Interview with Ondrej Spanel ( Suma )

[.kju 3242]

Quote[/b] ]So my point is: Why BIS don't accept/use some of the great work that were/is made by the community to improve in terms of realism?

There are things that are made by the community that could be used for ArmA 1.11 or ArmA2, i mean scripts.. models.. etc.

Sorry people, but seriously, can you read?

What did the guy request? And what are you talking about?

@Balschoiw

ArmA and ArmA2 needs various elements fixed.

This was not the topic here though mate.

@MehMan and Balschoiw

The openess of OFP/ArmA allows YOU to do certain aspects yourself.

The overall question here is the ROI is high enough. Simple as

that. Of course you can like, want and request things.

It is BI's job to judge this though.

Whether you like it or not, you will have to live with their decision.

Again with their base you can do many things even own your own.

I do not question that many things can be done better. Yet

again re'read the actual topic in question here.

In terms of ROI a proper addon download built into ArmA2 would

be way more useful than what the guy requested.

[mr.g-c 6]

Quote[/b] ]There was a thread related to the theme of "little additions that increases the game's feeling and immersion" and it's sure that such details, which are mainly hard-coded would bring a lot for the incoming engine.

Maybe this..... The importance of Animations

And yes i totally agree to it.....

[hoz 0]

Everyone lets please get back on topic here... this thread is about the interview and is now being derailed in every which direction.

[sluggCDN 0]

@mr.g-c

Quote[/b] ]It really seems to me that Suma has no idea what the rest of his team does....

Sadly I got the same impression from the interview. It also felt like quite a bit was "lost in translation" between Jerry & Ondrej - English isn't the first language for either one of them. Thanks to Ondrej for the straight-up delivery without any marketing "fluff".

Ondrej is absolutely right - you cannot develope a market competitive game nowdays with 5-10 man company; even 50 ppl isn't enough. Therefore the tunnel vision approach leads nowhere. You'd think if the lead-programmer is programming something, he got to know what his code will be used in and what features it will support. The game dev team must talk among themselves - that's the most common logic and best business practice; if they aren't interfacing how do they make sure they are on the same page as far as the overall product vision is concerned. If they are all out of sync they will release yet another "ArmA" which will require 4-5 patches to get it right.

Does anyone know anything about the new squad controll system in ArmA2? Is BIS killing off the 12-unit squad system. Will it be just a 4-5 men team? Ondrej never said anything concrete about that aspect of the game, only that it will be more intuitive and flexible. If it's true then it will remove yet another distinctly OFP/ArmA feature from the game. OFP/ArmA is all about grand scale and large numbers.

[wamingo 1]

Snip...

If it's true then it will remove yet another distinctly OFP/ArmA feature from the game. OFP/ArmA is all about grand scale and large numbers.

Yet another? What distinct feature have or will be removed?

You're totally jumping to conclusions...

[Second 0]

Well didn't he say that they will not touch to squad-control mechanism, despite of requests about it?

He also said that chain of command will not be introduced, so no superunits (platoon) and no subunits (fireteams). Which is pretty much saying that they will keep on current track of things in this area.

[Yoma 0]

Suma don't worry, whatever software you'll make, there will allways be bussiness demands, user demands.

You guys are doing a great job, keep at it.

Glad to hear you have a happy family growing up.

Respect

[dmitri 0]

On the whole, I think it was positive.

But then I have always tried to be realistic about OFP\ArmA's direction..

I was expecting it to be far more negative after reading certain comments here.

Good interview, thanks Suma, and Jerryhopper. Inspires me to plow back into Visitor..

I'm pleased that the improved AI was mentioned, that's top of my wishlist.

At times it has a Disappointed Community vs BIS developer feel, but I suppose that's to be expected.

BIS sound like a nice group of guys. I can relate to the "keep your head down and work on what you like" siege mentality. It's a work ethic required when you're in a medium\small business competing against large companies, many in countries that are seen as the "centre of everything", where having high expectations are the norm.

OFP is worthy of it's pedestal, but it was also helluva quirky, had it's fair share of problems and was patched numerous times. With ArmA, the expectation factor seems to have swayed the community from tolerance and an understanding that the game was always about a bigger picture, not the finer details - to endlessly nitpicking..finer details. Perhaps we've tired of what made the game good, even if there still isn't a game out there that compares to it.

I'm not against criticism and the community being proactive, it's good. Most of those labelled negative are still playing the game.

Take the tactical shooters available currently. Any disappointment I might have had with BIS games cannot compare to the disappointment felt over the current Rainbow 6 and GWAR titles.

[max power 21]

Well didn't he say that they will not touch to squad-control mechanism, despite of requests about it?

No, he said that they would make better use of the framework they already have.

[SlipperyJim 0]

As a few people already mentioned, I loved the fact that Suma's answers were candid and didn't seem filtered through a PR department. It is appreciated.

