ArmA2 1.03 Impressions - ALL Impressions/Videos/Screenies Here

[Dar_Vender 10]

Hi Dar_Vender

The problem with your idea is the Moddies have tried it.

We end up with a forum spammed with Fanboy love posts and Concern Troll headlines of peoples opinion, its is a waste of space.

So naturaly the moddies have to come up with a solution. Moving all posts with an opinion on the game to one thread is common sense.

As to peole not looking through the thread. The plane fact is that this thread is one of the most popular in the forums, most people visit it every time they come to the forum, starting with the last thread they read so it all gets seen and we do not all have to read through it all from the start we can remember.

Kind Regards walker

its a fair point. And well put thx's.

I was expecting to be told not to have a stroke again :/

so I take back what I said :cool:

And to that link to the locked thread, ur so right. I did the same thing. Just after I wrote that thread I played it MP and had a right laugh. I can see that arma has such a strong community it seems BIS really wanted the MP to be right and the other bits was window dressing. In fact maybe the campaign is that bad on purpose to get people to use the editor :D

[craigsa 0]

Hi guys I want to start this by saying that I am probably the most pessimistic son of a b tch on the planet and moan and complain probably more than all of you put together, about everything.

That said I would just like to post some stuff about the new game.

I must say the graphics are incredible. Well done to the developers behind it.

I think we all just sit there and moan that this is not working, thats not working without actually realising how much effort has gone into this game.

I seems to have one or 2 errors or issues but its not really that big a deal.

The game is playable unlike ARMA 1.

I am a little upset about the flying as I wanted an OFP model of flying but I suppose times change and I cant have what I want.

I must say the graphics and sheer size of the game and play are out of this world.

I wish to be able to create something like this.

The game is a little difficult to control IMO as it is almost too realistic.

Difficult to aim, difficult to actually get a grip on whats going on in a multiplayer battle but I suppose that will come with time.

I spent many hours on OFP and hope to do the same with this.

Thanks and hopefully future patches will iron out the issues.

Would be nice if one could make the flying easier by switching a setting for people like me

[cartier90 0]

Speaking of the OFP flight model, any chance the mouse controls - which I fly the aircraft with as opposed to the keyboard - can be used so that I drag the mouse back to raise the nose of the plane ?, in other words, oposite to default.

[jammymutt 10]

Im sure it said Videos screenies here are there any pics of the game on here?.

[craigsa 0]

Humble apologies, thought I posted in "General"

Mods please feel free to move.

[walker 0]

Im sure it said Videos screenies here are there any pics of the game on here?.

Hi jammymutt

There are some in this thread but you will have trawl through a lot of posts :(

But don't worry be happy! There is a thread full of just pictures of ArmA II, nothing else alowed:yay: here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73572

But if you want to post a comment on them without a picture, search for the: ArmA II Photography comments thread.

Kind Regards walker

Edited July 5, 2009 by walker

[Guest Ti0n3r]

Ace, exept for the AIs "driving skills".

[MrFoxy 10]

I am returning my copy of ArmA2 and a copy i brought for my friends birthday present.

It is the most bug ridden unstable mess of a game that I have ever come across. You guys really reached for the stars and managed to find a latrine here.

You needed a lot more testing to get this game sorted. Very very very disapointed and I think any future bohemia game better be properly developed and tested, for your sakes.

I signed up for a tourney aswell on the back of this games pedigree but i dont see how anyone can run this game as a tournament game, I would rip out any hair I have if I had to use this for a weekly scrim.

I have never posted anything like this before on any gaming forums, this is hopw strongly I feel about this product. I am a mature gamer with many many years experience and this game is shocking. :eek:

I may buy the game again in 2 years time when some bugs might have been fixed and i can pick it up for £1 from a car boot sale.

I will end with this, you rock for wanting to bring a game of such complexity and immersiveness to the gaming community, you suck because you failed.

Sorry to the poor admin who has to look through these rants and delete them....:butbut:

[Yoma 0]

I am returning my copy of ArmA2 and a copy i brought for my friends birthday present.

It is the most bug ridden unstable mess of a game that I have ever come across. You guys really reached for the stars and managed to find a latrine here.

Did you use the troubleshooting forums?

Anyway i'm sorry to hear that you seem to have severe problems, but like every problem in life giving up won't fix it.

