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

[Kristian 47]

as seen on post made by me on page 256, now we can have M4 with front-grip, and it can even have animations for it! That is going to kick seriously ass. ArmA 2 is getting better and better, and I dont care if the AI isnt good at 1.0, there will be AI mods, like FFN :cool:

[Raphier 0]

you sure M4 can have a front-grip and animation for it? I mean....do we have a proper animation for reloading yet?

[NeMeSiS 11]

However we cannot but acknowledge the great improvement that the AI has gone through, mostly in out team. While the enemies, when being attacked from distance, simply lay down on the ground and see how the die one by one, our team advances covering with the environment, repels attacks quite well, heal themselves and share ammo and, in conclusions, is not anymore a burden, but a really helpful company. Still, we fear that, just the way we saw in the Beta version, we will spend a lot of time regretting the death of a team member that we didn’t even know where he was, and to which we were not even able to cover, or why we were hurt but no one came to help us while the keep running around, or why the same enemy that was unable to see us two meters away, is now able to finish us from one kilometre away one with one single shot. But, oh well, this is ArmA and all that is part of its main appeal, its difficulty.

Very strange, without playing the game i would still bet my PC on it that every unit in the game (Apart maybe from civs/animals) will use the same .FSMs, so i dont get why they would see only improvements on on friendly side?

[mr.g-c 6]

The Gamestart Preview from Video and Text is pretty honest and therefor i decided to translate some interesting critcising parts, i'll start with the conclusions.

Christian Schneider (Text):

We'll getting either a true masterpiece or middle-heavy catastrophe, measured on the potential of this ambitioned Project.

A in between seems to be not possible, because a such complex Title only works, if all Game-Elements working with each other.

This is currently however not the case, even though Bohemia delivers everything to return to the old Operation-Flashpoint level.

Christian Schneider (Video):

Yes Arma2 has simply everything which is needed for a outstanding military simulation, the problem? - Everything is simply not working so far, and in my opinion it will not very soon. I woudl be not mad at BIS if they delay the game, because when now everything is collapsing again like a house of cards, because single elements are not working with each other - it would be VERY VERY SAD ABOUT IT.

Text-Parts.

Intelligence?:

Previously the Developer heavily advertised with a new "Micro-AI", which should let soldiers navigate better through the Landscape and should actually provide more Teamwork between them. And indeed the computer controlled AI is trying to avoid open landscape and sometimes go in cover behind walls - but thats it.

Group-movement, Suppressing-fire and rescue of wounded is rather working bad than right. The AI suffers from very much "Lags/Gaps" and still is not able to walk around corners, without suddenly to stop or changing their stance.

To often their behavior is inexplicable, the atmosphere suffers from that. But not enough because cause in Arma2, like in no other title where you play a single person, we are depending on the help of computer controlled Soldiers. Despite that our colleges periodically run middle into enemy (suppressing-)fire and we then only playing the medic the whole time, we are in further progress of the story ordered to take fully control about whole SF-Squads and even whole Armies.

And this is exactly the point where the AI is not doing their orders/jobs right -- Frustrations and Helplessly are our consequences.

Troop-control:

[...]

While this context-sensitive control works rather good with smaller squads, it is not possible for us to control large armies with it - so we switched to the new highcommander mode.

Still even here is the "average response" missing.

The "General in the Field idea" is not able not convince us.

The Controling of Vehicles - a problem child of BIS previous games -can convince us on the other hand. Especially Choppers and Planes are (with a little bit practice) rather easy to control - Realism is here then of course not findable.

The realism in the game limits itself rather to "sonic" (sound), Weapons ballistics and its effects.

Big Tanks still hang at tiny trees, Walls on the other hand are getting collapsed by them in very large chunks. The fitting atmosphere of the game breaks often at such details.

Graphical Firework:

Also the Technology is full of "contrasts".

Partially the Landscape reaches Photorealism never before seen in other games, with its dense vegetations and the good illumination on daytimes.

Also the many post-processing effects are used at the right places by Bohemia Interactive.

