Latest ArmA2 & ArmA2:OA Press Coverage | NO discussion here!

[Praelium 0]

I should have never said anything about the mountains.

[max power 21]

The 'infinite procedural landscape' is just a tad less uselss than the infinite ocean surrounding Sahrani.  It's useful to manoeuvre and that's all.  There is no destination out there.  There is no map of the area.  It is worthless territory that you pass through if you're trying to avoid something.

You would prefer an invisible wall BF2 style ? I'm appalled.

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Oh, and in case you're confused, we were talking about ArmA 2, not CS or Microsoft Flight Simulator.  This case is not dependent on 'what we are talking about' because what we are talking about is known.

Somehow I felt there was room for misinterpretation, and I seized the opportunity.

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There is no two ways about this, either you see landscape in the distance on the sky box, or you see grey fog.  If you would rather see grey fog, maybe a mod can come out to remove the mountains from the skybox to render the game playable for you.

Actually, I think the view distance in ArmA renders the skybox mountains obsolete given the randomly generated land. I don't think we can see that much further IRL standing on the ground. Never said it wouldn't be playable, I'm sure the game will be awesome regardless.

How do we know those are part of the skybox? Seeing as how I have yet to see the same two hills in any screenshots so far.

I'm wondering the same thing, is there any proof ?

I'm surprised people would support this in a large scale game like Arma.

I'm not sure where you're going with bf2 style this and that. Skyboxes are present in all 3d environments in some way or another. The comparison to 'BF2' style is bordering on ridiculous. I play ArmA with a mouse and keyboard BF2 style, and my car has 4 wheels, just like in BF2. The humans around me all have 2 legs, 2 arms, and a head, BF2 style. It's not a matter of preference, but the reality of 3d rendering. If these moutains are not present in the play area, then there is no point in making them reachable. If I preferred BF2 style gameplay I would play that instead of this style of game.

This has degenerated into an irrational phobia of unreachable mountains. At first I thought the argument was for being able to reach the mountains... but now it's just to delete the mountains from the skybox on the grounds that you do not want to simulate vision over a certain (view) distance. Ridiculous.

[Maddmatt 1]

The 'infinite procedural landscape' is just a tad less uselss than the infinite ocean surrounding Sahrani.  It's useful to manoeuvre and that's all.  There is no destination out there.  There is no map of the area.  It is worthless territory that you pass through if you're trying to avoid something.

You would prefer an invisible wall BF2 style ? I'm appalled.

Who said anything about an invisible wall? We are talking about a skybox here.

This is a minor graphical issue anyway, it has nothing to do with gameplay. How the game actually deals with the border of Chernarus is irrelevant. You just have some mountains as part of the horizon texture, big deal.

The alternative is having nothing, which makes no more sense as this isn't an island.

What do those of you that have a problem with it suggest? That they just have an empty horizon?

While they're erasing the mountains they may as well wipe out the sun, moon and stars

[nubbin77 0]

NERRRRRRD FIGHHHHHT!!!!!!

If the mountain in any way affects your game purchase decision, or if you have given it more then 10 minutes of thought, then choke yourself.

[POTS 0]

I don't get why people don't want pretty mountains in the distance. Sure, you cant reach them, but I rather pretend there is something out there besides infinite land. Don't be afraid of art, it makes the game look nice.

Anybody else like me try to make the endless flight to the moon in ofp?

[max power 21]

Wouldn't it be weird if you had an orbiter travelling to the moon in ofp, and you let the program run for a week and came back and it had arrived?

[Maddmatt 1]

NERRRRRRD FIGHHHHHT!!!!!!

If the mountain in any way affects your game purchase decision, or if you have given it more then 10 minutes of thought, then choke yourself.

Who thought some game artwork of mountains would be so controversial

[Snots 0]

I should have never said anything about the mountains.  

anyone got a rope

[Raphier 0]

I don't get why people don't want pretty mountains in the distance. Sure, you cant reach them, but I rather pretend there is something out there besides infinite land. Don't be afraid of art, it makes the game look nice.

Anybody else like me try to make the endless flight to the moon in ofp?  

but then again, what about Flying aircrafts? will they suddenly stop from a hit into a skybox if reached?

