Dynamic destruction, who needs it anyway?

[Commando84 0]

I hope they use some of those VBS2 features into Arma 2 engine that would kick so much ass!

[smellyjelly 0]

In terms of gameplay, a fully dynamic destruction system (original Game2) and a static destruction animation system (ArmA2) is actually a lot bigger then you think. It would be totally diffrent playing in a 100% destructable environment, as opposed to an environment where the destruction is repedative animations, and static. It would be like playing two totally diffrent games.

While there is some truth to that, the change from Arma to Arma II in terms of destruction would probably be much bigger.

[stakex 0]

I doubt it. In any case, it's too time-consuming and difficult of a thing to implement to expect in the ArmA2 timeframe. There are better things that could be done with that time, effort, and money, things which would have a larger impact on the overall experience.

I don't really see how one could doubt that a game with total dynamic destruction would be much diffrent in terms of gameplay then the system we are going to see in ArmA2. Its really more of a fact that it would be totally diffrent, then an opinion. I don't think you quite grasp the concept of fully destuctable environments that are 100% dynamic...

And the time statement is totally irrelevant to this conversation since we all know there is not going to be DD in ArmA2. Not becuae of time or anything like that... but becuase the devs abandon their already developed DD system a long time ago in favor of the new ArmA2 system. This is just talk comapring the two systems.

Quote[/b] ]While there is some truth to that, the change from Arma to Arma II in terms of destruction would probably be much bigger.

Thats true... but there we are talking about going from pretty much no destuction to some form of destruction. So its going to be a massive leap... and again, it really depends on how good the ArmA2 system is. But I still believe the leap from static destuction to dynamic would be just as big.

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ]I don't think you quite grasp the concept of fully destuctable environments that are 100% dynamic...

I fully grasp "the concept of full destructable environments", but I also fully grasp the complete impossibility of such a thing happening anytime soon, let alone in an MP game, due to the absurd amount of developmental resources that would be required to even come close to attaining that goal. If you think something like Crysis is even remotely close to said goal, perhaps your perspective is colored by that.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]but I also fully grasp the complete impossibility of such a thing happening anytime soon

Have you ever played Red Faction ? It´s from 2001 and had fully working GeoMod embedded.

Since then the typical computer specs have evolved a lot and I also do think that the Arma physics compartement needs a serious overhaul anyway as the current physics in Arma are simply outdated in comparison to the technology that is widespread available and used.

I guess part of the problem is that BIS wants to develope everything inhouse and don´t want to use 3rd party subengines for certain compartements of the game. I do not think that they will be able to keep up with todays technology with a small dev team and the limited timeframe they give themselves.

I also think that the engine evolution they do is part of the problem aswell, as evolution does make it hard to change very fundamental assets of the engine. Results of this were noticeable when playing Arma. There were many leftovers and bugs that already plagued OFP and found their way into Arma aswell.

Deformable terrain would be one of the things that have been talked about since OFP was released and even BIS thought about it. Still, up to today it hasn´t been implemented for reasons we don´t know as it seems to work with VBS that uses the very same platform.

I´m not asking for a 1:1 implementation of GeoMod into Arma 2 , but something has to be done in that direction. As groundbreaking as Pac Man has been at it´s time, today it´s outdated. By today´s standard OFP and Arma are outdated in some technical aspects, no matter what.

[Heatseeker 0]

I stick to my opinion that this is trivial and would require much work for very little offering (gameplay wise), actually its not even possible (Sahrani is not a 100 square meter box nor a piece of island with 5 similar shacks in it).

To allow better a.i. BIS are even making dual core cpu a minimum requirement, think about that... think about how many diferent buildings will be needed to decorate Chernarus and how many buildings the island will have (big ones too)..

[mr.g-c 6]

I agree with you here Balschoiw, i think with certain aspects of engines like destruction able environments and a improved physics system - BIS is lacking there massively so far.

Although i have seen some physics in Arma too - for example you can shoot "down" the standing map, etc....

But who knows, maybe ARMA2 will be that successful that they are bringing a mission-cd/upgrade with improved features like these ones, just like they did with Resistance at OFP times....

Best Regards, Christian

[dslyecxi 23]

Have you ever played Red Faction ? It´s from 2001 and had fully working GeoMod embedded.

If you can explain how GeoMod comes into play here, please, feel free. I've played Red Faction and if you think that the simplistic method they use for destruction somehow qualifies as a "fully realistic and super authentic awesome-o dynamic destruction system", we have fundamental differences of views.