Dynamic Lighting at Nighttimes however the engine does not know it seems and animation-transitions often appearing to be to static/non-fluid. On top of that the grass gets deleted after some hundred meters from the player.

So while at short distances enemies are very good hidden in this dense vegetation, on longer distance we can recognize them way to easy on the flat blurred textures of the ground.

[...]

We were despite our very fast hardware thankful to the cheating "targeting-helpers", because the comments of our AI comrades are the most times useless and the sound system delivers way better results than in its predecessor, but suffers still from partially extreme mixing-problems. Feel able collapses/vibrations is completely missed by Arma2 Soundengine, comparing to Operation-Flashpint DR, which unfortunately aggravates the impression.

How good the Developers cope with those balance-problems for solo and multiplayer-games, will show the final test.

Some comments from the video:

[...]The whole perception is in Arma2 gnerally a problem, we were mostly only able to defeat the enemy because the AI were simply not working as teams or were running around in panic.

[...]Feeling vibrations at near explosions, or screen shakes on hit or in vehicles are completely missing, here Operation Flashpoint DR seems to have the clear advantage. Also the hit animations can not convice us so far. So there are still many parts which formly "rip us out" of the game, cause they are showing a very heavy contrast to the rest of the experience.

Two examples,

The lighting at night is more than ugly and appears to be simply wrong calculated at spots.

The physics engine is like in Armed-Assault a problem, so tanks collapse for instance whole chunks of walls on contact, while getting stuck at tiny trees.[...]

I like the optics at least.... the landscape is epic.

Ohh and i left-away the large positive part of the preview (first 3 pages), they generally cheer at the awesome campaign, conversation system, graphics, landscape overall impression and feeling. I think we all know the great parts of Arma2 already :p :D

EDIT: I just want to say the only reason why i translated these parts was the conclusion by Christian Schneider and that i want to have a TRUE MASTERSPIECE this time, not a collapsing house of cards (or a middle-heavy catastrophe - like he titled the possibility).

Thats why i posted the criticizing parts so BIS can take care of em.

Edited April 25, 2009 by mr.g-c

[Rocco 0]

as most of the times, the gamestar preview was very well done and gladly they also showed us some negative points. I'd like to know which version they used and if the current version fixed probs like the AI and the performance issues. Shame that the reporter didn't tell his pc setup.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Rocco

[sparks50 0]

We were told earlier that all previews were done on a build from February. Unless Gamestar got an updated one.

I do believe the PR part of BI will take this lesson and communicate with the media better. Personally it doesn't really bother me.

Edited April 25, 2009 by sparks50

[Raphier 0]

We were told earlier that all previews were done on a build from February. Unless Gamestar had some VIP treatment and got a updated one.

I do believe the PR part of BI will take this lesson and communicate with the media better. Personally it doesn't really bother me.

Well..ugh, to be fair, I haven't seen HUGE gameplay differences since DEC 2008 to FEB 2009. So I'd say, they have no time to make big changes, except by delaying.

Possibly just polish the game and add already recorded, yet missing sounds. Small things like that. And are probably just working on a patches ATM.

I wouldn't expect huge difference anytime soon.:j:

[mr.g-c 6]

Hmm i think they had a rather more actual build than the others, you can see it because the grass drawing distance is 100m+ in their version.

However the other points are the typical Arma and OFP Problems and it actually would be really about time to fix them once and for all.

Release the game after Summer around August/September/October and get the tings done properly, this would be my advice.

However i really like the effects of the tank battle at the beginning and epic landscape 1-2 minutes before end.... this really give you a feeling about "size", unlike it was in Arma1

http://www.gamestar.de/index.cfm?pid=1569&pk=12124

EDIT: Christian Schneider now answered in the comments because a "insider" claim they were using a fairl yold build...

He says that their Build was Dated on 3. or 4. of April, so definately no February build here!

And he said that they will get a new Version by BIS in the next two weeks and will write a new Preview then - thats good news!