Stating that there won't be any more support for Arma2 than Arma1 is a concern. Did I hear him correctly that he said there would be even less support? I keep thinking about how long it has been since the last patch and I shake my head in disbelief. I guess the only safe thing to do with Arma 2 is wait a year after it's release and check to see if it has been patched properly.

After having so many Arma 1 games totally ruined by kids running client-side scripts forgive me if I am a little cynical about Arma 2.

[.kju 3242]

SlipperyJim quite much happened out of the public scope and still is happening.

There also contract and publisher constraints, as well as most

times the developer has to pay the time needed for patches /

support. I guess it is not different here.

So Suma is talking more about the actual time put into ArmA1

support. You know very little about the actual amount they put

into it. The public sees only the result.

However BI needs continue to improve the effectiveness, to

have certain things more contemporary and make people more

aware of the results. They tackled these aspects with their new

pages, the blog, interviews etc.

So I agree that the cheating issue has to be handled differently in general.

[IronPyramid 0]

Thank you Jerry. And Suma, my hat is off to you!

Keep up the good work!

[Dallas 9]

Did I hear him correctly that he said there would be even less support?  I keep thinking about how long it has been since the last patch and I shake my head in disbelief.

Victor: Will you be supporting ArmA II, more than ArmA I.

Suma: Those things are kind of hard to tell in advance because how much we will support Armed Assault 2 will depand on how many people will play it. If there will be nobody at all, then we defenently will not support it, because it would be nonsense. We hope some people will play Armed Assault 2 and we intent to support it. I guess anyone knowing our history can tell we dedicate alot of effort in support. I am kind of surprised that someone is asking if we will support Armed Assault more than ArmA 1. To this I would say frankly probably not more... Because...

Jerry Hopper: ...It's already enough. I think you do a good job.

Suma: Well enought, I guess nothing is enough for someone who wants more and more. Everytime we could support more than we do.

I think the question implies that BIS are not supporting their games properly and expressing your disbelief you seem to concur. Personally I think you should write off BIS and ArmA 2 right now. Because obviously BIS will not deliver the game and support you expect. On a personal note. I think BIS reputation's speaks for itself, but it's clearly under attack.

The disbelief is mutual.

BIS games were never about the single tree, but about the whole forrest surrounding it, the nearby villages, winding roads, whole island and infinite waters beyond it. I think the broader perspective is forever lost to some.

[baddo 0]

Games should not have to be patched at all!

It is a sorry state for the industry if they need to keep fixing their products patch after patch...

...it can be called "good support" and it can be that. But wouldn't it be better for all of us if the patching would just not have to be started at all.

The developers don't get revenue from the patches, and the customers have a painful task of tracking all patches and downloading and installing them in correct order. And getting correct patch versions... that is how you like to spend an evening? Well I prefer to do something else honestly.

It's the nature of the beast called PC I guess. Only way to avoid it is to avoid the PC.

[wamingo 1]

blah

Just games?

All software shouldn't need patches, but it does.

MS Windows shouldn't need patches, but it does.

MS Windows shouldn't have critical exploitable loopholes, but it does.

Cars should never break either, but they do.

And guess what, consoles will become more and more online and you'll start to realise that you have to download patches for all your console games as well. Just wait.

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Games should not have to be patched at all!

Even CoD4, one of the most polished tac-shooters we've seen lately, had an update for download the very first time you connected to XBox Live on the 360.

One of the benefits of playing games on the PC was that they could be patched. Obviously, Microsoft saw the need for patches for 360 console games, too.

Your expectation is completely unrealistic.

I thought it was a very informative and honest interview.

It shocks me that people can accuse ArmA of being the same game as OFP, and ArmA 2 as being the same as ArmA 1. The landscaping that I'm seeing in ArmA 2 screenshots is the most believable and realistic I've seen in any game.

I've had my eye on this franchise since before the release of the public demo. This game has come so far that people don't even remember how far that is.

I remember when it was up in the air whether you would be able to walk through a forest or not. You should have been there when the Spanel Brothers delivered the news that they had figured out a way to provide us with forests we could walk through. What joy filled our hearts!

If Codemasters makes a good product, good for them. I'll probably play it.

When B.I. releases ArmA 2, I'll probably buy it for the PC and the 360. They have a tough act to follow, an act which was theirs. OFP blew us away because it was realistic combined arms warfare brought to the PC, something only approximated once before, in EA's SEAL Team. Everything built upon OFP is going to be refinement of the idea, not complete creation.

If ArmA had been nothing more than Operation Flashpoint: Elite (i.e., OFP:R w/ mid-game joining) on the PC, I would have been immensely happy, but the community insisted on all kinds of improvements. (If OFP:E was backwards-compatible on the 360, I'd be playing it, right now.) With OFP, they criticized the trees. B.I. improved the trees, then the critics complained about something else.

