GC 2008 Press Coverage

[dmitri 0]

The AI has me a little worried, I saw no difference. However, I'll keep the faith due to the CQB video from a few months ago.

Considering what the community has achieved with scripting (SLX, ECS) I hope some of the best features of these mods are implemented.

Yes, the community can always mod these features in at a later stage, but the reality is first time players of ArmA II and reviewers will judge the game based on it's "out of the box" state.

Looking forward to the release.

[gunterlund 0]

I agree with alot of the sentiment here that this game is not the quantum leap we hoped for. I think the part to really look closely at is the new command language. I think it mentioned 1200 commands in the language. Thats where the depth will be and of course with the modding community.

[4 IN 1 0]

3. Not a single word about Arma1? They said Arma2 ist the direct successor of OFP.... strange....Maybe they didn't want to mention all the bugs of Arma1, or that the people bring Arma2 in context with it?

I hope they use the remaining 5+X Months and do this, otherwise it could be just "average" from the technolgical point of view again - which would be really sad.

Best Regards, Christian

To be fair to that first point there, ArmA1 was never ment to be a successor to OFP, but mearly an in-between game, or OFP 1.5 as many have said. "Game 2" and now ArmA2 was always intended to be the true sequal to OFP...

On the second point... ArmA2 is going to be bellow average on the tech standpoint, no matter what they do in the next few months. Perhaps not graphicly, but when it comes to the rest of the engine... it really hasn't advanced very far from OFP if you think about it, and thats really a bad thing with as quick as technology advances now adays.

Thats not to say you can't have a great game with an outdated engine... but thats just what it is, outdated.

aside from the phyics engine, in watch part of the engine is outdated? just because they dont use DX10?

[stakex 0]

3. Not a single word about Arma1? They said Arma2 ist the direct successor of OFP.... strange....Maybe they didn't want to mention all the bugs of Arma1, or that the people bring Arma2 in context with it?

I hope they use the remaining 5+X Months and do this, otherwise it could be just "average" from the technolgical point of view again - which would be really sad.

Best Regards, Christian

To be fair to that first point there, ArmA1 was never ment to be a successor to OFP, but mearly an in-between game, or OFP 1.5 as many have said. "Game 2" and now ArmA2 was always intended to be the true sequal to OFP...

On the second point... ArmA2 is going to be bellow average on the tech standpoint, no matter what they do in the next few months. Perhaps not graphicly, but when it comes to the rest of the engine... it really hasn't advanced very far from OFP if you think about it, and thats really a bad thing with as quick as technology advances now adays.

Thats not to say you can't have a great game with an outdated engine... but thats just what it is, outdated.

aside from the phyics engine, in watch part of the engine is outdated? just because they dont use DX10?

It has nothing to do with useing DX10... its the simple fact the engine has had allot of the same issues since OFP, and not all that many have been fixed since then. Physics of course is the main one, which is a huge part of any game. And Im not talking about "ragdoll" or any crap like that... but more important things like vehicle physics. See that bike in the new videos? Looks an awful lot like the half hearted motorcycle from OFP, which was even bad by standards back then. It might be fixed by release or course, but I just get the sence better physics don't intrest BIS all that much, which is sad. Good physics can really make a game...

Its not just the physics of course... but thats the main part of it. Its just, seven years since OFP first came out... and the game engine hasn't really improved all that much. It might be too early to get into this... maybe ArmA2 will in fact be a huge leap forward. Perhaps the AI will be truely amazing. Only time will tell, but as it is right this second, from what we have seen, ArmA2 is looking to be a fairly small step forward, at least on the technical side of the game.

The graphics side is another thing of course. The graphics side of the engine is where ArmA2 SEEMS to has made most of its progress...

[4 IN 1 0]

fair enought, infact i have the same things in mind, i wouldnt say its outdated, but atless its still "unfinish"

there is a thing or two i have in mind about the current built:

-AIs still seems to have limited military knowledge. yes they can do MOUT better but TBH current 3rd party script have something that AIs seems to missing from the video(FFN mod for example, the latest built seems to be very solid from the video we've seen), also small fences seems to creating problem on pathing of AIs

-Vehicle destruction could still make better, would be better is they blow up into parts , even a more realistic destory overlay of texture would be better, and why whould a tank get darken before it starts to burn? cant they just delay the texture change AFTER the tank starts burning?

-INTERIOR!!!!!! WHERE IS THE BELOVED INTERIOR!?!?!?!?

