One question that MANY fans care about.

[CyDoN 0]

Well ArmA had a very important problem. The PvP part of the game, there was absoloutely no PvP.

There where only some PvP maps that had serious bugs, like Sector Control where in the OpFor when you died you couldn't respawn. Anyway those maps where bodge. Ofp and ArmA need some maps in order to promote the PvP part of the game (warefare is totaly no PvP). A PvP mode that will introduce the gameplay of Battlefield2 with the mix of the realism of ArmA. In order to have a succeded game you have to draw the intrest of people playing it, so they will keep playing it and buying expansion packs (unlike that of Queens Gambit).

When I see interviews all I see all is talking about Warefare. Well warefare has no intrest of playing in a pro gaming level (where is all the fun if you ask me ).

The way to draw attention of big organizations like ESL to launch cups, ladders etc is to have competition. Whoever doesnt like this kind of gameplay can still play warefare and evoloution no.4324320

So still we (and i speak behalf a big number of ArmA and OFP fans) want to know will the game finnaly support PvP modes? Or we ll have to wait again for individuals to make crappy maps in order to play the game, if we are going to get it finnaly.

The ESL mappack, what the pvp community wants:

http://rapidshare.de/files/41317823/esl_mappack_v1.zip.html

[Pulverizer 1]

Quote[/b] ]gameplay of Battlefield2 with the mix of the realism of ArmA

Isn't BF2 Project Reality mod exactly that?

Or Berzerk mission for ArmA?

[[aps]gnat 28]

(and i speak behalf a big number of ArmA and OFP fans)

Um, how did you work that out?

Quote[/b] ]A PvP mode that will introduce the gameplay of Battlefield2 with the mix of the realism of ArmA.

Sorry .... seems to me like trying to mix oil with water.

Sure BF2 may have attracted some short and intense attention, but I think like OFP, ArmA and ArmA2 are for a different demographic.

Theres also plenty of flexibility in ArmA, if people wanted PvP (or someones idea of what they think PvP is) then it has been or can be made into a mission any time.

[CyDoN 0]

Gnat @ Jan. 07 2009,13:19)]

(and i speak behalf a big number of ArmA and OFP fans)

Um, how did you work that out?

Quote[/b] ]A PvP mode that will introduce the gameplay of Battlefield2 with the mix of the realism of ArmA.

Sorry .... seems to me like trying to mix oil with water.

Sure BF2 may have attracted some short and intense attention, but I think like OFP, ArmA and ArmA2 are for a different demographic.

Theres also plenty of flexibility in ArmA, if people wanted PvP (or someones idea of what they think PvP is) then it has been or can be made into a mission any time.

Frist GNAT sarcasm is not contributing and not constructive.

Fist of all in order to make something work it needs to be OFFICIAL. If there are not OFFICIAL made maps they don't get popular and new comers to the game get bored and drop it, to honest i think it even discourages people from playing the game. About berzerk maps I won't say anything more than that they are only for public fun use and having fun, you can't arrange a match on in clan level in those. Also when I ment BF2 mix with ArmA I ment the realism of ArmA with the zone control of BF2 but made in a way that 5vs5 will be possible, Berzerk doesnt allow that and they are not official too.

All successful on-line games had official pvp maps.

I can show you many leagues, Cups and Tournaments in ArmA that like that part of PvP (C&H, Hold Location, CTF etc) if you want to put it that way here are some I can think of  

http://virtual-battle-league.info/

http://www.arma-liga.de/

http://www.european-combat-league.com/

www.esl.eu (the most popular PvP maps where made here and are used by many organizations modified)

http://www.owl.st/

www.armedassault.gr

What are all those people doing there (add the fact that ArmA is dieing due to the fact of anticipation of ArmA2)? You can see its a very big number of ArmA players, not adding other gamers, who want to come to this game or generaly enjoy this type of gameplay.

I am not a fan of BF2 my xfire says i ve played less than 24 hours in total.

Project reality is again not an official project and its not ArmA.

and many others that I can post here if I want.