Edited April 25, 2009 by mr.g-c

[wolfbite 8]

The video's look amazing but the more I think about the more annoyed I get about them not adding In different optics for the vehicles.

[Mafia101 0]

The video's look amazing but the more I think about the more annoyed I get about them not adding In different optics for the vehicles.

Well looks like they improved graphics, campaign and stuff like that for press version, so now they can start improve vehicles systems, optics, more AI and stuff (I hope) :)

Edit: So which build they used is till unclear but BIS have now 2 weeks to improve things they mentioned, if those are not improved already. We will see what will be done... ;)

Edited April 25, 2009 by Mafia101

[honkitonk 0]

I haven't seen the link to a Youtube Version of the GS video preview. click

[mr.g-c 6]

I haven't seen the link to a Youtube Version of the GS video preview. click

Hmm quality is much worse than from Gamestar direct (HD looks great on fullscreen).

However, i would pray the animations from that (IMO)apparently cut-scene at 1:23 look like that ingame... very good transitions actually... and amazingly smooth :eek:

[honkitonk 0]

I know about the bad quality but I had problems streaming the video. So i suppose others have them too.

[kavoven 4]

Very strange, without playing the game i would still bet my PC on it that every unit in the game (Apart maybe from civs/animals) will use the same .FSMs, so i dont get why they would see only improvements on on friendly side?

The only guess I can take is setSkill influencing the behaviour.

[jakerod 254]

In the gamestar preview video, I wasn't a fan of the doctor who was sitting in the chair, not actually sitting in the chair but floating in front of it. I wish there was some way that they could make the animations a bit more life like where if the chair suddenly moved he would move but I understand it probably isn't possible.

Other than that though the video looked great, especially the part at 1:24 but I doubt that those are normal animations and are probably more of cutscene animations.

[Alex72 1]

Very strange, without playing the game i would still bet my PC on it that every unit in the game (Apart maybe from civs/animals) will use the same .FSMs, so i dont get why they would see only improvements on on friendly side?

Didnt BIS say already that different factions have different skills in tactics? Proper military trained factions like US & RUS have better tactics than NAPA/ChDKZ. At least thats how i understood it. And it would be awesome if it really was like that.

[turin turambar 0]

About the gamestar preview:

They seem to see a possible masterpiece, but they say there is a lot of problems in the little details. Fair enough, and even somewhat predictable :P.

But then i noticed a pattern, it seems to me that they focus too much on the little bad details. They complain things like:

- the AI not moving with the fluidity of a human in urban scenarios, instead stopping and changing stances lots of times.

-Tanks sometimes stoppoing by a tiny tree instead of breaking it, walls that are breakable only in large chunks, these things destroy the overall good immersion.

-Dynamic lightning used at nightime is not realistic (i think they are speaking of what happens in Opf and ArmA when you illuminate the terrain with the lights of a vehicle, the light cone is very "square-y"), the grass is 'deleted' at a few hundred feets of vision.

And i wonder, shouldn't they reconsider their complaints?

The game is all-encompassing in the scope of a military simulation, with AI driven gameplay, dozens of weapons and (multi-seat) vehicles, open and big sceneario, night-&-day cycle, dynamic weather, stealth, tactics, enviromental destruction, rpg aspects, etc etc.

-Of course the AI is still not as good as a human, doh. Not in this game, not in other games, not even in the next ArmA game. The problem of AI not knowing how to understand open and closed spaces of vision and how to cover them, the problem of the corners and how to cross them, these are long standing problems in AI in FPS. They seem to be complaining of the AI not being totally life-like and instead of being a bit robotic. Hell, in other FPS in comparison ArmA wins, in other fps they don't even have an AI, it's mostly noded paths set in the scenario combined with some scripts here and there, and with the limited options of small, interior-based levels, their AI "seem" to be competent.