-in depth comments about animation:

i know they are not planing to improve the overall system much and IMO ragdoll is just a simple waste of CPU/GPU power, in fact all i hope is adding the separate upper torso animation from VBS2 and a much more smoothen transition

between animation, how ever a bit of tweak might need inorder to make both CTF side and COOP side players to be happy

-sprint is ok,

-normal forward could do a little change, lower the speed a little bit and have the guns holding up on shoulder with very unstable crosshair, its still usless in long range but atless you can do decent CQB with it, dont worry about destorying open terrain, we use sprint to cross over country side anyway(as the matter of fact the normal forward show no use since the day of OFP)

-slow forward(walk with guns holding up), lower the speed, stable the gun, i missed the way OFP was

still cant understand why they cant handle binoculars like its a weapon of sort like handgun

thats about it

i still cant see how the physics works, but please oh please BI use a better one instead of the half-market one you had been used since, i beg you for that

[NeMeSiS 11]

Well, to be honest i thought that the video was rather boring. (He was just playing with the editor, we have all been doing that the last 7 years. )

But things i noticed:

1. HDR was more stable

2. AI didnt walk on the middle of the road anymore!

3. AI dont know the difference between cover and concealment. (He crawled behind that wooden fence, then the enemy shot right trough it. )

4. offroad vehicle speed increased. (Ok, thats easy config work but its nice to have it right in the default game)

5. Those people are incredibly annoying, seriously, can't they keep those horrible mouths shut for 5 seconds?

6. AI can strafe now.

7. Still unable to get over very low fences.

8. The new waypoint/leader indicators look horrible.

EDIT: Now that i think about it, the AI was probably hiding behind that pole which is behaviour that can also be seen in ArmA1 using seconds suppression scripts.

[Praelium 0]

8. The new waypoint/leader indicators look horrible.

Really? I think it looks better. The old square was sometimes difficult to see and it looked so old. That's not to say they're perfect though.

[stakex 0]

EDIT: Now that i think about it, the AI was probably hiding behind that pole which is behaviour that can also be seen in ArmA1 using seconds suppression scripts.

Yea I saw that too... he was trying to hide behind the sign post (if were talking about the same thing). I assume thats something the devs will have fixed before launch. If not, man I'll be so pissed if my teamates keep dieing because they are trying to hide behind a damn sign post.

Also, the AI still seem far too twitchy IMO, at least the one guy did right after the post hiding incident. He ran a zig zag before he kneeld down, and then twitched around on his knees when he turned. Seems like their path finding might still be a little flunky. Tho thats not really a huge issue I guess... they can twich as long as they can fight.

[gonk 0]

one thing I did notice in the video is the trees still falls the wrong way... As the tank taps them they fall into the tank. Would prefer a them to fall away if rammed by the tank at low speed. The view distance is a higher and frame rate faster.. what was the machine it was running on ?

[Raptor 10]

According to Raptor, the civilian population will have to be manually placed again. That's disappointing because I was really hoping to have a slider in the editor that would control the civilian density, both on foot and in vehicles.

Yes its just my thought.

Also look at the KI scene, their are also no civilian population.

[shinRaiden 0]

Hmmm.... mixed feelings about that video..

Im german too, so i could understand what he was talking about.

1. Is Markus Kurzweil really from BIS? Feels like only a Publisher Guy to me....Or someone who was quickly hired to present it...??

2. He doesn't seems to have much knowledge about Arma-Engine and/or Military in General.

Not offensive meant, but i bet that anyone of us longer playing Arma/OFP Veterans could have made that better.

3. Not a single word about Arma1? They said Arma2 ist the direct successor of OFP.... strange....Maybe they didn't want to mention all the bugs of Arma1, or that the people bring Arma2 in context with it?

Conclusion for me:

So far from the point of the Graphics improvements, means textures, models and environment its really 9/10 points (for me at least).

But the rest needs seriously tweaking.... I see the same Arma1/OFP Stiffness/Clumsiness, i see the same lame turnaround bug of AI-Controlled Tanks and many things more...I wouldn't wonder if they still collide and fly high in the air then or flip around...

Same thing goes for the hit effects like mentioned already....

I hope they use the remaining 5+X Months and do this, otherwise it could be just "average" from the technolgical point of view again - which would be really sad.

Best Regards, Christian

Hmm... mixed feelings about that post...

1/2 - Markus Kurzawa, aka Rastavovich, previous to BIS employment, was one of the lead designers for the DKM mod team, and has been working for BIS for several years as a config designer and content architect. I'd say he knows a thing or two about the engine, how it works, and how all the pieces fit together. CM sends out the suits, BIS sends out the designers, and all BIS gets in return is accusations that they don't know what they're talking about.

3 - Was the presentation about ArmA, OFP, Commander Keen, or Pong? No? Why pander to your meta-griefing complaints then?

Conclusion for me: Overly pessimistic emphasis on the obvious faults neglects the reasons behind why those faults exist in the first place. The AI acts strange because it has autonomy. The physics are screwy because they have to be calculated. The animations are stiff and un-varied because they are real. If I understand you correctly, you'd love a game where all the AI ride a rail like static popup sprite targets, pre-respond visually to linearly subsequent inverse kinematic impulses, and flop like a gelatinous homoculous? That sounds like a whole lot of innovation I don't want more of, there's plenty of leprous zombies already infesting BF2/GRAW/CoD-piece.r4 et al.

