Was the campain even bug tested?

[OddballWDI 0]

I love ARMA2. It's awesome. The game itself seems very well made. But the campaign is seriously crap! ARMA1 had the same problem. I'm a programmer that makes medical software. I test my own stuff after I create it but it still HAS to go through a QC (testing) department because I know exactly how the software was written. When another person tests it they sometimes find problems and sometimes they don't. In such an open ended type of mission as these missions seem to be, it looks like the guy who made the mission is who tested it and nobody else. If anyone else had tested these they would have found many problems with them.

I had to use the endmission cheat just to get past Manhattan. Now on bitter chill I spent about an hour trying to get down to the city in the south, only to come to the conclusion there was some bullshit trigger that kills you if you get too far away. What kind of cheap crap is that? Making the mission have 2 endings is fine but one of them damn well should be that the player makes it to that southern city!!!

I know some players had redone the ARMA1 campaign. Is anyone going to try to clean up the ARMA2 campaign and make it playable?

BIS you guys have gotta do a better job on the missions. I fully understand software deadlines but for the love of god this is 2 games in a row with full on crap campaigns. If you can't do it correctly hire some of the good guys in the mission making community.

[Redfield-77 10]

The community is why I buy these games. Some of the guys that made mods for Arma 1 are so good at what they do it makes me wonder if BIS just got lazy and said F*** it let the community test and fix it.

[JOGR 0]

The community is why I buy these games. Some of the guys that made mods for Arma 1 are so good at what they do it makes me wonder if BIS just got lazy and said F*** it let the community test and fix it.

How nice of BIS to think of us :D

Seriously. ARMA had a lot of problems too, but look how it turned out. I can't wait to see what the community will do with this one. Issues with official missions will most likely be ironed out by BIS though.

ARMA2 was just released, and it's no simple arcade shooter on rails. Give it some time.

[Moktar 0]

I love ARMA2. It's awesome. The game itself seems very well made. But the campaign is seriously crap! ARMA1 had the same problem. I'm a programmer that makes medical software. I test my own stuff after I create it but it still HAS to go through a QC (testing) department because I know exactly how the software was written. When another person tests it they sometimes find problems and sometimes they don't. In such an open ended type of mission as these missions seem to be, it looks like the guy who made the mission is who tested it and nobody else. If anyone else had tested these they would have found many problems with them.

I had to use the endmission cheat just to get past Manhattan. Now on bitter chill I spent about an hour trying to get down to the city in the south, only to come to the conclusion there was some bullshit trigger that kills you if you get too far away. What kind of cheap crap is that? Making the mission have 2 endings is fine but one of them damn well should be that the player makes it to that southern city!!!

I know some players had redone the ARMA1 campaign. Is anyone going to try to clean up the ARMA2 campaign and make it playable?

BIS you guys have gotta do a better job on the missions. I fully understand software deadlines but for the love of god this is 2 games in a row with full on crap campaigns. If you can't do it correctly hire some of the good guys in the mission making community.

Totally agree with you. I'm a fan of Arma series (playing all OFP series too) and I'm also a software engineer (C/C++). The buggy campaign is unacceptable. Nothing have been tested. I don't know how the team can tell us the opposite ? I've NEVER heard about someone that succeed in the campaign (upto to Manhattan).

I bought ArmA II (50€ in France) and the campaign is totally unplayable, even after the 1.02 patch. I'm really disappointed with BIS team, only the Engine of ArmA has been tested, not the Campaign.

I well know the constraints of deadlines, delivery and so on but I also know that my company would not have accept to deliver this junk campaign.

Unacceptable.

[eirulan 10]

Totally agree with you. I'm a fan of Arma series (playing all OFP series too) and I'm also a software engineer (C/C++). The buggy campaign is unacceptable. Nothing have been tested. I don't know how the team can tell us the opposite ? I've NEVER heard about someone that succeed in the campaign (upto to Manhattan).

I bought ArmA II (50€ in France) and the campaign is totally unplayable, even after the 1.02 patch. I'm really disappointed with BIS team, only the Engine of ArmA has been tested, not the Campaign.

I well know the constraints of deadlines, delivery and so on but I also know that my company would not have accept to deliver this junk campaign.

