ArmA maps are TOO large for public servers

[Peter_Bullet 0]

I searched "multiplayer" and strangely found only few threads..

I have tried ArmA multiplayer a few times. The biggest game is warfare. 20 players. 120sqkm. Come OOON! Even BF2 maps are too large, and there are much more players playing BF!

So could you please make a smaller version of warfare/battlefield when arma 2 comes out, so that I could play ArmA online without joining a hardcore realism freek ACEmod clan.. (I did my service in the FDF, realistic weapon handling wasn't fun)

An example in ArmA would be putting the conflict on the western coast of sahrani where there are many towns closely together.

OFP2 promises 16vs16 multiplayer with each guy having 8 man AI squad. I think you should really do the same, 'cause you'll never have more than 10vs10 on a public server.

[Maddmatt 1]

Simply choose a server playing a smaller scale mission then?

There are missions with closer combat, you need to look for them. Most are user-made missions, not made by BIS (except for Warfare).

[whisper 0]

I'm afraid ArmA is not the game for you then.

The point of the engine is this ability to put such a scale in game.

If you don't like it (and moreover if you feel BF maps are too large), simply put, you don't like the game. In which case, I simply suggest you don't buy it.

[mr.g-c 6]

You are playing either the wrong game buddy or you haven't got what this game/engine is about.

[ck-claw 1]

'cause you'll never have more than 10vs10 on a public server.  

Some Warfare maps have 16v16 players,some custom warfare maps have even more.

You can also buy ai to add to 'your' squad.

Then there are the Bezerk Maps that are 32v32

[Peter_Bullet 0]

I'm afraid ArmA is not the game for you then.

The point of the engine is this ability to put such a scale in game.

If you don't like it (and moreover if you feel BF maps are too large), simply put, you don't like the game. In which case, I simply suggest you don't buy it.

I think you misunderstood me.

I already have ArmA and I like it with right missions. Yes, you are right, I don't like walking 15 minutes without seeing anyone and then getting shot (some OFP players like that element of danger, but I'm more the action guy). That's the problem with most Battlefield2 maps. I didn't mean I like CS type gameplay - I HATE arcade, so please don't think of me as an arcade fan!

I don't mind large maps, but 120 sqkm with 20 soldiers.. Don't YOU think that it is too BIG for such LOW player count? Some of you guys play in clans, and you have dozens of players playing, but I want to try the MP out, and the only way to do it is on public servers, and there are only few players on public servers.

Quote[/b] ]Some Warfare maps have 16v16 players,some custom warfare maps have even more.

You can also buy ai to add to 'your' squad.

Hmm... just started warfare on public... This time there seems to be 30 players and I just purchached 6 units to my group... They are miles away for some reason, but it seems I understood the warfare completely wrong.. Should've read the readme.. With the AI squad members this will work perfectly, I think

Sorry for my ignorance... :P I have to study this more..

Quote[/b] ]I simply suggest you don't buy it.

I think the singleplayer is worth paying for anyway!

edit:

Just played a little warfare. Purchached some units and attacked enemy held town. The battle was tough, but in the end we were defeated. That was just AWESOME! I had no idea you could have AI teammates in warfare!

Sorry for my noobiness.

[Average Joe 0]

Peter try PR mod for BF2, sounds perfect for you.

[EricM 0]

I've seen quite a few warfare servers with 16 vs 16 players, each player having around 10 soldiers, that's 320 soldiers on the field + RACS forces: let's say 10 per city, that's like a couple hundreds more... so you can actually have around 500 soldiers running around the map...

And yes, 120 square km is over-the-top if you're on foot, but not if you start having helicopters.

It's all about mission design. Most of the time you can get in the action in under 5 minutes (unless you spawn with no money and no vehicle at 100 km of the frontline, but then chances are you can click respawn and find a better spawn point at the cost of a simple death).

[ck-claw 1]

Yeah - Peter when ai is bought they start at the Base (HQ)

They can be told to join you/or fast travel back to base to meet up with them.

Of course they can then fast-travel back with you to where you were.

Also there are custom versions out there where you can buy certain ai from most depots.

Have Fun

ck

[[aps]gnat 28]

A smaller Warfare !! ?

Thats just Warfare with no vehicles, men only. Little point having all those ArmA vehicles if you want 20 people inside a 2km x 2km box.

..... again, sounds like you purchased the wrong game or playing the wrong online missions.

[.kju 3239]

welcome Peter_Bullet to the world of believers

ArmA public was lost from the start for PvP.

Hope that A2 will bring back the glory of OFP.