These are my thoughts.

About want you people might think of whats PvP cause Warefare is PvP and pacman is also PvP of who will get the highest score. I ment about gameplay noone who likes to play a 1 hour quick match based on skill and tactics (check again ESL or even ECL maps) to see what I mean, will NEVER on earth try to play warefare, also warefare would also not be played by a new-comer to ArmA that comes from other Action-Fps games from where most people come.

Not all fans of ArmA love the military (not going to use any other expression ).

Or care about addons.

[Pulverizer 1]

What's it matter if it's official when you download missions automatically from server anyway. As if BIS knew how to make better PvP missions than the actual PvP players

I think the lack of PvP play is because ArmA simply isn't a fitting engine for fast paced run'n'gun'n'shot'u'right'in'the'face'lol action. And not because there weren't good official missions.

[funnyguy1 0]

I really don't know why shouldn't they include real PvP in ArmA2. It would really attract a lot of ppl. It's a matter of better out of the box PvP missions, and that's it. I play bf vietnam with my friends recently (a lot during xmas) because they hate ArmA, and all that time I think: wow, how cool would it be...And I'm einhundert % sure guys I play with would enjoy it if only ArmA had some kind of decent bf-ish type of PvP, with all of ArmA's features and realism!

[Commando84 0]

isn't ware pvp? i think warefare is one of the best mixes of pvp with coop elements. with the right people it can be pvp but its on a large scale, maybe if there where light, medium and large versions of warefare maybe?

[BeerHunter 0]

"One question that MANY fans care about"

Don't really think so. A few maybe.

If you want PvP my god there's tons of them out there , from DoD through BF2 up to CoD5 to name but a few.

If you want good co-op , there are very few that offer the opportunity.

Don't understand why you would be so concerned about PvP with ArmedA since that would degrade it to a CoD clone and IMO , the ONLY fascination with PvP is to see how many kills you can rack up before you go down.

Co-op OTH , offers the opportunity to work as a team with friends to complet a mission by supporting and assisting rather than running aorund blowing things up.

Besides , PvP servers , for the most part are simply breeding grounds where idiots congregate .

[Infam0us 10]

Why is it that only "idiots" and "morons" play PvP. Perhaps playing PvP is much better than Coop, take for instance the tournament I play at IC ArmA.

We average about 40vs40 players weekly in battle and for those 3 hours it is better than any Coop you play, as actual human players react, and use tactics a lot better than the AI does in Coop.

Yes ArmA is a simulator, and also does Coop well but I don't like it when everyone assumes that PvP is just about the frags. Imagine playing a Coop but your enemy's are actual gamers instead of the shoddy ArmA AI. But then again I suppose I'll be shot down for making such remarks

[[aps]gnat 28]

Fist of all in order to make something work it needs to be OFFICIAL. If there are not OFFICIAL made maps they don't get popular and new comers to the game get bored and drop it

Bull-Dust ! ! !

What was CTI in OFP .... its was one of THE biggest ongoing used mission type in OFP ....... was it "official" ? No it bloody well wasn't.

Quote[/b] ]Frist GNAT sarcasm is not contributing and not constructive.

LOL .... well I took your use of the word "MANY" as sarcasm.

[CyDoN 0]

@Beerhunter

"If you want PvP my god there's tons of them out there , from DoD through BF2 up to CoD5 to name but a few."

But we like ArmAs' gameplay?

"Co-op OTH , offers the opportunity to work as a team with friends to complet a mission by supporting and assisting rather than running aorund blowing things up."

I don't find it intresting killing bots, you can also work as a team play a 5vs5 match and that is much more exciting if you ask me its a matter of taste.

"Besides , PvP servers , for the most part are simply breeding grounds where idiots congregate."

What if I say the same thing for coop servers? This of course is very sad to hear from anyone, underestimate people that have not the same tastes as him. I can find many things to tell to coop players like they dont like getting pwnd for instance. But the point is that arma has warefare which is nice if you play coop its also nice if you like a mix of pvp and coop but if you like to play C&H or CTF types of maps you won't choose to play this one.

