It seems to me that a lot of people are sort of clueless about what Arma is

[the unknown 0]

Lets clear this up this is what it says on the back of my box I left the systemspecs out,

ARMA IItm: ULTIMATE MILITARY SIMULATOR

The 27th U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit have been deployed to the former soviet country of Chernarus in this third installment in the series of award winning PC war simulators from Bohemia Interactive, creators of Operation Flashpointtm: Cold War Crisis* and ARMAtm: Armed Assault.

Force Reconnaissance Team "Razor" are among the first to fight. This elite five-man team are about to fall down the rabbit hole, trapped in a war not only for control of the country but the hearts and minds of its people. With the might of the USMC offshore and the Russians anxiously watching from the north, the stakes couldn't be higher. The fate of Chernarus is balanced on a razor's edge...

PLAYER DRIVEN STORY

Command your troops through a branching campaign full of twists and surprises, talk to soldiers and civilians with the Dynamic Conversation System.

THRILLING REALISM

Explore 225 KM2 of highly detailed landscape modelled using real-world geographical data. Master over 70 authentically modelled weapons and 100 vehicles.

AUTHENTIC SIMULATION

Realistic combat and environment effects; including accurate bullet ballistics, material penetration, tracers supersonic bullet crack and weather conditions.

EXTENSIVE MULTIPLAYER

Play the campaign missions in cooperative mode or join others in massive multiplayer battles with up to 50 players.

ADVANCED AI

Experience the ultimate next-gen AI: no scripts, no predefined pathways. All units react on actual game situation and use the open environment to their advance.

MISSION EDITOR

Design your own missions by intuitive, easy-to-use built-in mission editor and become part of one of the biggest and most creative PC gaming communities ever.

It gives mention of the editor but no where it says you are suppose to use it to be able to play the game.

To be honest I dont get why every time someone even points a finger at BIS they get jumped in the neck by half the people on these forums. I have been playing this game since ofp, I used to be a mission editor in my clan but reduced that to advisor to the guys that still had new ideas. With ARMAII I completely stopt making missions cause I just don't have the time for it.

Also imagine you go to a store to buy a game and think hey that looks cool you expect like all the other games it comes with a campaign and you come home start it up and discovery that it doesn't contain that much at all. The objective of the back of these dvd boxes it to convince people to buy them and give a good description of what is in it, so comments like you should have looked online for more informations dont really go up.

[Master gamawa 0]

Then they bought the wrong game. It's like buying a word processor instead of a novel, then asking someone to write you a book.

I know, I am sorry for quoting something from the first page but it's one of the most accurate things ever said in this forum about this game.

Thanks.

Arma is a game making application.

[sparks50 0]

I don't think Domination and Evolution are official content... I could be wrong though I haven't played MP really but I was always under the impression they were user made.

"

You are correct, they are usermade. Warfare is also based on a usermade mission, and more often than not is also being modified by users.

[Dallas 9]

If you refuse to read reviews, previews, play demos and youtube a game and only pick it up, because you either like the cover art or the official game trailer, you're going to be completely clueless about the game you just bought. It's not like the earliest german reviews sugarcoated the game.

No matter how many post you post, it's not going the change the fact that you bought the wrong game, if you're too lazy to open the editor or fail to understand usercontent is 80% of the game.

[nominesine 0]

This conversation reminds me of a debate back in the 1980's, about wether TSR was cheating it's customers or not, when they released Dungeons & Dragons without mentioing that you must create the scenarios yourself before being able to play. I didn't mind doing a little (or a lot) of work to enjoy my favourite game back then, and I still don't mind.

When I first discovered Operation Flashpoint I thought I had purchased a regular FPS game, albeit one with a refreshing theme. I was suprised when I realised I had finally found a computer game that gave me the same freedom as an old school paperback roleplaying game. But then again. If I wouldn't have been into that sort of things already, then I would have been a little disapointed too.

[mrcash2009 0]

Its been said before but If BIS simply left the campaign to a 3rd party dedicated with the tools thay have before release and they simply focused on the engine/editor/tools only and then marketed the game much more from the editor backwards then to the campaign it may explain things.

Then again sales come into play and a lot of people would be turned off by it. I see plenty of threads showing this where people think its about the campaign first and foremost (which going by marketing / box info you would expect) then they get a shock and are either presently suprised at its depth and are a firm Arma community member or end up a short term troll and slag it off in comparison to games where its all about the SP campaign.

Not sure you can blame them all, but never the less if BIS simply came clean about the fact its a pure sandbox and the campaign is "only part of it for an example" ... then maybe it wouldnt seem so bad.

If you refuse to read reviews, previews, play demos and youtube a game and only pick it up, because you either like the cover art or the official game trailer, you're going to be completely clueless about the game you just bought. It's not like the earliest german reviews sugarcoated the game.

No matter how many post you post, it's not going the change the fact that you bought the wrong game, if you're too lazy to open the editor or fail to understand user content is 80% of the game.

Exactamondo.

[Thirdup 0]

I guess the thread title means different things to different people.

IMO, ArmA2 is 99% about MP and the editor. I could care less about SP. Thus, I consider myself one of the people who are "clueless" about SP.