-Yeah, the physics and the destruction is not life-like, it's a videogame. Yes, it would be cool if we had totally realistic destruction, instead of walls breaking and tumbling in predeterminated sections, but surprise! computing power is still not enough for something that complex. This complaint irrates me, in the other 95% of the videogame landscape all it's made of FUCKING ADAMANTIUM. Trees, houses, walls, everything. Now here comes a game where you can destroy a building with enemies inside or punch your way with a M1A2 tank in a wall and they complain of how false is the hole in the wall.

-So it seems it's not enough to make a 200km2 landscape with varied scenario and dynamic weather and day and night cycle, with HDR lightning and realtime shadows. It's also needed a a more photo realistic lightning system for the night. Well, surprise, there are technical limitations, memory constraints, etc. In most games it's used a "baked lightning", or a hybrid system tailored to the needs of the game. In most games with great per-pixel lightning they don't change the time of the day in the scenario, and in other the terrain is not so big as in ArmA. The same with the grass system, of course the grass is only rendered in the vecinity, did they think an actual computer can render kilometers of photorealistic terrain with millions of grass blades?

In other words, i think they are missing the forest for the trees.

That, and using rose-tinted glasses, the original Operation Flashpoint had all these problems and many more but people enjoyed the game and understood intuitively (even without technical knowledge) that a huge varied game like this can't have all the little details polished.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Turin Turambar

[Barely-injured 0]

Hmm i think they had a rather more actual build than the others, you can see it because the grass drawing distance is 100m+ in their version.

However the other points are the typical Arma and OFP Problems and it actually would be really about time to fix them once and for all.

Release the game after Summer around August/September/October and get the tings done properly, this would be my advice.

However i really like the effects of the tank battle at the beginning and epic landscape 1-2 minutes before end.... this really give you a feeling about "size", unlike it was in Arma1

http://www.gamestar.de/index.cfm?pid=1569&pk=12124

EDIT: Christian Schneider now answered in the comments because a "insider" claim they were using a fairl yold build...

He says that their Build was Dated on 3. or 4. of April, so definately no February build here!

And he said that they will get a new Version by BIS in the next two weeks and will write a new Preview then - thats good news!

I dont think so because if it was a newer build then he would have the ability (slider in options maybe) to change the grass rendering distance like was mentioned before. This would make his argument about close and far enemy somewhat week, or at least he would mention it.

There are other reviewers who claimed the build was dated as April. could it possibly be that BIS for some reason decided to send them the Feb build on April ?

[Raptor 10]

http://www.gamestar.de/index.cfm?pid=1569&pk=12124&sortorder=asc&fp=2#liststart

Hmmm the preview about ArmA2 leave a bad feeling to the user.

The game looks good as we know now and the story seems to be return the quality as it was in OFP as real story.

But the main parts, the AI (the author said the micro-AI isn't really working , blackouts and no reaction to fire of the player), the usage (especially the High Command is very difficult), the sounds (some mixing errors of the sounds), the communication system between player and AI (especially in the High Command, it's very difficult to know where is your troop and the health status of them), the physic engine (view the vid) , the night lightning is disastrous (reminds me to ArmA) and many more little and bigger things, let me think that ArmA 2 looks nice but isn't finished for a long time yet and needs many polishing.

I hope BIS had their ears and eyes open and look into the critics and don't hole up themselves now.

As the author said, eighter we get a masterpiece or a catastrophic game.

Edited April 26, 2009 by Raptor

[sic-disaster 311]

About the gamestar preview:

They seem to see a possible masterpiece, but they say there is a lot of problems in the little details. Fair enough, and even somewaht predictable :P.

But then i noticed of a pattern, it seems to me that they focus too much on the little bad details. They complain of things like:

- the AI not moving with the fluidity of a human in urban scenarios, instead stopping and changing stances lots of times.

-Tanks sometimes stoppoing by a tiny tree instead of breaking it, walls that are breakable only in large chunks, these things destroy the overall good immersion.

-Dynamic lightning used at nightime is not realistic (i think they are speaking of what happens in Opf and ArmA when you illuminate the terrain with the lights of a vehicle, the light cone is very "square-y"), the grass is 'deleted' at a few hundred feets of vision.