That's the whole point, the skybox of the moon is more logical than a skybox on sides that prevent you from maneuvering in game area.

[Przemek_kondor 13]

why do you think these mountains are out of normal land-square?

[NeMeSiS 11]

I don't get why people don't want pretty mountains in the distance. Sure, you cant reach them, but I rather pretend there is something out there besides infinite land. Don't be afraid of art, it makes the game look nice.

Anybody else like me try to make the endless flight to the moon in ofp?  

but then again, what about Flying aircrafts? will they suddenly stop from a hit into a skybox if reached?  

That's the whole point, the skybox of the moon is more logical than a skybox on sides that prevent you from maneuvering in game area.

The skybox would be like a rainbow, no matter how long you follow it, you would never reach it. (Instead you would fly over endless sea/randomly generated terrain/whatever)

[Maddmatt 1]

I don't get why people don't want pretty mountains in the distance. Sure, you cant reach them, but I rather pretend there is something out there besides infinite land. Don't be afraid of art, it makes the game look nice.

Anybody else like me try to make the endless flight to the moon in ofp?  

but then again, what about Flying aircrafts? will they suddenly stop from a hit into a skybox if reached?  

That's the whole point, the skybox of the moon is more logical than a skybox on sides that prevent you from maneuvering in game area.

Hit a skybox? Skybox is a visual thing to fill the background, you can't hit it or even reach it

[Commando84 0]

I don't get why people don't want pretty mountains in the distance. Sure, you cant reach them, but I rather pretend there is something out there besides infinite land. Don't be afraid of art, it makes the game look nice.

Anybody else like me try to make the endless flight to the moon in ofp?  

but then again, what about Flying aircrafts? will they suddenly stop from a hit into a skybox if reached?  

That's the whole point, the skybox of the moon is more logical than a skybox on sides that prevent you from maneuvering in game area.

what tells you can;t manouver outside the map? In ofp and Arma you could go outside the map into the almost infinite sea until you ran out of fuel, i know in ofp there was though a skybox roof that you reached after many minutes of flying to the sky  

so I guesss you could drive or fly towards the mountain in the skybox but you maybe never reach it   but it looks pretty at least.  

btw anyone tried to reach the sun ingame?

[JVJ 0]

Has the game release date changed?

The arma2 mainpage no longer says "Q1 2009" only "2009"...

[Raphier 0]

I don't get why people don't want pretty mountains in the distance. Sure, you cant reach them, but I rather pretend there is something out there besides infinite land. Don't be afraid of art, it makes the game look nice.

Anybody else like me try to make the endless flight to the moon in ofp?  

but then again, what about Flying aircrafts? will they suddenly stop from a hit into a skybox if reached?  

That's the whole point, the skybox of the moon is more logical than a skybox on sides that prevent you from maneuvering in game area.

what tells you can;t manouver outside the map? In ofp and Arma you could go outside the map into the almost infinite sea until you ran out of fuel, i know in ofp there was though a skybox roof that you reached after many minutes of flying to the sky  

so I guesss you could drive or fly towards the mountain in the skybox but you maybe never reach it   but it looks pretty at least.  

btw anyone tried to reach the sun ingame?  

but come on, I would be depressed if I would just fly towards a mountain that looks like it's 10 meters from me and I can't reach it. It breaks the immersion for me. Well enought of this crap, it's not really huge deal (can work as a game breaker).

But I am more worried about the gameplay  

And speaking of sun it's logical that you can't reach the sun, it's lightyears away from you and in space. Mountain is closer, and it's logical that you should reach it.

[Przemek_kondor 13]

http://files.filefront.com/Arma+2+Aircraftwmv/;11682082;/fileinfo.html - here you've got how to reach "unreachable mountains".

Additionaly you can see on this video that nothing has changed with land which is out of distanceView - it's the horizontal line

[dmakatra 1]

Here you go! Feel free to replace the original texture with this one, so that minor details won't ruin your game.

Now, if someone could fix that trigger finger animation as well...

[Commando84 0]

I think they done fixes to how they hold weapons seen it on some of the gc 08 stuff.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Yeah, I saw the M203 sitting nicely a while back.

Hope they decide to address other weapons though.

