ArmA 2 Press Coverage

[SHWiiNG 0]

Probably my favourite, screw tanks, heli's, grass, textures. its colour.

When i saw a pic of the two Abrams in formation in the magazine screens, it actually looks like an autumn morning in england. I like how the colours actually reflect what time of day it is and the weather conditions, in Arma it seems as thought they just saturated everything but now it looks absolutely briliant. VEry well done BIS, keep up the supurb work!

Shwiing

[Thunderbird 0]

Judging from this selection of screenshots, the graphic quality is outstanding.

From a personal point of view, I hope that the following aspects would be taken into consideration, though:

[*]Keep the buildings polys low for a matter of performance.

[*]Make the animations transitions as fast as in OFP as this was somewhat disturbing in ArmA.

[*]Make the flight-simulation more friendly-user, as I'm sure several people don't have joysticks to fully enjoy the current system implemented in ArmA.

Regards,

TB

[Raptor 10]

Some intresting addition.

There will be a 3D Editor. This tool will be fully modifable. ( So maybe some talented Communitymodder will gave us our VBS2 3D Editor? )

Again there will be 100 Units per side. ( you can controll max. 30 units on a strategic map)

The new Micro-AI seems to be one of the highlights.

No directX10 Effects, they are exhausting all diectx9 features. .

What me make thinking is, that they don't show the destruction part, but we know there are several vids from the Invex/GC (?) .

Maybe that mean they're improving it more and more.

Also one of your Team members is named O'Hara. ( Surpise? )

[dead kennedy 124]

mr.g-c

Thanks a lot! Interesting

Someone can translate this to English? What principally new?

[Average Joe 0]

I cant wait for a full translation, much appreciated MrG.

[NoRailgunner 0]

> no shiny vehicles and hollywood effects - BIS stick to realism

> some new cars like VW Golf

> some people from BIS are working on buildings and AI - so AI can use it for cover, ambushes etc. after buildings are destroyed or using those holes eg. to deploy weapons (MG, AT)

> landscape and terrain are very close to real world and AI will be able to use it much better (hiding, sneaking, leaning, crouching all that usefull stuff done automatic by AI)

> improved command system - it will be easier to give order to you team via mouse

> AI will be better programmed and not like in CoD and other similar FPS.

[ohara 0]

Some intresting addition.

There will be a 3D Editor. This tool will be fully modifable. ( So maybe some talented Communitymodder will gave us our VBS2 3D Editor? )

Again there will be 100 Units per side. ( you can controll max. 30 units on a strategic map)

The new Micro-AI seems to be one of the highlights.

No directX10 Effects, they are exhausting all diectx9 features.   .

What me make thinking is, that they don't show the destruction part, but we know there are several vids from the Invex/GC (?) .

Maybe that mean they're improving it more and more.

Also one of your Team members is named O'Hara. ( Surpise? )

>What me make thinking is, that they don't show the destruction part, but we....

Look at 5. scaned page with TAC building..;)

[Raptor 10]

Yes that's bit confusing.

[DaRat 0]

Now this really looks like it's shaping up to be a true sequel to OFP. Starting to get a tad bored with ArmA now

[kavoven 4]

I did this translation really fast but it should cover all important aspects and I only didn't manage to translate some sayings:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

Armed Assault 2

No compromises. The military simulation from CZ stays ultra realistic.

Marek Spanel is a very relaxed man. We recognize that quickly when we visit his enterprise somewhere in CZ. This is because he was able to earn glory and much money with the tactic-shooter Operation Flashpoint, which was selled over two million times. And if you consider that only ten people worked on the first game of BI you can imagine, why Marek is always in a good mood.

The inofficial sequel, called Armed Assault for legal reasons, was sold up till now 300.000 times.

Now BI is working with 50 people on their next game, following the consequent way of the predecessors. Armed Assault 2 will be a hard war-simulation, who's first objective is being realistic. That's why we took a closer look at an early version of the game in the office of the developer, asked Marek many questions and even took a video, which can be found on the magazine-dvd.