Unacceptable.

I totally agree with you.

Arma 2 SP campaign was wonderful until "Manhattan" (included) . I finished "Manhattan" with NO artillery support at the end. So capturing the enemy headquarter was a bit difficult but i got it.... ;)

After "Manhattan" (that is bugged) there were terrible bugs in the next two missions "Delaying the Bear" and "Badlands":

- Team Razor AI non responsive

- other crappy bugs which prevent to continue the campaign.

Finally. Bohemia are great in engine and AI programming. Terrible in mission testing. No quality control in mission testing. So my opinion of Bohemia as a serious videogame producer is now very low. But I like a lot their "creativity".

Obviously I have not finished the campaign until now.

[FriZY_SK 9]

Hi,

I get stuck in mission Manhattan. I was really enjoying play campaign but only till Manhattan. I hate this mission!!! How is possible make so crappy shit!!! I am so disappointed.

Edited July 2, 2009 by [FF]FriZY

[linnx88 10]

It's crazy. I'm on the "Delaying the Bear" mission now and it's simply UNPLAYABLE!! My team does not respond to me. They don't follow me and I get blasted out of nowhere... Why did i pay $50 again?

[Flouncy 10]

I love this game and I hate it. Never, have I been blocked, twisted, forced to reload endlessly to try all combination of weird, counter-intuitive things, just to get to the next stage.

Arma 2 has:

An abysmally coded 3D engine, that won't deliver playable fps on mega systems.

AI of the very worst order.

Clearly, no QC testing of the campaign - or, if they actually did test it AND deemed it acceptable for release, dear god... I'm just lost for words.

What it does have is potential in spades. It needs at least another 6 months dev before it could be considered a finished product. So BI now has a reputation as one of those devs that relies on the 'community' to polish the turd? What a mocking shame their attitude is.

I've been trawling these forums and watching the mountain of grief, looking daily for solutions to my new daily issues with the game, the ones that get you just when you think it's all working well, and only once have I seen a staffy at BI actually post. Absolutely, utterly disgraceful.

So. A year of patches, and it'll be right. We must believe. All we have with Arma 2 is faith. What crap of a way to garner customer loyalty is that?

Through all this they're hiding, silent.

Shameful, disgraceful and a punch in the guts to the loyal, the casual, and absolutely everyone who paid cash for this.

Just one statement, assuring us they know, understand, and are working on it would help wash away the pain felt by 100's of thousands of suffering customers. They care, right?

[chespace 10]

I love this game and I hate it. Never, have I been blocked, twisted, forced to reload endlessly to try all combination of weird, counter-intuitive things, just to get to the next stage.

Arma 2 has:

An abysmally coded 3D engine, that won't deliver playable fps on mega systems.

AI of the very worst order.

Clearly, no QC testing of the campaign - or, if they actually did test it AND deemed it acceptable for release, dear god... I'm just lost for words.

What it does have is potential in spades. It needs at least another 6 months dev before it could be considered a finished product. So BI now has a reputation as one of those devs that relies on the 'community' to polish the turd? What a mocking shame their attitude is.

I've been trawling these forums and watching the mountain of grief, looking daily for solutions to my new daily issues with the game, the ones that get you just when you think it's all working well, and only once have I seen a staffy at BI actually post. Absolutely, utterly disgraceful.

So. A year of patches, and it'll be right. We must believe. All we have with Arma 2 is faith. What crap of a way to garner customer loyalty is that?

Through all this they're hiding, silent.

Shameful, disgraceful and a punch in the guts to the loyal, the casual, and absolutely everyone who paid cash for this.

Just one statement, assuring us they know, understand, and are working on it would help wash away the pain felt by 100's of thousands of suffering customers. They care, right?

Um, no I guess not? :j:

I had to endmission Manhattan. It was fun but I couldn't finish it.

Now I'm on Bitter Chill and I have no idea where to recover the documents.

Ah well. I might just play Secops and random missions and armoury until the campaign is patched. From what I hear, it only gets much more buggy.

[stal20048 10]

Chespace, the documents are inside the building marked on the map by an objective marker ontop of desk. I actually managed to complete manhattan, however it should really entail shooting a marine with a javelin on his back in order to have something to kill the tank at the insurgent base...:P.

