More ArmA II than COD servers!

[walker 0]

Hi all

Has anyone considered with the steady increase in ArmA II players and servers; that if the current rate of increase in servers continues that it will surpass the number of servers for COD?

Does this mean the gaming community is maturing?

Or is it that the superior graphics of ArmA II is taking market share from COD?

With the declining fortunes of DR most the senior staff has left or been sacked according to the rumours will the Bugy DR code Will Codemasters be forced to send it straight to the bargain bucket?

How will the ArmA II community cope with the increased number of players in the community?

Kind Regards walker

[Sulu 10]

How will the ArmA II community cope with the increased number of players in the community?

Kind Regards walker

heh :j:

[GA.Shrug 10]

Dunno what you stats you are looking at but been thru Arma 1 & 2, Arma 2 is failing miserably compared to Arma 1...

Servers are dead after only 1 week compared to the 2 months it took to die down with arma 1.. Hardcore players i knew from arma 1 that played on my arma 1 servers came back the first few days of release, never to be seen again... 32 player servers are now ghost towns.

Care to post my post in a quote again?

How do you like the trolling?

So far, without little birds and the boring farmland and the horrible AI / terrain work... I myself bored fast, not looking forward to boot up

[fincuan 0]

Current situation:

Arma2:

Players Online: 884

Servers Online: 583

Arma:

Players Online: 142

Servers Online: 211

Yeah, it's indeed failing miserably...

[{S8G}Rub!c0n 10]

Current situation:

Arma2:

Players Online: 884

Servers Online: 583

Arma:

Players Online: 142

Servers Online: 211

Yeah, it's indeed failing miserably...

Seems good to me.... this game will not fail.. It will be one of the most played games for a very long time. Watch and see.

[walker 0]

Hi all

The number of ArmA II public servers has increased steadily since release. Of course Clan servers where most of us play are hidden and do not show up in the statistics so the public server stats are only the tip of the iceburg but it is nice to see they are increasig so rapidly.

Kind Regards walker

[Junker 0]

BIS better watch out because EA are coming out with battlefield Hero's :D

[spamurai 3]

I seriously doubt that ArmA II servers outnumber even CoD 4 Servers.

Also, a list of servers means nothing if the majority remain empty the greater portion of times.

[Bunkers 0]

I dunno the numbers, but I've been playing ArmA1 & 2 since release and ArmA2 is WAY more populated than ArmA1 ever was as far as I can see. A positive surprise to me.

[Snakelet 10]

COD 4 is still running strong, I don't see Arma 2 getting anywhere near it. They are both great games though :)

[walker 0]

Hi all

I not so much bothered with if or by how much the number of players of ArmA II is compared to COD. I am more concerned with what its affects are on the community.

We see a bump in the number TK and Griefer numpties for a few weeks each time there is an increase in ArmA II sales, which affects the public servers. The increasing use of clan servers with Admins has been effective in reducing their effect and Auto Kick is effective if not as nuanced as as a human admin.

Ban lists have killed off the majority of hardcore TK and Griefer numpties, so much so that they are having to buy new copies of ArmA II :D Correspondingly people should also remember not to "lend" their install keys to others.

Addon signatures seem to have killed of the cheaters. In fact I have not seen one and I play on public servers quite a lot.

Training new players

To me the major problem is in training new players. This is the traditional role of public clan servers. I think we maybe need a month of concentrated clan Public server training. It gives existing lower echelon clan members to pass on their experience and to practice their command role. If we can just get people practicing SOPs and Basic Drills the same as the clans do then we can see a serious improvement in team play. yes I know it has been improving by Dribs and Drabs but it needs a formal organised boost.

The need for voice communications

I once again call on server admins to turn on VOIP or at the very least include their Team Speak IP in a regular side chat. Comms when I have seen it in use has been a great boon in getting team play. It allows fast dissemination of plans and warnings for PvP. You can do a little in chat but every glance at the chat panel is a second off situational awareness. In coop it is possible to do a little planning via the map and chat but voice is the best solution.

Anyway time to discuss these things.

kind Regards walker

Edited July 9, 2009 by walker

[eJay 1]

CoD is more causal game than ArmA so it will group more players... BTW. ArmA II is pretty strong now in multi :)

[Inkompetent 0]

Admins won't turn on VOIP unless it stops causing people to crash. Even occasional crashes (once per session) is enough to mess things up majorly. Crossing my fingers for 1.03 so that people don't get discouraged. :)

[walker 0]

Hi all

With more and more MP servers for ArmA opening everyday the clans need to take time to get the community heading in the right direction.