There shall be no experiments. Marek says straight on that ArmA 2 will be exactly the game fans are waiting for. No less then being the most realistic war-simulator on PC. The setting will be the fictional country of Chenarus, freely translated into Blackrussia. Protests smolder and pro-communist forces try to reintegrate the country into Russia. The conflicts escalets when the "Cheanrus Red Star Movement" conquer vast parts of the country and even the capital Chernogorsk in 2009.

But the reintegrations fails. The premier minister Alexander Baranov is executed, the leaders of the rebellion call out the Social Republic of Chenarus. The remaining democratic fores ask the West for help. Naturaly the Americans don't let themselves be said that twice and send their forces into the country. Together with the army of Chenarus they shall drive the rebells back and free the country.

BI has learned. In ArmA the player only was a tiny little wheel in the war-machine. Sometimes as pilot, sometimes as simple soldier or as BlackOp. The story only was about the missions, not about the person sitting behind the gun. An idenfitication with your character simply failed under these circumstances. Many players didn't like that. So like in the ArmA addon Queens Gambit BI is counting on special characters. In ArmA 2 you play in a 5-man US Marine Corps team. This squad called Razor consists out of individualists, who even have an own biography.

master Sergeant Patrick Miles joined the army with 19. Through outstanding duty in Iraq he was made leader of the Razor team. Other team members are Chad Rodriguez (heavy weapons), Brian O'Hara (medic), Randy Sykes (sniper) and Matt Cooper (grenades).

As soon as this squad enters combat you can switch between the characters as you like. In addition you can controll the behaviour of your men.

A reworkes version of the ArmA command-system will be also found in the second part. The developers still work on a more user-friendly handling. For example you don't have to order assaults via keyboard anymore, but your mouse will automatically recognize if your sending your men into cover or if they have to engage a target. Soldiers now even use cover on their own and spy around corners. This is because of the new micro-AI system. It gives the soldiers the possiblity to behave acurat in special situations, like moving around objects, take cover or give suppressive fire.

"The micro AI is a real break-though for us" says Marek. With the new technic fights shall be a lot more exciting. "A fight with 5 enemys now is a real challenge.

Different to CoD4:Modern Warfare events aren't scripted. AI is reacting to each situation on their own. Sounds good, but lead to some funny situations in the first versions of the prequel, when your own men cleared a whole city without your support or needed patrols didn't make it to their designation. But BI worked hard on this part, promises Marek.

A bit more complicated will be sending whole armys into battle. There will be battles in Armed Assualt 2 with up to 100 men on each side. How many you will command yourself is still uncertain. At the moment you have around 30 soldiers under your command including tanks and gunships. For commanding these masses effectivly a new system called "High Command System" is designated to help you. This works similar to a strategy game, where you select your units from a top-view and send them around on the map. Though this feature wasn't finished in the showed version, you even shall be able to change the direction your units are viewing. But still you will take part in the battle.

The massive enviroment in ArmA 2 includes 230 km^2. This time the developers even took real terrain as archetype. They simply took a part from CZ and changed in into the country Chernarus. Beaches and souther flair as seen in ArmA won't be found anywhere. Instead you have untouched forests, vast plains and big cities, like Chernogorsk.

Many missions are no longer set in open air, but in bombed houses or factories, since the developers want to put close quaters combat more into the foreground. Another new technic will make destructible buildings possible. With the right weapons you will be able to destroy buildings completly. The cool thing: The holes in houses can be used to shoot through. (This system wasn't finished, too in the shown version) How many houses will be destroyable is still uncertain. But we guess that only a small part of a city will have this system.

A label of the serie has always been the very acurate vehicles. More than 50 ground and air vehicles will be included in ArmA 2, like the russion T-90, or the Hind. A view into the cockpit reveals details, players are only used to in flight simulators. Even a small fan is turning.

But that's not everything. Anti-Air measures like the Tunguska tank or the BTR-90 for transporting troops are included as well. In fact you know many of these vehicles from the prequels, but even new things made in into the game, like the MV-22 Osprey, which can be seen on the DVD.

In addion there are civilian vehicles, but not old cars like the brand Lada or tractors. This time you can find modern VW Golfs for example. (A hint for the strong German community?)