And i wonder, shouldn't they reconsider their complaints?

The game is all-encompassing in the scope of a military simulation, with AI driven gameplay, dozens of weapons and (multi-seat) vehicles, open and big sceneario, night-&-day cycle, dynamic weather, stealth, tactics, enviromental destruction, rpg aspects, etc etc.

-Of course the AI is still not as good as a human, doh. Not in this game, not in other games, not even in the next ArmA game. The problem of AI not knowing how to understand open and closed spaces of vision and how to cover them, the problem of the corners and how to cross them, these are long standing problems in AI in FPS. They seem to be complaining of the AI not being totally life-like and instead of being a bit robotic. Hell, in other FPS in comparison they don't even have AI, it's mostly noded paths set in the scenario combined with some scripts here and there, and with the limited options of small, interior-based levels, they "seem" to be competent.

-Yeah, the physics and the destruction is not life-like, it's a videogame. Yes, it would be cool if we had totally realistic destruction, instead of walls breaking and tumbling in predeterminated sections, but surprise! computing power is still not enough for something that complex. This complaint irrates me, in the other 95% of the videogame landscape all it's made of FUCKING ADAMANTIUM. Trees, houses, walls, everything. Now here comes a game where you can destroy a building with enemies inside of punch your way with a M1A2 tank in a wall and they complain of how false is the hole in the wall.

-So it seems it's not enough to make a 200km2 landscape with varied scenario and dynamic weather and day and night cycle, with HDR lightning and realtime shadows. It's also needed a a more photo realistic lightning system for the night. Well, surprise, there are techincal limitations, memory constraints, etc. In most games it's used a "baked lightning", or a hybrid system tailored to the needs of the game. In most games with great per-pixel lightning they don't change the time of the day in the scenario, and in other the terrain is not so big as in ArmA. The same with the grass system, of course the grass is only rendered in the vecinity, did they think a actual computer can render kilometers of photorealistic terrain with millions of grass blades?

In other words, i think they are missing the forest for the trees.

That, and using rose-tinted glasses, the original Operation Flashpoint had all these problems and many more but people enjoyed the game and understood intuitively (even without technical knowledge) that a huge varied game like this can't have all the little details polished.

You read my mind and i couldnt agree more.

Really, this is exactly what i was thinking, to the letter.

[Raphier 0]

About the gamestar preview:

They or the trees[/b].

That, and using rose-tinted glasses, the original Operation Flashpoint had all these problems and many more but people enjoyed the game and understood intuitively (even without technical knowledge) that a huge varied game like this can't have all the little details polished.

b.b.b.b..but OFPDR 2 has amazing night sequence. so it's achievable, and same people liked OFPDR's AI, who did a good job but still had minor issues.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Raphier

[Barely-injured 0]

b.b.b.b..but OFPDR 2 has amazing night sequence. so it's achievable, and same people liked OFPDR's AI, who did a good job but still had minor issues.

do you have a link for that ?

[Mafia101 0]

b.b.b.b..but OFPDR 2 has amazing night sequence. so it's achievable, and same people liked OFPDR's AI, who did a good job but still had minor issues.

Yeah, this looks like pretty nigh to me: http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/968/968446/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising--20090331045850345.jpg also you couldn't see enemy without thermal sights and night vision :)

[ProfTournesol 956]

b.b.b.b..but OFPDR 2 has amazing night sequence. so it's achievable, and same people liked OFPDR's AI, who did a good job but still had minor issues.

I would like to know how they did know that OFPDR AI is good, without any game preview...

[kavoven 4]

In the gamestar preview video, I wasn't a fan of the doctor who was sitting in the chair, not actually sitting in the chair but floating in front of it. I wish there was some way that they could make the animations a bit more life like where if the chair suddenly moved he would move but I understand it probably isn't possible.

If things are like in OFP then the animation isn't bound to the chair(or object). So I'd guess the mission maker just should move the chair a bit and everything would be right.