I can easily multitask in OFP like driving a tank and at the same time assign targets to my gunner with the mouse.

OFP is fun. Consequently ArmA should be to too but from my point of view they just shoved new gimmicks in until the old engine buckled under the load.

[Guest Ti0n3r]

The only thing better in OFP are the official campaigns, if you ask me

[Sevan 0]

Quote[/b] ]I think these two points show that OFP has a more harmonized environment. Most aspects actually matched together and it was as accurate as it needed to be in respect how exact things could be rendered. The AI was just smart enough to handle the level of the detail of the environment and the animations were just smooth enough for the rather clumsy polygon models.

Because most things fit together it does not disturb the players as much.

Very well said. I was just beginning to think of it that way.

ArmA in almost all expects is identical to OPF but with many new imporvements. So I couldn't understand why it felt better, and I had a much smoother experiance in OPF. I guess it has to do with this "environmental harmony".

That "harmony" has definetly changed. The graphic effects and landscape design has outpaced the AI and other areas. The player models may be better but the animation transitions haven't improved.

I think this has to do with how ArmA was developed. I understand that it was meant to essentially be a sort of OPF:Elite report to the PC, in a new setting. Some where along the way graphics improvements took priority and they were improved quite a bit. But other areas seem to have been marganilized. The balance or "harmony" was lost.  

I never had a problem with the atmosphere in ArmA. I thought the tropical/latin setting was a nice change. It's just the design of the island that I don't like. Everything is too cramped, cities, geological features. The island may be larger but it doesn't have the feeling of expansiveness because there is too much going on. Like how having too much furniture can make a room look small.

[The_Captain 0]

I would like to echo the opinion of others in this thread. In my opinion, the single thing that makes OFP more fun than arma is that it's more consistent overall: the level of environmental detail supports the combat and AI, the level of graphical detail supports the density of combat, the terrain makes me feel like I could be within some larger country (the terrain features change slowly, as was pointed out), the missions were atmospheric and "larger scale" and you felt part of a larger conflict with simple objectives, and the interface and game allowed you to do properly just about everything the game promised you could do. OFP feels like each part of the game were designed to mesh with the other parts of the game. It's synergistic.

In arma, those considerations do not apply, and the game feels disjointed. It feels like OFP was patched, modded, and improved to differing levels instead of leading to a new synergistic game built on ofp's engine. While that's exactly what BIS promised (OFP 1.5), it still ends up feeling hollow. The level of environmental detail does not support the AI and combat (AI has trouble in dense areas, terrain detail affects performance drastically), the terrain doesn't give me the feeling like I'm in another country (terrain is largely unrealistic feeling), the missions are poorly done (dense, error prone scripting, unrealistic objectives, no atmosphere), and the interface does not let me do properly everything the game purports I can do (command a squad effectively, command a vehicle effectively, use certain weapons properly, etc).

I think arma is best described as an interim product. It meets our expectations in various areas while falling short in others, and can't really be described as a full featured game. It improves on some shortcomings of the previous generation (ofp) while leaving us sorely wanting for a new game which gives us the synergistic feel of OFP.

[opteryx 1562]

Quote[/b] ]terrain detail affects performance drastically

Utter nonsense.

If anything quite the contrary is true, the default terrain ArmA island is far from as intricate as it could be, still a more complex terrain grid in ArmA has little to none effect on frame rates. In OFP however there was no streaming, this did however have a severe effect on performance.

[Commando84 0]

only thing better in ofp is tge campaign, and resistance brought some new life into the game. I dunno but i loved Nogova more than the old islands because of its variety and nicer graphics.

When a game stops feeling varied and nothing new to explore or no new mods that show up or mp feels boring then i might quit arma.

But now in school i feel the need to play arma even more than before maybe im getting crazy.

[Sevan 0]

Quote[/b] ]Utter bogus.

Depends on your standards I guess.

For me, I cannot play in dense areas (heavily urban, or heavy vegetation) with acceptable video settings.

As I said it's not even always about low FPS. But very shocking transitions between say 75 and 25 FPS, which gives me a very jerky experiance.

[opteryx 1562]

Quote[/b] ]Utter bogus.

Depends on your standards I guess.

For me, I cannot play in dense areas (heavily urban, or heavy vegetation) with acceptable video settings.

As I said it's not even always about low FPS. But very shocking transitions between say 75 and 25 FPS, which gives me a very jerky experiance.

And what relation does that have to do with the terrain?

[Sevan 0]

Are we talking about two different meanings of "terrain"?