You'll miss out on a lot of great gaming moments. (yes i have been playing multiplayer today for 5 hrs straight without any crash or big noticable game destroying bugs)

[cartier90 0]

'mature' gamer - no, with a rant like that that cherry picks the faults and ignores the many positives - your anything but. Have you tried the editor ?, the combat module, or did you just take your 'friends' word for it. Patches will solve all issues eventually.

[chammy 7]

I suggest tweaking your config, you shouldn't have these performances

I agree, I don't know how you are getting such bad performance, i have the demo and it runs beautifully. I have anti aliasing and I'm able to run it on and off. ArmA1 may run a tad bit smoother because there isnt much detail as ArmA2 but still, the detail doesnt hinder much at all.

When I hear of such extreme rants I sometimes think these are rival critics of another company or game aimed at discouraging purchasing this game.

Don't feel too bad about the game. Look at Americas Army 3. I hear there are truck loads of bugs, the Army even fired a Developing team in California. I even have my gripe about the sound effects in it *ehem*. I am going to be uninstalling AA3 also for the time being cause it will be a while till they fix the bugs.

I just hope that BIS doesn't decide to finx bugs in ArmA2 and then release an ArmA3 next year or something.

Edited July 5, 2009 by Chammy

[Dar_Vender 10]

I just hope that BIS doesn't decide to finx bugs in ArmA2 and then release an ArmA3 next year or something.

nah they will release expansion packs, or I expect DLC as is the style if past additions have anything to go by.

TBH OFP was about as bug ridden as this game (almost) and by the time they released the first expansion for that BIS had smoothed out most the bugs. although a part of me missed my tank flying about 100ft in the air when I drove over a tractor :D

[Zombie_Mod 0]

Believe me, depending on the price, an army can accept any sort of bug and adapt if needed. Seen it first hand, for our misfortune :(

BIA customer base is what? Way tinier than BIS one. That mean they can answer each request specifically with "ease", manpower and time dedicated to it. Even moreso with the price these customer pay for the product.They can chase any bug encountered way easier, the situation they'll face will be far less varied than what a large public consumer base can produce in terms of different hardware requirements, expectations, tests done for specific reasons, etc...This will raise the quality of the product.

It's all about money. You want pro quality ala VBS? Pay your fee to BIA and enjoy

PS : imho, you better avoid generalizing about MP crowd, that'd make for a better post

VBS isn't a game. I want to play a game, not study icons that could be hieroglyphics for all I know, or follow ORBAT or learn doctrine.

When I pay for a product I want it to work. Arma2 does not work. The SP campaign is what I bought it for, I don't give a toss about MP.

You can give me all the flannel about how the game could not be finished because of "deadlines" but as I am a software developer here's how I deal with deadlines - if I'm not going to make my deadline on time, I inform my project manager as such and I reprioritise work. I start removing non-essential features that don't work and use the remaining time to concentrate on that that MUST work.

This means things like big booms, animals, sweet graphics etc would fall by the wayside and AI and gameplay take priority. DSDM and MOSCOW rules are simple and have never let me down yet, and I used to run a large software dev team in the NHS (PM me for details if you must.)

How come I've found in a couple of weeks stuff that should have been found during testing?

Anyone who says the bugs in AI are hard to find can come take a look at my videos, I have no problem reproducing them just playing the missions as normal.

Every mission in the SP campaign has been torture so far. There's not one that I've found yet that isn't broken or hard to play due to the intrinsic AI defects. I've spent hours producing and uploading videos of the dire AI, I must have found at least 5 or 6 MUST [fix] so far. That's hours of my life I'm not getting back btw!!

We are lucky the internet exists, and I am lucky I have a hefty pipe to download patches all the time.

I speak as I find, and I've found the general OFP MP GameSpy/AllSeeingEye community to be 14 year old kids who call each other Noobs and randomly kick people who do too well. That's just my experience, mind. I am sure Clans etc are better behaved and organised, but they don't interest me.

Right, now I'm going again. Check out the issue list on dev-heaven, isn't it lovely ;)

[Cpt Bollock 10]

Here is a link to my video im very happy with the old 8800GT on Arma 2

[Mispunt 10]

You can give me all the flannel about how the game could not be finished because of "deadlines" but as I am a software developer here's how I deal with deadlines - if I'm not going to make my deadline on time, I inform my project manager as such and I reprioritise work. I start removing non-essential features that don't work and use the remaining time to concentrate on that that MUST work.