Quote[/b] ]Still, up to today it hasn´t been implemented for reasons we don´t know as it seems to work with VBS that uses the very same platform.

I haven't seen it in VBS2 yet. Saying that "it seems to work" is a bit misleading when there is no release of VBS2 currently available that supports such a feature. It should show up in the future, but who's to say that it's going to be all that great? Who's to say that it won't have all sorts of issues that, while acceptable for a military sim, are unacceptable from a gamer's perspective?

This whole argument is completely academic at this point, in any case...

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]If you can explain how GeoMod comes into play here, please, feel free. I've played Red Faction and if you think that the simplistic method they use for destruction somehow qualifies as a "fully realistic and super authentic awesome-o dynamic destruction system", we have fundamental differences of views.

Better have a working "simplistic method" (I somewhat disagree with you here as the glass for example dismembers in a very nice way, unlike Arma where only textures are swapped) than what we have today with a product that is from 2007.

Apart from that I didn´t claim that I want a "fully realistic and super authentic awesome-o dynamic destruction system". Could you just try to debate the matter in a grown-up fashion or is that impossible for you ?

I think that the system Arma uses is outdated. That´s purely my opinion. It doesn´t only focus on building destruction, but deformable terrain, object interactivity and physics as a whole.

A new flight model doesn´t make a completely new physics engine.

Quote[/b] ]Who's to say that it won't have all sorts of issues that, while acceptable for a military sim, are unacceptable from a gamer's perspective?

I guess anyone who bought Arma after it´s release just knows about "unacceptable" things too well. Nothing new here.

I simply think that without a proper physics system embedded that Arma 2 will most likely be no real step forward. We had the "much better AI" already with Arma and to be honest, apart from solo soldiers permanently flanking me (wich is highly unrealistic IRL btw) , I couldn´t really see that improvements. In my opinion the AI in OFP was acting much more homogeneously than in Arma. There are so many issues with AI in Arma, that it´s new features simply drown. The pathfinding and movement precision is sometimes a real joke and watching AI flying a helo along waypoints makes you feel like watching a rollercoaster.

I´m all for new options, better and smarter AI and all that, but first of all it should work properly. If it doesn´t do that it´s worth nothing.

A good computer simulation-game for me has to be a package of things combined in a suitable manner to make it special and different from other titles released.

- Interaction, Handling

- AI

- Interface

- Sound

- Story

- Physics

- Gfx

- Replayability (modable)

While Arma certainly was a big step forward in some of those aspects, some changes made the gaming experience worse.

If we would be judging Arma from the screenshot thread, it would be THE topnotch sim-game, but if you play it you will find out that it´s lacking a lot in other (for me) vital parts of the game.

For sure you have to make compromises if you are doing a game of that size, but technology didn´t stop over the last years but you can´t sell a wonderful AI setup that comes with an environment that doesn´t fit or doesn´t keep pace with the other improvements.

A game is a package. If the package isn´t made homogenous, the game itself isn´t homogenous and therefore no topnotch game.

[stakex 0]

Quote[/b] ]I don't think you quite grasp the concept of fully destuctable environments that are 100% dynamic...

I fully grasp "the concept of full destructable environments", but I also fully grasp the complete impossibility of such a thing happening anytime soon, let alone in an MP game, due to the absurd amount of developmental resources that would be required to even come close to attaining that goal. If you think something like Crysis is even remotely close to said goal, perhaps your perspective is colored by that.

lol Who ever said anything about Crysis even being close? Crysis does in fact have dynamic destruction, but its very primitive and far from the overall goal of "100% dynamic destruction". However, if the graphics were toned down to the level of say Far Cry, which would still be pretty good, its likely they would have had alot more computer resource to spend on destruction. But they chose graphics over gameplay as almost all developers do.

Its not so much the developer resource... developing a DD system really isn't a mammoth task. Useing an off the shelf physics engine it can probly be done fairly easy actually. The problem is it requiers a fairly high amount of CPU resource... and with modern day games more concerned about pushing the graphics as high as possible, there isn't much computer resource left for DD. Theres not a whole lot that can be done by throwing dev time at that issue, other then lowering the graphics.

And the same is true for MP... it has nothing to do with amount of dev time, and everything to do with limits caused by internet/network speeds. Untill faster internet comes along, DD will not really be realistic for MP. No "adsurd amount of development resource" is going to change that.