One thing i cant get my head around is why Captain Dressler (the intel officer) is English...other than that, the campaign has thousands of little niggles and bugs that generally discourage me from playing it, thats the main problem. BIS best get it sorted if they actually want to draw in new players (and customers, for that matter), not rely on an already established community.

[sdoc 0]

what makes it the worst for me is, unlike Arma I where i deeply disliked the campaign, i love this campaign. Missions like Manhattan are exactly what i liked to get from this game! (Manhattan worked half well for me)

the concept of the missions and the complexity is absolutely brilliant. Sadly at the moment i have to fight 70% of the time with the software and 30% with the enemies.

[RazorHead1 10]

I agree. wait for BIS to iron out these issues. Most problems aren't even on the radar until a game is released.

[slynchy 0]

I think it's shocking that this is the 3rd game they've made and there are still errors from the first game that haven't been properly fixed.

Example, AI in vehicles: Chopper pilots crashing on landing or even just driving a car on a road.

Every single mission I've played has had multiple bugs.

Also, I don't accept the excuse that this game is just so big (and the only one in the genre) that it's not possible to weed out all the bugs.

Unfortunately when you're charging full price for a buggy game you don't get marks for trying nor sympathy when things don't work as they should.

I also think the AI can see too well.

I'm playing the game on a projector, so the screen is huge, yet the AI is able to spot enemies in the distance that even I can't see. They are sub-pixel size!

I feel like I should be paying the mod community for the final product..

[RTTM 10]

It's blatantly obvious, just like any other game these days they are milking it for all it's worth. Why create a new engine when people will put up with the current one, and you can just make it a little prettier each time? As someone just said, the driving bugs, helicopters crashing for no reason. Why haven't they fixed it? Because everyone keeps buying it, and they OBVIOUSLY (yes, OBVIOUSLY) cannot be bothered to fix it properly. They have addons to make after all.

I'm eager to see how Operation Flashpoint 2 does, I love ARMA and ARMA 2 but they aren't really stepping outside of the box. Instead they use the same box with a new coat of paint.

I guarantee you when (if) ARMA 3 comes out, it'll be the same shitty rehashed engine with a few more effects that performs the same, with the same crappy bugs.

[naykon 10]

The campaigns borked completely!

ITS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!

Developers don't do it on consoles so why do it on the PC?!!

"Razor" team apart from being complete donuts are now ignoring all my orders!!!... I DONT REMEMBER MY SQUADS DOING THAT IN 1985!!!!!

and if anyone didn't follow my orders in 1985 i could just execute them for cowardice and carry on!!!

BUT OH NO!!! Razor team are too special to get executed.. its the end of the world if one of them gets accidently shot in the face for being DEAF!!!

i think i want my money back.......

Edited July 10, 2009 by naykon

[mickeyc 10]

Yea its a joke guess BIS understaffed or lazy, prob wont buy the next release. Only game more buggy than this was empire total war.

[Jimmah 10]

Ingrates! You should feel privileged that you are able to take place in this great sh@fting experiment, and at such a low price too!

[Archamedes 10]

As stated, arma 1 had bugs, but you could still complete the campaign with it. Arma 2, dreadful bugs that should have been picked up haven't and you cannot complete the campaign. It seems like they where working on a deadline, hit it and said

"its not finished but we are at our deadline so what do we do?"

"Simple, sell it and worry about it later."

"But what if there are bugs and issues with the game?"

"Who cares, when the money roles in I may extend your contracts to fix them or start on Arma 3, if thats the case you have 3 weeks."

But yeah. If anyone said they tested "delaying the bear" they need to be fired, its clearly obvious that there are problems right from the start, could you imagine getting this on the 360? absolutly no way of fixing it if thats the case. They have to realize that not everyone who buys arma ofp games uses communities like these or even have the internet and these people will play it, think "what a load of crap." and take it back probably not even bothering to buy any further releases. Its all about the money and how quickly they can rake it in, probably why the deadlines where too soon.

Edited July 10, 2009 by Archamedes

[Vassago 0]

It's pretty damn sad, really.