Yep, same here. Arma2's level of intricacy is also the reason why games like this are rare. However that still doesn't excuse the lack of proper testing. You'd think that after 9 years of shared development in general they'd nailed the concept and it's quirks.

I don't think anybody here's claiming that there shouldn't be any bugs, we've all played enough games to know that that's impossible but in SP there's just a lot of very stupid ones. These bugs can be overcome by going into the official missions forum and finding solutions there and that's the point. most people here think that's fine even though they wouldn't accept this from any other thing they buy. It allows BI and publisher to get away with it again and again.

I know there's never enough time to develop your game the way you'd like it, but so many bugs in the SP and general roughness after three games all based on the same tech? Sorry, that's just a sign of crap QA.

[walker 0]

Hi all

All I can say is I am not experiencing any major issues.

From what I understand Mispunt all your issues are with a single mission not completing in the campaign.

You have not said what mission it was so no one can investigate, verify or fix your issue.

You seem incapable for whatever reason of articulating it.

I can understand your frustration but if you have done as you claim, something the BIS QC did not pick up in beta testing then by its very nature your argument is inherently a Straw man.

Essentially what you are saying is "I have a bug and you cannot prove I Have not because I wont tell you where it is!"

So everyone in the forum is left thinking what, where?

When additionally most others on the forum and playing the game are not experiencing the issue which for whatever reason you will not name.

As you can see it just sounds well odd?

Kind Regards walker

[GLeek 10]

It is the most bug ridden unstable mess of a game that I have ever come across. You guys really reached for the stars and managed to find a latrine here.

i LOL'D :p

[mattxr 9]

Winter Rail Yard

[funnyguy1 0]

Played the demo and I'm amazed. It's worth the money just for the graphical update, not to mention the gameplay and AI improovements! Shame it's not in Poland yet...

[Mispunt 10]

Hi all

All I can say is I am not experiencing any major issues.

From what I understand Mispunt all your issues are with a single mission not completing in the campaign.

You have not said what mission it was so no one can investigate, verify or fix your issue.

You seem incapable for whatever reason of articulating it.

I can understand your frustration but if you have done as you claim, something the BIS QC did not pick up in beta testing then by its very nature your argument is inherently a Straw man.

Essentially what you are saying is "I have a bug and you cannot prove I Have not because I wont tell you where it is!"

So everyone in the forum is left thinking what, where?

When additionally most others on the forum and playing the game are not experiencing the issue which for whatever reason you will not name.

As you can see it just sounds well odd?

Kind Regards walker

Walker, I don't have time right now to go into this but I though I made it clear by now: please look in the official missions forum. That's where you can find some of the same issues that I am experiencing.

[stagga 10]

I've been reading a few of these comments and I have to say the level of blind fanboyism is astounding! I've been a OFP/Arma fan since the days of playing the user made missions for the demo before the original OFP came out. I so wanted Arma 2 to be the game we've all been waiting for and it's just not!

Walker, if you want specific SP issues how about: The option to select the chopper transport disappears from the comms menu. The option to select artillery disappears from the comms menu. Team AI frequently freezes and ignores all commands. When waiting for a helicopter to pick up an informer it decided to attack an enemy vehicle and flew into the ground making completion of the mission impossible. On the map view I can often see moving enemies who are in fact nowhere near where it says they are, this was never an issue in the past games. Changing graphical settings often means my display gets stuck in that blurred "fading into a cut scene" view making it impossible to play. Other times it gets stuck in some ridiculous under exposed' view meaning most of the scenery is rendered black unless viewed from an odd angle making the game impossible to play. In the Armoury challenges I get things like my SU25 spawns flying backwards. Or my mission as an SU25 pilot is to sneak into the enemy camp. Don't you think a QA dept might have spotted those flaws?

And then there's the mission design. We get presented with missions were the stated objective is impossible and the real objective is hidden and the only way to find out is to be "auto killed" a few dozen times while trying to reach the target on the map and have to go to a forum to find out what to do. And where did the campaign go? I'm not allowed to post spoilers but weren't we promised the use of all those lovely vehicles? And no, I don't accept that being able to create my own missions covers it. I paid for the game, I expect the makers to have bothered to put the effort in!