For now I suggest you to look into PvP leagues and their servers

playing from time to time decent playable maps.

Size is no way good by itself.

Of course you can have great gameplay in a 2km^2 battlefield

with all the equipment ArmA offers!

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to Peter_Bullet:

For a start you are ingnoring the AI

ArmA maps need to be bigger. Mainly for aircraft and artillery but most importantly for large scale battles like this.

Battalion Strength 2000 plus AI in player controlled mission

Many MP games like warfare run to thousands of AI. They will not fit in 2km Square.

If you want a 2km map or indeed any other kind of postage stamp get off you lazy arsse and MOD it the tools in ArmA are the best of any game.

On the matter of MP games:

As the Internet improves and it is every year more and larger groups can play on line. Virgin here in the UK already offers 50mb Broadband.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/websales/50Mb/index.do

ArmA has already run 100 plus person servers.

The thing about ArmA is that it has always been forward thinking. Technology improves exponentialy; just look at Mores law.

In reply to Q:

No not just a believer. Someone who can do the math, it is called vision. ArmA has breadth of scope no other simulation or game can match.

I just wish Marek would realise it is not a war game he is making it is a full universe simulation engine. BIS should get out of content and develop its engine to be even more flexible and bigger still. It can make more money open licensing the Real Virtuality engine at a percentage on everyone's good ideas than it can selling 1 game.

Do the math all those ArmA MODS with each development team building a game and BIS getting a percentage of earnings.

Real Virtuality engine is capable of being any game. Football and Golf to a Civilisation clone with stop offs as MMPOG and

Those of us with the vision realise this.

Kind Regards walker

[twisted 127]

why not try domination - there you get to teleport to a mobile headquarters. which means far less hoofing it on foot and you can spawn an ATV from the mhq to cut down on walkign even further (just don't rush into the enemy city or you'll go right back to the beginning ).

ACE versions of domination are amazing - just make sure you use ground or air transport instead of pretending to be a long distance athlete and running everywhere as some people do.

[.kju 3239]

Time and different gameplay.

Not everyone wants or can play for hours.

You do out rule any but your vision of gameplay. Pretty limited.  

To make an example:

I am best off with deleting my vehicle DM as it doesn't need

over 2 km^2 and offers instant action. Of course..  

That said of course this game is meant to be the 24/7/365

real time battlefield in the large scale.

Yet it is by far not limited to only play this.

[Peter_Bullet 0]

@walker

You are right, but I wasn't aware that you can have AI in warfare. (you should've read the previous post) And by smaller warfare I meant making the mission have fewer towns, not making a smaller island.

I've had my share of Addon making and mission editing (just pointing out I'm not a complete noob in OFP/ArmA..), and it is very hard work.

Quote[/b] ]The thing about ArmA is that it has always been forward thinking. Technology improves exponentialy; just look at Mores law.

Does More's law mean that the number of transistors doubles? If so, I somewhat agree. Only CPU power is the limit for OFP/ArmA. However that limit has been reached and ArmA2 won't be delivering multicore.. (yes, it uses dual core, and takes some use of quad core, but that doesn't mean it supports multicore)

Back to BF2.. The maps are too large because you travel 5 minutes to an enemy flag. Then a friendly captures it. Then you move to another flag. It is also captured, but the previous flag has been captured by the enemy again.. I hope this doesn't happen in warfare..

[sparks50 0]

Can "the world of believers"(namely 2-3 people active on the forum claiming to be the majority) define why making their own missions does not make Arma a "glorious pvp experience"?

Peter, seems like what you want to play is a AAS(Advance and Secure)

In AAS you have to take control points in a specific order. So the enemy can not go behind the lines and grab other flags.

Theres already some user made missions that does this. Like this one:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=72430

As for missions being too big, theres a very simple solution to this. Open the editor, import the mission in question, move the flags closer together.

Thats the versatility OFP/ARMA is all about.

[Deadfast 43]

Back to BF2.. The maps are too large because you travel 5 minutes to an enemy flag. Then a friendly captures it. Then you move to another flag. It is also captured, but the previous flag has been captured by the enemy again.. I hope this doesn't happen in warfare..

Two words, one URL:

Project Reality: realitymod.com

[Peter_Bullet 0]

Can "the world of believers"(namely 2-3 people active on the forum claiming to be the majority) define why making their own missions does not make Arma a "glorious pvp experience"?

None of my friends play ArmA/OFP. So if I made a mission, I would have no-one to play it with.

Mind you, I'm talking about making the game more accessible on public servers.

AAS sounds really cool - but I just checked ArmA-only Warfare and some small co-op games there. On the other hand, it's not BIS' fault if people don't want to play it.