[twisted 128]

Hope they decide to address other weapons though.

[im]http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e265/CameronMcDonald/aww.jpg[/img]

the hand position is bad. and why do they make soldiers hold machinegun like an assault rifle? I had hoped they'd do better than that.

[Placebo 29]

4 years and you still ignore such an important rule? Shame on you

[twisted 128]

4 years and you still ignore such an important rule? Shame on you

my bad on quoting an image. forgot.

but still think machine guns should be handled like machine guns and not like assault rifles and that was something i was really hoping to see in arma2.

[sk3pt 0]

I'm not sure where you're going with bf2 style this and that.  Skyboxes are present in all 3d environments in some way or another.  The comparison to 'BF2' style is bordering on ridiculous.  I play ArmA with a mouse and keyboard BF2 style, and my car has 4 wheels, just like in BF2.  The humans around me all have 2 legs, 2 arms, and a head, BF2 style.  It's not a matter of preference, but the reality of 3d rendering.  If these moutains are not present in the play area, then there is no point in making them reachable. If I preferred BF2 style gameplay I would play that instead of this style of game.

I said "an invisible wall BF2 style" which is quite specific, not BF2 style this and that, and certainly not anything about BF2 style gameplay. You did call the random terrain "worthless territory", so if you don't want that there really is not that many options. Either it's infinite flat terrain, or there is an invisible wall BF2 style.

This has degenerated into an irrational phobia of unreachable mountains.  At first I thought the argument was for being able to reach the mountains... but now it's just to delete the mountains from the skybox on the grounds that you do not want to simulate vision over a certain (view) distance.  Ridiculous.

The point is, if the procedurally generated terrain fills the horizon with mountains there really is no point having them in the skybox, as you won't see much further than what you already see anyway. It's still about unreachable mountains no matter how you twist it.

What do those of you that have a problem with it suggest? That they just have an empty horizon?

While they're erasing the mountains they may as well wipe out the sun, moon and stars  

Again, this is not Frontier Elite.

I'm sure BIS has a great solution to this, one that will be unnoticeable. Can't wait for the next faction update. This is not far from being photorealistic !

[colt 0]

@ KyleSarnik.

In OFP (a military simulation), if I saw a mountain range; I could go there. If I saw a valley; I could go there. If I spied a distant village; I could go there. If I saw the Moon; You're right - I couldn't go there. Do you know why? Because it's the BLOODY MOON.

The Sun, Moon, sky and clouds are not terra firma (solid earth). The mountains are.

It's not the mountainous skybox that I hate, it's what it represents - an inaccessible place in a go anywhere world.

In Arma 2, given the fact that you'll have a wide range of vehicles available, you should be able to reach those mountains, if you can't there must be reason. So how will it be addressed? A no fly zone where the mission / game abruptly ends or fades to black? Will you be shot at and destroyed by an uber missile from the country your trespassing in or will you simply self-destruct. Or will it always remain a set distance away from the player, forever out of reach?

If you head in the direction of the mountains, what will separate the 'mountain skybox' and the limits of the playable and interactive game world? If you have a skybox there has to be something between 'it' and yourself. What will it be, given that Chernarus isn't an island and is attached to a larger land mass? An endless green field? A never ending lake? One massive patrolled border crossing?  

Have a look at the Arma 2 press kit and look at Chernarus. How will trying to breach the countries borders be dealt with?

Whatever transpires, I just hope that BIS can implement a plausible solution.

[madrussian 347]

With all this talk of the borders and the never-ending-auto-generated-semi-random mountainous expanse, I got to thinking.

We all know there will be a huge finely detailed playing area in the middle of the expanse.  What about having more than one highly detailed area in this soup of auto-generated mountains.  I guess you could call these hi-def areas "islands".

If the main highly detailed area had some satellite "islands" at various points around it, it might help to break up the feeling of a distinct border to the game-world.  Also, maybe expansions to ArmA2 could include new highly detailed land areas, disconnected from the original.  You could start out in the original hi-def landmass, and then travel by land or air over the semi-random mountainous expanse to the new hi-def areas for a mission objective, or just screwing around in the editor.

Kind of makes your brain warp when you think about it, really.