I don't get why coop ArmA players dont want ArmA2 to have more PvP support from BIS, seriously i don't care about addons and I won't play antything that includes AI and many others too. ArmA already has Coop and many mods about AI (FFN was top and if you add ACE with it you have a great game).

About talking behalf PvP ArmAs' community its easy to see that orginized PvP clans are more than coop hm... teams? squads? friends? Or whatever its a matter of taste if you read my fist post BeerHunter you will se many organizations that support PvP play.

@Commando84

You don't get my point. Yes warefare might be good but still its a matter of taste, I personaly don't like warefare, others do. The point is that many people like me will never play Warefare like you for instance won't play berzerk.

Thats what i say is what funnyguy1 says too. I bought the game with many of friends from OFP-Counter-Strike and Rts scene like my but after a while they got bored of the game cause we there weren't any maps to play a match with another team, there werent even public maps.

@Gnat

Well i don't want to play that kind of map, thats you don't understand, its a matter of taste, you might enjoy it I and many other people don't.

Counter-Strike official PvP maps like De_dust2 or BF strike at karhad what was the name? Or Q3DM7 for Quake 3, Two Faces for Unreal Tournamet. Who doesnt know these maps? They were included when the game was launched and they were used in public and clanmatches.

What you dont get is that in order to arrange a map with more than 5 people is hard, clans tend to be at that numver in every game.

[mr.g-c 6]

My opinion:

I don't really like all that mass-attracting missions like Warefare, CTI, Evolution, Domination, etc... They and the most players playing them, feeling similar like "Senseless Deathmatch" in their matureness to me. Even though the Scripting and stuff behind them is surely very impressing.

(Please don't feel offended creators, you surely have done a awesome job for many players, but its my personaly opinion and i'm personally rather addicted to respawn-less teamplay, which can't really be found in any of those missions )

I love respawn-less Coop missions or big PvP missions of similar "matureness" with focus on maximum teamplay, especially ACE-Powered and played on closed Servers or Teamplay Focus Servers like from "GOL-Clan" or "Tacticalgamer.com" Servers.

But, i don't really get the topic of this topic.... where is the problem?

Everyone can make great PvP maps.... The Editor+Scripting+Usermade Islands gives you nearly endless possibilities.....

[lwlooz 0]

Hello there,

The games by BIS are of the sandbox type. While they do offer content for introduction and to serve as examples , the main thing you buy and the main reason people buy is because you get a set of functionality to set up your own game. Your own mods,your own islands,your own units,your own scripts,your own missions.

You and your friends seem to have misunderstood that and believed it to be a content-based game. It is certainly not.

Luckily for you since the game modes you and your many friends are into are CTF,DM and derived game types have very very simple game mechanics even a complex game like OFP/ArmA can be reduced to that simplicity.

It takes neither much intelligence, much effort or much experience in mission making to create any PvP of those game types.

Also they are small in size and the downloading process is automated so the distribution is no problem either.

Furthermore there are BIS templates for it, but I wouldn't trust them to give me proper results either.

So you will be happy to hear that all that stops you from having grand PvP games with superb tactics is only yourself and your many friends. And perhaps finding someone to host it.

Needless to say that neither 99% of the Coop missions or CTI missions(Which warfare is after all) where created by BIS and this should give you an example that it doesn't need any official missions to make something popular.

So I look forward to the many PvP missions you and your many friends are going to create since you are all seem quite desperate to play them and as I just showed its quite easy to do. Have fun

[sparks50 0]

Its all what the players does of it. Some of the tactical pvp I have played in ArmA, has been the most nerve wrecking in the game.

But that is provided that the people you play with wants the same as you. PVP has the potential of being just as good as coop, with one exception, that your enemy has a brain, making the game play extremely intensive. But its all up to you and the people you play with, and not the game.

[Jensen1 0]

@lwlooz

Your absoulutly right. He states most arma and ofp players want this type of gameplay but i say BS!! The ONLY thing stopping them from achiving that is themselves and when I look at the servers almost none are playing anything close to DM or CTF or BF2 style.