And that's my take on somebody who plays ArmA2 only for the canned missions or campaigns (they are "clueless" as to what else they are missing with regards to MP and the editor).

But nobody here is saying "you have to learn to use the editor!".

You can d/l new SP missions from a number of places (many people are "clueless" of this fact....they expect BIS to have handed them all the content).

You can d/l a MP mission by simply logging into somebody's server...hell you can even play most of them alone as SP after that (many people are "clueless" of this....they think all MP missions were designed by BIS).

People post "suggestions" to the devs "Poll: who wants a purple M-16?!!!1111OMG" ("clueless" to the fact that if anyone is ever going to make a purple M-16 it will be the community and not BIS).

Somebody can run in here and bitch that "COD haz teh better campainz!!111". Those individuals are usually clueless to the other aspects of ArmA.

ArmA is certainly what you make of it (and I do NOT mean the editor). There is a TON of additional content out there (whether you edit or make it yourself or not) that give this game practically limitless possibilities. A lot of people simply do not get that......

Edited August 24, 2009 by Thirdup

[ScorpionGuard 10]

Hello to the community. And all the new people I welcome you.

The issue here is that the new person to the game/simulation has to be tough/learn the in and out's of the produce. We in the community have to remember that the new people are coming from a different view of game play. Like BF2 witch I have played a lot.

They have been spoiled by such games (not simulation) as this. I personal find it sad for people to complain about learning. Call me old fashion. Someone said that the new people are lazy. Well yes and no. Yes they are lazy due to the fact that they never had to put together missions, codes, mods for any of the games they have played in the past. So we in the community must must must take them by the hand and guide them in the right direction by putting more tutorials on Youtube etc. BIS has all so given us ways to make this entertaining. You can make it like a news reel. There are many ways to bring the new people up to speed for the community. Bottom line is the community will have to work to introduce the new person to the product. Do not forget that we are portraying Military organizations. We need to work on our Civil Affairs skills to bring them in to the fold.

Semple Fi

[Jex =TE= 0]

Not true. You can in ARMA2 make a "mission" in 2 minutes that give you unlimited random missions coming in over the radio - that you can choose to do or not. Add the ACM module as well and there is random patrols all over.

This is explained and needs nothing more than placing an object and copy pasting a file (init.sqf for ACM). The SOM needs nothing more than placing it in the editor and synch it to the player - done.

Even 20 seconds is enough to keep you going for hours of fun.

I think this is barmy talk! :eek: ;)

Take someone totally new to Arma and there is no way on earth they'll have anything made in 2 minutes.

You are speaking from experience and whilst you may be able to because you know the editor, many others simply find the editor too confusing and this turns them away from making missions no doubt.

[Eugefunk84 10]

I have been playing this series since OFP, so I have some experience with the editor (although I never did any scripting for it).

Now it's great that this game has a devoted, proud community. But c'mon guys, community development starts when a game's built in content is exhausted.

BF2 was great, I played vanilla BF2 for many many many hours. Same for COD4, same for GR. All these games has great official content that WORKED right out the box. You could install, play and enjoy without much of a hiccup. Then when that got boring, you started getting some modded content.

A game is a game, and editor is an editor. A game that has a built-in editor is still a game and should be considered as such.

It's nice that I can go into the editor, set up my character and some tanks and blast them to hell, but without scripts, that gets boring. Even if it is pseudo-random. Scripting takes things to the next level, but it is by no means intuitive.

It might seem easy to those who have been doing it for a while and know the in's and out's but to sit down and learn how to write effective scripts is like learning a simple programming language. That is NOT something that is simple to do, even if it is relatively rudimentary.

Respect the fact that some people dont have the patience/time/skill to make missions as effectively as others. It doesnt make somone a leper if they do not fit into the develop community but simply want to play a working game...

[galzohar 31]

Funny so many people been playing online from day one when the game is "unplayable".

There are a LOT more that bought this game because it seemed to have potential, but got frustrated with bugs/missions/missing features and quit.

There are even a lot more people that would simply not buy a game with so many bugs/lack of missions/missing features.

Just because "a lot" of people are playing it, does not mean it is playable. It's simply people like me that simply can't look at any other game because of how stupid other games can be, so we don't really have better options than making the best we can out of this one, as well as some fanboys that will simply play this no matter what.

And it's not a crime to go find out what it is your buying, if people would just spend a little time reading on the forums they might have noticed what this game is about! This applies not only to ArmA2!

Forums are great and all, but most people will never see them. That's at least what I've seen from my past experience with games. If the average guy doesn't even think about going to the forums, then forums shouldn't be mandatory for enjoying this game. If they are, then they should've at least made it so that the average guy would find these forums, like a big "click here to go to game forums and download more missions" with an explanation of where to put them in a way that cannot be misunderstood in any way even by someone who has difficulties opening "my computer". If you restrict the enjoyment of the game to only those that find stuff by themselves, you're cutting your player base bigtime, and you're not necessarily cutting out only "bad"/"stupid" players.

At the end: the people reading this thread are a minority, and that's a fact most likely nobody is going to change.