[froggyluv 2136]

I vaguely remember Red Faction and it's much touted "fully destructable environment" but I do remember walking away from it in about an hour due to it's novelty and overall goofiness.

You simply cannot compare ARMA's world with the much more linear world of the standard FPS. Even if Red Faction had lived up to it's claim, the cpu only has to process what 1 soldier (you) is doing to the small world around it. Compare that to what 100 soldiers are blowing up in one town, 40 tanks fighting in the desert, 20 aircraft launching air-air/ground over head 5 miles away - you just can't do it

[stakex 0]

I vaguely remember Red Faction and it's much touted "fully destructable environment" but I do remember walking away from it in about an hour due to it's novelty and overall goofiness.

You simply cannot compare ARMA's world with the much more linear world of the standard FPS. Even if Red Faction had lived up to it's claim, the cpu only has to process what 1 soldier (you) is doing to the small world around it. Compare that to what 100 soldiers are blowing up in one town, 40 tanks fighting in the desert, 20 aircraft launching air-air/ground over head 5 miles away - you just can't do it

Ive never played Red Faction so I can't say how good or bad its destruction was... but you do have to remember Red Faction is 7 years old. PC's have come along way since then. So something that could only be done in a small linear environment back then, could very well be possible nowadays.

[SaBrE_UK 0]

Ive never played Red Faction so I can't say how good or bad its destruction was... but you do have to remember Red Faction is 7 years old. PC's have come along way since then. So something that could only be done in a small linear environment back then, could very well be possible nowadays.

Maybe, but at regular intervals since the 1950s they said we'd have personal jetpacks very soon. Technology has come so far since then, so we should all have them, right?

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Technology has come so far since then, so we should all have them, right?

Typical hardware setup in 2001 was:

Processor 1Ghz

Memory: 256 MB

Gfx card: 64 MB

I guess the change in hardware commonly used should be obvious.

[froggyluv 2136]

I vaguely remember Red Faction and it's much touted "fully destructable environment" but I do remember walking away from it in about an hour due to it's novelty and overall goofiness.

You simply cannot compare ARMA's world with the much more linear world of the standard FPS. Even if Red Faction had lived up to it's claim, the cpu only has to process what 1 soldier (you) is doing to the small world around it. Compare that to what 100 soldiers are blowing up in one town, 40 tanks fighting in the desert, 20 aircraft launching air-air/ground over head 5 miles away - you just can't do it

Ive never played Red Faction so I can't say how good or bad its destruction was... but you do have to remember Red Faction is 7 years old. PC's have come along way since then. So something that could only be done in a small linear environment back then, could very well be possible nowadays.

Thats not really the point. Take Crysis which I think we can all agree is fairly recent and considered "Next-Gen" is similarily geared around 1 soldier -not a country.

[MehMan 0]

I vaguely remember Red Faction and it's much touted "fully destructable environment" but I do remember walking away from it in about an hour due to it's novelty and overall goofiness.

You simply cannot compare ARMA's world with the much more linear world of the standard FPS. Even if Red Faction had lived up to it's claim, the cpu only has to process what 1 soldier (you) is doing to the small world around it. Compare that to what 100 soldiers are blowing up in one town, 40 tanks fighting in the desert, 20 aircraft launching air-air/ground over head 5 miles away - you just can't do it

Ive never played Red Faction so I can't say how good or bad its destruction was... but you do have to remember Red Faction is 7 years old. PC's have come along way since then. So something that could only be done in a small linear environment back then, could very well be possible nowadays.

Thats not really the point. Take Crysis which I think we can all agree is fairly recent and considered "Next-Gen" is similarily geared around 1 soldier -not a country.

What about MP where there's more than 1 soldier? And can't the AI also destroy the enviroment?

[froggyluv 2136]

I vaguely remember Red Faction and it's much touted "fully destructable environment" but I do remember walking away from it in about an hour due to it's novelty and overall goofiness.

You simply cannot compare ARMA's world with the much more linear world of the standard FPS. Even if Red Faction had lived up to it's claim, the cpu only has to process what 1 soldier (you) is doing to the small world around it. Compare that to what 100 soldiers are blowing up in one town, 40 tanks fighting in the desert, 20 aircraft launching air-air/ground over head 5 miles away - you just can't do it

Ive never played Red Faction so I can't say how good or bad its destruction was... but you do have to remember Red Faction is 7 years old. PC's have come along way since then. So something that could only be done in a small linear environment back then, could very well be possible nowadays.