@Cydon

So give me a break and think before you post and stop complaining about that you can't "ROFL-PWn-own-LOL" someone on this game.

[KorpeN 0]

@lwlooz

Your absoulutly right. He states most arma and ofp players want this type of gameplay but i say BS!! The ONLY thing stopping them from achiving that is themselves and when I look at the servers almost none are playing anything close to DM or CTF or BF2 style.

@Cydon

So give me a break and think before you post and stop complaining about that you can't "ROFL-PWn-own-LOL" someone on this game.

Hey mr.angry this is a topic about PvP players and our demand to have some official maps so we can organize tournaments where pro players can measure their skill and have fun.If you don't like it pass over the topic.What's your problem?We ask BIS about something.If you dont like it and you like to play coop,make your missions with the editor,place your (d.....s AI)bots and kill them to get happy.

@Gnat:What makes you think that the community is you?

The community is every single person that plays ArmA.So i dont want you to speak for me ok?Just keep your opinion,I respect it but dont get us out of the community.You have not that right.

[whisper 0]

As much as I like PvP and such (playing quite a bit of things like CoD5, ETQW, blabla...).

I'm sorry to say, but this kind of requests are, to say the least, useless...

OFP, ArmA, both came with a neat, powerfull (imho, the most versatile and powerfull mission editor one can see) mission editor.

On top of this, missions are downloaded on the fly easily, preventing ANY need for a player to have the mission on his harddrive when connecting.

OFP came with ZERO usefull PvP map, but have seen a sheer number of very good user made ones. Did it kill the competitive side of OFP? no.

What killed ArmA competitive PvP is something else, FPS issues, animations issues, things like that.

So there is no need for BI to even care about much about making PvP missions themselves. Most will be snubbed by community anyway for X or Y reasons (and probably mainly because BI guys do not have the PvP mindset) and community WILL PREFER (with reasons) custom made ones, which, once more, HAVE NO IMPACT ON NEW PLAYERS (it's seamless to them, they connect to server, they download the mission, they play, it takes what.... 10 seconds more than not downloading the mission... wow...)

Question to Cydon, refering to this (sentence that I don't quite get) :

Quote[/b] ]But we like ArmAs' gameplay?

Define "ArmA's gameplay" please, compared to PvP oriented games.

[EricM 0]

PVP isn't just CS-style run and gun... And any map can be fun with the right people.

Technically, nothing is preventing you to replicate most BF2 maps (or very similar ones) and mechanics into Arma already... Like : drop a few buildings on Rahmadi, set flags to conquer the zones, a few triggers and there you go.

However, if the game doesn't have any good PvP map out of the box, most of the new pvp players may not even realize that you CAN create good pvp missions in the editor... You have to seduce as many people as possible at launch, without relying solely on the comunity to release pvp maps 3 months later...

More pvp players =  more money for BIS = more expansions for Coop players !

But as Whisper said, if pvp isn't played as much, it's probably more due to other factors than the lack of official maps : slower pace and animations, instant death with no revive, focus on large scale battles rather than CQB...

Hopefully, many of those issues/features (depends on how you see it) will be adressed in Arma 2 : revamped anims, first aid and battlefield clearance, better urban environment and precision...

We may have the best of both in the end... and as much as I hate Deatmatch, I wouldn't mind a C&H or CTF with a few buddies...

[Pulverizer 1]

I'd like to see how an exact recreation of BF2 map mechanics and map balance would play with ArmA game play. Also, CS and Quake 3 maps

Those games have good PvP because they are made as PvP games from the ground up, not only because they have good official PvP maps. Where as OFP engine only got multiplayer as an after thought.

That said, OFP and ArmA work pretty well in large scale PvP, like your basic A&D mission or CTI.

[dm 9]

I'd like to see how an exact recreation of BF2 mechanics and map balance would play with ArmA game play.

Are "Mechanics" and "Game Play" not the same thing?