Maybe the clans need to get together to run a training month.

Maybe the big mission Authors for Berzerk, CTI, Domination and Evolution should run special events! Reading between the lines, I know Zaphod is looking at this. Also few manuals for the more complex forms need writing or advertising!

Kind Regards walker

Edited July 9, 2009 by walker

[Dwarden 1124]

these new servers need to start using signed addons only with correct keys for popular / safe addons ...

verifySignatures=1; //Your doors for safer MP gaming

[=Spetsnaz= 0]

yea ive noticed alot more people playing arma 2 which is great!

[walker 0]

Hi all

Just popped on to a 64 player Berzerk server playing smooth!

Real increase in the number of public servers a public 120 player server, rare that most 120 player servers are private clan servers; a couple of 64 player servers, 4x50 player servers and a whole host of 30 and 20 player servers probably would not start counting the 15 player or less servers probably 3 figures and that is before we take into account private clan servers.

ArmA II is definitely on the rise and all the US servers will not be up for at least another 2 weeks. So get ready for a massive increase in ArmA II numbers.

Plenty of different game forms to play.

All in all a burgeoning ArmA II community :)

Just to reiterate that point verifySignatures=1; locks the numpties out.

Kind Regards walker

[oredwood 10]

Sadly a good number (10-15%) of the players cannot play because of the bugs :(. I myself cannot play anymore because of the "Receiving..." bug. Arma2 is sweet, but lacks the polishing of COD4 to surpass it anytime soon IMO.

[galzohar 31]

If we want the increasing population to actually stay, we need working, non-buggy, good gameplay missions. Right now even the best available missions are a work in progress that's barely on a beta level, be it due to balance issues, realism issues, and/or plain game-killing bugs.

[walker 0]

Hi Russianguy192

I played three Excelent missions on the Zeus server todnight. A couple of CTF's and a large scale realism coop of a platoon assault on a town.

I think we can see why ArmA II is pulling in such a large number of gamers from other games.

Kind Regards walker

Edited July 10, 2009 by walker

[Scrub 0]

Gotta love the disinformation from that GA.Shrug dude. Was he getting paid from some other company?? Interesting, provocative, humorous.

I've indeed noticed the player counts growing. The newer players dealing with the Arma II paradigm in various ways, most of those I've seen are grudgingly accepting they are not 'uber l337' and just human like the rest of us. They die, deal with the reality of it, and move on for the benefit of the team. Some are tee'd off and punch the eject button, but quite a few are hanging in there and seeing Arma II's gem under the surface, and really learning to appreciate the game.

Makes me all warm and fuzzy to know more people are becoming team players looking to finish the mission, not increase their kills/rank. :D

[Rak 0]

It's surprising why are you comparing ArmA 2 with CoD4?

CoD games are popular because they're easy to get in and addictive(for most) twitch shooters, they've sold millions of games(CoD4 alone has sold more than 10 million) and they're are likely to remain popular for a long time.

ArmA and such games on the other hand, are slow playing tactical games and appeal to a very LIMITED audience.

There are 14597 servers and 28,237 CoD4 players at the moment according to game-monitor.com, and this is not counting thousands of Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 gamers.

ArmA 2 won't ever reach or see those numbers. It might be going fast as we're in the release months, but it will gradually stabilise around current numbers as players move on. It's definitely doing better than Armed Assault on the other hand.

[walker 0]

Hi Rak

The thing about the COD audience is they are finding COD boring as they become older they are looking for something more advanced hense why ArmA II is taking its market share.

The COD franchise when it comes down to it is very stale now. The customers have seen it all before and the graphics and gameplay is almost antique.

Kind Regards walker

[kklownboy 43]

well lets hope that we dont get as popular as COD4.... that would kill the MP game, but all of BIS would have new homes....

[dustoff 0]

you have got to be kidding Co5 and cod4 have over 20,000 servers running each and stay full on aabout 75% of the servers

Arma II about 500 servers 90% are empty all the time .

Dont get me wrong arma is a great game but most people dont grasp the concept , they just want run and gun spawn and die dies .

Look at counterstrike and day of defeat source all of which have over 1000 servers each and are always 90% full.

This game is not in the main stream and very few game server providers will offer it becuse of that fact , and also due to how much of a resource hog both arma and armaII can be .

When I see steam and direct2drive offering a package deal on both titles it tells me sales of the game are not that great .