Is it really possible to please the whole community?

[jerryhopper 285]

As a few people already mentioned, I loved the fact that Suma's answers were candid and didn't seem filtered through a PR department.   It is appreciated.

Stating that there won't be any more support for Arma2 than Arma1 is a concern.  Did I hear him correctly that he said there would be even less support?  I keep thinking about how long it has been since the last patch and I shake my head in disbelief.  I guess the only safe thing to do with Arma 2 is wait a year after it's release and check to see if it has been patched properly.

After having so many Arma 1 games totally ruined by kids running client-side scripts forgive me if I am a little cynical about Arma 2.

i think you understanded that wrong mate...

there will be the same support as in Arma no less, the thing about 'more support' sounds strange, as if there is not enough support nowadays for arma.

And about patches, and buying a game a year later, i think that counts for most MP FPS games...

[baddo 0]

Games should not have to be patched at all!

Your expectation is completely unrealistic.

No it's not! I have played lots of games which were at their initial release version and I did not notice a single bug during the whole time I played those games.

So a conclusion has to be made: it is a realistic goal to make games which do not need hundreds of megabytes of patching after initial public release. And that is what should be aimed for.

My comments about this "patching" are meant to remind people who seem to want patches that they have fallen into something which is certainly not needed. They have fallen into accepting that they constantly buy seriously flawed products and "it's okay as long as we get patches x years after initial release". And then the screaming starts here at this forum "when is the patch coming out!!".

I hope ArmA II will not receive so huge patching as ArmA I has received already this far. I hope the game is good-enough that there is no need for so huge patching. Is there something wrong with this kind of hoping? Unrealistic hope? I certainly don't think so.

wamingo, Microsoft Windows is an operating system and as such it is a critical, very complex component of your PC. I think we should not start to compare operating system patching to game patching, the two are not comparable in my opinion. Your games are not responsible for anything other programs are supposed to be doing or for communicating with the hardware directly, unlike an operating system.

Also your example about cars is not really good here. The car manufacturers get revenue from the work they do after the initial sale of a car, when they sell spare parts and maintenance work. Did you pay BIS for your ArmA patch? No you did not.

I said earlier it is the nature of the beast, unfortunately. That statement in my opinion should have made it clear to you that I understand why errors get into software products and why they need to be patched. But there exists proof that not all software products need huge patches, so it is not unrealistic to expect that others could make such products too.

[Sergei_Q 0]

I have played lots of games which were at their initial release version and I did not notice a single bug during the whole time I played those games.

I would bet that most of them were not very complex simulations. ArmA is not even a hardcore simulation, but even then and with its broad scale and free environment it is much harder to get "right" than some more limited and less realistic game. Add to that that the more of a simulation a game is, the smaller its budget is...

[baddo 0]

I know that my idea "Games should not have to be patched at all!" will get a beating in this nerd- and computer technology fanatic -infested community, it's not a surprise. Also people who want to see feature additions and feature changes made into a game are not happy with that idea surely.

I don't want to see a game change significantly through patching. I want it to be as stable as possible. Stability is what we need and not disorder and chaos.

Also consider the people who can buy a game but don't have fast access to the internet? Tell them to download a 1.5 GB patch and see what kind of reaction you get... a happy reaction? Oh really

Think about all the people who buy a game from their local store and don't know that the game has a website which has updates for it. Yeah I'm sure there are plenty of such people in the world. What do they like if they buy the game and it doesn't work most of the time. They think the whole game is total crap, and the developer/publisher is crap too. And they throw the game away, without ever learning that the game was fixed to work in patch number 96. And those people deserved a good, working game too, no matter how hard you try to ridicule them for not knowing about the game's patches. They paid for it didn't they.

But there are these people out there who just love patches! And I let them do just that. If they get happy when they get a patch then I am not going to take it away from them.

I am questioning if it is a proper state for a game developer to be in, if they need to create huge patches for a game. I am opposing that state indeed. Whether it makes sense for you or not.

So, let's continue. What am I seeing when I see people asking if BIS is going to support ArmA II? I am seeing people who expect that ArmA II needs significant fixing after initial release. I am seeing people who want patches for a game which hasn't been released yet! How crazy is that?

[spetznaz14 0]

Arma 2 is going to have some low sales figures I believe, I bought Arma because I loved OFP.

I dont love Arma as it wont even run stable on my pc, I love patches if they fix things but with Arma they seem to fix a few things but there are still other issues that have not been addressed.

The fanboys will always make excuses for it but in the end when they are on page 1 of 1 on the server list and they find only a handful of servers with people on they might realise what a mess this game has been.

[wamingo 1]

I know that my idea "Games should not have to be patched at all!" will get a beating in this nerd- and computer technology fanatic -infested community, it's not a surprise.