As has already been identified, the differences are in the animations and controls.

[Pulverizer 1]

Are "Mechanics" and "Game Play" not the same thing?

I mean BF2 map mechanics, like where and when you respawn and how the control points and vehicle respawn works. Not how you control your infantry or vehicles.

[sparks50 0]

I dont see the issue here either. How long is it going to take before someone ports a Berzerk map to Arma 2 after release? One day? 20 minutes?

And after that, anyone can download it directly from the server.

[Pulverizer 1]

Apparently it is a quality issue but I think it's impossible to make a mission of so high quality that it would magically make ArmA as playable as BF2 or Quake 3 on those games' home turf so to speak.

[whisper 0]

However, if the game doesn't have any good PvP map out of the box, most of the new pvp players may not even realize that you CAN create good pvp missions in the editor... You have to seduce as many people as possible at launch, without relying solely on the comunity to release pvp maps 3 months later...

I beg to differ. Community map will come out very fast if the game is PvP friendly, and once again it will be transparent to new players (when new to CoD5, I didn't even bother trying the maps offline, I connected to a server, if I do the same on ArmA2 with a custom map => I'll download it right away).

There's not that much time for the release of custom maps, because :

- mission makers are experienced, back from OFP.

- map templates already exists

- if you ask me, the exact layout and placing of objects, cover, etc... is less critical in ArmA than other games, because of the size of maps. ETQW maps take months and months to be done properly, because of the need of micro-designed and fully tested layouts and such, any tiny error can lead to disastrous effects and imbalance. It's not so much the case in ArmA.

Just a bit more about my last point : I've this feeling some of the PvP people kind of miss the original purpose of the whole OFP engines serie.

Poseidon has been built with 1 purpose in mind, originally : size. It was about providing as big as possible a playfield.

I think BI has been mainly expanding on the idea of scale in their serie of game.

Imho, "realism" and "simulation" aspects of OFP have just been side effects of how the game was built (with the ideas of "huge" and "freedom" in mind, not "realistic").

Though ArmA has pointed more in the realism factor (as listed right on the box), thus going away from PvP (not that PvP must be unrealistic, but BI idea of realism, with annoying things like non-fluid animations, kill PvP elements)

But I feel that requesting for features seen in other games to be mimicked in ArmA2, otoh, also miss the point (like going for realism above anything else miss the point).

What will ArmA2 bring to the table when mimicking other game's mechanisms? (that was the core of my question to cydon originally)

I don't see any particular interest in making a BF2 gameplay clone, with all the same characteristics, with ArmA2.

What would change, compared to original BF2? Weapon properties, anims.... Imho, not much.

Strong point of the engine, PvP wise, is scale.

Of course, it impacts competition cause most comp is small scale.

But I've always felt something could be done good for public playing (Berzerk is an example), if the actual feeling of ArmA2 is ok for PvP (animation wise, for example, not the case in ArmA).

[.kju 3244]

What people easily forgot, omit or don't know is the numbers

of servers hosted in OFP by teams or individuals for PvP were

easily the majority.

As BI isn't hosting server themselves, guess how important that is.

Same is probably true for the absolute numbers having played in MP.

The ratio between SP only players and MP / MP PvP players may

be possible to find out via gamespy statistics.

BI probably knows the numbers from the internal gamespy

statistics. The CD key also serves as a good identifier for

various data.

It would not be in their interest to avoid that big share of

potential customers.

ArmA was for a long time unplayable for any PvP mode and still

today there are major issues out there.

Some of these are said to be addressed by A2. We will see.

Hardware requirements and stability with common and

uncommon hardware/OS/setups will again play a major role IMHO.

Most companies go for an (closed and) open beta for that

reason to test as many PC configurations and polish the game

for the release.

As for PvP (league) maps provided by BI. They have shown

that they don't have the background, knowledge and interest

to provide these.

That said, its not needed and the community will do far better.

Instead IMHO BI would do better to integrate popular PvP maps,

small and large, made by the community into the core product

for the release/shipping of A2.