In may way of looking at it. Trees, bushes, grass and buildings are part of the terrain. I think, that's the way Captain was talking about it too.

edit: thanks for clarifying your orginal post. I see the misunderstanding.

[opteryx 1562]

Are we talking about two different meanings of "terrain"?

In may way of looking at it. Trees, bushes, grass and buildings are part of the terrain. I think, that's the way Captain was talking about it too.

Well that's a completely different matter. Undergrowth/overgrowth certainly has a signifcant hit on frame rate, artificial objects however have superb performance compared to other game engines.

The issue with ArmA is that it suffers from heavy over usage of vegetation, this coupled with overdraw doesn't yield particularly satisfying performance at all, a more conservative approach should have been applied when plotting out vegetation.

To blame performance on the topographical terrain would be preposterous.

[Shadow NX 1]

I also have the OFP is superior feelign each time i play ArmA but i still think ArmA is a good game, even ebtter if there wasnt OFP before it.

I often tell myself while playing that ArmA is great and that i like it but then after some playing i often wish it to hell

Its little things, Ai sometimes even beign more stubborn that before, lil design changes that didnt make things easier for me like not beign able to tell one of my men to pick a particular weapon from a dead soldier around us ( or am i doing it worng? ).

Also thing slike the fact that they wont obey hold fire commands well that makes it impossible to play in the Resistance campaign style, back then i never lost one of my men ( ok rarely but then i reloaded ) cause most of the tiem i was bale to sneak me and my team to different positions, mark targets and let them open fire at each ones target.

Also stuff like the console style things like the big green hint symbols or the odd steerign in vehicles.

But i think the thing people miss most is the style of the campaigns, thinking of it alone makes me wanna reinstall OFP again ( had to delete it last days for the first time in years ) and play the campaign again.

However signs for ArmA2 are good if BIS learned a lesson from ArmA ( or two ), so far it seems the vegetation works better and gras is bit shorter, plus AI is improved, few animals seem to be there and most important we get the russians back into ArmA along with a lot of great vehicles.

My biggest hope is that BIS learned from the reactions to the ArmA campaign ( very intresting story but so badly brough to life in ArmA ) and make sure that this time it will be a pearl on CWR and Resistance level.

So im patinent and have high hopes for ArmA.

[The_Captain 0]

Let me clarify what I meant to say about terrain detail affecting performance: The detail of the terrain has a large effect on frame rates, whether the upper and lower frame rates are apcceptible or not. The island of sarahni has a large variation in terrain detail, from the sparse south to the heavily vegetated north, and this creates an inconsistent experience for many players (eg, having wildly different frame rates depending on their graphical settings and location of the mission). In OFP, the object and terrain detail was roughly uniform across the islands, so your performance on one mission was roughly equal to the next. In Arma, the difference in detail of the terrain creates a potentially large difference in your mission to mission frame rate. (This also might have to do with streaming, which allows areas to have wildly different performance as they are loaded individually, while in OFP the lack of streaming meant all areas of the island were preloaded and thus didn't have a huge hit on performance)

Regardless, my issue stands, which is that depending on where you set a mission, client performance can vary dramatically, whereas in OFP location of the mission within the terrain (due to the uniformity of the terrain density and object distribution) didn't have as large of a potential effect on performance. This variance in performance can contribute to the inconsistent experience one gets while playing arma.

[sickboy 13]

I'm not a singleplayer player, I do not play campaigns or singleplayer missions, heck, I don't even know anything about the story of ArmA, so hence my opinion:

Nothing in OFP was better.

The community creating addons for OFP seemed better/more alive though.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

I agree with the oppinion that the "harmonic ensemble" is what made OFP a better game than ArmA. Maybe we're just so spoiled by OFP that it's easy for us to find fault with ArmA - Although we had to wait a long time to have ArmA... and some of the faults of OFP were not corrected in ArmA, and some things that were good in OFP were changed for the worse in it's sequel.

And sickboy, if you've never played single-player OFP, you've been missing a damn good game... as for MP, I know one thing that's better in OFP compared to ArmA: OFP didn't have that many cheaters ruining the experience for everyone...

[sickboy 13]

Quote[/b] ]And sickboy, if you've never played single-player OFP, you've been missing a damn good game... as for MP, I know one thing that's better in OFP compared to ArmA: OFP didn't have that many cheaters ruining the experience for everyone...

I'm simply not into Singleplayer games other than fantasy and some action games

I'm multiplayer coop addict and when im not playing coop im developping for multiplayer.

I am sorry to hear about those cheaters, but I couldn't care less myself really, I don't play on public servers, I play with my Community and outside friends