Coming to weapons the developers also have amazing knowledge. Ivan Buchta, responsible for the design of the enviroment, turns out as a real expert on this area. With bright eyes he tells us about the real examples of the over 50 weapons you can use, including over a dozen variants of the AK-47. Fights won't be just simulated, but calculated accuratly. Ballistics consists out of factors like deflection or the stuff the material is made of. "If a bullet hits your leg, it has been really fired and it's flying path correctly calculated.

At the end some things about the engine. Such a huge world with millions of objects and dynamic acting AI eats a lot of ressources. This is one point why ArmA 2 isn't shining like Crysis or CoD4. Nether the less, modern Direct-X-10 graphics and multi-core-cpus will be supported. Another thing Marek is pointing out: Why should tanks and choppers glare and have complex effects, when in just doens't simulate reality?

BI stays true to his way of developing games not following the mainstream. On the one hand there is the danger do develope past the main markets, but on the other hand the fans of the realistic fights will thank it the guys from CZ, so Marek Spanel can stay a very relaxed man.

Conclusion:

After the visit in CZ I had to play a round ArmA at first. Thanks to many patches it's much better then at the start. A prove for the work the developers are still putting into their products and how importent a working community is for them. 'cause since ArmA is a born-and-bred simulation, BI is listing properly to the fans and what they like or dislike. The results flow directly into ArmA 2. The properly greatest defect was the AI which stays under observation. Only a test of the final product will show, if the new micro AI works. But on the sector for military games there is no ways past the developers from CZ.

Original article by Robert Horn.

[mr.g-c 6]

.....No directX10 Effects, they are exhausting all diectx9 features.....

No, what Marek was exactly saying is:

"We are currently set on DirectX9 effects and exhausting all possibility's of it and it COULD be extended to DirectX10, but currently we don't find it that important....

That is also what i ask myself... DX10 can accelerate many things even if you don't use it for beautifying the look of certain graphics. It is a waste of hardware to not support it.

"Assassins Creed" uses the DX10 functions ONLY to accelerate the framerate and they said its a noticeable different with DX9 and DX10 in terms of speed.

So i think at the end of 2008 or even at the beginning of 2009 the majority of all players will have a graphics-adapter with DX10 support - why not use the sleeping resources lying there?

Regards, Christian

[-OF-katzenscheisse 0]

could someone translate this?

http://games.tiscali.cz/reviews/arma2brddojmy/

there is a picture of something that looks like CTI.

http://games.tiscali.cz/reviews/arma2brddojmy/img12.jpg

[Average Joe 0]

Thanks for the translation

[Inkompetent 0]

.....No directX10 Effects, they are exhausting all diectx9 features.....

No, what Marek was exactly saying is:

"We are currently set on DirectX9 effects and exhausting all possibility's of it and it COULD be extended to DirectX10, but currently we don't find it that important....

That is also what i ask myself... DX10 can accelerate many things even if you don't use it for beautifying the look of certain graphics. It is a waste of hardware to not support it.

"Assassins Creed" uses the DX10 functions ONLY to accelerate the framerate and they said its a noticeable different with DX9 and DX10 in terms of speed.

So i think at the end of 2008 or even at the beginning of 2009 the majority of all players will have a graphics-adapter with DX10 support - why not use the sleeping resources lying there?

Regards, Christian

But at the same time developing for DX10 means extra time and work needed, while DX9 optimization ought to be the most important of the two, simply because DX10 isn't supported by a too big bunch of the players. Even if people have DX10-supporting cards like the GeForce 8800 cards many don't use Vista and thus it is wasted resources to develop DX10 graphics for that bunch of players.

When Vista has got SP2 and been on the market for a few years DX10 ought to be the standard, but at the moment and surely another year or two DX9.0c (or newer iterations of it) will be the standard.

And compare the budget available between Assassin's Creed and ArmA 2. BIS doesn't have nearly the amount of people or money that was put into the Assassin's Creed development.

As long as they improve the framerates in cities and forests and do something about that soldiers are too visible in the distance, then that's all that is needed at the moment. The rest should rightfully go into more important gameplay improvements like the new micro AI.

@ k@voven:

Thank you for the translation. Was an interesting read!

[kuIoodporny 45]

New Hope

I think that BIS should also pay attention for translations - I suggest working on radioProtocol so it could be customized by translators, and also at lest 4 cases per localization $tring - it could work excellent in German, Polish, Czech, Russian... well...