I read the comment "patches will solve all the issues eventually". What kind of attitude is that? These glaring issues should have been fixed before the game was released, why are you happy to accept an unfinished product? And for your information patches didn't fix the AI problems with ARMA or OFP so why would you expect anything more now? If BIS were just a poor indie developer I might be a little more lenient but the fact is they've made a huge amount of money from the military side and once again they're using paying consumers as bug testers.

[Journeyman 0]

I think it all comes down to expectations. Those that thought that ARMA2 was going to come out as a well-polished sequel to the two before have been seriously let down. Those that knew BIS would most likely release another bug fest of just higher quality graphics, environment and gameplay and with a few more features are more than contented with the game.

I also notice from reading back through various posts that those that are most annoyed and frustrated with this game to date are those that like to play the game as a 'ready made' single player experience, whilst those that are more contented are those that prefer to mess around in the editor or play MP only. I fit into the later and although there are plenty of minor issues still to be fixed I am not that concerned because they don't break the enjoyment for me and I know how BIS will continue to improve it with future patches.

However, I would have liked to have a play through the campaign, but have been much discouraged from doing so from all the many complaints about it. I was also hoping for something of the order of OFP CWC as a campaign experience and this would have been a big encouragement for all us budding mission designers. It obviously isn't like that so shame on BIS I guess.

I sometimes think that maybe BIS should have promoted this game more as a superb wartime sandbox and MP experience with a few side SP missions to experiment with! Maybe then there would have been a lot fewer lost expectations!

I paid £25 for this game. Most new releases are £35, so maybe we should see the £10 saving as a payment towards us being patient for all the fixes that it needs and as a ‘thank you’ for beta testing it for them! ;)

[cartier90 0]

Ha, good point - I got it for 24.99 from game..for £ per hour spent gaming, it'll end up costing about 1 or 2 p a hour. Thats value ! The hell with faults, theyll be fixed, performance increased - not that I need it too much.

[mr reality 0]

I think it all comes down to expectations. Those that thought that ARMA2 was going to come out as a well-polished sequel to the two before have been seriously let down. Those that knew BIS would most likely release another bug fest of just higher quality graphics, environment and gameplay and with a few more features are more than contented with the game.

I also notice from reading back through various posts that those that are most annoyed and frustrated with this game to date are those that like to play the game as a 'ready made' single player experience, whilst those that are more contented are those that prefer to mess around in the editor or play MP only. I fit into the later and although there are plenty of minor issues still to be fixed I am not that concerned because they don't break the enjoyment for me and I know how BIS will continue to improve it with future patches.

I couldn't of put it better myself.

I bought OFP, Armed assault and now ArmA2 for the SP aspect. I can say that the SP in BIS games has steadily declined since CWC.

I admit i was dissapointed when i started to see the vids and the fact were now into our third instalment of US vehicles and men in as many games.

ArmA2 is more like flashpoint than Armed assault, but i don't see that as a good thing. I wanted a military sim that looked 9 years ahead of flashpoint, not 3 years.

Yes the graphics look stunning,( on a very powerfull PC) but gamplay IMHO, is dreadfull. The fanboys can shout all they want, but in the end all we have is an expansion to armed assault with a few tweaks here and there.

What might be the nail in the coffin for me, is were going down the same road as armed assault, with all the patches.

Yes BIS might just have a masterpiece with ArmA2, but this might take 3 or 4 more patches and by then they'll be rolling out the next version to start all over again.

Its been stated before that BIS games are becoming MP biased, and you can see that the vast majority of the lovers are undoubtably MP gamers.

To see how frustrating this game is as a SP experiance, all you have to do is make a fairly simple mission were you are a member of a squad. Only then will you see how badly the AI behave when your trying to get them to do simple things. Yes admitidly there trying to fix the AI driving issues, but the AI driving in flashpoint was better than this cm precition AI of ArmA2.

Doesn't it strike you that BIS SP missions involve you commanding a smaller squad, well this is because its far easier to do.

[cartier90 0]

I dont play MP and am perfectly happy with just the editor and instant missions - AI driving will be fixed. Seems you have a poor PC and not happy with the performance your getting.