As to Project reality... I was too lazy to learn it, maybe I should. Though my uncle told me that the latest patch brought in realistic weapon handling - you have to aim really long to get a proper firing position. He said it completely changed the game. (this is why I can't understand the people hoping total realism for ArmA, but this is offtopic..)

[NoRailgunner 0]

There are many different missions available - on public servers you will see mostly people playing variants of Warfare, Evolution and Domination. But if you dont want instant funaction with some lil kids you could join a clan. On public servers you dont get so many people that organized and involved like on private servers. I guess thats the way it is: on public more people play run-and-gun style, on private there are small groups of people enjoy different missions.

[wipman 1]

Hi, i don't know how the ArmA2 islands/terrain may be in extension,

but i hope that they be very big, at least big enough as for need

to use choppers for Long Ranger Patrol deploys, CSAR etc.. we

really can't blame BIS for make games up to the nowadays computer

standards. If our machine is not good enough, then... it's not good

enough.

But if they say that for run smooth and well (1024 or above) and then

it doesn't do it... we could blame 'em for that. Anyways... what most

lags in MP it's the number of units and vehicles plus the very scripted

missions and if the mission is constantly checking for changes

(big or small) in the battlefield; reducing the units number, the

vehicles number and the Area of Operations (perimeter) should

reduce the lag in a very noticeable way, so... we can't really blame

BIS if we are poor to buy a computer up to the high nowadays

standards. Please BIS, add a single small island for CTFs and that

and make the campaign and common islands big as Australia or

Texas. Let's C ya

[whisper 0]

Size is no way good by itself.

This is the biggest point made so far.

If there's zero gameplay design to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the scale offered, but just a bunch of units and flag zones thrown on the field, there's zero interest in having ArmA(2) engine.

Warfare is a-ok for public, long term playing (spanning overs hours) but like said, it's not the kind of playing suitable to everyone.

Quote[/b] ]

Of course you can have great gameplay in a 2km^2 battlefield

with all the equipment ArmA offers!

True, but if you ask me, I'd prefer playing other games that do not suffer the issues ArmA suffers (and A2 will probably too), and that can't be avoided because the engine is built for large scale. The large scale nature of the engine as many impacts on the low scale capabilities and fun.

[Baff1 0]

I'd agree with the assertion that ArmA maps are too big, or at least bigger than feasibly gets used in any individual scenario and that this provides an unnecessary load on the PC system and game engine requirements of the game.

At least I would agree with this if flying aircraft wasn't such a large part of my enjoyment of the game.

The maps are actually too small for fixed wing aircraft and a perfect size in my opinion for rotory winged vehicles.

In the end this game is a Jack of all trades, compromises have had to be made.

[Yoma 0]

Ok i'm all in for the "Size isn't all" argument.

However if they provide the possibility for really large maps, that doesn't mean you can't have really small ones too.

Maybe they should provide some silly paintball-range style islands next to very large decent terrains.

This way addonmakers can easily rip the small maps for smallish pvp type things and the crowd that likes it big can enjoy big too.

Personally i think OFP islands the size of NOGOVA are plenty big enough for mostly any mission. Then again if you want a realistic 4 hour convoy drive mission that may be a tad too small...

[twisted 127]

it seems to me that arma animations are geared to running outdoors and is quite clumsy feeling in CQB.

it just seems that the scale of things feels funny when trying to move around inside even an empty building. maybe it is because in arma soldiers move unnaturally fast (i recall a post detailing how they move at olympic runner pace). so to make arma2 work with smaller maps would need slowing down the movement speed and improving animations and optimizing collsion detection.

that would help a lot for making small maps more viable.

[granQ 293]

i am a player and orginally founder of most likely the biggest swedish arma community (www.anrop.se)...

and while in general people love realism, many know more about bullets, tanks and shit then an officer in the army, this people can play for hours...

and yet, when we play a small mission, with more engagments, more "shoots" fired.. people seem to enjoy it more...

warfare on the "saralite" is good seize for a few players.. big sahrani is just way too big actually...

Even IC campaign that reach among the highest number, limit their playing area alot to a small place..

not saying anything how it should be made for arma2, warfare or anything in general.. just a small reminder (or wake up) to some people that seem "bigger means better" and arma kickass..

problem with arma in my point of view is that there is too much freedom.. its not like in BF2 or something when you just add a server with the lowest ping and get into the action, you know the objectives, you know the gameplay.. that won't happen.

And this is also why the hardcore arma players don't stop playing it after a few years.. because there always comes new ways of playing it.