I don't know about you, but I think anyone who can be described as a "Nerd and Computer Technology Fanatic" automatically gets more credibility.

Of course we pay for those patches, but that's looking really black and white on things... You can't run out of money, that's bankruptcy, you have to release product to get money. Money dictates the world. Games are no different - though it's unlikely that BIS are greedy money hoarders. That would be EA.

Sure, I would be pissed too if the games I played, played with a ~8 button controller, were litered with bugs.

The answer is... I just don't...

If it's realistic to expect, when one game is bugfree, that all games must be bugfree... Surely it must also be realistic to expect that all games have a budget equal to that of the biggest budget game? And that they all have equal quality?

Well shit, I want my car to be as least as cool as a mclaran, but as sturdy as a tractor, and it must be able to fly like an F16, and cost no more than a moped!

Apples and oranges right? Well I don't know...  Whether you're transporting people, potatoes or bombs, it's transportation, no?

Sarcasm /off.. But most EA games = apples, while ArmA, TW and MMO's = oranges.

Simple vs complex.

And maybe you've noticed, but complex games are hard to make. WoW was littered with bugs for a long time, suprised?

And then there are all the other factors that you deliberately disregard... in no particular order: Size of company, amount of money, investors, simulation = niche market, value is subjective, in house engine, impossible competition....

Patches also keep games and community alive, gives free advertisement, extends shelflife, thereby increasing sales and player count. Also 100% cheat prevention is impossible, constant patches for MP is not just nice... it's dead necessary.

Games are an enthusiast hobby. PC games even more so.

And finally (though I'm sure I missed some), yes, you're right *sigh*... Simmers strive for improvements, always.

Is that so bloody odd???

And yeah, I have sympathy for people with poor internet or the inability to use it, but then they should pick their products more carefully. Eg, read reviews. It's not like there aren't ample warnings...

[Trapper 0]

I share your ideas Baddo.

At least there's also another kind of patching which BIS themself introduced with the three free Ultimate Upgrades for OFP.

As Suma doesn't really seem to be interested into the military part of the OFP games, it's no wonder that ArmA turned out to be was it is when listening to the interview. - Details, size and graphics of the virtual world have increased extremely but everything else wasn't that much of interest. Most of the user created improvements for OFP gameplay weren't included into vanilla ArmA and the fluid character movement control of OFP got lost.

The fan base will shift if it's all about nice islands some day and not a fun and user friendly military simulation. Though I can't think of another main game type which could really make use of so much terrain at once...

It could create an interesting discussion if Suma would play the user questions of this interview on an employee meeting - with all the right guys to be asked being around, confronted with the management's reasons to ignore user requests.

[max power 21]

The problem with the word 'should', is it has already pointed out, is that you're pointing from an objective reality to a fantastic dreamworld where anything is possible. The more complex software becomes, the more development, testing, money, resources, processing power, etc etc ad nauseum it will require. Either you have excessively protracted development cycles, or you continue to improve the game through patches and other support. This practise of patching software will get more, not less, frequent. Anyone should be able to get something right the first time, whether it's as simple as writing a forum post or as complicated as describing an entire world in mathematic terms... but here we have edit buttons, and the computing world has patches. I'm also sure that at least some content that BIS has patched into the game has come from community lobbying or advisement, such as the floating iron sights feature or some helicopter flight model adjustment. I, for one, appreciate the inclusion of such features, which could only be made possible through patches.

[BraTTy 0]

Also consider the people who can buy a game but don't have fast access to the internet? Tell them to download a 1.5 GB patch and see what kind of reaction you get... a happy reaction? Oh really

I've been buying and playing games since the pc was public.

Technology is changing. games in the past were written for an OS that survived several years and fit on floppys,then cd's, now Vista comes on DVD.Could you imagine writing software for an OS that has become so complex.

Were not talking about Solitare either.

I had wondered and worried about the same thing.What do people do that don't have a fast connection?

Well times have changed, a PC isn't the same without an internet connection.A PC is more complex now where most common people find them hard to operate.

Internet connection is common place now and a needed necessity (how would you patch your OS?)

Some run it as they got it for the life of the PC but don't do what most power users do with their PC's

Alot of very good games are online only and can only be gotten by downloading.And are beta for years, some become obselete before sale.

Have you noticed software stores have less PC games now ? Their market is more for consoles now.also notice that there are less software stores?

Most complex PC games is distributed through the internet, for updates,patches and support

You can buy and most can be downloaded online.

I see a future of Internet software.I hardly go to the software store anymore

Software store can't stock alot of games that are worth half as much the next month.And it's also related to support. The ol "if it don't work, bring it back"

With a new OS every year or so its hard for all games to work on all systems nowadays.

I wish BIS "good luck" with Arma II as you can see how hard it is to programs software nowadays and its a tough market.

Games that last 7 years like OFP did are a thing of the past soon.