GC 2008 Press Coverage

[Average Joe 0]

Its all great having these new shiny vehicles dont get me wrong but...as previously mentioned, what about FLIR, realistic optics and other features such as deployable smoke for armoured vehicles etc?

[MehMan 0]

Well, the video is making me think that it's all going to be the same there. At least judging from the magical radar.

[Guest Ti0n3r]

Sidestepping AI

[kavoven 4]

i (think) i like the footage im seeing coming out of GC, but it'd be really nice just to get some straight video of ingame instead of washed out and fuzzy camera shots of the monitor

I think we'll get that on September the first

[Blackhawk 0]

i (think) i like the footage im seeing coming out of GC, but it'd be really nice just to get some straight video of ingame instead of washed out and fuzzy camera shots of the monitor

I think we'll get that on September the first

Yes I think so too, Thats when the New website is updated.

[funnyguy1 0]

The models look really impressive! Please don't make them worthless ww2 dummies ofp/arma style.

[xnodunitx 0]

awesome vehicle movie!  

Love the extra vehicles Bis has worked hard into the game.  

Ditto, when I heard 50 I was thinking "Okay so we get 50 variants about 10 or 20 of the same thing but eh thats still good."  Till I read that in total there were 120 variants of vehicles, the vehicle department sure has been busy.  

I just hope their more diverse in what they can do, some modern combat.

Also is it me or did the M1A2 TUSK seem to have smoother and less shiny lighting on it? (which if so is of course a good thing)

[baddo 0]

Maybe a bit too much shininess at least on some of the vehicles. For example the T-90.

You know, a military wants its vehicles not to shine.

We use matte paint, and fixed the painting if it wore out. In fact it didn't even have to wear out yet, we would fix it anyways. I think most other nations do the same as we do, regarding the painting of military vehicles. The paint is matte and the painting is fixed quite often. So the shininess you see on the video on the T-90 doesn't exist on our vehicles.

But then again, it's a game...

[xnodunitx 0]

Oh I pretty much figured that, it's on of the things that drives me bizerk with nearly everything in modern graphics, how developers and people alike seem to think vehicles have this shiny coat.

But hey to give BIS their props they aren't going generic in the shinyness, ever seen BF:BC's humvee?

[baddo 0]

No I haven't seen that vehicle.

The shininess thing isn't a big deal to me, I'm certainly not going to say " I won't buy it if they don't fix that ". It's just something I noticed could be done more realistically probably quite easily. But then again a lot of other things are like that as well.

I left out from my previous post that the game looks promising. Maybe it will be the thing that forces me to buy new hardware. ArmA I wasn't enough. But I will wait until it has been published and tested by a lot of people until I make that decision.

[Rak 0]

That vehicles cleary shows there's no to little improvements for the vehicles.

Getting in and out is still the same, and they're too lazy to do seperate animations, no tank FCS (finally acurate optics though). no word about damage model, probably the same good old hitpoint one. Driving model has not changed, it doesn't feel you're using a "heavy" tank at all. AI still has a "wonky" driving, doing weird moves during move and the list goes on.

Now, what has improved over "The Ultimate Simulator" part? Graphics?

[xnodunitx 0]

@ Baddo

04:51

And ditto again, while I may not like it it won't be the deciding factor..afterall, after some time when the tools are released if it really really bugs me that much I could always uncrack the pbo and modify the specular maps until I get my bland matte vehicles.

[Crystal 0]

Wow, sound effect's, physic's, smoke effect's of the BF2BC video are really awesome.

But the game looks like every other shitty arcade game in the whole world

If ArmA2 could have these effect's, wow!

[xnodunitx 0]

I wouldn't quite say arcade is "Shitty", thats too high and mighty, just because we prefer a different genre doesn't make us better then them.

I like BC myself, if it ever came out on PC I'd definately get it since I'm too cheap to buy a xbox 360, I just wish everything weren't so dern shiny.

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

Any of you tried the new T80+T90 models in the addons section yet? Talking about 'heavy' feeling of tanks etc prompts me to point you in the direction of those addons as they give a REALLY good feeling of a heavy tracked vehicle already, and that's in-game in ArmA 1 right now. I don't think implementing a heavy feeling for tanks in ArmA2 will be so difficult. Perhaps someone could take a look at the balance of parameters in those addons for inspiration?

[Rak 0]

Yeah, I'm already using them (Mateck's and IKE's excellent addons). Though, they don't really alter handling.

I'd expected ArmA 2 do more though.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Will we have workable sights for M203? Here I don't just mean flipping sights, but sights we can use to aim with. How about grenade throwing? Today you're (well, I am) more prone to killing myself with one than taking out enemies since I have absolutely no sense on where the damned thing will end up.

How about sniping and bullet ballistics? Will we be able to adjust the sights for at least bullet drop, or do we have to exceed the sight compensation capability when "proper" ballistics are in as an addon?