Sure there's issues with this coefficient and that exhaust pipe placement. If you insist on belaboring those points at this stage, you guarantee that you will be disappointed no matter how unrealistically, unreasonably, and irrationally the developer panders to you. Instead, try to take a 'look on the bright side of life' for a change. You've got a platform now approaching it's third released generation that gives you the opportunity to make your own experience in. The game's always been about what you put into it. Every other game has been about what babble is thrown to the ravenous ab/users. What you get out of it, is what you put into it.

[Shadow NX 1]

Pretty amazing, yesterday all was honey and now after they shown a video of the game that still has like 4-8 months development the honey turned into elephant poop.

I like how the mood in this forums change on daily basis.

[eJay 1]

I saw Autumn mod with few new addons... Didn't noticed any great fixes. What BIS can change during 4-8 months? ArmA II need a serious tweak, a big step.

[Shadow NX 1]

Why not be bit less lazy and read the damn press kit to see what changes will be there  

Seriously i love these "you damn lazy developers" posts just because of one presentation vid of a still very wip version.

Not every developer can hire a hundred chinese to work 24h on models and textures like Codemasters does...

Im sure as soon as a video from the presentation in the Buisness area is shown things will look lot better.

[Placebo 28]

1. Is Markus Kurzweil really from BIS? Feels like only a Publisher Guy to me....Or someone who was quickly hired to present it...??

If you really don't know who Rastavovich is and what he's contributed to the Flashpoint community over the years before joining BIS then I think you must really be as new around here as your join date indicates

I won't make comment on all the other complaints as it's absolutely pointless, it's not final, it's not beta, it's all WIP

[eJay 1]

Why not be bit less lazy and read the damn press kit to see what changes will be there  

Seriously i love these "you damn lazy developers" posts just because of one presentation vid of a still very wip version.

Not every developer can hire a hundred chinese to work 24h on models and textures like Codemasters does...

Im sure as soon as a video from the presentation in the Buisness area is shown things will look lot better.

I read a press kit and didn't noticed any feature included on it except a huge map. I hope that was a pre-pre alpha version or X360 build.

[Shadow NX 1]

Then read it again and this time more carefully.

And while youre at it look closely on the screens.

[froggyluv 2130]

We are quite the fickle bunch aren't we  

I agree with shinraiden's points, the ones I could understand anyway, that what we are looking for in terms of AI has never been pulled off successfully ever. Not in any game. That being, massive amounts of AI in a 3d world behaving like or close to humans in terms of tactics, pathfinding, using interiors, piloting many vehicles, issuing intelligent commands in the face of enormous variables. OFP/ARMA are the closest I've ever seen and I've been gaming a long time. The CQB video previously shown, the talk of micro-AI and some of the street level pics in the press kit just really seemed like it was taking it to the next level so I guess we were expecting to see more of that. I still have no doubt we will have a great game coming next year.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Did anyone ask about next ArmA patch and ArmA2 demo?

[Grimnirsson 0]

I really would like to know whether the Xbox (360) version gets the full editor this time. From what one can see in the video the editor is easy to use and such point and click operations can be done as easily with the stick as with the mouse. So any official statement on this point? What about using the 1200 script commands?

Grim

[mr.g-c 6]

Quote[/b] ]1/2 - Markus Kurzawa, aka Rastavovich, previous to BIS employment, was one of the lead designers for the DKM mod team, and has been working for BIS for several years as a config designer and content architect. I'd say he knows a thing or two about the engine, how it works, and how all the pieces fit together. CM sends out the suits, BIS sends out the designers, and all BIS gets in return is accusations that they don't know what they're talking about.

3 - Was the presentation about ArmA, OFP, Commander Keen, or Pong? No? Why pander to your meta-griefing complaints then?

Lets be honest, the Preview he made was quite disappointing... And if you could speak german as your native language you would agree a bit more. He seemed to really don't know what he was talking about - sorry but thats my impression from it. Maybe he had a bad day or he was to nervous or unprepared.....who knows...

Even "Blackland", the German Community-Manager said it was extremely disappointing for him.

Either they haven't prepared it well, or the Game is really not ready to make some Presentations yet.

So my "complaints" are more directed to the presentation rather than to the game itself.

As i said, from the optic-part Arma2 is absolutely awesome and the rest needs "a lot" tweaking now.