I'm a day-1 OFP player and have always been a fan of BIS's games. But ArmA2 is the buggiest POS I've played in YEARS. What the hell is up, BIS? I've been in this industry 10yrs, I know how this crap works. Arma2 should not have shipped in this condition, regardless of monetary impact. If there's a bug that prevents the game from being completed, it's NOT a game! And ArmA 2 has TONS of game-stopping bugs!

Very disappointed.

[D_O_A 10]

I was expecting Arma 2 to be a buggy mess before i bought it. I buy these games for the multiplayer and awesome community made mods. I won't be bothering with the campaign at all until the community has had a chance to iron out and improve it.

That being said, i am not all upset with BIS, they are still providing a great moddable platform, that looks great, and will "eventually" run great as well. There just isn't any kind of competition in the genre

[Cpt.Goose 10]

BIS released a Beta with a price tag on it... It's B/S and I'm so frustrated, I have never purchased a game with a totally broken single player campaign. I have had to stop playing the campaign all together because of the Manhatten bugs and the missions to follow. I refuse to use the End Mission cheat because NO ONE should have to use a cheat because the company are in to much of a damn rush to release the game and make a quick buck.

The way they do business has been a real shame. I can understand making a primary multiplayer game (Battlefield franchise) therefore neglect the single player aspect but at least they came out with a solid Multiplayer at launch aside from expected and tolerable bugs. ARMA 2 has just been a very big disappointment with no professional courtesy from the company. This game is on the shelf for the most part until a patch is released that will fix SOME of the many problems

[loderunner 0]

I've been a BI fan since the early days of OFP also, and I have been checking the shops, following every U.S. "release" date that has came and went, and now I'm waiting for July 20th to come along and see if the game actually appears.

However, in light of your comments, I'm not going to be as excited or eagerly awaiting its arrival. I may just hold off for a while. Maybe let the price drop down a bit, pick it up in the bargain bin, and then pay to be a beta tester.. :mad:

I think community support has dropped off since OFP. This kind of customer mistreatment could just kill the franchise.

[voodoochile1234 10]

There are other things you can do I suppose, like the multiplayer and the armory and mission editor and stuff. But the campaign is usually my favourite part of these kinds of games, and it really is poor in this game. It's the kind of game where it would pay to just ignore it for about 2 months and then come back to it when it has some patches.

[GRS 10]

Agreed with most, this is just plain awful. Support disappeared after one arty call in 'Manhattan' and then in bitter chill I kept getting killed BY NOTHING. Just gunshot or rocket sounds and I die, STUPID. Also in Manhattan when I went to secure the chopper crash, it was 130 meters off the coast and underwater.... WTF. Also the voices sometimes don't play. I've been playing these games for years now and while ArmA2 is the best ever its also the worst and most unplayable game I've ever seen. Infact, reading the manual cover to cover would probably be more enjoyable than playing the game. I can understand some issues but when you have a game that is more buggy than Stalker: Clear Sky (awesome patched) you know you messed up.

And about it being about the modding community: no, not for everyone. I never use mods and I love the series. I just don't want to redo it all again in the event they ever make it do-able at all.

-Wreckingball grenades

-Rockets don't go out a brocken glass window

-Support disappears

-Killed by nothing at all

-Voices that are worse than OFP (though not a determining factor for me)

-Retarded corpsmen (when you get hit as leader)

-Impossible objectives (crash underwater?)

The list could go on. I won't abandon this game but come on, fix it up and actually test your stuff before you sell it next time. As it is now I will NOT recommend this to ANYONE.

I will also return once its actually playable.

[subtee 0]

I have to agree with what has been said in this thread.

I can't remember another game that has so many bugs (big & small) in the singleplayer campaign.

Also another thing what feels cheap about the campaign, is that what ever decisions you make, you get the same tasks in the next missions, only with a slight difference in the dialogue.

That being said, i still like this game ALOT for the simulator and tactic feel of it compared to other military-type of games, hope the bugs etc get fixed.

One thing that would be good, is that there should be more games in this genre, the competition could do good to this franchise...

Lets see how the new Operation Flashpoint turns out... even tho i don't have high hopes for it.