Thats not really the point. Take Crysis which I think we can all agree is fairly recent and considered "Next-Gen" is similarily geared around 1 soldier -not a country.

What about MP where there's more than 1 soldier? And can't the AI also destroy the enviroment?

Yes both Ai +MP up the ante some but what game of Arma's scale has a fully implemented DD system ?

The point is a full DD system has yet to be successfully implemented in the much easier domain of the FPS - why do people demand this of BIS as if it were long ago considered standard. This stuff is cutting edge so be patient.

[NeMeSiS 11]

why do people demand this of BIS as if it were long ago considered standard.

Hell, in most games everything is still 100% static.

[Spy17 1]

My favorite destruction system is in "Faces of war". The game is not exactly overal realistic (mostly because of too short engagement ranges) but the destruction handling for ground, objects, buildings and vehicles is impressive. The AI can not only navigate through debris, it also can be used as cover. And the AI uses cover and suppressive fire!

Look at some videos

or try the demo.

[froggyluv 2136]

@Spy17 - yup those are some cool features but they have been around for a long time in overhead 2d strategy types- ala X-Com (one of my favorites!

BIS has chosen the hardest format to make all of these features fully available, that being, a 3d simulator over a huge expanse. I'm sure we could have all the newest features if they scaled the game down to say, a quarter of a city.

But then it just wouldn't be OFP/ARMA

[paragraphic l 2]

Great, but it does not really looks like too much is being calculated here, the models are low res, the effects are simplistic and the whole scenario is small scale. And even with that the system in the sample vid could almost not handle this.

I think it is a good choice to let DD just stay as a future item and don't try to get it right now.

As previous posts showed in the past 7years we've only gained maximum of 4Ghz more then we had back then. GPU's only got 4x the onboard memory and the same goes with RAM. I don't really see such a MAJOR improvement, everything just got a bit bigger and faster. No revolution being made so far, so why would an overal improvement of 4times the previous make it possible to go from simplistic DD in FPS to fully DD in a massive game like ArmA2? It is just not realistic, there should be made seperate cards just for the DD to make it a realistic feature for current and future games.

[SHWiiNG 0]

In reply to the above post, i was thinking that now is the time to buy a top of the range PC. as We have extremely powerfull GPU's CPU's and Ram units. And to my understanding.. we are kept at a deadlock of power due to Heat. We cannot go faster because it generated unacceptable amounts of Heat.

Is my statement true or are there other factors involved?

[SaBrE_UK 0]

Quote[/b] ]Technology has come so far since then, so we should all have them, right?

Typical hardware setup in 2001 was:

Processor 1Ghz

Memory: 256 MB

Gfx card: 64 MB

I guess the change in hardware commonly used should be obvious.

I think you misunderstand the meaning of my post.

But the massive limitations that Red Faction had in its destruction have gone unsaid here, so far. Some include:

Massive problems with lag after many things were destroyed, the lack of being able to truly destroy a whole wall, making a hole right next to another one was erratic, the lack of physics so that lack of support would mean collapsing, holes disappearing after a bit when others are made, holes not quite appearing in the right place, z-fighting, tunnels going the way they wanted, VERY low res textures and general quality, unnoticeable on an average TV screen... I'm sure there are more.

[Balschoiw 0]

Red Faction was just an example of an oldtimer software that already had it implemented.

I´m not asking for something totally absurd if I´m asking for a better environmental physics system. Just take a look at the glass in Arma. Don´t you feel a bit bored that glass is still not really breaking where the projectile hits and doesn´t really break at all. I guess the texture swap system is really becoming old by now and the funny effects of it can be watched by shooting a tire on a vehicle.

BIS has introduced some nice features with OFP but today there are other methods that can be used apart from switching textures.

Now and then it doesn´t hurt to replace modules of an engine with something new, apart from using it to death with variations that are still using the old system and certainly are not that attractive to gamers.

BIS wants to sell Arma 2, right ? Then they have to make some real step forward. You can have the most sophisticated Ai and whatnot in your game, but if the rest of the package is unattractive and repetative or just fiddling with old habits it won´t be a broad success.

[SaBrE_UK 0]

I totally agree things should be improved, don't get me wrong, but to just say it is possible and should be done (not that you said that) is misguided in my opinion. I do believe that anything's possible given the time, though. Huge amount of LODs and optimisation would make anything possible, I think. Whether it's viable or achievable in a certain time frame is a different question, however...