How about ammunition types and effects on them? Can vehicles now deliver support other than fire support; illumination, workeable smoke, white phosphorous, special purpose shells like copperheads, minefield laying etc? Can they deliver indirect fire (even with help)? How about armor piercing rounds, incindiary rounds, multipurpose.

We've seen AI using cover better than ArmA, but can you influence if they will prefer cover or stay in formation? Can you with simple means widen or tighten a formation? Will they still reorganize when moving backwards 5 meters?

These are to me way more important.

To me there is too much talk about a tanks shininess which can easily be changed with a texture replacement addon, instead of focusing on what makes or breaks a game.

I agree the gameplay on BF looks horrible in my view, but it appears to have some really interresting features as well. I never tried it though, and probably never will.

[baddo 0]

We talked about shininess because it is what we can see on the video.

On the contrary, you talk about features of which you have no idea if they are in the game or not. And it is unlikely in my opinion that any of those features you mentioned would be implemented into the game if they are not already in it, knowing that the release date of the game should not be so far away that they could go and add a number of features, without breaking the game and introducing a load of completely new bugs which take X number of months to fix.

And some people, including me, prefer the original game instead of community-created content. I can make my own game or addons and make them exactly what I want, but I'd rather enjoy playing what BIS created.

[sparks50 0]

Accurately aiming a grenade is a bit complex in gameplayterms, so I doubt it will be done in Arma.

Would be cool if anyone (ACE?) could mod it though. Heres a decent instruction for firing the M203:

http://www.armystudyguide.com/content....r.shtml

[NeMeSiS 11]

Accurately aiming a grenade is a bit complex in gameplayterms, so I doubt it will be done in Arma.

OFP and ArmA are the only to games where aiming a grenade is really hard. If you ever tried CoD then you know that throwing grenades in a game doesn't have to be as hard as it sounds. Though it may be a bit too easy there you can at least throw in a specific window like in real life, and you dont have to be afraid of blowing up yourself all the time.

[sparks50 0]

I was referring to accurately aiming a rifle attached grenade launcher.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

In ArmA you can't range the M203 (or Mk19) to the distance you want, they would need adjusteable sights for this. If this is not present, we still would like some way of being shown where the impact would be. I am thinking of a circle of impact which will increase in size with distance, and more so for thrown grenades than launched grenades. It should follow the crosshair option. Yes it sounds like "magic" aiming, but it is needed to make up for the missing "proper" aiming using adjustable sights. It will then be up to the player to "cheat" with this for as long as it takes to "learn it", or for server admins to force it off if desired. Grenades and smoke aer key tactical elements, yet a tactical shooter like ArmA they are unusable? What gives? I'll buy ArmA II regardless of what it lacks, not because it is the best tactical shooter, but because it is the only one...

That way, addon makers could have several versions of a crosshair addon with mixed options depending on the skill of the player. I.e. I am using veteran crosshairs, but I have made/changed addon so that locked targets will show up as well as friendly tags. When I was a newbie, I would never even consider playing without crosshairs. It's an evolving process, this "desire for realism": Currently I wouldn't play shacktactical style of realism but I am more realistic than my clan members. But one day shacktactical would suit me well, perhaps.

@Baddo:

The community has complained about i.e. missing tactical effects from smoke screens since OFP days. ArmA "promised" to have this in, but didn't. So I wonder, how about ArmA II? It's the same thing with towing/(hoisting?)/lifting i.e; some of these things can be scripted but will look horrible without being properly supported by the engine. Other things might need addons (i.e. smoke with viewblock objects) to work, which is multiplayer public unfriendly. I'm asking specifically about illumination support because of a config entry "gunnerHasFlares" which is currently unused by ArmA.

As an example, OFP and ArmA has never had built in support for supression effects. It can be based on scripting alone, but it doesn't seem to work well. It can also be based on invisible targets (again addon needed [i.e. ECS] which is public server unfriendly) which has its own kinds of flaws (unknown, 50 meters i.e.). Even if ArmA II fails to deliver "proper" supression and effects of being supressed, mission makers may now be able to script improved versions without needing addons, because the engine now supports it.

To me, shininess is not important because it can be fixed with client side addons. Misunderstand me correctly, it's nice to have it been brought up and noted, but I don't think it needs be be discussed so much it became a key feature (which it is not).

[trunkz jr 0]

I wouldn't want a magic circle, lets just stay as close to realism as we can...

[Pirin 0]

Accurately aiming a grenade is a bit complex in gameplayterms, so I doubt it will be done in Arma.

In America's Army grenades are extremely aimable and can be accurately bounced off surfaces to go around corners or obstacles. In ArmA I'm lucky if I can get a grenade any distance away from me before it blows up much less aim it through a 3rd story window to bounce into an adjoining room which I can easily do in AA.

[Grimnirsson 0]

Quote[/b] ]I'll buy ArmA II regardless of what it lacks, not because it is the best tactical shooter, but because it is the only one...

And OFP2 is going to be an arcade shooter or what?

Grim