ArmA II: Operation Arrowhead discussion thread

[Mr. Charles 22]

I think they are pretty awesome. Simple but effective.

[Kristian 47]

First one showing off desert marpat could confuse buyer to think there are desert marines in game. (well there might be but afaik not)

I also liked third best. I am going to buy it as DVD as I have done for OFP, ArmA1, Queens Gambit and ArmA2. That way I get a nice BIS collection on my shelf. :)

[Tonci87 163]

See? There is always someone complaining:icon_bash:

[EricM 0]

Thanks for the kind words on the covers.

The idea behind the camo cover was the following : there's so much in this game that you can't show it all on the cover, so instead of trying to pack everything in, why not avoid the problem smartly altogether ?

It's like in St Exupery's Little Prince (for those who know the children's book) : the little boy wants the man to draw him a sheep, but he's never pleased. Too old, too young, to ill... So in the end, the man draws a box with a few holes and says : see that box ? the sheep you want is inside. And bingo, that's exactly what the kid wanted.

Here, I chose a desert camouflage (because it's about war and that's the common denominator to infantry and many vehicles) with a digital pattern (to say it's about modern combat), with a grunge map to give it a burnt and weathered look (there's going to be action) and a slightly faded blood stain (not too gore, it could be due to helping someone, but there's danger). The rest ? What happened ? it's all like you imagined... and it's inside the box. Some will expect a FPS, some a RTS, some a Simulator...

I may have chosen the wrong camo... I don't know I'm no expert, I chose it based on it's color scheme. And it's not so much about the US Army rather than the general concept of modern war in desertish environment (there are other people involved than US army).

Make a Jungle or arctic expansion and you can reuse the same concept with another camo (in the same vein as OFP and Resistance).

The other hind covers are just to point out that going the other route, you can still be a bit more evocative than the current one we have now. It's not perfect, it's a quick comp, it may put too much emphasis on vehicles and not enough on infantry... but still the point remains.

As for BIS, well the camo version is all royalty free material, the other ones use a couple of photos that would need to be cleared first for commercial exploitation. But if you like it, you can use them for your download versions (I will).

Edited May 5, 2010 by EricM

[Laqueesha 474]

I also liked third best. I am going to buy it as DVD as I have done for OFP

Wait, OFP was released in DVD format? :confused:

Edited May 5, 2010 by Laqueesha

[Kristian 47]

Wait, OFP was released in DVD format? :confused:

I am sorry, my bad. CD:rolleyes:

[maddogx 13]

SEE ? Keep his mouth shut, and the cheese factor goes down 5 levels immediately !

Now you got me interested at giving a shot at it...

Here are my versions :

First

Second

Third

I like the first one best. It says "military game set in the desert", plain and simple.

The second and third are very nice looking, but send the wrong message. At first glance, someone who is unfamiliar with the title would assume it is a game about helicopters. :)

[Zipper5 74]

The first one uses desert MARPAT, yet there are no Marines in OA. If it was ACU on the other hand, then it'd be fine.

[maddogx 13]

The first one uses desert MARPAT, yet there are no Marines in OA. If it was ACU on the other hand, then it'd be fine.

Whatever. The pattern isn't important here, it's the idea that counts.

[mant3z 1]

I've printed out EricM's first cover art on the glossy paper so I'll have now unique and cool cover :P

EricM could you make full cover (300DPI), please.

The first one is very cool, I don't care is it desert marpat or ACU...

[mr.g-c 6]

I've printed out EricM's first cover art on the glossy paper so I'll have now unique and cool cover :P

EricM could you make full cover (300DPI), please.

The first one is very cool, I don't care is it desert marpat or ACU...

Yeahh cool idea, we usually mod the hell out of the engine, so why not mod the cover/replace it with our own :p

[maddogx 13]

That really is an awesome idea.

EricM, please make a full 300DPI cover, like mant3z suggested. :D

[EricM 0]

Lol, well I guess that's doable... but I'd have to think of what to put on the spine and back cover too.

[Dwarden 1124]

i always hoped for cover which shows all the main classes of vehicles and weapons :)

but i guess pictures would be then too tiny for most people ...

imho static cover is never able to properly tell something about complex game and this is huge advantage online sales have (video stream next to price and buy button)

anyway like the man below said, enough with the cover discussion , it's publisher decision

Edited May 5, 2010 by Dwarden

[Placebo 28]

Enough about the covers already, if the US publisher felt that's the correct one for their market then that's the end of it, remember the cover is not designed to target people who're already fans of the game and know about the forums and everything else within the community.

[maddogx 13]

Reworked and improved radio chatter between units (including whispered variant)

Improved weapon simulation (multiple optics modes, range finders, step based zoom)

^^ !!!!!! :D

Source: Community FAQ

additional special effects (shaking camera, SSAO)

SSAO = Screen Space Ambient Occlusion? Edited May 5, 2010 by MadDogX

[mr.g-c 6]

it seems there are a lot of thing in OA that the community hoped for since ages... like:

"step based zoom", "integrated mod handling", etc....

Very good, very good!

I hope this time, many things will be mod-able via configs/scripting commands/etc.

Sad example how not to do it was the hand-signs which are neither mod-able, nor be transfered over net making such a awesome feature useless by design.

Imagine if they were transfered over net, and you could use your keypad/whatever to only give hand-signs to your squad-mated.... ;-) :-)

So please please please BIS, if you implement awesome features, do them complete and/or at least make them mod-able by the community. Thanks!

[myshaak 0]

Cool find, how long was this out? (EDIT: nvm, found it)

I I like the "whispered variant" part... no more "TWO!! MOVE TO!!" when in stealth mode then I guess..

[Steakslim 1]

SSAO = Screen Space Ambient Occlusion?

It seems so. That should make things look a little nicer in game.

[maddogx 13]

It seems so. That should make things look a little nicer in game.

True, but it's generally also an FPS hog. I love awesome graphics as much as anyone else, but wouldn't Arma2 need some pretty heavy performance improvements for it to be playable with SSAO? :)

[Steakslim 1]

Guess we'll have to wait and see. I imagine the first weeks of OA release will be a tweaking mayhem in the forums with people trying to pinch every last bit of performance in the game, like ArmA2 was....only ArmA2 had optimization issues pretty bad at release.

[Pauldarrington 9]

Sorry to sound like a noob but what is step based zoom?

[thr0tt 12]

click zoom, click zoom some more, click zoom some more etc. I guess.

[maddogx 13]

click zoom, click zoom some more, click zoom some more etc. I guess.

Indeed it is. And it's about bloody time, too. :D

[EricM 0]

Sorry to sound like a noob but what is step based zoom?

It's discrete values (X2, x4, x10) instead of continuous zoom