Quote[/b] ]Conclusion for me: Overly pessimistic emphasis on the obvious faults neglects the reasons behind why those faults exist in the first place. The AI acts strange because it has autonomy. The physics are screwy because they have to be calculated. The animations are stiff and un-varied because they are real. If I understand you correctly, you'd love a game where all the AI ride a rail like static popup sprite targets, pre-respond visually to linearly subsequent inverse kinematic impulses, and flop like a gelatinous  homoculous? That sounds like a whole lot of innovation I don't want more of, there's plenty of leprous zombies already infesting BF2/GRAW/CoD-piece.r4 et al.

Sure there's issues with this coefficient and that exhaust pipe placement. If you insist on belaboring those points at this stage, you guarantee that you will be disappointed no matter how unrealistically, unreasonably, and irrationally the developer panders to you. Instead, try to take a 'look on the bright side of life' for a change. You've got a platform now approaching it's third released generation that gives you the opportunity to make your own experience in. The game's always been about what you put into it. Every other game has been about what babble is thrown to the ravenous ab/users. What you get out of it, is what you put into it.

Sure, there are people who can blandish everything....

I mean, come on... a few bugs are still obvious, aren't they?

And so i said, there are a lot of months to go and i hope that they will address them now, so wheres the Problem?

Quote[/b] ]

1. Is Markus Kurzweil really from BIS? Feels like only a Publisher Guy to me....Or someone who was quickly hired to present it...??

If you really don't know who Rastavovich is and what he's contributed to the Flashpoint community over the years before joining BIS then I think you must really be as new around here as your join date indicates

I won't make comment on all the other complaints as it's absolutely pointless, it's not final, it's not beta, it's all WIP

Yes i'm new into that community since a month after i bought Arma, but i was around in other communities during OFP-Times aswell and did i play OFP from 2001 on - so i would really call myself some sort of a "Veteran" which is quite familiar with the editor and engine.

But now that you two introduced him as a famous Mod-Designer & BIS-Employee, its even more amazing for me how that presentation was running...

Still i have very high hopes for Arma2 - the games by BIS are unique as we all know.....

Regards, Christian

[MehMan 0]

The video left me wanting to see much more. The revamped AI doesn't look oh so great, the tank combat looked shitty and tanks behaved like in OFP and ArmA: like infantry, with drivers checking the flanks and jerking the tank around, pretty wierd.

Looks nice, but that's about it...

[lwlooz 0]

Hello there,

I think the main problem with that video(or the presentation) is that it didn't show much new stuff. Therefore its hard to tell what the new improvements are.

They could be there , or BIS just could pull an "ArmA" again and not improve the gameplay whatsoever.

I am afraid we all will have to buy a "cat in the bag" again.

To me the AI seemed improved . That is , if what I was seeing was AI actually making decisions based on their situational awareness calculation and then going off covering sectors.

If they choose cover when getting into battle now , thats a huge improvement.

Of course it could also be ArmA AI getting lucky and running like headless chickens in the right direction.

I for one heavily disagree with "Uh,BIS has to copy that script solution" and such , I never liked these scripts anyways as much as I hate the introduction of that silly useless formation FSM that just makes AI wait randomly now and then.

Those forced scripts take control away from what actually should be controlling the AI , the player or the AI algorithms in the engine.

The only problem I see with the basic design of the AI system is that is seems to much focused on the individual and not on the team , resulting in AI not often supporting each other , which is probably still the case in Arma2 , even tho one can't really judge from the video.

"Team,Team,Team .. I even like saying the word team" afterall.

On different note , I like the graphics and the island , they seem very well done , good show whoever worked on that.

Also I still fail to see why one would advertise removing tactical terrain considerations by enabling some rogue humans to simply ignore forrested terrain and drive through it full speed.... (That was even worse than in ArmA).

[mr reality 0]

The video left me wanting to see much more. The revamped AI doesn't look oh so great, the tank combat looked shitty and tanks behaved like in OFP and ArmA: like infantry, with drivers checking the flanks and jerking the tank around, pretty wierd.

Looks nice, but that's about it...

After watching, i'd pretty much agree with the above quote.

What irks me though is how members post on these forums, regarding the tank combat and animations, saying that there's still 8 months to tweak these issues, when they have been present since 2001. If they havn't fixed them by now they never will.

After the farse that was ArmA i will certainly be reading a good few previews before handing over any cash this time.

I know that ArmA is primarily a MP game, the AI just doesn't cut it in most missions and the SP campaigns havn't been all that good. Now ArmAII is based on a five man team i'm that more saddened that my time in the flashpoint world is coming to an end. I'm a grunt type of player, not a spec ops. Spec ops missions are far easier to create then large combined armed assaults.

Here's hopeing OFP2 can save me,oh the irony.

[wolfsblut_ 0]

Lets be honest, the Preview he made was quite disappointing...

C'mon man, can you present a game if there is one damn host-guy (who had not the foggiest idea of arma and not a foggiest idea of a moderation) always trying to keep you down?

I think at the beginning and the middle part the BIS-guy did it pretty well. But at the end he failed.