One more thing.

"YakB-12.7" string looks UGLY.

See that?

[mr.g-c 6]

Right, "Vista" is of course a argument i wasn't aware of....

Even if i don't know anyone today who is still installing XP when build a new PC out of Hardware-Parts or when buying a complete new one, Vista is nearly always pre-installed.

But basically i think you're right.

Regards, Christian

[kernriver 4]

Thanks, k@voven.

This makes me even more excited about ArmA2, although I was going to buy it anyway.

[lwlooz 0]

Even tho I am still sitting back and waiting for the final product to really judge, I would like to point out that the colors and lighting and general graphics really seem a lot better than in ArmA(Which colors and lighting strains my eyes a lot ).

I also would like to wish you best luck with the AI effort and especially the new squad command interface. If you pull off that it is fast and efficient to command a squad of AI as a player , you will put this game beyond anything most people can imagine. That is really the largest gameplay enhancement you can provide for us(The second largest being saving in MP , excluding the possibility that you can dig in , which I fear is too difficult to implement for quite some time).

[SaBrE_UK 0]

Wow, thanks for the scans and translations people

It does look a lot better than ArmA, and the improved AI is an extremely welcome addition. Yet I feel more needs to be done, whether it's modability or lots of little things like holding the rifles correctly, or even large things like totally revamped animations. Still, I understand that it's still WIP.

[alpha125rbf 0]

Looks like 'Resistance' for me: The engine should be the same as in ArmA - with all consequences...

The bots will walk more precisely, the graphics will be increased, textures better, some rifles, cars and tanks - and what?

I bet no real AI combat improvements will be made (no cover, suppressing fire, smoke shields and maneuver elements, artillery support over radio, tanks that try to get the hull down and keep distance.... because of...) so the game will be quite the same as ArmA and from the AI capabilities OPF: Resistance.

I believe the money is always in the first line made by regular customers and not with people who "wanna try this new game out" – they can do so without purchase it.

For me as an old OPF fan it is not so important how perfect the graphics are (or how big and accurate the landscape masses look) - the real fascinating (or not) game play don't depend only on them. The real thing of OPF was the innovation, and I hope it won’t get lost.

[jakerod 254]

Some intresting addition.

There will be a 3D Editor. This tool will be fully modifable. ( So maybe some talented Communitymodder will gave us our VBS2 3D Editor? )

Again there will be 100 Units per side. ( you can controll max. 30 units on a strategic map)

The new Micro-AI seems to be one of the highlights.

No directX10 Effects, they are exhausting all diectx9 features.   .

What me make thinking is, that they don't show the destruction part, but we know there are several vids from the Invex/GC (?) .

Maybe that mean they're improving it more and more.

Also one of your Team members is named O'Hara. ( Surpise? )

>What me make thinking is, that they don't show the destruction part, but we....

Look at 5. scaned page with TAC building..;)

That looks awesome thank you for pointing that out I missed it the first time. Entire game looks amazing.

[Undeceived 392]

Analysing this picture of the map of Chernogorsk, can we say that there will be a railway station?

[opteryx 1562]

Analysing this picture of the map of Chernogorsk, can we say that there will be a railway station?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVPDgUzPaoM&feature=related

[suma 8]

I bet no real AI combat improvements will be made (no cover, suppressing fire, smoke shields and maneuver elements, artillery support over radio, tanks that try to get the hull down and keep distance.... because of...)  so the game will be quite the same as ArmA and from the AI capabilities OPF: Resistance.

There was already a short video circulating way ago showing an early build with AI improved capabilities, and we did not stop with development at that time.

The AI definitely will use cover and provide suppressive fire.

We intend the new AI behavior to be one of the major new features this game will bring. (It is also one feature that uses heavily dual core - so that the AI can be much smarter and create more complex plans by having more CPU power available to it).

[MehMan 0]

Analysing this picture of the map of Chernogorsk, can we say that there will be a railway station?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVPDgUzPaoM&feature=related

Chernogorsk looks a bit small. Maybe we have been spoiled by Opteryx but I can't really imagine any capital to be the size of that, I think Sakakah size would be the least one could expect.

Well I am excited about this, it sounds promising. If suppresive fire and good cover usage will be there, I think I might fall in love.